THE MAYKINGS
Wednesday, January 26
Liberty Lounge
It's time to address one of the long-standing misconceptions about the good ol' music biz: that bands who play full time and don't have day jobs are, in some way, more "real" than bands that treat music like a permanent part-time job. Bands like Edmonton's The Maykings, for example.
"This all-or-nothing approach that some bands take is just completely misguided," says Brent Oliver, bass player and singer for the alt-country-pop act. "It's like having a kid and thinking they're gonna play in the NHL. I frankly couldn't care. I get to play shows and people seem to like us."
Two years in, with a full-length album, Seven Years, released last October, people do seem to like The Maykings. It doesn't hurt that the band members all have a proven track record as musicians – Oliver is known for past work in the mostly defunct Slow Fresh Oil and kinda-country band The Shady Pines (vestiges of which can still be heard in his new material); drummer Marek Tyler also does time in the AA Soundsystem; guitarist Duncan Turner was plenty busy in the ’90s with Edmonton's Pal Joey; and Tim Balsah, guitarist and The Maykings's other principal songwriter besides Oliver, flirted with success in Canadian hard rockers Big House before spending later years with the rootsy Tim Balash and the Chrome Magpies. So it's not like they don't know how to make music and get it out to the public.
"Everybody's got jobs and lives, but as long as you plan it right, you can pull this stuff off," says Oliver. "We're not all-or-nothing, but we're definitely something or nothing." Oliver, the local impresario who books shows for The Sidetrack Cafe and Black Dog in Edmonton, and manages the Green Pepper Hockey League (a popular pastime for Edmonton musicians, hence Oliver's many hockey references in the course of a single conversation), says one strategy is to find the time to play one show, and then book three or four instead and make a guerilla strike on a specific stretch of geography. Get a handful of these under your belt and suddenly you've toured a sizable portion of the country.
Complementing these tactics, The Maykings have partially sidestepped the need for a label to push their record by simply putting the whole damn thing up on their website for free (www.maykings.com). It's a price that can't be beat and it’s well worth the visit. Informed by the pop side of such ’80s Minneapolis bands as The Replacements and topped up with a love for acts ranging from the Mekons to The Band, Seven Years covers country yearning, sparse desert sounds and twangy rock in the space of a few songs. Consistent from one end to the other, it has already found decent airplay on CKUA and Edmonton’s CJSR and great reviews are trickling in from the rest of the country.
But for Oliver, the playing live is what it is all about and a great sounding record means you should back it up. Sounding sharp demands looking sharp, and indeed the Maykings do – clad in suave suits when they hit the stage. But, wait a minute. Isn't dressing up onstage something that Edmonton bands have long razzed Calgary artists for? In past interviews Oliver (also admitting that he has berated The Dudes for their Dude Bomb mascot) has publicly taken his shots. So you'd think he'd be concerned about bordering on shtick and given the litany of defences he instantly has ready, maybe he has,.
"Jay Hanley from CJSR gave me the gears about getting close to being shtick," says Oliver, chuckling, before pointing out that BB King wears suits and a student in his university classes believed wearing a suit helped during exams.
"There's the Oilers' philosophy too," adds Oliver. "In the ’80s Glen Sather made the guys wear suits, saying, 'You're pros on the ice, you're pros off the ice.'"
So the Maykings sound good and, just like the Oilers, they look good, too. We're definitely cool with that down here – and unlike the Oilers, The Maykings will actually be playing this month. |
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