CALGARY INDIE BAND TO PLAY AMIGOS SATURDAY JUNE 7 WITH CHAD VANGAALEN
When Viet Cong, a Calgary psych-pop band which features ex-members of post-punk group Women, dropped their debut last fall, an EP that saw a very limited tour-only release, the members weren’t exactly optimistic about what would happen from there.
“We had self-dubbed 200 cassettes for the tour we did last year,” says bassist Matt Flegel. “We sold out of them really quick and people seemed to like the shitty cassette we made. They are poorly dubbed for the most part. It seemed like one in ten was warbly or something.”
People seemed to like it a whole lot though – featuring taut rhythms and brooding pop sensibilities, the cassette quickly sold out. Since then Mexican Summer has announced that they will be reissuing the Cassette EP on July 8.
“We had our stuff up on our Bandcamp and [Mexican Summer] contacted us to do a single at first but then they offered to rerelease our cassette on vinyl. Which I wasn’t really stoked about because they are old songs.”
But no one needs to worry too much about that: in addition to the reissue, Viet Cong also has an upcoming full-length, which was recorded last December in a converted barn outside of Toronto by Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh.
“Our album is more or less done,” says Flegel. “We’ve got a few songs that need finishing but it’s more or less done. I feel like it was a more collaborative effort. Everything on the cassette was mostly me and Monty playing. I’m not sure how much Danny and Mike are playing on there. For the full-length it’s all of us live in a room playing live. And we’ve been writing more together as well.
“We weren’t that great a year ago and we still aren’t,” he adds jokingly. “So nothing much has changed other than we are older and we’ve aged. It’s getting closer to what we want in terms of a live set though – that’s why we tour. It gets a little bit better and that’s all we can hope for.”