Peace! – The Cosmic Clash
PEACE
Peace bio for Suicide Squeeze
There’s a dark sense of absurdity to Peace’s music that often seems to match their Vancouver surroundings. Band members vividly recall the small sedan that once went screeching past their downtown eastside jam-space, a man clutched onto the open passenger window, and his feet skidding along the road. That was in the fall of 2008, only months after Peace officially formed. Or there are the almost mythic circumstances of the band’s name. Singer and lead songwriter Dan Geddes and drummer Geoff Dembicki were sharing a pint one afternoon in a scuzzy bar not far from their jam-space. They got chatted up by a fast-talking older man and the native friend he referred to as a “genius.” The “genius” didn’t say a word until Dan and Geoff got up to leave. “Peace”, he said suddenly, flashing them two fingers, “that’s the name of your band.”
Download “Your Hand In Mine“
It was a strange echo of events nearly four decades past, when founders of the world’s most famous environmental group also held up two fingers in the courtyard of a Vancouver church. “Peace,” said one. “Make it a green peace,” said another. But there the similarities to Peace’s hippie ancestors come to an end. The band’s sound has been described as a “hypnotic thud”, which may owe much to the downpour that keeps Vancouver in wet and darkness for nine months of the year. Yet if Connor Mayer’s bass-lines are crushing and repetitive, then Mike Willock’s manic guitar melodies are like weird breaks in the clouds.
The band released its debut LP, My Face, in the spring of 2011. Peace drove to Montreal and back to support it, each show stranger than the last. The gig they played in the basement of Canada’s department of foreign affairs building feels like a distant dream. Then came Peace’s performance in a detached suburban garage facing onto a cemetery. A working-class dad did sound while an iguana named “Yoda” lounged outside the bathroom. By the time Peace returned home to Vancouver, they’d added 6,800 miles to their van’s odometer.
The band recorded its sophomore LP ten months later in Pamela Anderson’s hometown, a fogged-in hamlet named Ladysmith on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The World is Too Much With Us builds on the depth and drama latent in Peace’s sound. Connor’s bass-lines menace and hypnotize. Mike’s guitar solos explode suddenly in wah-pedal freak-outs. Geoff’s tom-toms thud with a tribal intensity. And Dan’s lyrics, for which he’s been referred to as Vancouver’s “post-punk poet laureate”, alternate between images of defiant despair and love-sick yearning.
The album caught the attention this summer of Suicide Squeeze Record’s David Dickenson, who signed the band not long after. He’ll be releasing The World is Too Much With Us worldwide in October. Catch Peace on tour across North America that same month, as they hit the road seeking fame and fortune — or something equally absurd.
Peace on tour!
OCT 6 – Vancouver BC, Astoria (RECORD RELEASE SHOW)
OCT 12 – Seattle WA, Hollow Earth w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 13 – Olympia WA, The Northern w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 15 – San Francisco CA, Knockout w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 16 – Los Angeles CA, Origami Vinyl (in-store 7p – FREE PIZZA + BEER)
OCT 16 – Los Angeles CA, Bluestar Bar w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 17 – San Diego CA, Tin Can w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 18 – Orange County CA, House Show w/ Nü Sensae, Audacity
OCT 19 – Oakland CA, RCA w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 21 – Portland OR, The Know w/ Nü Sensae
OCT 24 – Denver CO, Rhinoceropolis
OCT 26 – Minneapolis MN, Palmer’s Bar
OCT 27 – Chicago IL, Quenchers (Halloween show)
OCT 28 – Chicago IL, Swerp Mansion (email info@SwerpRecords.com for the address)
NOV 1 – Baltimore MD, Ottobar (upstairs)
NOV 2 – Philadelphia PA, Kung Fu Necktie
NOV 3 – New York NY, Pianos
NOV 9 – Ottawa ON, The Dominion w/ Pregnancy Scares, Dagger Eyes
NOV 11 – Sudbury ON, Millard’s Garage
NOV 14 – Saskatoon SK, Vangelis
NOV 15 – Calgary AB, Broken City
NOV 17 – Edmonton AB, Wunderbar
“It is as dark in tone and tenor as skies over Vancouver in December, heard clearly in the slightly acidic, Orange Juice-informed first listen “Your Hand In Mine,” a moonlit number with a heavy heart and dead eyes.” – SPIN.com
“Again, they have proven that rock ‘n’ roll can still be interesting, inventive, and melodic without feeling washed up and tired. Plus, Geddes knows how to write a hook like no one else.” – Vice
“I first heard of the band Peace when I was at the Calgary music festival, Sled Island. The boys in Peace had been in an accident. Their car flipped on the highway, breaking all their equipment and almost killing three of the four of them. Regardless, they hopped on a bus and made it to the festival. They all took mushrooms before their show and managed to get back to Vancouver alive.” – Hearty Magazine
“Just how many killer guitar licks will fit on a 42-minute LP? Peace answers this question on My Face by packing 11 postpunk bangers with hypnotically interwoven guitar leads and fleet-fingered bass lines..” – Georgia Straight
