The Speaking Tongues

The other night I was about 4 whiskey and gingers into the evening and I was thinking about ninebullets. Really, I was thinking about how long it had been since I wrote about some down and dirty primal blues on here. I mean, I know I posted the Left Lane Cruiser set from Deep Blues a few weeks back, but I post about LLC at least once a month so I was thinking about something fresh, something we ain’t heard before.

Then, like the swamp blues god knew what we needed, I reached into my big box of ’shit I need to listen to in a more timely manner but I am too fucking slow’ and pulled out The Speaking Tongues.

The Speaking Tongues are a punk-blues duo out of Canada consisting of Aaron Doyle on guitars and Pete Ross on drums, while both share the singin’, hollerin’ and wailin’ duties. They come out of your speakers like a big ole’ wall of distorted Mississippi Blues meets punk rock sound. Exactly what ninebullets.net has been lacking the past few months…someone said goddamn the torpedoes, let’s put the volume on 15 and beat the shit out of these instruments and see what happens. I’ll tell you what happens….some bad ass shit. Chris, are these guys playing Deep Blues Festival? If not, they need to be part of 2010. - Ninebullets

The first time I ever saw The Speaking Tongues live I was dancing so hard and fast that I blew the front off of one of my fave dancing shoes!! That gives you a pretty good idea about how hard this Toronto two piece rocks out when playing live! And what kinda music do these guys play? Guess the best description would be to call it super high energy fucked blues/boogie fried sludge... ya that’s a mouthful, but definitely justified. And this debut CD is chock full of that kinda sound from start to finish! Easily my favourite release so far this year, and I’ve heard a ton of new stuff!!! In fact I can’t get this sucker out of my CD player... It’s that fucking good!!!! Watch out for an interview with The Speaking Tongues in a future issue of Mongrel Zine!
[Dave O’Halloran] - Mongrel Magazine

When Jon Spencer unintentionally declared a moratorium on alterna-blues bass frequencies with the mid-range crackle of his bottomless Blues Explosion, it wasn’t long before Jack White and the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach solved the low-end problem with their mammoth guitar tones. Toronto blues duo The Speaking Tongues fall somewhere in between these sonic extremes on their self-released debut Wild Sound. Despite a red-lined call-and-response swagger to their swing, their place on the sound spectrum proves a bit of a letdown, at least initially. Thankfully the production values can’t come close to withering the Mississippi-soaked intensity of guitarist Aaron Doyle’s hyperactive slide work or the vocal outbursts he shares with drummer Pete Ross. “Hit the Road” comes off like speedballing punks playing Hendrix’s “Hear My Train a Comin’,” while the harmonica-led instrumental stomp of “Tune Up” showcases the Tongues’ taste for tradition. But it’s the growly “Doctor Doctor” where trad meets trash for a satisfying riff-off.

3 STARS
[BY Chris Bilton] - EYE Magazine Toronto

"... I was somewhat taken aback to learn that they are a two-piece. I love two-pieces though, so for me this was a positive. I haven’t had a chance to see the Black Keys live, but the Speaking Tongues are the closest I’ve gotten. Mind you, the Black Keys don’t rock out nearly as much as Aaron Strings and Peter Skins.

The Speaking Tongues play a style of music that bleeds authenticity, and it’s the type of authenticity that comes from knowing the history of the bluesy rock that they play. There are lots of bands trying to play this style of music, but if you are going to be a grungey garage/blues band and you haven’t put the time in to listen to the back catalogue I don’t have the time of day for you. I know the band played the Silver Dollar earlier this week, vying for a spot at NXNE; here’s hoping they won because I’d love to see more people find about them." - Two Way Monologues

Hell yeah. That’s all I really need to say about Toronto’s The Speaking Tongues. The hill likes to keep it Canadian, but I’m always super excited when anything from Alive/Naturalsounds or Fat Possum shows up in the old mailbox. While Canada brings the folk, rock and electro for your auditory pleasure, we don’t really have a big collection of sludgy, boogie-woogie, balls-to-the-wall garage/blues acts (Pack AD, please ignore the previous statement) and normally I fill that void with classic artists or by reading ninebullets.net.

