Vancougar

If Mary Weiss, former singer of the '60s girl group the Shangri-Las, records a followup to her 2006 comeback, she could find her album's centerpiece by covering one particular song by the Canadian band Vancougar. The all-femme quartet has written a modern girl-group anthem in "(I Hope Your) Money (Keeps You Warm)": Built around a tender-but-tough vocal, the song gets added leverage from spot-on vocal harmonies, some pretty keyboard arpeggios and fuzz bass.

Vancougar doesn't simply mine the '60s aesthetic, though, preferring to draw on a number of styles that span various generations -- something that can't be pigeonholed as retro. Touting itself as "half indie-rock, half garage rock," Vancougar touches on elements of both styles, while avoiding the three-chords-and-a-sneer approach of garage girls like the Donnas.

Vancougar's name plays on the group's hometown of Vancouver, although its origins are in the Santa Cruz, Calif., of the late 1990s. There, two Canadian expats -- guitarist and lead vocalist Eden Fineday and bassist Becca Stewart -- crossed paths, although they never started a band until both headed back across the border. Keyboardist Megan Johnson and drummer CC Rose soon followed, and Vancougar played its first shows in 2003. Canadian Tuxedo, the band's sophomore album, was released on Mint Records and recorded at JC/DC Studios, which also gave birth to albums by the New Pornographers, which could explain the kick felt throughout the album.

Much of Canadian Tuxedo suggests what the Bangles probably sounded like in their early, scrappier days before teased hair and Susanna Hoffs' visage stomped all over their credibility. "Vanity" starts out with a stomping, four-on-the-floor beat and a dirty riff, but it goes on to add a hooky, stop-start break, a sea of backing vocals and some handclaps, which become soul claps on the following song, "Every Car." "Let It Go" begins with that same aching sentiment that Weiss patented with the Shangri-Las, but instead of languishing in a Spector-esque wall of sound, Fineday's protagonist is suddenly surrounded by a wall of power chords and fuzz.

In person, where a PA system can capture the harmonies and bury the shortcomings in the lyric department, a band like Vancougar can really bring a crowd to its feet.

Vancougar Sat., Oct. 25. Gooski's, 3117 Brereton St., Polish Hill. 412-681-1658 - http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=54111

The first cut on Vancougar's debut album Losin' It is a pure blast of hooky pop-punk called "Mine First" about that band you loved before anyone else did, and it's so much fun you might get the idea this is another bunch of gals who can skillfully play the "cute indie ladies playing hooky stuff" card. But listen a little longer and deeper and it becomes clear Vancougar are made of stronger stuff than that, and Losin' It is a pretty terrific rock & roll record. Vocalist and guitarist Eden Fineday is a promising talent on both counts; her singing carries considerable melodic and emotional weight, and if her fretwork isn't flashy, it's strong and fills the spaces with just the right balance of noise and tunefulness. Megan Johnson's keyboards are a superb foil for Fineday's six-string attack, and the frantic codas on "Down on Me" and "Way It's Gon' Be" are genuinely inspired noise. Bassist Becca Stewart and drummer CC Rose are a kick-ass rhythm section who can sway on the poppier tunes and lay down the law on harder stuff with equal skill, and the group harmonies are sharper and more skillful than you'd expect. As good as the band is, the songs are the real pleasant surprise on this disc; this sure isn't the first band to write about the travails of grade school, upended relationships or painful insecurity, but Vancougar put a spin on their material that's fresh, honest and indicative of songwriters with imagination and fierce passion, and the melodies are every bit as memorable as the words. (And "Credit Tard" is quite likely the first great rock song about prudent money management.) Don't be fooled by the playful exterior of Losin' It -- Vancougar are fun, but they're also a rock band that genuinely delivers the goods, and this debut album makes it clear that they are a band to watch. - Mark Deming

This is treating my ears right. Crunchy indie rock with girl-group harmonies and pop sensibilities without excessive sheen. The vocals invite comparisons to the GO GOS and BANGLES but you can tell this was born in the garage and not in an LA recording studio.. They're also not really that retro-- Liz Phair could be another touchstone. The first song, "Mine First", is about discovering some new band and thinking they're your little secret, only to lose them to commercial radio popularity and the MTV Nation. I wouldn't be surprised if Vancougar fans are going to suffer the same frustration soon. (Allan McNaughton)
- Maximum Rock'N'Roll - March 2007

