FFWD Weekly
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| MUSIC New Meanies They may be called The New Meanies (formerly The Blue Meanies - legal complications with an American ska band with the same moniker prompted a name change), but this group of Winnipeg twentysomethings sure sound like old souls at heart. The songs on their major label debut, Three Seeds, resonate with the strains of classic blues filtered through a power chord rock 'n' roll song book - an approach more akin to the maximum R&B groups favored 30 years ago, rather than many of their contemporaries, whose musical education begins with Pearl Jam. It's almost safe to assume that head Meanie songwriter and vocalist Damon Mitchell was one of those obsessive audiophiles as a teenager, spending half his adolescence scouring vintage record stores and the other half in the basement learning every lick and lyric. Or maybe not. "That's not so close," says Mitchell diplomatically. "I already had the records at home - my parents' records." Which, in hindsight, should have been obvious to yours truly, considering the fact that Mitchell's lifelong pal and fellow Meanie, Sky Onosson (bass), is, well, named Sky. It's not hard to imagine joint family jam sessions around the old hi-fi at the Mitchell and Onosson households in place of outings to the zoo when the fellows were tots (actually, that isn't so far off the mark at all - Damon used to perform regularly with his folks at local blues spots). "Yeah, actually Sky's parents and my parents were high school buddies," confirms Mitchell with a laugh. "They had us around the same time. I guess when we became teenagers we got more into metal - you know, you rebel against your parents. But as a kid my record rack was full of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald and Django Reinhardt." Yet, it's hard to imagine a more unlikely group to get off the ground, considering that The Meanies official birthdate falls around '92 - basically the time Nirvana and co.'s dissonant punk roar overwhelmed and transformed our collective pop culture consciousness. Hearing The New Meanies ease from harmonica-infused boogie anthems through to the mellow daze of Stevie Wonder-ish soul/funk, you can't help but recall gnarly old Keith Richards' now infamous dismissal of the alternative revolution in the American press: "Forget that wimpy cultish stuff. Gimme some Otis Redding." However, as The Meanies aren't bitter old junkies, they politely credit their survival in the Peg's clubs as a combination of the city's open-mindedness and their own singular vision - that is, r 'n' r in all it's ragged glory. "Winnipeg has no college radio so I don't think anybody was influenced by that unless they went out looking for it," explains Mitchell. "That's the cool thing about Winnipeg - there's all these different musical styles out there. "We used to say shit like, 'We're a jazzy-bluesy-funky-jam band,'" he concludes. "But, fuck that. We're a rock and roll band." |