So finding out about a solid two-man duo from North of the border is a nice surprise. Chances are you haven’t heard of The Speaking Tongues (and that my e-friend is a shame), but to be honest, that’s not overly surprising. They are a DIY two-piece and their debut release – Wild Sound – is a self released long player that was limited to 200 copies. Take out the number they had to give to friends, radio and critics bloggers and there are probably less than 100 in circulation.

So, if you want some advice…. order that shit now. From the opening seconds of Wild Sound, you get what Pete and Aaron are about. Huge guitar riffs and crashing cymbals explode out of your speakers as the duo constantly jumps back and forth across the line that separates swampy blues and Detroit garage rock. Holier than thou blues fans would be best served staying away, because The Speaking Tongues really aren't trying to keep it clean. They like it loud, fast and rough. Obviously fans of Black Diamond Heavies or RL will approve of these guys, but The Speaking Tongues are trying some new stuff that helps them stand out.

Dont' get me wrong, they still pay tribute to the past as they sloppily mix in traditional elements (meant as a compliment). The harmonica on Tune Up and the frantic slide work on She Just Don’t Care are pretty sweet, but it’s the tracks that jump out of the past that really smack you in the mouth. Woe is Me gets your feet stomping, but it’s the feedback and energy that surges from the guitar that makes you think of denim and leather instead of gumbo and whiskey bottles. Wake Up is a sweaty jam session explosion that is as much punk rawk as it is blues, but the Motor City energy and ripped raw vocals help keep the listener entrenched in the record.

I know that most people don’t care about this kind of music, but in my humble opinion, this band from TO is doing everything right. Wild Sound is raw and rugged and as honest and pure as any disc you will find out there right now. I can only imagine what the duo brings to the table live – note to the band, "Halifax aint that far a drive" – but if you leave one of there shows and you aren’t covered in sweat and half cut from shots, well, I am not sure why you bothered getting off the couch. - Herohill.com

I'm a sucker for blues-based guitar and drum duos, mainly because they don't suck. The latest band on my "Duo That Does Not Suck" radar is The Speaking Tongues. Guitarist Aaron Doyle and drummer Pete Ross spit-out primitive blues that will scare off most purists, but if you like unrefined noisy music, their 11-track effort, Wild Sound, offers a pretty thrilling ride down the Mississippi Delta by way of two guys from Toronto.

Like fellow minimalists R.L. Burnside, The Soledad Brothers and Jack White, Doyle has the innate ability to create killer riffs that stay true to the blues tradition but are refreshingly non-derivative. The chugging boogie hooks on "Wake Up", slurring electric slide workout "She Just Don't Care" and howling garage-blues rocker "What's Yer Story" are kick-ass, although they make me feel dirty and I don't really know why. Perhaps it's the duo's swaggering Jon Spencer-like vocal delivery? TST nearly succeed in descending to the same raunchy punk-blues hell as The Immortal Lee Country Killers. In other words, Fat Possum should sign these guys immediately.

- David Ball - - soundproofmagazine.com

MZ: What bands were you in prior to Speaking Tongues?

Aaron: That’s a very easy answer, none… haha… Pete might have played in some high school bands or something…

Pete: Ya, at the very most I played in a Christmas assembly in high school and we played a heavy metal version of We Three Kings. That was the extent of my musical career pre- Tongues.

A: Ya, like, I have always played guitar, but it wasn’t until I met someone like Pete who shared the same musical taste, that I ever wanted to get together with another musician. So it was all about finding someone who wanted to play the same kind of music that I wanted to play.

P: Plus we both didn’t really know what we were doing, so when we found each other and both agreed that we were not very good… We were like OK, this is safe, we can experiment and find our groove without being embarrassed. We were both at the same skill level, so it was a good place to start.

MZ: How did you get your name?

