The rather ace Canadian four-piece Fist City have caught our ears recently, not least for the pure cheek of their name, but also for their excellent colliding of garage and surf music, turning out some fine scuzz from what could have been a problematic mixture.
They formed in Lethbridge, Alberta in 2010 and their second album It’s 1983, Grow Up is getting released in the UK for the first time on July 8 via Black Tent Press. From that they’ve taken their forthcoming single, ‘Boring Kids’, out a week earlier – have a watch of the video, which, as well as the scenes warned about, contains a shot of a man with a raccoon pelt for his pecker, above.
The track, explains guitarist Evan Van Reekum, is inspired by the following:
"1. Two years ago our hometown of Calgary and the major Canadian centre of Toronto did a major political Freaky Friday-Jamie Lee Curtis kind of death switch. Toronto elected a new mayor, Rob Ford (Google: Rob Ford crack) – a bloaty-faced ding dong, with bigoted sensibilities and absolutely nothing going on upstairs. While Calgary (traditionally a hotbed for bloaty-faced ding dongs, with bigoted sensibilities and absolutely nothing going on upstairs) elected an excellent, forward-thinking, Muslim mayor. Both cities were very surprised – and while Toronto was disappointed, Calgary for the first time in ages was collectively elated. Mayor Nenshi is a wonderful man.
"2. Upon the election of Mayor Nensh, I was shocked to see some of my Calgarian peers reacting in a horrible way – saying things like "ain’t no fuckin paki gonna run my city". People were throwing bricks through his campaign office windows – his campaign colour was purple, so naturally there was this pathetic backlash about him being gay. However, it was GREAT to realise that people like this were grossly outnumbered – and finally, the bullies were really just making absolute fools out of themselves in the public spotlight.
"3. Bits of this song also reference times when someone you love makes a half-hearted annoying attempt to ‘change’ and swear off a bunch of crap just to put a Bandaid on their lives and call themselves ‘better’. People do this shit all the time. Grow up, shave your balls smooth and attack some of the real issues that are underneath all these symptoms that cause you to have to swear off meat or booze or drugs. Maybe you’re fucked up. Maybe you’re depressed, an alcoholic, a drug addict etc… DEAL WITH THE HEAVY SHIT. Don’t just try to change for a week. Life doesn’t work like that. Quit crying wolf."