PROXY WAR I

No posts in a long time and various has arbitrarily MOVED to:

varioushfx.blogspot.com 

SEEK AND HIDE

Made another mixtape for a friend. Gotta pull an Aleister Crowley and call this my best work yet. Put the obligatory Chris D. track at the beginning this time.

SEEK AND HIDE (4 Roberto)

-A-

The Flesh Eaters "It's My Life to Live"

Mike Rep and the Quotas "This Island Earth"

Strawberry Switchblade "Since Yesterday"

Jaguar "Axe Crazy"

V-3 "Bristol Girl"

Patsy "Eat It"

Sandra Bell "Inner State"

R.D. Burman "Mehbooba Mehbooba"

electric eels "You're Full of Shit"

Crisis "Alienation"

-B-

Skinny Puppy "Assimilate"

Ice Cube "Endangered Species"

Poison Girls "Hole in the Wall (Thisbe's Song)"

45 Grave "Dream Hits II"

Shirley Collins "Polly Vaughan"

Sun City Girls "C.I.A. Man"

X____X "No No"

Peter Jefferies and Jono Lonie "The Standing Stone"

Thin Lizzy "Holy War"

DEATH TO THE EMPIRE

Hello, it took a few months but we finally opened an online store where you can get all your Various products in one place. Also have a few distro items in there, including the great record from Diat (Berlin/Melbourne) which came out last fall. Expect many updates and subtle changes in the future as our confidence builds and things slowly continue to come together. Hopefully we'll wind up with some local and foreign tapes, etc for distro, maybe even a few t-shirts. Can never underestimate the value of good clothing. Up next is the debut cassette from Noise Policy and hopefully at last another fanzine. I've said it before and I'll say it again: death to the empire!

Should add that a number of people have asked us about getting the first two Surveillance tapes. Though I thought they were all gone you can actually still get copies of Stressed and Depressed from Sorry State. So there ya go.

LIVE ALIVE

this friday, 22nd of january in the year of our lard 2016.

ASSHOLES/OPINIONS

here's a compendium of reviews of various and various related releases. if you have a fanzine and want trade some printed matter for review copies, ask and you shall receive. 

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Grump – North End Generic 7” EP (Various)

RECOMMENDED

Strange but rewarding five-song punk EP from Halifax, Nova Scotia, interesting largely for what the band doesn’t do, which is stick to genre or convention. Songs speed up and slow down, wild out and get spooky (particularly “Antagonist”), only sticking to the windswept, treated, hoarse through-the-nose yelling of their vocalist. As this thing winds to an end, it comes off a bit like Die Kreuzen “All White” inside a circus tent, for all we know the product of four people who have listened to a bit of punk/HC and either didn’t care enough to emulate what they’d heard, or simply didn’t know how, and just did their own thing instead. Reminiscent of the genre-busting random singles that popped up through the ‘90s, picking up influence like lint on chewed gum. Silkscreened chipboard pocket sleeve. Listen in at http://grump.bandcamp.com. 330 copies. (http://variousrecords.blogspot.ca)
(Doug Mosurock)

Surveillance – Man 7” EP (Various)

RECOMMENDED

Luck of the draw picks these two recent submissions from Halifax’s Various Records off the pile (this along with the Grump single seen above), and both are terrific. Surveillance is a product of three folks bent on subverting a noisy, punky pop presence with a brutalist charm offensive, whether they’re chasing Cub with pick slides (“Death”), doing away with the drums altogether and spacing out on the short, tuneful “Bud,” or riding huge waves of fuzz on their namesake B-side. Like Grump, I’m detecting serious gen-X/Y damage here, most evidently on “Surveillance,” channeling all the heavy roar of Sugar/Bailter Space/Party of Helicopters style guitars on a riff that drives itself diagonally into the dirt. Immense jammage, and over all too soon. Why can’t your band be more like this? 330 copies, check ‘em out at http://surveillance2015.bandcamp.com or just buy it here: (http://variousrecords.blogspot.ca)
(Doug Mosurock)

still-single.tumblr.com 

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[from the termbo DEMOS/TAPES FALL 2014 update]