A: When we first started, we were actually an instrumental band, taking our cues from The Ventures and we’d play “Walk Don’t Run” and Link Wray in practice. So we were this instrumental band with no singing, so we were like The Speaking Tongues, that’s kind of ironic, since there was no speaking whatsoever happening. After about 6 to 8 months, we were just not as inspired to do that type of thing, and we just started writing the base of all of the songs that were on Wild Sound [debut CD] but we kept the name.

MZ: Did you ever play out as an instrumental band?

A: No, never, we had like 2 covers and that was the extent of the instro band and then we basically put lyrics on, because that is where we wanted to go.

P: Plus, since we were just starting, we weren’t comfortable singing at all. Neither of us wanted to sing, I was like, “Aaron, you’re gonna sing right?” And he’s like, “No!” And speaking tongues is all about being possessed by something and stuff comes out of you and you don’t know what it is and that was kind of like what happened with us when we were playing. Like we didn’t know what we were doing ‘cause we just started and we’d start playing songs and it would be like, “Where did that come from?”

MZ: If someone asked you what kind of music do you play, what would you say?

A: I’d just say we play rock’n’roll. Any kind of music that I like that’s good, I just call it rock’n’roll, whether it be blues, punk, whatever. If you look at The Ramones, that’s rock’n’roll, if you look at Howlin’ Wolf, that’s rock’n’roll, if you look at The Sonics, that’s rock’n’roll, and we play rock’n’roll.

MZ: What are some of your major influences?

A: The old blues, the primitive electric blues, stuff from the 60’s like The Flamin’ Groovies… a huge influence is the Road House album, on the first batch of songs that we wrote. I like a lot of early electric blues like Hound Dog Taylor, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters, the first people to use those old primitive electric guitars that sound so good. Kinda start with that, but all kinds of other influences like garage, punk, late ‘60s rock bands and stuff like that, everything that’s running through our heads basically comes out as punk blues, alternative blues kind type thing.

P: It’s funny, ‘cause over time you find out that you have more influences than you knew that you had. You just kinda start writing songs and you wonder, what the hell am I writing and where are these influences. So over time, it’s like, that’s an influence and that’s an influence. The closer ones are newer stuff, ‘cause that’s what introduces you to the older stuff. Like we kinda went through the Detroit scene first and then through that, going back, and like Aaron said, Howlin’ Wolf. And John Lee Hooker and any of those bands and you just trace out lineage and that’s all of our influences. It’s coming from everywhere. You can put down 1969 as another year of influences…

A: Like Link Wray, he was another guy…

P: He was tearing stuff up, I read somewhere he stuck pencils in his amp, just to get the sound… that’s what you want, you want it to get a little bit crazy. Anybody who is taking something and blowing it up just to be kind of bad ass about it and being like, “I don’t want to play clean stuff.” That’s our influences.

A: Ya. I’m more influenced by the way people did things. Like someone like Link Wray who came around and just did it way more aggressive and just blew it up to a degree that no one had ever done before. Just somewhat like Hound Dog Taylor did and the whole approach to it is just as inspiring, as the way it sounded. The way they did it is just as inspiring. Hound Dog Taylor was awesome and he’ll take your head off, he was like punk blues before there was punk blues, before there was even punk. He will just take your head off with his sound. That to me, is like the best sounding slide guitar in all of blues music or rock’n’roll, whatever you want to call him. He’s another dude that you can’t easily classify.

MZ: What was the crowd reaction like when you first started out?

P: When we played our very first show, this was before we had any real songs, we got booked on this bill, Keith Hamilton booked us at The Boat, just ‘cause I talked to him, and said, “Oh we got a band.” And he’s, “What’s it like?” And I was like, “Ahhh, kinda garage rocky, it’s rock’n’roll.” And he’s like, “Cool, I’ll do what I can.” And he booked us and I’m like, lets write our songs, so we wrote like 8 songs in about a month. We had stuff kicking around, but we had to really tighten this stuff up. So then we went and played a show, and we looked at the listing, and it’s the first time we ever saw our name listed, and I’m like, “Cool, check this out.” So it’s like Basement Arms, Mantler, and the Orillia Opry.

