The Dudes - 24 Hours story

This is an article I did on The Dudes.

This came out in 24 Hours Calgary exactly a month ago. It's one of the better interviews I've done. A ringing endorsement. Also, the band is great, I reviewed their album late last year, and will be covering their show at The Horseshoe for CMW on Friday.

And lastly, I'll be covering 3 days of Canadian Music Week starting tonight - March 10th with Fucked Up at the El Mocambo. Saturday I'm taking off from CMW to see Joanna Newsom. There will be a review for that as well.

It's going to be a busy week. To use Nathan Rabin's catchphrase, I will "remain, as always, cautiously optimistic."

Read the Dudes article after the jump........



The Dudes, if you are not yet familiar with them, are Calgary's native sons. They're winding down their current cross-Canada trek in support of their most recent album, Blood, Guts, Bruises, Cuts with a show at Olympic Plaza on Saturday night.

Why see The Dudes?

“We're the best rock band in Canada, for starters,” Jokes frontman Dan Vacon. “And we do really high kicks, man, we're very flexible. Our kicks could go well over your shoulder. Sometimes they're accidentally synchronized.”

This sense of humour is apparent in their no-nonsense, unpretentious music, and also in their podcast , “Life In The Key of D”, which Vacon uses to reach out to his fans and tell stories from the road. It's available for free at The Dudes' website.

One very recent incident involves their drummer Scott Ross getting hit by a car in slow motion during a blizzard in Thunder Bay. Vacon witnessed the whole thing.

“Scott actually turned around just in time to see the car as I was yelling 'CAR!'. They actually dragged together about 30 feet. I was sure he was probably dead, but then I run over to the car to pick him up from under the car he was okay. No Broken bones, he just kind of couldn't walk for a long time.”

Something as slight as getting hit by a car will not stop the ever-tenacious Dudes though, “he only took one show off. It was crazy. We're all really proud of that dude.”

In terms of the future, Vacon is looking at things one step at a time, and not concerning himself with expectations.

“You put your time in in the basement, and then you put your time in the studio and you just let it go, and go wherever it takes you. We're all ready to go wherever this takes us.”