When Bowie sang that line on his 1972 album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars , he was echoing the fantasy of many a teenage boy or girl. The children wanted to grow up to be garbagemen or astronauts or superheros, but at a certain age that changed and most teens would have given anything to make that wild mutation as a rock 'n roll star. However, only a precious few ever get to live out that dream. While Bono , and Sting and Chris Martin [...]
There are some bands that I love for no other reason than the simple fact that they make me happy. Blitzen Trapper is one of those bands. Last years' Wild Mountain Nation was a spastic mix of good old fashioned Southern rock and good old fashioned Southern raunch, and their show earlier this year was likewise, a hyperactive display of controlled chaos that ranks amongst the best shows I've seen. Furr is their fourth release, but their first on the highly influential Sub Pop label, and it once again brings a smile [...]
I wasn't sure if I was going to bother seeing the first few planned artist of my day 2 of NXNE , because the forecast was calling for a wicked thunderstorm to occur, starting at around 5 or so. However, 5:00 had come and gone and the sky still looked pretty good. So the wife and I figured, "How bad could it be?" We even had the 'should we take an umbrella conversation' and, for some reason opted with a resounding, "Naaahhhhhh...." Amsterdam's Hospital Bombers were the first band [...]
Toronto has some great local bands. And, as we've been finding out as of late, Toronto's suburban sprawl is pumping out musical goodness with that makes the downtown core jealous. Fox Jaws is a 5-piece from Barrie, Ontario which has been making a pretty serious splash in the past few months off the success of their debut full-length, Goodbye Doris ; the name being ode to the band's previous name, Doris Day . The album is 11 tracks of whispy alt-folk-pop that makes solid use of a great male/female dynamic, care of talented [...]
No theme or tribute this week, but a varied mix of great songs to kick off the weekend with. As always, enjoy! MP3: Fox Jaws - Karmonica (folk-pop/indie) MP3: Ulrich Schnauss - Stars (indie electronic) MP3: Tearwave - Lotus Flower (shoegaze) MP3: Young [...]
Going into Thursday night, I'd seen approximately 176 bands live this year. Give or take (this is based on my Flickr set which has one shot of each act, if you're curious). Despite the volume, most of whom I've seen was at least sort of familiar to me either by reputation or by pre-show research. The point of this is that it's fairly rare that I see a band without knowing at least something about them or with some idea of what to expect, and even rarer that one of the unknown quantities really manages [...]
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