This week gave me the opportunity to play all sorts of cool new music from the out-of-town bands that are visiting over the next seven days, and even the awesome local acts that have got new shows coming up and new albums. But my favourite track was Popular music by Notes To Self. This Toronto-based hip-hop group is roughly a decade old and puts out some catchy and original tracks.
I was also excited to play Matt Lalonde‘s solo stuff on the show. You might be more familiar with him as the skinny dreadlocked guitar player for local hip-hip heavyweights Mic Lordz and Sauce Funky. His new music, however, has that indie-acoustic vibe with some awesomely layered backing vocals and expertly played acoustic guitar.
Gypsy Chief Goliath – Dirt Meets Rust (New Machines of the Night)
Silent Movie Type – Barriers (What Do We Tell The Children?)
Cellos – White Swans (Standard and Poor)
Central Slang – Power Trip (Single)
The Alcohollys – 27 Death Riot (The Flashback EP)
Southern Discomfort – Octopus Attack (Single)
The Shoes – Stuck (Single)
Matt Lalonde – The Great Train Robbery (Single)
Menos Mal – There Are Times (Menos Mal)
Corrupt Leaders – Breathe (Corrupt Leaders)
RAID – Bad Life (Can I Borrow A Feeling)
Lapsaria – Low Life (Demos)
Paul Jacobs – Wrong Medication (Paul Jacobs)
Notes to Self – Popular Music (Course of Study)
Lee Gaul – Shiver (Single)
Dangerfield – Johnny Utah (Live Off The Floor)
Dokkalfar – Thou Has No Right But To Do Thy Will (Raw Deal II)
“There is a direct line between My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Ringo Deathstarr. And it stops at Slowdive Central. If you retain any fondness for those three – and are mentally aroused by a spot of melody-heavy guitar pop – you will adore the ‘Starr” The Guardian (UK)
One of the most exciting sounds to come out of the UK at the tail end of the 1980’s and into the new decade of the ’90’s was the merging of noisepop (My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Slowdive) with the shoe-gazing (Chapterhouse, The Pale Saints), creating a new breed of noise-gazing (yeah, I totally made that genre name up). Bands like Spacemen 3 became Spiritualized, Primal Scream found its Screamadelica, and The Boo Radleys re-introduced us to “Lazarus”. And while some bands have touched on the genre in doses (such as Pink Mountaintops, The Besnard Lakes or Deerhunter), it’s never been so perfectly and deliciously replicated as by an unlikely band from an even unlikelier state (Texas). The Austin trio known as Ringo Deathstarr.
Currently on their first headlining tour to support their debut full length, Colour Trip (on Sonic Unyon Records), Ringo Deathstarr are no stranger to the road. They’ve spent the past few years honing their sound on tour with such acts as The Dandy Warhols, A Place To Bury Strangers, Black Angels, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead and The Raveonettes. And this Tuesday they chose Windsor’s own Phog Lounge (157 University Ave. West) as their area stop.
If those sounds weren’t enough to entice you, opening the show are Windsor’s own Cellos, a fairly new band (recently featured as an Emerging Artist here on TWZ) featuring three of Windsor’s most respected and accomplished players – Singer/guitarist Kyle Marchand (Orphan Choir, What Seas What Shores), bassist Joe Rabie (Surdaster, Red Rows, Star Trek: The Band) and drummer David Allan (Poughboy, Explode When They Bloom, Which Witch). These guys have developed a passionate and local following with only a handful of shows under their belt and their mesmerizing live show is creating a well deserved buzz.
This show by all accounts should be packed. Ringo Deathstarr are starting to gain some real indie buzz momentum that feels like what happened when bands like Tokyo Police Club or Arkells played Windsor. You could almost feel their stock rising as they were playing and deep in your heart you knew that the likelihood of them playing a venue as intimate as Phog Lounge (or even Windsor) are pretty scarce.
Do yourself a favour and cancel whatever plans you had for Tuesday night. Head to Phog for 9pm. And let your ears come on and feel the noise.
Ringo Deathstarr (Austin, TX) with special guests Cellos, Tuesday June 28, Phog Lounge (157 University Ave. West), 9pm, 19+
Shortcut to Last – It’s Not Enough (I Know You’re Not One For Serious Situations – 2010)
Riverside – The Best is Yet To Come (Newspeak)
Time Giant – Lobotomy (Grow – 2011)
Sewing with Nancie – Naïve (The Same Three Chords – 2000)
The Rural Alberta Advantage – Muscle Relaxants (Departing – 2011)
Lonesome Lefty & The Cryin’ Shames – Back to the Sugar Camp (Souvenir Album – 2011)
Yellow Wood – Be A Little Braver (Son of the Oppressor – 2009)
Yellow Wood – Picture (Son of the Oppressor – 2009)
And a few notes on the show;
Thanks to Dave Russell for the nudge towards his tunes! Anonymous Bosch did a similar thing this week as well, informing me of their newly-submitted album. There are a lot of CDs in our library, and I have yet to find the time to become familiar with all of them. Requests for music, whether they’re coming from artists or fans, are always welcome and appreciated. So what do you want to hear?
Anyone else interested in having their albums added to our selection of local artists can feel free to drop CD’s (or vinyl!) off at the station in the basement of the CAW Student Centre at The University of Windsor.
This past week I was in attendance at a number of sweet shows.
Last Thursday, which also happened to be St. Patty’s Day, I spent my evening at The Coach, and as my alcohol consumption went up, I remembered more. Yes, I know this makes no sense, but there it is. What this translates into is this; of The Kettle Black I remember a dude with a guitar, some black curtains, and weirdness. So, that is to say, not very much. On to Devilz by Definition, then. Metal. Lots of mids, high-pitched screaming. We’re getting better. So next came Awake to a Dream. A ukulele cover of The “Last Saskatchewan Pirate” by The Arrogant Worms, and I geeked out. Music from Sonic 2. I geeked more. It was awesome!
Sunday night was Shared Arms, Everyone Everywhere, and The All Nightin an all-ages show at Phog. Pop-punk at it’s finest. The moshing had to be continually squashed, and the crowd sang as loud as the bands, even when they weren’t hijacking microphones. It made me really appreciate and wonder at the dedication of music fans in Windsor, that they learn the words to every single song of the local bands they love. It’s great to see, you won’t find it quite the same anywhere else.
Tuesday night was the debut of Cellosin the opening slot for KEN Mode. I unfortunately had to miss the first band thanks to work, but folks tell me it was quite the experience. My first encounter with KEN Mode was pretty damn awesome, but I don’t know how to describe it. They can’t be defined by a single (or even 3) genre. It was for sure heavy, and the mixing of an Orange stack with a Mesa head almost made me cry I loved it so much. Instead of trying and failing to describe this music, how about you just listen to it.
Friday the 25th is a very busy night in the Windsor music scene, but I’ll give you the rundown on my show of choice (and believe me; it wasn’t an easy one). At The Blind Dog you can see Silver Glory, Awake to a Dream, Nuclear Sunrise, Bleach, Jonas & the Massive Attraction, and Anonymous Bosch for only $10 (with the purchase of an advance ticket). A night of rock’n’roll at it’s finest. Pretty stoked for this one.
But any show you choose in Windsor this weekend, whether it’s Tony Coates at Taloola, Fuck the Facts at The Coach, or Freedom Within at Trees, it’s gonna be great, because Windsor fans are half the fun of these shows, and they’re sure to be packing each one of them.
And as an extra special tip, if you tune in to the show next Wednesday between 5 and 630 you’ll have a chance to win a pair of tickets to the upcoming Perpetuate CD Release Show with Baptized in Blood and Betrayer. That’s right, free tickets to a sweet metal show. What more can you ask for?
Last night, Cellos made its live debut on a Windsor stage. It was their first performance as a band and despite a few stage jitters, they pulled it off magnificently.
Despite it being their live debut, the members of Cellos are far from being novices. In fact, the trio may be three of the best representations of their respective instruments in the city. Guitarist (and vocalist) Kyle Marchand is better known as the driving chunk behind Orphan Choir as well as the experimental soundscape engineer in What Seas, What Shores (he also had a short stint in the melodically golden Yellow Wood). Bassist Joe Rabie’s thundering grooves have build the skeleton for many projects, including the prog rock dirge of Surdaster, the instrumental frantics of Red Rows and the experimental blind field trips of Star Trek: The Band. And the sheer muppetry genius of David Allan on drums has all been evident to anyone who has seen the octopus-on-cocaine tentacles fly in other projects like Explode When They Bloom, Poughboy and Which Witch. It only makes sense that these three play together – they’ve been in such diverse projects individually, that it would take a project of this nature for each of them to truly shine and show what they are ultimately capable of pulling off.