A: Ya, our first show was a 5 band bill and there’s probably no consistency between the bands whatsoever. It was a Thursday night and we’re on like at 9 sharp. It was great. It was gonna be a one off thing, but after that show, we decided we had to keep going.

The first show was a pretty positive experience and I think the best thing is when you are just at the root of it you are just playing rock music. You can appreciate rock music on the basic level, at least all good people can appreciate rock music on a basic level. So the first show was actually pretty good, and we’ve had a lotta luck meeting some nice people in Toronto that helped us out at the beginning.

MZ: So you got hooked!

A: Ya, we got hooked. So after that, we got hooked and just wanted to write more songs and play more shows and record and basically we still feel the exact same way. Just gotta keep doing more and more. Meeting cool people along the way is one of the best parts as well.

MZ: What’s the crowd reaction like now?

A: Well it’s always different, but last night at the Black Shire (London ON) was a great show, I had a great time, met some cool people, played with some great bands and just had a blast. So I think things are going great. Keep writing songs, keep partying and keep playing shows.

P: I think the reactions always change depending on where you play and what kind of crowd is there, but it has been getting better too. I think people just appreciate that it’s something that they can get up and move to and the fact that we’re not putting on any airs. We’re just getting up there, 2 guys getting up there and playing and people seem to dig the enthusiasm and we’re not dressing up. It’s not so much about the show, it’s playing it like you mean it and people appreciate that, more and more lately I think.

A: Actually that goes back to classifying our sound, some people have a hard time doing that, like we’ll get put on a kind of mellowy folky kind of bill, which is obviously not us. Or we’ll get put on a really grinding hardcore kind of bill, which again is not us. Sometimes the reaction varies, because we get thrown into really bizarre situations. But even when we get thrown on these wacky bills we can find a little batch of people who get it and they love rock’n’roll and they’re here at a show and it’s OK… haha… we’re happy!

MZ: So how long have you been together then?

A: Our first show was 2 and a half years ago and we were probably playing together 8 months before that.

P: It’s almost 3 years… in October.

MZ: Where have you played?

A: Actually, this month alone has been the most adventurous. Beginning of the month we were in BC, playing with some amazing bands out there, like the Beladeans, The Pack A.D, LAND, Lions In The Street, and Paperboxes, fantastic bands. Then we were in Detroit, we didn’t play, we just recorded and we’re here in London and we gotta go back to Toronto and take my garbage out and wash my dishes. Beyond that – all through Ontario and Quebec. We’re playing at the Deep Blues Festival in Minnesota this year. We played at a great festival in Detroit called The Fiberglass Freakout last year which is a psychedelic festival, but they let us in on the basis that we are… I guess they just liked us, so they let us play on the bill with a lot of psychedelic bands and that was a really cool show.

P: That was a really fruitful experience, to go into a place that has a really solid scene, even if it’s like really competitive and stuff. Like in Toronto, Canadian cities, people are just there to play, like everyone is into playing. But there (Detroit) it seems like a very determined atmosphere and those guys are focused on music. So to go in there and be inspired by all of these other bands and be welcomed to that group, meet some really cool people, that’s been really good!

A: We’re looking into going out east later this year as well.

MZ: Speaking of Detroit, let’s talk about that record that’s coming out…

A: Yes, we went down to Detroit to record a split 45 with a band called the Rue Moor Counts from Detroit, formerly known as the Bird Dogs, but unfortunately there’s like 8 other Bird Dogs out there, so they’re the Rue Moor Counts. And those guys with some other guys started a label called No Gold Records and it’s really cool. It’s just guys that want to put out music that they like and hang out and listen to music. So we went down there and recorded 2” tape and mix it down to a DAT machine, no computers. I asked the guys when we were gonna put it on to Pro Tools and he almost punched me in the face… haha… No Gold Records has also just put out an LP by Friends Of Dennis Wilson, a Detroit psychedelic band, they’re really amazing psychedelic music and it’s a really cool label and there’ll be a bunch of releases coming this year from them.