Despite its jokey moniker and employment of the age-old gimmick of the all-girl lineup, Vancougar is a band to be taken seriously. With its lo- to medium-fi guitar-bass-drums attack topped with new-wave-inflected keyboards and decent pop harmonies, the four-piece follows the road mapped out by the Dishrags, the Pointed Sticks, and other pioneers of this citys first-wave punk scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Its edgy enough for the white belts, but the well-crafted hooks suggest that, with an extra coat or two of gloss, Vancougar could reach an audience beyond the two-dozen cool kids who fill Pats Pub on any given Saturday night.

Judging by this discs catchiest number, however, such a development might not sit well with the band or its followers. Mine First is a lament for all those once-underground bands whom the scenesters have lost to the larger world of pop culture. Katie Sketch, we hardly knew ye. (John Lucas)
- The Georgia Straight - June 15-21, 2006

As the crowd trickled in, Vancougar got the early-goers smirking with their awesome brand of party time garage pop. Playing the favourites from their now classic Losin’ It, they had people dancing right away, including a blonde, dreadlocked hippie whose frantic, out-of-place thrusting had her quickly ejected. Fellow locals the Parallels kept the party going with their cleaner approach to soulful garage. Looking sharp in collared shirts and blazers, the band were diligent about leaving no foot untapped. It was thanks to these feel-good opening bands that spirits were high for the Black Lips’ set. Surrounded by notoriety, the Black Lips had their audience buzzing weeks before the show. Known for urinating on themselves and vomiting on the crowd, they couldn’t have lived up to the hype if they performed the Puppetry of the Penis — and they didn’t. Instead, we were treated to their classic brand of muck’n’roll at its loudest. Though decidedly lo-fi on record, the Lips’ arsenal of garage jams sounded unbelievable through a club PA. From “Dirty Hands” to the night-ending “Wild Man,” the Black Lips let their songs speak for themselves. They still had their share of bizarre surprises, however. Guitarist Ian St. Pe was wearing grills that shined every time he’d smile, and there were times that the Price is Right theme blared out the speakers between songs. But at the end of the night, it was the band’s loose and rowdy performance that left the strongest impression. Opting for good times over gimmickry, the Black Lips played the kind of solid set that made everyone in attendance want to go home and memorise their records, if only they could hear. (Josiah Hughes) - Exclaim! Magazine (www.exclaim.ca)

The second LP from all-female foursome Vancougar demonstrates that the strength of their debut album, Losin' It!, was no fluke. While Losin' It!, recorded in 2005 and finally released in 2007, captured the group's scrappy blend of pop, punk, and garage sounds with a joyous immediacy, 2008's Canadian Tuxedo is every bit as passionate but boasts a dash more polish and enough chops to make their music sound significantly more potent in the second round. Eden Fineday's guitar and Megan Johnson's keyboards reveal a lot more backbone and a bit more technical accomplishment here, while the group's harmonies add a gloss to the tunes that's smooth but not slick and drummer CC Rose and bassist Becca Stewart get the job done with enthusiasm and not too much fuss. But the biggest improvement comes in Vancougar's songwriting; their melodic sense was already strong, but their lyrical skills have jumped a grade or two, and their tales of some nameless stoner ("Philadelphia"), a greedy turncoat in love ("[I Hope Your] Money [Keeps You Warm]"), the onset of adult responsibility ("Let It Go"), and long-distance relationships ("Phone Calls") crackle with understated wit and emotional force, while even standard-issue gripes about cars and vanity carry more weight than you would expect. Vancougar haven't set out to dramatically overhaul their formula on Canadian Tuxedo, but they've clearly improved on nearly every level, and this has the spunk, the energy, and the hooks to make a believer out of anyone; this is punk-leaning pop at its most purely enjoyable.
- Mark Deming, All Music Guide

