The Arts and Crafts annual celebration, its fifth, opens Jun 3 with Nefe and closes Jun 4 with Phoenix. In between there's a whole lotta of music, kids activities, food, drinks, food and kids and comedy and the big names of Broken Social Scene, Feist, BadBadNotGood, A Tribe Called Red and the Pharcyde. But don't forget the lesser-know acts, ticket price is still the same so go early and dig into the psychic-garage of Walrus, great cats who have been supporters of the Ziggy Pop nights here in Shwaville a few years back and also band-on-the-rise Jaunt, familar names in that one too. And of course the eerie sounds of Timber Timbre on a sulky sunny day will be a thrill. All the details and there are a lot are on the festival's website.
Nick Cave, Bad Seeds, Lovely Creatures - plays Massey Hal Wed May 31
The world as circus geek gawker and high priest of the darkness down under, chronicler of the chronically broken hearted, mere cat passing through, neither here nor there, amusing oneself while waiting for goddamn what, imagining the secret lives of one’s fellow passengers, perhaps while strumming a guitar, or through the viewfinder of a film camera, weary-eyed and jaded but still here still here still born and still undecided because of the way the light moves upon her skin and the night proclaims infinite possibilities and isn’t that the embrace the rock ’n roll dandy has on us - a black mark on the stage, a line in the mirror, a door to perceive a reason to believe and an exit to leave by - there in is the carefully pressed Nick Cave, all love and crumpled white shirt, - I have been living with his Lovely Creatures for days and more to the point the afterhours. He helps the night lovingly to its feet and to bed to retire. The Lovely Creatures from the year of Orwell and for the next three decades - are here recorded for your ears lonely. Dig deep Lazarus dig deeper.
New videos from Maisy Stella, Meghan Patrick and Jadea Kelly - Is Durham Nashville North
Morrissey may hate it when friends become successful but I'm on the side of You Go Girl! Nothing beats seeing talented young artists taking it on and making it work for them. Its not easy but they're getting it done and much of it falls within the country music genre. The Region is a bit of a hotbed for the roots-based country and we could get away with calling it Nashville North.
Maisy Stella sings the theme song for the new Netflix animated series Spirit Riding Free. Maisy . . . sans Lennon and her parents Brad and Marylynne Stella. Its got a Edward Sharpe "Home" vibe and Maisy has a voice quite beyond her 13 years.
Meghan Patrick has released the video for "Be Country with Me" from her debut album "Grace & Grit."
Jade Kelly has a new video too, a stripped down acoustic take on the track "On The Water" from her break up break out album, "Love & Lust."
and just to underscore the point Lindi Ortega has an EP out - came out in March - here's the video she dropped.
Twin Bandits release first single, 'Everything Under the Sun'
I'm a sucker for steel and EmmyLou and Joni and it all comes together on this track from Twin Bandits. (Hannah Walker and Jamie Elliott are not twins not even siblings but they may be bandits) The track "Everything Under The Sun" is an ode to Nashville but it has an icy prairie core. Play it often and ride that steel rail. It will be on their Nettwerk Music Group album Full Circle due this summer.
The Darcys take their mirrored shaded neon-pop on the Arizona Highway
Yip its just as if Tubbs and Crocker shed the pastel tailoreds for some double denim and went deep underground - but style can sniff out the best clubs and the best anthems and they docked at the right door, the one on the right, the one right below the Darcys Tonight marquee.
Chris Cornell's Hunger - R.I.P.
I’ve spent the day reading FB posts by pals about the passing of Chris Cornell. Invariably those posts have been from folk about ten, fifteen years younger than me. For them Cornell and Soundgarden in the early 90s, were their way into music; they got him, he got them. They were teenagers, he was an eloquent powerhouse of a voice who sang of them and to them. The connection was made. Coincidently his passing and manner of death was similar to the passing and manner of death of the musician I had made a teenage connection with, Ian Curtis of Joy Division. He died May 18 too, 1980, although he was much younger and only at the edge of making it.
The edge is the vital piece here because for many of us now old punk rockers the edge was all we could ever dream about then. It was as far as we could go. We were the alternative, the other side, the outsiders. We danced around the norm, made the charts, made the news but didn’t make the impact, changed little but the hearts perhaps of those younger. We gathered in halls and got new music live and in person. We heard about our music through a network of fanzines and late night radio shows, it was underground.
Before your fourteen year old self heard “Rusty Cage” and “Black Hole Sun”, Cornell and his pals were gathering in halls in dismal Seattle but they heard Black Flag and DOA and their older brother’s Black Sabbath albums, they melted together in the mist of their city, melting and moulding.