P: That came directly out of the Fiberglass Freakout, we just sent the Friends Of Dennis Wilson an email, “We love you guys and the Fiberglass Freakout.” And they wrote us back and said, “Ya, you want in?” And it was just like 3 emails and we were on the bill and it blew our minds and we went down there and had such a positive experience and we feel right at home with those guys. And later it was, “Come on down and we’ll record a split 45.” And we went down there and hanging out with people you don’t know can be really interesting at times. But we just sat down, ate pizza, talked rock’n’roll, recorded stuff over a couple of days and it was the best rock’n’roll experience that we ever had.

A: Ya, and actually we talked to them about music and there’s a good classifying our music question. To us, whenever you can hear the roots of rock’n’roll kind of bending and twisting into a song, that to us is just rock’n’roll, and you can hear the roots, like you can hear Chuck Berry and all of that old stuff and that garage and blues and rockabilly, when it’s all kind of mixed in and all smashed together. Like that to us is rock’n’roll and that’s kind of the rock’n’roll that we play.

P: What Aaron says is totally true. That’s something that Robbie at No Gold said to us. He’s like, “That’s what you want to hear in a song, that‘s what I want to hear in music,” when you can listen to it and see where it’s coming from, you can see the lineage in this music, where the roots are coming and twisting it and you’re just kind of taking something and turning it on it’s head a little bit.

A: Ya, starting with all of those roots and things and blowing it up.

MZ: We should talk about the CD [Wild Sound] you guys did it all on your own right?

A: Ya, we did the CD on our own. We had all of these songs that we just had to get recorded and get out there. So we contacted a friend of ours, Peter Chapman who plays in The Midways, an amazing garage band. And he has a tape machine and he knows how to do it, which we do not. So we just set up in this office that was being renovated for 2 days and just jammed through 13, 14 songs and just got it down to a tight 11 track CD. Just ‘cause we had to get these songs out there.

P: We’ve been playing them for so long, so we just had to put them down on record or on CD just so we could move on, so we could keep on writing.

A: So the record is called Wild Sound and that really is kind of a testament to that first year and a half of what we were doing, but the good thing being with No Gold is that we’re gonna start putting out some vinyl and do things a little more the way we want to. Back then we had no resources.

P: Not to say we’re not happy with it, ‘cause that record [the Wild Sound CD] is balls out. But that was an experience, it was like, “Peter, how do we do this?” And he showed us, and he ushered us in to our first venture of making a CD and we were able to capture it as best as we could and it sounds pretty amazing and fuzzed out and all of that shit being thrown at the wall. And doing it in 2 days was something that we wanted to do, make it as live and as quick as possible. Went in the first day, recorded all of the tracks, came in the second day and added all the vocals and some extra stuff, no extra overdubbed guitars or anything, well maybe a little bit…

A: Extra feedback for sure, that was something that we needed. We had plenty of feedback, but we just wanted more.

P: Like it’s gotta sound a little bit crazier, so let’s put a lot of stuff on top of it as far as feedback goes.

A: Pete [Chapman] was amazing, like we had all of these songs and we didn’t really know how to get them out there and he helped us out and did a really great job and we were really happy to work with him.

P: Back to the CD thing, we only did about 200 and we just sold out. So we gotta do another 200 with maybe a little bit different artwork on the inside.

MZ: Did you silkscreen them yourselves?

P: We didn’t do that ourselves, I wish that we could but we aren’t that talented. But we found some people who would do that for us. We did design it completely ourselves and then we contacted Studio Nineteen, in Toronto, they’re great, they do a lot of rock posters and stuff and we knew that they could handle it and they put it together for us.

A: Ya, that’s another example of us having the ideas and materials and us calling in another person for a little bit of help. Someone who is on the same page as us and helped us get the package, the CD that we wanted.

