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Manraygun | Nostalgic, much?

Manraygun with Pale Moon Lights
The Artery (9535 Jasper Ave.). $15 at the door, includes the CD.  Fri. Dec. 11 (Doors at 9 PM).

Nostalgia is a heavy thing.  Local rockers Manraygun confront their memories and the post-post-modern angst associated with nostalgia in their new album: Everything is Temporary, which provides a fascinating commentary on the shallowness of the American Dream.  “Nostalgia is a double edged sword,” says songwriter Dennis Lenarduzzi. “It’s a good thing to look back, but it could be something where people get trapped into cycles and [wait] for that intervention.”

That’s exactly where Everything is Temporary gets its legs.  Manraygun channels the gritty writing of Charles Bukowski or Raymond Carver into a full sound that makes you wonder what Born in the U.S.A. might look like with a Canadian flag instead of the stars and stripes.  While they might tell tales of yore, the band also brings their music to a climax of raucous barroom cheers.

Barroom cheers are familiar sounds to this band, as so many of these songs celebrate booze. “Well, we all enjoy alcohol,” Lenarduzzi laughs. “Part of it is just tapping into the great myth. There’s all the background noise of what we’ve grown up with in terms of our music and poetry, [and] it becomes part of the lexicon of how we express ourselves.” 

Alcohol is certainly an expressive force in Everything is Temporary, where the blues-romp “Whiskey Makes a Wise Man Wiser” sings its praises, the excellent “Carousel” asks: “Who could ever raise their glass to a self-made martyr?”

While a couple of these tunes sing the blues of smoky barrooms, Manraygun also manage to fully embrace their punk roots: “Punk for us is a very broad term,” Lenarduzzi says. “It’s a way of being and a way of carrying that torch.”  To that end, Lenarduzzi met with British folk-punk legend Billy Bragg while he was in town last month, and the band is taking a lead on Bragg’s “Jail Guitar Doors” initiative. “[It’s] basically program that puts guitars in the hands of inmates and helps inmates with mentoring, so they can express themselves through music. We’re hoping to effect some change, which is what punk is supposed to do.”

Lenarduzzi recalls fondly his days in the Edmonton punk scene, hanging out with The Clash backstage at the Kinsmen Field house, how The Ramones played the loudest show he’s ever seen at the Convention Centre South, or how he was the first to book the Red Hot Chili Peppers and about 15 people showed up. So, what’s his take on why a lot of bands today shy away from telling more hard-hitting stories? “A lot of it seems to be about sound, or rhythm, or being really cool or something,” Lenarduzzi says.  “We’ve come to terms with that, we’re of a certain age.  Sorry, but I just don’t look good in skinny pants.” 

But Manraygun out-punks the American Apparel generation any day. For an album that likes to dwell on the past, Everything is Temporary shows absolutely no regret – and that might be the most punk thing of all: “I’d been involved in music for a long, long time, and I’d stopped for a long, long time. One day I went “what am I doing? I’m not getting any younger.” As for any regrets, Lenarduzzi says, “This band was founded on getting rid of that stuff.”