whoah...

It's been a long time since we updated anything on here. So to make it all easier to read, this post is split into three parts. The first part is our plans for immediate future. Second part is a newly published review of our first relese: Blue Shirts - CDR. Third part is the recap of the Blue Shirts tour day-by-day. Parts are separated by a line of ////////////. ENJOY!


We've been busy in the mean time. Blue Shrits went on tour throughout Central and Eastern Canada, and recorded a bunch of stuff on the road. The London, ON show will be put out on CDR by our friends at Coffin Crawl Records as a split between the four bands who performed that night.

Label-wise, we've got a whole series of releases lined up. By the last count, we had something close to 11 new releases planned, and in different stages of completion.
The most imminent ones are:
Project Volga - c30 (co-release with Heaven Sounds Records. Our batch will be limited to 20 copies on grey tapes, not too sure what Heaven Sounds' plan is)
Noose of Laurels - Strangled by Machines c60 (will be limited to TBA copies)

Plus we got a bunch more releases that we will hold off on releasing the details for. There will be splits, solo releases, tapes, cdrs, plus a serious possibility of something even awesomer.

As it stands right now, we are BROKE. To fix that situation, we will post our distro list up soon enough, so you will be able to buy stuff from us, and we could get some cashflow for more releases.


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

This is the review Noise Brigade out of UK did about Blue Shirts' CDR. We love the review, so THANKS KEEF! Go visit his website: http://noise-brigade.webs.com/

Blue Shirts – Blue Shirts, CDr, in Slip Case

On Robot Lust Records

Blue Shirts appear to own or help run Robot Lust Records, they are not a band I’ve heard of before coming across the Robot Lust myspace, their releases are usually on tape.

This appears to be a live recording, the quality of the sound is poor, it doesn’t take anything away from the fact this release is absolutely mental, Napalm death drumming, kind of miss pitched guitars, what appears to be screaming vocals but can be just the feedback, they are a noise band pure and simple, there are riffs trying but failing to make an impact. Strangely that’s why I like it, it’s kind of grungy, Sonic Youth idea but rougher.

This is not Avant grade music just abusive, in your face, music that like the leaflet that accompanied the release says they are barred from their local venues. What with this type of music? It appears obvious why. It must be regretfully noisy for the unsuspecting club owner that says “Yeah” to Blue Shirts and they turn up, plug in and fuck up any sounds that are relevant to convention.

Even though this is badly recorded and hard to hear in parts, as a live recording of a mental band I think it added quite nicely to DIYness they are trying to portray. As a noise band they have everything you need, with added shoegazebility, theres some heavy feedback drones that keep my interest throughout its distorted envelope.

Considering most of the releases are on tapes, and I only buy few tapes, this release has made me want more, I tell you it kind of reminds me Fantomas but with balls. A bit like The Locust but no screaming vocals that make them sound 5 years old. After it’s just finished I can easily go outside and rip someone’s face off. If you don’t like someone and fighting has never been your method of sorting out a situation, whack this on and change your mind man, go smack the fucker, and remember Blue Shirts told you to.

Okay well that’s not a sensible message, but it’s loud, aggressive, noisy, badly recorded, even has jazz and rockabilly samples and crowd noises, it’s not enjoyable enough that you can get your family round at Christmas in front of the fire, and have a nice listen because believe me grandmas head will end up in the fire. I find it quite amusing one-guy shouts “Woooo” and then the club owners appear to play a conventional song over the top just to have the third track by Blue Shirts rape any convention from the song that just was played unnecessarily.



/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

And now for the last part of the review, a 1/2 of the Blue Shirts experience (written by K from the band):


day 1: august 9th - met my ride on robie street, picked up the rest of the riders to ontario (4 people were in the car, all of us playing in local bands... was like a scene get-together). drove through 4 provinces that day (NS, NB, QC, ON) and then crashed just before Trenton ON at a highway rest stop. driving through Quebec, stocked up on beer at a gas station. a 40 ouncer of 10.1% for $5.50 - amazing.



day 2: august 10th - got into Hamilton around 11 in the morning. Alex was still asleep, but got woken up as soon as i showed up at the house. spent the day relaxing, and then played some Twilight Empirium (board game) for 8 hours. and recorded a 60 minute tape in the middle of the game as a tour promo (Blue Shirts - Lost Articles).



day 3: august 11th - first show of the tour, in Brantford ON. showed up, turns out this awesome looking place, with wood panelling on the walls, and grumpy bartender. super cheap beer - $1.50 for a Gus'-sized glass, and $6 for a half-pitcher. the show was awesome, Rob played a set that was more bizarre than anything ive seen live. bundles of plastic bags, rocks, conact mics, and writing on pieces of paper. sweet. the other bands were pretty cool too; i really liked the last band (apparently improvised super fuzzed-out blues, 2 20-something old on bass and guitar, and a drummer in his 50s). one of the performers did the part of house music over the PA between the bands he'd stand up and play his acoustic guitar and scream his lungs out. like an acoustic version of oh, i dont know - early Nirvana, or The Famines, or even Sex Pistols - fuck-all attitude and anger. after our set, we got some nice heckles (someone screamed at us if we are from brantford, and when i said no we are not, he said 'good we dont need you ruining our reputation' and some other dude said we got less talent than his ex), and some awesome compliments (some dude came upto us and said he saw Merzbow live in south korea, and we 'are up there'). for added randomness, saw Kris (ex-Iron Bitchface guitarist, was with IBF when i brought them down to Halifax). couldnt figure out where i know him from for a good half our. after the show we biked to Hamilton (~40 kms) and crashed at an abandoned building at a gas station to replenish our energy in the middle of the ride.



