Artist, actor, activist and author Common has a new single out. Its built on a beat from J Dilla and features a soulful contribution from Daniel Caesar, the raised in Oshawa Grammy winning hip-hop artist. Also featured is Dwele. Common will hit up the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in the 6ix 08 07. HER btw is Common’s abbreviation for “Hip-Hop in its Essence is Real”.
Acoustic finger style player Jeff Gunn at Indigo Books in the OC Saturday Jun 15
We’re all guilty of it, busy lives etc, music as wallpaper, some random dude in the corner playing but if you happen to be at Indigo Books in the OC this Saturday Jun 15 slow down and pay some attention to Jeff Gunn who will be performing in the afternoon.
The Toronto guitarist, producer and writer comes to Oshawa as part of an ongoing books and music tour celebrating his album ‘Sonic Tales” and his ‘Hidden Sounds’ series of guitar technique reference books. He has been nominated for a Juno for his work with Emmanuel Jal and he will heading out with Jal to Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festival this summer among other festival dates. His percussive style of playing while not unique, is unusual, so yes, slow down, and spend some time listening to Jeff. Its only going to make buying that book even more enjoyable.
Slowcity open mic - here comes the rain again edition w/ Autogramm, Espanola, Jesse Merineau, CamelPhat x Jake Bugg and Ada Lea
By Will McGuirk
Planet heats up, ice caps melt, water goes up, gotta come down somewhere, so its coming down here again. Well maybe we won’t melt, maybe we will but here’s Vancouver’s Autogramm with a weekend cottage vibey video to remind you what summer’s were like. Also stepping up, Espanola, Jesse Merineau, CamelPhat x Jake Bugg and Ada Lea.
Interview with soulful folkie Mattie Leon who performs an in-store at Kops Oshawa Jun 4
By Will McGuirk
Mattie Leon is touring a new two song EP, “When Love is Strong / Caught Up” throughout Southern Ontario. Slowcity.ca caught up with the Brampton-born musician prior to his in-store at Kops Records Oshawa. He will be performing Thursday Jun 6 at 5:30 p.m. Matt Gunn will also be on the bill.
These lrecent tracks from Leon invoke the harmonic pop of Paul Simon, Billy Joel and the soulful sounds of Mick Hucknall but Leon says he owes the diversity of his work to John, Paul, George and Ringo; Paul mostly.
“The Beatles are my favourite band without a doubt. The variety. The melodies. The different eras. In 7 years they did so much. . . it’s insane! My favourite changes on an album to album basis . . . , George owns Abbey Road, Paul owns Let It Be, John owns everything before ‘65. If I had to choose one, though, it’s Paul. His exhausting mastery of melody continues to blow me away. . . I love his solo stuff after The Beatles too. . . Ram, Band On The Run.
Leon’s run through the province includes dates in Peterborough, Guelph, Orillia and Ottawa as well as the Second Wedge Brewery in Uxbridge. His 2017 album, ‘Signal Hill’ earned him a nomination for Emerging Artist at the 2018 Canadian Folk Music Awards. It was a departure from the R&B/Soul of his debut, ‘Terrace’ but he says he loves lyrics and folk leaves room for meaningful lyrics.
“I also love the storytelling in Folk music.,” he says. “Over the last few years I’ve been able to write songs about historical events and I love being able to weave those things into songs. . . it’s hard to pull off in other genres. I love R&B/Soul because of that pulse. Nothing feels quite as good as a good soul tune. At the end of the day I appreciate all kinds of music. I appreciate great musicianship and loud guitars. I just hold melody and lyrics above everything else.”
When writing songs Leon says he begins mostly with a riff or chord progression. A vocal melody comes quickly after but then the work starts and the completion of a song can take a lot longer.
“If I have the chord progression and vocal melody. . . that’s when things slow down for me. I’ll try and get an idea of where I want to go with the lyrics. . . and then I’ll write and edit and rewrite and edit. It’s a never ending cycle. Sometimes it takes weeks and months. . . lyrics take me quite a while. The thing with lyrics is that you only get to put out so many songs in a year. . . maybe a handful. I want to make each word count.” he says.
Well if it counts, Slowcity.ca also values craft and quality and Mattie Leon certainly earned that nomination for emerging artist. Should have won it.
Mattie Leon
Mattie Leon and Matt Gunn in-store performance at Kops Records Oshawa Jun 6
Toronto troubadour Mattie Leon will be performing an in-store at Kops Records Oshawa Thursday Jun 6 at 5:30 p.m. Joining him will be Matt Gunn, a singer/songwriter from Uxbridge. Gunn’s album ‘ Staring at Nothing’ is available at Kops Records Oshawa.
