Modernettes - 509

Artist: Modernettes
Song: 509
Live 1980

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• modernettes
• 509
• vancouver
• punk

[IrishDroog]

Fuck incubus, that whiny alternative rock can suck a dick

[Bobb9999]

A Vancouverite since '80, I regret now I didn't pay more attention to the early '80s Vancouver scene at the time, and I don't think I ever saw the Modernettes! Did see DOA several times,I Braineater, No Fun, & others I now forget, plus a few I thought sucked

like the "avante" Tunnel Canary.

Probably saw more out-of-town acts at the Commodore and elsewhere - Dead Kennedys were great...Iggy Pop...+whatever local bands opened, but must've missed Modernettes. I think I'd have remembered Mary Jo!

[Nazzz65]

I stand corrected the Modernettes were an ACTUAL punk period band from Canada! I knew nothing about them! I know little about Canadian ''punk rock''. So this is from 1980 duh! I saw a ''Mary Jo'' interview recently, She runs her own horse farm and she's a KEEPER!

[Nazzz65]

WAIT a minute! Wait a minute!! That (fantastic) STRAPPING blond bass player goes by Mary Jo Kopechne? That means either her parents NAMED her ''M.J.K.''(!) or she is old enough to remember Chappaquiddick?YOWZA!! The way she TOSSES that MANE of (ultra) blond hair... I wonder if she would like a sugar daddy? Seriously though, although I can tell you with some limited experience they are NOT (at least now) ''better than the Buzzcocks'' they ROCK! Canada seems to be a cool place to start a band.

[Nazzz65]

WHO is the blond!!!!

[66BILLYBOB66]

Congratulations, JV!!! Great, classic punk rock. Please, prepare a trip to Poland, John !

[npblosch19]

I was lucky after saw them many times after the B Sides best band ( yeah ok after DoA, Subs iBraineater etc ect) in Van bk in tha day

[mikeinoakland]

but as a semi-trained muso (i own guitars, 1962 sunburst Melody Makers only in fact)

the Modernettes audio (studio and like here, live) have some seriously lunatic, can't-be-taught awesome johnny thunders "minus the technique or musical niceities" style guitar musical-demolition going on. we're talking the kind of stuff that would have steve satriani or steve vai crying to their momma. and omg the 2-note leads (like "509" here), way perfect.

[mikeinoakland]

re "8 STRINGS RULE"

the modernettes broke their top E strings so often on guitar/bass they got tired of spending their beer money on them, so they just left them open/un-replaced and hence had the COOLEST BAND MOTTO OF ALL TIME. all around town, VC'ers would flip john or mary the "8 fingers sign" w/o having to say "hey man i liked your band's drunken set at the Buddah last friday, did you have 17 drinks or 27 drinks before you got on stage with the half-tuned 5-string electric guitar?" (cont)

[mikeinoakland]

riight -- (cont)

if the Modernettes had been an UK band 1978-1980, they'd be 50 x as well loved as the dopey Buzzcocks (i liked the Undertones five times better, but same comparison to the UTones)

if they'd been a California band ten years later, they'd have been Green Day (power trio, w many similarites to early GD, lotss actually. but the modernettes had more onstage "charisma" or whatever you call it()

and sold FIFTY MILLION albums.

but "all time cool cult band" -- that works too

[mikeinoakland]

i saw one of the Modernetes "best gigs ever' (1980 Western Front festival gig at the Mabuhay Gardens, w DOA./ Young Canadians/ Modernettes "Vancouver night" and the Modernetes at their best

wer the greatest/coolest/greatest (which is sort of the same thing0 rock band ever. mainly because their three (players) types of musicianship was UNIQUE. no 3-piece band ever, anywhere ever, played their instruments individually (and collectively) the way they did

annd right

[problem49]

@tuxedosponge Correct on all counts. Haven't read it for quite a while, understandable that the mists of time confused my recollection of the title. John is a superb writer.