I found myself at a half-filled Dakota Tav­ern on Tues­day night. I’m was there to see The Grey King­dom, the new solo project from Attack in Black gui­tarist Spencer Bur­ton. I met Spencer years ago in Sackville and I’ve always really liked the songs he wrote in Attack in Black, but I was still caught off guard when he handed me a CD-R at a show last spring. When I gave it a lis­ten, instead of an EP or some hastily put together demos, it was a fully fleshed out and com­pletely enjoy­able 10 song album. I asked him at the time if he planned on releas­ing it and he said he didn’t really know. That was a year ago, and since then he has offi­cially released an EP on Dine Alone Records (mostly dif­fer­ent record­ings of songs from the CD-R), and he told me a full album is com­ing very soon.

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Tags: Dakota Tavern, The Grey Kingdom · Leave a comment

It’s the start of a new year, which means it’s time for another Out of this Spark anniver­sary party. I must give credit to OOTS mas­ter­mind Stu­art Dun­can for switch­ing things up this year, mov­ing every­thing from the cav­ernous con­fines of The Gar­ri­son (home to last year’s cel­e­bra­tions, writ­ten up here) to the much cozier inte­rior of The Tranzac’s South­ern Cross Lounge.

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Tags: Evening Hymns, Jenny Omnichord, Kite Hill, OOTS Family Band, Out of this Spark, Richard Laviolette, The Pale Mornings, The Phonemes, Tranzac · 1 Comment

Well, Fred­er­ick Squire finally put out a record this year. As you all know, I’ve been his fan for a long time. He put out a record years ago — it used to be a free down­load some­where on the inter­net but good luck find­ing it (and if you do, send it to me) — but it was start­ing to look like we’d never get another one. That was until this year when the March 12 EP mys­te­ri­ously appeared on the merch table at early Daniel, Fred & Julie gigs. I picked up my copy, but those who didn’t got the chance a few months later when March 12 got picked up by Blue Fog Records and was expanded to become a full-length album.

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Tags: Dakota Tavern, Frederick Squire, Kate Maki · 1 Comment

Well, here we are, final show at the Cana­dian Corps, the legion hall down at King and Nia­gra. I feel like I spent a lot more time there than I actu­ally did  - it has that ultra famil­iar feel­ing that I tend not to get at most places I spend min­i­mal amounts of time in. Nev­er­the­less, this show was my first time tap­ing a band there and it will be my last since the build­ing has been sold and it’s being con­verted into art studios.

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Tags: Canadian Corps, One Hundred Dollars · Leave a comment

I was a really lucky boy on Thurs­day night. A favourite band of mine, The Bar­mitz­vah Broth­ers, played a reunion show at The Sil­ver Dol­lar to help cel­e­brate their old label (weew­erk)‘s 8th anniver­sary. I’ve always liked how record label’s feel the need to cel­e­brate each anniver­sary with some kind of event, and (weew­erk) cer­tainly pulled out all the stops this time ’round. Nearly every band on their ros­ter, past and present, showed up over two nights, but the band I was most excited for was actu­ally the one that kicked off the festivities.

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Tags: (weewerk), Silver Dollar, The Barmitzvah Brothers · 1 Comment

To cel­e­brate and offi­cially wel­come their new 7″ sin­gle, last week Tasseo­mancy played a rare Toronto head­lin­ing show at The Tran­zac. I first encoun­tered the twins Sari and Romy Light­man when I moved to Toronto in 2008. They were actu­ally the first group I inter­viewed (when they were known as Ghost Bees) for the National Post, and their album Tasseo­mancy was one of my favourites from that year. In the two years since then their music has evolved to have a much darker and atmos­pheric sound, per­fectly suited for their macabre lyrics and style. The addi­tion of keys and drums and switch to elec­tric gui­tar should help turn a few more heads, espe­cially those who had them painted as just another folk band with nice harmonies.

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Tags: Castlemusic, Tasseomancy, Tranzac · Leave a comment

Last month I was invited to a small house show hap­pen­ing at one of Toronto’s most infa­mous res­i­dences, !059.  I’ve been to a plenty of par­ties and shows there before, but this was my first trip there in quite some time. Usu­ally it’s packed past the point of com­fort, but on this night I was happy to find a much smaller crowd, surely do to the Monday-ness of the day of the week. What brought me out was a chance to see Laura Bar­rett play one last time as a cit­i­zen of Toronto. Word spread over the sum­mer that she was pack­ing up her instru­ments and mov­ing to Van­cou­ver come Sep­tem­ber, and while I’ve been told she’ll be back before too long, it still felt like a bit an occa­sion. The crowd was mostly made up of close friends and the whole affair was as casual as you’d expect at a house show on the hottest night of the sum­mer. Play­ing a mix of old and new songs accom­pa­nied at var­i­ous points by flute, banjo and vio­lin, Laura spent the night switch­ing back and forth between her trade­mark kalimba and the in-house piano, lit only by strange pro­jec­tions of what seemed to be old tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­taries. It was a great night, and a reminder that Laura is one of the most unique voices in Toronto, and Van­cou­ver is richer for hav­ing her. Enjoy her song “Decep­tion Island Opti­mists Club” above.

Tags: !059, Laura Barrett · Leave a comment

A few months back my friend Shot­gun Jim­mie was in Toronto and said to me “You gotta check out this band I played with in Win­nipeg, they’re called the Can­non Bros. They’re young and a lit­tle scrappy but their songs are good.” So I found them on MySpace and imme­di­ately heard what Jim­mie was say­ing. Basi­cally, they’ve got all the right ele­ments: they’re a gui­tar and drum boy-girl duo who sound like they were raised on a healthy dose of Cana­dian indie-rock.

As I said, they’re a two-piece com­prised of a boy and a girl, Cole Woods and Alan­nah Walker, but whereas a lot of other bands that fit that mold end up sound­ing a bit too “cute” for my lik­ing, Can­non Bros. man­age to avoid that pit­fall all the while still writ­ing catchy-as-hell pop songs.

Of course I knew I’d have to go see them play when they announced a late-summer tour that would take them around Ontario, includ­ing two shows here in Toronto. So, a few weeks ago I found myself out on a Wednes­day night at a venue far from my house to see a band from a dif­fer­ent province that no one has really heard of — and it was great! It was mostly all new songs (d’uh), includ­ing a wicked Shot­gun Jim­mie cover, and plenty of instru­ment switch­ing between songs.  I have a few videos here, check them out, and I’ll see you next time they come through town, ok?

Tags: Cannon Bros., The Boat, Winnipeg · 1 Comment

I skipped out of work a bit early on Sun­day to catch the ferry over to the Toronto Islands for the fourth annual Poor Pil­grim Island Show. My first time attend­ing this event, I decided to go as much for the music as for the chance to explore the islands along­side some friends. The fore­cast for the evening called for a thun­der­storm, and with most of the acts per­form­ing out­doors, I was a lit­tle wor­ried that the event would have to devi­ate from its plan. Luck­ily, the storm just missed the islands, so every­thing pretty much went as planned.

The first act of the day, start­ing a 5 pm and per­form­ing inside the Franklin Children’s Sto­ry­book Gar­den, was Picas­tro. They’re a band that I’ve always heard about but never actu­ally sat down to lis­ten to or see live. In fact I don’t know a whole lot about them, but check­ing their bio on Wikipedia they’re described as a “sleep rock.” An odd descrip­tor for a band, but not entirely inac­cu­rate. Singer Liz Hysen sings qui­etly and some of the songs stretched on pretty long; I feel their inti­mate, noc­tur­nal sound would have been a good fit for later in the day, not as the first band. Still, I liked their set, but I feel if I acquaint myself more with their mate­r­ial they could be a band that I could really get into.

Accord­ing the our handy maps (which were avail­able to pick up at Sound­scapes dur­ing the week lead­ing up to the show), the next two acts were going to be per­form­ing at the Gibral­tar Cen­tre for the Arts. The mob of peo­ple, which I’d esti­mate at about 50 or so, made the trek west­wards to find that there were already a bunch of peo­ple wait­ing at the next stop. While Euca­lyp­tus was set­ting up on one end of the room, we were treated to a pup­pet show retelling of the ugly duck­ling story, with a few twists. It was fun.

