Music That Was

Yesterday I ventured down to Toronto's Kensington Market to check out Pedestrian Sundays which is a biweekly event which started July 17th where traffic is closed off to the area to make it a pedestrian-only zone. There are two more installments of Pedestrian Sundays, those dates being August 14th and August 31st, so I highly recommend you check it out. With all the shopping, great food and street-side music available, Kensington Market is just great for people-watching, and even moreso during these car-free events. I happened to catch a great set by Toronto's Escalate who were playing outside in front of Embassy(223 Augusta Ave.). Their music reminds me of a more downtempo cousin to the music of The New Deal. The band consists of two sets of brothers, Shandy and Jordan Kern, and Tyler and Grant Drygas and their instrumental excursions were a cool mix of acid jazz, downtempo and soul influences. Although the music was pretty downtempo, the tempo picked up slightly towards the end of the set. Good set for a warm summer afternoon. I picked up their debut CD "Grooves. Beats. Science. Soul." after the set. Song samples(as well as info to purchase the CD) are available over at Zunior, CD Baby, and of course at the band's website. Escalate will be playing in front of Embassy between 1-5 pm on August 14th and 31st, during the next two instalments of Pedestrian Sundays.[photos]

Pitchfork's got the skinny that Sons and Daughters, scheduled for a Toronto gig at Lee's Palace on September 5th, will be touring with The Decemberists this fall. The tour dates over at Pitchfork don't mention whether Sons and Daughters will be playing with The Decemberists who are already scheduled for a show at The Phoenix in Toronto on October 13th.

Bob Mould will be playing a live session for KEXP today at 3 pm PST[6 pm EST]. Listen online. On a related note, Chromewaves has a Bob Mould themed post today.

I just noticed that the October 18th Toronto date at the Music Gallery for Jens Lekman and Nedelle is no longer listed on their booking company, Kork's website, nor at Jens Lekman's official website. The show's still listed on Pollstar, but then that's not really comforting considering their past inaccuracies. For the moment, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Update: In response to an e-mail which I sent to Jens at jens@srvice.com inquiring whether he's still playing in Toronto on October 18th, here's what he had to say:

"hey Mike,

i'm not playing the 18th, but hopefully i'm doing a soloshow in early november.

/J"

As if October wasn't already long enough of a wait. Now it's November, and the keyword is "hopefully". For the moment, I'm taking the show off my concert list and I guess the right thing to do is break the bad news to the people over at stillepost.