GG Dartray refused to stick to one genre, leaving me with no easy way to pigeon hole them. Damn them. Breaking into a ska riff here, letting slip a bit of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" era music there. A little bit of early Judas Priest. It was a bit frightening when I heard Geddy Lee vocals sneaking in but it didn't last long. "Suffragette City" as if a cleaner, much more emo-version of Sid Vicious were singing it. Okay, it all sounds pretty creepy, but it worked well enough, even if I'm left without a slot to stick them into. HemiCuda was the penultimate band in the lineup, and I'm still not sure why they weren't headlining. For two chord rock, they're pretty damn together.The most together band of the night. Hitting stage in PVC hot pants and polka-dotted corsets, with lime green wigs on their heads held in place by trucker caps, I was scared that the bad press I'd seen was right, that this was going to be a bad joke like Stinkmitt or Grand Buffet.

Once they started playing, however, it was pretty obvious that they could pull it off; they can sing, they can write, and they can play well enough. Sure, I didn't count even three chords in use in many of the songs, and sure the look was over the top, but what do you want in a bar band? Classically trained virtuosos playing highly planned out math rock? They played a pretty decent cover of "Gigantic" by the Pixies, and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. Sure, if you were to judge them solely by the song about "jacking off to Paul Newman" solely, you might assume that they were only there for a laugh. They were fun and entertaining, and the fact that they fill out PVC outfits nicely is just an added bonus. The headliner was a band, allegedly from Calgary. These guys typified boring,three chord, formulaic rock. I believe their name was The Red Hot Lovers. They need to learn what feedback is and how to prevent it.

Elsewhere

By Richard Murray
Photos : Richard Murray
Published : August 9, 2004.