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

Thursday night was supposed to look like this: head to The Great Hall, chat with the nice people at the door and listen to the sweet sounds of Sally Seltman, Dan Mangan and Timber Timbre. In reality, however, it looked more like this: arrive at The Great Hall well in advance, chat with the door people who inform us that their media list is full and our passes mean nothing, take a look inside the venue and realize how empty it is, see the angry faces outside and realize that it won’t be happening for us that night. Despite being extremely disappointed and VERY surprised at the lack of noteriety our “media” passes gave us (not the first or last time this would happen), we decided to head elsewhere and landed at the Rivoli.

We arrived at the Rivoli only to be pleasantly surprised by what we heard. Halfway through her set was Calgary singer-songstress Jodi King. King is one of those artists that you truly appreciate when you see them live. Taking inspiration from her real life heartbreaks and experiences, King sang with her whole heart alternating between the piano and tambourine while at the same time maintaining her flawless look. Jodi not only commanded the attention of the audience and hit every note perfectly, she was able to hold my attention throughout her ENTIRE set (which rarely happens). It was one of the tightest performances I have seen live in quite a while which, ironically enough, ended up being the theme of the night. Taking inspiration from singers before her, she brought something wholesome and unique to the stage and I can only hope that I will be able to see her play at a larger venue in the near future!

Next up was Windsor band Michou. I have been waiting to see them play for quite some time and with a whole merch table dedicated to their moto itsnicetomichou, what you see is what you get from these “nice” guys. They came onstage and went straight into it with an incredible instrumental introduction. When they hit their second song “Eavesdropping”, Sasha Appler on the keys jumped to the forefront to perform several pushups mid-song and then returned to blow on the trumpet. A great beginning to say the least and a nice addition to yet another incredibly tight band. Everything appeared to be on point for these guys; from the soft vocals of Mike Hargreaves, to the banging of Stefan Cvetkovic on the drums, everyone played their parts perfectly. I have to say, I bought their latest album Cardona prior to the show and rarely listened to it. They play a style of music that is best listened to during the summer at the cottage, but after watching their performance, it is their live show that really showcases their diversity. They were comfortable, mature and just really, really nice! By the time they made it to “Imperfect” I was sold and have since brought their album out of retirement on my iPod.

The final act that we caught that night was probably the most mature or “seasoned” of them all. Saint Alvia is a band that recieved HUGE press after the release of their last album Between the Lines and then they just kind of disappeared. So, as you can imagine, I was surprised to see that they were playing CMF this year. The band performed songs from both their latest album and earlier work such as personal favourite “Blonde Kryptonite” without a hitch. My only criticism was the venue. The Rivoli is a great venue for indie bands, however it is not so great for bands that really command (and deserve) a larger one and Saint Alvia is one such band. With each member of the band contributing to the vocals and no real frontman, a small stage just doesn’t appear to cut it. Although the size of the stage was a factor, these guys are professionals and played as if they were performing to a crowd of thousands. 

photography provided by Samantha Clarke

So once again Canadian Music Week, or Canadian Music Fest rather, has hit the streets (and venues) of Toronto. With so many acts to see we here at iheartthemusic figured we would make it easier for you by showcasing one artist in particular who caught our eye. For our CMW preview meet The Schomberg Fair:

iheartthemusic: Welcome guys! You are somewhat veterans now since you have produced a few albums, however inbetween your last album and your recent one, Gospel, I believe it was about a year and half time. That seems fairly quick?

Matt: The difference between the last record and this record was that I would come in with a song and it would come out pretty close after that. Now we have been working with the arrangement a bit more and Nate and Pete have really come in to shape the sound quite a bit. I think that came from confidence and playing.  It is now a very collaborative process.

iheartthemusic: For this last album didn’t the lyrics and overall feel of the album really came from your own experiences Matt?

Matt: Yeah, so I am the lyricist and I do street outreach with the homeless.

iheartthemusic: That must be incredible and give you quite a bit of writing inspiration, which is kind of an awful thing to say given the circumstances.

Matt: [laughs] Well there is no shortage of material!

iheartthemusic: This album definitely has a darker, well I guess I wouldn’t say darker side but…

Pete: I would say darker! [laughs]

iheartthemusic: Which is so odd to say because if I watch any YouTube clips of you, the energy is so uplifting! It is like a disconnect but in a really great way.

Nathan: I mean that is the kind of energy that we want to bring to the stage. Matt and I talked about it when we were naming the album because we weren’t sure about the name Gospel and the religious connotations behind that.

iheartthemusic: I didn’t even think of that!

