Monday, May 28, 2012

Artist: Zen Bungalow, Album: Milky, Song: This Could Very Well Be True

"Fatalist, Chauvinist, Egotistical Bastard, it doesn't matter what you think anymore."  Zen Bungalow were a 4pc rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  They were Greg Lev, Rod Slaughter, Grant Page and Al Wolanin.  They were part of the independent alternative rock wave that took place during the early 90's in Canada.  The one album that I am familiar with was their 1993 release, Milky.  I'm not sure if there were any others.  I remember hearing a tune called, This Could Very Well Be True, quite often on Toronto's local alternative station, CFNY 102.1, back in the day.  They also received some strong support from college radio.  The band was featured on a number of Indie Can Rock compilations as well.  This particular track is reminiscent of The Smiths ("This Charming Man", "Panic", "How Soon Is Now?").  Their music certainly had a pop sensibility about it but managed to remain relevant within the larger grunge or hard rock alternative genre that was slowly taking over the music industry at the time.  The band used three different producers for this particular release.  Chris Wardman of Blue Peter fame (see blog 10/4/11) was one of them although he didn't produce this track.  Both Lev and Slaughter were the lyricists for the band.  Slaughter would form the bands, Duotang (see blog 11/30/10) and Novillero in later years.  He is currently playing in a band called, The Shallow End, with some of his former band mates from Novillero (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Shallow-End/).  Milky is a very difficult release to find these days. At the time of this blog, there was one copy trading on Ebay for $30.  You can listen to this track along with some of the other songs from the album, Milky, on their MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/zenbungalow).  Thanks for reading and enjoy!