With a title that pays homage to this nation’s unofficial uniform — a denim jacket worn with jeans — East Vancouver’s darling all-girl quartet Vancougar launches its second full-length release, and first on Mint Records. Curiously for an album whose name evokes images of mullets and stubby beer bottles, Canadian Tuxedo turns out to be more of a hairspray-and-poodle-skirt affair. The audio equivalent of taking your boyfriend to see a chick flick at the local drive-in, Canadian Tuxedo is an emotional roller-coaster of teenage proportions — this time as seen from a feminine perspective. It is also a well-executed, hyperactively catchy, footloose and fancy-free musical explosion that eats up 10 tracks in no time flat.

Vocalist-guitarist Eden Fineday has never sounded better, her clear and soaring intonations and broad, hooky riffs easily topping her performance on 2007’s Losin’ It. Claiming Blondie and Elvis Costello as two of her biggest influences, she channels both on hand-clapping, jangle-rock sensations like the disarming “Unmanned” and the painfully naive “Obvious.”

Producer Dave Carswell (New Pornographers, A.C. Newman, Bella, Tegan and Sara) does his best to bring the band’s natural curves into the spotlight, padding out their softer side with Megan Johnson’s shimmering keyboard surges and Becca Stewart’s super-fuzzy bass distortions. Drummer CC Rose provides indie-punk urgency as Vancougar bounces from the prom-night ballad “(I Hope Your) Money (Keeps You Warm)” to the jilted debutant rant “Philadelphia.” Recalling their early years spent collaborating in the garages of Santa Cruz, California, Eden and Becca layer on the Beach-Boy-worthy indie-pop harmonies for what amounts to the perfect summer fling.
- Christine Leonard

To anyone outside of Canada who casually glances at the new Vancougar record, you might dismiss the cover without too much thought. It almost comes off as a bit generic; a bit too similar to the classic records that litter every punk rockers collection.

But when you take a closer look, it's fitting that the Ramones style black and white cover is shot against a big tree (as opposed to a gritty street backdrop) and instead of a bunch of ugly dudes, Vancougar is "all girl." And with those two simple realizations, the seemingly innocuous cover really set the tone for the band. The four girls from Vancougar are all about big guitar riffs, but they are more playful than snotty and even as rough as East Van gets, it's still beautiful.

All of those little things are great, but the thing that really made me smile was the title. The Canadian Tuxedo is a tradition that we can't seem to shake, as day after you see people rocking a fresh pair of denim with a (possibly matching) jean jacket. Yes, Canada seems to favor the denim destroyer, and although this has nothing to do with the review, but I just thought the girls deserved some kudos for the title.

Anyway, back to the record. Driven by the vocals of Eden Fineday - who I guess would play Riff Randle in this tale - and backed by CC's solid drums, Megan's shimmering vintage keys and Becca's fuzzy bass, Vancougar manages to jump between garage, 90's indie, and even toss in a ballad or two ((I Hope Your) Money (Keeps You Warm)). But the band does best when they crank up the energy, amps and distortion like they do on the catchy lead single Obvious. Eden's crystal clear vocals contrasts the huge sounds and makes for a catchy jam that transitions perfectly into the swirling, crunch of Vanity. With hand claps and ahhhhhs, Vancougar really hits on that pop punker sound that the Donnas used to be so good at.

They mix in elements of folk (the intro of the heavier Let it Go), but the goal of the record is making sure you have fun. Even on the 60's themed, slow dance paced Money, hearing Eden admit her rich man "can go to hell" is like a Pretty in Pink anthem for the new millennium. All too often, bands take themselves too seriously and strip away enjoyment from records like this, but Vancougar - like the name suggests - would rather see you smile than sneer. Works for me. - http://www.herohill.com/2008/06/reviews-vancougar-canadian-tuxedo.htm

This new album from the all-girl garage rock band hailing from, you guessed it, Vancouver is an unapologetic raucous of catchy punk jams and raw energy. These gals embody everything I loved about female rock bands of yore, like the Beards, Heavenly and Sleater Kinney, but they go a step further with their nostalgic nods to ‘60s Spectorian gals sans the gimmick. Eden Fineday keeps things short and sweet with her infectious vocals and sly lyrics of heartbreak and lust.
Recommended if you dig ... Sleater Kinney or Le Tigre. - TV Guide - Jessica Russell

