- Play Guitar
It’s always a heartwarming family affair when Play Guitar and Special Noise come back to town. Both bands are fronted by brothers Christian Simmons and Jef Simmons, respectively, and Jef also plays with Play Guitar. I have actually started associating the holidays more with Play Guitar and Special Noise shows than, say, Santa. The Brothers’ Simmons weigh in on what is new with their respective bands and holiday traditions. “Play Guitar (Christian, Jef, Kerri Landry, Jackson MacIntosh and Lindsay Dobbin) is about to release our album finally. It’s been well over a year since we started working on it, so it’s a huge relief to send away,” says Christian. “It’s even slightly possible they’ll be around in time for this slew of shows.”
“Special Noise (Jef, Greg Napier) have a full album’s worth of songs ready to record, we’re hoping to get them on tape as soon as we can but it’s tough to say when that will be possible,” says Jef. “As most people know, Greg is the new drummer for Think About Life and they’ll be touring their recent release most of next year so scheduling is a bit tight, but Special Noise are going to squeeze in tours as often as we can. We’re hoping to get back across Canada and see our friends coast to coast. We’d also like to get a little further south into the States this year. We had a great northeastern US tour this past August with our friends Angels in America and we really want to push it further.”
While they are back in town, they are keeping busy. “We’ve booked some time with Chuck (Charles Austin, Echo Chamber) to do some new Museum Pieces recordings (and possibly keep working on Attack Mode and/or The Hold‘s records),” says Christian. “And I’m going to try and relax a bit.”
“We’re ultra excited to get back home,” says Jef. “We’ve got a good two weeks this time around of family and friends time. Very refreshing.”
Family time includes watching an old tape of Christmas specials the Simmons’ grandmother from TV to VHS when they were kids. “It’s got Muppets Christmas, Sesame Street Christmas, The Snowman, all complete with the old commercials,” says Jef. “Christmas Eve or Christmas Day the whole Simmons family will watch it. Greg included.”
- Special Noise
See Play Guitar at Gus’ Pub on December 29 for a very musical edition of TV Party with Air/Fire and Special Noise on December 30 at the Khyber with the Museum Pieces and Cousins. Both shows promise “a good group of friends to warm up next to while losing your hearing,” says Jef.
This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2009.
