The Allovers

Covering Motörhead from the inside out
Partying with guitarist Phil Campbell helped
Fish Griwkowsky, Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, October 28 2011
CONCERT PREVIEW
The allovers as Motörhead with various musicians as Hole
Where: The Black Dog Freehouse, 10425 82nd Ave. (no cover)

To become Motörhead, one should first truly experience Motörhead.
Methods to do this include looping the crunchy English rock on night hauls along primary highways. Seeing them play live with a raised fist is essential, too. Like many of us, musicians Paul Arnusch and Matt Pahl can check these requirements off.
"They're one of our favourite bands ever," Pahl explains at a sunless downtown practice studio with broken drumsticks stabbed into its walls. He and Arnusch used to be in a shoegazer outfit, the Floor.
Arnusch notes, "Matt and I would go on tour and just play Motörhead the whole time. The other two guys in our band would go nuts because they would want to change it up a little bit.
"It's a good way to stay up at night." But that's not quite the same thing as experiencing the proto-metal band from the inside. And it's here these two have most of us beat. Joined by drummer Garrett Heath Kruger, the reason these lads are becoming Motörhead at a Halloween night concert at the Black Dog rests largely on the tale of how they each partied with the band - and especially its guitarist Phil Campbell - back in '09.
Pahl starts the tale. "My wife and I went to see Motörhead in Calgary. We walked by the Palomino and we thought maybe we'd see Lemmy. We ran into Phil Campbell and he's a very amicable guy. He brought everyone that was on the street up to his room, about a dozen people.
"After most of the people left, I went downstairs and I came back upstairs and he was wearing nothing but Betty Boop panties and a cape! I ended up calling Paul because (Campbell) was wondering if there was anyone up in Edmonton he could hook up with. Three o'clock in the morning I called. -"
Arnusch grabs the story controls. "But I was up," Arnusch smiles, "working on some music in the basement. I get a call, 'Yeah, this is Phil from Motörhead.'
"I thought it was a joke at first, obviously. But he was like, 'I'm here with your buddies, Matt and Sheila - I was wondering if you wanted eight or nine guest list spots for the show tomorrow night. Just don't show up looking like the Allman Brothers or we won't be too impressed!' "
Arnusch emerges from his crushed-gravel Welsh impersonation, starts laughing and continues. "So basically, I got the point. I had to round up a bunch of babes. A friend of mine's wife is the leader of the Capital City Burlesque, so next thing you know I had this harem of rock babes.
"I was leery of bringing them all, because you don't want to show up at the front and not have any guest list spots, like a drunken promise forgotten. But their manager calls me up and says, 'I'll put 10 down for ya, is that cool?' " Everyone showed up glammed out, and hung back stage.
"They're really amicable people, very generous," says Arnusch, who will be singing the role of Lemmy at the Dog on Monday night. "The party was dying down, but Phil still wanted to party. So I said, let's go to my place."
And it's here we'll circumvent some dirty details. Suffice to say, the sun eventually rose as it does.
"Finally," says Arnusch, "I got a call from Phil's manager saying, 'You mind putting Phil in a cab back to the venue? We have to go to Vancouver!' He wanted us to come with him to the show.
"I finally passed out, not in my own bed, that was being used, and woke up the next morning. Phil had called five times.

"It was a good night," he grins. Funny thing, this Motörhead cover show is actually the debut (of sorts) of the trio's new band - the allovers. Kruger's pounding drums and Pahl's jangly guitar are the backbone of this fresh hand of cards, "a punk band with Andy Williams-style vocals," as Arnusch puts it.
The tone and lyrics, which Pahl has written so far, are much lighter than the Floor's. "Bubble gum," Pahl calls them over a heaping chirashi bowl, with fun images of a blue kangaroo, happy pop or floating in a canoe and drinking shampoo, just because it rhymes.
And how about their version of Motörhead? Considering Arnusch's unusually dreamy vocals - he and his Whitsundays did a killer Beach Boys cover show last Halloween - pretty spot on.
Their version of Overkill is especially ravenous, and the allovers even play Motörhead covering another band, making things truly fractal.
Arnusch sounds like he's crossed a desert with only whisky to keep him hydrated. His beard will abstract into a handlebar moustache for the event. Ace of Spades is a winner.
"Phil Campbell is a much faster guitarist than me," Pahl notes between songs. "But the hardest thing is going to be to not laugh."
Arnusch growls like a drunken elk up at the ceiling, and everyone laughs anyway. fgriwkowsky@edmontonjournal.com @fisheyefoto


