While many of us were enjoying the dog days of summer, getting in the last bit of relaxtion for a while, the members of local rock quartet Pop Crimes put their noses to the grindstone.

August was a busy month for the Winnipeg-based foursome, made up of Stefan Braun and Aaron Johnston on guitar, Jan Field on bass and Kevin Strang behind the drum kit.

The month saw them not only play the Rainbow Trout Music Festival and shut down the Lo Pub, but also hit the road to Calgary and back.

“Closing the Lo was a huge privilege,” Strang says. “Jan and Stefan worked there and we ate there before every practice, so it was bittersweet.”

“It was depressing!” Field exclaims. “While playing with Pop Crimes, we played the stage so many times. That night I was counting down the songs in my head, going, ‘This is the third last song I’m going to play here, this is the second last song I’m going to play here’... I’m usually into playing, but that night I was on the verge of tears.

“But don’t say that, that’s not very ‘rockstar’ of me,” he laughs.

While the group, which names such noise rock bands as Sonic Youth and The Sleep as influences, had close ties to the recently closed pub, the Rainbow Trout Music Festival also has a special place in the band’s history.

“We played our very first live show at Trout,” Braun says.

This year’s festival was the third edition of the Manitoba showcase held just south of St. Malo (the festival is in its fourth year, though last year’s fest was cancelled due to damage caused by wild fires and a lack of proper permits).

“It was great to see what (festival director and Ultra Mega drummer) Ben (Jones) has done with it. It’s a super, kick-ass fest.”

The stint to Calgary and back saw Pop Crimes play seven shows in support of its EP City/Head, which was released back in June.

“The tour was well attended,” Strang says. “We definitely came out on top and made new friends and met new people.”

The four-song EP, the group’s first release, was recorded in two days, but took six months to come out, Braun says.

City/Head was engineered by Liptonians guitarist Mitch Braun at the UMFM studios and went through three mixes before the band settled on a sound, the final product being mixed and mastered by Craig Boychuk.

“We always have suggestions,” Stefan Braun says. “The first (mix) was good, it was great, but we wanted to see what else could be done in that process, and we got a few others done that were good, but didn’t really have exactly what we wanted.

“Finally once we got Craig to do it, we had no suggestions. That was it.”

“Each one of his first mixes caught us entirely off guard with how good he did on it,” Strang says.

“Recording itself was a huge step for us. We work well in that situation. We’re going to go in again sometime this winter and do a single.”

Published in Volume 67, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 19, 2012)