The Bon, The Bibles And The Uppers

11/06/09 4:44pm

by Scott Bryson (CHARTattack)

Boppa Do Down Records, the label that put the debut single from Toronto's The Bon on vinyl, asserts that "long players are for hippies." The Bon singer/guitarist Craig Daniels generally concurs.

"It's just so classic," he says of the vinyl single format. "It's like an archival and an art object. It's such a pure form... In a lot of ways, it harkens back to the '50s and '60s rock 'n' roll.

"I used to go and see Shadowy Men [On A Shadowy Planet] all the time and they used to put out seven-inches. I think they had three or four singles out before they made an album. I just loved those singles."

Boppa Do Down Records also deals strictly in garage and punk rock, meaning the songs on The Bon's single — "Stupid Question" and "Ancient Times" — bear little resemblance to the music formerly made by the band's membership. The group were started by Daniels and Peter Gleeson, who were both previously in Mexi-surf outfit the Tijuana Bibles.

"I think we had an idea of what we didn't want to sound like and it has taken us up until right now," Daniels recalls. "We just wanted to keep it open because for the last 20 years, there's always been a really strong slant to the bands [we were in].

"With this stuff, we decided to just take some time and experiment. Songs are [getting] a little longer and they're drawing a little bit of influence from the mid- to late-period Pretty Things — slightly psychedelic but still pretty rocking."

The Bon's aesthetic is actually a close cousin to the music Daniels was once making with The Leather Uppers. In fact, the frontman first thought this new material he was writing might be for his temporarily defunct duo.

"The best way to describe [The Leather Uppers] right now is that we're on hiatus," he says. "Greg [Tymoshenko, drummer] moved to Montreal three years ago. We still might play shows here and there if something good comes up."

Daniels is a big fan of escape-clause-laden hiatuses. Although he and Gleeson have declared the Tijuana Bibles retired, there's a chance we'll still see them gracing stages in the future.

"Never say never," says Daniels. "The Tijuana Bibles — we said that we retired instead of breaking up, because we figured we can always come out of retirement."

For now, Daniels' attention is fully on The Bon. He and Gleeson have added Bradley Reinhardt on bass and Tim Alchin on drums — creating what they hope will be a long-term lineup.

"Those [other] projects had their time and I think they'll live on," says Daniels, "but I just want to focus on this now. This is the first time I've sung lead vocals so I feel like I've finally arrived that way."

The Bon are hoping to play a few shows before the end of the year. For now, only one is on the books: Nov. 9 at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern.