#Live: Mock Media brings the vibes to Detroit
#Live: Mock Media brings the vibes to Detroit
With all of the construction going on in Motor City, we needed to chill out and wait in line for the sold-out Mac DeMarco at the Masonic Temple. Once inside the building, fans were greeted with our personal opinion: one of the best openers this year. Mock Media brought all the right moves and all the late 70’s action movie vibes. The night started off with Madness, Louis won’t break, and Axe. Now, they are on tour with Mac, and if you already have tickets for their show, you are good to go. Unfortunately, the tour is sold out, but I have a feeling they will be back again real soon.
Mock Media Tour Dates:
05/11/26 - Asheville, NC @ Thomas Wolfe Auditorium * (SOLD OUT)
05/12/26 - Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium * (SOLD OUT)
* = supporting Mac DeMarco
More About Rad Bastard, The Album
So what good is rebellion without a system left to aim it at? British Columbia’s Mock Media – a troupe of four childhood friends – have decided to join hands and circle around the bonfire as the surrounding scenery spirals into utter madness. The group’s newest recording chapter Rat Bastard – out Friday, July 17 via Mac’s Record Label – shatters the bondages of obedience, finding Evan Aasen (guitars/voice), Garnet Aronyk Muhammad (bass/voice), Austin Boylan (guitars/voice), and Bennett Smith (drums) gleefully astray across pastures both barren and overgrown.
“Built for Speed” (written by Aasen during one of his many stints operating the cockpit) eradicates any whiff of art school cool you may (or may not) have pegged Mock Media into, fully leaning into Judas Priest vespers with the glee of a trooper lighting a cigar with a stick of dynamite. “Mock City Rock” is quickly adopted as the group’s requisite flagship anthem, coming alive as a purebred Vernonite answer to MC5, XTC and New York Dolls.
From the junkyard of rock music’s shattered dreams, Mock Media scavenge some odd pearls with the album’s rootsy title track – bouncing to the beat of an 80s reverb snare drum and spirited chants, while the Fleetwood Mac-inspired cadence of “Crushed” adds a warmth and whimsy to all the brouhaha. The dub-inflected delirium of “Fell from The Top” and “City’s On Fire” cheeses with a mouth of blood, as fairy dust melodies beckon attuned spirits. Meanwhile, the woebegone power balladry of “Take It” adds just the right pinch of pastiche to rally it into bona fide torch song territory. “Straight Line” – despite its title – flips the script from disenchanted desert rock to a full throttle kamikaze into a glorious 90s techno funeral pyre.
Despite Rat Bastard’s more superabundant sonic left turns, Mock Media insist they’re not doing anything radically different from previous incarnations of the band. In North Okanagan’s rocky valley, if one shouts loud enough, one reckons that at some point, you stop guessing whether you’re receiving the lonely echo returning or some higher voice of the divine. What Mock Media are building, or why it should be located in such a remote and desolate place, no one could say.
“We’re constantly trying to channel that spiritual energy, and it’s hard, especially in recordings. We feel like we’ve achieved it live before, but we want to fully lose ourselves and lock in as a group. As for any specific message: we really just care about each other, and about making music together. At the end of the day, it’s us singing and us playing together… and that’s all we really know how to do.”
Connect with Mock Media:
Apple Music | Bandcamp | Instagram | Spotify