P: To find more people that are in the same vein as us, there’s this Deep Blues Festival in Minnesota that is the one and only place to be for that. Like we went last year because we are big fans of so many bands that were down there and we took the 16 hour drive with some friends, and just parked our asses in front of the stage with a case of beer and just took it all in. And even that, in itself, was just incredible, everybody here is bringing their own little piece of blues and playing the hell out of it. There were guys that used to be in the original Soledad Brothers, Black Diamond Heavies and Left Lane Cruiser and all of these guys… so that’s where you gotta go if you like this kind of music and you want more of it, it’ll explode your brain.

A: And talking about hard to classify bands, most of the bands there are just a mash up of soul, rockabilly, garage, and noise and all kinds of… it’s like hand picking the best music of the last 60 some odd years and putting it together and putting your own spin on it and it’s just good old rock’n’roll.

P: I completely forgot to mention, Voodoo Rhythm Records is a big influence on me personally. I’d listen to a lot of more straight edge blues, like not the early stuff, but like John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf and stuff like that. I saw a John Schooley record in the store and I looked at it and this is like a one man band. He’s just sitting there and he kinda looked like a bad ass and I turned it around, and I was reading the titles of the songs, and I knew some of them and I pulled it out at the store and this record is incredible! Again finding something and then going backwards to see what was before it and where it came from and Voodoo Rhythm is run by this Reverend Beat Man guy and his music is also completely insane but he puts out some insane great music that is all twisted and it’s perfect and I love that record label.

MZ: You guys should be on that label…

P: Well he’s playing at the Deep Blues Festival, so we’re gonna have some face to face with that guy.

A: I think we actually made a contact to Panti Christ through the garage punk hideout thing and we sent a CD to Sonic Nightmares. [One of the garage punk podcasts... essential listening!] I wish this thing [garage punk hideout] was 10 times the size, but at the same time I don’t ‘cause it’s like this misfit brother of Myspace and it’s like this really cool online community and that’s where we digitally met him.

MZ: How are you accepted by the Toronto Blues Society?

A: I don’t think accepted is the word… If it ever did happen, and I don’t think we have ever been in contact with them… I think it would just be, oh this is some punk band, whereas if we play with a punk band, they’re like we are some sorta blues garage thing and they would write it off too…so it’s kinda stuck in the middle type of thing which is really cool with the Deep Blues Festival, is it’s a whole community of that, so that’s kinda cool about that festival as well.

P: When we just started we did the one show and then we got contacted to do another show and we did more and we never sat down and thought about any of this stuff. Now when we think about it, would we really want to be recognized by a blues society? We don’t even know. We’re just playing songs and if people dig them, it’s cool, that’s great. Like catl [Toronto 3 piece blues band, record reviewed this ish], they are another great band and they had some issues with the blues society of some kind. But they are another… it’s like juke joint blues music, but it’s a little twisted which is why it’s great.

A: So, it’s kind of bad ass to go at it like, to be the most punk rock of the roots of blues bands and at the same time to be the rootsiest and bluesiest of the punk bands and stuff like that. It’s kind of a cool spot to aim for. Not that we’re there, but just to approach it that way. ‘Cause that’s just in me and that’s the music we like.

P: I don’t think in any way we wanna recreate anything, we just wanna do something a little different. We’re not into re-creationism of blues stuff. The reason why the original stuff sounds so good, is that you can’t copy it. You can copy it and it would be the exact same note for note, and you might be able to sing it just as good, but you can’t re-do it, it’s just like the song without it’s soul, so you might as well do something new.

A: So we’re not too interested in the Toronto Blues Society, that’s like asking the Flat Duo Jets how they are accepted by the country music society or something like that… haha… We’re happy just playing with rock bands, ‘cause at the end of the day, that’s all that it is… blues, garage, it’s just rock’n’roll. The way we like it anyways.

P: We’re just playing music and if people like it, that’s great. We’re not trying to prove anything or do anything… if people dig it, that’s great. - Mongrel Zine