The Wicked Awesomes!

NBA Jam for the Sega Genesis was the second most punk sports game ever (the Mutant League series taking number uno). If you got three dunks in a row some dude yelled out “HE’S ON FIIIIIRE” and you burst into flames and did quad-flip slam-dunks. Weird dunks. Now imagine that basketball player is on fire, wearing fluorescent Nike’s covered in time-shit and crystal-snot, death sunglasses, an 80GB ipod, hens teeth, and a jersey from Nowheresville, Ghost Beach. Take a ramshackle of insane kids in the remote recesses of Edmonton’s hoodlets and have them dedicate an album to this space-streaming-intelligent basketball player and you might come close to the brilliance of The Wicked Awesomes!’s LP debut Punk Holograms. The album lacks any pretense and obeys no boundaries; from burnt puke-garage to psychedelic mizrahi-surf, the red-lights on your stereo will burst with wrecked synth-lines and skirt-chasing guitar-riffery. It’s a beautiful pawnshop display-case of wastoid-punk. Brilliant. Amazing. Fantastic. Wicked. Awesome. A sure-shot contender for best album of 2009 on any continent. - Weird Canada

Wow... another shitty band naming and a total rager of a record. From the middle of bumfuck Canada comes this psych-punk masterpiece. I don't know what dust these kids are smoking up there, but I want some. This shit would fit in with the Detroit fuck-ups CLONE DEFECTS or our very own MAYYORS, or some of REATARD's more twisted shit, but it also has this weird 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS meets JESUS AND MARY CHAIN weirdness that sets it far apart. I'm not usually so stoked on weird artsy noisy shit, but these guys keep 4/4 and I'm all over it. (TB) - Maximum Rock and Roll

Stunning release from Alberta's Wicked Awesomes, their debut solo
outing as they appeared on a split with the O-Voids recently as well.
"Information Entropy" is a blend of delicate lo-fi Sonic Youth-like
guitar rock landscaping that breaks into raw blurts of punk for some
jarring interludes. Vocals alternate between a Thurston-like mumble and
savage snarl. Fabulous stuff and not what I was expecting from a band
called Wicked Awesomes. The B-Side goes further out on a ledge. It's
called "Wizardship Stardestroyer" and sounds like a post-punk band of
gypsies (not the Hendrix outfit) playing a hypnotically lo-fi
traditional with a bastardized punk flavor. I imagine this was recorded
at the local Armenian hall with lots of strange European liquors
flowing, funny hats being worn, some of that Russian-style kick-dancing
on top of tables and a solo on one of those little guitars. Description
defying in all the right ways. Probably my favorite record of this
update. The songs just have a nice texture to them, I know that makes
absolutely no sense. Genreless stuff that is weird but somehow not
weirdpunk. Words are failing me here, but the fact that I can't stop
listening to it says volumes. Scum stats: 300 copies, buy multiples.
(RK) - Terminal Boredom

Funereal new wave that sticks to the soles of your chucks like ectoplasmic chewing-gum, that’s where the Wicked Awesomes are at. In their new split with the O Voids
we stumble upon Test Pattern, a ramshackle hymn for those cats out
there who lose their shit in a rather idiosyncratic way to other frosty
c-86 stalwarts such as Blank Dogs,
with the added bonus of fine guitarwerks that coruscate mesmerising a
la Television (the production values are more neon boys though), small
creatures climbing up the walls of a castle of tarot cards over which,
one second before collapsing, a perfect pop light shines to illuminate
us prancing in the ghostly mosh pit of that indie dungeon where the
best sonic gems lay hidden.

- 20 jazz funk greats

Ah,
to be 18 again. Living in a punkhouse with 15 other people, subsisting
on Black Label and Kraft Dinner, not giving two fucks about anyone or
anything—Edmonton’s Wicked Awesomes represent all that’s great about
this footloose and fancy-free time in a young man’s life. These tykes
weren’t even hatched yet in the Dead Milkmen’s heyday, yet somehow they
channel that late-’80s hopelessly teenage thing so well I had to
double-check to make sure this wasn’t an Eat Your Paisley
B-side. The title track is a brooding, treble-fueled tribute to
breakin’ the rules, with shout-sing-shout vocals that clip out at just
the right moments, it’s as if they were recorded on your sister’s Beverly Hills 90210
boombox. On the flipside is the gracefully titled “Wizardship
Stardestroyer,” a jangly nugget of power pop, presumably about
roleplaying games or Sega Genesis or whatever it is the kids are into
these days. A third song would’ve been nice, but in the neverending
party of early adulthood, who’s got the time?
TRAVIS SARGENT

- See Magazine

The Wicked Awesomes were mentioned the other day on terminal boredom
in the 'killed by myspace' thread and I went to check them out. The
track Test Patterns is coming from a 60's garage/surf/rockabilly place,
complete with heavy echo vocals turned way up, peaking out coming from
both channels. It's reminding me of the Mummies.... that kind of band
that blew me away. They existed in that in between time...building on
previous sounds, bringing a weird contemporary feel to displace it.
Anything that sounds like this also reminds me of my first intro to
this sound...Deadbolt. Maybe this will take a few years after they
broke up or evolved to be appreciated. But there's more than just
reworking that The all treble reverb guitar is holding it all together
creating the melody lines for everything to work behind. They're
mashing a bunch of influences together here, velvet paintings, 80's
video games, all under the guise of surf-horror-punk (?)....like their
name suggests, this weird mess is classic...there's nothing like
hearing a song about an 80 gig ipod sung in chorus in 50's surf rock
fashion. Nothing like moving forward to the past... - 7 INCHES

