The Flaming Lips To Headline NXNE Plus Preliminary Lineup Announced

Earlier this week it was announced that The Flaming Lips will be headlining this year's North By Northeast (NXNE) festival with a FREE show at Yonge-Dundas Square on June 16 (a bittersweet announcement since I already have tickets for the Radiohead show at Downsview Park that same night and am already debating whether I should sell the tickets). As well, a preliminary list of other acts have been announced for this year's festival including Bad Religion, Raekwon & Ghostface Killah and Matthew Good who will all be headlining free shows at Yonge-Dundas Square. Chromewaves has done some legwork and posted a preliminary schedule of acts who'll be in town during the festival so that's a good starting point if you want to start planning now. Otherwise for more further official artist announcements, keeping checking here. There seems to be a fair bit of buzz so far on the interwebs about this year's festival (even if most of the acts on the preliminary list are unfamiliar to me) and it's looking to be a good one.

Review -- Canadian Musicfest (Saturday March 24, 2012)

  ALX @ The Garrison: photo by Michael Ligon

For this year's Canadian Musicfest, Saturday wasn't the official last day of the festival [as Sunday night had a smattering of shows to close out the festival] but for many the Saturday night was the night to end things, and hopefully on a high note. That said, my Saturday night was a generally light one but that was fine by me.

Cooler temperatures than the previous milder nights, I made the decision to stay indoors as much as possible - club-hopping isn't fun when it's cold. With not much of an itinerary in mind for the night, I decided to forgo the first few primtetime hours of the night (between 9 and 11 pm) and instead of seeing bands, decided to take in one of the music films screening as part of the film festival component of Canadian Music Week. The film screening was entitled Girl Walk // All Day. The following information about the film is taken from the film's website:

"Girl Walk // All Day is a feature-length dance music video and tale of urban exploration that follows three dancers across New York City. They turn the city's sidewalks, parks, and architecture into an evolving stage as they spread their joy of movement.

The film is about self-discovery and love, and it's a tale about finding community and vitality in shared public spaces. The idea for this project emerged from our desire to expand the boundaries of the single-track music video, to an epic music film.

Girl Walk // All Day is set to All Day, the album by mash-up musician Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk)."

I enjoyed this very much on many levels. As a love letter to NYC, it made me want to go back so bad - this film has to be seen on a big screen. The pop, hip-hop mash-up soundtrack of Girl Talk brought the dance segments on screen to life. Overall, the film expressed happiness and joy of life. There was one scene that said it all - when dancer Anne Marsen while dancing approached unknowing passersby on the streets, one Orthodox Jewish gentleman questioned why she was dancing, in which she replied "Because she is happy" and which in turn the gentleman replied back "You should always be happy".

Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 1: School's Out
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 2: All Aboard
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 3: It Goes Like This
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 4: Enter The Gentleman
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 5: Chinatown Hustle
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 6: The Creep Takes New York
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 7: High and Low
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 8: Shopping Spree
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 9: When Dancers Collide
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 10: Dance With Me
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 11: Chain Reaction
Video: Girl Walk // All Day - Chapter 12: For The People

After that good start to the night, I headed to the Garrison to catch Toronto's Allie Hughes, whose new electro-pop project was entitled ALX. I'd actually not seen Miss Hughes live although I vaguely recall her in the CBC television program "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" in which she sang a cover of Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet". From that I was aware of her vocal talents but I didn't quite expect the transformation she undertook for ALX. First impressions will most obviously point to fellow Toronto artist Katie Stelmanis who transformed into a electro-goth diva for her current project Austra. If we're to compare ALX to Austra however, ALX is decidely more disco. But rather question her motives, let's just take ALX as a new outlet for Miss Hughes talents. For their second show ever (as Allie announced), it wasn't without it's problems. There were some technical difficulties with one of the synths shutting out, during which the rest of the band continued to play through until the problem was solved. Musically, Allie was in fine vocal form but I didn't find every song as stellar as I'd hoped. I still think Allie might be working out her stage presence as a disco diva - the writhing on the floor's stage, while it may have been a spontaneous act, just felt a bit forced. The band have a song entitled "I Will Love You More" up on YouTube and available for free download on their BandCamp which I think is terrific. If they can work out the kinks and develop a good live set, I will most definitely look forward to seeing them live the next time.

