Shearwater, Wye Oak @ Lee's Palace, Toronto (April 1, 2010)

  Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater: photo by Michael Ligon

Strangely, for a bill as strong as the one last Thursday at Lee's Palace featuring Austin's Shearwater, Baltimore guitar/drums duo Wye Oak, and Lawrence, Kansas experimental pop outfit Hospital Ships, it didn't sell out although by the time headliners Shearwater hit the stage there was a healthy crowd onhand.

Although what I'd heard of Hospital Ships through their MySpace was intriguing, to me reminiscent of the experimental pop style of bands like The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, I was running late and missed their set entirely. Chromewaves fortunately was there and has a review of the entire show including Hospital Ships' set. Strangely, when I'd arrived I thought perhaps the band that was onstage setting up was Hospital Ships but it turned out to be Wye Oak. So basically, I was later than I imagined.

The band had made their Toronto debut a few years back at Sneaky Dee's during the Over The Top Fest in May 2008 (which was soonafter the release of their debut album "If Children") but couldn't make it for reasons I can't recall. Already on to their second album entitled "Knot" released in 2009 I've been grossly ignorant of the band. Knowing that they were a young duo playing guitar and drums, the first descriptive word that I guessed might apply was 'spunky' which can be good but on the other hand there seems to be sufficient number of spunky indie-rock duos at the moment. The duo of Jenn Wasner (vocals, guitars) and Andy Stack (drums, keyboards, backup vocals) fortunately had more versatility than I'd hoped, generally taking Yo La Tengo's approach to writing keen melodies and breathing life into full-sounding musical arrangements notwithstanding their limited membership. But rather than Yo La Tengo's penchant for 3-minute lo-fi pop nuggets, Wye Oak tended toward darker pop territory, with songs that seemed more drawn out instrumentally at times. Jenn's vocals were femine but not brittle thankfully, alternating her guitar sound from quiet to loud augmented through the use of guitar pedals. Drummer Stack kept a solid backbeat but at times showed he was adept at more complicated rhythms. At the end the duo brought out Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg on a cover of an Americana-tinged number that unforunately I didn't get the name of but it was terrific.

Perhaps, the dimming of the stage lights for Shearwater's set was a good thing (a bad thing for photographers though) as it definitely helped to add to the mood created by the band's sweeping, dramatic folk-rock songs. It was definitely a far cry from the the first time I'd seen Shearwater during the band's late afternoon set at one of the medium-sized stages at last year's Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain. I'd only got on board with the band with the 2007 deluxe reissue of their 2006 album "Palo Santo", and through to their 2008 release "Rook", while I can say they can be enticing, it's mood music that I just don't find myself reaching for as often. So I had give "Palo Santo" a spin prior to the show just to remind me how good they could be.

Fans of Okkervil River and Shearwater will know that Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff collaborated together in Okkervil River then formed Shearwater together to write quieter songs and now Sheff has devoted himself to Okkervil River while Meiburg has done so with Shearwater. With such cross-pollination, there's some obvious musical similarities with both bands at one point or another treading dark lyrical territory, and expressing it through folk, country and or rock influences. But whereas Okkervil River feels more loose and ragged reflected in as much in Sheff's buoyant vocals, Shearwater seemed a bit more methodical in their approach - stark keyboards and strings, glockenspiel, clarinet, well-placed guitar and drum arrangements, and Meiburg's rich, dramatic vocals. In some ways and especially during the band's quieter, starker moments, with the solemness of Good Friday which was the day after the show, Shearwater seemed like a near-perfect soundtrack.

Photos: Shearwater, Wye Oak @ Lee's Palace, Toronto (April 1, 2010)
MySpace: Wye Oak
MySpace: Shearwater

Do It

concert review: Clinic, Shearwater @ Lee's Palace (Toronto, Ontario), May 11, 2008



Given Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg doing double duty in that band and Okkervil River at least until recently(as he's now officially left Okkervil River to concentrate on Shearwater), the easy path to describing Shearwater, by a newbie like me, is to compare them to Okkervil RIver. Based on their performance at Lee's Palace this past Sunday night, I did find that they mined a similar sombre territory as Okkervil River during their more introverted moments. With white lights at the base of the stage pointing upwards and half illuminating the band members, it set a dramatic mood that nicely complimented the similarly moody folk-rock numbers. I found Shearwater's dramatic folk-rock tunes to be precision-calculated from the intertwined instrumentation of strings, keys, guitar, drums and Jonathan Meiburg's choir-gentleman vocals to the length of the songs themselves which aesthetically I could have imagined as longer and drawn out but rather for the most part stayed within a more conventional 4-5 minute pop timeframe. All killer and no filler. Although, it wasn't a huge crowd onhand for their set, those of us there audibly showed our appreciation.