I was writing about music in the early 90s and I recall when Temple of the Dog cassette came in the promo run. “Hunger”, good god, you knew something changed. That song has haunted me since. It came, they went. But listen to the guitar, its jangly melodic, you’d call it indie now we called it college rock then - its REM, Replacements, the Smithereens and the Smiths, and there’s barely any weight to it but it switches and kicks in and it drops into dirge-y metal, you know someone in the band has a sleeveless denim jacket with Rainbow patches - and two of the finest voices in what we call Modern Rock, Eddie Veder rumbling like a didgeridoo and Cornell’s impassioned scream, singular, lonesome, alone, lost, with the arrogance of Robert Plant in it. Its hunger is tangible but what wasn’t known when it came out was just how hungry these guys were.
They were hungry enough to reach the edge … and go over. They broke through the levy and into the mainstream, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, - the Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Alice In Chains, you think it was an accident they showed up on your radio, your teen age teen anger radar - it took decades of work and when they broke everything broke. The punks won, the metalheads, the skaters, the thrashers and hardcore and indie kids and everyone wanted plaid and unlaced docs. And the money flowed and Kurt shot himself, Pearl Jam went on hiatus and Soundgarden split but they had forged a bond between everyone on the outside and underneath their black sun we found a common cause if not a common enemy. Because it was that good and they were that good and now there’s just Eddie.
The reaches of Peaches in the flesh, puts the Xtra in NxNE
The Peacher will launch NxNE 2017, which this year features a club series curated by Brendan Canning and Shad among others as well as concerts at Yonge-Dundas and a two day festival at the Portlands featuring Tyler the Creator, Cold Specks and Sleigh Bells. The NxNE runs June 19 to June 25.
MORE DETAILS HERE ->
Lucky peach that I am I've witnessed this spectacular artist in the flesh and now you can do because you lucky ducks it was filmed. Peaches at Massey Hall below.
Get outside with Bent Fest, Mariposa, Hillside and River 'n Sky; pick one - pick all
Well I’ve booked my vacay - and it is going to be a summer of roadtrips with destination number one music festivals. For those in the D-Rock environs consider The Bent Family Summer Solstice celebration June 24 to 25 2017 at the R-Farm in Newcastle, ON. It’s a strong line-up of locals and a look at where the quote unquote scene is right now. Already penned in are The Micronite Filters, Hairy Holler, Lush Buffalo, Crown Lands, Jeremiah Taylor X, Trish Robb, Tijuana Jesus, the Do Good Badlies, Jake Henley, Mayfly’s Landing and Dizzy . . . so far.
WEBSITE ->
Mayfly’s Landing will also be at Mariposa July 7, 8, 9, just north of Durham Region in Orillia. I have attended the Grand Dame of festivals many times and it always delivers - this year it will deliver one of its more eclectic line-ups with the New Pornographers, the Barenaked Ladies, Bruce Cockburn, Matt Andersen, Whitehorse and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Last Waltz as well as the Great Lake Swimmers, Jay Aymar and 2017 Contemporary Roots Album Juno winner William Prince. Mariposa takes place on the shores of Lake Couchiching, it’s a beautiful location and of course there’s camping at the Pete Seeger Memorial Campground, both a quiet area and a campfire sing-a-long area, all close by.
WEBSITE ->
Hillside in Guelph also offers camping as well as the opportunity to spend three days on an island in the Royal City’s provincial park with such folk as Billy Bragg, Coeur De Pirate, Sarah Harmer, the Jerry Cans, Lise Le Blanc, Lindi Ortega, Lowest of the Low, Rae Spoon, Weaves and WHOOP-Szo. William Prince is also at Hillside and for those keeping track of the D-Rock there’s the aforementioned Ortega, plus Chastity and we are adopting Jaunt too. The Fest takes place July 14 - 16. I’ve been fortunate enough to have attended annually for the past nine, ten years and I have had just too many fond memories to ever pass it over. It’s the centre of my summer and I hope it will become such for my children too.
WEBSITE ->
River and Sky just east of North Bay is the other must-go for me every summer. I go as often as I can, and not just for the music which is alway fine but also for the vibe. Its small, friendly, private, right beside a bend in the Sturgeon River with a long sandy beach and the cool vibes of the boreal forest. Each year I see it grow in small sustainable ways, with the help and support of its local family. This year Weaves, PUP, Wintersleep, Hooded Fang, Partner, New Swears, the Weather Station and Timber Timbre are all scheduled with more to be announced. And I am pretty excited to hear Timber Timbre among the spruce and moonlit star sky of the north. Who knows… maybe the Windigo will be drawn out.
WEBSITE ->
Whatever you choose, roadtrip or staycation make it a festival where you can camp over. It affords you the space and time to spend time with the music, spend time meeting old friends and making new ones and time to contemplate what it all means, out in the open air of a summer night.
