Applewood, Ontario sounds like a pretty quiet place. A nice place to raise a family. It’s 10 minutes from Toronto and relatively suburban. However, Keeping 6, Applewood’s most raucous homeboys, are not as quiet. Touring Nova Scotia in support of their summertime fresh debut CD, Uncensored, the lads are set to harm some eardrums at the Speakeasy on Thursday, September 20.
Being from Applewood and all, the band is especially sympathetic to the plight of small towns. Not too many bands make the trip, but the ones that do are repaid with some pretty wicked shows. Keepin 6 hopes for some warm reception when their fall tours take them to Greenwood, NS and Chatham, ON, among other locations.
“The reason why we like smaller town shows is because a lot of the kids growing up there need something cool to do and we can fill that void,” explains guitarist Jason Wilford. “We’d rather have a solid fanbase of small-town kids than a flaky one in the larger cities.”
Wilford, along with vocalist Bryan Hotchkiss, Dan Renwick on bass and Matt “Phatty” Wilkinson on drums comprise the band, often described as a mixture between Rancid, Operation Ivy and Billy Talent. There are some undeniable ska elements, which the band pulls off with considerable aplomb, thanks to its high energy.
“We always put all of our energy into our stage show. And I think people are surprised when they find out how easygoing we are off the stage.” Those willing to see just how easygoing the fellows in Keepin 6 are might do well to hang around their local record shops, as Wilford shares, “We always seems to find good CDs in the second-hand shops over there, so you can probably catch us in the music stores.” Will do, Wilford.
The Dartcore evolution
Creativity should always be rewarded in bands, especially when a band goes the extra mile to make their shows out of the ordinary. CI (Rob Butler, Alastair Macdonald, Ben Radford and Ian Langille) is a perfect example. This exciting young hardcore band is releasing its new six-song seven-inch record at CD Heaven in Dartmouth on Friday, September 21, with Envision, Ratbag and Die Brucke. It’s a free, all-ages, hardcore party beginning at 6pm. An in-store! Like the old days!
“We were looking for a venue and with almost all the all-ages venues in Halifax experiencing difficulty lately, we were having some trouble,” says vocalist Butler. “We’d heard through a friend that CD Heaven was looking to have in-store shows to promote local artists so we thought that would be perfect. To my knowledge, this is the first time they’ve had an in-store and I’m hoping it goes really well. It’s great that it’s in Dartmouth because there hasn’t been a show—let alone a hardcore show—there in a very long time.” Butler describes the band’s oeuvre as “short, fast and loud,” making Friday’s show a perfect after-school activity.
“We wanted to keep it all-ages because hardcore by nature is a very youth-oriented genre. We definitely didn’t want to alienate anyone just because they were born a few years too late!” Butler says. “We’re hoping the fact it’s free gets some kids out who are new to the local scene or haven’t heard hardcore punk before.” Help out CI by going to the show and picking up a record. If you can’t make it, check out nowayrecords.com and gravemistakerecords.com to buy your copy.
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This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2007.