Tokyo Police Club - May/June 2006
Who: Tokyo Police Club
What: join the club
Where: Newmarket, ON
To Contact: Paper Bag, 455 Spadina Ave., #306, Toronto, ON M5S 2G8 (416) 260 1515, info@paperbagrecords.com, www.paperbagrecords.com.
The Newmarket, ON-based teenagers, all 19 and 18 years of age, recorded seven songs in three days at Toronto’s Signal To Noise Studio. With Jon Drew of Uncut at the production helm, the resulting EP, A Lesson In Crime, doesn’t contain one song over two-minutes-and-something seconds. Vocalist/bassist David Monks; keyboardist-vocalist Graham Wright; guitarist Joshua Hook; and drummer Gregory Alsop started the band while in their last year of high school in February 2005 and two were in first-year university when MySpace friends Magneta Lane told the heads of its record label, Paper Bag, to check out their gig at Pop Montreal in October. Green but fun and enthusiastic, the quirky endearing band won over Paper Bag, which added it to its roster (Magneta Lane, Fembots, controller.controller, Deadly Snakes, Uncut, and others). Monks doesn’t have the greatest voice, but it totally works in this alternative context; its weird spoken weariness has an intellectual air too. “Citizens Of Tomorrow” is a stand-out with its unpredictable turns - the claps, the shouts, the storyline (robot masters, spaceships, computers ruling the world), but the first single, “Nature Of The Experiment” is an angular, upbeat pop song featuring back-up vocals by Magneta Lane’s Lexi Valentine. Universal Music Canada will distribute the album, and TCP will be able to expand its club membership.