Deanna Petcoff
Slowcity.ca Open Mic - w/ Bon Iver, Jenn Grant, Deanna Petcoff, Sara Gougeon, Cat Clyde, Language Arts, Electric Youth, The Strangemakers, Altered By Mom and Absolutely Free
Yes its not warming up and yes its summer and no you are not supposed to be worrying about frost on your plants when the solstice is nigh but get used to it. Climate’s achanging and change is a foot but magic too is afoot with a double hit from Bon Iver plus tracks from Jenn Grant, Deanna Petcoff, Sara Gougeon, Cat Clyde, Language Arts, Electric Youth, The Strangemakers, Altered By Mom and Absolutely Free. Worry less, act more, cover your flowers.
A night time shiny charmer - Benjamin Dakota Rogers plays Oshawa Music Hall Sat. June 1
By Will McGuirk
The quietness of rural living and revelations of constellations has inspired generations of Ontario country folk musicians including Benjamin Dakota Rogers who has just released his third album, ‘Better By Now.’ The Brant county raised musician was also inspired by generations of his own family. The gift of a fiddle owned by his great-grandfather set him on a journey which sees him stop for an evening at the Oshawa Music Hall Saturday June 1 2019.
Rogers grew up in Scotland, ON. just south of Brantford, some ways away from his relatives he says in an interview with slowcity.ca.
“I met my grandfather for the first time when I was seven years old. He came down from Timmons and gave me his father’s violin. My folks put me in lessons, and I did that pretty much until I graduated high school. In the meantime, I picked up a bunch of other things such as guitar and banjo, singing and most dear to me, songwriting.”
Songwriting was picked up (some may say quite well) by another from the area, singer/songwriter and guitarist Robbie Robertson, who along with members of The Band, gave rise to what Daniel Lanois calls “The Simcoe Sound,” a moodier version of Americana.
The North Ontario melodies of Rogers’ Timmons fiddle played under the open skies of the more southernly Simcoe, gave rise to something in his own music which feels so much older than the player and also the listener, something located more in history than geography.
“I had no idea there was such thing as a ‘Simcoe sound’ but I don't know if a particular area influenced me,” he says. “Definitely, by growing up rurally, it gave me a great appreciation for open spaces and the absolute darkness that can come with nighttime when there are no city lights to ruin it and those things come out in my songs. Mostly I think my descent into folk and Americana come from growing up as a fiddle player and having parents that loved folk music and played it together in our kitchen.”
Kitchen sessions in the winter yes but when the summer finally comes one ventures to the campsite and its there, lost in the glow of flames under the glow of stars, the work of the song takes place. For Rogers the work also takes place before the more modern glow of the dashboard.
“I sit alone with it late at night when everyone else is asleep. I hardly ever write in the day time most all my music is written after midnight I sit in my music room or out in a field somewhere or in my car or I suppose wherever I happen to be, and music usually comes out,” he says.
Sitting, looking, waiting for the songs to reveal themselves one . . .
Rooks McCoy, photo by Will McGuirk
Rooks McCoy, rapper and mental health advocate, performs at Kops Oshawa Sat June 1
By Will McGuirk
Rooks McCoy, recently crowned Best New Artist at the 2019 Oshawa Music Awards, will be performing at Kops Records Saturday Jun 1 as part of the store’s grand opening celebrations.
The celebrations line also includes Whitby rapper Eric Ben$, country folk acts The Doozies, Deep Dark River and Billard Blossom, swing jazz act Rhyme Jaws, acoustic act, Matt Gunn and Alannah Kemp plus indie rockers Mary + Adelaide plus Matlock Expressway. The music starts at noon and continues until 7 p.m.
McCoy was born in Scarborough. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia before moving to Oshawa. He says high school was difficult but hip hop was his way out.
“Grade 10, 11 when I was 15, I didn’t fit in, I hated it but I ran into Cort Johnson (now his manager) and his buddies and they had the vernacular and street slang and I felt I fit in, they became my crew,” says McCoy in an interview over coffees.
“I always loved hip hop, I love all kinds of music except for country. That’s my dad’s fault. I lived in Atlanta Georgia in the 90s and when we moved to Oshawa we listened to country the whole drive, that’s enough to turn anyone off, even a country fan. Maybe hiphop is the polar opposite, maybe it’s a rebel thing, i just really got into it. The first album i bought was ‘36 Chambers’, Wu-Tang, still the greatest rap album made to this day. That’s almost 30 years old.”
Now 32, McCoy’s time in Oshawa has had both a negative and positive influence on his music. He grew up in the city listening to urban music and also the mainstream rock sounds of suburban radio. Both inspired his rhymes but the strong sense of melody in his songs has a more rural source.
