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

While most other Torontonians were perched in front of their television sets waiting with bated breath to see whether or not Heath Ledger would win his posthumous Oscar (and I’m pleased to report that he did indeed win, notch), the iheartthemusic crew headed to the Horseshoe Tavern. We went with the intention of just covering Songs from a Room but ended up being won over by (almost) every other band on the roster.

First up were You Call Yourselves Soldiers who left us very pleasantly surprised and optimistic for what the rest of the night might hold. The lead singer (Charlie) sometimes danced spastically with possessed-like moves that would have made Martha Graham jealous. At one point he mentioned that the lack of people on the dance floor made the black and white checkered tiles more apparent and were subsequently giving him vertigo. However, the lack of audience could be choked up to a number of reasons, they were the first band (who is ever on time these days), it was a Sunday (and not just any Sunday, but Academy Award Sunday) and the band had only had about half a dozen performances prior to that evening. Probably best described as emo rock, elements of songs took a number of variations including some ’50s sounding riffs. Other highlights included an extended acoustic section where Charlie actually sat out to the side of the stage. He then had his turn to showoff his pipes with an a cappella intro. The band pushed hard right through to the last song of their set where some serious finger tapping took place.

Second to the stage were Songs from a Room (we chatted with two brothers from this group before the show, so be sure to stay tuned for that). This group was harder to report on because they were just awesome. They came out with great energy, played great songs and the audience seemed to have a great time. The songs possessed rock anthem-esque qualities that had staying power all over them.

Molten Lava (pictured to the left), a progressive punk duo from Saskatchewan, hit the stage next. This is where the “almost” mentioned in the opening comes into play. Though both band members clearly possessed musical talent, there just seemed to be something lacking. There was a lot of noise, yelling and an interesting rap entitled “Breakfast.” While some members of the crowd clearly seemed to be enjoying themselves, iheartthemusic unfortunately wasn’t feeling it.

Closing the night, and more than making up for the slight disappoint from the previous act, was Passenger Action (pictured on the left). This band picked the energy in the room up a few notches with songs that packed a punch. A full robust sound emanated from the stage and into the crowd that grew four-fold just for this band. Dirty in the good hard way yet clean in the technical way. They blew iheartthemusic away so much that we ended up doing an interview on the spot after they got off stage (stay tuned for that too).

Photography by James Blake

We were lucky enough to get the chance to sit down and chat with the threesome that makes up Cute Is What We Aim For before their show at The Pheonix. Now we didn’t quite get them all (Shaant was missing), but guitarist Jeff Czum and bassist Dave Malillo managed to squeeze us in to their busy press schedule. Although we were one of the last interviews of the day, Jeff and Dave were a pleasure to speak with and showed us that fame has definitely not gone to their heads…

iheartthemusic: How did you guys come up with your band name?

Jeff: It was actually just a sarcastic joke between Shaant and his friends in high school. They were making fun of  people that were in the “scene” at the time. I guess, because I didn’t make it so I don’t really know, he just started saying cute instead of cool and it caught on as a high school trend.

iheartthemusic: So cool is what you are aiming for?

Jeff: I guess so, I mean we were all geeks at one point in high school.

Dave: Usually bands get stuck with names that they don’t necessarily want. I mean look at Green Day, they’ve said that they hate their name! Once you get stuck with it and people know it, that’s I guess what you want.

iheartthemusic: Let’s talk about this tour that you are on, it’s called Take Action. What is that all about and why did you want to get involved?

Dave: The Take Action Tour is all about making people aware of  the opportunities that surround them to make a difference. Its about trying to inspire people through our music and through our message to get out there and do something! Ironically enough dosomething.org are sponsoring the tour and they give people the tools to be able to influence their area and the people around them. So that’s what the tour is all about, we’re just trying to promote youth involvement. Also, 10% of the proceeds every night go to dosomething.org, so that’s pretty cool.

iheartthemusic: This tour just began but for the next two months you guys are playing back to back nights, how do you survive?

Jeff: It’s not really that bad. I love playing shows. Usually when we have days off it’s the worst feeling ever. We don’t do anything; we just sit on the bus and wish we were playing a show that night. As far as rituals go before shows, I know Dave will listen to music, I don’t really do anything. It’s just kind of a chill out period.

iheartthemusic: Rumour has it you have a pretty sweet tour bus and an interesting vacuum cleaner?

Dave: Are you talking about the Dyson? Shaant got this $200 hand vacuum that looks like a gun from Halo. But it’s beautiful. I mean it picks up everything. We also have a dog now too called Sergeant Sebastian. He’s a puglet and he’s Shaant’s. He  just got him a month ago, so we decided to bring him on tour and see how it works. It’s awesome.

iheartthemusic: You guys have done quite a bit of touring now, including sharing the stage with Fall Out Boy and Canada’s own Simple Plan. Is there anyone that sticks out for you?

Jeff: Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio. I grew up listening to them so it was awesome to be able to play on the same tour as them. I watched Bad Religion every day when they went on. It was crazy. That was the best summer of my life.

Dave: It was really special, not so much that we even got to share the stage with people, but that we got to be around those people and hang out with them. We hung out with Newfound Glory on a consistent basis, you just make friends with bands that you never thought you would. It’s really cool and really weird at the same time because, like Jeff said, we grew up listening to these bands and now they are completely accessible to us.

Jeff: I fucked myself up at the Toronto date.

iheartthemusic: What happened?

Jeff: I fell on a little pothole and I ended up popping out three ribs and bruising my shoulder.

Dave: Thank you Toronto!

iheartthemusic: Hey now, you can’t blame us for your bad luck! Didn’t Dave get into a little fumble last night while you weren’t in Toronto?

Dave: We were in Pittsburgh and this crowd were just rowdy, I mean you could tell people were looking for a fight. Someone threw a bottle at our bus – clearly they don’t recognize that it’s our home – so we just had to defend it and that’s what happened. I was defending the fort!

Jeff: I walked up later and everyone was like “you just missed it”, but I miss everything.

Dave: It’s probably a good you missed it because you would have gotten involved too.

iheartthemusic: Well we are sorry to hear that, but the scar does make you look tough Jeff! Do you guys have a favourite song to play?

Jeff: I think its probably “Hollywood” just because that’s my favourite song on Rotation and it’s the last one that we wrote. It’s a good time!

Dave: I agree with Jeff. It’s like some songs you play you are just on autopilot the whole time but that song is really fun to play.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy fan moments that you care to share?

Jeff: I can never think of any.

Dave: People are very nice, at least to us. They are very considerate, no one has ever attacked anyone as far as I know. No stalker situations. We got lucky.

iheartthemusic: That surprises me, especially for you Dave, considering your solo project has been garnering tons of hits on MySpace.

Dave: Yah, I guess so. I was doing that before I was in the band and that’s actually how I met these guys. It was our first tour together when I was doing my solo stuff  as Dave Malillo and then we toured like three or four times after that until it just made sense at one point to merge because we always got along really well.

iheartthemusic: What’s up next for you boys?

Jeff: After this tour we are probably going to do some international dates like Japan, Australia and the UK, I hope. We’ve been to the UK, which was amazing. Scotland was by far my favourite place. Glasgow was amazing! Honestly if I could play anywhere in the world it would have to be Glasgow. So we’re hoping to do that and then maybe write another record and get it out by the end of the year and do everything all over again.

iheartthemusic: And of course come back to Toronto!

Dave: Exactly! We’re just a hop, skip and a jump away.

www.myspace.com/cuteiswhatweaimfor

photography provided by Matt Vardy, www.mattvardy.com

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