Fierce, fun and not to be messed with
Rock quartet Nude Dogs are a contagiously rowdy time
What’s the deal? Your first New — or “Nude,” if you will — Favourite Thing of 2018 is genuinely “new” enough to have marked the demise of 2017 with a Facebook post celebrating “our first full year of being a complete band,” so consider this an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the Nude Dogs and secure “I knew them when” bragging rights for an immediate future when it’s not just the cool kids in Toronto who are hip to what they’re up to.
The sardonically shouty young quartet has been tapped by both beloved promoter/provocateur Dan Burke and tastemaking Canadian music magazine Exclaim! to headline the first of their “Class of 2018” showcases this weekend, anyway. That seems a reasonably safe assurance of notoriety to come if one recalls that previous “Class of . . . ” alumni hand-picked by Burke over the years have included Dilly Dally, Partner, Casper Skulls, Fake Palms, New Swears, Frigs, SATE, Common Deer and last year’s Polaris Music Prize winner, Lido Pimienta. The Nude Dogs are in good company.
They’re also a contagiously good time, spewing the sort of fuzzed-out garage-punk slop and tongue-in- cheek nihilism that pairs exceedingly well with binge drinking and chipping your teeth in a sweaty pit. On their late-2016 debut EP, Barking & Biting, the Dogs — then just the trio of vocalist/guitarist Kali-Ann Butala, bassist Jessica Maxwell and drum- mer Eva Moon — sounded like a more dissolute version of late, great ’90s primitivist-pop outfit Cub, but since the addition of lead guitarist Katelyn Molgard to the lineup for last spring’s barrelling Doll Creatures of the Valley EP, they’ve morphed into something a little heavier and psych-ier, occasionally redolent of 7 Year Bitch or Babes in Toyland or Bleach- era Nirvana or a bunch of other grunge-era sludge peddlers who were around before most of the young ladies in the Nude Dogs were even born. Fierce, fun and definitely not to be messed with.
Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences. “We have many exciting things happening in the New Year, including an EP we’re releasing in the spring, and we’re in the middle of writing a fulllength album that we want to release at the end of summer that will be a little different than what we’ve put out in the past through the EPs,” says Butala. “Our shows are usually pretty hyped-up and get people rowdy, which we like as long as the microphone isn’t knocking my teeth out and I’m not flying into the drummer — but that’s sometimes OK, too. Our sound could be described as ‘janky,’ ‘rowdy,’ ‘heavy,’ ‘fun’ and ‘impactful.’ ”
What’s a song I need to hear right now? “F--- This.” An immaculate state-ofthe-contemporary-universe address delivered in one minute and 31 seconds with a breathless concision and blunt precision that would make Wire proud. “I just wanna say/F--this.” Pretty pure, as mission statements go.
Where can I see them play? At the Smiling Buddha on Saturday, Jan. 6, for the Exclaim! Class of 2018 showcase with Thrifty Kids, Gold Pony, Triples and the Fade Awaays.