day 4: august 12th - drank the 40 ouncer from quebec. got trashed. hung out in a hole-in-the-wall (literally) gallery. odd night.



day 5: august 13th - hamilton show got cancelled (the venue started renovations the day before), so we borrowed an extension cord from the gallery from the day before, and set up on a street corner (plugged in at an art store) during an Art Crawl. no hecklers. some people took pictures/videos of us, and by the end of it had people joining in. was awesome to play on a street corner at 10 at night.



day 6: august 14th - toronto. awesome all around. started by getting some freshly squeezed juice, and then lugging our gear for like 4 subway stations. had pita and pickled cactus for pre-show dinner - delicious. the show was pretty cool too. started with a BANG (literally - fossils, the first band was setting up, plugged something in into the PA, and this wall shaking static bang came out. my ear hurt). good bands all around, was awesome to see Iron Bitchface with a live drummer (completely different vibe to the band that way). some last-minute addition to the bill by some harsh noise dudes from vermont/montreal. missed their name, but good stuff. was awesome to see all the high school friends and hang out with them. by the end of our set they started a 'KOSTIA! KOSTIA!' chant going. i never felt so shy up on stage hahaha. was a blast to play with Chris again. i couldnt hear myself AT ALL during our set though, apparently others could hear me, so thats good.



day 7: august 15th - london. bused to london, showed up tired and hungover. David (the dude who organized the show) took us to Food Not Bombs for pre-show dinner, was awesome. did a 10 minute acoustic/pedals set there. the show itself was amazing. all the bands were great (was awesome to hear Rob again, and the rock was there again too). the only two people who were at the show and not in any of the bands left right before our set though. we had a blast though - it was the show i injured myself the most at on the whole tour - punched myself in the mouth with a mic, got/burst blisters from playing drums, and more. also broke 2 drum sticks in the 10 mins i played drums. the most energy-expending show i had on the tour. apparently at one point, our noise got too much for all the noiseheads there (and the other guy playing with me!) but no one wanted to be THAT dude who plugged their ears at a show. David also recorded all 4 sets, and apparently its going to come out on a CDR some time this year, so look out for an Indigenous Nudes/Dislecksik/Fossils/Blue Shirts split cdr later this year. crashed at one of the Indigenous Nudes' dude place, with a fun but overly playful dog, and a reel-to-reel recording studio.



days 8 - 11: august 16-19 - toronto again. killed a lot of time in high park, and kensington market. drank a lot of coffee. got kicked out of the place i arranged to crash at for my entire toronto stay on the first day at 7 in the morning, after we stayed up all night wandering the streets and came across 7 cop cars blocking off one corner of high park. so that sucked because one of the only reasons i decided to spend the so much time in toronto (as opposed to more time in hamilton, or somewhere else) was because i had a place arranged even before i left Halifax, but then obviously it fell through. i seriously contemplated abandoning the tour and heading to halifax that morning. so after that i spent a night in mississauga at Chris'n'Keegan'n'Ashley's place. was a freaking blast! thanks guys!

spent another night at Kate's place, she had a get-together with some of the people who couldnt make it to the show. so we drank in a park like the high school days. during the day i spent my time china town/kensington market. hung out at the hot box cafe for a while.



day 12: august 20th. after finally straightening out our ottawa show just on wednesday (house party with three sludge bands), on friday morning get a txt message that the show is cancelled. so we catch a bus to montreal, that takes us through ottawa. we got some tim hortons from the street that we were supposed to play at, and Alex played his guitar in a parking lot and i recorded it.



day 13-14: august 21-22nd. montreal. spent most of the days just laying low, and drinking the 40 ouncers and eating dollar store cookies (went through 3 40 ouncers over the weekend, pretty sure most of my calories came from beer). walked about the town for a bit. the set in the living room was awesome, half way through the set neighbours started banging on the door to find out if we had any acid to sell. i guess they had all reasons to think we did - bunch of weird dudes making unhuman noise are pretty good indication of drugs hahahaha



day 15: august 23rd. spent 18 hours on 4 different buses, going from Montreal to Halifax. couldnt have been happier to finally make it home. sleeping on a bed, after crashing on 4 different floors and 2 different coaches for 2 weeks was just DELICIOUS!!!



we still have one more show to go (the 30th at rockin for dollars!! ill be guest-djing there as well!!) and im sure it will be a blast, if any of the other shows have been any indication of it all.

im happy to have gotten to see some places i havent been to before, played some shows (or jammed for that matter), hung out with all kinds of cool people, and read a whole bunch (read 2 complete books, and started a third). getting into strong beer has been good too! haha. also never in a 2 week period did i drink so much beer as on the tour. i think there were only 2 days that i didnt have any beer.

all in all, exhausting but tonns of fun!!! cant wait to do it again.