New Swears support 1squarefoot initiative with fun and feasting @ Babylon May 3

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New Swears rocking out at Babylon in Ottawa, May 3, 2014.

It was a rainy night for Dark and Stormy featuring New Swears, a pie eating contest and charity at Babylon…’twas a most excellent Saturday night in May.

New Swears are rambunctious and ruckus personified (R ‘n’ R). The local four-piece band made up of party animals play awesome garage rock and always whip the crowd into a frenzy. The crowd was moshing, dancing, and singing from the very first song, “Two Darts,” which happens to be a love song about saving one of the last two cigarettes in the pack for your girl. Wearing nothing but flowery leggings and shades, the boys played us some of their great new music including “No Fun” (new video here) and older party anthems the fans came to see like “Rather Be Dead” and “See You in Hull.” For the last song they started pulling people on stage, so I rushed on and threw guitarist Scru Bar on my shoulders so he can rock out on top. Another show, another barn burner by the New Swears. I can’t wait to see them again and get my hands on their sophomore album this summer.

New Swears pie eating contest.
New Swears participating in a pie eating contest at Babylon in Ottawa.

Before the show, with alcohol flowing quite well throughout Babylon, the boys from New Swears got the pie eating contest going. Scru Bar was victorious in the band’s round of the competition – the man can eat those pies like nobody’s business. I am not sure if there was a prize for other participants, or what was going on other than a lot of whipped cream everywhere and a lot of laughs. Everyone cheered, so rock on.

The whole show was a fundraiser for 1squarefoot, which is an initiative aiming to have a skateboard park built in downtown Ottawa. They raised $740 Saturday night, which works out to another 18 square feet of skate park. Here is a little more information on the great cause:

Ottawa Skateboard Community Association, with support of the Rotary Club, has secured funding for a fully custom concrete permanent skateboard park in the McNabb Park at the corner of Gladstone and Bronson in Ottawa. The McNabb park has allocated approximately 13,000 square feet of space for the skateboard park and $300,000 to build and design the skateboard park. Given the budget, the skate park will not be able to fully utilize the space we have been allocated and the park will end up at around 7,000 square feet.
Their goal is to collect $200,000 through our program called “1 square foot”.  We think every great challenge can be accomplished by tackling the issue in small pieces- or in this case, square feet. Every $40 donation gives them one more square foot of Skate Park. You can donate here.