…Mon*Star is a reference to the ‘SilverHawks’ cartoon that ran for 65 episodes waaaaaay back in 1986, about a group of “bionic policemen fighting an escaped alien mob boss and his gang in space” [Wiki here]. My apologies to Chris Stewart, lead singer and guitarist for his band, for that joke. Of course the ‘SilverHawks’ are nothing like the ‘Stew & The Silver Hawks’, the former had a band with a keytar played by second-in-command ‘Bluegrass’ while, at least to my knowledge, Chris has never been to the 29th century.

I’m pretty confident that Chris will forgive me for the joke, Chris, Brian Mullin — the lead singer and guitarist in ‘Outpost Echo [here]’, and I all went to high school in Vankleek Hill together. Our high school had fewer than 400 students, and our little village had about 1,800 people, and yet we produced so so so many bands, like The Cause, Sound Corps [here], Hush Hush [here], Imaginary Heaven [here], Constable Brennan [here and here], even members of Audio Visceral [here], The Peelers [here], Foreman & Co. [here], Trip The Off [here], Celtic Flare [here], The Deadly Skulls [here], Heartbreak Etcetera [here], Junkheap [here], and K-Man & The 45’s [here] all got their starts after hours in the VCI music room.

…Brian and I, along with Zane Remenda, Jeff Moore, and Stephen Larocque, even started our own high school band called ‘Casper & The Friendly Ghosts’. We lasted about fifteen minutes, but we did a kickass version of Dead Milkmen’s 1985 classic, ‘Beach Song’ [here], we also absolutely killed Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On The Water’, and we played ‘Born To Be Wild’ in public once.

Chris and Brian, and sooooooo many others from the Vankleek Hill region, have been in one band or another continuously for years and years and even more years. Decades even. It really was their calling.

…anyway, I’ve seen Outpost Echo twice now, and I’ve seen pretty much every band that Chris has been in at least once, and they absolutely are very very good at what they do. To see photos from their recent show at Beau’s Brewery in Vankleek Hill, just click on the first picture to get the carousel going — remember, comments are always welcome, they’re free, writing one will make me happy, and now I’m offering a ten day return policy.