In the fall of 2006 I saw Shot­gun & Jay­bird play in my home­town of Oshawa. It was the only time I ever got to see them play, but it really changed my life. I’ve told the whole story here before, but in fewer words, that was the night I dis­cov­ered the great fes­ti­val that is Sap­pyFest, which I had the plea­sure of attend­ing in 2008, 2009, and again just this month. It’s actu­ally the end of the month now — I’m not sure what’s taken me so long to get down to writ­ing, but if I wait any longer no one will care anymore.

This year for Sap­pyFest I decided to go for an entire week instead of the usual 3–4 days. Part of the rea­son I went for longer was so that I could just relax in a nice envi­ron­ment, but I also wanted to check out more of Ok.Quoi?!, an arts fes­ti­val that hap­pens each year in the week lead­ing up to Sap­pyFest. I went to a round­table dis­cus­sion about pub­lic art instal­la­tions, lis­tened to some live exper­i­men­tal music, saw a ton of amaz­ing short films and ani­ma­tions, and even par­tic­i­pated in the “Con­sen­sus Bus” (a free bus trip open to any­one, but every­one who comes has to agree on the destination).

Of course, Sap­pyFest itself was another fine 3 days of music, with a whole lot of my friends and favourite bands play­ing this year that was a given, but there were also a few new dis­cov­er­ies along the way. I had planned to shoot a lot of video dur­ing the fes­ti­val, but of course, once I’m hav­ing fun I tend to “for­get” my cam­era when I go out… but I did man­age to cap­ture two bands from the first night. Nei­ther band should need any intro­duc­tion for read­ers of this web­site as I’ve shot them both many times before.

Toronto’s best party band Steam­boat played to a packed main­stage tent in what I believe was their first out-of-town gig! The response from the crowd was enthu­si­as­tic, and the band had another chance to get peo­ple danc­ing when they did another set (with plenty of spe­cial guest vocal­ists), clos­ing out the fes­ti­val on Sun­day night at George’s Fab­u­lous Roadhouse.

Finally, here’s Attack in Black play­ing a few songs. Lots of new mate­r­ial in their set, really hope they record them and make another album.

Tags: Attack in Black, Sackville, SappyFest, Steamboat · Leave a comment

Well, I’ve been putting off writ­ing this for days now and I really don’t think I can wait any longer. This year, like the last two years, I attended North-By-North-East. I decided to make more of an effort this year to check out mul­ti­ple shows each night and in the end I did pretty well. As usual though, I ended up grav­i­tat­ing towards bands I already know and love rather than check­ing out new stuff. Here’s my week­end, day-by-day.

THURSDAY

My night started at The Great Hall, a 120-year-old build­ing at Queen and Dover­court that recently started host­ing con­certs. It was my first time there, though I’d pre­vi­ously been to The The­ater Cen­ter (which is in the same build­ing). The Great Hall is a sim­i­lar room, with a bal­cony wrap­ping around the room, but instead of seats in the mid­dle, the main floor is entirely flat, which I guess explains the “hall” part of its name. I didn’t get too close to the stage, prefer­ing to lurk in the shad­ows under­neath the bal­cony, but the sight­lines were good from wher­ever I stood. This would be thanks to the high stage, which reminds me of a minia­ture ver­sion of the one you would find a The Opera House or The Phoenix. Together with some great light­ing and sound made for a pretty fine place to see some music.

The first band I saw was Women, who I last saw at the Horse­shoe in March 2009, dur­ing CMW. The Cal­gary quartet’s first album came out in 2008 and I can’t say I’ve lis­tened to it more than a hand­ful of times, but I remem­ber lik­ing much of it. Unfor­tu­nately, the band really stayed a bit too still for my lik­ing and my excite­ment waned early on. Still, the new songs were solid.

Tak­ing the stage after them was LA’s Best Coast, who I caught last time they were in town back in April. I liked ‘em then, and I liked them here too. Good songs, good style, look­ing for­ward to hear­ing their album.

