New Discordant Generation

>> NDG legends the Discords lace up the old Docs

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

"We're the skins from NDG/We're the ones you always see/Better not stop, look or stare/We'll kick your face in, we don't care"--"NDG," the Discords

I'm waiting for the Discords' 37-year-old guitarist Dave Valente and 33-year-old drummer Frank Heidt to show up at my Plateau residence and, I must admit, I'm kind of shaking in my penny loafers--these guys have a reputation of being serious badasses. But hey, maybe they've matured with age and will be about as menacing as George Hamilton on Xanax. As they stumble up my stairs, I see something more like WWF wrestling behemoths.

"I guess we were pretty tough back than," muses Valente. "When we formed in 1980 we financed the band with drug money and B&Es and like the Sex Pistols acquired most of our equipment by stealing it. We weren't one of those rich kid punk bands that were around at the time, we were what we were singing about. Which sure as hell wasn't the 222s or some of the other lame bands."

The Discords finally called it quits in February of 1983 after supporting the Exploited at the Spectrum. But despite the 16-year lapse, the Discords are still celebrated in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce as modern folk heroes. Certain lanes and alleyways where Côte-St-Antoine, Sherbrooke and Royal Ave. meet still proudly display their graffiti and, unlike the Nazi skinheads that the Discords were often lumped into being part of, the band was proud of the region's rich cultural diversity.

"After us, Gassenhauer wrote songs about NDG and now our friends Shades of Culture are doing it," beams Heidt. "It makes me feel great to know people are proud to come out of NDG. We still live there and we're proud to live there. In fact, we encourage a lot of people from the Plateau to move to NDG so we can have a bigger gang."

At Jailhouse on Friday, May 14, 9pm, $5