Chad VanGaalen takes to the Parisian rooftops

Chad VanGaalen is similar in his uniqueness to Neil Young and Gord Downie - the same follow your own voice vocals, the oblique lyrics and the rhythmic melody lines punctuating the songs and in this case punctuating the Parisian skyline - fantastic session - followed I hope by an Americano at the Les Deux Magots and a book stolen from Shakespeare & Co.

Dude has some mid-West dates coming up for his new album, 'Light Information' on Flemish Eye.

Jan 19 :: Winnipeg , MB :: The Good Will
Jan 20 :: Saskatoon , SK :: Winterruption! Festival
Jan 25 :: Calgary , AB :: Commonwealth Bar and Stage
Jan 26 :: Red Deer, AB :: Bo's Bar :: Get Tickets
Jan 27 :: Edmonton , AB :: The Starlite Room
* All dates with Mauno

Boots are made for walking thus Lindi Ortega tours

Alt-country wayfarer Lindi Ortega is taking her red boots for a walk, right across the Great White North with a turn down south before heading backup in the Spring. She will be airing out tunes from an upcoming concept album as she tours. The May 12 spot at Queen's Grad Club looks good to me.

Website -> 

Jan 19 - Saskatoon, SK - The Basement
Jan 20 - Regina, SK - The Exchange
Feb 4-11 - New Orleans, LA - Cayamo 2018
Feb 15 - Little Rock, AR - South On Main
Feb 16 - Kansas City, MO - Knuckleheads Saloon
Mar 15 - Swift Current, SK - The Lyric Theatre
Mar 16 - St. Albert, AB - Arden Theatre
Mar 17 - Fort Macleod, AB - Empress Theatre
Mar 24 - Seattle, WA - The Tractor Tavern
Mar 25 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
Mar 29 - Los Angeles, CA - Moroccan Lounge
Mar 30 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
Apr 1 - Phoenix, AZ - Musical Instrument Museum
Apr 3 - Austin, TX - Stubb’s BBQ
Apr 4 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada
Apr 5 - Houston, TX - McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Apr 12 - Calgary, AB - Festival Hall
Apr 14 - Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre
Apr 15 - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota Jazz Club
Apr 17 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
Apr 19 - St. Louis, MO - Old Rock House
Ap 20 - Nashville, TN - 3rd & Lindsay
Apr 21 - Decatur, GA - Eddie’s Attic
Apr 22 - Charlotte, NC - The Evening Muse
Apr 24 - Washington, DC - Union Stage
Apr 25 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage
Apr 26 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
May 4 - Montreal, QC - L’Escogriffe
May 5 - Ottawa, ON - The 27 Club
May 6 - Burnstown, ON - Neat Coffee Shop
May 7 - Kitchener, ON - Centre In The Square
May 9 - Toronto, ON - Mod Club Theatre
May 10 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
May 11 - Hamilton, ON - Mills Hardware
May 12 - Kingston, ON - Queen’s Grad Club

Mappe Of ponders on Protest The Hero and Whitby's Prog-sound

Mappe Of plays a sort of homecoming show Friday December 8 at the Moustache Club with fellow Whitbyite folkie Annie Sumi.

Influence versus inspiration. Under the influence an act could just become a copycat while inspired, well. . . inspired by leans towards being, well, inspired to follow a path, not the same path but in a way the same path but with a different destination, destination, you.

Mappe Of, the nom-de-project for prog-folkie Tom Meikle and his band, is inspired then by Protest The Hero the prog-metal rawkstars but one would be hard-pressed to find a similarity in their sounds: one screamo, one serene, one suburban rage, one subrural rambles. But the rambling path, the trust your next step path, the trust yourself path, the one which leads to you and releases you is the same path.

Meikle has released his debut, “Northern Star, A Perfect Stone”, on Paper Bag. He has recently toured the nation and then some with Martha Wainwright so in a brandname coffee shop in a suburban mall on the edge of the rural we met and rambled on and Protest The Hero as it does in Whitby often, came up in the conversation.

“I never got to see Protest when they were around here because I was too young, says Meikle,  "and then I was at an appropriate age and knew what they were doing I still wasn’t allowed go to where they played, which was The Dungeon. There was a while when I was only allowed go when I played there. My first band was Fire of the Fallen when I was in Grade 8 or 7, very young and very bad.

