CONFORMIST PARTY / JOKESOVER

Here we have a look at "skate punk" band JokesOver (originally known as The Conformist Party). Their bass player Louie Roberts tells us a bit about the band! At the end we have a discography to download or listen to!

So, Conformist Party started I think in 96 or 97. They were a four piece “new punk” band With Thomas Boudreau and Jon McLaughlin playing guitars, Matt McNeil on drums, and Ryan White on vocals. Influenced by bands like Propaghandi, Lagwagon, and NOFX. They played a couple shows without a bassist at the Café Ole. I saw them one night I was working concessions, and saw potential, so I offered my services. After a couple jams together, I was in. We played a few more shows at Café Ole before it closed, and at least once a month at The Pavilion. We recorded a demo on cassette “Tales of the Shallow and Stupid”. I think it was done on a four track in Thomas’s basement where we jammed.

It was around the Fall of 98’ when we decided to change the name. I always thought The Conformist Party was kind of lame, and I guess the rest of them didn't love it either. We decided on JokesOver. I guess we wanted something to show we were serious about what we were doing with the band. We recorded another demo Mugshots and Fingerprints with Paco Caba of Rudies Head/Thursday’s Toads. Eventually moved our jams to the jam spots on Cunard. We were pretty active for many years, playing some greats shows, with touring bands of the time, Diesel Boy, Gob, Choke, Ten Foot Pole. The show with Propaghandi at the George Dixon Rec Centre was definitely our biggest.

In November 2001 we made the decision to kick Ryan out of the band. It sucked. It was a mess, and that sparked the end of the band. We had our reasons; mostly it was because we felt Ryan wasn't contributing his share to the band, but also because we weren't all happy with his vocals. Thomas took over on vocals and honestly his were just as bad as Ryan's but in a different way. Eventually Jon decided to leave the band, and we briefly got Chris Barnes from Dry Leaf to come on board, but soon after that we dissolved.

We all look back at those years with fondness, and it’s great to hear these songs again. None of us had a copy of these demos.


Now you can hear them too!!





Or download the whole discography which includes:
Conformist Party - 3 song demo
Conformist Party - Tales Of The Shallow & Stupid
JokesOver - Mugshots & Fingerprints
JOKESOVER DISCOGRAPHY!!

Against all odds, their Eastlink website is still up:
http://users.eastlink.ca/~lconformist/index.htm

FALSE SECURITY

False Security - A Halifax hardcore/punk best known for their song on on the Out Of The Fog compilation LP, were one of the main draws of punk shows from their start in 1984 up to 1988. Their vocalist Alfred Woolley takes us back to that time with a little more info on the band!

I think this is from the Casino Theatre...maybe.

So while the band received a fair bit of exposure through the Out Of The Fog track, they also had a little known demo. Vietnam was recorded for "Out of the Fog", so it was about 6 months earlier than the demo and at a different studio. Alfred tells us a bit about the demo and why it such a rare commodity these days. "The lineup for the demo was me singing, Jimmy MacKenzie on lead guitar, Marc MacInnis on rythm guitar, Freddie Parker on bass, & Gerard Watters playing drums. The demo was recorded at the Centre for Art Tapes. It was badly produced by Moritz Gaede. We were so unhappy with the demo that we didn't release it. We made up a few tapes and sold them to people that really wanted them. In that sense, an original False Security tape is a bit of a collectors item. We only made about 20."

I actually think the demo sounds pretty decent and have heard much worse from other local bands. But they hated it so much it ultimately led to the demise of the band. As Aflred puts it, "We broke up partly because we were so disappointed over the demo tape. We hated it and felt like the producer sand bagged us. What that did was start to kill our interest in practising and writing new songs together. We played a few more shows in '87, with a final show in '88 and a reunion in '90."

