Skip to main content

Spaces Between

 Gruff melodic punk, what more can you ask for.

So about a month and a half (?) ago a friend texted me a picture of Cal & Garys Kettle Cooked Smokin' Sweet BBQ potato chips. "Best Served with Flames" that she found at a Calgary (get it, Cal & Garys) co-op. Co-op chips you say, smokin' sweet BBQ you say..."Made from 100% Canadian Grown Dark Russet Potatoes" you say. I had a pretty good idea what the back of the bag might say. Her and her family were out a couple weeks later and they were nice enough to bring me a couple bags to try. Flip it to the back, Great Grammy Albright would make homemade potato chips on her wood-fired pot belly stove with Grampy Aubrey's potatoes, yep. The Covered Bridge & co-op relationship is strong and we all benefit from it. Kettle cooked dark potato chips with skins abound which provide you with an earthy potato taste. The crunch is quite alright, mid to mid heavy. The BBQ seasoning is on the traditional more smokey side with just a slight sweetness and a very slight BBQ bite. They have a fit in the traditional and a foot in the mesquite without leaning too far either way. Salt is quite present. It's been a minute since I've had the proper covered bridge version of these chips, but I'm relatively certain they're the exact same with a different bag and slightly higher price point. 142g bag is a decent size, doesn't allow one to over indulge. If you're a fan of BBQ on the smokey side you'll dig these. If you're a fan of mesquite bbq, you'll also probably dig these because there's a bit of that sweetness. 

Similar to Shook Ones, Calgary's Sabertooth played punk in the style of Kid Dynamite and Lifetime. When I listen to it I can picture myself dancing, skanking in a pit to Sabertooth's final album Spaces Between (never got to though, I believe I found about them through Sloth Record's instagram when Spaces was released). Just enough pop to make you want to dance, just enough punk to make you feel a surge of energy. Gruff melodic vocals with harmonies in just the right places. Anthemic choruses. Dark poetic lyrics. One of my favourite albums from 2015.

Stay hydrated,

Marc

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lean On Me

I first saw The Flatliners on May 9, 2003. They were opening for Bigwig/The Planet Smashers on the grind tour and kicked ass. Their sound has changed since that date but it hasn't stopped them from becoming one of my favourite bands both recorded and live. Because of my affinity for The Flatliners I was drawn to The Warehouse (Calgary) on September 26, 2007. Having never heard the other bands that were to be playing that night I had very few preconceived notions (I did very little, super lazy, research), I was just there to see The Flatliners and hoped the other bands didn't suck. To my absolute surprise and amazement, the opening? band (might have been 2nd of 4, I can't remember for sure [it really doesn't matter]) The Peacocks absolutely slayed. This 3 piece punkabilly band from Winterthur, Switzerland owned the stage. There was no fancy lighting, costumes or pyrotechnics..just three guys in jeans and black shirts rocking out. When they played there was pure uncut en...
Post a Comment
Read more

2, 4, 5 Trioxin

I recently went on a road trip with my wife (Teresa) and daughter. Covered thousands of km's..Saskatoon -> Fort McMurray -> Calgary -> Home. Throughout this trip we stopped in at 4 record stores, 1 British food import store (to grab some of them uk chips, one of the many flavours was mentioned in The Letter F ) and stayed with friends/family in each city. This trip also resulted in at least 2 gifts that become tales in this here blog in the paragraphs below. The first record store that we ventured into on this trip was the Vinyl Diner in Saskatoon. Whenever Teresa and I go to record stores she usually leaves me to my business and finds a store nearby to browse or just hangs out at the front while I get into the zone. This time however turned out to be different. A few days after we arrived home from Calgary, I found out that with this particular visit to the Vinyl Diner Teresa was doing her own browsing, with the stealthiness of a ninja, that went completely unnoticed b...
1 comment
Read more

I Don't Want to Go Down to the Basement, Either

I like pop punk. Ramonescore..Lookout, Recess, Red Scare, It's Alive records; you know, that ilk. Majority of what I'm exposed to (or expose myself to) is either American or based out of GTA/Ottawa areas. For some reason, it's rare for me to get a record and find out that the band is from the prairies or western Canada. This is not to say that there aren't killer pop punk bands in these regions, it just takes more digging to find them. (I know, you're angry and yelling Chixdiggit! at the screen right now. There's always exceptions). One of these amazing Canadian pop punk bands is based out of Vancouver and go by the name of The Hextalls. I had heard their name before but never really gave them a listen until last January (2014) when I got their LP "Rock You to Sleep". Shit is fantastic. Catchy, cheeky without turning themselves into a joke; straight forward pop punk. With heavy nods to the bruddas, I would be more than surprised if at least a few of th...
2 comments
Read more