"So Protest came to me about that time. I remember sitting in a friend’s basement and him showing me the music video ‘Blindfolds Aside’ without the pretext of them being local, and when the video finished, scratching my head in awe. He was saying , yeah my brother’s buddys with them, they went to the high school down the street and I went What!! - and it was just the virtuosity, the songwriting of it,  Rody’s vocals were insane, the arrangements, everything about it was just, this is the pinnacle for me.

"I’m going to rant, just a couple of weeks ago my bandmates and I were talking about Kezia because that record is so integral to my musical DNA. It feels like if I had a collection of records that were my family, that would be the one, that would be the patriarch of the family.

"Its pretty insane that regardless of it being local, I would still have an affinity for it but I’m sure there’s something, something  happened where they came from the same town, and its a lot of strip malls, its very suburban. When you speak of culture in the global sense there is, maybe at times, a lacking in this area. I love it, it's where I grew up, its my home but I think some people get disenchanted with it because there isn’t this richness. The music scene struggles and there isn’t a hub and for Protest to come out of this place and go to the school down the street and have those skills and make something happen that was so unique. . . I remember looking up 'Bands That Sounded Like Protest The Hero' and there are none. And there never will be.”

And Mappe Of doesn’t sound like Protest either nor does he want to but the complexity, the craft, the time, the PTH crew brought to their work, has left an indelible mark on Mappe Of and “Northern Star, A Perfect Stone” is most definitely musical kin to Kezia.

Doing the Right Now, The Lowest of the Low meets the Slow.

Lowest of the Low have released 'Do The Right Now', their first record of new material in 13 years. They play Oshawa Music Hall Friday, December 8 2017.  There have been line-up changes with co-founder Stephen Stanley leaving the band, but there is still something very Lowest of the Low-y about the songs. They are still pissed-off, still intense, still having fun playing, still writing great bright melodic post-punk power pop but with the hindsight of three decades.  Slowcity.ca asked co-founder Ron Hawkins what the lowdown on album making is for the Low these days.

Slowcity.ca - When building the Lowest of the Low album how did you make it “right now” - and not just a tribute act to your former incarnation?

"Well, the “right now” was a lyrical philosophy and a concept for the album that grew out of my growing sense of wanting to live in the moment and try to be as present in my life as possible. It became a comment on the kind of societies we’ve seen grow out of social media culture and the internet. People on subways glued to their phones in small isolated clusters. And, more ridiculously, hundreds of people at music events watching a passionate spectacle unfold before them, but choose to have it translated through the tiny view screen of their phone/camera. So I wrote Do The Right Now, which became the title track because it seemed to most truly sum up the subtext of the songs. But there is also Minuteman and lyrics scattered all through the album that address this theme.

And I guess musically there was a culmination of things I’ve learned working with the Low, the Rusty Nails, The Do Good Assassins and on countless solo albums."

Slowcity.ca -- I can pick out Costello, Bragg, Strummer, power-pub-rock influences on this album - they also float around the early LOTL records of course, its been 30 years - are you still drawing from that same well or is there another wellspring of musical ideas you have been going to in the interim, I would be interested in links too if the answer is yes? 

"Well yeah that’s the bedrock - The Clash, The Beatles, Bragg etc. Those are the people I originally went to school on. The Beatles musically - their sense of song structure and harmonies and desire to experiment. And because I came to music as much through political interests as strictly musical ones I was freed by bands like the Clash and Billy Bragg to realize that you can invest your rock songs with themes more intricate and imbued with meaning than early rock bands did. I listen to alot of styles of music and find something in everything that intrigues me. In fact I don’t really think of genres so much as I do just “good” and “bad” music. If it resonates it’s good… if it doesn’t it’s rubbish. I’ve been listening to people like Margaret Glaspy, Run the Jewels, The Milk Carton Kids, Jake Bugg, Kurt Vile, Weaves, Big Thief, White Reaper etc. on and on. All you have to do is look around and you’ll find thousands of great bands. There is more amazing music out there now than you will ever have time to listen to. And it all inspires me in one way or another."

Slowcity.ca -- You have always been such a considerate lyricist - words matter - whose words matter to you lately and have how those writers informed the album?

"I find inspiration in a lot of places. One thing that the bands I mentioned previously have in common is that they all have a deft ability with lyrics. And they all approach writing them, and the worldview they express, from a totally different angle. That’s the great thing about humans in general and writers in particular is we find ways to communicate all the love, the pain, the frustration whatever… and a lot of people are able to put a very personal stamp on it. I will admit though that I find it hard to find someone these days who really resonates with me politically. I’m not sure where to put my political energy when it comes to rock n’ roll. Sometimes it all seems like so much posturing and naval gazing, but I think this planet is so fucked up and the western hemisphere is on some precipice that could get even more ugly and dangerous. I guess I can’t believe that a revolutionary spirit is not bubbling to the surface and exploding. I mean what would it take?!