Qmass: The video is from the tour my band went on with The Wicked
Awesomes in support of this 7″, so needless to say I have some bias
here. I can honestly say that The Wicked Awesomes have songs that will
stick in your brain for weeks and weeks, and no matter how many times I
have seen them, I cannot get sick of them. Friend rock!
Kallen: Undoubtedly for me, the best band going in Alberta right
now. They take some left-of-the-beaten-path influences and turn it all
into something that’s oddly enough, very singular. “Wizard Ship Star
Destroyer” makes me feel like I’m at the best bar mitzvah ever… and
with that one, I’ll quit while I’m behind - seven ten twelve

Six things I like about the Wicked Awesomes: 1) The exuberant
over-confidence of their name. 2) They hail from freakin' Alberta,
Aaay! 3) How their tracks on Myspace sound lo-fi, like they are being
played on your grandma's record player through a single speaker, even
though they are rolling on the Internets. 4) Their Jesus, Big Rig, wild
wolf/full moon imagery that looks like it belongs on a T-shirt you'd
pick up in an Albertan truck stop (the kind Bret from Flight of the
Conchords deliciously sports). 5) They give me an excuse to overuse the
stereotypical Canadian "Aaay", Aaay! 6) Their bouncing brand of
punktastic jams that include the superbly-named "Heavy Metal Vomit
Party" taken from the 80's classic The Breakfast Club, when
that flame headed vixen La Mol' as prissy lil' Claire calls out Judd
Nelson's poor ole John Bender on his poser BS. I know you know it: "Why
don't you take Brian out to the parking lot to get high, or take
Allison to one of your heavy metal vomit parties?" Wicked awesome,
boys, wicked awesome. - Seattle Weekly

Another great local seven-inch just off the presses is the O Voids’
split with Edmonton’s the Wicked Awesomes on local label Lost Space
Records. Two songs apiece here, with the O Voids easily matching their
live show. If you aren’t hip to the O Voids yet, just imagine
everything that was so good about Mission of Burma and Pink Flag-era
Wire all in one band. The Wicked Awesomes are indeed worthy of their
name, with an apparent worship of the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, Syd Barrett
and probably most things on Julian Cope’s iPod. Only 500 slabs of this
wax available, so better hurry up and order it from the label’s MySpace
page, or better yet, just pick it up directly from the band when they
launch the single on Saturday at l’Escogriffe with Pink Noise and Phil
Console - Montreal Mirror

To take the Wicked Awesomes! (yes, the exclamation mark is obligatory) too seriously would be making a terrible mistake.
"Our major themes are wolves and spaceships and insomnia and existentialist novels -- pretty much anything that makes us laugh," guitarist/vocalist Thomas Gaudin says with a grin.
However, to not take into consideration their noisy, weird-punk-meets-new-wave musical abstractions would be to miss out on a whole bunch of nonsensical fun.

View Larger Image
Left to right: Thomas Gaudin, Tyler Harland, Owen Gaudin and Lucas Finnamore-Smith
Greg Southam/Edmonton Journal


Email to a friend

Printer friendly
Font:

And, of course, how can you dismiss a bunch of guys who have the best band name -- ever.
"In high school, some of my friends and I jokingly said 'wicked awesome' and 'tubular' and stuff like that," Gaudin says. "It's just a stupid name. There's no sort of motive behind it."
"But it's worked out really well because people remember it," guitarist Tyler Harland adds.
The Wicked Awesomes! are informed by the teachings of punk legends The Cramps, punctuated with a hefty dose of Memphis garage noise (Oblivians), the psych leanings of early Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, and the modern psych-punk of Black Lips.
"I listen to (Black Lips') Let It Bloom five times a week," Gaudin says. "But I think the bands that are the coolest right now are the ones we've met on MySpace."
"That and the '80s new wave bands like Devo and The Units," adds Harland.
Thanks to the magic of MySpace, it didn't take long for the Wicked Awesomes! to get noticed by like-minded bands from a major "weird-punk" city: Montreal.
The Wicked Awesomes! recently shared a 7" with The O Voids, and immediately caught the attention of the underground, no-wave hipster set. They are currently working on another 7" to be released on Almost Ready Records, and might even put out an old-fashioned tape cassette on the Jerk Wave label.
Later this month, the band will share the stage with BBQ's Mark Sultan (also from Montreal), and seeing the Wicked Awesomes! slated to play alongside such a household "garage rock" name certainly feels appropriate.
However, though the Wicked Awesomes! could definitely fit into that category (to a certain extent, mind you), Gaudin says the term "garage" might have gone out of style in recent years.
"I sorta feel a disconnect with it because I was in The Cadavers, and played a bunch a shows with (former Edmonton teenage garage hellions) the Subatomics," Gaudin says. "That sort of died out. Now it's more exciting because there's 'weird-punk' -- us, the Blank Dogs, the O Voids. It's more what's happening now, it's more fun."
And it's not like the Wicked Awesomes! take themselves seriously, either.
The band is driven by an enormous amount of mischievous nerdery -- from plastering their MySpace page with images of wolves, Dungeons and Dragons, paintings depicting Jesus guiding semi-trucks, and '80s pop culture-referencing snapshots.
However, they earn a minus-three cred point for not knowing who Corey Haim is (they were merely infants when the teen idol was setting Hollywood ablaze), but earn one or two back for their unfailing devotion to Molly Ringwald and The Breakfast Club.
"We love 'tacky,' " Harland says.
"The music is sometimes -- not campy-sounding, but kinda weird-sounding," says Gaudin, "so stuff like that just sort of fits with it. It's not quite right."
"For our first five shows, everyone in the band would wear a shirt with cheesy wildlife scenery on it," adds Harland. "Eventually, people stopped doing it, but I just wear it every day."
"How many shirts do you have?" asks Gaudin.
"Hmm, I don't know," answers Harland. "Thirty or so. They're like three bucks at Value Village." - Edmonton Journal