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Porn again

Slow Nerve Action’s Lovenasium a funked-up musical orgy
slow-nerve-action

Who: Slow Nerve Action

What: Lovenasium CD Release

Where: Boot Pub

When: Monday, May 9

Welcome to the "Lovenasium". A place where tag-team wrestling involves French ticklers. A place of Swedish massage parlours and spanking instructions and innuendo-laden fruits and game-for-anything girls that like to make things grow even though they admittedly don’t have much of a green thumb.

That’s just a tiny tip of the, ahem, iceberg. Much of what you’ll hear about in the Lovenasium is unable to be printed in a family newspaper such as this one.

If you want a reading experience that approximates the experience of listening to Slow Nerve Action’s latest album, Hustler is a good start.

Yes, all the wild, orgiastic lyrical themes that have won the five-year-old Whistler/Vancouver band the designation of "porn-funk" are back in effect on Lovenasium , the long awaited follow-up to notorious debut The Soap of Beautiful Women.

Soap was one of those beautiful accidents. A wild, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-assless chaps sort of project, that took just three days to produce.

"We recorded it all in one day in two takes," guitar player Josh Gontier elaborates. "Overdubs in one day, vocals and solos, and one day of power mixing."

The album’s shameless, sexed-up lyrics celebrating popular brands of lubricant and other delights were too much fun to dismiss. There was also the energetic live act spurred on by the frontman Christopher Berry, an irrepressible showman. Nudity was expected.

Word of the band spread beyond Whistler. College radio latched onto Soap , and the band gained a following across the country.

They took a hiatus in 2003, losing, then regaining drummer Mikey Lunt. February 2004 marked the band’s second coming and the official addition to the roster of Jason Maclaren, a.k.a. DJ buddha. Thus, the current lineup remains buddha, Berry, Gontier, Lunt and bass player Benson, the funky fivesome behind Lovenasium .

The album will be unleashed upon both the suspecting and the unsuspecting at the official release party this Monday, May 9 at the Boot Pub.

It’s an appropriate venue. The band are fans of the Boot and they’ve played some of the bar’s biggest nights in the last few years: New Year’s Eve 2005 and several Halloweens for starters.

"Our best crowds are in Whistler," Gontier says. "We’re starting to get better crowds in Vancouver, but these are definitely our home crowds. Everyone knows what the general theme is and is there because they’re into it. Playing in other cities, if a section of the crowd is hearing us for the first time, sometimes they’re confused, not sure yet whether they like it or not."

Only with this band would this comment lead to the metaphor of a wallflower at an orgy. Once you get started with the sex thing, it’s hard to stop.

You don’t have to tell Slow Nerve Action, who don’t feel the need to change their tune.

Why would they? Sex is natural, sex is fun. Slow Nerve sex isn’t even limited to one-on-one.

Gontier admits some of the lyrics on Lovenasium are directly inspired by skin-mag captions and Penthouse letters. Humour plays a big part too. The film Orgazmo is also an influence.

"There’s a lot of sad songs out there. A lot of political songs out there. But that’s not our band," buddha says.

One thing has changed for Slow Nerve – the amount of time afforded to the recording of Lovenasium .

"This album kicks the crap out of the last one," Gontier says, describing a yearlong process of tweaking and studio sessions compared to the aforementioned three days.

The result of their efforts? Fifteen funked-up tracks not afraid to shout out the word "vagina," literally and figuratively. One ode to cunnilingus has become their trademark encore.

But according to both Gontier and buddha, it’s not just a gimmick, it’s a philosophy. Rappers can have their bitches and ’hos. Inside the Lovenasium, women are goddesses.

"We’re here for the ladies," Gontier says, "and we’re all nice guys."

Slow Nerve Action release Lovenasium at the Boot Pub this Monday evening. For more information call 604-932-3338.