Ontario Bands Series: Hockey Teeth – Smells Like Stanley’s Cup

Get yerself a healthy eyeful of this glorious series logo made by the illustrious Mike @ mikeladano.com! Don’t you just love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TORONTO

This record is an old favourite of mine. It’s a glorious, meaningful yet light-hearted collection of awesome. It’s tight, heavy skater punk (with bits of metal) in all its 1995 Toronto glory. Over 17 tracks, the band offers one helluva workout, but this isn’t your typical sloppy affair. No, this is played with aplomb, with excellent musicianship. Not a beat is missed, and the strumming is machine-gun accurate.

There are a ton of solid messages too, ranting about violence women, racism, the economy, stealing native lands, you name it.  Mostly, they are just so tired of stupid people. That they cover Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind (in their own glorious way, with brand new, ridiculous lyrics) is icing on the cake. These guys had it going on, and it kicked serious ass.

Even better, any record that starts a bunch of tracks with audio clips of Spinal Tap wins big points with me! In fact, just about every track here has some sort of talking pasted to the beginning. The White Power one was hard to hear, but then the song blasts them as idiots so it was a middle finger to ‘em! And the kid yelling “CORN COBS!” at the end was hilarious. So were the slam dance contest rules, later on…

Oh yeah, and hockey. Of course. The bonus track (Hockey Teeth) even features a guitar solo of the old Hockey Night In Canada theme song.

In Sum:

This record is like that old friend who comes over, drinks all your beer, won’t let you change the channel off hockey (as if you would), and farts in your couch cushions. But they always say the right thing at the right time, and they’re a barrel of laughs when they quote Spinal Tap verbatim. They are Shakespeare’s fool – everyone laughs, but if you listen close, they have the real message.