Dead Ghosts

This is the first proper LP from Vancouver's Dead Ghosts, following a live tape turned 12" and a string of sold out 7"s, and these kids knock the ball clear out of the park. A 13 song non-stop hit parade of jangly lo-fi garage rock bashers, with some doo wop prom breaks, country & western twangy lead work, and shuffling rhythms to get the kids shinglin and shakin. The perfect soundtrack to a sweaty basement dance party. Album also comes with a digital download code. - FLORIDA"S DYING

Bursting from the desperate vaults of R&R’s discrete past, Dead Ghosts is a shattering testament to the janglophone origins of pop. Reverberated country twang, phantasmic R&B, gnarly jangled garage, and indelible pop hooks bespeckle this game-changing thesis, throwing a Hegelian bomb into your square neighbor’s pool party. Grab the telephone, kick-down the door, wave your 4-4 and keep yelling: pop music ain’t gonna hit me no more. There ain’t nothing new without something old so grip it all while you’re still here to party.
- Weird Canada

Readers of Mongrel Zine will need no introduction to Vancouver’s Dead Ghosts, one of the best garage bands going around here. They got a really lo fi trashy sound with ‘60s melodies, like listening to The Swamp Rats cover The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” through a distorted and scratchy old tape player. In two years, they’ve released four singles, two cassettes, and last weekend Drew’s parents left them alone in their house with beer, hot dogs, and equipment to record an upcoming LP.


Recently they played two shows at this year’s SXSW where they shared the stage with BBQ, Box Elders, Hunx & His Punx, and Personal & The Pizzas — all bands they dig and whose 45s they collect. Bob and I sat down to give them a proper interview in, what was called on their Bad Vibes 7”, the smallest, most over priced jam space in Vancouver. We showed up to a nondescript building near the old Rogers Sugar factory (I saw no rats or hookers, but you know they’re around there lurking) and the six of us stuffed into a shipping crate sized room amongst what sounded like Thor coming from another shipping crate sized room. Forget occasionally picking up some vocals in your amp from the band next door, these rooms aren’t even soundproof, which may go a ways to excusing Dead Ghosts’ trashy recorded sound.


Dead Ghosts’ style is akin to their trashy US contemporaries like No Bunny, Rock N Roll Adventure Kids, The Yolks or Smith Westerns (with who Dead Ghosts recently put out a split 7” with on Bachelor Records BR-24), and their unrestrained approach to rock n roll like traditional Pacific Northwest bands The Sonics and Wailers.


So when you’re stuck in Vancouver, how do you meet fellow hard partying Garage-o-philes? The same place you get yer NSFW kicks: Craigslist, of course! - Mongrel Zine

Hey guys, let’s welcome a new band to the Styrofoam Drone today. Their name is DEAD GHOSTS and they hail from Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. They’ve had a successful run in the 7? game, releasing a string of at least four different singles (one of them being split with Chicago’s own Smith Westerns), and they just continue to keep moving up the scale. They’re in the process of releasing some more material, only this time they’re going all-out and releasing a full-length record, and apparently it’s due out sometime this September from the Florida’s Dying label. I take this information directly from their Myspace page, wherein their headline reads “LP out in September on Florida’s Dying”. So after learning that, you’ll probably hope September comes around much sooner than you did before.

This is their most recent 7?, and it was released in quite a unique fashion. Three different labels had the liberty of releasing this great single, with each releasing a different quantity including a different cover art from each label. Goodbye Boozy released 105 of them, Krimen Records released 100 of them (cover art pictured), and Ghost Records released 95 of them. That’s 300 total, and each set of singles comes hand numbered from each label, and like I already said, each also has their own, unique cover art.

With this release the Dead Ghosts add three new songs to their constantly growing catalog, and they’re as gritty and noisy as you would expect them to be. A-side “That Old Feeling” becomes an instant classic, immediately roping you in with that twangy guitar hook and the relentless pound of the snare drum. By the time the end rolls around you’ll be lost in a sea of cacophony as the noise comes full force with an electrified guitar lick, hereby sealing the deal that you will want to play this song again and again. Flip on over to the B-side to reveal two more grainy garage jams including “Blak Kat” and the chantey “Comanche”, which both include some nasty guitar freak outs (“Comanche” especially). Hear “That Old Feeling” and “Comanche” below. You can check out “Blak Kat” on the Dead Ghosts Myspace!
- The Styrofoam Drone