I guess the lyrics on this album are mainly engaged in the idea of being present. Like if I can’t focus long enough to watch a rock show how can I affect change in the world. It’s like when they tell you to apply your air mask before helping others."

Slowcity.ca -- Of the tracks on 'Do The Right Now', which one reflects how you were when you started Lowest of the Low and in which one do you see yourself as you are now, - why?

"I guess I’d have to say 'Something To Believe In' represents a certain yearning and a kind of naive confidence and hope that was really palpable when we started LOTL. 'Powerlines' as well - it’s actually meant to be a little story of the arc of the Lowest of the Low’s first run from 1991 to 1994.

Maybe now I’d have to say it’s 'Do The Right Now' or 'Minuteman' or 'The Hard Way' - it’s about being a capable, alert organism ready to move through the world in a fully actualized way."

Ron mentioned some acts he has been listening to - he sent us a sample.

Sally Turlow, Ian MacKay among artists at Red Head Now exhibit in Toronto, opens Nov. 30

Red Head Gallery artists take over the gallery space located at 401 Richmond Street, for one week Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 2017. Opening night is Thursday Nov. 30. This is the first time in four years for the gallery artists to exhibit together in the gallery.  The exhibition draws upon the mercurial transient nature of connections including those between these artists. The shortness of the show itself is part of that expression. Our time together is fleeting so maybe, ahem, go slow?

Artists featured are Mathew Borrett, Jim Bourke, Jack Butler, Tonia Di Risio, Teri Donovan, Soheila Esfahani, Leah Garnett, Philip Hare, Gillian Iles, Margie Kelk, Ian Mackay, Peggy Taylor Reid, Nancy Anne McPhee, Christina Sealey, Lois Schklar, Sally Thurlow, and Elaine Whittaker

'Push Comes To Shove' for Skydiggers, they play Horseshoe Tavern Dec 22 and 23

Skydiggers are digging the "Warmth of the Sun", their latest album, and are on the road touring. They have a date Nov 29 2017 at Market Hall in Peterborough and then wind their way around Ontario ending at the Legendary Horse Tavern for the holidays and to help celebrate the stalwart 'Shoe's 70th anniversary. 'Warmth of the Sun' was recorded by Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies and features several live-of-the-floor takes as well as a cover of the Tragically Hip's "Depression Suite: The Rock."

Lets talk about the 'Weather', the new track from Adrian Underhill

Adrian Underhill croons like a bedsit soul-jah in Andy Warhol PJs, sways like a console Casanova with a synthesizer strut, hooks you in like a grin from beneath a floppy hat. There's the essence of the simple at the core of Adrian Underhill's tracks but its the plush velour wrappings of them that so intrigue. They build almost spontaneously, unexpectedly, and with the softest of soft touches Underhill has you. Speaking of hooks - Underhill seems to stand right where the ear would go if the Pet Shop Boys covered Dr. Hook's "When You're In Love with a Beautiful Woman'. 

His album 'CU Again', produced by Adam Bainbridge aka Kindness, is out February 9, 2018.

"The 10 songs on ‘CU Again’ are the culmination of many years of sonic exploration. I sat with a keyboard and one drum machine and tried not to play too much with production ideas at first. The tunes have a classic ‘70s songwriter vibe, even though we ultimately wanted to push the production into a more modern realm.," he says in the PR. Yah modern like love.

Neil Young's 'The Visitor' now streaming on NPR

 Neil Young is set to broadcast his secret session, Somewhere in Canada, on Dec 1, 2017. The location of the event has not announced.

We asked and got the tech specs for the livestream.
The stream will be offered on CTV.ca website and CTV GO, the free iOS and Android mobile app. Secondary location/access point to view, other than CTV.ca, is the iHeartRadio.ca website. No plug in will be required to view on desktop of mobile web (CTV.ca). Any web browser is fine and could be used to view. An app download will be required for mobile devices – if the viewer chooses to use the CTV GO app. The app download is free through the iTunes store (Apple) or Google Play store (Android), or for XBox. Viewers should use a broadband connection, if possible, or WiFi. Nothing else additional is required. CTV.ca, CTV GO, iHeartRadio.ca are the main, free video source for this performance in Canada.

