#@$*&#%!!!

Vancouver's Diesel Candy. Sort of.

I suppose it just wouldn't be right for our anniversary print issue to come and go without at least one rather major problem.

This space should rightfully contain an interview with "crunchy" rockers Diesel Candy. However, my tape recorder fouled up the tape, so I lost most of the interview! And of course this all happened at the last minute... So, for now, here's some quick info on a band in sudden transition, and we'll catch up with them again in the next month or two to see how they are doing.

(Apologies to the band. But, hey, at least the photos turned out... that's Diesel Candy -- with their new vocalist, but without their drummer -- in the background. Don't know who those other guys are.)

Okay, cue the soap opera!

Diesel Candy released their first CD, the seven-song Big Sky, this past spring. It's been getting airplay, truckers in Ontario are ordering it just for the band name (seriously), and the band was happy with it. Or, most of the band was.

Quite recently, Miss Benny, the band's vocalist for the previous year-and-a-bit, up and quit. Seems she'd auditioned successfully for another local band, Waiting for God, and decided to jump ship. Hmmm... perhaps not such a good thing for Diesel Candy! But the band was used to line-up changes, and has never been vocalist-centred, so the remaining members weren't too worried.

Meanwhile, a singer named, but probably not spelled, Mikaila moved back to B.C. from L.A. She knew bassist Greg Graham, who gave her a copy of Big Sky. "Now this is the kind of band I'd like to be singing with!" she exclaimed to her husband when she heard it. "But they already have a singer," he noted, astutely. Not for long...

So Diesel Candy had a new vocalist almost before they lost their old one, and everyone involved is excited at the results. Unfortunately, Music West cancelled the band's showcase upon hearing the band was singerless, but Diesel Candy don't mind. Instead, they want to be fully prepared for Mikaila's debut with the band at the Pic Pub at the end of May.

Be there, and say you saw them when.