The Basement Demons

First things first, we went to Tubby Dog. Mostly because I wanted a redemption hotdog from my dog block last year, but also because we heard a band containing mostly teenagers was playing. The Basement Demons, consisting of members ranging from nine to 19 years of age, pretty much played music unlike anything I have ever heard before. They were badass and stampy unlike me when I was nine. It was the nine-year-old’s birthday and the mom was selling their EP on cassette. (When I was nine-years-old I wasn’t as cool as I could have been). -

The Basement Demons are the sort of band that grabs your interest for what it is as much as what they sound like. What we've got here something akin to The Shaggs. If you're unfamiliar with the Shaggs I'd suggest you get to reading up on it, it is one of those wonderful underground phenomenons of rock music history. However, the basic concept was a father that had his four reluctant and untrained daughters form a band, envisioning them to become a famous act like he was living in a real-world Partirage Family. It didn't work out for him, but the band had some undeniable appeal with their poorly timed playing and bizarre singing.

While in what I hope and imagine is a less coercive fashion than the Shaggs, another family band was formed for a recording session. The impromptu Calgary band was made by a fella called Seth, a member of the SRM featured Soft Cure, who was joined by his younger sister and two female cousins. At the time they were 18, 7, 10 and 13 years old respectively. He said the girls had no experience using the instruments before and they recorded in a just a couple of days. The results are an extremely lo-fi set of tracks, so low is the production it easily crosses into the realm of no wave. Noisy, sludgy and filled with the screams and howls of young ladies the albums doesn't even attempt the pop sound at which the Shaggs faltered so infamously. Rather what we have are unadulterated noise rock experiments from the unpretentious and curious minds and unrefined handiwork of a mostly untrained musicians. It most assuredly has the outsider art appeal that many a young indie music fan explores for as they've grown sick of radio pop hits. Be warned there is no shortage of girl screams in the "songs," so keep your finger need the volume nob if you're gonna blast the album. -

Of all the new tapes (ie released this year) in the CCPS collection, this one stands out as one of the rawest. Basement Demons are four teenage cousins who play music that isn't just angry, it's furious. And messy. Propulsive drumming, screaming, atonal guitars... if this ain't punk, we don't know what is. -

Two pairs of siblings that are cousins make up this lo-fi, doom-surf, shout-punk, no-wave quartet. Sounds like kids getting excitable on Sugar Pops and '80s DIY cassettes, which it basically is – three of the members are too young to even get their learner’s license. Hoot, holler, raucous noise: ONE-TWO-THREE-FOAH! -

This Calgary four-piece is the moment when your insides are drenched in alcohol and you’re lying on the floor of a strange woman’s basement about to get a stick-and-poke tattoo where only you can see it. Until you realize that three of the four band members are under 14. Then The Basement Demons are just really rad, lo-fi sludge. -

“Three angry little girls” and Soft Cure’s Seth Cardinal make up The Basement Demons, a ferocious quartet literally spawned in Grandma’s basement by three sisters under the age of 14 and their older brother. This hungry monster waxes poetic via grunge, punk and sludge, mutating and roaring like the multi-headed, embryonic beast it is. -

The Basement Demons: a sludgy band comprised of mostly underage cousins. Their nine- and 14-year-old guitarists played delightfully detuned guitar riffs, while the 19-year-old eldest cousin’s blastbeat drumming countered underneath the rage-paroxysm screaming of the 12-year-old singer. They’re wunderkinds with thunder winds of potential that blew us away. -

From the stubborn worldview of Jackson Fishauf:

With cassette recorder as canvas, primed by layers of white-noise, the Basement Demons’ debut amplifies the band’s Id-driven creative process — all songs made up on the spot — to reveal their bratty impulse for sonic destruction fighting an inborn pop instinct. Twelve-year-old lead singer Indica’s improvised lyrics and impassioned shrieks are unapologetically youthful, expressing a stubborn worldview in a way that is intuitively matched to the tone of each song. Her volatile cooing is grounded by the right-on drumming of eldest Demon Seth (19) and a sludgy, ear-splitting guitar attack from cousins Cateri (9) and Imajyn (14). Delivering a sharper bite than its title implies, Baby Teeth battles growing pains and the distortion of innocence with discordant no-fi punk outbursts. -