The Mongrels
Café Campus
June 16
Well, it generally works like this: you see, rock and roll bands tend to be characterized by an electric guitar player, sometimes two, an electric bass player, a drummer, and a singer.
Got it? Good. History has shown that when rock and roll bands want to shake the foundations a little, they add a sax player. Maybe some keyboards. A rock band. Tah dah! There you have it.
Now if you want to start a kick-ass-balls-to-the-walls-rock-band that will cut you with your own knife in a bar brawl….well then young jedi…you go to see The Mongrels and you bring a pen and paper and you take notes.
The Mongrels have more than the essential ingredients for a rock n’ roll band and they know more than a thing or two about how to put on a live show. Just ask the old dude in front of me rocking like he had just fathered rock music itself. Guitarist Andrew Dickson plays in his shorts because he does not need to rely on slick pants to deliver the merchandise while Bass player Steven Ludvik jams in slick white pants and slicker white shoes because that’s just the way he rolls. And there’s so much rhythm going on in this band that it takes two drummers to battle the axes. Where typical rock outfits add a sax or a keyboard, The Mongrels double the drums with Tim Dwyer and Dusty Rails, creating a synchronized rhythm section that doubles the excitement and intensifies the delivery without upstaging the rest of the band. But it’s a hard band to upstage, especially considering the fact that The Mongrels are fronted on vocals by what every rock band dreams of – raucous rock chick, Amy Turoc, who, even amid an all-star cast of Montreal rock veterans, cannot to be upstaged and who is not afraid to fall on her ass and still deliver while lying on her back on stage. This is a rock-heavy outfit and it’s safe to say they know a thing or two about how to play live. It was a short show, but it’s hard to say if it’s because the set was short or if they had perhaps accelerated the rotation of the earth.