East Vancouver’s thriving music scene has filled the Canadian soundscape with a healthy crop of bands over the last few years, but too many have opted for the drugged-out, sombre route. Fortunately, there’s an underground rock’n’roll movement that knows all about having fun, and the ladies of Vancougar are their forebears. Based upon the infectious melodies written and sung by Eden Fineday, the band are rounded out by Becca Stewart’s heavy bass, Megan Johnson’s vintage keys and CC Rose’s straight-ahead drumming. Following the runaway success of their Scratch Records debut Losin’ It, the ladies signed with Mint and holed up in JC/DC Studios to create Canadian Tuxedo, ten tracks of summery garage pop bliss. Anchored by Eden’s foolproof songwriting, the album displays a penchant for four-part harmonies, ’60s keyboards and enough fuzzy bass to counter the saccharine melodies. From the group vocals and climactic guitar solo of “Unmanned” to the addictive chorus of “Obvious,” the blend of crunchy garage with smooth pop is tough to resist. Even when the songs deviate from the formula, as on the sock-hop rumbler “Money” and the waltzing bummer “Lonely Life,” they manage to maintain an infectious, buzzing energy throughout the record. Whether you’re riding your bike down Main and Broadway or kicking it somewhere else in Canada, Canadian Tuxedo is an ideal summer choice.

What is a Canadian tuxedo?
A Canadian tuxedo is a jean jacket with jeans. I didn’t make this up. I don’t think there’s a Wikipedia entry yet but if you Google it you can do an image search and see photos of Bryan Adams and other Canadians who have worn denim on denim. That’s why, on our album cover, we’re wearing all jeans. We like the title Canadian Tuxedo because it’s cool to be from Canada. We tour the States a lot, and when we’re down there we just appreciate being from Canada. We got government support to go to Austin. We’re lucky to be Canadian and we like representing. For so long, America’s been the cool place to be but by naming our album that, we’re saying that being an all-girl band and being a Canadian band is the new cool.

Working on the album for Mint and knowing it would reach a wider audience, did you feel a lot of pressure going into the studio?
I wasn’t sure it would have a wider audience because Mint was still a concept in my head. I didn’t understand how it would play out in my life but I certainly hoped it would. I had no idea what I was getting into really. But I always find recording really stressful. I get really nervous in the studio. I always look forward to it but then I get shaky and terrified for some reason. It helps for me that we’ve always recorded live, so you just play the song, you play it great and then it’s done. All you have to do is add vocals, and I found vocals this time were really hard. I had to do so many takes to get the right track. Dave Carswell, the engineer at JC/DC, played me the scratch vocals, and they were spot on tone-wise. So I went into the studio to do the real vocals and I was so nervous that I got all “pitchy,” as Randy Jackson would say.

Where do you work all day?
I just have an office job. Technically, it’s called information management. I help people keep information in a database.

Is that ever an issue with band stuff?
We’ve never done too much touring. It’s always just been a week here and a week there, and I’ve just been able to use my vacation time. This year, I’m getting married and I’m using up all my vacation time on my honeymoon, but we’re simultaneously lining up a month-long tour in the fall. I haven’t told my employers that I’m going. I just figured I’ve got to do this, so they’re either going to give it to me or I’m going to have to quit my job.

Do you have a favourite tour story?
I lost my pants in Boston. It’s not that crazy. It was really hot and I needed to put on shorts. The people we were staying with, they mailed them back to me. I didn’t have pants for a week and a half.

Where’s your favourite place to play?
We spent four days in Brooklyn and played three shows, and that was pretty awesome. We played a house party in Brooklyn at this guy Jamie’s house. Any time you see a band playing a house party in Brooklyn, it’s usually at Jamie’s house. Then we spent the evening jamming Neil Young songs on acoustic guitars until six a.m. I like living room shows the best. In the scene I came up in, living room shows were where it was at. I saw some of my favourite bands in living rooms when I was really into indie rock in the ’90s. They don’t have living room shows in Vancouver much, so it’s really nice when we can play them on tour.

Where did you grow up?
I was raised in East Vancouver. I lived here from when I was two until I moved away. I moved to California when I was 17. I dropped out of high school; I thought I knew everything. I moved to California, got a green card and was just working. Eventually, I ended up going back to school because I realised working sucks. That’s where I really feel like I became who I am now, especially musically.

When did you start playing music?
I didn’t pick up the guitar until I was 19, and I was 21 when I started my first band. That was in Santa Cruz, California. We were called the What-nots. That lasted for about five years. We always played living room shows. We almost never played the big venues because that was for the touring bands. East Bay punk rock was huge — bands like Jawbreaker and J Church. We were into that kind of stuff. Just total ’90s stuff.

Where did you find your musical influences?
I have an older brother and older sister, and it was so awesome to be the younger sister. They had musical tastes, and when I was really young I just listened to what they listened to. We didn’t have a TV, we had a record player. My mom was into music and we all played instruments. When I was five, my favourite records were Parallel Lines by Blondie and My Aim is True by Elvis Costello. Later on, I was into more stuff like Tom Petty and Pat Benatar — total pop rock, just catchy pop songs. Then I got into Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Cindy Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. Stuff I still really like today. I really like girl singers because I knew from a young age that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be Blondie, even when I was five.

How did Vancougar form and was it intentional to be an all-female band?
Not really. Becca and I met in Santa Cruz, and she lived down there for three years, so we started playing music together. We both played in other bands, but we had a side-project called the Peggy Hills. That was an all-girl band but it was just for fun. She moved back to Vancouver and a few years later I moved back to Vancouver too. I got in touch with her because by then I had been away for so long that she was the only person I knew anymore. I called her up and she’s a bass player and I’m a guitar player and singer, so I called her up like, “Let’s start a band!” I can’t not have a band, Her roommate at the time was Megan, who plays keyboards, so it was like, “Boom! There’s three quarters of the band!” We needed a drummer, but we thought there was something irritating about an all-girl band with a boy drummer. It’s kind of a cliché, so we thought we should just get a girl drummer. We didn’t know CC, but we knew she played for this band the Cinch, and we knew one of their members was pregnant and was going to leave the band, so we went to a Cinch show and got CC to come jam with us. That was back in the fall of 2003.

When you started, did you have any set goals for how the band would sound?
You know, I knew right away that we all had very different musical tastes, and I knew that Becca and Megan were totally into garage rock and I couldn’t get into that; I wasn’t into that scene at all. I didn’t come from that scene and I didn’t know where it came from. It just sprung up and it was all anybody was listening to. I couldn’t really get into it because I’m a pop person. I like stuff that is catchy and I can sing along to. But it seemed to be that the punk rock of the ’90s had morphed into the garage rock of the ’00s, and I kinda wasn’t feeling that, so I thought I’d write these songs and see what we’d do. They took these simple pop songs and made them their own. CC brings the driving poundingness, Becca plays through a Big Muff pedal so it’s super-distorted bass, and Megan plays through her tremolo. The one thing we found that we all had in common, and I think it’s why we sound the way we do, was the ’60s as a starting point. Girl groups in the ’60s, tremolo sounds, harmonies — that’s where all of our musical tastes intersect.

Was it difficult to adjust to each other’s tastes?
Oh yeah. Oh god, yeah. Four girls in a fucking room — there are emotions flying. Also, I was not doing well. I had just moved back to Canada and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I was 29, I didn’t own anything. I didn’t even own a bed, I owned nothing, and I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I didn’t have a job. I was broke and kinda depressed. I had left my entire identity in California. I was used to being active. I’m a very social person, I used to go to shows all the time or I was in university taking classes and meeting people. Suddenly I was staying with my aunt and uncle in their basement. I was super-isolated, so I was having a hard time. And then I’d bring these songs and the band would be like, “Mmm, no thanks.” I quickly realised that there are some songs Vancougar will play and some songs they won’t. But thank God we stuck it out, because now I feel like those girls are my closest friends and my strongest support structure. As a unit, all four of us have been close for four-and-a-half years, and we work really well together now.

