Ghostkeeper - self released flexi

Shane Ghostkeeper has the best last name. It made perfect sense it would serve as the band name of this Calgary based band which includes Jay Crocker, Ian Jarvis, Sarah Houle and Brad Hawkins. They sound like no genre is off limits and cross lines into folk, blues and psych , heavy on experimental styles like Black Moth Super Rainbow or Blitzen Trapper, completely unclassifiable. One track on one side of a flexi is just a tease. It's a great track and don't look for it to make their direction any clearer.

A-Side's "Golden" has a side stepping bass line from a chorus heavy guitar in a straight ahead line full of creepy vibes. It's the sort of thing that gets primitive until the vocals from Sarah start and she's floating above this b-movie TV ghost feel. Clean and pop, sort of psych in lots of eerie feedback of creaks and groans from off screen. Lyrics about keeping secrets in this seance and her vocal is dead serious with a trained warbly delivery that takes this into an alien place like Zola Jesus, trained classical talent. Like Widowspeak combined with Deadbolt, Fleetwood mac Monster Mash - perfectly haunting for an after halloween mix, a hint of the stuff but not bashing you over the head. Slight garage Cramps sound if those guys ever covered Beach House, comforting and creepy, better on this flexi which actually doesn't sound like a flexi at all. Makes me curious enough to hear more of their stuff. See thats the problem with a single sided flexi, one song just isn't enough but a full length takes too long to absorb. Where would a b-side of these guys go?

To get a copy of this, (minus curled up cat) hit up their site or facebook page. Out on Saved by Vinyl who you can try over here.

Camp Radio on Saved by vinyl

There's nothing like the single sided flexi disc to break all the rules. It can be mailed in an envelope for next to nothing and ignores the second side of the format completely. A cardinal sin of pressing....I mean if you're going to press one side, why not the other? Unless your INSANE. Actually I wonder if its impossible to cut grooves double sided on a flexi? Or it's the way they're pressed at the plant? I its possible with a lathe cut. You need a penny or something to hold these down and aren't far from completely disposable...but are they better than MP3's? Hell Yes! The label breaking all the rules of those elusive thin seven inches is called Saved by Vinyl, an offshoot of their Saved By Radio zine/radio show out of Calgary, Canada. The band on this one is Camp Radio, who got together back on '05 and according to their site are currently recording a new album. This flexi was probably recorded around the time they put together Campista Socialista a couple years back and the A-Side features "Turn up the radio" and the '90s jangle is coming across heavy on this surprisingly thin record. It's impressive that this format could really pull off this high treble jangle but then again maybe that's exactly what this made for. That and Chris Page's higher register contemplative vocals. Something like Teenage Fanclub repeating crunch and catchy loops of barely electrified bass and guitar. But it gets a little chunkier, and crisper like Apples in Stereo, a solo goes dirty but always driven by this straight beat. Chris piles on the layered polish on that vocal and they build the jangle to impressive heights by the end with full thickness. Strums laying it all out there, big and on.... right to the fade.
Single sided, all cracky and definitely sounding period perfect.

Camp Radio also had a split with Cousins I talked about a while back, which was also a limited press flexi with Saved by Vinyl.

Get this direct from Camp Radio's bandcamp page.

Miesha and the Spanks on Saved by Vinyl Records

Got around to another flexi disc from Saved by Vinyl, this one from a duo out of Calgary, Miesha and the Spanks, consisting of Miesha (of course) on guitar/vocals and Stuart on drums coming together back in 2008. I'll say it again, even better than the holy trinity of rock is the duo. I have a million theories, it could be the closeness of the group on so many levels and the back and forth of focused attention between members, that kind of black and white struggle of creation...it's all in my head. I also think it makes perfect sense touring as well, a couple of people with minimal equip could travel a lot further and cheaper than a lot of bands with tons of stuff and people. They can really hit the road and maybe even NOT lose money...it might be possible...it also might be THE FUTURE!
So Miesha and Stuart have to make a hell of a racket to entertain with just the two of them, which is no problem for the fuzzy, blown out distortion patina these two were apparently born with.

They also love their buddies C'mon and mentioned on Vueweekly:

C'mon is probably our favorite band. So some of our favourite songs that we only had on vinyl we now have as a road disc. So the song that we play, at the end of the night, after loading the gear, on the way to the party (even if that's the two of us parked on residential side-street drinking tecate and babbling about how awesome touring is until we fall asleep in the van), the song that we almost always rock out to is, "Peaches' Bathroom" by C'mon.

So guess what they cover on this flexi? You guessed it...and I can find no mention of this thing ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET! Not even on the dicogs? DO flexi's even rate as physical media? Are they just forever in that weird space of something like a polaroid? It's not really a picture, kind of disposable, doesn't fit easily into a scrapbook? Contrary to popular opinion, this is a real record, that plays with near equal fidelity to a lathe cut at least and is far easier to find room for in my ever growing tinier apt.

