Frank Yang Who: Forest City Lovers , Snowblink , Snailhouse , Bocce , Kite Hill , Richard Laviolette , Octoberman , The Meek, Jenny Omnichord What/Why: Local label Out Of This Spark is turning five years old in 2012, and they're marking a half-decade of discovering, incubating and launching some of the area's best new talent the way any good anniversary should - with family, friends and a tonne of great music. Details on the event over here [...]
Derek Branscombe '70s-styled radio rock - the sort marked by tight multi-part harmonies, guitars that go from chunky rhythms to smooth leads like the peanut butter aisle, and a laid back sort of pop songcraft that's inviting like a pitcher of beer on a hot Summer's day - has been back in style lately, and no one's done a better job of repping it locally than Zeus . Their 2010 debut Say Us won them plenty of fans both across Canada and abroad. Somehow amidst all the touring [...]
Frank Yang It hasn't escaped my notice that my live show schedule so far in 2012 has been pretty lean, and what there has been has been more on the sedate side. Which is fine - I dig the low key stuff and getting home well before midnight - but sometimes you get a fever for something bigger, louder and more rawk... and on those occasions, such as Tuesday night, the perfect prescription is The Kills . The Amer-English duo were on the road for a second North American jaunt in support of last [...]
Dusdin Condren I'm not playing "firsties" here, but I've always known that Sharon Van Etten would go on to big things since writing up her debut Because I Was In Love back in October 2009 , and following 20102s excellent epic it seemed pretty clear that her third album Tramp - released yesterday - would be the one that would see her break out in a big way. That said, I'm still surprised at just [...]
Facebook After writing up some bands lately whose names have either undersold or misrepresented the music they present, it's rather refreshing to have an artist whose public identity promises exactly what they have to offer. And that artist is Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny . A grandiose name, to be sure, and one that's matched by the title of their just-released debut album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose . There's no way that labels like those could herald anything less than grandiose [...]
Frank Yang It probably amounts to some sort of Can-rock heresy, but I think I actually like Bry Webb on his own more than I ever did with Constantines . I fully acknowledge why many hold the Cons up as one of the greatest Canadian rock acts of the past however many years/decades/centuries - I've seen them live , I know what they were capable of - but the fact is, his solo debut Provider has captivated me more than any of the [...]
Amazon Flashback: 2004. Ottawa singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards has made a bit of a name for herself with her debut album Failer the year before, and perhaps seeking to solidify the lucrative "people-who-buy-their-CDs-whil e-buying-coffee" demographic, contributes a song to the Starbucks/Hear Music-assembled Sweetheart: Love Songs compilation. This places her alongside artists like Aimee Mann and Josh Ritter in recording love songs covers, just in time for Valentine's Day. Edwards chooses to reinterpret a Tom Petty song from his 1989 solo album, Full [...]
Ross Garrett Who: Die Antwoord What: South African hip-hop outfit as dedicated to shock and spectacle - and viral videos - as beats and rhymes. Why: Their second album Ten$ion is set to come out on Tuesday and they are wasting no time in taking it on the road in North America. When: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 Where: The Phoenix in Toronto (all-ages) Who else: No idea who is [...]
Frank Yang Who: Veronica Falls What: English-Scottish foursome who on their self-titled debut , resurrected the spirit of '80s indie-pop and gave it a dark, zombie-like edge. Found love in a graveyard, indeed. Why: They toured North America in the Fall supporting The Drums - Toronto was lucky enough to get our own headlining show - but now they're doing their own tour . When: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 Where: The Phoenix in [...]
Ruth Swanson Seeing San Francisco's Ty Segall at Halifax Pop Explosion 2010 was one of the most unexpectedly rowdy/violent shows I've ever been in the middle of, which was a bit surprising considering that as rough and garage-y as his stuff is, it's not all that heavy. Certainly not the obvious soundtrack for the bedlam that ensued that evening. Maybe it was just Halifax. Anyways, despite enjoying his music well enough, I've made a point of avoiding his shows as the odds of me getting kicked in the head seem to [...]
