Starvin Hungry – July/August 2004
Who: Starvin Hungry
What: gutter rock
Where: Montreal, PQ
To Contact: Grenadine Records, PO Box 42050, Montreal, PQ H4A 313 (514) 481 9578, FAX (419) 793 1222, info@grenadinerecords.com, www.grenadinerecords.com.
If Jim Morrison fronted the Strokes or the Stooges, it might have sounded something like Starvin Hungry. Produced by Jonathan Cummins (Bionic, Doughboys), the band’s full-length debut, Damnesty, is arrogant, dramatic, brash, scrappy, dirty, disheveled, spirited, and raw – in a nutshell, rock ‘n’ roll. The brainchild of transplanted Torontonian John Milchem (who started SH in 1995 and kicked it around TO for four years with different configurations, solo to trio), he moved to Montreal in 2000, where he recruited drummer Spencer Warren (Line Three), and played as a duo for several months. Then bassist Eric Larock (now back with Tricky Woo and replaced by Soft Canyon’s Dave Lavoie) offered his services, and, in 2002, guitarist Scott Mucklow. All but one song (“I Feel Free”, cut at Toronto’s Chemical Sound in 1999) was recorded at Breakglass Studios in Montreal over four days last year. And in the dirty blues-y mix, the guys brought in sax, Hammond, double bass, viola, and pedal steel players to add some less throttling nuances. Lyrically, the songs live up to the band name, a life lived, disturbed, and rocky from the dark clouds in “Shadows” to the painful pleas in “Skin Me”, and anti-anthem “‘Cause We’re All Alive”.
