None Of You Will Ever See A Penny

Did anything like this happen at yesterday night's Final Fantasy/The Wooden Stars/Bell Orchestre show at the El Mocambo? To give you the condensed story, Owen Pallett publicly berated individuals at a recent Hamilton show at The Casbah for being 'loud dumbasses' during Great Lake Swimmers' set. Hey, if you're going to talk during a band's set(especially a quiet band's set) be prepared for public humiliation. My kudos to Owen. You can download an mp3 of the incident here. [photo from http://../]

According to the August 5/05 update at the Metric website, the band have confirmed that Montreal band The Lovely Feathers will be along for the entire fall Metric tour. There will be other openers interspersed throughout the tour including The Organ, Jason Collett, Death of a Party and The Most Serene Republic. MTV has a list of their upcoming tour dates.

Sometimes it does payoff to sign up for those band e-mail lists. I received an e-mail update yesterday from The Golden Dogs mailing list and the band is playing the 8 pm slot tonight at the stage at Danforth and Logan in Toronto, as part of the Taste of The Danforth street festival. Lowest of the Low are headlining tonight's festivities.

Thanks to Oh, Summer Life for the heads up on the new official web site for The Postal Service, the band.

Stereogum posted an mp3 of Broken Social Scene's "Shorelines". Apparently it's a live version and according to a Stereogum commenter, this version of the song was from the Broken Social Scene website. Anyone know where this version came from, and does anyone have a copy of the studio version that they can e-mail me?

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Cuff The Duke swear they aren't gay.

Hangover Days

Jason Collett speaks with eye about his new album "Idols of Exile" and his efforts to keep it from sounding like a "songwriter" record, with a little help along the way from his extended Arts & Crafts family. Mr. Collett, with backing band Paso Mino, will be playing his lovely rustic pop tunes at The Mod Club in Toronto tomorrow night. Early show, by the way. I think it starts around 8 pm. ...To get you in the mood listen to his live session on KEXP from April 27, 2004.

Billboard speaks with Broken Social Scene about the new album, originally titled "Windsurfing Nation" but now to be self-titled, which'll drop on October 4th through the band's label Arts & Crafts. They say to expect alot of horns. And accordion, autoharp, and banjo. And a saw. Can't get enough of that saw. Billboard has a finalized tracklisting and also mentions that the band are a third of the way through recording a new set of songs which they hope for a spring 2006 album release.

Bostonian blogger Bradleys Almanac shows some love for Canadian indie rock by posting mp3's of recent live sets in Boston by Picastro, A Northern Chorus, and Sianspheric. Chromewaves has a Sianspheric-themed post today.

I really enjoyed Oh, Summer Life's post today where she gives her own insight(as a Christian herself) into the hypocrisy of the Christian music industry which all but ignores such Christian-minded artists like Sufjan Stevens and Pedro The Lion.

Sometimes I hate how non-Canadian online publications can present such ridiculous inaccuracies of Canadian artists such as in PopMatters' review of Arts & Crafts signees The Most Serene Republic's debut album "Underwater Cinematographer" where they state that the band is made up of six Toronto natives. Umm, they're from fucking Milton ON actually.

Listen[around the 20:40:00 mark] to the live session of Supergrass on BBC 6 Music's Gideon Coe program which occurred today August 4th.

Lastly, The Black Keys will be playing The Opera House in Toronto on November 19th. [info from Pollstar]

Hotmouth

I'd been tempted to go to The Diableros show this past weeked at the El Mocambo in Toronto after being impressed with these locals when they opened for other local Torontonians Mark E. Smith-obsessees The Two Koreas at The Boat in June. I was also quite intrigued by what I heard on the 'net from the other bands playing with The Diableros this past weekend: Edmonton post-punk new wave band The Floor and Calgary's synth pop wonders Falconhawk. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the El Mocambo on the weekend. Fortunately, though Falconhawk did play a set yesterday at the Horseshoe Tavern as part of the Dave Bookman’S 102.1 The Edge Nu Music Nite. With no cover charge and Falconhawk scheduled as the first band of the night, I decided yesterday to shoot down and catch their set. The trio consists of Kara Keith on vocals and keyboards, Dave Alcock on drums and Steve Elaschuk on bass guitar. They've sort of being pegged as a synth-pop band, and although they can sound quite Rentals-ish or 80's synth-pop sounding, the keyboard skills of Ms. Keith are a cut above your average synth-pop keyboardist's skills. Although Kara was playing a keyboard, most of the songs featured a conventional 'piano' sound which convinced me that if they stripped away all the goofy, new-wave aesthetics, what remains are just really good pop songs. Actually, I do hope they maintain a certain level of the goofy, new-wave aesthetics as it was fun to watch Kara in her goofy hat, rocking out on her keyboard. The band has a couple of releases so far: Hotmouth", their debut full-length which was released last year and their newest EP[I'm assuming it's an EP, since it only has 8 songs] "Here's Your Ghost". I purchased both yesterday after chatting with the very friendly Kara after their set; she described the music on "Hotmouth" as "cheeky" and more dancey at times, while expressing that "Here's Your Ghost" was darker, yet poppy, and more cohesive as a whole. You can download some mp3's from both releases over at the band's website. I've sampled both releases since yesterday and I'm definitely liking "Here's Your Ghost" ALOT more, especially the lead off song "Try A Little Longer" which so far is one of my FAVOURITE songs of 2005. I know it's sort of short notice, but they are playing in Hamilton ON tonight at The Casbah. Check out their official website[under 'Particulars] for the rest of their tour dates this month. [Photo credit - Nicola Waugh]

Related links:

They have a MySpace site.

The band's record label is Saved By Radio.

Soulshine wrote about the band's current tour.

Out here listening has a very thorough review of "Hotmouth".

SEE Magazine wrote back in April of this year about the departure that the darker "Here's Your Ghost" took from the debut "Hotmouth"'s "nervous breakdown-wrapped-in-a-dance party".

A reviewer over at Music Emissions didn't like "Here's Your Ghost". He didn't like it after three listens, and concluded his review with the statement "I don't see much in Falconhawk that will appeal to many people." Ahhh, what does he know.
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Oh, yeah Coldplay played at Air Canada Centre in Toronto yesterday. Just Keep Bloggin' and the tear that hangs inside your soul forever were both there. Rock Snob still likes 'em even though she didn't go. I didn't go but I like 'em too.

Vancouver's The Organ are interviewed by UK online mag The Beat Surrender.

More Sufjan? There'll be profile of Sufjan Stevens tonight on Brave New Waves. You can listen online. I think the profile segment comes on around 12:45 am EST, or sometime around then.

rootmeansquare's now showing that Norweigan dance-pop sensation Annie will be the opener for the upcoming Royksopp show in Toronto on September 20th at The Opera House.

Of course, where would Annie be today without the influence of indie-dance-pop perfectionists Saint Etienne? Pitchfork reports that Saint Etienne will be releasing a DVD through Plexifilm, on September 20th entitled "Saint Etienne Presents Finisterre - A Film About London". It's suppose to be some sort of combination video collection and travelogue for London. Can't wait to see this. ...And touring? Still no word on tour dates yet.

While everyone else is hyping up Sufjan, I'm all about Feist. This escaped me for several days but I just noticed that ProdigyBoy over at the Arts and Crafts - Broken Telephone - Feist forum posted a link to a mpeg download of Feist's live performance of "Mushaboom" at this year's Juno Awards!

The One Who Got Us Out

Productshop NYC posts about the financial troubles over at Lookout! Records on account of Green Day's removal of two of its early albums "1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours" and "Kerplunk" from the label's back catalogue. The label's primary source of income in recent years has been the back catalogue and the removal of the two Green Day albums is only a further hit on the label. Green Day were not happy about Lookout!'s negligence in paying earned royalties to the band. Recently, cash flow problems have prevented the label from paying royalties to ANY of it's artists. I'm really concerned for what this might mean for Ted Leo and recent label signee Mary Timony. I say everyone going to Ted Leo's show at The Mod Club in Toronto on September 29th(as well those going to his shows on other dates on his current tour), buy a shitload of his merch.

According to Ted Leo[see update on July 27, 2005], this MySpace site isn't him. At least the person behind the site picked someone worthy of impersonating. ;-) [photo at left from http://../]

MTV News speaks with brother-sister duo The Fiery Furnaces about the pair of albums they have planned for release later this year as well as upcoming tour dates. They'll be coming to Toronto for a show at Lee's Palace on October 10th. [via One Louder]

While surfing the web for info on Nellie Mckay, I came upon the NPR website where I found out that Feist had performed a live session for the radio station back in July. It was a really nice session as she performed beautiful solo renditions of "Gatekeeper", "Mushaboom", "Secret Heart", and "One Evening". Feist fans, you should check it out if you haven't already. And can anyone instruct me on how to rip the audio stream to mp3 format? (I could do a Google search, but I'm feeling lazy right now.)

According to Dave Hamelin (former drummer/songwriter turned current singer/songwriter) of The Stills, he posted on the band's message board some information about the new album including a tracklisting and a tentative release sometime early in 2006. Just Keep Bloggin' says that The Stills' new drummer is Colin Brooks of Sea Ray. [info via Just Keep Bloggin']

Seeing as nothing's on the horizon regarding Portishead releasing a new album anytime soon[I've really given up] and the troops are getting restless, I'd suggest downloading this torrent of a video of Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man performing on Later With Jools Holland on 2002/10/27.

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.

Length of Love

Depraved Fangirls wrote a wonderfully poignant, warts-and-all commentary about why she loves Interpol. I'm not a big fan of Interpol, but it's her general ideas that can be applied to -insert favourite band here-. She expressed that there's a difference between loving a band and just being a fan, and I can't remember the last time someone put it more eloquently. I tell you, go read the post. I'm not sure if I've reached that level of devotion for ANY band(maybe Sloan at one time) but at least I'll know it when I get there. Ahem...and I can recall one other depraved fangirl in Toronto who probably feels as much devotion for Interpol as Depraved Fangirls does. Oh yeah, Interpol's at Kool Haus in Toronto on September 28th. But you already knew that. [blog link from angryrobot; photo from http://../]

Ear To The Ground Festival organizers posted over at stillepost that Early Bird weekend passes($40) are now available for purchase at Soundscapes in Toronto.

Here's a couple of Matt Pond PA live shows that I turned up during a Yahoo! search[downloads courtesy of The Black Dog]:

The Bug Jar, Rochester NY, May 14 2002

Broadway Joe's, Buffalo NY, November 4 2002

Death Cab For Cutie make the cover of the new issue[summer 2005] of Under The Radar.

Here's a torrent of an mpeg video of Metric at the Art Rock Festival in France on
June 03, 2005, where they performed acoustic renditions of "Combat Baby" and "Love Is A Place". It's a slow download right now. Hopefully it'll all be worth it in 17 HOURS. [torrent link from Largehearted Boy]

All Used Up

Watch behind-the-scenes footage[under 'multimedia'] of Sloan's "All Used Up" video, and watch the band beat the heck out of Patrick's car!

Exclaim! speaks to its August issue's cover boys, Cuff The Duke, who's new self-titled second album, will likely make my top 10 list for 2005.

Vancouver's Westender speaks to Teenage Fanclub. I'm still on a high from Teenage Fanclub's show this past Monday at The Mod Club. Download a torrent of a live acoustic session The Fannies did 1993-12-06 at Patriot Center in Fairfax VA, part of the HFSmas Nutcracker Ball.

Between Thought and Expression has a 2-part mp3 download of The Arcade Fire's set from this year's Lollapalooza.

Looks like the efforts to bring Sufjan Stevens to Hamilton ON are in full gear. Hope this happens, because I'd definitely go to Hamilton, on top of the Toronto show which I already have a ticket for.

It's All In My Mind

concert review: Teenage Fanclub w/ The Rosebuds @ The Mod Club(Toronto, Ontario), July 25, 2005

I can check off Teenage Fanclub from my list of must-see shows because I FINALLY got around to seeing them live when they played an intimate mid-sized club show Monday night at The Mod Club in Toronto in front of a nearly packed house. The openers were Merge Records' The Rosebuds who I knew nothing about. Having heard only samples off the Merge site, then hearing them live I thought they were a decent, if somewhat, schizophrenic live band. Their name conjures thoughts of indiepop and yes there was that side to them, but on the other side, they had songs that featured a beat, garage sound. I'm a sucker for good pop songs and I thought they hit their stride when they concentrated more on their pop tunes, which featured a bevy of good things like pretty melodies, attractive male/female vocals and confident, yet tasteful, instrumentation. It was a little off-putting to go from that, to a garage-beat ditties which seemed little more than an opportunity for the band to rock out. I had the perception that the band, who were playing in Canada for the first time, might have thought that they needed to rock out in order to please first-time listeners, but believe you me, give Toronto fans pretty melodies and we'll be drooling all over ourselves.

After what seemed like an eternity of soundchecking, Teenage Fanclub finally strolled onto stage. I'd managed to get near to the front of the stage. It was interesting to see the band's core members after all these years: Norman Blake, no longer the shaggy haired slacker I remember him to be and now sporting a clean-cut look, Gerard Love looking as boy-ish as ever, and Raymond McGinley who seemingly has grown out his hair in direct contrast to Norman's clean-cut look. Overall, they didn't look like the young slackers I remembered them to be when they appeared on Saturday Night Live back in the early 90's. It's funny that, although I've sort of kept up with their music releases I've been completely oblivious to how they've physically transformed. Not that they're old men but having had that romanticized image of them as young punks, part of the romance was lost seeing their older selves. But to be fair, haven't we all aged? The physical aspect aside, I was totally ecstatic to be seeing The Fannies live for the first time, and considering that their last couple of shows in Toronto were at bigger venues, I was even happier to be seeing them in a small intimate venue.

The setlist from the show can be found here. It was a veritable greatest 'hits' set, as The Fannies played tunes spanning most if not all of their albums. My favourites included "About you", "The Cabbage", "Starsign", "I Need Direction", "I Don't Want Control", "Don't Look Back", "Neil Jung", and encore-closer "The Concept". The guitar sound, Raymond's in particular, was pretty clear in my opinion but I found the vocal mix to be a little muddy, especially with Norman's mic. In contrast, when Gerard took reign of vocal duties on his own mic, such as on "Don't Look Back", I recall his vocals being alot more clearer. I don't really have any point of reference other than their albums to compare their live set but I did perceive a slight level of restraint with the instrumentation, especially on rockers like "The Cabbage" and "The Concept". Overall, these are only minor complaints and I'd say that The Fannies delivered the goods for the most part. If I really wanted to file a complaint, it would have to be for all the songs they DIDN'T play. (I REALLY wished they played "What You Do To Me", "Hang On", and "Radio") Otherwise, it was a great set and I'll be replaying these songs in my head for days. [photos from the show]
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Yesterday, I managed to make it down to the sweltering interior confines of Soundscapes in Toronto to catch an instore performance by Cuff The Duke. They played a bunch of new tunes like "Belgian or Peru" and "Take My Money And Run"(dedicated to everyone who's ever worked a shitty job) as well as some older ones. They're so young but to hear how musically confident they were was amazing. I didn't realize it until yesterday but frontman Wayne Petti reminds me physically of actor/comedian Seth Green. He's funny too, but not nearly as much of a smart ass. Thankfully. I caught the segment E-Talk Daily did on the band tonight. They showed clips of the band's instore performance[I was wondering whose camera that was in the store.] According to the band's website, they are featured on the cover of the new issue of Exclaim!; the website isn't updated yet but the print version should be available now.

Thanks to Just Keep Bloggin' for the heads up that Feist: Live at Rehearsal Hall will air on Bravo! Canada on August 9th at 9pm.

Download decent quality video of Feist's live performance of "Mushaboom" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, courtesy of From Blown Speakers.

Life Stories For Minimum Wage

Teenage Fanclub's show at The Mod Club in Toronto yesterday was awesome, but it'll take me at least another day to sort out my photos and write up my usual review. When did "Bandwagonesque", my first foray into the world of Teenage Fanclub, come out? "1991", you say. Wow, and about 14 years later, I've now seen them live for the first time. I'm feeling old. But on to today's links(while I go ponder the meaning of life.) ;-)

Interpol will be back at Kool Haus in Toronto on September 28th for an all-ages show. Tickets, $30.00, onsale July 30th at 10 am through the regular outlets. Kool Haus? Well at least it's not The Docks. I' still not gonna go though. [ticket info from rootmeansqueare]

Scotland's cow-punks Sons and Daughters will be playing Lee's Palace on September 5th!!!!!! Tickets are only $9.00!!!! Onsale at the usual outlets on July 27th. [info from Lee's Palace ]

Mocking Music examines the C86 scene as both a genre of music(indiepop) as well as literally a cassette collection of tracks of indie artists at the time(1986, in Britain). Mocking Music also has links to mp3's of all the tracks that were compiled on the C86 cassette which had been given away free with an issue of NME back in 1986.

Thanks to Largehearted Boy for pointing out that Arcade Fire fansite Us Kids Know has a bittorrent tracker for the band's live shows and rarities. Sign up and browse the shows available. And if ye taketh, please shareth.

Just a reminder, Cuff The Duke, Soundscapes instore, today 6:30 pm. Save me a spot near the front. Yes, the boys' new self-titled album is out today, and I believe you can buy it today at Soundscapes for $9.99. Run, don't walk. [top photo from http://../]

Night At The Nufonia

concert review: Kid Koala, part of Dim Sum: Sampling Contemporary Chinese Culture @ Harbourfront Centre(Toronto, Ontario)

In advance of Kid Koala's Harbourfront show this past weekend which was part of the Dim Sum: Sampling Contemporary Chinese Culture festival, The Toronto Star[Bugmenot] profiled the DJ who's been causing waves in the music scene, both on these shores and abroad. After having seen Kid Koala perform at Harbourfront this past Saturday, I can see why Canada chose him back in 2004 to go to China as part of a Canadian embassy-sponsored tour. He's the personification of Canadian modesty and at the same time an illustrious example of our Canadian music talent. Or as was stated by Francis Acquarone of 010 Productions in The Toronto Star article, "Eric[aka Kid Koala] is a great ambassador for Canada."

It was perfect timing that my friend and I got to Harbourbront just a minute or two before Kid Koala was announced onto the stage. It was probably one of the higher capacity crowds I've seen this year at Harbourfront. There was a four turntable setup onstage, and the visuals were augmented by two video screens on either sides of the stage which gave us closeups of the main two turntables which Kid Koala manipulated. There was a great variety of influences heard during the set. The most popular tracks were the hip-hop flavoured tracks which featured crowd-pleasing samples from songs such as Beastie Boys' "So Whatcha Want", Tears For Fears' "Shout", The Cure's "Close To You" plus less familiar tracks from A Tribe Called Quest, M.I.A.["Fire, Fire"] and Bjork. It was really mesmerizing to watch Kid Koala mix and scratch. During one jazz-influenced track, I couldn't fathom how he manipulated a record to sound like it was a horn solo. He dedicated his most serence version of his next track to his mom and said something along the lines that she never understood what he did until she heard his version of "Moon River": her only question now was "why?". Taking an old recording of a female-sung "Moon River", Kid Koala deconstructed it and assembled it back, incorporating subtle scratches, echo, desolate guitar notes and other fun effects. At the conclusion of the song, he dedicated it to all the women over forty. :-) Touching upon his Chinese heritage, one of his tracks incorporated a Chinese folk melody with hip hop beats and scratches that hopefully pleased modern music fans and the old-country folk alike. Near the end of the set, Kid Koala displayed a closet(?) affectation for heavy-metal and hard rock, first starting with a speed-metal, mix-and-scratch embellished creation which then segued into a track which featured sampling from Rage Against The Machine. There were a couple of slower tracks which dragged on a bit and overall it was hard to tell how much the crowd was into the set but that ambiguity was answered by the crowd's enthusiatic chant for an encore after Kid Koala finished the set, walked off stage and the MC of the evening came back onto the stage. Thankfully, he came back onto the stage to play several more tracks[including a new track which he said he collobarated on with Dan The Automator and Damon Albarn] but only on the condition that if he's going to play more, people are going to have to dance. I couldn't tell if anyone up front was dancing but I could see alot of smiles on people's faces around me. If we weren't all as enthusiastic as that fan who had out-of-the-blue jumped up onto the stage during the set and hugged him, at least I think the feeling was mutual.
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If Juliana Hatfield has this much to say about the state of her career, the making of the new album "Made In China", the concept of selling out, and love and life in general, well then I can't wait to hear her new album. It should be a good one.

The New York Times[Bugmenot] spends some time with Feist hanging out in Brooklyn. [link from Largehearted Boy]

I could't work up the motivation to drive to Hamilton last Friday night to check out the Final Fantasy/Great Lakes Swimmers/The Rest show at The Casbah. Thankfully thompsmr over at stillepost recorded Final Fantasy's set[download] including Owen's version of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy"[download]

For your downloading pleasure, a torrent of Broken Social Scene's set at the Intonation Festival in Chicago on 2005-07-16.

KEXP broadcasted live from the Triple Door in Seattle this past Saturday to present a live session from Sufjan Stevens. The particulars of the event are as follows: Saturday July 23, 2005, 4:35 pm PST. Check out the session through KEXP's streaming archive by date and time. I listened to the session yesterday and the tracklisting was as follows[I am thoroughly looking forward to Sufjan's show in Toronto at Trinity-St. Paul on September 10th!]:

"Casimir Pulaski Day"

"The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders - Part I: The Great Frontier ..."

"Prairie Fire That Wanders About"

"Jacksonville"

"Chicago"

"The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts"

"John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

Rock N' Roll Fun

Preceding their opening slot on Pearl Jam's current tour which hits Toronto at the Air Canada Centre on Monday September 19th, Sleater Kinney will be headlining the Bandshell Stage of the Ear To The Ground Festival on Sunday September 18th!!!!!!! If that wasn't enough, more acts are still to be to confirmed! [photo from http://../]

Poison Safe

concert review: controller.controller w/ VHS or Beta, Camouflage Nights @ Lee's Palace(Toronto, Ontario), July 20, 2005

If there was one thing I realized yesterday at Lee's Palace: yes they have air-conditioning! That wouldn't have been apparent if you were at Monday night's Pernice Brothers show. The air-conditioning must have been on the fritz. Even if thinks heated up during controller.controller's and VHS or Beta's set, at least the air-conditioning kept it reasonably comfortable. (I'd like to conserve energy as much as the next person, but when it comes to air-conditioning, I'm an energy whore.) Apparently, Camouflage Nights were a last minute addition to the night because I don't remember ever seeing them being advertised as openers. Of course, I missed their set.

Fresh from a slot at New York City's Siren Music Festival came VHS or Beta. Their music was a good compliment to controller.controller's. Whereas controller.controller's influences tend towards more classic post-punk influences such as P.I.L., The Slits and Joy Division, VHS or Beta have some British alternative, indie, and shoegazerish qualities that are quite refreshing. VHS or Beta displayed a good dose of danceability courtesy of the wicked bass guitar arrangements but also showed a sense of melody courtesy of the sometimes-shoegazerish guitars and the lead vocalist's vocals which harkened back to a late 80's British alt-rock aesthetic. Keeping things solid on the backend were the drummers persistent drumming style and the keyboardist's spacey drones and supplementary percussion. The most succinct description I can make of VHS or Beta's music is to think of them as a cross between The Cure and Gang of Four. At least that's what their music reminded me of. If some of the members emo haircuts were kind of a turn off at first, they turned out to be a decent band at least. Additional brownie points for an asian guy being the lead vocalist. Myself being asian, it's comforting to find more and more asians in indierock. Respect. Although, the lead vocalist's attempt at a joke totally tanked. [Does the joke of a band saying "it's nice being in Montreal", when they're in Toronto, still work these days?] Maybe there's a reason why 'we' aren't comedians. ;-)

Screw the whole getting-out-of-Lee's-Palace-weeknight-shows early because the whole night was off schedule. controller.controller were scheduled to come on at 11:15 pm but VHS or Beta's set was already off schedule so that meant controller.controller probably didn't come on until at least after 11:30 pm. Even though controller.controller had recently played an opening set at Sneaky Dee's at the beginning of the month, the Lee's Palace show felt much more special, and almost like a homecoming. This was probably due to the fact that Lee's Palace is a little bit of a larger venue than the usual hole-in-the-wall venues that they've usually played. For a Wednesday night there was a good size crowd on hand. They played a selection of their old "History" favourites as well as a bunch of new tunes. The new tunes were great including the Gang-of-Fourish punk-funk of "City of Daggers" which featured brief moments of pouty shout-out vocals by guitarist Scott Kaija. "PF" sounded like a "History"-era track but I still liked it. They also played another new tune which had a buzz-y, almost Ramones-y feel to it. I think the band sounded a little more casual and loose this night, although that attraction was counteracted somewhat with a slightly harsh sound. It probably didn't help that I was near a speaker(and was wearing ear protection) but when a friend of the band came onstage to sing background vocals on one song(if I recall was "Disco Blackout") her vocals sounded distorted. I don't think I'll ever get tired of their music, but I think I'll stand away from the speakers next time.[photos from the show]
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One Louder chimes in, and has photos from the Hard-Fi show yesterday at Rothko in New York City. Hard-Fi opened tonight for Stars' radio-contest-winners show at The Drake Hotel in Toronto. And no, I didn't win a ticket. Update: Hard-Fi were a no-show yesterday, according to suckingalemon's comment.

Angry Robot has some interesting commentary on the album art for Echo and The Bunnymen's "Ocean Rain" which happens to be one of my favourite album covers EVER!

Lookie here, a black and white photoset of Broken Social Scene.

City of Daggers

controller.controller performed a live session for Montreal campus radio station, CJLO, yesterday. Unfortunately, the session has not yet been archived, but a post over at stillepost says that you can check out the band's live session they did for the station back on October 30, 2004. Download mp3's of 3 new songs including "PF", "Poison Safe", and "City of Daggers", plus older favourite "Disco Blackout". The band with openers VHS or Beta are playing Lee's Palace tonight, and yes I will be there! [note: The photo at left is actually one I took of them at a show in Hamilton, ON at The Underground back in December 2004]

Stars will be live at the Edge Studios tomorrow July 21st at 6:10 pm for an interview with Dave Bookman. Stars are playing one of those "Next Big Thing" concerts tomorrow at The Drake Hotel, for which you'd need to have won tickets from the radio station in order to attend. Which counts me out. Staines, West London, England band Hard-Fi are openers. Oooh, it's killing me right now.

More bands have been added to the lineup for the inaugural Ear To The Ground Festival happening in September at Exhibition Place. It's going to be hot!

There are still some holes to fill, but the Stage Schedule for this year's Taste of the Danforth is now up. The 9:45-11:00 pm slot on Friday August 5th, the 8:10-9:00 pm slot on Saturday August 6th, and the 6:30-8:00 pm slot on Sunday August 7th are still to be announced. The Lowest of The Low will be playing the headlining 9:30-11:00 pm slot on August 6th. Country rocker Mike Plume performs the 5:00-5:40 pm slot on August 6th. Toronto singer-songwriter Royal Wood will perform the 3:50-4:40 pm slot on August 7th. Oh and if you like Greek music, there'll be alot of Greek music.

SHOT says you can stream Cuff The Duke's new self-titled album over at their website. The new album will be released July 26th. Also available over at the website is an mp3 download of one of the new songs called "The Future Hangs". Check the site in the future for more mp3 downloads. In addition to the Soundscapes instore scheduled for July 26th which I mentioned a couple of days ago, the boys also have some new tour dates including one in Toronto at Lee's Palace on September 9th.

Download a torrent of a a live FM broadcast of Feist performing in Berlin, Germany on November 11, 2004.

How about a torrent of a live show by The New Pornographers performing at the 400 Bar, MN on 02/08/02.

Or else here's a torrent of a DVD recording of The Arcade Fire performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 26, 2005, including their duet with David Byrne on "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)".

Popmatters speaks with indie-country artist Laura Cantrell. Coincidentally, after having purchased a used copy of Ms. Cantrell's "Not The Tremblin' Kind" a month or two ago, I finally got around to listening to some of it yesterday. Now if only her tour would come to Toronto.

Amazing Glimmer

concert review: Pernice Brothers w/ Paso Mino @ Lee's Palace(Toronto, Ontario), July 18, 2005

This was the first show I've been to at Lee's Palace since they finished their renovations. The major change is that the bar is now set up against the back and back left side walls. Where the bar used to be situated[in the middle of the floor at the back of the club] is now an empty space. I like it. The extra space should come in handy for higher capacity-drawing acts. So on to the show. I got to the club while openers Paso Mino were already playing. They were playing a nice subdued country-ish tune. There was a little bit of a Neil Young influence in their subsequent rockier material. I quite liked their no-frills yet interesting set of country-rock tunes. Just a question, however. Is Paso Mino's lead vocalist, toronto singer-songwriter Afie? Afie actually opened for Joe Pernice's solo show at the Horseshoe this past May and I could've sworn Paso Mino's vocalist was the same gentleman.

It was only about a twenty minute wait before The Pernice Brothers promptly began their 10:40 pm headlining set. By that time, the heat in side Lee's Palace was downright uncomfortable. If there was air-conditioning, well then it didn't seem to be working that night. Joe, of course acknowledge the heat, and said that they'd to try to get through their set as efficiently as possible, an made a reference that him and sweating isn't a good thing. Perhaps the uncomfortable conditions were a factor in the average-ness of the evening. Of course, an average performance from the Pernice Brothers is still ten times better than some artists but when you expect greatness, it's a little disappointing to accept.

I'd only purchased the Pernice Brother's new cd "Discover A Lovelier You" last week but I hadn't had a chance to listen to it yet. So other than hearing a couple of their new tunes off the 'net as well as what I could remember of Joe playing some of these new songs at his solo show in May, hearing these new tunes within this band environment was pretty satisfying. People keep on mentioning a rockier direction on the new album as if it were a bad thing. But don't let that scare you off as if to say the new album's a full-on, rock record. It's not. It's still a pop record. If the rock is what you're after, then you wouldn't have to look no further than James Walbourne's vibrant yet tasteful guitar arrangements. From what I remember, the Pernice Brothers played a bunch of the new tunes including "Saddest Quo", "My So-Called Celibate Life", and "Amazing Glow" which were all amazingly melodic. Older, uptempo tunes like "The Weakest Shade of Blue", "7:30", "One Foot In The Grave", "Working Girls", and "Sometimes I Remember" were some of my favourites of the set. Reaching back to the first album, "Crestfallen" in this live setting seemed more restrained than its string-embellished album counterpart.

My only criticisms would have to be in reference to vocals. Several examples spring to mind. During "The Weakest Shade of Blue", I sorely missed hearing the background "ah"'s during the "don't cry baby" part of the song. During "7:30", the vocal "ba ba ba ba ba" outro was so severely low in the mix that the only way I could tell if that part was being sung was to watch keyboardist/guitarist James Walbourne's mouth. In general, I noticed a lack of that general lush pop vocal I've come to expect. Blame it on the sound guy, and maybe Joe sounded a little hoarse at times, but for example, Joe's vocals on "Water Ban" just didn't have that spine-tingling lush pop sound I was hoping for.

Not a bad set, and quite good overall, but it didn't reach the blissful heights I had hoped for. I think I just miss Laura[Joe's wife] and Mike[Bellitsky] being part of the group. But, hey life goes on. [photos]
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Oh, Summer Life points out that Ladytron have just signed to Universal Records and will release their latest album, "Witching Hour", in September.

Endearing Records is going through a website redesign. In the meantime, check out the beta site to see how the new site'll shape up. I quite like the new design. It's alot more organized, to say the least. To be honest, the old site design was an eyesore.

chartattack reports that The Arcade Fire have bought a small church in rural Quebec and plan to build a studio there, where they hope to begin work on their second album later this fall.

Natural Progression

It came as surprise to have the one and only Masia One recently leave a comment on this older post of mine. I thought it'd be criminal not to share her thoughts with all of you.

She said,

"What's going on.

My point of Asian women being exoticised in mainstream media has more to do with exposure only relating to them pouring tea, hiding behind their strong man, giggling school girls...and have names like Jade and China Doll 69 lol.

I have no problems with Asian women coming out and giving Xtina and Britney a run for their money - but be hot shit cause you are, and not because you're a lawn ornament for someone that jerks off to oriental porn.

Do you know how many 11 year old asian women dream of one day becoming Car Models? There is a problem here.

peace homes.

masia."

[photo from http://../]
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Toronto soulstress, Esthero's live session for MPR 89.3 The Current from July 15, 2005 is now archived on their site. She performed "If The Mood", "Gone", and "We're In Need Of A Musical Revolution".

There's news over at ANTI- that Daniel Lanois and Tortoise will be teaming up for a series of tourdates. Tortoise will be playing their own set in addition to backing Mr. Lanois during his set. Sounds interesting even if I don't count myself a big fan of either artist. Check out ANTI- for tourdates. Only one Canadian date has been announced so far at Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on October 17th.

Cuff The Duke will be playing an instore at Soundscapes in Toronto on July 26th to celebrate the release of their new self-titled CD, released that same day. I forgot what time the instore is, but I think it's after 5pm or so.

In advance of next weekend's Hillside Festival, Cuff The Duke's Jeff Peers and The Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Tim Kingsbury will be interviewed on Guelph's CFRU radio program The Mich Vish Interracial Morning Show! this Wednesday July 20th, sometime between 7am and 9 am EST. Listen online. [info via stillepost via CFRU]

Check out One Louder's links to other bloggers who went to this year's Siren Music Festival. Oh, Siren you've evaded me once more. I swear, next year.

Song of The Siren

Brooklynvegan, Out of Focus, One Louder, The Problem of Leisure, and heartonastick[check out the photos of The Dears] have a rundown/photos of day one of the 2005 Siren Music Festival while Spablab, Dip Dip Dive, The Problem of Leisure, You Ain't No Picasso, and Kirstie[check out the Broken Social Scene photos] chime in on day one of the Intonation Music Festival in Chicago. Both festivals are happening over this weekend.

One Louder had a Siren Music Festival-themed post yesterday and linked to audio treats of some of the artists playing the festival you may have not heard of yet. I keep reading that Morningwood is going to be big.

Download a torrent of a live show of Feist at this year's Montreal Jazz Festival. [thanks to Blane over at the Arts & Crafts Broken Telephone forums]

From Blown Speakers has an mp3 download of Broken Social Scene performing "Major Label Debut" during an XFM live session.

Yesterday was a friend of mine's bachelor party. It was a cloudy yet still sweltering, smoggy day and first on the agenda was some paintballing. I've gone paintballing once before in an outdoor environment and had a blast. This time it was an indoor facility with no air conditioning and the visibility was too dark. After two hours, we'd had enough. BTW, I took a direct paintball hit in the chest, and even with coveralls on I still got a minor bruise the size of a chestnut. There was a good turnout for the dinner portion of the bachelor party, which was at a great Chinese buffet restaurant. I bet you can guess where we went after to dinner to end the festivities.

We'll Collect The Moments One By One

Maybe it's the handclaps, the added trombone, the recorded-off-the-floor drumming, the purring keyboards, or the camera closeups but Feist's performance of "Mushaboom" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien was the BEST performance I've EVER seen of that song. I finally got to see it over at Feist's official website under 'Videos'. My search for a torrent of a high quality video clip of the performance continues. High-speed internet users can download WHOLE Conan O'Brien shows over at Conezone according to a commenter over at From Blown Speakers, including the show(July 7, 2005) that Feist appeared on. If you don't happen to catch the hyperlink to the download, the show's likely been uploaded to the ftp archive.

Watch Martha Wainwright's new video for "When The Day Is Short" over at her official website.

Sloan speaks to chartattack about opening for Foo Fighters on their upcoming Canadian tour and his total ineptitude for giving career advice(heads up, Feist reference!).

chartattack also catches up with The Hidden Cameras' Joel Gibb about the new album "Awoo" which should come out in February or March of 2006, as well as the newly released 7-inch on Gibb's record label Evil Evil which contains lo-fi, four-track demos of songs that'll appear on the new album.

Pimps of Gore spotlights Uncle Tupelo with a generous helping of live mp3's for your downloading pleasure. Pimps of Gore goes on to say "I wonder if they'd ever consider releasing their final concert on CD. The bootleg -- a fantastic soundboard recording from their 5/1/94 show at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis -- has been floating around for years. Video footage has also been spotted, and recently a fan dubbed the sound from the CD over the lackluster audio for the original film." Anyone know where I could obtain either or both of these artifacts?

Pollstar's known for bouts of inaccuracy. Anyone think the listing for The Constantines playing with The New Pornographers at The Docks in Toronto on October 9th is a mistake? Pollstar is also saying that The Constantines are suppose to play dates with The New Pornographers in Philadelphia(Oct 14th) and Atlanta(Oct 17th) as well. I won't hold my breath that these dates are actually correct.

Yesterday, I didn't have the strength to either check out Kaki King in Hamilton or The Deadly Snakes' midnight set at the Horseshoe in Toronto so I just stayed in. Like chromewaves, it's a bachelor party weekend this weekend, only for me it's for a friend of mine and it's scheduled for today, including some paintballing, then dinner, and finally the usual evening bachelor party mischief. See ya Monday.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Popmatters speaks to Toronto's Thomas D'Arcy aka The Ladies and Gentlemen. The band's now a five piece. I'm gonna have to give the music a closer listen as the electro-tinged pop(not quite electro-pop) samples at the official site are pretty infectious. The Ladies and Gentlemen's album "Small Sins"(recorded by D'Arcy in the basement of his home this past winter) was just released July 12th through Vancouver's Boompa Records. [photo from http://../]

Billboard reports that Junior Boys' next album will be released hopefully early in 2006 via KIN/Domino. Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan describes the new album as "a bizarre combination of Italo-disco, new wave (as usual, but with a heavier influence of Simple Minds, Magazine, Ultravox and others that we love) and strangely, the pervasive influence of classic Tin Pan Alley/Gershwin-esque songwriting. [It] sounds bad, but its definitely coalescing into something new."

