In the spirit of Pop Montreal – The Luyas

The Luyas are a three piece band from Montreal who use guitar, treated french horn, drums, keys, glocks, organs, wurlys, pianets and vocals to produce, as they put it, “audio chicken noodle soup for the soul”. Their first record, “Faker Death”, came out in August 2007. They have rolled in some pretty impressive company as they boast former/current members of Miracle Fortress, Bell Orchestre, Arcade Fire, and SS Cardiacs.

I heard of The Luyas via their lead singer, Jessie Steins’ former band, SS Cardiacs. Jessie has a squeaky, high pitched, almost child like voice that I am totally addicted to. I picked up the SS Cardiacs only release, “Fear The Love” a couple of years ago after hearing “Noo Noo (In a Foreign Dialect) on the CBC Podcast. This song kicks.

From what I have heard so far, I would have to say that I prefer the poppy, youthfulness of the SS Cardiacs, but The Luyas can’t go wrong with Jessie at the helm. Keep an ear out for Jessie Stein. She will melt you into soft putty and make you wish that you were 12 years old again.

The Luyas are playing Pop Montreal this week
Thurs, Oct 4, Club Lambi at 22:00
Fri, Oct 5, at O Patro Vys at 21:00.

http://www.myspace.com/theluyas

 

 SS Cardiacs - Noo Noo: Play Now

Toronto - It’s been awhile since the Hives visited Canada’s best city, so when it was announced earlier this summer that the Hives were returning to Toronto to open for Maroon 5, I am pretty sure most fans were all like ‘whaaaaaaaa’ then probably went on to make some joke about Maroon 5 being pansy ass bitches. Luckily, the Hives recognize this slight, and scheduled a show at the Phoenix for a mere 13$. Awesome. Naturally, given this city’s massive Scandanavian population, the show sold out within weeks.

The atmosphere at show was quite excitable. If you know anything about the Hives, you know they put on a good show. It was Wednesday, which is statistically the hardest day of the week, so I am sure the crowd was raring for a good time. I am sure the Hives are a band that really, really, really want to please its fans, as they came on at 9:30. NINE THIRTY. Who comes on at nine thirty? (well the Beautiful South did last year) but seriously, that’s awesome. Maybe I am showing my age here, but really, that is quite delish.

Dressed in matching private school boys uniforms, the Hives quickly went right into one of their trademark two minute songs, whose name escapes me now. I’ll admit it, I can realistically name maybe eight Hives tunes. One of them is ‘Hate to Say I Told You So’, which they busted out early in the set to get everyone going. The lead singer, Howlin Pelle, is arguably one of the best front man doing shows today. He works HARD to get the crowd going, dances and does crazy stuff during songs and consistantly talks between songs. Sometimes I think the length of his between song banters is actually longer then each song. Actually, thats probably true. The dudes pretty funny, and after watching lamewads Alex Turner (of Arctic Monkeys) and Paul Banks (of Interpol) do absolutely nothing on stage at V Fest, this was a nice refreshment.

so the next hour consisted of a blend of new and old songs, leaning more towards the old then the new. Apparantly they have a new album coming out, and according to Pelle, its ‘very good’ and they were listening to it before the show to get them revved up. The only sad thing about the concert is that you know that the Hives are a pretty limited band, in terms of what they can do musically. It’d be awesome to see someone with the frontmans charisma on a err better band. But hey, what can you do?

The first set ended with their current single “Tick Tick Boom” which is currently also on NHL 08, so if its sounds familliar, this is why. The encore consisted of Supply and Demand, Main Offender and some new song which sounds like it can be a hit. Overall, the Hives put on an excellent show and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

4/5

Toronto - So last week, my buddy Pike visited our great city from Edmonton. He was pretty hell bent on seeing some shows and went to see the Cinematic Orchestra, Common and Ulrich Schnauss. He offered to take me to one of these shows. I couldn’t go see the Cinematic Orchestra because I was at the cottage and I wasn’t really keen on seeing Common (despite liking his new album) because I have a propensity for saying something like ‘ni**a whaaaa’ when I get excited and really, I just didn’t want to get stabbed in case I said that at a show. Also, I had a ball hockey game.

So, by hook or by crook, I was going to see this german dude named Ulrich Schnauss. I had no idea what he played or what his music was, so this was definately a new experience. I even resisted the urge to download his entire discography before the show. So I was going into this show fresh. and clean.

» Read the rest of the entry..

