Canadian Music Week

CMW Review: Alcoholic Faith Mission, Ryan Warner and The Moonlight Ride, March 9, Rancho Relaxo

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Paul in Canadian Music Week, Concerts, Everything | 2 Comments

Toronto – And so it was that on the first night of Canadian Music Fest, I trudged out into some truly dismal weather to make my way to Rancho Relaxo to check out some bands, all the while hoping that it was worth getting up off the couch to see.  Luckily it was.

Ryan Warner and The Moonlight Ride were already playing as we made our way into the bar.  They offered up some decent, Tom Waits influenced folk rock that featured horn and accordion.  They had a couple sound issues, most notably during “Under the Floors,” a song they had apparently just written yesterday.  It was a good song, probably the best of their set, and it reminded me a bit of the band Karate, but they were forced to start it over when the song became overtaken by a massive amount of feedback.  The lesson here perhaps is to wait more than a day before performing a brand new song.

Alcoholic Faith Mission were up next and I have to say they were pretty impressive.  They had a lush, warm sound that included keening vocals, keyboards, and copious amounts of trombone (it was seemingly played through a pedal at one point.  Either that, or that guy can get some seriously sick sounds coming out of that thing naturally).  One of the highlights was “Sobriety Up And Left,” introduced by the singer through an apparently true story about him waking up spitting up blood.  Despite that gruesome image, it was a beautiful song.  The audience definitely left with a good impression.  I wouldn’t be surprised if a few people there that night check out one of their other shows this weekend.

Ryan Warner:

Alcoholic Faith Mission:

Alcoholic Faith Mission play The Dakota Friday, March 11 @ midnight and The El Mocambo Saturday, March 12 @ 8:00 pm.

Canadian Music Week 2011 Preview

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Paul in Canadian Music Week, Concerts | 1 Comment

Toronto – Another year, another Canadian Music Fest.  From March 9 through to March 13, a whole lot of bands both Canadian and otherwise will be filling venues throughout the city.  Here’s a selection of the ones who caught our attention.

Alcoholic Faith Mission: If you’ll forgive the bad alcohol based pun, these Danes have had a good buzz going lately.  Ricky wrote about them here.

Alcoholic Faith Mission play Rancho Relaxo on March 9 @ 12:00 pm, The Dakota on March 11 @ 12:00 pm, and The El Mocambo on March 12 @ 8:00 pm.

Alcoholic Faith Mission – Closer To Dallas by Paper Garden Records

Butterfly Explosion:These Irish shoegazey alt-rockers have been described as “My Bloody Valentine meets M83 meets Sigur Ros in Heaven.”

Butterfly Explosion plays The Hideout on Thursday, March 10 @ 2:00 am.

Butterfly Explosion :: Closer by Harmless Noise

Charlotte Cornfield:This Montreal based singer-songwriter offers up some catchy folk-rock that has already garnered her radio play on the CBC as well as appearances at the Hillside Festival, Mariposa Folk Festival, the Ottawa Folk Festival, and Pop Montreal.

Charlotte Cornfield plays Thursday, March 10 @ 8:30 pm at Sneaky Dee’s as part of the Audio Blood showcase.

Elephant Stone: Awesome sitar tinged, poppy psych rock from Montreal.  They’re playing here before they head to SXSW to play about a billion shows.  Should be a good time.

Elephant Stone play Rancho Relaxo @ 1:00 am on Friday, March 11.

Elephant Stone – Bombs Bomb Away by 360degreemusic

Heavy Cream: Fun, energetic punk rock from Nashville.  They definitely bring the goods live.  Their video for “Watusi”is all kinds of awesome and features smoke bombs, ouija boards and various shenanigans.

Heavy Cream play Wrongbar @ 11:00 pm on Saturday, Mar. 12.  Also on the bill are The Pack A.D. and Ty Segall.

J Mascis/Kurt Vile/James Vincent McMorrow:  If you’re looking to stay in one place for awhile, this is a pretty good lineup.  The Dinosaur Jr. frontman and Mr. Vile will offer up some guitar heroics while McMorrow brings the mellow folk tunes.

At The Great Hall on March 11.  James Mc Morrow @ 9:15 pm, Kurt Vile @ 10:00 pm, Kurt Vile @ 11:00 pm.

