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.

Con­tinue reading →

Tags: Evening Hymns, Gave Levine, Harbourcoats, Lisa Bozikovic, Matt Dunn, Sandro Perri, Steamboat, The Weather Station, Tradition, Tranzac · 1 Comment

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

I never got a chance to see The Deadly Snakes play live while they were around, partly because by the time I dis­cov­ered them, they were on the verge of break­ing up. In fact, The Deadly Snakes played their last show a mere 21 days before my 19th birth­day, and since it wasn’t an all-ages show, I didn’t get to go (the idea of sneak­ing into the Sil­ver Dol­lar never even entered my 18-year-old mind).

I kept lis­ten­ing to the Snakes, espe­cially the flaw­less double-LP ver­sion of Por­cella, and my wounds began to heal. After all, how many other great bands did I never get to see live whose music I still lis­ten to and love. The Snakes were dif­fer­ent in that I actu­ally had the chance to see them play, unlike say, Royal City, who broke up before I ever caught on to their music. Nev­er­the­less, after a few years I real­ized it was time to look ahead and put the whole episode behind me.

Of course, on Octo­ber 17th 2009 they played on-off reunion show… in Port­land, Ore­gon. So, good news I guess, at least they will play if some­one makes the right offer. Can some­one in Toronto please book them??? Until then, see­ing André Ethier sing Snakes songs with Steam­boat will have to do (I really appre­ci­ate it, guys).

Tags: André Ethier, Dakota Tavern, Steamboat, The Deadly Snakes · 3 Comments

Maybe I’m just not see­ing the right bands play, but going to a Steam­boat con­cert is prac­ti­cally the only time I see peo­ple really cut loose at shows. Sure, I’ll see peo­ple danc­ing at other shows, but usu­ally that’s just a few peo­ple up front, and only after the lead singer has repeat­edly told them to (or worse, actu­ally jumped into the audi­ence and forced peo­ple to shake their booties). For what­ever rea­son, a danc­ing audi­ence comes easy to Steam­boat. Peep this video I shot of them play­ing their song “Talkin’ Shame” at the Gar­ri­son a few months back where you can see that I was sur­rounded on all sides but folks cut­ting a rug. I must say though, Steamboat’s music lends itself to danc­ing far bet­ter than say, past sub­jects of this series like Julie Doiron or the Har­bour­coats.

For the unini­ti­ated, pick up either one of Steamboat’s EPs (both released last year, the first one is self-titled while the newer one is called Live in Nas­sau). Learn the words, put on your favourite out­fit, grab some friends, and make your way down to the next Steam­boat show. I guar­an­tee you a good time.

Tags: Steamboat, The Garrison · 1 Comment

Just a quick blog post tonight because I have to be up early tomor­row to leave for Sackville. I shot this on Sun­day at the Dakota, where Steam­boat were fin­ish­ing up their eight-week res­i­dency. They brought out spe­cial guest André Ethier for a few jams, includ­ing the song Cop Killer from his last album Born of Blue Fog. I’d say the night was a suc­cess — when I got there after work it was at capac­ity and there was a group of Steamies (offi­cial name for Steam­boat fans) up front danc­ing their butts off the whole night. Any­way, check out Steam­boat and André if you haven’t already, they’re both 100% rad­i­cal and whole­heart­edly endorsed by the pro­pri­etor of this blog (me).

Tags: André Ethier, Dakota Tavern, Steamboat · Leave a comment