“That comes from my country roots,” he says laughing, “When it comes to hiphop many artists will only listen to hip hop and not dabble in other music but growing up listening to so much country it led me down other paths, I love grunge, 90s rock, metal, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, none of those artists sound the same, they all had their own lyrical tone and delivery. When you listen to James Hatfield his vocal presence can’t be matched by anybody, Hendrix, well his improvisation is inexplicable, and Kurt Cobain’s lyrics are incredible and Dave Grohl’s production is just the smoothest so if you can combine all of those and move it into a different genre, well, when people say you do hip hop I do but I don’t at the same time. I don’t want to be boxed in like that.”
Fighting against labels is also part of growing up in a town with a negative stigma.
“Oshawa is perceived as a dirty place. That’s because every other block is a ghetto, then it’s not a ghetto then you are back in the ghetto. Its crazy, it’s the only city I have seen built like this but I do love it and the people in it do love hip hop as well,” he says.
But what doesn’t kill you can make you stronger and growing up with adversity can give you an edge over the competition, who may not have had to struggle so hard.
“If an Oshawa artist goes to Toronto everyone thinks they are going to be thrash. It’s a competitive genre but I have to compete twice as hard to prove that where I am from shouldn’t matter. I am already battling with the skin complexion, I am not producing what’s on the radio so I am fighting three ghosts at the same time,” he says.
Rooks was also battling another ghost, himself. He has overcome depression, anxiety and addiction. He says music is now his addiction and he credits hip hop with giving him the reason and weapon to choose sobriety.
“I know I experimented with things I shouldn’t have experimented with. You know how you feel when you are sober, you know how you feel when you are intoxicated. You know how you feel when you shift from intoxicated to sober. One day I never got that feeling back. I was trapped and then I was diagnosed with derealisation, depersonalization. So basically you feel as if any minute you can snap into a dream and you are watching a tv screen but its your eyes and its very scary and with anxiety on top of that it triggers an attack. I feel using those substances pushed some chemical imbalance in my brain over the edge, which caused all that. But when I became sober and made music all the time, rather than recreational shit, it was easier to get things done and see the positive side of things.” he says.
Keeping it real McCoy takes his lived experiences and puts them into songs. Authenticity is vital to hip hop and McCoy says chasing radio is not his goal. Connecting with fans who relate to what he is saying is. He says he has people leave comments online about how certain tracks gave them hope, inspired them or saved their lives.
“I have a song called ‘Revenge’ which is to raise awareness about depression on and anxiety and suicide. It’s tough for me to present to the crowd because I have dealt with it all,” he says.
His new album, ‘evoL’, is set to be released mid 2019. It follows on his 2016 release, ‘Sonny Boy Wonder’ and is a collection of singles dealing with the darker side of relationship.
“The first line of the chorus on ‘Poison’ is ‘It’s your love is like a poison to me/ I know that it’s lethal to breathe, but it’s your love/ It’s like a drug which has a hold on me/ and I hope you take the pain away when you leave, with your love’ It’s a numbness, I have a song called ‘Numb’. “
Its not the sunniest side of this things but Rooks does find himself in a much brighter place now.
“It’s the yin and yang, good and evil, of love as a force. If good love and bad love crashed into each other, the album would be the theme song. It’s got everything and I know I have never written music as good as I have right now,” he says.
Julian Taylor Band, photo by Jerome Joyce
Slowcity.ca open mic - with Julian Taylor Band, Kalle Mattson, Foxwarren, The Unfaithful Servants, Wintersleep, Ponytails, Once A Tree, Hot Chip and Mauno
“A lot of people are left feeling sad and lonely because of death. I understand how that feels. It’s a sadness that only eases with time but never goes away. As you move forward it will stay with you but it will help strengthen you too. Felt deeply. Felt not as in touched. Felt within, touching us." - Julian Taylor, press release
Julian Taylor Band, Kalle Mattson, Andy Shauf’s Foxwarren, Wintersleep, The Unfaithful Servants, Ponytails, Once A Tree, Hot Chip and Mauno.
Oh Susanna
Slowcity.ca Open Mic - HBD w/ Ponytails, Oh Susanna, Jessica Rhaye & the Ramshackle Parade, Jordan Klassen, Geneviève Racette, Black Mountain, Sigala & Becky Hill, Colour Tongues,
Whatever gets you through the night as Johnny Lennon says or the day or the year, whatever gets you to celebrating another trip around the sun, thats whatever it took to get you here and you are here and I am here and that is enough of a reason to play some songs and enjoy the day which happens to be the anniversary of my birth. And considering its been a year since the last, well, it didn’t seem to take too long. Thanks to Ponytails, Oh Susanna, Jessica Rhaye & the Ramshackle Parade (covering Bob Dylan for his birthday), Jordan Klassen, Geneviève Racette, Black Mountain, Sigala & Becky Hill and Colour Tongues for the tracks. Cheers to you whenever your birthday is.
Here comes The Sun Harmonic to brighten your heavy day
By Will McGuirk
At our most recent Slowcity.ca open mic spotlight we missed out on Toronto's eclectic folk/rockers The Sun Harmonic. They will be playing Jul 2 at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern. The band bring Beethoven to Bon Iver and create a rich vibe of melody and melancholy. Lead Kaleb Hikele of St. Tomas, ON., wrote this “A Heart So Heavy” as a message to his travelling girlfriend.
We send it as a message to all who are missing someone they love.
Artwork credit Alex Parsons — with Matt Post and Laura Klinduch
Under the hood of Not My Car Records
Photo by Angelica May
By Will McGuirk
Sometimes you have to go full punk and do-it-yourself. For Matt Post and Laura Klinduch of the psych-garage band, Deathsticks, D.I.Y. meant setting up their own label, Not My Car Records, to get the music they wanted to listen to out into the world, to sign and support bands they knew and yes as Post says, “to promote our own music from a different angle, rather than just being an unrepresented artist asking for attention.”
The first release on Not My Car was the scathing noise rocker, “In The Motors” by Deathsticks. Post and Klinduch, now based in Ottawa, grew up in the Oshawa/ Whitby area and like many artists and musicians found few opportunities in the GM focused town.
“crumbling factory
we used to build
walk past my high school
giving me chills
everybody leaves and they don't come back “
The first act signed to Not My Car is The Tenebaums from Ottawa, garage rock at its most garage-y. An album by the band will be released early summer. Submissions from other acts are encouraged by the way.
Post says there is a story behind the label’s label.
“I used to burn mix CDs,” he says, “and when someone gave me a ride somewhere, I didn't get my license until I was like 20 or 21, I would give them a CD that said ‘Not My Car’ on it. It's also kind of a reference to how Deathsticks has always toured in Laura's dad's car, or my Opa's van, or my mom's van, none of which are really ‘My Car’.”
Post says Deathsticks have taken ‘not their car’ coast to coast, touring, playing shows and making probably every mistake a band can make crossing Canada. But there have been successes and it is that mix of experienced- based knowledge the labe offers bands seeking to be signed; “we hope to help guide other bands into digital streaming, booking tours, getting their own merch. We're DIY and any band I'm interested in working with should have that same ethic.”
Bands are offered in-house production and recording, live show booking, press and social media advice.
For Post, the label offers him a chance to make his own future and to make a difference. There are challenges of course, being your own boss has its disadvantages too, he says.
“That sounds like a cliche, small business-type thing. But I've learned that music gets closer to feeling like your job, when you start treating it like your job. Believe me, no one is asking anyone to put more music out into the world, there is already so much to pay attention to. But working hard and putting in those hours and growing a little thing in your group of friends and local scene is very rewarding and you get to watch it have a real effect when people actually buy records from you at a show or come to see your band. That's always nice.” he says.
Photo of Dave Bookman borrowed from Indie88 in the spirt of radio
Respect 'n Peace to Dave “Bookie” Bookman May 30, 1960 to May 21, 2019
Its laughable looking back how naive I was, an immigrant in Oshawa. I thought all those bands I was listening to and seeing live in the mid 80s were all famous, all part of the Canadian music scene, that this was Canada I was hearing live, how fortunate I was, that it was all right here where I landed, ha!!
But nope, no one knew these bands then. They are indie icons now: Rheostatics, Deja Voodoo, Gruesomes Jr Gone Wild, and others. They were all part of the Star Club era which I stumbled into a year after I arrived in "The Shwa".
It was so much fun, being in on that secret, in on Canada’s secret underground of music. Dave Bookman was in on it too. He was part of it then and he stayed a part of it until his death in Toronto, announced on Indie 88 this morning, where he had worked as a DJ.
It was a good fit, Bookie and Indie88, he was Indie in deed. It followed on his work at CFNY/ The Edge/ 102.1, where he was the voice of Canadian street level bands on radio. He was the champion for independents and for new music. For the Brits reading, Dave Bookman was Canada's John Peel, for the Irish he was Canada's Dave Fanning.
He also championed the new and upcoming on stage with his Nu-Music nights at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, and he did so on a Tuesday!!
I am sure every country has its own version of Dave, that every community has a music advocate and scene builder; I have met many, in Hamilton and Peterborough and Sudbury and Guelph and London On. But Bookie was different.
Its difficult building a scene in all those towns but in a way it was harder for Dave. He did it all in the belly of the Beast, in the centre of corporate rock, in Toronto, among the major labels and the suits and insipid radio personalities. How he did it, how he won attention, how someone who loved music managed to live on radio in these times when radio is about play charts and profits, well, thats all beyond me but he did. He rose above them all.
Dave Bookman was the real deal, an authentic music lover who spoke the universal language of music, he spoke passion.
His passion inspired many to keep doing the work, to keep fighting the corporatization of music, to stay true to the ideals of punk and alternative and independence, to use your voice to give voice to others and to use your spotlight to spotlight those creating in the margins.