Janet Jackson: Because you never know when you might witness a wardrobe malfunction in action.

Janet Jackson plays The Sony Centre on March 12 and 13.

Maestro Fresh Wes: Let your backbone slide!

Maestro Fresh Wes plays Maro on Saturday, March 12.

Monster Truck: Let’s face it, monster trucks are awesome.  They can crush other, smaller vehicles and have cool names like Grave Digger.  Therefore, a band named Monster Truck must also be awesome.  The Hamilton band’s bio describes their sound as “big like metal, classic like rock, fierce like punk and sweet like pop.”  

Monster Truck play 2 shows on Friday, March 11 @ 11:00 pm at The Bovine Sex Club and  @ 2:00 am at Lee’s Palace. 

Runnin’ by Monster Truck

Topanga:Calm down, Boy Meets World Fans.  Danielle Fishel will not be appearing at CMW.  However, this Toronto band, whose rambunctious sound falls somewhere between folk and punk, will be. 

Topanga plays The Silver Dollar @ 2:00 am on Thursday, March 10. 

Topanga-Loose Circus by Topanga

Young Galaxy: Ricky wrote about them here.

Young Galaxy play Lee’s Palace on March 10 @ 11:30 pm

There you have it.  Just a small sample of the many bands playing Canadian Music Week.  Enjoy.

CMW / SXSW Preview: Austra

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Ricky in Canadian Music Week, South By Southwest | Leave a comment

Toronto – Watching the The Wedge last night, I was fully introduced to Austra, a new band featuring talented singer Katie Stelmanis. The song played was called Beat & The Pulse. The song was very appropriately named, as it had a ridiculously dirty beat that instantly captured my attention. Combined with Katie’s tremendous, sometimes haunting vocal work, this is one mesmerizing tune. The video captured the essense of the song nicely, coming across as a mix of a risqué American Apparel commercial (pointed out by Melody from Singing Lamb) and a scene from those illegal night clubs in Eastern Europe. You can watch the video here.

Austra’s debut album Feel It Break comes out May 17th on Paper Bag Records in Canada and on Domino Records everywhere else.

They will be playing at the Wrongbar on March 10th for Canadian Music Fest

The event page for that show is here

Their official showcase at SXSW will be March 17th, Emo’s Main Room, at 9:00 PM, although I suspect they’ll be playing 5 or 6 other shows like every band who makes it down there.

Austra – Beat & The Pulse (Extended Version) by DominoRecordCo

CMW/SXSW Preview: Alcoholic Faith Mission

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Ricky in Canadian Music Week, South By Southwest | 1 Comment

Toronto – Between the Raveonettes, Efterklang and Alphabeat, once could argue that Danish indie pop music is on a definite rise. You can add Alcoholic Faith Mission to that list. A quintet (why is there six in their press picture?! whose the extra mystery person?) met in Brooklyn and formed their mission statement in that fabled borough. Despite being from the land of Danes and.. Danish, the group now resides in Brooklyn and probably record their music in some cool loft in a restored factory. The band has had several releases already, but it was with their most recent release Let This Be The Last Night We Care that caught the eyes of the most important people on Earth – music critics. When your mustache has caught the attention of Esquire, you have clearly done something right.

What about their music, you say? Well let me point out that their EP cover for their latest release, Running With Insanity

Looks a lot like Caribou‘s Swim

What does this say about the music? nothing. However, if you go deeper, you can say that great minds think a like and Caribou’s album was awesome and so by nature, due to the great minds theorem, the Alcoholic Faith Mission EP will be great as well. That might be thought of as lazy/creative journalism, so instead, I’ll say that from what I’ve heard of their material, Alcoholic Faith Mission is full of toe tapping, upbeat and warm music that is great for spring time listening. The winter is soon to be over, the sun is on the horizon and listening to the title track of this EP, it’s hard to think otherwise.

Alcoholic Faith Mission is playing BOTH CMW and SXSW, which is awesome, since I just wrote a preview article for two events for the price of one. Yay me.

CMW: Rancho Relaxo, March 9, MIDNIGHT
CMW: Dakota Tavern, Friday March 11, MIDNIGHT
SXSW: Probably everywhere

Alcoholic Faith Mission – Running With Insanity by Paper Garden Records

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