Their set last night – opening the highly anticipated return of KEN mode to Windsor – was brief but succinct. The second song, tentatively titled “Notes from Underground”, was a clincher – when the power riff groove locked in, the crowd was hooked. For a band playing their debut, they had a crowd in their hands, attentive and hungry, eyes agape and ears thirsting. Their set was like a rock opera conveying how an underwater minefield going off must sound to the fishes around it – as heart racingly exciting as it is terrifying.
Marchand’s voice is reminiscent of Gibby Haynes via early Butthole Surfers records (a la Locust Abortion Technician) with a tinge of Bleach-era Nirvana (the band actually closed their set with a Nirvana cover, “I Hate Myself and I Want To Die”). If I was to play Pitchfork and mash analogies, I’d say it was like Gibby Haynes singing in a band with Paul D’Amour (Tool) on bass, a pre-Badmotorfinger Kim Thayill (Soundgarden) on guitar and Keith Moon on drums, with a set arranged by Mr. Bungle or Mars Volta, but even that isn’t entirely accurate. In fact, if I was a psychologist, I’d say they sound like the soundtrack for the exact moment when the voices in someone’s head suddenly instructs them to kill for the first time. It’s a rush of anticipation, anxiety, excitement and lunacy all at once.
But perhaps the real majesty of witnessing Cellos’ debut performance last night was something another witness said to me: “It’s so exciting to see a band’s first performance. I mean, I’ve seen them play in other bands before, but them together, is something new. Seeing something brand new is just so exciting.” These guys have done this before. In different bands, a hundred if not a thousand times before. But seeing them play something new and something fresh for the first time, is something magical. The material is fresh in the audiences ears, not tainted by the memories of shows past by, not blurred by the fact that they’re there to “watch a friend’s band play”, they were there to experience something new by musicians they’d grown to trust.
And judging by the response, Cellos has a bright future ahead of them.
You can catch Cellos next performance opening the show at Phog Lounge (157 University Ave. West) when Calgary’s This City Defects comes to town on Monday April 11th (Red Rows is also opening).
Some of you might remember the Amphetamine Reptile days, or the golden age of Touch and Go Records. Bands like the Jesus Lizard, the Melvins and Unsane were at their peak, driving home the point that ‘heavy is good’ and dissonance can also rock. Percolating just beneath the surface of popular consciousness, there where a handful of bands who missed catching the Nirvana inspired alt-rock bidding war but continued to do what they do with no less intensity, hunger or malice.
The Melvins and Unsane not only survived the good times and the bad times but managed to inspire a new league of upstarts with the coming of a new century. Bands like Young Widows, Doomriders or locally, Fiftywathead. Winnipeg’s KEN Mode can adequately be lumped in to this new breed of noise rock, and possibly offer up an exceptional example of it.
And they’re coming back to the Coach & Horses (156 Chatham St. West, basement level) on Tuesday March 22nd.
If you like loud, and if you like noisy, grimy, technical rock, this is a show not be missed. Some of you may have been present when they passed through a couple of months ago, and were able to witness exactly what I’m talking about. Those of you who were there and who are familiar at all with the noise-rock scene in the 90s know that the Melvins, Unsane and Jesus Lizard comparisons are not completely unfounded. And you also know that they’ve upped the ante with intricate arrangements and a punk sensibility that, when taken as a package is a little hard to describe, not to mention overwhelming, relentless and pummeling. So check this:
and if you’re still not convinced (which means you may be something of a fool) then you can click this one too to get a sense of the live powerhouse that these gentleman represent in the flesh:
Making their live debut as support for KEN Mode will be Windsor’s own Cellos: slapped together from members of some of Windsor’s ‘top-shelf’ bands (Orphan Choir, Explode When They Bloom, Poughboy, What Seas What Shores, Surdaster, Red Rows, etc. etc.), these upstarts fall right in line with the new breed of noise that’s been bubbling up to the surface. Early music coming out of Kingsville’s Sound Foundry studios points towards the fact that these folks are going to be a force to be reckoned with around town. If you need proof, go here: http://cellos.bandcamp.com/ or find them on Facebook for more details.
It tickles this writer’s black heart to no end to know that mid-90’s nostalgia, tempered with the brutality and technical savvy of what’s known as ‘post-hardcore’ is on the rise. Tuesday, March 22nd at the Coach, those in attendance will know exactly what I’m talking about when these two heralds of the new face of rock music bring it with gusto. NOT. TO. BE. MISSED.
KEN Mode with special guests Cellos, The Coach & Horses (156 Chatham St. West, basement level), Tuesday March 22, 9pm, 19+
The Windsor Zene 