Harley Weir No question, the first thing that needs to be addressed is their name. Even in an era with no shortage of terrible band names, Trailer Trash Tracys is an exceptionally terrible band name; the London quartet would probably be the first to admit it. But if there's an upside to it, it's that it offers no clues to what their debut album Ester might hold, so you've no choice to experience it with an open mind, if perhaps also lowered expectations. Not that pressing [...]
Mick Rock I will be the first to admit to not really being able to tell where Bradford Cox's Deerhunter ends and his Atlas Sound begins. I know that the former is ostensibly a band and the latter a solo project, but to my ears the hazy, psychedelic rock that each project produces isn't exactly a world apart. Okay, Atlas Sound is more keys, less guitars, but they're both critically adored and don't really do a lot for me, despite on paper being the sort of thing I should totally dig. [...]
Nic Shonfeld From the outset, The Twilight Sad weren't shy about proudly pronouncing their influences. The publicity photos for their 2007 debut Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters may as well have featured the band staring intently at their footwear, so obviously indebted were the Glaswegians to the walls of guitar construction techniques laid down by their shoegazing forebears. But what set them apart was the songwriting blueprints they applied those lessons to, choosing to build giant monuments to miserablism from giant slabs of distortion, mortared together by James [...]
Frank Yang Just so as we're clear, I don't imagine that in the realm of Leonard Cohen giveaways, I'll ever be able to top the one I held in February 2009 wherein I got to send a few people to the Hamilton date of his comeback tour. That said, having a copy of the master's new album Old Ideas to give away on CD isn't shabby at all, either. It comes courtesy of With A Bullet and if you'd like a shot at [...]
Killbeat If we were to spool up the Wayback Machine to November 2006 , you'd find a post where I confessed that sending me a lovely slab of vinyl was a pretty good way to get to the top of my "to listen to" pile... something that apparently still holds true over a half decade later. But as I pointed out even way back then, a listen is not the same as a writeup so I find it comforting to know that Camp Radio still has the goods to impress in whatever format they're [...]
Wikipedia I was having a little trouble coming up with something to say about this week's selection by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and taken from the 1991 Leonard Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan , but happily a little plumbing around the tubes of the internet turned up this little piece at chromehorse (chrome solidarity!) that corroborates the bit at Wikipedia on the song. Which is basically that Cave and company got wrecked before recording a marathon-length jam on "Tower Of Song" [...]
Sigurd Grunbërger Who: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour What: A six-piece cosmic-electro-jazz-disco-psyc h-pop party-time ensemble from Copenhagen. Yeah, another one of those. Why: Their second album Out Of Frequency is coming out this Tuesday, January 31, and they're touring it across the asteroid galaxy we call North America . When: Monday, February 6, 2012 Where: The Hoxton in Toronto (19+) Who else: Vacationer open things up. [...]
thekills.tv Who: The Kills What: Anglo-American electro-blues duo who're sexier than you and probably most people you know. Why: They've already toured through once in support of last year's Blood Pressures but they're back for another visit, ostensibly because they're releasing a 123 EP for "The Last Goodbye" on February 14 and also because it's the 10th anniversary of their first gig. When: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 Where: The Kool Haus in [...]
Billy Pavone Traditionally, the gift for tenth anniversaries is tin. I don't really know what you can buy these days that's made of tin. I suppose the modern equivalent of aluminum offers more options, but New York's Walkmen have got their own idea that I can get behind. They've been staging a handful of one-off (okay, two-off for San Francisco) shows where they showcase material drawn from across all of their ten years and five albums of original material - though maybe the Harry Nillson covers album Pussy Cats [...]
Neil Thomas Douglas As I understand it, yesterday was Robbie Burns Day and while I may have missed out on my annual tradition of posting something suitably Scottish to mark the day - a tradition I've marked exactly zero times in the past forever years - I'm going to make up for it a little bit by leading with some Scots-related content. Firstly, We Were Promised Jetpacks have finally scheduled a second North American tour in support of last year's In The Pit Of The Stomach [...]
Chromewaves
On The Cover Of A Magazine
Miike Snow – Paddling Out (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
Kylie Minogue receives threats on Twitter, alerts police!
The Shins Visit KEXP