Capping off my Canadian Musicfest this year was, Chapel Hill, NC's Last Year's Men who were capping off a three-night stint at the Silver Dollar. For a Saturday night, it was a surprisingly light crowd at the Silver Dollar, but the young group paid no attention to that and played as if they were rocking a full-house. For fun, the drummer had a blond wig on, with the bassist wearing an old-school, full-length sleeping gown, and the main vocalist wearing a black, robber's mask. There was also a fourth guy on guitar sporting sunglasses and a moustache. Aside from the efforts of one young lady near the end of the set to try to start some slam dancing, the crowd on hand didn't quite get in to it as I'd hoped. The band's music, a mix of 50's / 60's melodies with an infusion of punk / garage sensibilities was at time balls out rock n' roll but there were at times, a few slower tempos. For such a young band, I'm curious as to how the band found this musical direction. Overall it was a good energetic set from the band, ending off their set with a smashed guitar, some spilled beer, and the bassist exposing himself to us. All in the name of rock n' roll.

And so there it was. 17 acts, 1 film over the course of 4 days. Until next year Canadian Musicfest.

PHOTOS: Canadian Musicfest (Saturday March 24, 2012)
BandCamp: ALX
MySpace: Last Year's Men

Review -- Canadian Musicfest (Friday March 23, 2012)

  Spoek Mathambo @ The Great Hall: photo by Michael Ligon

As it turned it out, the third day of Canadian Musicfest was purely spontaneous on my part. I had made picks for the night but really hadn't thought out an itinerary for the day, although with having the day off from work I made somewhat of an effort to check out some of the day shows.

The daytime lineup over at The Toronto Institute For The Enjoyment of Music was somewhat up my alley but I got downtown later than expected and so instead chose to take in some daytime sessions, where else but the Eaton Centre. Clothing Store French Connection in conjunction with local band promoters Audio Blood Media were hosting a few artists playing acoustic sets as part of the festival. An interesting choice of venue but ultimately it didn't seem like many people were interested given the low turnout. Toronto pop outfit Hands & Teeth, ignored the light crowd (which was really just me and a few others) and began their set. Playing acoustically (guitar, percussion, Charles Pump Organ), they were quite a bit different sounding than their electric version, with a folky quality emphasized through the band's penchant for vocal harmonies. As things went on, the band were successful in drawing some shoppers / passersby to come in to the store and check them out. The band's Jeff Pinto on the Charles Pump Organ [I asked a member of the band what the name of the instrument was] took a swipe at lead vocals sounding a bit like Bob Dylan, but it was the songs sung by lone female member Natasha Pasternak that were more successful. Call me a sucker for attractive tuneful female vocals. The band has several releases available, the most recent being 2012's Hunting Season, all of which are available through the band's BandCamp site.

Next up to perform on the same stage [well actually the same space on French Connection's floor] were Toronto band The Archives. Again, because they were playing acoustically (just the vocals of Will Gooch plus bassist Anthony Menecola and guitarist Crispin Day) they sounded much more stripped down than their usual plugged-in electric, melodic rock sound. If the crowd was virtually non-existent at this point, except for me, a few band-related persons, the store staff, and a few other stragglers, the band did an admirable job of ignoring that and performing well. The stripped-down nature of the set illustrated they have musical chops and solid songs even if for the most part it wasn't my thing. Good job, nonetheless.

Still early with a whole night a head of me, I decided I was ready for another instore and so headed over to Sonic Boom to check out The Inbreds. I arrived as the duo [bassist/vocalist Mike O'Neill and drummer Dave Ullrich] were already a song or two into their set, with a good-sized crowd in attendance. This was a warm-up for their proper Canadian Musicfest / comeback show which was the next night at Lee's Palace so the set was understandably brief but they of course couldn't leave without playing their biggest 'hit' "Any Sense of Time" which they saved for last. What a jolt of nostalgia that was. It was 1996 all over again - those were the days.

