I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

Saturday, February 20th was “Alt Country Rock’N'Roll” night at The Horseshoe and on the bill were four local indie acts: Golden Hands Before God, The Diableros, The Schomber Fair and La Casa Muerte. We missed out on watching openers Golden Hands Before God (sorry fans!) but having previously  heard great things about The Diableros, we decided to venture out early to see if we could catch their set. Having only briefly listened to a few of their tunes on their MySpace page prior to the show, we actually arrived at The Horseshoe somewhat excited to see the live version. We got there just in time to witness five guys on stage setting up their instruments. After grabbing a beer or two, they finally began to play and play they did, but with absolutely NO enthusiasm. They each knew their individual parts well; strumming the guitar and hitting notes on the keys, however this was done with no passion or what appaeared to be any pleasure. Not one of them even cracked a smile during their entire forty five minute performance.

We didn’t get a chance to grab their set list, so it is hard to comment on individual songs, but honestly that didn’t even matter as watching them was THAT painful. The crowd seemed to mimic our sentiments as a few swayed trans-like to the beat of the song and the rest resorted to the bar. A few drinks were what you seemed to need to get through this performance. All wasn’t lost though, the drummer was actually great and eventually started to pull the attention away from the rest of the band.  He was hitting those drums with such enthusiasm and gusto as if he also knew how boring upfront was and therefore tried to make up for it! My verdict? Buy the album, avoid the show.

Next on the bill were bluegrass alt rockers The Schomberg Fair. We were pretty excited for them to take to the stage and relieve us from the comma we were in and they didn’t disappoint. They came on stage and literally rocked the house opening their set with “Angels Wings”; a fast paced song that appears on their latest album Gospel. This song literally begins and ends with a bang with lead vocalist Matt showing off his banjo skills. These guys just really know how to put on a show, and with tons of experience and tours under their belt, it really becomes a treat for those able to catch them live. One thing that really struck me was the contrast between lead vocalist’s Matt and bassist Nathan’s voices. Nathan, or Nate rather, has a voice that literally sounds like the instrument that he plays and when they sang in unison it actually created the most amazing sound that is uniquely their own. From beginning to end the crowd were either singing along or dancing- two key reactions that any musician would hope for.  My verdict? Buy the album AND see the show!

The Schomberg Fair play CMW on March 13th @ Sneaky Dee’s.

photography provided by Nancy Kim.

We first stumbled upon the Toronto seven-piece band The O’Darling when they opened for Hey Ocean! back in November. We chatted outside for a bit and then they handed us their album. Now, we get a ton of albums sent to us daily and, unfortunately, this one was added to that pile. I say unfortunately because for the past four days this album has been on constant rotation in the office.

This is the second album by the Toronto group which is actually impressive considering they only formed in 2008. Their first album, or EP rather, was titled A Nice EP and was given some great feedback on the blogosphere. With the recent release of their self-titled album, The O’Darling have stepped up their game and given us a record that is part jazz, part pop and 100% enjoyable. The album opens with “Venture Song” a tune with a rather long instrumental intro accented by the glockenspiel (apparently it’s hip now!) and sung by Jennah Barry. Her voice is what caught my attention at first as it is well beyond her years because it reminded me of songstresses from the forties and fifties but with a modern twist; completely soothing to the ear. The album then dips into “La Prairie” which holds the same slow, steady tempo as the previous song however is sung completely in French. The switch-up in language may be due to the fact that half the band are francophones or it could be an homage to our bilingual country; either way THIS Anglophone thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another added treat was the addition of a plethora of unusual instruments. They have the glockenspiel, the banjo, the omnichord and the flugelhorn. Although we hadn’t heard of the last two, whatever noise they made worked as was heard on “City Part 1″. Another interesting feature of this band is that they have three, yes THREE lead vocalists who are all female. This may be a bit off putting for a listener since it can create a sense of inconsistency, however the band have done a great job of somehow finding three ladies who each sound similar and yet maintain their individuality creating a sound and experience that is consistent. If this is any indication of what their live show is like, we are in for a treat. Overall a fabulous first record for a band that is still young and emerging on the scene. If you like jazz or pop music, then you will love The O’Darling; a hybrid of the two that is simply “darling”!

Memorable tracks: “La Prairie” & “Montreal”

Not-so-memorable tracks: “Fire, Fire”

The O’Darling play the El Mocambo this Saturday, December 12th with Miss Emily Brown.

