Friday, May 14, 2010

INTRODUCING: AVANTE GUARDEN






By: Nadine Thomas Brown

Heads are bobbing in time to an unrelenting riff. The rhythm won’t let up. It is a bob your head so hard you’re liable to break your neck beat. It is a sinuous electric melody that has infiltrated the shell of hardcore reggae and rap heads at the HUB this night, holding them captive. The crowd is hypnotized and helpless, slaves to the little woman and her band dressed in all black rocking them only the way a real rock band can, rocking them the way that only local Bahamian rock band Avante Guarden can.

Avante Guarden has this effect on people. Two weeks earlier at Lyford Cay at the 2010 International Bicycle tour, they impressed everyone with their cohesiveness. The lyrics, their look, their sound all tailored to create one impressive package, one they hope will get them international air time. ‘They are so good”, was the consensus of everyone that day. However they are more than just “good”. You can see it in the tapping feet and pricked up ears of exhausted cyclists now resurrected by lead singer Jane Doe’s powerful voice when moments before they had been crashed out on every available surface, dead to the other acts valiantly trying -but failing- to garner their interest..

“Microscopic Bugs are in my head in my bed” Jane Doe’s voice screams. It is a plaintively rebellious, joyous sound …”can’t stop now I’m gonna rock this place into the ground,” and this is what the band does…this is what she has been doing all her life even before her ultimate meeting with Vallon Thompson, lead guitarist and creator of the band. Both Jane and Vallon are contradictions to the local Consciousness , what with her being a classically trained, black, female, island girl singing hard rock and he a policeman sworn to serve and protect thrown together by their love of this alien music.




Jane’s parents separated when she was four. Her American mother moved the kids to New York a move which shaped the impressionable youngster. At five she discovered she could sing and did so in every school and church production. By eleven when she had discovered that she could write her own songs she knew that singing would be her profession. “Right out the box I was hit with hip hop. KRS 1 were really hot in 1985, 1986. I remember loving hip hop,” she said. Her face lights up when recounting the moment when rock music would become her life. “Run DMC did a song with Aerosmith called “Walk This Way” and then it was like holy shit! What is that? I was hooked I couldn’t even hear the rap music anymore.

While Jane was busy excelling in music in high school, forming and breaking up with a girl group, travelling with the Junior Marine Corp as their official national anthem singer…making an album as a solo artist, marrying and moving to the Bahamas, band mate Vallon was also busy on the path which ultimately led them to each other.

He was exposed to music though his aunt, Gloria Cartwright, a soprano who frequently performed at the Dundas. “She liked musicals,” explains Vallon. “She was always watching movies like Grease, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and other films like that. This made me interested in the arts from just being around her.” His Grandfather Timothy Cartwright also influenced his love of music. He plays guitar. “That sowed the seeds in me,” Vallon notes.

Like Jane Doe it was hearing a famous rock group that inspired him to become a rock musician. “Someone had left a tape of a VH1 special featuring the group, Queen, running. The episode featured all of Queen’s music. I stood there and watched and thought this shit aint half bad!” But it was a solo guitar performance by Eddie Vedder, front man for super rock band, Pearl Jam, which sealed the deal, Vallon says. “It was after a performance on Saturday Night Live. “The song was over, his head was down just playing a couple of chords and it was like he was pouring himself into the music I then and there decided I want to do that, I want to share that kind of joy with people”

With this push to become a musician, he “borrowed” a guitar from his high school and made himself one of the best guitarists on the island. He then fused his natural knack for writing poetry with his music to create the sounds that would eventually become Avante Guarden’s
After several stops and starts in an attempt to create a band that could play his music. Vallon met Jane through a mutual friend, Music Producer, singer, songwriter, David Hanna. The rest as they say will be history if these two have anything to do with it


The group recently finished their album whose title “Almost Home, speaks to both extremely hurtful literal and metaphorical issues. These Issues though too painful to discuss are addressed throughout the nine track album, eight songs of which were written by Vallon. The first song on the album and first single, is a mid tempo track called “The Beginning” and speaks to the addictive phase of new love , “You’re the beginning of me I’ll bleed if you set me free…”. This song is the polar opposite to track number four “Fallen” which speaks to loss. The song was written in memory of a close friend Aaron Greene a police officer who died in the line of duty. A surefire hit is “Can’t Stop” a rebellious song written by Jane Doe.
The angst filled tune is an in your face rebellious one that jumps in the face of “the man” and stereotypes or as Jane Doe puts it, “It’s about motherfuckers not telling me what to do.


The band released the album in March and is marketing it extensively in the Bahamas and Europe. The songs are currently on sale on CD Baby.com as well as on Itunes and Rhapsody.

So far Jane and Vallon have kicked in doors wherever they have played and they acknowledge the fight they’ll be up against because of their chosen genre. However with the Bahamian music industry currently shaking itself awake after umpteen years of complacency who knows what the future holds for the extremely talented band. One thing is certain wherever Avante Guarden plays, eyes are unlocked and boundaries as well as expectations are quickly shattered. After all music belongs to whoever makes it.

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