John Ford, Bullets for Dreamers

By Adam Koch

It’s a Friday, and you’re at, gasp, some shitty rock bar in southern Alberta. Maybe David Usher, or maybe The Headstones should be coming on stage after you get through some unknown, unsigned Vancouver act with second-hand, ripped jeans and bad leather jackets. Wait, hold on. It could very well be the Jack Daniel’s talking, or the various amounts of smoked products in your system, but these guys kick ass!

That pretty much sums up both the live show and sophomore release from Vancouver’s John Ford. What is John Ford, you ask? John Ford is not a man. John Ford is not something that can be embodied by this writer’s simple vocabulary. No, no, dear friends, John Ford is something more.

Simplistic and formulated, yet sophisticated and experienced.

Perhaps because of the torrid past of touring Canada or the copious amounts of liquor and drugs they have become accustomed to, John Ford takes the template of dirty, gritty rock and roll, and fills in all the necessary blanks. It’s pretentious, arrogant, intoxicated, and simple minded, just like all of those “The” bands (White Stripes, Vines, Strokes, etc.), but John Ford encompasses something more.

Just what is that something? Again, it cannot be put into words. It can only experienced.