EVERYDAY SINNERS: WHAT DECADE IS IT?

How many words do pictures say?

The Everyday Sinners were a late '90s/early-oughts Missoula band that played scuzzy rock and roll not
dissimilar to something like the Rip-Offs or, I don't know, the Estrus '90s scene. They went through a couple of lineups, the first with Wes Delano, who famously (well, Missoula famous) wore a discarded (presumably during butchering) deer's rib cage during one of their shows at Jay's. It was hunting season and I think he may have found it in an alley. Post-show, the ribs got kicked under the stage and for a few days no one could quite figure out what the massive stink was... Wes does some great visual art now, stuff that combines spray paint stencils and acrylic textures. He had a piece at VonCommon's PromCommon event just last night, in fact.

Anyhow, the second iteration of the Everyday Sinners brought on Marcus Herring on second guitar and vocals. That was the only version of the band I got to see, and they were ferocious. Awesome, head-down fast punk rock. Inspired by stuff like the New Bomb Turks and Dwarves, but a little more country. I rode out with them to Seattle one time, ostensibly as a roadie, though I'm not sure if there was any merchandise to help sell. I did probably carry something. The Sinners played with a pre-Whip, post-Karp Scott Jernigan band called the Bronze, I think. Best part was the drumming. Anyhow, what I remember most about that show was going in wondering how they were going to do with a big city Seattle, seen-it-all kind of audience. Fact was they held their own and really slayed. I think some of that was the fact that the Midnight Thunder Express/Valentine Killers guys had sewn some good will for them, and part of it was that they were just damn good.

Josh May who'd been in the Hedons was a Sinner, so was John Fleming from Ear Candy and the Oblio Joes, as was Jason Phillips. They played pretty regularly until about 2002 or '03, and then May moved to Atlanta, where is is to this day, tattooing people and making art. To my knowledge there hasn't been any Everyday Sinners show is well over ten years. We're pretty stoked to have the Everyday Sinners play.

(Apparently the internet doesn't have anything by them, we'll find something to put up!)

THEE HEDONS CONFIRM!
'Round about 1994, three University of Montana students started playing music together. Long-haired and somehow cut from a different fabric – one the son of a K-Tel exec, one a Masshole, and the third a Michigander with a Subaru – thee Hedons shirked the common wisdom of the day for bands in Missoula: either "be a godawful hippy jam band or try like hell to be close to as good as the Fireballs of Freedom.” thee Hedons were formed with the singular mission of bringing authentic, reverb-irrigated surf music to Missoula and Montana. thee Hedons practiced, played and honed their sound for several years, until at the end, their surf acumen was pretty damned impressive. Generally speaking, wearing a heavy Link Wray/Trashmen influence on your sleeve is a commonplace theme, but remember, these were the days before Pulp Fiction, and every fratboy wasn't yet familiar with that spooky, pioneering work. Josh May, Greg Twigg and Scott Moore did something notable in keeping the strong tradition of landlocked surf music alive and well, in one of the last places for the music to touch. Twigg for years hosted the region's only surf-themed radio program on Missoula's KBGA, and thee Hedons regularly traveled up the Mission, over the Mountains to Bozeman, and around Montana plying their trade. Their music was loud and clear, and flowed like the froth of the pacific after a huge beach break. Now, re-united if-ever-so-briefly, Total Festers will get to enjoy a unique taste of the famed '90s Jay's Upstairs scene.