Originally written for May 1998 Discorder Magazine - This is the unedited text by Evan Symons
The Emptys: Sea Change - Transiberian Music Co , distributed by Scratch Records
The great thing about bands with three singers is that occasionally you are luckyenough to get three bands for the price of one. Drummer Tricky Bill holds this foursome together providing slow grooves and the occasional rock beat for Ken Beattie, surreal punk-folk weirdness thumps for Mike Biliski and jazzy/bluesy swings for Randy Forrester.
I wonder if Mike needed lyrics for his song Vespertine and decided to search the dictionary for a cool word and went with it (opening or flowering in the evening as the night blooming Cereus-Winston Dictionary) "I want to decorate this with the lazy contentment of a temporary secretary" Brilliant. You can't have a Winnipeg Love Song that doesn't have a chorus that starts "Man its freezing" ever again cause it's a new Canadian law. Nice melody. Or should I say "Very Nice" as our dear friend Rob Dayton likes to say at least once a month. Adelaide and Sweetie were fighting for my favourite song on this long player until I read Mike's lyrics. I love groovy slow numbers like Adelaide in the spirit of Cortez the Killer - gets you in the heart. Noise solo mixed with mega feeling leads make the story complete. I love every musical note Randy Forrester ever made. Sweetie is no exception. I'd die to see Randy sing all night and raunch out at least somewhere in every song. I'm no stranger to stormy love affairs, they used to rock my world. "This stone that we live on I just don't get". I didn't get it until it was over. When Randy sings the last verse of Sweetie, my bic gets flicked every time. Dead E recalls the last great exploit of the now legendary Coquitlam Hockey Card thieves. "Should have lost the wig Gunny." I love how the guitars get louder in the chorus of Without a Sound. Half Cut is a great instrumental guitar piece by Randy that would make Jimmy Page (my hero - fuck you Johnny Rotten) proud. I always wanted to say in print that when I first heard the Sex Pistols in 1977 on CBC when I was fourteen at my Dad's in Dawson Creek I thought they were okay but nothing compared to Led Zeppelin Presence. Later in about 1979, my best friend ripped off Never Mind the Bollocks in Sam the Record Man in Prince George and I gave him shit saying "You could have taken anything in the whole store, but you picked the Sex Pistols you idiot." Later I liked Public Image Limited especially Flowers of Romance and yeah the Sex Pistols rock but Led Zeppelin changed my life - stone me Janis Mackenzie, see if I care. Okay back to the Empties... Sometimes I am having trouble understanding these lyrics and I'm afraid I haven't been to Margaret Atwood class lately, but I keep thinking that there's something brilliant trying to make like the Verpertine, but it's summer in the arctic. Excellent vocal interplay in Hockey Heads which might be about how hairstyles are more diversified than they were in my day when everyone except me had long hair? Finally the arctic air turns cold so to speak and we get to "take me to the sea." Poetry, tunefullness and background vocals. "Sand through my fingers, my troubles in grains. Cry me a sea while the river remains. Sing me sad song with the waves as the bars. The wind doesn't whistle, the stars are guitars. Please take me to the sea, where no one can touch me". All right I'm balling, how about you?
I love you guys. ems....