A fine tailored 8$ Suit ... Detroit Skate Company plans six - bands jam

June 15, 2005

Skateboarders and snowboarders of the north! Your favorite company is traveling up for a right good time, with great music.
Detroit Skate Company’s Jan Bartosik is hosting a party at the Loading Dock June 17 & 18 starting at 8 p.m. The showcase features six bands including Man Inc. -- a one-man band with a bass drum and distorted bass guitar, 74 Marauder, and Cadillac’s 8$ Suit.
Suit’s Curtis Conwell, Chris Claytor, Jason “Fogman” Riley, and Billy Wood conglomerated about two and a half years ago with various members playing open mic nights at Sally’s Down Under in Cadillac. They formed a solid line-up that’s lasted over a year, turning out their debut CD: “Sin from the Sinners.”

Debut CD
A five-hour session in mid-December gave them a raw and dirty 11-track CD. “It was a great learning experience to do live takes in a sterile and uncomfortable environment,” Wood confides. “There were mistakes made, but we’re definitely not the band you model your style after. If anything, we might influence people to become better and show us up.”
With three singers and songwriters in the band, this indie-punk rock ‘n’ roll band leaves no stone unturned for ideas.
“Some songs are political right now, but a lot of bands have political songs now because everyone hates Bush,” Wood says. “There’s usually a story behind each tune, with a greater underlying message. There’s always a satiric element to the story.”
On songs like “83,” the prelude to “Camaro,” the band tells a story of the devil asking them to sell their souls to learn rock ‘n’ roll, but they ask for the 1983 Camaro he’s driving instead. Songs like this echoes the band credo: pure fun.
Out of the Northern Michigan jam band scene, it’s a relief to hear original rock ‘n’ roll.
“There’s tons of talent up here, we love to listen to others, but we became established for the people who don’t dig on that. We’re playing what we’d like to hear ourselves. And it’s not structured to fit on radio, or too fast and angry to fit in a hardcore punk/metal band,” Claytor says. “I’ll sit down any night of the week to watch a band of live musicians rather than spend it with karaoke or a DJ, but as long as people keep going to see that, there’ll always be a market for it.”

PURPLE TELECASTER
A lot of funky skankin’ comes from Claytor’s purple telecaster, complementing the rhythms of Riley and Conwell’s sometimes distorted bass. Wood highlights the songs with a gesticulating stage presence and counterpart harmonies.
Anyone who is a fan of early Rollins Band, Jesus Lizard, and The Melvins will get a kick out of the 8$ Suit show -- the band looks like a very haggard and dilapidated version of The Kinks. The vocal lines carry an atonal melody with slight hooks, usually heightened by the overlaying guitar licks. They even exhibit a poetic side with aliterations that make up the lyrics to “America’s Assholes and Angels.”
Even though they switch between singers several times in a set, 8$ Suit keeps the momentum flowing with hilarious commentary and imagery. “Girls aren’t going to be dancing to this stuff, so we have to keep it amusing,” Wood says.
The $8 suit imagery of their name complements the satire in their music. It’s music for the factory worker, for the sales clerk, for the underpaid and unappreciated. “People can become pretty pompous about their music. We just write songs for and from the angry American taxpayer,” Wood says.
Their music is for fans of mid-’80s hardcore to current indie-rock. This isn’t another cover-band playing top 40 hits, and for $8 you can walk away with their CD, also knowing that you’ve helped them to purchase some better suits.