I left after a few songs, hop­ing to catch Metz at The Gar­ri­son, but by the time I arrived they’d fin­ished play­ing. Nev­er­the­less, DD/MM/YYYY were about to take the stage, so I decided to stick around because it had been a long time since I’d seen them play. I’ve never really con­nected with their music in the past and my atti­tude didn’t change too much this time, but I do appre­ci­ate what they do more than before. Their long repet­i­tive grooves reminded me of Oneida, which I liked. They’re fun to watch and while the music isn’t always my thing, they obvi­ously work very hard and I can back that.

I hur­ried over to the Kelp Records show­case at Clinton’s, and caught a bit of The Michael Parks (fea­tur­ing Andy Swan, San­dro Perri, Greg Smith of the Weak­erthans, and Shayne Cox, most recently of Sports: The Band) and stayed for some of Andrew Vin­cent. Both acts were laid­back, loose, and delight­ful. Andrew Vin­cent was espe­cially enter­tain­ing, as he decided to sing/rap over pre-recorded back­ing tracks for the first few songs. That might sound strange, but his smart lyrics, awk­ward ges­tures and hushed voice made for fas­ci­nat­ing show.

I ended the night back at The Gar­ri­son, where my house-guests for the week­end, PS I Love You, were play­ing at 2 am. Not too many peo­ple were still there at that late hour, but you could tell that every­one who stuck around and saw them was pretty excited.

FRIDAY

The first stop of the night for me was the Glad­stone Hotel Ball­room for the NOW Mag­a­zine showcase. I was there to see Halifax’s Tasseo­mancy (for­merly Ghost Bees, they announced the name change mid-way through their set), the project of twin sis­ters Romy and Sari Light­man. I last saw them when they played a show at my apart­ment in March, and their new songs have really stuck with me. Right off the start I knew I was in for a treat, when I real­ized that Tim­ber Tim­bre’s Tay­lor Kirk and Simon Trot­tier would be accom­pa­ny­ing the twins, switch­ing between drums, gui­tar, key­board, and lap­steel. Also shar­ing the stage were a group of women cov­ered in body paint and car­ry­ing staffs and sculp­tures and essen­tially just adding a the­atri­cal ele­ment to an already dark and creepy set of music. One of them even did an inter­pre­tive dance to one of the songs, freak­ing me out fur­ther. Best thing I saw at NXNE this year, for sure!

Obvi­ously I wanted to stick around to see Tim­ber Tim­bre, but I also really wanted to go check out Katie Stel­ma­nis at Wrong­bar. I decided to try to see a bit of both sets, duck­ing out dur­ing Tim­ber Timbre’s third song to make my way west along Queen St. I don’t think I missed much — I’ve seen them play so often and I always enjoy it, but I’m really itch­ing for some new material!

It was my first time vis­it­ing Wrong­bar, and the lay­out was not at all how I pic­tured it in my mind, but I still thought it was a pretty cool room. I was able to catch the last half of Katie and her band’s set, which included one very dance­able num­ber that I’d never heard her play before. They’re one of my favourite acts in Toronto right now and I hope more peo­ple catch on to what they’re doing because it’s really quite good.

Dia­mond Rings played next, dressed like a pea­cock. Peo­ple lost their shit, of course.

At mid­night, I hur­ried over to the Dakota to catch Evening Hymns. The place was jam packed, and unfor­tu­nately it seemed like a lot of the peo­ple weren’t there to lis­ten to music. It was a damn shame peo­ple didn’t shut up for their set because from what I could hear it was beau­ti­ful. I got fed up with the chat­ter and left early to try to get into Lee’s Palace for PS I Love You.

When I arrived, Japan­droids had just fin­ished and there was a steady stream of peo­ple exit­ing the build­ing. All I could think to myself is, “These folks don’t know what they’re miss­ing!” I think a lot of Japan­droids fans would dig PS I Love You — they’re both gui­tar and drum duos who write really catchy ener­getic anthems — but if I’m not out there check­ing out new bands, I can’t expect oth­ers to as well. I found my spot up front and had my brain melted by them for the sec­ond night in a row.

SATURDAY

I was pretty exhausted after the first two nights, so for Sat­ur­day I chose to just one show: The D’Urbervilles at The Drake. They weren’t going on until mid­night though, so I decided to go see if my boys in Attack in Black were hang­ing out at the Horse­hoe. I’d be miss­ing their set for The D’Urbervilles, but it was good to hang out for a while any­way. I did man­age to catch some of Bruce Penin­sula’s set, and to my ears they’ve never sounded bet­ter. I wish I could have stuck around for their whole show.

So yes, the fes­ti­val ended at The Drake, with my old friends The D’Urbervilles. See­ing them play is a NXNE tra­di­tion that I’m happy to keep up.

To wrap things up, I agree with every­one else who has said this was the best NXNE ever. Though I wasn’t around in the mid-90s when it began, it was cer­tainly the most fun I’ve had out of the past three that I’d attended. With all the new venues that have opened up in the last year, and with the nice weather we had over the week­end, walk­ing around the city at times reminded me of being in Austin for South-By-South-West. About a mil­lion less peo­ple, but the feel­ing was still there.

If you’ve read this far, con­grat­u­la­tions, here’s a video of PS I Love You play­ing their song “Meet Me at the Muster Sta­tion” at Lee’s Palace from the Fri­day of NXNE.

Tags: Andrew Vincent, Attack in Black, Best Coast, Bruce Peninsula, Clinton's, Dakota Tavern, DD/MM/YYYY, Diamond Rings, Lee's Palace, NXNE, PS I Love You, Tasseomancy, The D'Urbervilles, The Garrison, The Great Hall, The Michael Parks, Timber Timbre, Women, Wrongbar · 1 Comment

Last Thurs­day I went and saw Daniel, Fred & Julie play at the Horse­shoe, the per­fect venue to hear them play their gen­tle folk songs. Last fall when I first caught wind of this project, I imme­di­ately knew I’d love the record. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the music these three peo­ple make, so to have them team up for a record had me pulling out my wal­let faster than you can say “Sackville.” Truth­fully, it made sense for them to join forces: Julie played in Fred’s old band “Shot­gun & Jay­bird,” and when that band broke up, ex-member Shot­gun Jim­mie recruited Daniel’s band Attack in Black to be his back­ing band. Attack in Black’s album Years fea­tured guest vocals from Julie Doiron, who in turn cov­ered two of Fred’s songs on her last album.

Are you with me still? If so, please enjoy their song “Run­ner” from their self-titled debut record, out now on You’ve Changed Records.

Open­ing the show was Baby Eagle. What’s there to say about lit­tle ol’ Baby Eagle, other than it’s the project of the Con­stan­tines’ Steve Lam­bke, and that he’s great? I guess the first peep I ever heard from him was the last track on the third Cons album (Tour­na­ment of Hearts), a ditty called “Windy Road.” It had Steve singing, but instead of the usual scrappy punk song we got a pleas­ant acoustic num­ber. It was an album high­light for me, so I was happy when he started play­ing solo shows later that year. Two quick albums in 2006 and 2007 fol­lowed by a split with Attack in Black late last year brings us to today. I’m sure we’ll be hear­ing more from him soon – his setlist was all new songs, and it looks like he’s going electric.

Tags: Attack in Black, Baby Eagle, Daniel Romano, Frederick Squire, Horseshoe Tavern, Julie Doiron, Shotgun & Jaybird · Leave a comment

I shot some video of Attack in Black dur­ing my recent trip to Mon­treal. I will never get tired of see­ing this band (in fact I’ll be see­ing them again next month when they open for the Cons at Lee’s Palace). This song above is on their lat­est album, called Years (by one thou­sand fin­ger­tips), but check out my YouTube chan­nel for a few more songs from their set.

Dog Day just put out a lim­ited edi­tion 12″ EP called Elder School­house. I was hop­ing they’d have it with them when I saw them last week in Mon­tréal but alas, the tim­ing didn’t quite work out and the band didn’t have them in time for the show. The album was recorded by Rick White, who pretty much has a flaw­less track record when it comes to these sorts of things (Julie Doiron, $100, going back to Plaskett’s first album). I’m sure I’ll have a copy in my hands soon enough, but in the mean­time all I have is this video of them play­ing one of the more sin­is­ter tracks off last spring’s Con­cen­tra­tion. Sorry for the muddy audio.

Tags: Attack in Black, Dog Day, Il Motore, Montreal · Leave a comment

One of the first bands I saw this year at Sap­pyFest was The Har­bour­coats, the still-sorta-new-because-they’re-relatively-unknown band led by Bry Webb from the Con­stan­tines. It was a really nice way to kick off the fes­ti­val and def­i­nitely had me hum­ming the songs to myself all week­end. This wasn’t my first time see­ing Bry play­ing away from his reg­u­lar gig — I remem­ber hear­ing at least one of these songs when he did a set at the Three Gut Records 5th anniver­sary party years and years ago at the Tran­zac, and I’ve sub­se­quently seen him play on a few other occa­sions lead­ing up to last Fri­day. Join­ing him this time ’round was Mike Feuer­stack (aka Snail­house) and my old pal Jonas Bon­netta (aka Evening Hymns). The songs were sub­tle and majes­tic, show­cas­ing Bry’s pow­er­ful voice in a whole new way. I’m super excited to hear their forth­com­ing record, too bad no one knows when it’s com­ing out. Maybe I should look into get­ting that Con­stan­tines acoustic EP they put out a few months back to hold me over. Which reminds me: if any­one from Arts & Crafts is read­ing this, can you please press it to 10″ vinyl and send me a copy? What’s with this digital-only foolishness?

Con­tinue reading →

Tags: Attack in Black, Harbourcoats, Jon-Rae Fletcher, One Hundred Dollars, Sackville, SappyFest, Snowblink · 5 Comments

Here’s another video of Attack in Black play­ing live. It was my third time see­ing them live in one month, and def­i­nitely the small­est venue I’ve seen them play in (the last two times were at the Horse­shoe and Massey Hall). This one was an unan­nounced show (a fundraiser for a friend actu­ally), with the rest of the bill rounded out by Black­burn, Wayne Petti, Sarah Harmer, Travis Good, and Greg Keelor. Need­less to say, the boys kept it pretty low-key, though they still rocked pretty hard. Van beers fol­lowed. Hope to visit ‘em in Mon­treal some­time soon.

Tags: Attack in Black, Dakota Tavern, Wayne Petti, You've Changed Records · 2 Comments

When I was chat­ting with Kehoe before the show I said that the first time I saw Attack in Black back­ing up Jim­mie was at an in-store at Crim­i­nal Records about a year ago. I didn’t real­ize it until he told me, but that was their first show together! Since then they’ve become quite the tight lit­tle rock unit, surely due to their non-stop tour­ing sched­ule. They’ve  also started a label together and each released fan­tas­tic new records, so it was good to have them back in Toronto. The first video here is a song called Province to Province, which is an older tune they re-recorded for Still Jim­mie, and per­formed here flaw­lessly. The sec­ond video is actu­ally of two songs, Leav­ing Your Death in a Flowerbed and I’m a Rock, both off of AIB’s new album Years (by one thou­sand fin­ger­tips). I’ve also got a video of the open­ing band Hunters & Anglers, as well as more Attack in Black and Shot­gun Jim­mie videos up on my YouTube page.

Tags: Attack in Black, Horseshoe Tavern, Shotgun Jimmie, You've Changed Records · 1 Comment

Only a hand­ful of videos from Sap­pyFest this year. Above we’ve got Chad Van­Gaalen backed by Attack in Black doing “Clin­i­cally Dead,” and below we’ve got Attack in Black doing a new song called “Liberties.”

Tags: Attack in Black, Chad VanGaalen, Sackville, SappyFest · 2 Comments