New Brunswick blues/rock band Ross Neilsen and the Sufferin’ Bastards may be too loud for Memphis, but they are looking forward to returning to Lethbridge on Wednesday, June 23.
Before releasing their new CD, ‘Redemption’ in late April,  the band dipped down into the United States to tour the east coast and ended up in blues mecca Memphis , Tennesee itself where they participated in a blues competition.

“We played on Beale Street at the Blues Café right across from B.B Kings. It went pretty well. It was interesting considering we’re not a traditional blues band,”  said lead singer/guitarist Ross Neilsen.

“One of the judges listened to our set with her hands over her ears. So we didn’t get far in it, but it was amazing. It was like a glorified battle of the bands,” he continued adding the tour has gone well.

“It’s gone pretty well. It’s been a pretty good tour so far,” said Neilsen, enjoying a rare luxury — a steady, five day gig in Edmonton.
“Not many places do this anymore,” Neilsen said adding response to the band’s new CD ‘Redemption,’ has been very favourable, including reviews in bigger newspapers like the Edmonton Journal. It is also starting to chart well.

“The first CD was acoustic, ‘Early Grave’ was more blues rock. This one is even more blues influenced rock. It  has the rock edge to it and shows the natural evolution of the band,” Neilsen continued.

The outlaw in the Joey Only Outlaw Band, who return to Lethbridge Monday, June 21 to play the Slice, isn’t anything to laugh at.

 While frontman Joey Only as well as band mates Rowan Lipkovits, drummer Kenan Sungur,  steel guitarist Mike Zinger, lead guitarist Steve Loree, upright bassist Justine Fischer and backup singer Leah Martin, would rather travel the country bringing Canadians the music inspired by their own country,  Only isn’t afraid to throw down if the situation demands it.

“ We’re armed to do battle, sometimes quite literally,” said Joey Only over the phone from Vancouver, relating a story about a time, not too long ago, in Fort St. James when  a ‘drunken maniac’ attacked him for no reason.

“I was just standing by the fire  minding  my own business when he called me rock star and started hitting me. I went off on him like I haven’t on anybody since high school. I was a bit swollen in the knuckles and swollen in the face, but he was a lot worse after it,” Only related matter of factly.

“People usually respect you when you drive all the way to their community to play them music, but when you drive 100,000 km, you’re bound to have an accident. I’ve been playing bars for 10 years. When you go to  500 bars, you’ll run into drunken maniacs. We’re not just saying we’re outlaw,” he said adding a stiff touring schedule is starting to pay off for the band.

The Phantom Creeps,  Brains,  Flatfoot 56’s show at the Slice, June 12, was impressive.
 As a rare treat, local rockabilly/punk trio  the Phantom Creeps displayed their prowess as a foursome, with former  guitarist Evan Herbst taking a turn on stand up bass, freeing up regular bassist Tyler Brownfield to  snarl and growl his way through the band’s set and prowl the stage as frontman. Numerous members of the packed house got their faces painted as zombies as the Creeps launched into a manic set including most of their latest CD including ‘Dead and Gone,’ and Cold Hearted Man.’ They had the crowd shouting along ‘straight to hell,’ And Brownfield got a rousing ovation when he took up the bass, playing it with a broken hand, but still pulling out all the stops on the last song of the set.

I hadn’t seen Breanne Urban and Southern Flyer for quite a while, so I had to catch one of their sets at HB’s Lounge, June 12.

 They had a heap of dancers two-stepping the night away to their upbeat country-rock set which included a laid-back, country tinged version of ‘Me and Bobby McGee’

 The vocalists took turns singing lead as well as harmonies on a variety of songs which included  Dwight Yoakham’s  ‘Guitars and Cadillacs’ as well as an original from Breanne Urban’s CD — a Terri Clark  influenced song called ‘Works For Me.’ The band, who all took turns soloing throughout including some honky tonk piano, displayed some hair raising vocal harmonies on the bluegrass standard ‘Fox On The Run,’ which ended their set.