Has your working relationship changed over the years?
I’ve noticed now that we’ve been playing together longer that they’re more open-minded to certain songs I bring. Every time I write a song, I’ll bring it to them and give them the right of first refusal. Even if I don’t think it’s a Vancougar song, I’ll play it for them. I never want to start another band and have them say, “Hey, I wanted that song!” If they don’t like it, I just put it in the pile for another project.

Do you write songs by yourself or as a group?
I’m not very good at collaborating. When I write a song it comes out whole — boom, it’s written. I’ve always told the girls to write a song if they want. It just happens to be that no one else writes songs, and sometimes I wish they would! It’s kind of a lot of pressure!

Now that you’re getting bigger, do you still like the name Vancougar? Do you ever wish you had gone with something more serious?
I love it. I think it’s perfect for us because it’s kinda silly and so are we. We try to have fun. The name suits us for that reason. I’m a language person. My degree is in linguistics. I love the English language, I love puns, I love playing with words. When someone in the band suggested the name Vancougar, I think it was CC, it wasn’t even an original idea. She had some friends who were joking about naming a band that. I didn’t even know what a cougar was when I agreed to be in a band called Vancougar. I just thought it sounded funny. I really like it and I think it’s hilarious. I kinda like that people hate it too; it gets people talking. We got on MTV’s website for having one of the worst band names at SXSW, so how is that bad for us?

How did you first hook up with Mint?
We recorded Losin’ It and we approached Mint to release it, but they were up to their eyeballs with projects. They said it was bad timing, so we went with Scratch. But when Losin’ It came out, Randy especially loved it, and he kept in touch with us via email. We sort of knew they were interested in us.

How often do you write new songs?
I’m just constantly writing. Right now I have seven songs for our third album. It’s called Au Naturale. That’s another thing we do: just sit around and plan. We’re working on a title for our fourth album.

Many of the bands who end up winning CiTR’s Shindig break up the year after. How did you escape the Shindig curse?
It’s funny, we did have a rough year after that. We were fighting all the time, but we fought through it.

How do you resolve conflict as a band?
We know each other well enough now to avoid conflict. Once conflict has started, it’s hard to resolve it. It just spirals. But now we just work it so that in any situation we’re going into we know how to take care of each other. “You need to eat, you need some time to do this,” etc. It’s also about taking the time to talk. There’s so much to talk about all the time with the band. I wish it was just practicing all the time but we have to have meetings so we’re constantly meeting, emailing, and texting. We just try to stay connected as much as possible during the day.

How do you feel when you go back and listen to the album now?
There are still things I wish I’d done differently. When we first recorded it, I thought it was amazing. Then a few months passed and I came back to it and I couldn’t even listen to it. It was painful. I thought there was a wrong note there, that’s speeding up. I’m like that even with my own songs. I’ll write a song and go through this 36-hour period of being so in love with a song and then a week later I’ll play it again and just hate it. It’s a moody rollercoaster thing for sure. All in all, I’m super-proud of it but it’s hard to listen to your own music. Still, this is the first band I’ve been in where I think our albums are good. I like the songs and I like the way we played them.

You mentioned you like to sit around and make plans for the future. What are some of your attainable plans and what are some of your unattainable plans?
We just have this vision of becoming very successful and having the opportunity to tour Europe and Japan, having the opportunity to play music full time. There’s nothing we want more than to be able to quit our jobs and do Vancougar full time. So we talk a lot about what that would look like realistically, and then we talk about what kind of jet we’re going to have. I don’t think we’re very serious about that part. In the beginning we were so far from what’s going on now, so I think we’ve all been very encouraged by the positive attention we’ve been getting. And we’re so excited about Canadian Tuxedo because we feel like now that we’re on Mint more people are listening, and we feel like it’s a really good album. And whenever I have doubts the girls are like, “There’s no way people aren’t going to like this, because they’re really good songs.” The girls really believe in the songs, and I choose to believe them. - Josiah Hughes / www.exclaim.ca