Retail Simps, Tha

Retail Simps, Tha

Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out

Total Punk

***"The long playing record splayed out in front of you is the third strike of the Retail Simps’ iron claw. In baseball a strike out is a loathsome outcome, in bowling it’s gold. I ask you, dear listener to sift through these delicate poles of meaning and experience these 16 toons free from the qualitative chains that burden your ear in favour of the openness and exploratory liberation of a child. This one landed the Simps in W.B.A. (world builders anonymous) after total and utter detachment from reality ensued. After copious amounts of blind encouragement from their label boss and his peers (all victims of half-Zheimers) and trace amounts of measurable success (money? no sir), the groups’ egos were operating at a loss, or at least a state of confusion. Faced with the pitfalls of modern drudgery and the music industry’s impending and unrelenting judgement, their perseverance was yet again tested. Through the magical transportive inspiration of rock n roll, our unequivocally handsome protagonists found salvation thrice. R n B stimulation, ponk agitation and slop rock demonstration saved them from themselves, from the downcast stares of detractors, from the cruelness of the everyday. Art as therapy for the clinically insane. A functional state of illness is the bottom line of this cultural achievement. Herein, the band exercises the democratic tools they learnt in their formative years as craftsmen and apply them broadly to a new swath of material. The crucial pin prick guitar, exasperated (ing) vocal maelstrom and beatific pounding...

Retail Simps, Tha

Live On Cool Street

Total Punk

***After countless hours of data driven market research it was determined that the wild success of the first Retail Simps album , “Reverberant Scratch” was 82.6% due to the cheeky and iconic album cover, as such the group was faced with a dilemma. Using focus groups funded by the Center for Odd Human Behaviour (COHB), the group surmised that the man pictured on said cover, none other than Montreal born chanteur Joe Chamandi, reminded the typical unsophisticated commoner of their ner’e do well uncle, and it is this sense of uncanny familiarity that drove people to purchase the record. Upon first needle drop it was revealed to house an abhorrent and obfuscatingly decrepit take on roots rock. Armed with this keen analytical knowledge, the band and their creative team harnessed the boundless marketability of the Trashmen, Dancing Cigarettes and 2 Live Crew to adorn their new disc with an equally palatable and deceptive frontal armour, provoking the straight laced garage rocker of yore to pay the price of entry. Once the branding and visual identity of this little package invited potential listeners in, they were met with incorrigible confusion. You see, after being pigeonholed by the punk paparazzi as a lowly party band, the Simps were tasked with driving home their knack for fervent versatility. This new record captures a group, in the clutches of maturity, boasting their emotional depth, triumphant chops and humble servitude to the trade of rock n roll clowning. Recalling the double speak of VU’s murder...

Retail Simps, Tha

Reverberant Scratch: 9 Shots In Tha Dark

Total Punk

***What if the Velvet Underground had written ‘Wooly Bully’ and Sam The Sham ‘Sister Ray?' If Ron House picked up some bongos and joined CCR or If Half Japanese and Hasil Adkins started a Meters cover band? This is the scrap yard of the Retail Simp's mind. Gang activity started when moldy Joe (Celluloid Lunch, Itchy Self...) enlisted fellow rhythm bro, Tom tha Moleanderthal (Feeling figures, Hélène Barbier band...) to make a perfect record in the Ides of corona March. A million Doll hairs and several rock bottoms later, the idea was to make something that would easily fall apart, this was executed with Montreal's best and brightest in the wings, lending a foot (all in the name of bogtime[sic] exposure). Bathroom-stall-wart and Barstool-smart Chrispy Burns (Terminal Sunglasses, American Devices…) was brought in to add his patented 'racket roll' guit-o-rama. James "Gogo" Goddard (SkinTone, Egyptian Cotton Arkestra...) skronked his reliable sax machine and the ticket was printed. Short on practice and high on ideas, thee Retail Simple Tones were born, well traveled and unraveled individuals, bound by a musical adventure. Now to show for it, Reverberant Scratch is a 9 track ruckus of tinny guitar sketching, horn-honking deliberations, keyboardarific doodles, and whatever else one can summon in a basement to bang on. It's a ramshackle party stabber. Loose, loud, and 100% TOTAL PUNK!!!