Vancouver - This being my first foray into the Vancouver indie scene, I really didn’t know what to expect from this concert not only from a musical standpoint, but more so the experience. Attending 60+ shows while living in Toronto, the whole concert-going process had become second nature to me - hitting the bar early enough to get a couple of drinks in, timing it perfectly so I wouldn’t have to listen to a shit support band and only to wait another 30 minutes for the roadies to set up the headliner and of course, taking the piss out of Flyerman (man I wanted to punch that dude in the face after watching his movie, what a selfish fucker). Anyways, the experience itself ended up being status quo. The Commodore as a venue is probably one of the nicest I’ve been to, lots of room to dance, plenty of barspace, great sound and sightlines throughout the entire venue. The capacity of the venue is around 1000 and would say it was only 70% full, which is good because the last thing I want is a sweaty indie chick in a tight skirt rubbing against me…gross. Oh the only thing that drove me nuts about the venue, they kept turning the house lights on after every song, what’s up with that Commodore? It kinda took away from the experience.

My concert timing was rusty because when we thought we arrived at the time we expected the Klaxons to come on stage, we actually had 3 more songs of the Mystery Jets to watch. They’re a decent enough band but I’d just throw them in mix of ‘typical’ British indie bands like The Paddingtons, The Harrisons, The Mccabes, The Holloways etc…Lot’s of families are playing in bands together these days, good for them.

Klaxons get on stage around 9:40, at this point I’m expecting ‘quite a show’ as per Ricky’s review but after watching their set, I’d just like to add ‘fuckin’ after ‘a’ and before ’show’. Those kids are amazing. Right off the bat they had people rush to the floor to hip-shake to the ear bleeder ‘Bouncer’ and kept the dancefloor masses consistently moving throughout the entire gig. In order to avoid writing a duplicate review I’ll just kindly ask you to refer to Ricky’s, which pretty much expresses my sentiments, although I felt the crowd slightly more subduded, maybe because it was sparse or the BC bud was more primo than usual.

4.5/5

Here is the setlist:

Bouncer
Atlantis to Interzone
Hall of Records
Totem
Golden Skans
As Above So Below
Two Recievers
Magick
Gravity’s Rainbow
It’s Not Over Yet w/Mystery Jets
Isle of Her
Four Horsemen

Next show: Shout Out Louds, October 12th

Ever since Ricky gave me the green light to post on the Panic Manual, my mind has been boggled as to what my contribution as a contributor might be. After watching The Barbarian Invasions last night, I have finally decided. You see, starring in this Oscar winning film there is a certain actress named Mitsou Annie Marie Gelinas, otherwise known to Canadian loving music folks simply as Mitsou. Thank you Loretteville, Quebec for producing this Canadian pop singer turned actress who is more talented and better looking than Celine Dion ever hoped to be. In 1988 her song “Bye Bye Mon Cowboy”, was in the tape decks and hearts of every red blooded Canadian. I wonder what I did with my Mitsou poster?

In 1991 the video for her second single, “Dis-Moi, Dis-Moi” was banned by MuchMusic just one month after the music station had banned Madonna’s “Justify My Love”. Thank you Mitsou, you Canadian Madonna you.

So what will my contribution be to this forum?

Canadian music and comedy of course.

Toronto - I had to wake up early today and get to work by 7 am cos of some project. It was so traumatizing i had to blog about it. Sad, I know.

Thoughts:

- the last time i think i woke up this early on a non travel day was to watch england vs brazil in 2002 world cup, the one where michael owens score first, then ronaldinho schools them after.

- this early, you never know if the person on the subway is a) going to work or b) getting home after a bender, because they are both sleeping and look kinda rough

- no one is lively this morning on the subway (the few people there are). I think I was the only one doing air guitar/drum to songs I like on my ipod. jesus christ, what a depressing life they must live.

- i can see why the homeless problem never gets solved. when you work this early in the morning, you never see homeless people, because they are not up yet.

- waking up before the sun is not natural. i woke up and thought it was friday night and i just had a disco nap. obviously, its not the case, but it really throws you off to wake up in the dark.

- forget this early bird gets the worm thing, no one ever mentions the second line of that poem, which is ‘the later bird gets the bacon’. i like bacon.

- how am i suppose to know if i should bring my shades or not? its freakin dark outside. i had to carry it in my bag just in case.

- hell you don’t even know what to wear really, cos its still dark and cold. and that is not a true representation of how the weather is going to be like, unless you live in alaska where its consistently dark.

- i just don’t think waking up this early is healthy. think of all the morning / wakeup montages you have seen in movies and film. how many of these montages take place where the person wakes up out of bed all happy and theres no sun outside? none. like, you can’t even film something like that to a tune like ‘wake me up before you go go’, cos its so dark outside. if u shot a montage waking up this early, its still probably playing portishead..or massive attack’s angel. cos thats how u feel.

- I started thinking, in the animal kingdom, I don’t think the apex predator on the food chain wakes up this early. watch all the lion youtube videos, or sharks. whenever you see them killing something, its the middle of the day.