Reviewed by Kimberlee McCormack

What started with a bunch of friends coming together to play in support of the launch of a magazine, Blues in D have grown into something so much more than an “opening band”. With the tragic loss of band member Dylan Ellis in the early stages of the band’s existence, the remaining members were pushed to continue on their musical path finding even more motivation to continue to do what they do best: bring blues-inspired tunes to the mainstream. Frontman and founder Ben McPhee sat down with iheartthemusic before their set at the PEACE DOT LOVE music festival: a festival that is in support of local anti-violence initiatives that work towards preventing random acts of violence – a cause that is important to the Toronto five-some.Ben shared with us the inspiration behind the group that is Blues in D today…

iheartthemusic:  How did you come to be?

Ben: Myself, Dylan and Oliver ran an online magazine for a couple of years called 2point0 and to raise money to try and get it to print, we started to throw parties. We had this one party in February 2008 that we knew we needed some music for. I had been playing with Dylan and his brother Cody for a while, just dicking around on the guitar and we were like “why don’t we just play”. So we found a drummer and opened up for this band and ended up playing a bunch of blues tunes for fifty people at this party. We named ourselves The BDC Blues Band and that went really well with people suggesting that we play another show. Unfortunately shortly after that we lost Dylan and that gave us more motivation than ever to keep it going. We got a new bassist, another guitarist and started hitting the stone really hard; practicing a lot and doing a lot of regular gigs and charity shows. Now we are Blues in D.

iheartthemusic: Is the “D” an homage to Dylan?

Ben: Absolutely! Our signature stuff is a bunch of blues tunes and we always close the show with the first song we ever played together that we wrote. We started off as blues and now we are doing a lot of our original rock stuff.

iheartthemusic: Where did the blues influence come from?

Ben: I had been playing guitar for a while and when Dylan started to pick it up, the first stuff that I started playing with him was blues music. He kind of gravitated towards that, so whenever we would sit and jam in his basement it was blues stuff. Then when he started teaching Cody how to play it was blues as well. So when that first show came around it seemed like an obvious fit or choice for us to play. I also just happened to have a voice that suited that genre and so that’s where it all started.

iheartthemusic: Any musical influences then?

Ben: I’ve got a bunch; Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden…

iheartthemusic: Soundgarden has not been a name I have heard in a while!

Ben: I love complex music and melody and lyrics that actually, when it all comes together, sound fairly straightforward. I think they are the geniuses of that.

iheartthemusic: Do you all come from different musical backgrounds?

Ben: Yeah. I’ve had training on piano and drums and am self-taught guitar and singing. Cody is self-taught guitar. Andrei and Tura are self-taugh bass and drums. The only one person that has formal training on the instrument they are playing is Nick, our other guitarist. The musical background is the coolest part of the band because I’m really into rock and alternative rock and hip hop and funk. Nick is really into hippy-shit. He’s into Grateful Dead. Cody is into straight blues, Andrei is into alternative rock and Tura is into to funk and Caribbean stuff.

iheartthemusic: We’ve got no punk in there!

Ben: Yeah, there’s no punk!

ihearttthemusic: Maybe I should join the band with the cymbals! [laughs]

Ben: I’ve had a couple of offers to play emo punk stuff for fun and it got shot down pretty quickly. It’s the one genre we can’t agree on!

iheartthemusic: Is it tough for an unsigned band to get noticed?

Ben: It is for a number of reasons. I mean we aren’t really going full bore into being popular, we just want people to enjoy our music.

iheartthemusic: Okay, but is this something that you hope to do as a career?

Ben: I would depending on how much of a pain in the ass it really was. The problem isn’t how easy it is to get your music in the world, it’s just how much noise it creates on the shitty end of the stick. There is so much brutal stuff out there and I hate to put people down who are working really hard, but it’s an industry with a lot of great talent but also a lack of talent. A lot of bad noise gets out there and people hear that and sort of get disenchanted with the entire music genre as a whole. Like, a lot of people base what’s happening with music on what’s on the radio. There isn’t anything that sets people apart which is why you find sex symbols at sixteen years old; selling all the records because that’s an easy sell. The other thing is our genre, we are very very classic rock- we don’t want to sound like anybody else. When we recorded our EP over the summer last year we were so happy to hear the guys in the recording studio be like “we can’t pinpoint who you guys sound like”. That was it for us- mission accomplished. I don’t care if it makes us not sell a lot of records because the idea is that we want to sound like our sound and we want to bring originality to music. I think that right now the instinct is to go with what is easy to hear or popular, and we are going with what we love and think would be original for peope to listen to.

These guys are planning to release a full album by the end of August/beginning of September.

photography provided by Matt Vardy & Carl Heindl

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