A Certain Trigger came out 10 years ago today. It marked the début full-length from Newcastle's Maxïmo Park. The band quickly became a favourite of mine based on this incredibly strong album.
I love the frantic energy, bitterly spat lyrics, rough and ready guitars, urgent drums and driving bass. Sit back and crank up some great songs from a recent classic.
Jane's Party got the crowd at The Danforth Music Hall warmed up for The Manic Street Preachers. Some of their recorded tunes have a distinctively 50's do-wop, rockabilly twang, and some harken back to cool 70s surf back-up vocals and some are sprinkled with folk. Live, I thought they came across as a more straight-up rock band. Their latest album Hot Noise is available now on Cameron House Records.
Torres brought an emotional roller coaster to The Garrison last Saturday night.
I witnessed Torres, Mackenzie Scott from Macon, GA and now a resident of Brooklyn, bare her soul when she performed solo at The Horseshoe Tavern opening for Strand of Oaks. In that post, I described her music as, "...raw emotion; songs and stories that are stripped bare and told in the first person. Her voice is an instrument of her emotion. It's all deeply personal with vivid stories."
When I heard Torres' latest album Sprinter I knew that experiencing their full-band show would be amazing. Fortunately, I was right. Mackenzie was as magnetic and powerful as expected. The band sounded spot on as well. Guitarist Cameron Kapoor used effects and feedback in a barely contained counterpoint to Mackenzie's vocals. Drums and keys kept things rhythmically and melodically together, as did Mackenzie's unique guitar playing. The music poured out of them with all the whisper to a scream dynamics and flowing intensity that Torres' music demands. It all came together wonderfully. The set was relatively short, with a one song encore, but I don't think anyone left disappointed. It was a great show and I look forward to the next one.
Although she's an intense performer - cleansing the stage with incense as the show began and ended, remarking after one particular song that there were no smoke and mirrors at work, and making some of the most impassioned guitar and vocalist faces - between songs she was open and friendly, thanking us genuinely for spending our Saturday night with her on the occasion of her first headlining show in Toronto. We'd spend any night of the week with you that we can, Torres.
After much Twitter banter, Riot Fest has revealed it's Toronto line-up for 2015 and early bird tickets for $99.98, which sold out within an hour.
Here are tunes from the bands that I would most like to see. Of course, one of the best things about all these festivals, is discovering new artists and bands, so my hope is to post a number of feature posts on specific bands over the coming months. And the fine folks at Riot Fest will be announcing more bands June 16.
Sadly, one of the biggest issues for Toronto music fans is the fact that The Toronto Urban Roots Festival, or TURF, is the same weekend, and their line-up is pretty stacked and getting more so with each announcement.
On to the music:
Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, who I saw live at TURF 2013, and had to miss at The Horseshoe this past March due to illness. An amazing live band, for sure.
The Joy Formidable. One of my all-time favourite bands, who is way overdue for a Toronto show!
Rancid, who will perform …And Out Come the Wolves in its entirety
Motörhead. This could be the last time to see Lemmy live on stage.
Last May, I saw Steel Panther for the first time. It was a nostalgic trip back to 80s hair metal complete with many audience members either in costume or in their retro outfits, flashing girls, lots of laughs and lots of devil horns in the air. Check out my thoughts and pics from last time.
As far as my thoughts go, not much changed on their return trip through Toronto on the All You Can Eat tour. They pulled their tour bus into the renovated Sound Academy for another onslaught of metal. While I'm thinking of the renovation, what exactly was renovated? I didn't see anything different.
There were some new editions to the set to keep it interesting. The hair solo is not to be missed, and they followed it up with "17 Girls" and "Gloryhole" when they invited at least 17 girls from the audience on stage to pout and preen. As my friend said, it is kind of surprising that in this age of the internet, social media, and cameras on every phone, girls are still willing to get up on stage, or on their boyfriends' shoulders, and expose themselves.
The acoustic section was cool and featured their viral hit "Kanye". The more I absorb the Steel Panther philosophy, the more I agree with these guys.
They brought out fellow LA native Joey Fatone from NSYNC to sing on the encore tunes of "Community Property" and "Party All Day (Fuck All Night)". Overall, a fun night at the Steel Panther show. Just what everyone expected.
As I mentioned in a recent postIvan & Alyosha are a band named for two characters in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. They formed in 2007 in Seattle when Tim Wilson and Ryan Carbary started writing together. Tim's brother Pete Wilson, Tim Kim and Cole Mauro filled out the group into the indie-folk-rock band that they are today.
I caught their show here in Toronto on Thursday, May 21 at The Silver Dollar with San Marina and Kris Orlowski. They were every bit as fun and expressive as I'd hoped, with excellent musicianship on display. The three-guitar (with some keyboard) sound was especially welcome and created layers of sound to enjoy.
Their on-stage presence is engaging and endearing. They integrated well into Canadian life, mentioning a lunch at Tim Horton's and an interest in the proper pronunciation of Toronto. My only beef is that I tend to lean towards the "Turonno" pronunciation as opposed to the more nasal "Turanna" that they seemed to get stuck on. Maybe it's because I grew up in Etobicoke. Don't worry guys, this can be fixed on the next visit.
Their songs all shone in the live format, with some, notably "Modern Man", rocking out with intensity. The slide guitar hooks were welcome as was their overall tight sound. I would highly recommend picking up their music and seeing this band live.
Their latest album, It's All Just Pretend, came out on May 4 and their previous full-length album All the Times We Had came out in 2013. Take a moment to check out their tunes:
