My Sister Ocean: Press

4 out of 5 stars.

"By far, Nucularboy in one of the sharpest records to come out of Edmonton..."

5 out of 5 stars.

"My Sister Ocean is a force to be reckoned with."

Concert review: My Sister Ocean
More with less: Edmonton rock duo gets groove on

EDMONTON - Rock fans were treated to quite the show Wednesday night as local boys My Sister Ocean took the stage at the Urban Lounge on Whyte.

The band was well-received by the few patrons who showed up early enough to see them open the show for the annual Kokanee Freeride Battle of the Bands, which they won last year.

Stripped-down is probably the best way to describe the band's sound: it is composed solely of front-man and bassist Holden Daniels and drummer Eugenio Pacileo.

"The whole thing kind of started as a side project," said Pacileo. "Holden asked me one day if I was interested, and we had been playing together for years, so I thought it would be cool to try."

Dynamic duo

The two rockers gave the minimal audience a full blast of distorted bass lines, crisp vocals, pounding grooves and spacey electronics from their latest album, Nucular Boy.

More importantly, they sounded almost as if there were twice as many musicians playing with them.

"With the duo thing, I think it almost works better for us," said Daniels. "It kind of sets us apart from other acts; all of a sudden we weren't just another rock band anymore."

Ready for radio

Surprisingly enough, with only two members doing the work of three to five musicians, their music is still accessible and radio-ready.

Songs like Beautiful Failures and Don't Change the Station, the band's current radio single, were the perfect example of their innovation: catchy, bass-driven dance-floor-ready alternative rock.

Daniels said although artists such as The White Stripes, Death From Above 1979 and Duotang are all similar in instrumentation to My Sister Ocean, there is something different about his now full-time side-project.

"The initial recordings sounded so cool, and it was refreshing not to rely on guitar," said Daniels. "We didn't sound like most popular bands, so it was kind of our own thing."

One last jam

And the band looked comfortable doing their own thing as their set progressed to their final song, You and Me, a rowdy groove-rocker.

Late-arriving fans filed to the stage to sing and dance along, prompting Daniels to hop the barrier with bass in hand to jam with the audience for a final instrumental freak-out.

- Special to The Journal

© Edmonton Journal 2008

HEADLINE: Nucularboy paints spot-on picture of our times.
Variety of musical flavours infuse My Sister Ocean's new album.

Singer/bassist Holden Daniels must be a champion channel surfer, if My Sister Ocean's new album, Nucularboy, is any indication.

The local rockers change directions every five minutes -- flipping through Cylon-rock on Searching For Something More, electro-industrial on The Most, and sensitive Savage Garden-style pop on You and Me.

"I really want to be more like Beck," says Daniels.

"If there was one artist I was trying to hint at with this recording, it was the changing channels that you get from listening to Beck because he has all those different flavours." TV (and radio) references also happen to make their way into several of MSO's songs, including the intoxicating bass 'n' piano single, Don't Change The Station, which also features vocoder-ized vocals and hiccuping thwaps.

Then, there's the title of the pair's stunning second effort, due in stores Tuesday.

Inspired by some of the boob tube's doofiest father figures, Daniels and drummer Eugenio Pacileo deliberately botched the spelling of Nucularboy.

"That's how Homer (from The Simpsons) says (nuclear), that's how Peter (from Family Guy) says it, that's how George Bush says it," MSO's vocalist and main lyricist chuckles.

"It's a commentary in itself. I wanted people to go, 'Oh, did he do that on purpose?' " Not that Nucularboy dwells only on the power of TV.

By and large, Daniels paints a spot-on picture of our times -- bumbling presidents, vulnerable superheroes, metrosexuals, starving musicians -- but he also dives into his not-so-rosy past.

High and Decade of Pain were partly inspired by one of his own father figures, who wasn't nearly as hilarious as Homer Simpson.

"My stepdad was an alcoholic, he was a drug addict, and he was just ever so slightly abusive," says Daniels.

"I didn't go to school with black eyes, but I definitely had a black-and-blue behind more than to the point than was just discipline. He would hit out of anger.

"The further away I get from it, I sometimes wonder if it even happened. It was so long ago. I feel sheepish and funny even writing about it now. He was my stepdad for eight years and this period of time was only two or three years -- but if I say it and get it out there, I feel I'm really connecting with people who are wondering if anyone's ever gone through the crap they're going through." Transmission accomplished.

My Sister Ocean play Saturday at the Starlite Room, 10030 102nd St. with Screwtape Lewis and Chunk.

Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Nucular meltdown
My Sister Ocean chatterbox Holden Daniels talks about his new CD
MY SISTER OCEAN
w/ Chunk and Screwtape Lewis. Sat, July 28 (8pm). Starlite Room. Tickets: $10

"If they had tested me for A.D.D. when I was younger, I probably would’ve been diagnosed with it. I change my mind every two seconds, I’m hyper and I can’t really focus that well."

It’s weird to hear a statement like that coming from someone who, on paper, seems like such a perfectionist. Once you’re sitting in front of My Sister Ocean bassist/vocalist Holden Daniels, however, it’s an entirely different story. Chirpy, energetic and rearing to reveal his entire life’s story to a complete stranger, Daniels is practically a fountain of personal reflections, unknown music tidbits and everything in between.

Is being talkative a bad thing, though? Hardly. In an industry where MySpace and YouTube have brought each and every teenage jam band out of the basement, things have gotten increasingly competitive–especially in Edmonton’s music scene, where venue shortages remain Topic A. You’ve got to make yourself stand out, and an eagerness to talk to the press isn’t the worst trait you could have.

But that’s not the only side of Daniels’ personality. His outgoing side–let’s call him "Hyper Daniels"–takes care of the social aspects of promotion, selling My Sister Ocean to anyone who will listen. (The band’s a bass-and-drum duo, by the way; drummer Eugenio Pacileo is the combo’s other half.) Hyper Daniels is especially busy lately promoting MSO’s latest album, Nucular Boy (and yes, "nucular" is pronounced how it’s spelled–i.e., the same way Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin and George W. Bush do).

But when he’s in the studio, a different personality emerges–but what to call him? "Control Freak Daniels"? "Megalomaniac Daniels"? He’s a stickler for details, that’s for sure, and yet in conversation he’s chronically unable to stick to the topic. Music just might be the only thing keeping these two forces from tearing each other apart. Luckily, he’s good at it. Just ask him!

"Without it being a slight to any other producers in Edmonton," Daniels says excitedly between sips of steaming coffee, "one of the reasons I produced my own album was because, on a local level, I’m not really sure any producer that I’ve had the opportunity to work with or hear about would push me hard enough to do anything different than what I would already do myself. I find that I’m quite domineering in the studio and call a lot of the shots.

"I’m the one that knows my music the best," he continues, "and no one else really knows has really jumped up and said, ‘You know what? This song should be done like this. I know what you’re doing, but wouldn’t it be cool to try this?’ And anytime anyone’s done that, the results have always been subpar. And as far as out-of-town producers go, there are a handful I’d like to work with, but it’s a budgetary thing."

Aside from producing Nucular Boy all by himself, Daniels also filmed the music video for the single "Don’t Change the Station," again without any outside help. It’s not the most cohesive album ever recorded, and the disc’s raw, dense sound doesn’t make it an obvious candidate for radio play (although MSO does have songs in regular rotation on XM Satellite), but Daniels feels that all his fussing and tinkering helped MSO find its own pop-rock niche, their own little corner of the musical world.

"The album resembles the way that I always change my mind," Daniels explains. "I had originally wanted a theme for the album, but ultimately, what happened was the 12 songs were written over the course of two years and so they’re all about different things. They still all pertain to my life, but the title Nucular Boy really just is a stream-of-consciousness songwriting thing. That’s what I do; I try not to think when I write."

"The music is loud, tight, and unapologetic."

Plus, Marmot would rather end on a high note rather than squeezing out those last few days on less than stellar conditions. Speaking of notes, Marmot found its groove last weekend at the upper chalet during the Kokanee Freeride party, which featured Battle of the Bands winner, My Sister Ocean. Skiers drawn by all the hoo-ha were no doubt surprised to find the rich, complex driving tunes were emanating from two guys - a drummer and a bassist.

It’s not often that musicians profiled in this column come close to being apologetic for picking the albums that most influenced their musical careers.

But that’s the case with Holden Daniels, one half of Edmonton’s My Sister Ocean, a minimalist drum-and-bass combo. Daniels goes with Pearl Jam’s Ten, the straight-ahead rock album that got tagged as “grunge” simply because the band broke out of Seattle in the early ‘90s.

"I know Pearl Jam isn’t the band that indie bands are supposed to like, but there was a time when to me they were like gods," Daniels says. “My favourite rock bassist would be Flea [of the Red Hot Chili Peppers], and he’s a huge influence, but [Pearl Jam bassist] Jeff Ament’s tendency to stay with the root notes and simply hold the low end for the band has been a style I’ve adopted and loved for years.

"Eddie Vedder isn’t my favourite singer of all time, and as individuals, the guys in the band aren’t the best players or songwriters in the world, but combined, Pearl Jam has something that I don’t see in a lot of bands,” he continues enthusiastically. “I’ve been waiting since 1991 for another album from any band that has the same energy that Ten does ... I’m definitely a product of the early ‘90s Seattle Scene, and I’ve gone through periods of being both proud and ashamed of it. Pearl Jam’s new album is good and all, but I sometimes wish for more riff-based songs like “Garden,” “Deep” and “Even Flow,” although now I wonder if I’d like them or think they’re too much like Creed. I guess we’ll never know!"

Pearl Jam was formed with the addition of transplanted San Diegan Eddie Vedder to the ashes of Seattle band Mother Love Bone. Because of their long locks and the fact they came out of Seattle shortly after Nirvana and Soundgarden broke, they were immediately tossed into the grunge pile.

But Ten is actually just a tight melodic rock effort. Sure "Alive" speaks of isolation and "Jeremy" is the tale of the lonely schoolkid gone crazy, but the truth is that Pearl Jam was even more successful than Nirvana when it came to connecting with the rock mainstream. If it wasn’t for geography, there’s no way that the word "grunge" would have been used to describe the band at all.

Yes, Pearl Jam is still filling arenas now, but even their most hardened fans would admit that Ten is still the band’s ultimate achievement.

As for My Sister Ocean, you can check out new songs on the band’s website, mysisterocean.com, in anticipation of a brand-new CD to come, or you can catch the band’s CD release party at the Sidetrack on Jul 15.