The Nix Dicksons

The show of the night was at the Slice with Behind Sapphire and Calgary’s Nix Dicksons, Dec. 9
Nix Dicksons, featuring Taber’s Tanner Holthe on lead guitar and vocals, killed it with a hyperactive set of fun, upbeat, riff driven Weezerish guitar rock.


They had the crowd singing along with favourites like “Heavy Metal Parking Lot ” which Holthe said was about drinking and doing drugs in the Taber Civic centre parking lot.
He dedicated a couple songs to his mom who was in the audience.


They wound down their set with another sing along “All Girls Want.” which Holth started on his own, before the band rejoined him on stage.

Behind Sapphire definitely picked up the tempo, playing an inspired set of upbeat synth and guitar driven pop rock featuring a few excellent vocal harmonies. They had the crowd into it, dancing in front of the stage throughout their incendiary set.

The band members leaped all over the stage and the lead singer Grant Cassell brought out the trumpet, singing through the wrong end of it and creating unusual sounds.
- L.A. Beat

Well-traveled and well versed, Calgary’s The Nix Dicksons are three albums into their burgeoning career in the Canadian music industry. They are known for their illustrious stage performances, and their sound is an invitingly real alternative to country and indie pop. Tracks like “Red Fox” and “Moviehouse” are terrific as well as campus and community radio friendly. The lyrics are fun and exciting while the interplay between vocal melodies and tempo are hype-worthy. The album could be remastered and reproduced for broader commercial success, but in their current states the eight tracks on The Red Fox EP are simple, independent, acoustic Canadiana. Taking in The Nix Dicksons’ live show is strongly recommended, as well as listening to their earlier EP’s, The Panda and The Giraffe. - Earshot

Sporting an innocuous panda with an interest in alphabet blocks, The Nix Dicksons’ latest EP is six tracks of standard indie rock fare, complete with a Hüsker Dü reference and the intentionally ironic use of harmonica. If you’ve got friends over to make vegan cupcakes, this would make fine background noise. Overall, the tracks are pretty good for a band just starting out, having not yet managed to quite escape the confines of Calgary’s indie music scene. (Yes, there is an “indie music scene” somewhere beneath the sea of cowboy hats.) Why they’ve called it The Panda EP and why that panda is so interested in letters, I’m still not sure, but these three Alberta boys churn out songs that are buoyant, spunky and almost as catchy as H1N1.

- Janelle Campbell

If their bio is to be believed, The Nix Dicksons are “the most entertaining live band around.” Their concerts are full-on celebrations of music and the freewheeling human spirit, replete with rocket ships, cardboard planets, balloons, and bubbles. Having never seen them live, I’ll have to take their word for it, but I’ll say this: They had my interest at “video montages of 80's cartoons which project onto the back of the stage.”

In keeping with the Calgary foursome’s party-vibey, everyone-is-welcome approach, the distant hoots and white-noise chatter of a social gathering are the first sounds you hear on their “Panda EP”, a collection of six tunes that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in 1992, or maybe 1988, when the Pixies were starting to make waves with “Surfer Rosa”, the LP that set the stage for the nineties alternative movement. Indeed, the influence of that Boston band is heard and felt throughout the “Panda EP”; the quiet-verse/loud-chorus dynamic and forthright vocals of “Working On The Weekend” or the insistent, multi-voiced chorus chants in “City Of Angels” seem modelled after the methods of Frank Black and Co.

Lead-off track “Big Kids” is an interesting choice for an opener; the ska-flavored upstrokes and vocalist Tanner Holthe’s slightly sneering vocal tone suggest that The Nix Dicksons are about to drop a ska album on you, but that notion is dispelled by the second song, “The King Of Connecticut”, which opens with warbly harmonica overtop of eighth-note bass before moving into a decidedly mid-nineties drum groove (Better Than Ezra came to mind). The Dicksons rely on simple, jangly-clean guitar for a good portion of the “Panda EP”, and it works to their advantage; there’s never a risk of overplaying or having too many cooks in the kitchen. This is evident in the solo section of “Working On The Weekend”, where an electric guitar pulses lightly and sweetly before giving way to a crush of distorted power chords, or in the all-acoustic “All Girls Want”, the definitive Dicksons “statement song”, which features colorful, Spoon-like storytelling and some insight from a romantically-challenged character: “All girls want is bad boys with sleeveless t-shirts/Cocaine and tattoos and holes in their jeans/All I’ve got is skunk weed and vinyl records/Garage bands and pop songs and minimum wage”.