I'd originally headed to the Horseshoe Tavern to catch Snowblink's 8 pm set but getting into the venue and then waiting around for a few minutes, then realizing that they were already half an hour behind schedule [it was already 8:30 pm at this point] with no sign they'd be coming on soon, I decided to bail and instead headed to Lee's Palace for the 9 pm set of Australian duo's Big Scary. I arrived to the venue after 9 pm with the band already into their set playing to a sparse but appreciative audience. Far more versatile than I expected, they were neither just the poppy indie duo I'd heard ["The Apple Song"] nor a garage-rock act a la The White Stripes that you might imagine, but over the course of the three or four songs I heard, they displayed these various influences generally through their guitar-drums (sometimes keyboards-drums) instrumentation. One of my more interesting discoveries of this year's festival.

The evening portion of the night was centered on me checking out South African hip-hop / r n b artist Spoek Mathambo who was playing The Great Hall at 11 pm and as it turned out I decided to make things easy for myself and just plant myself at The Great Hall for the whole night. It'd been several years since I'd seen Edmonton rapper Cadence Weapon perform live and not much has changed. His combination of old-school rap flow and what I could only described as fucked-up beats is still omnipresent. Assisting him with the beats was a dude who looked like a blonde version of The Cure's Robert Smith. The set was filled with mostly new songs. Making a shout out to the 1059! crew (so-named for the Toronto address 1059 Bathurst where many a secret show was hosted and of which Cadence Weapon had performed on occasion), performed a song called "Loft Party". There was a good energy in the room throughout the set and it seems many are looking forward to his new album Hope in Dirt City which'll drop soon.

The most anticipated act for me this night was South African afro-hip-hop artist, the colourfully-named Spoek Mathambo fresh from his appearance at this year's SXSW. Samples I'd heard of his on YouTube gave me the impression of an artist who fused old-school (hip-hop) / old-world (African) influences with a modern sensibility, similar to the approach of an artist such as M.I.A. With his mostly South African band plus one gentleman(on sax) who I believe was from San Francisco, that old-school/new-school fusion was definitely present (especially in their twitchy cover of Joy Division's "Control" which they played near the end) but the live set in general seemed to emphasize the organic approach(drum, guitar, bass, horns) much like The Roots brand of hip hop when they play live. While Mathambo's elder musical stateman Saul Williams was the headliner of the night, Mathambo and could easily have headlined had there been a need for him to. It was a fully-charged set from Mathambo and crew, with the crowd very much into as well. A successful outing all around, which should do him well if and when he returns to Toronto.

I'd considered ducking out to check another set at another venue {I think it was Toronto's Badbadnotgood @ Wrongbar) but then reconsidered because I realized I'll have more opportunities to see Badbadnotgood live but although I wasn't at all familiar with Saul Williams, what I'd read of him intrigued me, and this perhaps might be the only opportunity I'd get to see him live. Just a little background, but according to the first sentence from the Wikipedia entry on him, Saul Williams is "...an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam." Prior to his emergence onstage, a colourful-looking gentleman who I think was his DJ hyped up the crowd with an old-school mix of hip-hop blaring from the PA system. From the onset, Mr. Williams was hyped up and determined to hype up the crowd, beating away on a percussive instrument with what I believe was a mallet. The R n B, soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, and rock influences that all contributed to his music was really just the basis for Mr. Williams himself, as confident and capable as soulful vocalist as he was with his spoken-word, def poetry jam contributions. What was so impressive especially about his def poetry jam capabilities was the amount of words that went into those compositions and even more impressive that Williams was able to memorize it all. It was quite apparent from the performance why Saul Williams is held up in such high regard with many artists and musicians, even though he is not nearly as well-known with the general public. Quite the experience, and one I highly recommend.

PHOTOS: Canadian Musicfest (Friday March 23, 2012)
MySpace: Hands & Teeth
MySpace: The Archives
MySpace: The Inbreds
MySpace: Big Scary
MySpace: Cadence Weapon
MySpace: Spoek Mathambo
MySpace: Saul Williams

Review -- Canadian Musicfest (Wednesday March 21, 2012)

  Sea+Air @ The Painted Lady: photo by Michael Ligon

Another year's edition of Canadian Music Week / Canadian Musicfest has come and gone and one of the most striking aspects of this year's edition as how mild the weather was. It was pretty much the mildest weather for Canadian Musicfest I've ever experienced to the point it almost felt like NXNE. Consider that, in stark contrast several years back, The Breeders, who were on their reunion tour stopped in during Canadian Music Week to play a show at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, right smack dab during a blizzard (well, heavy snowfall). While the weather was on our side, the major criticism of this year's festival was how less enticing the lineup was. To some extent I'd agree, but on the other hand, with a little research and a little luck I think I caught a good percentage of good to great acts. All's well that end well. Over the next week or so I'll be posting my reviews of each night of Canadian Musicfest, so stay tuned. Now let's begin.

