Dylan Goes Electric – an introduction
Written by Jason Daniel Baker
Sunday, 07 August 2011 05:00
Toronto-based melodic hard-rockers Dylan Goes Electric treated local audiences to a set of their sugar-sweet AOR on July 21st, 2011 at Toronto’s Mod Club on a bill with Hamilton’s Crooked Hill amongst many other local acts on one of the hottest summer nights in the city’s history.
After their load-in and sound check they set aside time to speak with me about their progress thus far and it made for a very entertaining chat. These four are at that point in the evolution of many great bands where they look forward to playing together in performance and rehearsal. It is great fun for them to get to groove together and when they meet up they are reminded of the fun they have already had.
Foxy DGE drummer Sian Evans’ (no relation to the Welsh singer of the same name) eyes lit up when I told her I write for a Welsh rock zine. Her ancestry, of which she is very proud, is from Cymru. She and voluptuous vocalist Erica Fitzgerald began the band’s odyssey a year ago with Evans bringing in bass player Aaron Drost and guitarist Ryan Gordon whom she had worked with in a band several years before she met Fitzgerald.
They tend to go along with the characterisation of their sound as grassroots rock ‘n’ roll with modern influences. The trademark vocals Fitzgerald brings to the mix are undeniably reminiscent of the all-time great female rock vocalists. Evans compares her to Janis Joplin and the emotional intensity invites such a comparison. But Fitzgerald’s vocal stylings have considerably more technical proficiency and hit notes more precisely than Ms. Joplin’s ever did.
Friendly, charming and good-humoured you wouldn’t think these people are in a band if you met them on the street or that they would have as bad-ass a sound as they do. The only hint at their edgy side is the filthiness of their gonzo humour. “We’re like this funny little dysfunctional family and we just get along really well”, says Evans of their almost non-stop joking back and forth.
Drost remains in a constant verbal war of quips with his wisecracking archrival Ryan Gordon. Both of them think they are winning which I sense is part of how they stay friends. “There are thousands of musicians in Toronto but if you don’t get along you get into many more fights than you want to”, says Gordon when I ask him about what the members found in each other when they got together. He clearly distinguishes real conflict from his playful sparring with Drost as they all do.
The foursome each have 9 to 5 jobs and their banter with each other is a lot like the kind you would hear at work in a staff lounge on casual friday while the boss is away on business.
The band is currently working on a three-song EP which they hope to release by the end of August.
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