Euca­lyp­tus is a bit of an all-star band, as far as hav­ing a lot of great Toronto musi­cians among its ranks. Led by alto sax-extraordinaire Brodie West, mem­bers include trum­peter Nicole Ram­per­saud, gui­tarist Alex Luka­shevsky, bassist Michael Smith, per­cus­sion­ist Blake Howard, drum­mer Nick Fraser, and Ryan Dri­ver on piano. I won’t pre­tend I know all that much calypso music, but the band sounded amaz­ing. Cool stuff!

As we were leav­ing for the next spot on our map we were informed to check out the art instal­la­tion on one of the beaches. It con­sisted of a few boom­boxes play­ing music buried under the sand. It was pretty neat! A lot of peo­ple were putting their ears up to the sand to hear bet­ter but I didn’t stick around long enough to try.

At the Cen­tre Island Pier under dark­en­ing skies and light rain I watched Not the Wind Not the Flag, an impo­v­ised duo play­ing a vari­ety of instru­ments includ­ing kalimba, a homemade-looking gui­tar, recorder and drums. My friend who is more into impro­vised music seemed to appre­ci­ate their tech­niques, but it mostly just went over my head. Still, they kept it short and the back­drop was nice, so I’m not complaining.

It was back indoors for the next band, Toronto-by-way-of-California’s Snow­blink, per­form­ing at St. Andrew-by-the-Lake Church. I’ve been a fan ever since I saw them in Jan­u­ary 2009 and have given their last album Long Live many lis­tens. I’ve seen them play a bunch more in the last year and I thought I knew exactly what I’d be see­ing on Sun­day. Hap­pily, the band was play­ing almost entirely new songs that, dare I say, kinda rock? I mean, I don’t know if Snow­blink could ever really rock out, but to me their live show has always been very pre­cious and care­ful. This time, the band seemed a bit looser and the new songs floated less like but­ter­flies and stung more like bees, to use a cliché. Very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing what else they have up their sleeves.

The last stop of the night (for me) was Snake Island where I arrived just as the sun was start­ing to set. THOMAS played a stripped-down set of pop jams to kick things off. I’ve caught them live a few times now but still haven’t given their album Self-Help a proper lis­ten. I was sit­u­ated pretty far back from where they were play­ing and kinda zoned out for part of their set, but I could tell it was good.

Once it was dark out we moved to another sec­tion of the beach for both Tasseo­mancy and Daniel Romano. I saw both of them play very recently and have already writ­ten a lot about them, so I can’t add much more. Artist Yuula Benivol­ski built a “dream machine” which spun around dur­ing their sets and from my van­tage point fit nicely into the Toronto sky­line. Tasseo­mancy used a very cool sound­ing pedal that made their man­dolin sound like an organ or some­thing, and the light­ning in the sky behind them added some fit­ting ambiance to their eerie music. Daniel’s set was dif­fer­ent enough from last week’s show to make it stick out, includ­ing a few new tunes and a cover or two. After his set my friend said, “That man can do no wrong,” and I’d have to agree with him.

There were a lot of peo­ple film­ing the con­cert so I’m hop­ing to see some footage sur­face. I had some tech­ni­cal issues (I for­got my bat­tery at home and had to get my brother to bring it to me, miss­ing out on the first half of the night) but on top of film­ing Snow­blink, I got another song from Daniel Romano, which I’ll post here:

I was exhausted come 11 pm and hav­ing to work in the morn­ing made me decide to sac­ri­fice catch­ing the last two acts of the night, Alex Luka­shevsky Trio and Drumheller. For­tu­nately, by that point in the evening a lot more peo­ple had showed up so despite a fair num­ber of peo­ple tak­ing the ferry back to shore with me, it’s good to know the last two bands would still be play­ing to a good crowd.