East Coast rocker Matt Mays joins Field Trip line up, listen from on the hood
The Matt Mays has been keeping a low profile but he's out and about and playing the Field Trip festival in TO June 3 and 4 2017. He has some new tracks out, four, from his upcoming album Once Upon A Hell of a TIme. Someone had a hell of a time making this- Faint of Heart is a beaut, Springsteen fronting the Jersey Boys, great swing for the end of prom, think instead of Bruce getting Courtney Cox onstage with him he got Sandy and Danny from Grease.
Here's a oldie but a goldie and a personal fave
Feist and Pleasure, plays Field Trip in Toronto June 3 and 4
When The Reminder came out I wrote a blog post, a daily reviewon each song, - it could be done because the album is so deep, so deep. I haven't heard the whole album, Pleasure, but what I have has been a pleasure. Feist is an incredible confident careful songwriter and she is one artist for which a long slow listen is mandatory. Dig in deep. A previous track from The Reminder My Moon My Man may hold the key - "Take it slow/ Take it easy on me/ And shed some light. Shed some light on me please" - It will be my pleasure.
couldn't find the blog but here's a link to The Reminder review from 2007
Photo by Norman Wong
Broken Social Scene have a fix for what ails ya - Hug of Thunder, with Feist on vox
Feist adds the lighting to the titular track of BSS' new album. Much of the BSS output could be termed one great big arms around the world celebratory hug, it always feel good and it comes from the communion of the members who are many but can seem as one. This track manages to gather all those different elements of the federation of BSS and give each equal billing, distinct but harmonious.
SlowCity + Durham Reach Out Arts Events
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Tues May 16 – The Many Deaths of Tom Thompson, speaker series at the Oshawa Public Library
Sat. May 27 - Paul Sloggett exhibit at the Hatch Gallery, Bloomfield, Price Edward County
Sat. June 10 - 11 A Country Path, tour of north Clarington
Sat Jun 10 – 11 Oshawa Peony Festival, art contest submissions due June 9
ON NOW:
Carin Makuz: upholSTORIES at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to May 14
Come Closer, Pamela Dodds @ the Visual Arts Centre, Clarington - to May 21
In Transit – Jan Lyons @ the Kent Farndale Gallery, Port Perry – to June 6
Stephanie Foden exhibit @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery – to June 11
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
Ivory Hours turn Moustache Club onto Dreamland Saturday May 13
The ivory hours according to the Ivory Hours are that milky serene time when the moon and stars are brightest, the time of dreaming and of infinite imaginings.
Expect a lot of moonlight swoon bright pop when the Toronto three-piece play the Moustache Club here in Oshawa May 13 2017. Ivory Hours are touring their new album, Dreamland, due for release June 10th.
The record follows their debut "Morning Light" from 2015 and the track "Warpaint" - it earned them The Edge’s Next Big Thing win and the win for Canada’s Walk Of Fame Emerging Artist Music Mentorship Program. There has been a change in members, Ivory Hours is now Luke Roes, Chris Levesque and Thomas Perquin and they draw from many influences, from Metric to the Arctic Monkeys.
“'Play Me' was very influenced by the Arctic Monkeys' last record. I may be wrong, but I feel like some of their songs were inspired by Dr. Dre beats, and his records are a benchmark for me when it comes to the simplicity & weight of a beat. In addition to Metric, I'm a fan of the Strokes, Band of Horses, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, Phoenix, lots more. . . I listen to people like Paul Simon, Ray Lamontagne, Andy Shauf for lyrical inspiration. I'm pretty open minded now when it comes to music and I pull a little something from everything that catches my ear.”
That little of everything is explored on the album. They wanted Dreamland to sound “atmospheric, inviting, sometimes challenging & melancholy, other times soothing and joyful,” while lyrically expressing the search for universal ideals as well as personal growth from life lessons, both good and bad..
“The name Dreamworld may sound idealistic, but I didn't set out to frame the world as a perfect place. Dreams can be wonderful & transcendent but they can also be terrifying. I think the sentiment of that song and the album is that even in the face of adversity we can find beauty if we look for it. It's about optimism without naïveté, finding imaginative ways to overcome problems both in ourselves and out in the world.”
The room to imagine is the stuff of dreams both sleeping and wide awake, but one person’s dream can result in another’s nightmare, even the dreamy life of a road musician has its bumps and chumps.
"There are a few negative experiences on the road but overall it's exciting and inspiring. We meet really talented & passionate people and you get a lot of opportunities to challenge your perspective.”
Challenge your own views and give them a spin, I’ll vouch for the track “Limbo.”