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BC/DC exposed

Tribute band denies AC/DC copycat

Who: BC/DC

When: Thursday, Jan. 26 & Friday, Jan. 27

Where: Thursday Moe Joe's, Friday GLC

Tickets: $15

Thanks to the get-to-the-bottom-of-it sleuthing of Pique Newsmagazine reporters, the Sherlock Holmes of scribblers finally cracked the long-standing fable of how the AC/DC-tribute band BC/DC came to be.

Over the years of touring Western Canada, BC/DC band members claimed the group knew nothing of rock icons AC/DC because they lived in isolation in Canada's great white North in a town called Plug, whose population count includes cows.

Under good authority, Pique reporters uncovered the band's coming-of-age story to be fraudulent.

The seven-year-old band in fact began as a joke in the music-school town of Nelson, B.C., where band members wanted to put a wrench in the usual jazz and funk fare.

"We wanted to make a racket," said one band member who requested anonymity – although he wore a large cow suit.

"We pulled out amps and got up there and laid it down as noisily as possible. Seven years later, we are touring western Canada and the States. That is where it started anyways."

Other band members deny such allegations and responded with talk of steak for the evening meal.

The universal language of AC/DC is always the lowest common denominator of musical taste in North America.

"Everyone has at least three AC/DC albums," said frontman Mike "Mad Cow" Hodsall. "It is such a good simple, honest rock 'n' roll band."

BC/DC speaks the language fluently, bringing the Razor's-Edge rock 'n' roll to Whistler for two shows: Thursday, Jan. 26 at Moe Joe's and Friday, Jan. 27 at the Garibaldi Lift Company (GLC).

They speak the language, but that doesn't mean they speak it in its native accent. Since when did AC/DC have a lead singer dressed as a cow? – mind you, the ladies don't seem to complain.

"Unlike most tribute bands, we really don't care about portraying a good representation of AC/DC," Hodsall said. "Our idea is just to blast through these songs at break-neck speed and throw more of a punk edge to it."

Again, what about the cow suit?

"It's from the Sally Ann," he said. "Someone gave it to me and I tried it for one show. I found it gave me super human powers and ultimate sex appeal. The young ladies can't stop touching the cow suit."

The group of jokers are milking the band for all its worth.

Hodsall is currently penning the "unrockstar biography": Life in the Canadian Rock and Roll trenches.

Instead of the usual story of small town guy rises to top. The book jacket will read "local shmuck gets in band and into van and never gets out of it."

"Memoirs of a Nobody," Hodsall said has a nice ring to it.

The band's story was interesting enough to catch the attention of Vancouver-based Backwoods Entertainment, which is producing a feature-length film about BC/DC entitled ReVoltage. The director's cut is available at www.revolotagethemovie.com

"The antics on and offstage have reached epic proportions, so we want to put together another one," Hodsall said.

The band's unusualness doesn't stop there: the group sponsors a soccer team with 16 year olds kicking the ball around in BC/DC shirts. The BC/DC logo dresses the local ice rink's Zamboni. The band sponsors a drag car called Wagons of Steel and performs for Nelson Food Bank fundraisers.

"Nelson is a paradise," Hodsall said. "We do what we can. We steal from the rich to give to the poor."

So watch your wallets.

Tickets for both shows at the two different locations are $15.