- The Edmonton Journal

Covering Motörhead from the inside out
Partying with guitarist Phil Campbell helped
Fish Griwkowsky, Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, October 28 2011
CONCERT PREVIEW
The allovers as Motörhead with various musicians as Hole
Where: The Black Dog Freehouse, 10425 82nd Ave. (no cover)

To become Motörhead, one should first truly experience Motörhead.
Methods to do this include looping the crunchy English rock on night hauls along primary highways. Seeing them play live with a raised fist is essential, too. Like many of us, musicians Paul Arnusch and Matt Pahl can check these requirements off.
"They're one of our favourite bands ever," Pahl explains at a sunless downtown practice studio with broken drumsticks stabbed into its walls. He and Arnusch used to be in a shoegazer outfit, the Floor.
Arnusch notes, "Matt and I would go on tour and just play Motörhead the whole time. The other two guys in our band would go nuts because they would want to change it up a little bit.
"It's a good way to stay up at night." But that's not quite the same thing as experiencing the proto-metal band from the inside. And it's here these two have most of us beat. Joined by drummer Garrett Heath Kruger, the reason these lads are becoming Motörhead at a Halloween night concert at the Black Dog rests largely on the tale of how they each partied with the band - and especially its guitarist Phil Campbell - back in '09.
Pahl starts the tale. "My wife and I went to see Motörhead in Calgary. We walked by the Palomino and we thought maybe we'd see Lemmy. We ran into Phil Campbell and he's a very amicable guy. He brought everyone that was on the street up to his room, about a dozen people.
"After most of the people left, I went downstairs and I came back upstairs and he was wearing nothing but Betty Boop panties and a cape! I ended up calling Paul because (Campbell) was wondering if there was anyone up in Edmonton he could hook up with. Three o'clock in the morning I called. -"
Arnusch grabs the story controls. "But I was up," Arnusch smiles, "working on some music in the basement. I get a call, 'Yeah, this is Phil from Motörhead.'
"I thought it was a joke at first, obviously. But he was like, 'I'm here with your buddies, Matt and Sheila - I was wondering if you wanted eight or nine guest list spots for the show tomorrow night. Just don't show up looking like the Allman Brothers or we won't be too impressed!' "
Arnusch emerges from his crushed-gravel Welsh impersonation, starts laughing and continues. "So basically, I got the point. I had to round up a bunch of babes. A friend of mine's wife is the leader of the Capital City Burlesque, so next thing you know I had this harem of rock babes.
"I was leery of bringing them all, because you don't want to show up at the front and not have any guest list spots, like a drunken promise forgotten. But their manager calls me up and says, 'I'll put 10 down for ya, is that cool?' " Everyone showed up glammed out, and hung back stage.
"They're really amicable people, very generous," says Arnusch, who will be singing the role of Lemmy at the Dog on Monday night. "The party was dying down, but Phil still wanted to party. So I said, let's go to my place."
And it's here we'll circumvent some dirty details. Suffice to say, the sun eventually rose as it does.
"Finally," says Arnusch, "I got a call from Phil's manager saying, 'You mind putting Phil in a cab back to the venue? We have to go to Vancouver!' He wanted us to come with him to the show.
"I finally passed out, not in my own bed, that was being used, and woke up the next morning. Phil had called five times.

"It was a good night," he grins. Funny thing, this Motörhead cover show is actually the debut (of sorts) of the trio's new band - the allovers. Kruger's pounding drums and Pahl's jangly guitar are the backbone of this fresh hand of cards, "a punk band with Andy Williams-style vocals," as Arnusch puts it.
The tone and lyrics, which Pahl has written so far, are much lighter than the Floor's. "Bubble gum," Pahl calls them over a heaping chirashi bowl, with fun images of a blue kangaroo, happy pop or floating in a canoe and drinking shampoo, just because it rhymes.
And how about their version of Motörhead? Considering Arnusch's unusually dreamy vocals - he and his Whitsundays did a killer Beach Boys cover show last Halloween - pretty spot on.
Their version of Overkill is especially ravenous, and the allovers even play Motörhead covering another band, making things truly fractal.
Arnusch sounds like he's crossed a desert with only whisky to keep him hydrated. His beard will abstract into a handlebar moustache for the event. Ace of Spades is a winner.
"Phil Campbell is a much faster guitarist than me," Pahl notes between songs. "But the hardest thing is going to be to not laugh."
Arnusch growls like a drunken elk up at the ceiling, and everyone laughs anyway. fgriwkowsky@edmontonjournal.com @fisheyefoto


- The Edmonton Journal