Bender (Canada)

Every once and a while, on things like a MySpace it's natural to do a search of either your old bands, or some of your favorite bands in hopes of finding something old, or new from them. After doing a search on the name "Bender" I realized that a)there was nothing available out there for Orangeville Ontario, Canada's mid 90's pop-punk band Bender, and b) there were ALOT of people using the name Bender these days, and really not alot of them are very good at all. In no way tooting horns about how good this Bender is or isn't, but at the time during the bands heyday, what they did, they did very well in the pop-punk vein. So this page is a sort of tribute I suppose to them, in hopes that it will introduce, or re-introduce people to their music, and let people hear some great pop music. Started in about 1992, in Shawns basement with a 4 track recorder, some song ideas, a drum machine, a bass player (Kevin), and a blanket for recording vocals under, a demo of songs were done, and a search for a drummer had begun. Enter Andrew McNenly, who at the time was barely 16 years old, but had the skillz to pay the...well, had the skillz. A self titled demo cassette tape of 8 songs was completed and unknown to 2/3 of the band a song entered in a CFNY (local Toronto radio station) new music search contest, and the band went all the way to the finals against some fairly well known acts at the time like hHead, Lowest of the Low, Wild Strawberries and more. While they didn't win (hHead won the 100 grand in prize money) they garnered enough attention and momentum to really get the ball rolling on a musical career. During a stretch of 8 months follwing the release of their debut full legth album "Funny Kar" (produced by Sir Ian Blurton at that) on New Hampshire based Ringing Ear Records, Bender toured across Canada and back through the states, 3 times, and logged hundreds upon hundreds of shows including some high profile opening slots for bands like - Buffalo Tom, The Ramones, Meat Puppets, Lagwagon, Strung Out, and many many more. Sometime in about 1995 maybe 96 the band broke up, at a pretty high point, for reasons still fairly unknown, maybe burnout? Drug addictions? Espionage? Entered the Secret Service?Who knows. Shawn went on for a stint with Orangeville band Five Knuckle Chuckle for a while, and hasn't been heard of since. Kevin played in the Almighty Trigger Happy for quite a while as well. Andrew was playing in a Toronto band Unistar, and then a band called Julia Set Generator. Since then there has been talk of playing together with a former Orangeville resident and schoolmate Jeff Asselbergs in a project called Mr Jelly, and a practice that included some Bender songs apparently was had over many beers in Toronto late last year.....That part of the story is still developing....