Somehow I'd confused the Cold Specks show at The Music Gallery to be on the first night of the festival (Wednesday March 21, 2012) and after work killed time for a few hours until later on in the evening to head over to The Music Gallery. Little did I realize that the show was actually the NEXT night (after consulting the internet on my phone). Fortunately I did have other options for the night and so proceeded with those.

First stop of the night was, the Cameron House backroom which all these years I'd never been to. Already into their set when I arrived was Toronto's LOOM, aka singer-songwriter Brooke Manning. Playing with two other members as a trio, with Brooke on vocals/guitar, the songs were full of ebb-and-flow sonic washes of keys, strings, guitar and vocals. The vocals/lyrics weren't to the extent of being inaudible but Brooke's laidback timbre did definitely possess a quality of being another instrument in the mix. Given the intimate-sized venue thankfully people did come out early to catch her. Pretty at times, and more difficult listening at others [it wasn't always as melodic as I would hope], but it was definitely intriguing music.

Fortunately, I didn't have to travel at all to catch my second pick of the night which was Dutch singer-songwriter Thijs Kuijken whose band name is I Am Oak. And while later on in the set he would mention to the audience that he usually performs with a band, for this set he was playing solo with just him on acoustic guitar. A slim, bespectacled gentleman, dressed casually in a plaid shirt and light jeans, his set of acoustic, folk-ish tunes were in my opinion several notches above what could be easily have been dull material. Lyrically as well as Kuijken's acoustic guitar playing were great overall but my only criticsm really was that vocally Kuijken's nasal vocals, quite adamantly located midrange in the vocal spectrum, made the whole set blend into each other. It's a similar effect when I listen to someone like Mark Kozelek for example, if that's any help. On a non-music note, Kuijken humoured the audience with his observations like how less hectic CMW was compared to SXSW (but in a good way), how QUIET the audience was and how POLITE Canadians are, how he brought too many sweaters on his trip and not enough socks and that he bought socks earlier in the day and asking us if we have any pigeons in Toronto, that last query being in reference to a song he had just song which was I believe above doves or birds or something.

After a comfortable stay at the Cameron House, the venue-hopping portion of the night began as I jumped on the streetcar to head to westward to The Painted Lady on Ossington Ave. to see German duo Sea + Air. The Painted Lady one of the city's most intimate venues, I'd expected it to be comfortably packed like when I saw when I saw Australia's Dead Letter Chorus there at last year's Canadian Musicfest. The venue was by no stretch empty but there was a little more elbow room this time compared to when I was there last year. The duo comprised of Daniel Benjamin on vocals / guitar /drums and Eleni on vocals / keyboards performed material with a sensitive, baroque pop quality, with Eleni's intricate keyboard arrangements and Daniel's forlorn vocals. A little sombre at times, but then again the duo showed their versatility especially when Daniel switched to the drumkit eventually segueing into a bombastic drum performance that reminded me a lot of Toronto's own Paul Banwatt of Rural Alberta Advantage. It took me by surprise, as well as a few others. It was an enjoyable if brief performance. Daniel did have a few humourous bits of banter including calling their album at the merch table the best thing to come out of Germany in 40 years and then later on informing the audience about their upcoming Canadian tour which'll take them to good cities like Saskatoon; for some reason that last part drew a chuckle from a few audience members.

