This video is about the Family Thrift Store in Guelph. I never lived in Guelph, but it’s a town I often visit because it’s where a lot of my friends live, and it’s where my older brother went to University. I remember on one of my first visits a few years back being told I have to visit the Family Thrift Store. I went and thought it was a pretty neat store — heck, I bought a sweet jacket on my first trip! Since then, I made sure to stop by the Thrift Store whenever I visited, so I was pretty bummed out to hear earlier this month that the store would be closing. I heard they were throwing some concerts, so last Friday I made my way to the Royal City to catch one of them. This is my document of that night. I hope you get a sense of how important the Family Thrift Store was to a lot of people.
Tags: Guelph, The D'Urbervilles, The Family Thrift Store, The Magic, The Skeletones Four, The Stew Gunn Band · 4 CommentsMonthly Archives: March 2009
I hope Nils doesn’t cut off my balls for posting this video. It’s from way back in March at a house party during Canadian Music Fest, and they were playing at about 3 AM. As you can see, I was literally standing two feet away from them so the sound ain’t too great (not that it was much better in person). This was their third show that day and they were (self-admittedly) a little sloppy. Still, I think there is some value in sharing this video with y’all. The Rural Alberta Adavantage have been receiving a lot of attention lately, starting last fall when their self-released record Hometowns (which the band had been selling at shows in handmade packaging for several months) was featured on eMusic, a website that I wasn’t too familiar with but which apparently has quite a few users. That raised their profile significantly and soon they were playing successful shows in New York and at SXSW, which I was lucky enough to attend.
Yes, seeing them play to a packed church in Austin, Texas was quite special, especially since the first time I saw The RAA was in my hometown of Oshawa at the Velvet Elvis way back in November 2006. While the size of the venue and audience has changed, one thing that hasn’t changed at all in the last three years is the music — it’s still the same three people playing the same songs with the same instruments (I assume). That’s why I was so happy to see Hometowns get rereleased last week all across North America (on vinyl to boot!) care of Omaha, Nebraska’s Saddle Creek records. It’s a great record that faithfully captures their live performances while adding nice flourishes and here and there to flesh out their sound. The songs are memorable and the lyrics are heartfelt — it really couldn’t be a better representation of their music. It’s a nice story that I witnessed first-hand which shows that sometimes things don’t happen overnight. That’s why you’ve gotta stick with it people!
Tags: !059, Canadian Music Fest, The Rural Alberta Advantage · 4 CommentsThis is a very intense new song from Peterborough’s Evening Hymns, shot last night at Sneaky Dee’s where he was playing for Wavelength 452. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to put it online because I wasn’t sure if the video really captures the intensity of the song. My roommate John was actually asking me how Evening Hymns was, and I said, “He was great! I shot one song and I might put it on YouTube, but it’s a really intense song, so I don’t know if I should.” John said, “Is it that song Dead Deer?!” and I was like, “Yeah, that’s the one!” And then he said, “I’ve heard that song before! That’s my favourite new song of his, it is really intense! Can you show me the video?” So I showed John the video and we both agreed that it was a good video so here it is, on my blog for all to see.
Tags: Evening Hymns, Sneaky Dee's, Wavelength · 1 Comment