And the album itself is now streaming on NPR - go here -> 

Neil Young welcomes The Visitor Friday Dec. 1 online and in person

Looks like Ol' Shakey will be paying somewhere in Canada a visit for the launch of his latest album, The Visitor. Neil Young will play an secret session in Canada the evening of Dec 1 2917 which will be broadcast live on CTV.ca and Facebook. at 8 p.m. ET. 

In a FB post Young says he will be returning to his hometown to play. Speculation is the hometown is Omemee but Winnipeg and Toronto and even Pickering could be possible locations. The live-cast, 'Somewhere In Canada' will be directed by Daryl Hannah and is a partnership between Shakey Films and Bell.

'The Visitor' features Promise of the Real, who collaborated with Young on  'Earth' released in 2016 and 'The Monsanto Years' 2015.

Also on Dec. 1 Young will also be launching his online Archives, which allows free access to his recordings, films, books and videos.

Feed your brain with WCDR Bookapalooza at Bistro 67 Saturday Nov. 25

Panels, readings, exhibitions, events - its a full menu for book lovers at this year's Bookapalooza organized by the Writers' Circle of Durham Region. Panels include discussions on non-fiction called 'You Can't Make This Stuff Up with Ted Barris, Kristen den Hartog and Phil Dwyer and Women's Fiction with Marissa Campbell, Joan Frantschuk and Sharon Overend

There will be scores of writers on hand as well as book Industry reps Outfox Magazine, Mythhawker, Sisters in Crime, Morning Rain Publishing and Toronto Romance Writers. There will also be a vendors alley with Rock Jewelry Designs, Withershins, Beauty Queen Bath Cow, NamasteFreund, Button Brigade and Wirescapes by Barb.

Admission to Bookapalooza is free. Bistro 67 is located at the Durham College Whitby Campus on Champlain Avenue.

Oshawa Opera's 'La Voix Perdue' can be found Nov. 24 2017 at the Kingsview United Church

Oshawa Opera presents La Voix Perdue at the Kingsview United Church Nov. 24 2017. The short opera features New York-bases soprano, Bridget Hogan, and was composed by Peter Skoggard.

SlowCity.ca asked O.O. founder Kristine Dandavino to get us up to speed on opera in Oshawa.

Q: As a complete neophyte to opera in Oshawa what should I expect if I go?

KD: Oshawa Opera presents concerts of operas, so, we take a full opera, keep the most essential moments of the opera and present it in a concert format. All our music is ‘unplugged’, the acoustics of Kingsview United Church are beautiful and the voices ring well in the hall. We keep it short and sweet and we always serve cookies. Come for the cookies!

Q: La Voix Perdue - why did you choose that one?, How do you determine what shows to put on each year?

KD: With Canada turning 150 years old, I wanted to celebrate Canadian music, new music. La Voix Perdue was composed for Soprano Bridget Hogan, now living in NYC, she was raised in Durham Region. It is a short opera that includes a monologue over music and then operatic singing. As for selecting a season, that is always hard work; I am not sure I have found the perfect formula but, so far, our audience is returning so, I must be doing something right!

Q: Is it as tough a battle as it seems to run an opera company in Oshawa? Or are there structures in place to aid you in your endeavours?

KD: Lets put it this way, I was called "insane" and "delusional".  Is it a tough battle? Of course it is, but, most live performances are having problems. Humans are staying home and watching music on Youtube. Don't get me wrong, I love YouTube but, it is nothing like a live performance. I love all music. I try to go out as much as I can in the GTA to listen to live performances, it is not always easy with my busy schedule, but, if I can find the time, anyone can find the time. I am trying to build partnerships with other classical groups in the area and I think, with time, it will grow. I sat on the Cultural and Leadership Coucil for 2 years, that helped. Social Media helps. But, the best advertising is returning audience members. I love seeing audience members that have returned every concert. I am grateful for their support.

To add your support to Oshawa Opera visit their website ( and go to a show)

The ButterCups play Simcoe Jazz 'n Blues Nov 19

If you around the area and by area I mean Simcoe Street north in Oshawa, and by north I mean north of Rossland but south of Beatrice, on Sunday, drop by and chill with The Buttercups. I promise you you won't be disappointed, I guarantee the opposite. Details here.

Charlotte Day Wilson's new track leaves little 'Doubt'

Charlotte Day Wilson is a 25-year-old vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist from Toronto so it goes. But if you listen you hear someone who way way way older. There's a channelling, a heritage, an authenticity yet also a history. There is however no doubt.