The Vulcan Dub Squad

The Vulcan Dub Squad was an indie rock band from Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Known for their idiosyncratic live shows, they shared the stage with home-towners, The Junction, Five Blank Pages and Moneen many times throughout their career.^[1]

The band ran the sonic gamut from the ambient instrumental lullabies of their earlier records, their avant-garde/shoegaze and art-rock releases circa. 2000, to finally arrive on the final iteration of their sound: a Pastiche Pop fusing the earlier elements while drawing on garage/psych and folk strains as well, to blend and blur them all into something genuinely new.

The band's last LP, The New Designers, was inspired by Expo '67 with music that sounds like architecture. The LP comes on like a meld of Arthur Lee's Love, The Smiths and The Kinks, The Wedding Present and Thor's Hammer (60s legends from Iceland), while at the same time offering transitional coherence reminiscent of 50/60's Bollywood scores. In the summer of 2006 they visited Habitat 67 during the recording of this LP for documentary footage and on-site audio recordings for use on the record.

Describing the Vulcans isn't the easiest task – stylistically they run the gamut from gently jangling pop to hyperkinetic riffery, often within the same song. The Vulcan Dub Squad released their last album, The New Designers on August 9, 2007 at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, ON.

History

Early years (1997–1999)

The Vulcan Dub Squad began in a basement in Brampton, Ontario in 1997 with the founding three members – Andrew Hunter (drums), Jason Doell (bass), and Ranbir (Rick) Gundu (guitars/vox). The band's first objectives were to take the ambient melodies of house music and fuse that sound with the harrowing landscapes employed by bands like The Cure and The Chameleons UK.

After placing flyers in North Park in Brampton, the trio found two other interested musicians (David Croft and Graham Wilson) who ended up filling up the roster containing a second drum unit and second guitar. With theatre being a main presence in their live shows, the band dressed up in masks and strange suits much to the shock of most audiences. Over the years, they've refined their on-stage garb as well as stage theatrics, which included everything from long-winded sermons to toilet papering each other to look like mummies. The mask phenomenon intrigued many and disturbed others. The music industry often looked upon the band as a gimmick and overlooked the musical output, which was also difficult to classify. The early years provided much in the way of ambient–shoe-gaze instrumentals riding heavily on reverb, delay and echo effects.

This Nation's Saving Face era (2002–2004)

With the line-up pared down the four-piece with the exit of original founder (Andrew Hunter), the band recorded their first proper LP at BWC studios in late 2002 and released it on their own independent label, Five Deadly Records. This era saw the band take their sound from its very washy and ambient beginnings into more orchestrated pieces, relying on the whisper-to-a-scream methodology that was used by indie rockers like The Pixies and post-rock sound-sculptors such as Slint and Mogwai. The Vulcans emphasized their detachment from other independent musicians of their time by covering The Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", except changing the title to "We're Not Like Everybody Else". The band managed to gain an underground cult following in suburban towns like Mississauga, Brampton and Burlington with their energetic and theatrical performances.

Discography

Albums

• The Blue Tape (1997)
• The Spock Demos (1999)
• This Nation's Saving Face (2003)
• Just Watch Us (2005)
• The New Designers (2007)

EP's

• The Marathon of Hope (2002)

Current members

• Ranbir Gundu: Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards
• Graham Wilson: Guitar
• David Croft: Drums

Former members

• Andrew Hunter: Drums, Guitar
• Jason Doel: Bass
• David Lush: Keyboards, Guitar
• Matt del Buono: Bass
• Aaron Foster: Guitar, Hair Products, Designer Eyeware
• Jamie Banks: Bass

References

Yang, Frank. "The New Designers (show review)". 

Hilmarsson, Phil. "The New Designers (album Review)". 

External links