Nathan: Yeah, we aren’t a Christian rock band or anything like that. We wouldn’t say we weren’t gospel music by any stretch of the imagination, but the true meaning of the word gospel is the good news and I mean that really shows in our live show because you know the message, the actual literal meaning, is not a positive thing but we are delivering it in a way that is fun and uplifting. We are kind of saying that in spite of bad things we are going to have a good time. You push through the tough times and have great times.

Peter: We have always said that the overall message is one of hope and I think that no matter where it [your material] comes from, whether it’s a dark place or a light place, at the end of the day when people pay money and see you live you put on a show. That definitely is in the back of our minds.

Matt: Hope and the idea of a future. The work that I do is trying to achieve that same goal for those people: to help them find hope.

iheartthemusic: Is it then an outlet for you?

Matt: I would drink a lot more if I didn’t write songs. It’s a pretty challenging job, I mean it’s rewarding but emotionally draining. The band is emotionally uplifting. I love playing music and I love playing music with these guys.

iheartthemusic: Is there a big difference for you, in terms of enjoyment, between the live show and recording?

Matt: They are very different beasts. [laughs]

Nathan: Every time that we go into recording we’ve had this idea that we are going to make a studio record, and then the engineers are always like “we are going to make this a real live sounding album”. They try to make it so that that same energy from our live show is transferred to the record, and I think they succeeded on this one. It’s definitely a different animal and we’re a lot more nervous when we go into the recording studio.

Peter: I think that with a live show, we are really used to playing live and we feed off the audience, so a recording studio is a very dry and can be stale because it is dead silence and we all went in with that feeling. So I think that’s why we feel recording is a little more challenging than live shows. I think we are getting a lot better.

Matt: I really enjoy both a lot. They are different beasts, if you played several hundred shows you would probably be pretty good at the live shows than only putting out two records right? [laughs]

iheartthemusic: Absolutely!

Matt: We were really lucky to work with the guys at Chemical Sound, Dean and Jake, they  were just so great and really helped to bring out the best performance and stuff. Again it’s a new collaboration with the engineers than with let’s say the fans.

iheartthemusic: So what’s up next then?

Matt: The road. Keep playing Ontario for a while and then go back and forth across Canada and the States hopefully before the end of the year. I would like to try and get back in the studio before then end of the year. That’s the long term plan.

Canadians are talented people. Yes, I may be somewhat bias saying this, however having travelled quite extensively in my lifetime I can assure you that we aren’t the only people that think this. Ask anyone in the world and they will tell you that we excel in many areas (citing hockey legend Wayne Gretzky as a notable figure). One area that I believe we are particularly adept to “excelling” in is in the music department. Oftentimes it is the heavy hitters such as Celine Dion that have music fans from around the world stirring, however there is another group that appear to be creating quite a buzz south of the boarder recently. Great Lake Swimmers are not a new band, but it is their fourth album, Lost Channels, that have garnered them the most attention on the international circuit. Having recently returned from a plethora of tour dates around the world, the boys are finally coming home to bring the tunes back to (eager) Canadian ears! In anticipation of their sold out show this Saturday at Trinity St.Paul’s Church, iheartthemusic caught up with Tony Dekker and Erik Arnesen of Great Lake Swimmers where they shared with us just a little bit of the inspiration behind their Polaris Music Prize nominated album Lost Channels.

iheartthemusic: You guys recorded this album in a rather unique setting. Can you explain what that was like?

Tony: We recorded on location, most of it in the Thousand Islands where we were able to really get into some unique spaces. There was a castle just over the border on the American side called “Singer Castle” which sits on Dark Island; which is the kind of thing that sounds like it could be fiction but its not, it is real. There was a number of other locations too like a church and a place in Brockville, Ontario called The Brockville Arts Centre which is a theatre that has been maintained by the community for over a hundred years and been beautifully restored.

iheartthemusic: That’s amazing! How did you hear about this place?

Tony: The offer came in from a friend of ours who is sort of a story collector and a photographer in the region. He was the one that invited us to come and check it out. When it came time to record the album, I brainstormed to try and find different locations that would be suitable for us to record and that place just seemed perfect. It [location] has become a really big part of the creative process for us I think. I mean, to be in these places that are charged with the kind of energy that draws your best possible performance, it is really important for us. This one [Thousand Islands] in particular was special because to be in that area and be really inspired meant digging deep-creatively.

Erik: Part of the adventure is getting there too, and figuring out how to work in the space.

iheartthemusic: Were there any sounds that were incorporated into the album that came from your surroundings?

Tony: No, we don’t have any bizarre noises on the album. We are pretty straight up.

Erik: We recorded the bells in the castle.

Tony: That’s true.

Erik: That was kind of just a happy accident. Those bells almost interrupted our recording process and then we decided on our last day to document them and then use it in the record.

If you weren’t lucky enough to get your tickets to this one, don’t worry the boys will be back and hopefully with a new album in hand!

photography provided by Sara Collaton

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