Surveillance "Stressed and Depressed!!!" cassette

Surveillance have somehow created a working time machine and gone back and become one of the better Canadian bands of the boom of 1994 indie-rockers-signed-to-Sub-Pop but somehow forgot to make sure they got a song on the 'Nevermind the Molluscs' comp. These guys/gal are from Halifax, which is close enough to Moncton to sound like they recorded at Stereo Mountain. Super cool fuzzed out and desperately melancholic sounding rocking, with a guy and a gal taking turns on the mic. Not soft at all, and the tunes certainly have an agressive punk edge (much like the much beloved Eric's Trip/Elevator, who I just love comparing bands from NS to), there are some rich/lush sounding tunes offset by a couple raw 4 track-sounding rippers. They have a good thing going here, a real fuck off vibe ("Fucked Up and Naked", "Nazi Not Again", "Irrational Depression"), some sick guitar fuzz and solo squalls, both of them can sing, and the tunes have hooks of the non-saccharine variety. I've listened to this a bunch, how the hell do they not have a record out yet? (RK)

(self-released // surveillance2015.bandcamp.com)

[from the DEMOS/TAPES WINTER 2013-14 update]

Surveillance "Go Fuck Yourself" cassette
Halifax indie-rockers seven song demo cassette. With a title like "Go Fuck Yourself" you might be expecting some punk rockers, but this is trebly indie-rock certainly informed by Halifax's rich indie rock scene - Eric's Trip (and SY), Sloan, Jale and Velocity Girl by extension, a band that inspired at least one of those bands very much. Girl/boy vocal harmonizing, precious melodies with the rub being (and I guess this is the punk part) it's recorded very much in the lo-fi domain, obscuring the lilting hooks in a haze of static and hiss. Very tinny drum sound, plenty of feedbacking, a coupla sprintingly upbeat rockers and some solid songwriting. Not bad at all, woulda been a huge hit with the guy who did the indie rock show before we did the punk show on WBNY. Gold Soundz. I'd be interested to hear some more, but I'm also a sucker for Nova Scotian indie-rock. These guys practically challenged me to write a bad review, and that I couldn't do it says something...(RK)
(self-released // surveillance2015.bandcamp.com)

www.terminal-boredom.com

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[from Maximum Rock N Roll Nov. 2015 issue]

[from MRR Aug. 2014]

maximumrocknroll.com

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[And here's some more MRR reviews of the recent 7"s]

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[aaand from the good people at Sorry State, writeup for their newsletter/distro]

Surveillance: Man 7"

Debut vinyl from this Canadian band with a couple of cassette releases under their belt. The sound here is thick, raw, but song-oriented fuzz pop in the Dinosaur Jr mold. It seems like every scene has a band or two like this and some are better than others... Surveillance are one of the really, really good ones, their sound bolstered by strong pop songwriting, two extremely capable lead vocalists, and a sound that is dense yet raw. Imitation shoegaze is a genre that pretty much makes me want to wretch, but this ain't it... it's punk with a fuzz pedal on 10 and a pocket full of hooks. Get into it.

SURVEILLANCE "AREA C-51"

another surveillance tape. although it was recorded back in june, this one was thrown together before our short excretion to ontario and back just a couple of weeks ago. it was so last minute, in fact, that I forgot to put the catalogue number on it. so I guess you can call this VAR10 if you want, unless that ends up on something else. thanks to whoever bought this while we were on the road, and anyone who came out to the shows (and an extra big thanks to Chris Scott for helping us book the shows). check it out here: surveillance2015.bandcamp.com, e-mail zosimosss at gmail dot com if you want a copy, $5 plus shipping. additional thanks to jeremy "special" costello for twiddling knobs while we blasted these out and for lookin cool. cover art by rabies herself.

TOUR OF DUTY

surveillance hits the road next week, first shows not in halifax or st. john's. we will have new t-shirts for sale I will post an image of them when they are done.

also I'd like to make a special announcement that we had the wrong e-mail address listed on our bandcamp page for the past 5 weeks, so if you e-mailed "surveillance at gmail.com" you probably didn't get a reply. the real address is surveillance2015 at gmail.com. sad I know.