The last half of the EP contains some of the stronger hooks, including the organ-laden chorus of “Curtis’ Zombie Movie”, an uptempo tune about a low-budget gore flick that has the potential to be the crowd-pleaser at a Nix Dicksons gig (incorporating some “Return Of The Living Dead” into those video montages wouldn’t hurt, either). Later, closing track “City of Angels” contains a few of the more expressive vocal turns on the EP; the boys bark and yell while Kim Deal-flavored female backups punctuate the chorus line: “This ain’t no, this ain’t no/City of Angels”.

The “Panda EP” has a very honest, working-man feel; the songs are simply written and don’t pull many punches, but perhaps that’s the point. The DIY production ethic is suitable here, as too much polish might interfere with the humble charm and candidness of the songwriting. You can only hope that they’re not pulling our legs with the promise of free party hats for people who stand in the front row.

- Cole MacKinnon

After achieving success landing amongst X92.9 FM’s top ten Canadian Indie Releases of 2009 with their debut EP, as well as slowly taking over both Canadian and American broadcasts, the folks from the Nix Dicksons are well on their way. They have created a strong following of progressive, indie beach bums with their latest 2010 offering The Giraffe. This latest release from the Nix Dicksons reflects their relatively unconventional upbringing as a group that refuses to be pigeon-holed into one particular musical genre. Each track attempts to create a hybrid love-child of something that could be defined as a little “punk-esque,” or “folk-like.” Regardless, the assortment of styles the album holds is like discovering the genetic jackpot (music wise) for something absolutely gorgeous. The first track, fittingly entitled “Small Town Heart,” lays on plenty of harmonica and strong steady guitar riffs, serving as a blissful opening number. The momentum and energy is strung throughout the entire six track album, which is consistently upbeat, containing rapid-fire tempo and short and sweet melodies. The variety of vocals found in each track, with some containing punk laden influences, while others remain relatively “folk-esque,” leaves no listener out of the loop. While tracks in the self-released EP are relatively shorter in length, the harmonious amalgamation of different instruments and styles is a perfect channel to release any pent up ADD vying to be freed since that seven month binge of lectures and seminars most of us had to experience this year. The Giraffe serves as the ultimate indie summer album and a summer necessity next to your sun block. This is the kind of stuff that makes you want to drop the convertible soft top and take a drive to nowhere, just so the album can play through. - Discorder Magazine

Their dads weren't accountants, their moms didn't drive SUVs and with the help of endearing sub-Saharan creatures, they want to be your friends. The Giraffe EP -- the sophomore release from prairie indie darlings The Nix Dicksons -- mostly relies on wholesome, plucky hooks in the au courant style of independent music. Significant stylistic evolutions from debut album The Panda EP are especially apparent on "Haunted" and "Head in the Movies," which make use of an ethereal, distorted introduction and a calypso-like bass line, respectively.

Eclecticism is kept at a comfortable minimum, which makes for standard (yet head-bopping) indie fare. "Maria" is a tribute ditty in the style of Panda's "All Girls Want." In "Old Shore Road," the sixth and final track, subpar vocals at the beginning fail to anticipate the explosive anthemic conclusion and turn out to be more appropriate in the context of the harder instrumentals listeners find a few measures in.

Giraffe is a musical journey through bustling pubs, sunny sidewalks and canola fields in a pair of Converse sneakers. It leaves one questioning its ability to appeal to those over age of 30 and owning less than three American Apparel hoodies, but is overall an enjoyable listen that does the Calgary local scene justice. - Andréa Rojas