I didn't get a chance to search for the original "Peaches Bathroom" from C'mon (R.I.P.) but Miesha's verison is a beached, grimy guitar with ultra crisp definition...the whole thing real clean. The vocals full of attitude but a laid back almost cracking delivery reminding me of BYOP's Jemina Pearl's snotty, screechy punk, but Miesha's focused on the low end of this thing...which comes across just fine on a freaking flexi by the way. Thumping bass, heavily controlled, the guitar messes about with minor chord variations, building to the end in a weird half stop. A little bit of a tough biker sound and a dash of that post punk fugazi underused chord work. This whole chunky burst of low end distortion is like atombombpocketknife, laying into a precise sound. Miesha's got a great vocal that really carries their scuzzy garage sound....like when Heather sings on The Hussy. I'm all for it.

You can listen to this cover over here and possibly contact the band or Saved by Vinyl to see if they have any of these lying around. You might get lucky. Another crazy artifact from these guys who must have pressed at least 20 up so far...and making more sense as these postal rates rise. If you have to have an antiquated format, then why not have it weigh as much as a couple sheets of paper!

The Forbidden Dimension flexi on Saved By Vinyl

I first found out about Saved by Vinyl, thanks to this flexi from Cousins. It's been years since I've come across those thin flexi discs and it's pretty nuts that plants are still pressing them. Turns out, Paul over at Single File posted that these were given away with copies of Beatroute magazine. I checked all over that site and it seems impossible to get back issues and this crazy one sided flexi might be equally out of print from the label as well.

The Forbidden Dimension have been around since 1988, but even more shocking is the horror-billy halloween style these guys have been carrying around in their hearts. This track "Tor Johnson Mask" is working in a hyper cramps style, sleazy attitude with great organ bursts peeking through this surfy tiki power punk. Huge distortions with gritty, squealing metal solos that line up and oscillate in harmony to get those hyper synth sounds. Could be a futuristic White Zombie recorded in super high fi. The organ underneath is going straight for B-movie madness and that high sustained screeeeeeee from this electric means there's going to be fire exploding off the end of the stakebed truck they towed to the desert to set off pyrotechnics that aren't allowed within city limits. A single triangle chime punctuates the insane harmonics of that processed distortion. This is definitely the kind of narrative storytelling about the dusty road full of demons and the supernatural done in a glittery metal punch style. Out of this world, sci-fi rock with a bluesy delivery, the theme to a car chase opening scene from halloween 1987. The creep is right behind you, it's all over.

Single sided clear flexi from Saved by Vinyl, who also put out their full length The Golden Age of Lasers. You also might want to appeal to the band direct and see if they have any extras of these you could take off their hands, you'd be surprised.

Cousins / Camp Radio split flexi on Saved by Vinyl Records

Got this flexi in thanks to Matt over at Pigeon Row, haven't seen a flexi in years, and it immediately brought me back to coming across Reflex magazine at the supermarket of all places in the middle of nowhere upstate NY and finding a thin black flexi stapled in the middle. My music exposure being limited to the local college radio station the records that came every month were a freaking goldmine of Killing Joke, Mudhoney and I even think there was a Smashing Pumpkins flexi? It was the perfect combination of reading about the band featured...I remember the writing being pretty decent at least, and across the spectrum of 'alternative' stuff. Did I lose them? Definitely, but it was the early push towards finding out about new music thanks to the tiny sort of vinyl. The fact they even played music of any kind was actually kind of magic, and still is thanks to this Saved by Vinyl square flexi from Cousins and Camp Radio. On white flex no less, pressed at 33 so it's a single you don't even have to flip over.

I covered a cousins single from the Noyes Records singles series a while back and this duo is back with their jittery constructed punk. "Defense" starts out with a few lonely low piano chords in an empty room, and a punchy stuttered raw guitar strum plays against this booming kick alternating between equally catchy rhythms, hacked up and sewn back together, in a patchwork of timings. You know how you tell someone not to forget about you, and then the next verse they do? I love their sense of awkward timing and ramshackle delivery. Loose and effortless, they attack this stream of narrative and it's split personality lyric. The whole thing stops and comes back under a decidedly more muted bluesy riffy section and then loses the fight with the dynamics and blows out completely in chords and super tinny reverb ALL THE WAY DOWN!

"The Girl Who Stole my Motorbike" from Camp Radio is that kind of punky '90s indie pop with direct upfront enthusiastic vocals over the catchy super pop. Big and catchy, something like Teenage Bandwagon or Apples in Stereo. Cleanly produced and driving towards the chorus, feel good optimistic comicy pop teetering between the restrained verses lamenting the wasted years. Reeling it in to actually be kind of a bummer but celebrating that anyway.

This one might still be available direct from either of these bands or asking nice over at the Saved by store, hopefully shipping from Canada for a flexi is reasonable? Now do we have to worry about the post office killing the vinyl record? Great.

Defense is the fourth track here:


Camp Radio track: