!Attention!by Matt
Dixon, November '10 Photos
by Marc Mammoliti
Toronto's
!Attention! is my kind of band. They're rough and tumble, they speak
their minds, and they know what's up. Really, they're a bunch of east
coast boys living in the big city playing their hearts out and gaining
a lot of respect in the process. They played a little house show in
Charlottetown not too long ago to a crowd of about twenty people,
but boy oh boy it was something special. I recently hooked up with
the band to talk about their work ethic, putting out records, and
getting arrested, interrogated and ultimately turned away at the yankee
border.
Mary
Margaret Muise from Four Or Five Ways To Play These Chords
1.You
guys recently came back down to the east coast. As I understand it
you're no strangers to eastern Canada. How did the tour go?
Glenn: This was the Canadian east coast leg of our first tour as !Attention!.
Nathan (guitar), Jonathan (guitar) and myself (vocals) are all originally
from Cape Breton, NS and have spent our lives growing up there and
then living all over the east coast before finding ourselves in Toronto.
The shows out east were a really good time. It's nice to play outside
of the area your band is from and have people singing along and climbing
all over you. ha. I washed a shirt from our second show in St. john's
NFLD (a show in a great dude, Derek Ashley's garage.) and there were
a few footprints on the back. I mean, not all of our shows were like
that but a handful of them were really awesome. Despite a lot of boat
rides (NFLD and PEI ferries) and a pretty decent amount of driving
it was a really rad time driving through the east coast in the fall,
seeing a lot of old friends and making some new ones, too.
2.I heard you guys got stopped at the border and had to
cancel your U.S. dates. That's a real bummer. What went wrong?
Glenn: It's a real shame that a lot of really hard working bands from
Canada have to go through the experience we did every time they want
to cross the border into the States. It was incredibly disappointing
to have spent four months of burning my fucking eyeballs out on my
computer screen sending countless emails, posting relentlessly on
message boards and searching for random people on facebook through
other people's friends lists, to have it all end in one instant (one
instant lasting six hours of interrogation and intimidation).
A brief version of the story would be: Nathan had crossed earlier
that day with our gear and his American passport in our van and made
it in no problem. "Can't keep one of our own from his homeland!"
--one of the guards later claimed to me. The rest of us took a bus
from St. John, New Brunswick to Bangor, Maine to meet up with a friend.
Stories got mixed up and after four hours of lying to a staff of giant
border guards with too much time on their dirty hands, we each told
the truth and received a nice set of fingerprints and mug shots and
were turned away. They made us go on the bus two at a time and get
our stuff and as the bus pulled away and the only female guard (the
meanest of the bunch) said "WELL! You're not getting into the
United States, that's for sure !"
We ended up cancelling nine shows in the USA which was bringing
us down to finish our tour by attending The Fest 9. However, the one
good thing to come out of all this is that we quickly learned who
our friends were in the eastern half of Canada as we booked three
shows in one hour on the drive back through NB.
Photo by Sean Siford
3.That's
really encouraging that you were able to at least fill a few dates
on your way back to Toronto. Do you find many examples of this type
of comradery and helping each other out in the Toronto scene as well?
Glenn: That is exactly what playing in punk bands is all about. It's
rad to be able to play with so many great bands from Toronto made
up of some of our best pals. Anytime we've ever had any van troubles
and not been able get our shit to shows our pals always come through.
We're always scratching backs with Junior Battles, Orphan Choir, Prevenge
(Mtl), Dig it Up (Mtl) ... the list goes on.
4.You
guys have a 7" record out. I have to tell you it's refreshing
to see the punk 7"s still being put out. In this age of myspace
pages, download codes and perhaps worst of all .... online webzines...
is there still a place for the good ol' punk rock 7"?
Glenn: I would say that is entirely the point. There's always going
to be that sense of achievement and pride that comes with recording
your own records, doing your own artwork and layouts, booking your
own tours, and creating tangible things that you can share with other
like minded people. If that drive to create these things with your
own hands (DIY) isn't what is fueling you to play in a band then I
would have to say you're doing it for the wrong reasons. If I wanted
to create something that would instantly be recognized all over the
world by dumping more trash on the internet, I'd take a video of a
cat sucking it's own dick and put it on youtube. When you see bands
on myspace with 50,000 friends, “cool” haircuts, and “neat”
band photos they'll probably have five songs and no records out. Not
to mention probably never having to work a day in their lives for
“their art”. They're all just cats sucking their own dicks
on youtube if you ask me. Heh. I feel like I've gone off on a tangent.
ANYWAYS. Punk bands make records and book their own tours.
5.You guys are definitely gaining steam. Looking forward to 2011,
where do you want to take the band?
Glenn: I guess this type of question is always the “what would
I hope will happen with our band in the next year” but seems
to end up being the opposite. So, in short... we're going to hopefully
record some new stuff and try and play as many shows as possible.
We've never been to Europe. We're going to try and move ahead. I always
feel if things are moving forward for example: more people getting
into our band, more people coming out to shows, writing more songs
that we are proud of, then why not try and see where it could go.
Ya know?