I'd intended to call it a night, but with the mild weather, the time still being before 11 pm, and finally with my energy level still being pretty good for a Wednesday night (even with having to work the next day) I decided it might be a good idea to try to check out one more set. I decided to check out Toronto's Young Empires who were playing The Great Hall Basement not too far from The Painted Lady. I'd never been to the basement venue of The Great Hall before. A somewhat dingier venue than The Great Hall's upper level facilities, it was a more than appropriate setting for an electro-dance-rock party. I arrived there just as psych-rock outfit Krief were finishing up and after some time setting up, Young Empires finally took to the stage. The venue was a little-less than half-full when I arrived but did fill up more by the time Young Empires reached the stage. To capitalize on their recent wave of success (the release of their first EP, recent radio-play, touring and such), the band and especially frontman Matthew Vlahovich exuded energy on stage to try to get the crowd along for the ride and yes there were definitely some who were really into it. However, in my opinion, there's a quality on record that doesn't quite translate onstage. Their best song, in my opinion, is still "White Doves" which on record has a quality that I imagine should rev up even a Glastonbury-sized audience but then hearing it live (and this time being the third time I've seen the band) it just doesn't match up to those euphoric expectations. The band's strength, in my opinion, lies in their musical direction, their fusion of electronic, rock and pop influences somewhat mirroring one of my favourite acts of all-time, New Order. But with only an EP's worth of material, with most of it ranging from alright to decent but not matching the greatness of "White Doves", the band are off to a good start but still have a long way to go. I wish them luck.

PHOTOS: Canadian Musicfest (Wednesday March 21, 2012)

NXNE in Toronto (June 19-20, 2010)

Ok, I'll admit I've been a little lazy recently although I've had other things to think about lately, not least of which was all the G20 events/protests dominating the news over that last week or so.. This'll be my last of my NXNE-related posts although it's more photo-oriented than commentary. Apologies to the artists - it's not that you don't deserve the commentary, but I'm just plained pooped. So let's just keep this short and sweet.


  Avi Buffalo: photo by Michael Ligon

As you already know, on Saturday June 19 rather than take in the multitude of NXNE events happening around the city, I was at the Toronto Island Concert at which I caught Beach House, Band of Horses, Broken Social Scene and of course Pavement. After a day in the sun and then ending the night with Pavement's set ending before 11 pm, I waited for the ferry and eventually made it back to the city before midnight and decided to head to Lee's Palace where I caught about half of Avi Buffalo's half-hour long set. The two-guy, two-girl band all the way from Long Beach, California, barely out of highschool, were surprisingly tight, with lead singer Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg sounding a little like Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne and the band merging askewed pop tendencies with a bit of a jam band sensibility. Ok, I'm not sure how attractive that sounds but take it from me, they were good. Or at least take Sub Pop's word - the label released the band's self-titled debut full-length this past April.

I'd have stuck around for synth post-punks Cold Cave but my hunger was peaking at that point and I had to bail next door to get a burrito, at which point I headed home for some well-deserved rest.


  Kid Sister: photo by Michael Ligon

Sunday June 20 was a bit of an afterthought but with the weather being so good that day and with De La Soul headlining a free show at Yonge Dundas Square, I thought I'd probably regret it if I didn't go. I headed down to the Square as Chicago's Kid Sister was rapping up a storm against the scintillating electro beats provided by her DJ. It was actually quite good, especially if you're in the mood for that sort of stuff. The crowd wasn't nearly as sizeable as it would be for De La Soul, but there were definitely some fans and or converts in the crowd. I can only imagine she worked up the crowd even stronger when she played Wrongbar in Parkdale later that night.


  De La Soul: photo by Michael Ligon

And finally, De La Soul! The crowd was definitely pumped. Although I've heard and bits and pieces of their catalogue, it's their debut full-length Three Feet High and Rising which I'm most fond of. So it was definitely a treat to hear classics like "Potholes In My Lawn" and "Me, Myself, and I" (with the rappers prompting the audience to sing a certain vocal part of the song). After all these years, it's impressive to see and hear how articulate and full of flow they're rapping is. But they do like to get the party started as well, and they prompted the audience to chant or shot at just the right moments to keep the audience into it. The group mentioned several times there love for Toronto fans, even giving a shout out to a few people including some local rappers like Kardinal Offishall who popped onto stage briefly, although unfortunately did not end up rapping with the group. Had the group not mentioned the Much Music Video Awards and thanking the crowd for coming down to see them instead, I'd totally forgot that the MMVA's were happening at the same time around the corner and down Queen St. Now let's see if those kids at the MMVA's are listening to Justin Bieber in 10 years.

Photos: NXNE in Toronto (June 19-20, 2010)