Seasoning The Obese Steeltown Style: Sons Of Butcher Bring Their April Fools Tour To The Catacombs Of The House Of TARG With Special Guests Thunderkok And B.A. Johnston On April 4, 2026
Levity!
Love!
Lard!
Late set times!
….and unquestionably, a concert bill that sounds like that it should be in reverse order.
Three of Hamilton, Ontario’s lesser-known exports to hard rock and metal that aren’t named MONSTER TRUCK brought the music and some of those cheap cheese puffs that Giant Tiger sells for about $7 economy size as part of a triple bill known as the April Fools Tour, which is currently making its way across eastern Canada. One of its most recent stops was at House Of TARG, ByTowne’s most famous – and only – pinball arcade featuring a pierogi menu, and it made for the perfect chaotic environment for the evening’s events.
That is, when they finally started.
Arriving at an unspecified time which I would like to call being fashionably late (actually 8:30), I was told by the staff who were verifying my credentials to be on the guestlist that SONS OF BUTCHER would be the first band about to play. It was quite the shock as the self-proclaimed most fearlessly unwashed rock band to come out of Canada were marking their comeback after a nearly decade-long hiatus with a recently-released new four-song EP titled Skids. Moreso, SONS OF BUTCHER are also a band based on the Teletoon cult adult cartoon of the same name; they’re almost like our own version of DETHKLOK but with greater emphasis on meat products. That wouldn’t make their own appeal any less enduring as the quartet, comprised of Ricky Butcher (vocals/guitar), Doug Borski (vocals/bass), Joey Salami (lead guitar) and Crissy Stixx (drums), spread out a nice and heavy beefed-up buffet of goofy entertaining shock rock. Don’t let the outlandish 70’s wrestling costumes straight out of Nacho Libre fool you, though: SONS OF BUTCHER take their mission to rock hard very seriously. From the thudding punk rock of “Dream Girl” to the fiery onslaught of “Denim Dreams”, “Makin’ Bacon”, “Antimosher”, “We Fuckin’ Rule” and “Love Baster” to the downright heavy yet goofy chaos of “Fuck The Shit” and the theme song, SONS OF BUTCHER were a cholesterol-laden force to be reckoned with, playing with the reckless fury of a band only really making 20 cents off Spotify royalties on their singles “Denim Dreams’” and “Makin’ Bacon” alone. However one slices it, SONS OF BUTCHER’s long-awaited comeback only further prove that good entertainment has no expiry date.
https://www.sonsofbutcher.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/therealsobs/
https://www.instagram.com/therealsobs/
Beer-fuelled!
Heavy riffs!
Built for chaos!
Banned from a few social media platforms!
Their prosthetic genitalia stage gear and band name aside, sleazy magnum dong dealers THUNDERKOK are a band with the aim to bring people together in ways that the World Wide Web often can’t always do. Proof had been when the Hamilton-based quartet had tried to broadcast their performance on one live streaming platform for about five seconds before they were quickly banned and they tried their luck a second time to connect to another backup streaming platform – and successfully connected to another online live streaming platform which would broadcast their performance for the rest of the night on a projected screen behind their stickman’s drumkit.
I’m gonna take a guess that maybe it was the fake rubber penises and boobs that the band were wearing that earned them the ban on that one site.
Still, what THUNDERKOK may lack in IT networking, they make up in creativity, particularly in some of their song titles. “Hogzilla”, “Cream Warriors” and “Number Of The Yeast” were definitely the stand-out tracks not just for their more cleverly-changed titles, but for their overall heavy onslaught and delivery. That, and evidently, it’s not all that easy to play an instrument while straddling a rubber dildo around your waistline, but somehow both guitarists were well adept at working around the shaft while their drummer was demolishing his kit despite appearing somewhat uncomfortable sporting a fake titty vest. Yet, they’ve been 11 years and five studio albums into their career of bringing sick riffs and even sicker dick jokes to the masses so THUNDERKOK clearly know what they’re doing by now, even if they give off the impression that they’re slightly premature in the head. Keep on keepin’ on in putting the “hard” in “hard and heavy”, guys.
https://thunderkok.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/thunderkokofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/thunderkokrocks/
Hometown pride!
Non-government weed!
And a stage that took about 15 minutes to set up!
The unlikeliest headliner at a local show since TURNSTILE conquered last summer’s main stage at Bluesfest would belong to the one-man punk rock comedy troubadour B.A. JOHNSTON. His songs are about life’s simple pleasures, life’s obstacles, life in Hamilton overall, pop cultural references to sports teams, junk food, and video games and the titles are longer than most of the songs themselves.
He’s also been touring/recording since 2002, has played House Of TARG five times including this show and has 15 studio albums to his credit. Maybe that’s why he got the top bill for the evening, I’m guessing. But he did work like hell for that slot nonetheless given that his stage layout consisted of a Casio keyboard, a Sony Discman and a beat-up guitar, resembling more like Wayne Campbell’s basement than a stage. That said, this was B.A.’s ideal live environment and he thrived throughout, musing about his beloved Tiger Cats and the value of $7 Cheezits. Following his entrance to the sounds of his intro theme song “Werewolves Of London”, B.A. commenced his set with, uh, “Werewolves Of London, Ontario” (the title track of his 14th album incidentally), blaring out from his mic’ed up Discman and Casio keyboard and sounding absolutely nothing like the WARREN ZEVON song of the slightly-amended name. And that’s the awesome appeal of his catalogue in that he brings southern Ontario up to speed with (relatively) modern pop culture. Some of his other albums also bear titles such as Stairway To Hamilton and Straight Outta Cobden for further context. And did I mention the lengthy song titles? “I Don’t Buy No Government Weed (Still Buying From Steve)”, “The Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking, Stopped Talking To Me”, “How Many T-Bone Steaks Can I Fit In My Pants?” and “We’re All Going To Jail (Except Pete, He’s Gonna Die)” are good examples of songs just barely clocking in at or under 3 minutes, but they still tell epic tales of endurance and survival in their most minimalist-sounding form. Climaxing his show unexpectedly with “I Wanna Drink With Aliens”, B.A., shirtless and brandishing his guitar (and blissfully aware of the temperature just barely above zero degrees, led out the majority of the 300+ crowd out to the adjacent parking lot and kept the party going.
With the crowd stuffed on Cheezits, pierogies and cheap beer, B.A. JOHNSTON fills out a surprisingly entertaining headlining performance by working more with less. Catch this hilariously chaotic tour at a venue near you wherever you are in the eastern part of the country.
Thanks to all the bands that played, to the House Of TARG for hosting the show and to Jon Asher of Jon Asher Media for the ticket!
Setlist:
“Werewolves Of London, Ontario”
“Day Off Is A Day Off”
“My Heart Is A Blinking Nintendo”
“I Don’t Buy No Government Weed (Still Buying From Steve)”
“I Rock The Hawkins”
“Moving To A Ski Town”
“Humpty Dumpty”
“How Many T-Bone Steaks Can I Fit In My Pants?”
“The Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking, Stopped Talking To Me”
“Alley Beers”
“We’re All Going To Jail (Except Pete, He’s Gonna Die)”
“I Wanna Drink With Aliens”
https://www.bajohnston.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/b.a.johnston.2025/
https://x.com/bajohnston