All in all, the mini-festival was a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence. It gave me the chance to see a lot of inter­est­ing bands I might not go see nor­mally, and really let me see some cool parts of the islands that I had yet to explore. Kudos to the orga­nizer Matt Cully and to all the bands that played for free. We live in a good city.

Tags: Daniel Romano, Eucalyptus, Not the Wind Not the Flag, Picastro, Poor Pilgrim, Snowblink, Tasseomancy, THOMAS, Toronto Islands · Leave a comment

So last night I vis­ited Toronto’s newest venue, The Shop, located under­neath the restau­rant Parts & Labour in the heart of Park­dale. I remem­ber last fall when I started hear­ing peo­ple talk­ing about a new restau­rant, an off­shoot of Odd­fel­lows and The Social, open­ing up at Queen St. W. and Sorau­ren Ave. that was going to have a small “punk” venue in the base­ment. I’m always happy when bands have new places to play, but I was mostly excited to have a venue open­ing up so close to my apart­ment (Toronto’s west-end is severely lack­ing in rooms to see bands I like play). The venue now known as The Shop finally opened about a month or so ago and I meant to check it out sooner but I’m glad I waited until a show I really wanted to see popped up, as was the case on Sun­day night.

Will Kid­man opened the night with a quick set of songs that have yet to appear on any of his albums as Woolly Leaves (I’m still not sure if he’s play­ing under that name any­more). I cap­tured some video but I had a feel­ing, per­haps because he was still read­ing the lyrics off a sheet, that a lot of the songs were still being devel­oped and I don’t like to put stuff on the inter­net when it’s still being worked on. You know what I mean? Maybe it doesn’t mat­ter. Any­way, I thought all his songs were among the best he’s writ­ten, and his cover of Neil Young’s “Shots” (which he also cov­ered in the Con­stan­tines on their 2006 split 12″ with the Unin­tended) was par­tic­u­larly cool to hear.

Next up was Baby Eagle (Steve Lam­bke, also of the Con­stan­tines) who brought a full band with him, which I believed he dubbed “The Proud Moth­ers,” com­posed of three quar­ters of Attack in Black (Spencer Bur­ton on drums, Ian Kehoe on bass, and Daniel Romano on acoustic gee­tar). It was a fairly sim­i­lar set to the one I wit­nessed back in March at The Horse­shoe when he opened for Daniel, Fred & Julie, which was fine because it gave me a sec­ond chance to hear all his new songs. My ver­dict: I like ‘em! While not too much of a depar­ture from the rest of his mate­r­ial, with song titles like “Fish­er­man or Fish” and “River Bank Sit­ter,” mov­ing to the East-Coast def­i­nitely seems to have informed his lyrics, at the very least. He has a new record called Dog Weather com­ing out soon on You’ve Changed Records, but it was avail­able at the show last night! I lis­tened to it today!

Daniel Romano was last up, armed only with his trusty acoustic and Bruce Penin­sula’s Misha Bower singing in har­mony — the same for­ma­tion I saw just over a month ago at his album release show at The Dakota Tav­ern. It was nice to see a lot more peo­ple come out to Sunday’s show, the record seems to be pick­ing up steam and there were a lot of peo­ple up front lis­ten­ing atten­tively, but enough peo­ple towards the back of the room talk­ing loudly and play­ing foos­ball made for a worse expe­ri­ence than at The Dakota. That’s okay though, there a plenty of other venues in the city that are bet­ter geared towards folk music. I think The Shop will be a good place to see louder music, when a lit­tle bit of chat­ter isn’t such a distraction.

Now that I think about it, are there any good places to see quiet music in Toronto? I men­tioned The Dakota before, but even that place gets loud when there enough peo­ple there. I guess the only time you’re going to find a quiet room is if it’s a large venue and peo­ple have paid a lot of money to be there (Massey Hall for exam­ple). Any bar with a cheap enough cover is going to attract peo­ple who aren’t there for the music, and that’s okay. I feel for­tu­nate enough that I can even see musi­cians I like on a weekly basis play­ing rooms that I can afford. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Tags: Baby Eagle, Daniel Romano, Parts & Labour, Will Kidman · 2 Comments