Defunct Local Band Profile: Telephone & Address

With news still at a snail's pace around here, let's post this month's Defunct Local Band Profile a couple of days early! This monthly feature series looks at one or two local metal, hard rock, or punk acts that are either defunct or have been publically inactive for a year, in order to spotlight them and their run for current readers, all as randomly selected from our inactive band links. Our first profile of 2021 is on a prolific and original solo project that you may recall seeing and hearing in the 2010s, so here's what you should know!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telephone & Address

Genre: Outsider Punk/Grunge/Ambient
 
Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members: (Members not in their last known lineup in italics. This information may be incomplete, particularly regarding the rumored full lineup that Telephone & Address played with at the Oh!No festival in Leeburn in 2019. Let us know if you can fill in any blanks!)

Christopher Shoust (F.F.B., Orange), all instruments

Jackson Reed, drums

Audio/Video: A prolific artist in multiple media, Chris completed four demos in 2011 & 2012 (a self-titled release, "Live", "No. 3", and "Broken Head") that have long since been taken down, though an "Early Tapes" compilation from these demos was once teased, and select older songs are on their Soundcloud page. Through Chris' own Harmisntus Productions banner, Telephone & Address released five official albums afterwards, including 2013's acoustic "Rotten EP", 2014's drum-and-bass album "Need Not Apply", 2015's ambient instrumental album "Rust Orchid", and the electric/full band albums "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been..." in 2016 and "Monster" in 2018. All had distinctive cardboard packaging on their limited CD runs, but have different artwork in their digital download copies on Bandcamp. Select videos from their live concerts do exist online, but here's Chris playing two songs live on Six, Two, Oh.'s old studio performance video series in 2015!

Info/Analysis: Launched circa 2010, Telephone & Address was Chris Shoust's primarily artistic output as a musician in the past decade, which saw him play at a handful of notable concerts, including a some festivals in the summer of 2011, sets opening for bands like IDNS, Bardos, Dri Hev, and Iansucks, and a few well received solo gigs at the old Gore Street Cafe. While primarily a solo project, acclaimed local indie musician Jackson Reed did join Telephone & Address as a drummer in 2017, but after the release of the previously recorded "Monster" in 2018, they quietly went on hiatus. Telephone & Address resurfaced to play at the third Oh!No concert festival in Leeburn in September 2019, with advertising indicating that this would be a full band set, but their Facebook page never plugged the festival, and they have not been seen publically since, with Chris more recently focusing on visual artwork.

Not one to stick to one style of music forever, Telephone & Address' diversity helped them stand out locally in spite of their lo-fi recording methods! Their output won't be universally for everyone, especially the challenging "Rust Orchid", and only "The Rotten EP" overtly reflects on their generally unplugged live concert sets, but Chris is a talented musician with a distinctive voice, and his music complimented his visual art well. Hopefully he revisits his music down the road, but there's enough range in Telephone & Address' five albums to find the right audience among curious fans!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around February 10th for another look at a randomly selected band, and next time, it will be 2016-2017 power pop/hard rock band The Noochin' Lanterns! That should be interesting, so look for that then, and stay tuned for a new post of some kind by Monday! Thanks everyone!