Since the start of the year, Julie Doiron has been doing a weekly residency at Saving Gigi, a super cool hangout up at Bloor and Ossington. I was lucky enough to attend the last two shows in January (with a capacity of only 25 people, tickets go fast), where the special guests were Simone Schmidt (of One Hundred Dollars) and Rick White, making a rare live appearance.

The thing I like about these intimate shows is the musicians usually use the opportunity to test out new material, take requests, or play covers. Julie’s charming take of Pavement’s “Shady Lane” went out to the Saving Gigi crew.

It was pretty exciting getting to see Simone play pretty much all new material for her set. She’s been playing small shows around town lately, and I think she’s planning on making a record real soon.

For the final part of each night, Julie and her guest would team up for a set — catch Rick and Julie playing an old Eric’s Trip song at the start of this post, and Julie helping Simone on her song “Rainbow of Blues” just above.

Perhaps my favourite part from both nights was seeing Rick White play, his first show in quite some time, and the first time I’d seen him play since the Blue Fog showcase of 2010. In fact, it was the longest set I’d ever seen him play, clocking in at over an hour. With no new album to promote, White’s set consisted of songs from all throughout his career, including his solo albums, Elevator, The Unintended, songs he penned for The Sadies, and a few left-field covers (Rolling Stones, Simone & Garfunkel, Michael Nesmith). All of it executed with flawless guitar playing and singing, really just a treat to see. As my friend said of Rick, “Humble as a grasshopper and just as incredible.” The song I posted above is called “Slow Moon Bloom” and it’s off his first solo record. I’ve got a whole bunch more on my YouTube channel.

A fine folk showcase provided by the good folks at The Holy Oak was just what I was looking for on a recent Tuesday night. Though I’ve caught The Weather Station many times since the release of her sophomore album All Of It Was Mine (buy it/it’s incredible), this was the first time I’d seen her play completely unaccompanied in quite some time. The intimate show gave her the chance to showcase some brand new material, posted below. Nick Ferrio, on the otherhand, I hadn’t seen play in years, going back to my Oshawa-days. He’d swing by The Velvet Elvis every few months with one group or another — The Burning Hell, Weird Weather, The Bloody Miracles — or solo, but that was ages ago and I was super excited to get a chance to see what he’s up to right now. He’s got a shit-hot backing band now and a whole stack of soon to be classic songs, including “Searching For a Way,” posted right up top.

Nick mentioned onstage that he’s just returned from Welland where he put some songs to tape with lil’ Ian Romano. Looking forward to that. In the meantime, him and his band are attempting to put out an EP each month in 2012 themed around different feelings. January’s EP was fittingly titled Depression.

With Attack in Black no longer a going concern, the four members have been keeping busy with individual projects. Daniel Romano has put out two excellent country records, Spencer Burton released a record as Grey Kingston, Ian Romano has been engineering/producing as Tapes and Plates, and now Ian Kehoe has just dropped his first album as Marine Dreams. He played his first Toronto show at Parts & Labour, with a band consisting of Ross Miller (Hunters & Anglers) on bass and Ian Romano on drums.

I had a chance to chat with Ian before the gig, where I asked him about Marine Dreams’ humble beginnings.

Marine Dreams is your first album, although you’ve made many albums over the years with other bands. Does the saying about having “your whole life to make your first record” feel true in this instance?

It doesn’t feel like I had my whole my whole life to make it, no, not in that way, but it feels like the first one that is, I shouldn’t say all mine, but under my own direction. It’s just kind of a chunk of songs, of many others, that I have.

How did the band and album come to be?

I had an idea to write a song called “Marine Dreams,” which I did, and I just continued writing songs and eventually decided to record them with Ian Romano, without really knowing what I wanted to do with them or anything. It was just something I wanted to do, or needed to do. I still didn’t have a name for it or anything like that, but when I was on tour with Baby Eagle, Steve would introduce me as Marine Dreams. So that’s what I decided to call the record and the band, which was still non-existent and that point. Well, I shouldn’t say non-existent, but we’d never played live before. We’d just formed to make the record, which Ross Miller is on too. So that’s where the birth of this tangible thing came from.

As a first-time frontman, how are you finding the extra attention, especially in terms of press and such?

That part I don’t really like very much. Well, it’s not that I don’t like it, but it’s nothing that I seek out. It’s just a secondary condition that writing songs and wanting to sing them sort of entails or is expected of you. But I do love talking to people, it’s not that or anything. I like to talk about this kind of thing, but I don’t really seek attention.

You’ve got a lot of people playing on this record. Why did you choose to have so many guests?

Just like, out of fun. I like to play music with other people and I like to be in bands, so I just wanted to be a band and not just something that I did alone.

How are the songs you’re writing now different than the songs you were writing in Attack in Black?

They’re not really, at least they don’t feel any different for me, and I really don’t think they sound very different either. I think that’s just from having limited talents, I mean, I can only do what I can do, so it always just comes out that way.

The sound you’ve developed with this record seems like a logical extension of the where you were heading with your songs on the last Attack in Black record…

Yeah, for sure.

…while the other guys have gone down their own paths, with Dan going full-on country and Spencer more stripped down and melancholy. Do you feel like you each brought a different aspect to that band?

We all did, definitely… at a certain point, all we did was write rock music, but even our rock songs differed from one another. On the other side of the token, we did influence each other pretty strongly. I think it’s definitely true that we’re pursuing our most beloved… whatever. I can really only speak to myself, and I just know what’s the most myself, or how to express myself as just myself.

You’ve done a lot of touring with Baby Eagle and Shotgun Jimmie this year. What do you like about playing with other people?

I just love to play music for one thing. I guess that’s the main thing. As far as playing with Jim and Steve, it just comes down to believing in their music and offering to help present it in a good way. I’m just trying my best, I guess.

Can you tell me about how your label You’ve Changed Records started and what your roll is in its operation?

I have no real involvement in the label’s operations. Dan does a lot of the artistic things for the label, and Steve is the main person that does the day-to-day stuff. The label started on an east-coast tour that Attack in Black was doing around SappyFest with Baby Eagle.  We talked about starting it, but for a while, I was only ever in conversation a part of the label, but it wasn’t something that I found easy to find my place within. I’m just fortunate enough to have a record out on the label and hopefully can contribute to furthering the label’s exposure and people knowing about them. Adding diversity to the label is also something that I hope I’m doing.

Attack in Black was constantly evolving. Was that at all a reaction to the success of your first album, Marriage, or was it just natural?

For me, it was natural. I can only really speak for myself, but I am very certain. It was never something we ever discussed, and I remain to this day oblivious to anything other than making songs and trying to be a good band. It was just thoughtless, we were just excited to be making music, so we would make lots of it really quick and it would wind up sounding different. We’ve made tons of music that has never… I mean, there’s a whole record that’s done that has never come out, but aside from that just tons of other little recordings that we were always doing. The things that came out were just kinda the things that came out, I guess.

After Marriage, you guys built a studio and started recording everything yourselves. Was that a way to regain control of the music?

In some ways, yes, because we had a strange experience recording out first record. Being very young, we were encouraged to do it in a studio, which we did, and the experience was fine. And then, of course, we redid the record, so we recorded it twice, which cost a ridiculous and unnecessary amount of money, and it was just obvious that we would never do that again. It just seemed too inefficient and wasteful and not worth it in any sense, in our eyes anyways. But on the other side of the coin, Dan and Ian before that were always interested in recording their own music, and Attack in Black records — even before I was in the band — were self-recorded for the most part, and always making demos… Definitely the experience of making the record was an encouragement to do it ourselves, but it was already happening anyway.

How important are the words in relation to the music? Some of your lyrics, “Yet To See the Sun” for example, could be read poems.

Very important, but I have no real thought process or deliberation, just kind of know when something feels right to sing. But a lot of it is kind of thoughtless and I just think of it as silly pop songwriting lyrics. I guess I just get lucky sometimes and they wind up sounding like poems, but that isn’t always the intention. Sometimes it is, but sometimes not.

Finally, what are some of your goals with Marine Dreams?

Since I finished making the record, I’ve just been thinking about making another one. Just continuously writing songs. I probably could have made a couple by now since recording the last one, but my only real goal when I made this first record was to make something that afforded me the opportunity to make another. And when I play live, just to play good. (the end)

Marine Dreams is available on CD/LP through You’ve Changed Records.

I caught The Skeletones Four at ThriftStock years and years ago, so I made sure to hop on down to The Piston this past August to see them celebrate the release of their sophomore album Gravestone Rock. For this show they expanded their lineup to ten members — it was nuts! The song “Ether Bunnies” is posted up top, but check my YouTube page for a few more songs.

The mysterious Coole & Downes on the final night of their Holy Oak residency in the spring of the year 2011. Here they are playing a song called “Rockwood 1868.”

I interviewed One Hundred Dollars’ lead singer and songwriter Simone Schmidt a few days after the show to discuss their new album Songs of Man, amongst other things.

I saw you a few times in the days leading up to your big show at The Great Hall, and you were obviously very busy trying to get ready, but I’ve noticed that you always seem to have a lot on your plate no matter what. Do you like to stay busy? I don’t get the sense that you’re the type of person who spends 3 hours in front of the TV every day.

Oh, I just watch The Good Wife. It’s a TV show on Global Television starring, uh, Marianna… I forget her name. I like that TV show, but I don’t watch that much TV. I guess that wasn’t your question. I’m quite busy a lot of the time because I like making things. Being a band with a lot of people also means you have to make sure everyone’s interests are being taken into concern while you’re making them. That multiplies work by a lot.

Do you try to split the work between every band member when preparing for a show like that?

Yeah. Ian and I were talking about how we felt satisfied getting ready for that show because it was really a good group effort. We pulled it off on our own with the help of a few friends.

It definitely seemed like the biggest crowd you’ve played for in Toronto.

Well, we’ve filled the Horseshoe, which is the same capacity. But we wanted to make this a special occasion, and we were able to have full control over the venue, except the beer prices, as we rented it. It was nice to have control over the theatrics. We had Michael Comeau and Ilse Kramer working the spotlight and the board for us, which lent a lot to the spectacle.

You can never underestimate the importance of lighting. Having just one colour light that never changes…

… and they never turn off all the way! When you’re touring and you wind up at a pub and no one is working the ambience you think back to the shows with the good lights wistfully. But no matter what, there are still always a billion variables you can’t control.

I could tell that you really pushed yourselves to make the concert memorable, from the order of the songs to using the space in a unique way, like performing in the balcony at one point.

Yeah, you want people to take your work home, have it linger in some way. It’s really a good time to perform that long too, because often if you’re on another bill or playing a festival you only get 45 minutes. You don’t get to set your tone and then move people with it for a sustained amount of time. It’s good to have more time for the journey.

Even you seemed a little taken back when you got called out for a second encore and you weren’t sure what you were going to play. Luckily you had some cover tunes up your sleeve.

Haha, yeah! I like the way Paul plays on “Mental Revenge” (ed: Waylon Jennings song they covered, written by Mel Tillis). It’s fun to be playing our new songs too. It’s been a few years playing the Forest of Tears / Hold It Together / 7″ catalog, so it’s going to be real transformative to tour Songs of Man. They’re songs that allow for a totally different range of a emotions — it’s healthier for me to be getting to other places, rather than the familiar territory of the last record, which was mostly about rape and death and rejection.

Yeah, almost like the new songs can bring something out of the older songs just by playing them one after another.

Totally. I felt I was smiling a lot more, quite naturally through the songs. A few smiles make a real difference if you’re going to play a lot of nights in a row.

Going back to the show, you’ve started playing guitar in One Hundred Dollars, which is something you never did before because you only learned over the last year. Why did you decide to learn guitar now?

I should have earlier. I used to write songs in the air, or mandolin, or on the piano. But I haven’t lived anywhere permanent for a long time, so I don’t have regular access to a piano. I wanted to be able to catch songs as they came to me. I felt I was losing a lot of them. I wanted the independence to accompany myself, and express myself instrumentally. I love collaborating with Ian and Paul and David and Stu and Kyle, and it’s a beautiful relationship, but it doesn’t satisfy every creative urge that I have.

But really the way it happened was the way a lot of the best things happen to me — I didn’t plan for it. I had been asked by a guy called Chris Coole, who’s a legend of a banjo player and a great guitar player, to come sing with him and then when I went and didn’t know how to play guitar he was quite surprised and he told me what I knew, which was that I should learn how to play guitar since I was writing songs in the country tradition. So he gave me free lessons for a long time and now we actually have a duet called Coole & Downes. It’s a different kind of music and I feel really really secularly blessed for being able to meet him and be taught by him because not everyone gets taught by the best.

You did a songwriting residency in Sackville not too long ago. What sort of songs were you writing there, and did any of those songs make it onto the new record or was it all pretty much done by that point?

Nah. We finished the record in November and I went in January / February. I’ve been writing some other kinds of songs, more traditional songs for a while, because I’m really moved by bluegrass and old time but often the misogyny overwhelms the beauty of that music — all these murder ballads, men killing women, women acting badly according to men, all these one sided narratives. It’s right to remember that those songs were written, and wondrous that they’ve been preserved — but I always wonder what songs and stories were lost. And because I love playing that music, I want to talk back to it, like I would to anyone I love. So the idea is to interject sometimes, to write back into history a lot of the stories that it seems to me must have been lost, mostly about women of that time. In Sackville I was just working on songs in that vein. I also scored and recorded an installation piece called “Song of a Plinth,” which I showed in the Struts Gallery where I was staying. Basically a plinth having a crisis in the face of a gallery-goer. A little joke.

Now that One Hundred Dollars has been a band for a few more years, have you started to collaborate more on writing the songs?

Well, me and Ian used to write most of the songs together, but on this one I wrote two on my own. Paul wrote a few with me, and Ian wrote the rest with me. So that was rad to have different influences. You could tell — we all have different musical styles and tendencies. Ian picks in a particular way, Morty’s got some more riff based songs…

Do they contribute to the lyrics?

Sometimes. Someone will give me a hook and I write around it. One day we were talking about Parkdale, and the changes — how they tore up the benches so that people can’t sleep on them, and Ian said, “Everybody wins except for the losers,” and I said, “Let’s write that song.” Sometimes if I’m feeling doubtful I’ll say ‚“Paul, what do you think of this?” and he’ll push me in a direction. All songs come differently. Often I spend months on a song, getting it right, re-writing it, belaboring the process and then I bring them to the band. Sometimes I draw so much from the external that, even though I write the words, it feels like I’m co-writing with the rest of the world.

Being the only woman in One Hundred Dollars, did you have to consult the rest of the group about certain subjects on the new album, which is all about/from the perspective of men?

I’m pretty sure that they informed a lot of why I wanted to write the record, but never in direct consultation. It’s a man’s world, you know? I have no choice but to think about men, and how they effect me and everything. In retrospect, through touring, I was just hanging out with only men in very close quarters in ways that I hadn’t done before, so this record was a part of working with that, and working through it. Prior to that, I felt like more of a man than a women. But in hanging out with only men day in day out I came to feel alien to their ways of behaving and communicating. The experience shed some light on the differences that exist between many men and women, with which I’d never had to contend before. Because I’m totally not a biological determinist, that’s important to put in there — I don’t think that gender has necessarily to do with your sexe — and I feel that gender’s pretty performative. I couldn’t tell you one way or another that males are this way or females are that way. Actually, I can’t tell you everything I think right now… it would take too long. Anyway, I’m inspired by my life, so naturally the characters I was orbiting were mostly performing… man, you know? Which means a lot of things. Sometimes it even means nothing.

So did you write towards that goal of having a collection of songs from the perspective of different men, or did you notice afterwards that there was that common thread?

I had written “Aaron’s Song” and “Black Gold.” I thought it would be a funny record name, Songs of Man — “mankind.” I ran with it, I journaled as these characters, tried to develop and feel who they were. A lot of the characters are antagonists, or are hard people to love. Some of the songs were efforts at forgiveness. The guy in “Fires of Regret” is a total jerk, but I felt it would be important for me to try to understand him, and I did, and in some ways I came to see similarities between the ways that he’s a deadbeat and the way that I’ve abandoned people and things. And similarly, in “Powdered Confessions,” that guy is not a cool dude at all, but he doesn’t reveal a lot about himself in the song directly, so you don’t know that on first meeting him. He’s raveled in his mixed metaphors and the notion is that the more you listen the more you might hear about him. I also was thinking, when I wrote this, about how men song writers write women performers’ songs. That gem “If You Seek Amy” was written by Max Martin for Britney Spears too sing.

I know you’re writing from the perspective of all these characters, but sometimes I feel like, take “Brother” for example, it could be interpreted as being autobiographical, no?

That’s funny, you’re the first person whose asked me about that one. Maybe that’s one of the ones where the gender is totally irrelevant. But I was in his mind when I wrote that one. He’s got a good case of forbidden love, because he’s in a closeted relationship with another closeted man. He’s got a lot of shame surrounding it. He can’t deal with himself, but he’s trying to find peace. So, is that autobiographical? No, but in a way I’m like, who hasn’t had a case of forbidden love or an inability to deal with themselves? In what ways are we all closeted?

I totally interpreted the lyrics as something else. I thought it was more general, like, trying to remain friends with someone after your relationship has gone down the toilet.

Yeah, I’m glad — it should be a broadly understood song. Maybe other people in different predicaments come to understand themselves through that character, see themselves in him. It’s a variation on the classic cheating song.

When I told you that I’d gotten a promo copy of the record and been listening to it, you got a little upset mad because I didn’t receive the lyrics. You want people to experience your music and the lyrics all together?

Yeah, I mean I would like them to have the option. That’s what I feel is the weirdest part of the digital distribution of music too… uhh, so I’m going to upload all the lyrics to our website because I remember when I was young I would get an R.E.M. tape, and Michael Stipe wedged a lot of things into his songs that I didn’t understand after repeat listen after repeat listen after repeat listen, and I could listen to that music without knowing what he said and sing my own words to it. I used to think the hook of the song “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” went “phoning jamaica, phoning jamaica” but he’s saying “phone me when you try to wake her up,” which I figured out from reading the lyrics. When I read the lyrics, I came to appreciate his writing on a literary level which is a way I would like people to have the option to experience our music. Obviously you write a song knowing that people are just going to hear it in passing, it’s cool, but I just like people to have the option of pouring over the words. Everybody consumes music differently, right?

Luckily you’re a fairly easy singer to understand.

Sometimes, I do admit, writing the lyrics out for people to read is hard because you end up negating double entendres. Like if you used a homonym you don’t know which word to choose when spelling the song, but you gotta choose one because you don’t want to start writing everything like Prince did, you know?

How did Prince write?

Phonetically sometimes, or see with a C, instead of s-e-e, haha.

The whole country music genre these days… like, you seem to have really been embraced by the punk and “indie” scene in Toronto, but have you made inroads, or would you eventually like to break into playing with more mainstream country bands?

Yeah, country fans like us for sure, mostly outside of Toronto. There’s a lot of good country music that’s not getting mainstream play. I mean, how do you feel about most popular music? It’s not the best music or the most thoughtful music that’s getting the most play. I wish it was– it would be great for culture in general… for people to be exposed to thoughtful and nuanced music. Because music contributes to forming culture, and culture forms the way we behave. And you know I don’ t know that the acts on CMT are really tapping into the truest pains of our time, or using country music to do what it’s done best, which is to talk about the difficult. It’s mostly about drinking– I mean a drinking song used to also be about why one drinks. But right now it just seems like drinking songs are beer anthems.

Well, the music you’re playing feels more like country music in the traditional sense. Whenever I turn on CMT these days, you’re right, it feels like a beer commercial.

Yeah, and I just don’t know if that’s representative of what most country musicians are really doing anyway.

The last thing I wanted to ask you about are the tie-dye band shirts you made for the show. At the end of the night you seemed really surprised that none had really sold. I mean, I’ve been wearing mine…

Really? Good. We worked hard on them. You try to push fashion in certain directions, you never know if it’s going to catch.

Well, I mean especially your album designs, which I know you work on, has elements country records sleeves from in the 60s, but you seem to have taken a different approach with the band merch. Your t-shirts look like something you’d wear to the beach or something.

Dave Clarke made the cover to our new record. I feel like people went the beach in the 60s.

No no, more like 80s, with graffiti style and bright colours and stuff.

It’s an interesting period in pop culture  - have you noticed everyone’s just going wacko with retro stuff? We’re at this point where you can choose the best out every different era. There’s so much throw back country. It’s not my bag. I mean, that’s not to say we don’t draw from the tradition, from the past — there’s a lot of 80s influence even on the record, because I like that era of country music for sure. Yeah, I like Rosanne Cash, and the Judds, all that stuff, but hey, I don’t know if you can tell…. (the end)

Songs of Man is available on CD/LP through Outside Music.

Toronto Thaw happened this weekend. It’s a new 3-day festival happening at the start of Spring put on by Teenanger and Telephone Explosion. If you didn’t see one of the awesome posters around town then too bad because you missed out on a lot of fun. Granted, I was only able to go to the Friday show, but I passed by Wrongbar on Thursday at around 1:30am and it was still bumpin’ and Metz were playing Saturday night and they rule, so I can only assume the entire weekend was an unequivocal success. I’m not afraid to make this sort of conjecture, I just call it as I see it.

Friday night, however, when I showed up at Duffy’s Tavern at around 11:30pm the place was full. All the kids seem to be into the noisy-garagey-punky stuff at the moment. I dig some of it too! I actually should have tried to go to some of the other shows, especially Saturday because I’ve heard good things about Rituals. All I ended up seeing was Anagram and Hundos. Don’t get me wrong, they were great, but growing up in Oshawa, I saw Anagram play a lot. It’s good though, it’d been a while and they’ve got a new album and 7″ and Matt has a beard now and the crowd was really into it, so yeah, I’m glad I went. I climbed onto a chair to shoot some of the set, but it was so rammed in there and so steamy, made it pretty hard to get anything. Whatever, I feel like an asshole shooting at concerts anyway, people are there to have a good time and I just feel like I’m getting in the way. Next time you see me at a show you have permission to punch me in the face.

After being away from the city for six weeks, it felt really good to be back at The Tranzac for this special tribute night to the great Michael Hurley. I’ve really only heard his 2009 album Ida Con Snock and the odd tune here or there, but with a lineup that included long-time favourites like Bry Webb, Evening Hymns, and The Weather Station, as well as folks I’ve wanted to see play for a while such as Gabe Levine (singing Tia Marie in the video above) and Lisa Bozikovic, I made sure to mark the night down as a “can’t miss event” on my Google Calendar.

Matt ‘Doc’ Dunn did Armchair Boogie’s “Light Green Fellow.” I don’t know a lot about this man, except that I see him around town a lot. I enjoyed his contributions. That’s what’s so great about these tribute nights. You never know what you’re going to see!

The last few times I’ve seen The Weather Station play it’s been just Tamara Lindeman on her lonesome, and I must say it’s working quite well. Her new material is the definition of “stripped down” so she had no problem working with Michael Hurley’s material, which is also pretty bare bones. Her new album is coming out on my favourite record label (announcement forthcoming). I’m excited to hear it.

Long Journey’s “Polynesia” got the Sandro Perri treatment. I should mention that there are a few more videos from the night over on Morning Noon Night’s YouTube channel, including Sandro’s version of “I Paint a Design.”

Tradition did a really fantastic version of “Be Kind to Me,” also off of Armchair Boogie. I should mention the supporting players on this night, otherwise known as the Canada Goose Band, was made up of Jay Anderson and Mike Smith of Steamboat and Jesse Levine on the piano. Good stuff.

This beautiful rendition of “Eyes Eyes” come courtesy of Lisa Bozikovic. The original version appears on Hi Fi Snock Uptown. I’ve known Lisa for a few years now but I’m ashamed to say this was my first time seeing her play solo. She was wonderful!

Bry Webb dedicated Ida Con Snock’s  “I Stole the Right to Live” to his newborn son. From what I’ve been told, his post-Constantines project The Harbourcoats have a record in the can, though I’d reckon being a new father means it won’t see the light of day for a little while. Each time I see Bry play, this unreleased album climbs higher and higher on my “most anticipated albums” list. Yes, such a list really exists.

Evening Hymns have been covering Michael Hurley’s song “Wildegeeses” for a while now so seeing them on the show’s poster wasn’t much of a surprise. Still, it’s a really nice version of the song so I didn’t mind hearing it one more time. Sorry for the quick fadeout at the end there — that’s literally my camera running out of memory and shutting itself off. Perfect timing!

Ladyhawk played here a few weeks back, at The Shop under Parts & Labour. I don’t even know how I got into this band. My roommate had the Fight For Anarchy 12″ and I gave it a listen, but I’d already seen ‘em at that point a few times, I’m sure. SappyFest two years ago was the best. “Sweat until you puke,” that’s what people were saying about Ladyhawk. They’re a good band, and it’s my fault this video ain’t good. Late night, the room is packed and people just want to rock out, I understand. I heard they’re working on a new record, so I’ll have to catch ‘em when they’re touring it.

Metz and SPORTS opened the show. It’d almost been two whole years since I last saw Metz, and in that time they’ve released a bunch of singles that have gotten everybody talking. I don’t even know if I’ve heard a Metz song, but they were awesome. I was stuck right up front during their set, so I couldn’t have gone anywhere if I’d wanted to. They played 15 minutes, maybe? Perfect set length.

SPORTS are made up of 3/4 of Ladyhawk, with their drummer Ryan Peters stepping out from behind the kit and grabbing a guitar instead. They were heavy but they managed to keep me interested for their whole set. I’m thinking I should have picked up their record.