An odd lineup pairing Shearwater with headliners Clinic, but then who said consistency was a necessity. Frankly, I was bored with Clinic's last performance at the same venue in March 2007, but this time around it was a marked improvement, even if it seems that attendance to their shows seems to dwindle a little each time they pass through town. Perhaps it being Sunday night kept a few people at home, but by the time Clinic hit the stage at least it filled up more. With nary any medical scrubs in sight, the band still maintained their signature surgical masks, and also came decked out in Hawaian shirts. Clinic's maniacal pop-billy romps have over the years tended to sound a little samey across albums to the extent that I never even purchased their last few albums "Winchester Cathedral" and "Visitations", but with their recently-released new album "Do It" from which the band played some numbers from, Clinic showed they have a few tricks still up their sleeve. Worthy additions to the band's repertoire included skewed takes on rockabilly('The Witch') and 50's bachelor pad lounge music('Free Not Free'). Most of the set material resided in that menacing pop territory with hurried strummed guitar, plodding bass, sinister organ, a bit of melodica, topped off with vocalist Ade Blackburn's distinctive sing-speak and the band played it energetically. It's a bit bothersome they're not much of a talker but oh well, maybe they're trying to maintain their mystique. We did encourage the lads to come out for two encores[which in total, I recall wasn't more than four songs] and I realized one thing at the end - I'm not tired of Clinic yet.

I took some photos but have been too lazy to sort through them, but stay tuned. Update[May 31, 2008]: Photos up. I also added the photo above.

Chartattack enjoyed the show as well.

Just a reminder, that Shearwater will return to Toronto next month for a show with Frog Eyes and Evangelicals at Horseshoe Tavern on June 23.

MySpace: Shearwater
MySpace: Clinic

Family Day

Ontarians(like myself) celebrate our inaugural new statutory holiday today entitled Family Day. Read - a day off from work(with pay!).

Pitchfork brings further updates on the upcoming long-time-coming 3rd full-length from Portishead including the tracklisting, cover art and new release dates. Follow the link for the first two items, but to save you the trouble, the UK release date is April 28 while the US date is the following day.

Other than some UK touring and an appearance at this year's SXSW, Montreal's Land of Talk continues to keep us in the dark about it's debut full-length(although here's a vague update from Liz). Hey, but that do have a new song streaming at their MySpace - ok, it's a cover, but it's a nifty cover of Wintersleep's "Weighty Ghost".

Toronto dance-electro-pop group Woodhands are Paper Bag Records newest signees. The duo's debut album "Heart Attack" is due out on April 1 in Canada.

And now on to the concert info:

If you were perusing the Canadian Music Week schedule(which btw, is shaping up interestingly) over the last few days and realized the absence of UK's The Duke Spirit on the sched(who I recall were to play Lee's Palace on March 8), it's unfortunately not a mistake. According to Filter, they've cancelled their Toronto shows and added a few more dates on the West Coast(which I guess makes more sense since they'll be in Los Angeles on March 5). Hey, maybe on the way back from SXSW on March 13 they'll swing through Toronto? Their newest album "Neptune" has it's US release on April 5 through Shangri-La Music.

I didn't make it out to the Brampton Indie Arts Festival last week, part of my disappointment being that I haven't yet seen Toronto act Forest City Lovers live. However, according to their MySpace they have a few local dates line up - they'll be at Soundscapes record store on March 9 at 2 pm for a free in-store then on March 14 they'll be at the Tranzac for a CD release show in celebration of their new disc entitled "Haunting Moon Sinking" out on March 11 in Canada on Toronto based label Out of This Spark. Several songs from the new album are streaming over at their MySpace.

Also at the Tranzac on March 14 will be Guelphites The D'Urbervilles who'll be celebrating their own CD release for their debut full-length "We Are The Hunters"(released tomorrow) also out through Out of This Spark. They have a whack of Canadian tour dates lined up through till the end of April - check out their MySpace for full dates and several songs streaming from the new album.

The Decemberists' Colin Meloy will be at the Phoenix on April 19th in support of his solo album entitled "Colin Meloy Sings Live". Fellow Portland, Oregon-ite Laura Gibson will open. (via Blacking Out The Friction)

Heavy psych-rockers Dead Meadow are at Lee's Palace on April 24. (via Beggars Group)

First word I've come across about this year's Over The Top Fest is that recent Merge Records signees Wye Oak will be playing this year's festival on May 2 according to their MySpace.

Pitchfork reports that Elvis Costello will tour with The Police in North America starting in May. There's a lone Canadian date, in fact kicking off in Ottawa, Ontario at Scotiabank Place on May 1 but the bill will reach Buffalo, NY for a show at HSBC Arena on May 3.

According to The Windish Agency, Shearwater will be on the bill with Clinic at Lee's Palace on May 11.