Sadly the band never toured, not even to New Brunswick which was fairly common for Halifax bands of the time. The only bigger touring band they opened up for was SNFU. It's too bad they didn't get more exposure, as they were a great band and could have had a lot more interest in them. Alfred and Jimmy went on to play in No Offense, and Gerard played in The Quahogs, both in the early to mid 1990's. 

Luckily I have unearthed the demo and present it to you all, plus the comp song! You can just listen here: 
or download it here: FALSE SECURITY DISCOGRAPHY

NEGATIVE TREND

• Negative Trend were a hardcore/punk band from Truro, Nova Scotia in the late 1990's. Not to be confused with an early LA punk band of the same name. I got in touch with their guitar player Scott for this highly informative interview. So grab a cool glass of Dr. Pepper, sit back, read and relax to max.
• Band Members: Martin (vocals), Scott (guitar), Josh (drums), and Richard (bass)
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• About the band's humble beginnings: We had been in other bands previously but in a small town like Truro it can be a bit difficult to really find like-minded people to play with. So we were all in a situation where we were in bands we didn't really like because the alternative was 'do nothing'. And when the weird small town phenomenon of in-congruent popularity began to take effect (i.e. becoming very popular locally because there are only like, 3 bands to choose from, it started to get a bit uncomfortable and/or embarrassing to be playing stuff we weren't interested in and thought was pretty lame in general. Anyway, before practices with the lame band began, three of us started playing stuff we actually liked just for fun. Then met Martin who said he was in a similar predicament so he joined as the singer and we formed NT shortly thereafter.
• Band name: I had no idea about the LA band at the time, it was just a general phrase that sounded good for a band name. No grief about it outside of some website comments by confused altavista users.
• Scott's take on their muzak and demo tape: Musically most of it was put together by myself and the drummer Josh, as we were both into similar stuff at the time, ie spazzy fast hardcore...like older stuff spanning from Void to euro or japanese stuff or whatever. The songs on the demo were our first batch of songs as a band and were put together quite quickly then the demo was recorded in like, less than 2 hours by J. Lapointe in his bedroom. It was actually recorded before we had a full time bass player so I had to do all that too, but then Richard joined despite having to play upside down as a lefty. The demo was really basic but I guess we were happy with it? the fact that it was mostly one-take helped the energy level I think. The guitar tone was actually mostly a DOD GRUNGE pedal of all things, played through a hefty Yamaha bass amp with the mids scooped. And a set of hot pickups. The pedal was surprisingly great tho.
• Punk rock gigz: Memorable shows were many even though it was a relatively short lived band we were just out of high school and had a band VAN and everything so took shows anywhere. We played in Cape Breton a lot at a time when shows were drawing really big crowds of kids from all walks of life, and played some crazy shows in the Valley of all places. And of course punkfests and the usual Halifax shows. Our focus was generally Halifax though for obvious reasons. Condon (from Cafe Ole) really gave us some nice spots and I should also thank D.rock for being the first person to really take an interest when the band was brand new and doing a zine write-up. And of course that sexy Ian (*blush*) fellow who invited us to play in his room on his birthday ;( which was one of the most fun shows I've been to before or since.
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• The end: I think the band broke up just due to life moving on and members all moving away to different locations physically. As for what everyone is up to now I'm not sure. I am studying at Dalhousie after having lived in the US for several years. I know Josh/drummer is in Truro married with a bunch of kids. Richard and Martin I'm not sure about at all.
• Final thoughts: With Negative Trend we just wanted to do something that wasn't too serious but wasn't outright lamesauce too, and it was a good experience that let me meet a lot of good folks as a result just the one demo, although a follow up was partially recorded but never finished. I hadn't thought about that band for a loooong time so thanks for the trip down memory lane~.
• fin.
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DOWNLOAD THE DEMO HERE: http://www.mediafire.com/download/d8mkgk61e1fcabk/negative+trend+-+demo.rar

or Listen on the youtube:

And if you are really adventurous, check out this archived Negative Trend Geocities page: http://web.archive.org/web/20021130195222/http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/venue/5424/