Coast to coast, from our nation's weeklies:

The Dears speak to The Montreal Mirror.

Guitar extraordinaire, Kaki King speaks with Hamilton, ON's View Magazine. [btw, she plays Hamilton's Pepper Jack Cafe tomorrow and I'm torn between whether I should check her out or go see The Deadly Snakes at the Horseshoe]

Stuart Berman of eye reviews Neko Case's July 7th Harbourfront show which I went to.

Feist speaks to Vancouver's Westender.

Here's a torrent of a live session of Julie Doiron performing on Dutch radio, VPRO 747 AM.

Welcome to the M!dwest! has posted mp3's of the live session Sufjan Stevens did for Morning Becomes Eclectic yesterday.

Sinking Ships

Having only been to Toronto venue The Boat once(to see The Two Koreas & The Diableros: [my review]) I was pretty excited to discover a cozy new music venue to go to. Just steps from the heart of Kensington market, it has a nautical theme going on with port holes on the wall to give it that feeling of being aboard a ship. What really excited me was the non-existent stage which really could make for an intimate performance as the artist/band(in my case when I saw Two Koreas & The Diableros) would be performing at eye level with the audience. It's a little disappointing to hear the talk on Stillepost about the calling of a boycott of the venue due to an incident of sexual harassment by the owner towards a female patron after hours. The thread at Stillepost is reaching record-length proportions and I haven't even read all the comments but there seems to be a division between people calling for the boycott and others saying a boycott is ridiculous. From what I've read there was an incident of inappropriate touching: not a full on grope but something more along the lines of a flirtatious "brushing sort of contact". Some comments raise the question of whether there should be a sliding scale of sexual harassment while others say that when dealing with the bar scene, you're always going to encounter shady characters. The question of whether she was flirting comes up. But really does it matter whether she was? It's really quite a moral dilemma for bands and music fans alike. Should an incident like this be a factor as to whether one continues to book with/patronize an establishment? As far as I know, there hasn't been any legal action taken. For me, I think it'll all come down to a matter of principle and personal comfort. I'd continue to go to The Boat until I personally observe conduct I don't agree with(and on principle would have to discontinue going there) or if I just didn't feel comfortable going there. ...Although, this patron review of the venue, doesn't necessarily help.
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According to rootmeansquare, Ted Leo/Pharmacists return to Toronto for an all ages show at The Mod Club on September 29th. Tickets, $15.00, onsale on July 21st at Rotate This, Horseshoe, and Soundscapes.

Also on sale July 21st are tickets for Antony And The Johnsons with Coco Rosie who'll be playing in Toronto at Trinity St. Paul on October 1st, tickets $21.50.

You Ain't No Picasso has a link to a video download of The Decemberists' performance of "We Both Go Down Together" from their appearance on last night's Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Thanks also to YANP for pointing to The Confabulators who offer a torrent to a higher-quality video of the same performance.

Sufjan Stevens will be performing a live session for Morning Becomes Eclectic tomorrow[July 14th], 11:15 PST(2:15 pm EST).

Watch the semi-animated video for The Dears' "22: The Death of All the Romance" which is available from July 13th to 17th on MySpace.

Welcome To The Midwest has graciously posted mp3's of Stars' recent live session for KEXP!

Yet another torrent available of a live show by The New Pornographers, this time being their show at The Gothic Theatre in Englewood, CO on 2003-06-03.

Rotate This is now listing tickets for the October 9, 2005 New Pornographers show in Toronto as being at the (much-hated) Docks. Tickets are $22.50.

Said The Gramophone offers a little anectdote(as well as an mp3 download) of what I'd have to say is my favourite Sloan song ever, "Deeper Than Beauty"!

You Are The Light

Just bits and pieces today. Enjoy.

Old news to some but there's a new Jens Lekman fansite, Maple Leaves, which pretty much outdos the official site, at least in terms of style. At Jens' offical website, there's an mp3[see July 2/05 post] of Jens performing a cool acoustic version of "You Are The Light". [fansite link via Think Small; photo from http://../]

MPR: 89.3 The Current has now uploaded onto their site the live session Feist performed for them on 7/8/05. She performed some nice solo renditions of "One Evening"(swoon, hmmm), "Secret Heart", and "Mushaboom".

Blane at the Arts & Crafts Broken Telphone forums has seeded a torrent of Broken Social Scene's set at this past weekend's Ottawa Blues Festival[specifically from July 9, 2005]. Blane mentions that he'll also be seeding a torrent in the near future of Feist's live show from this year's Montreal Jazz Festival. Sweet.

Arts & Crafts says Broken Social Scene will be playing the Hillside Festival, on Sunday July 24th. This must have been a late addition, because this is the first time I'm hearing about this. And this sucks, since today's update at the Hillside Festival website says that ALL tickets are now SOLD OUT.

Jason Collett and guests will be playing a show at The Mod Club on August 5th. Tickets $12 at Rotate This and Soundscapes. It's an early show; doors at 7pm.

According to emerge, stellastarr* will be at the Horseshoe on September 10th. Tickets on sale this Saturday July 16th.

One Louder informs us that Cleveland radio station WBWC will broadcast 18 straight hours of Flaming Lips songs as part of the station's "2005 Summer Marathon Series." This goes down on July 28th, from 7am to 1am and will feature studio tracks, b-sides and rarities. You can listen online at http://www.wbwc.com.