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

Sunday, traditionally the day of rest, but there is no rest of the wicked during NXNE. Fantastic photographer Joyce and I managed to hang in there for one last night of musical merriment.

First stop of the night was the Rivoli for Rueben deGroot. Don’t let this cowboy-hatted hottie fool you, he ain’t just country. DeRoot infused his tines with elements of folk and jazz to create music that most country nay Sayers could enjoy. In fact, this Kingstonian supposedly likes to describe his sound as “swamp-swing”, a name I quite enjoy and think expresses the sense of toe-tapping fun. If this sounds like this might be your cup of tea (or your looking for a way to transition into liking country), check out deGroot when he returns to Toronto on July 24 to play at the TRANZAC.

Next up at the Rivoli were The Gertrudes. And goodness gracious they were ginormous! In fact, they barely all fit on stage. I couldn’t count them all, but according to their MySpace there are a dozen. It wasn’t just the magnitude of the members, but the instruments they trucked up with them that was interesting. In addition to the usual suspects (like guitbox, sticks and violining) I spotted a banjo (or banjer), accordion (squeeze box), and ukulele (ukalucas). When The Gertrudes initially took to the stage the sounds that emanated were not at all what I was expecting. I had in my head barn dancin’, foot stompin’ hootenanny fair. Instead it was atmospheric indie folk. Very cool. Then, as the set progressed, more of that country-dance vibe I was expecting filtered in. There was a real sense of fun as the large familia seemed to enjoy the show as much as their audience.

Joyce and I then took leave of the Rivoli to venture up to the El Mocambo for what we expected to be Oh No Not Stereo, a pop rock band from Hollywood. However, that was not what we got. Not even close. Instead we walked into The Hank and Lily Show. How to describe the experience that was Hank and Lily? I think goth rock would best describe the genre. I believe the name of the song which we walked in on was aptly titled “Don’t Be Afraid”… and we tried not to be even though it sounded like the soundtrack to a B straight to video slasher flick, which was appropriate considering the costumes. The woman I assume to be Lily was a blonde wearing horn-like antlers who played the saw while the man I assume to be Hank looked like he fell out of a dark western remake of My Bloody Valentine. However, there was a positive note among all the shrieking ones, they had a song about David Hasselhoff, and I do love the Hoffmeister!

With the ringing still in our ears from Hank and Lily’s piercing wails, Joyce and I jumped over to Rancho Relaxo where our auditory vessels were comforted by the sweet sounds of Dan Griffin. Not only was the change of decibel refreshing, but so was seeing the simplicity of an acoustic set. It was interesting because earlier in the evening Joyce and I discussed what a rarity is seems to see a solo show these days when there seem to be so many massive groups a la Broken Social Scene and the like. But I digress and return to the musician at hand, Dan Griffin. He had a smooth and mesmerizing voice that was super easy to listen to and sang lyrics you could not only hear but really listen to. There was once exception and that was when he struggled through the Tokyo Police Club cover “Nature of the Experience.” However, he was humble about the stumble and was ultimately saved by stage manager Cam and his handy iPhone (and if you want to hear him get through the song without any trouble check out his MySpace).

Concluding the 2009 NXNE experience for Joyce and myself was the Toronto-based band bellewoods. A full sounding indie rock band that infused folk and had soul. There was a nice robustness to their music and I enjoyed that it was occasionally accented with church organ sound. The lead singer has a great voice and if you followed it on some of the slower tracks you felt like you could fall right into the song (…or perhaps that was the fatigue… or beer…). Despite it being a Sunday night after almost a week of music and extended last calls there was quite a crowd drawn out to see bellewoods, and rightly so. They had a good solid sound and clearly have potential.

And that was that. Another year, another group of musicians to add to the roster to follow and another NXNE in the bag.

Words by Emer Schlosser

Photographs by Joyce Wong

Shoved in a little crowded space backstage at The Horseshoe Tavern, iheartthemusic got up close and personal with bandmates Tomas and Matt from indie rock band DD/MM/YYYY.  I chatted it up with the talented twosome about such things as their music (duh!) and their love of the old school Nintendo jams.  These two talented gents are making truly inspiring and unique music and their stage show is a must see.  Check out the Toronto indie rockers when you can, they will blow you away!

iheartthemusic: I really like your approach to music, which is kind of no approach at all, which works amazingly – not the same old shit.  Is there a method to your madness?

Tomas: We’ve been around for so long that there are so many different formulas. We always bring something to the music where someone will instigate something and someone will write a part. Like Mike, he’s an amazing bassist and when I present an idea to him on guitar he’ll write the perfect bass line and we evolve together; we learn how to play together and that’s the way we feel about drums too. When you have five guys constantly mixing like that the madness is that everyone has ideas and everyone wants to communicate them to each other and some just want to respond to an idea.  It’s complicated that way, but it’s not at the same time, it’s just like hanging out with your friends and saying, “I’ve been working on this idea, let’s try it!” and you do. We wrote the song “777″ so fast, the whole song is basically three two note cords that I play on guitar, but how we play it stretches out for the whole song and it changes but you wouldn’t even tell. 

iheartthemusic: Do you use the same formula for every album you make?

Tomas: We do the same thing, we just keep switching members.  For the first album it was just me on guitar and Matt on drums; one of our members Mocher wasn’t even in the band at the time.  So there is an evolution of our band that I think that anyone who has followed us for that amount of time is probably really aware of how much we’ve changed and how deliberate those changes are.

iheartthemusic: You guys are known for using non-conventional/abstract instruments.  What new instruments did you use on your most recent album Black Square?

Tomas: We use a lot of synthesizers, but the synthesizers aren’t really that unconventional, it’s just that we use delay pedals and certain layers like looping layers. I think the weirdest instrument we have is Mocher’s omnicord, which is like a keyboard with sonic strings that are not real stings but you can play them like a string and they have these little chords you can play like autochords.

iheartthemusic: Where do you find that?

Tomas: It’s kind of rare.  You can find it on the Internet on eBay or certain junk shops or trade shops. It’s a cool instrument! It’s not a cheap instrument either it’s got a really good personality for a synth. That’s the thing about our band, although we’re writing kind of weird music we’re actually using really traditional instruments. I play guitar and drums, Mike plays bass, we have a keyboard player and Jorden is a trained pianist… In a lot of ways we’re responding to the tradition of rock and roll.

iheartthemusic: And you use the other instruments to add depth to the traditional ones.

Tomas: Our sound is a bit more unique.  We’re doing these things like layering a guitar and a bass and a keyboard just like anyone else does but maybe it’s our rhythms that change the feel of them.

iheartthemusic: Also, and I don’t know if I’m saying this correctly, but don’t you guys change intervals throughout the song?

Tomas: I know what your saying, yeah, it makes sense. That’s also part of it, sometimes a part of a song just demands to be in a different time signature because of the feel and that’s a really personal thing. It’s complicated because there is so much of us in the music. I think the most successful thing about DD/MM/YYYY is that a lot of our personalities and sensibilities are in the music and those choices of time signatures aren’t just to be flashy or technical they’re there to insert more soul… I think our music is very danceable too, so it’s all about feel, if it’s moving you it’s successful that way.

iheartthemusic: I also hear you guys rotate roles? Do you just do that in your stage show or on the album as well?

Tomas: We rotate for our show and for the album.  Ultimately the big goal for DD/MM/YYYY is to be seen as a collective not unlike Broke Social Scene.  We have different music but we have very similar sensibilities in some regards.  In terms of music I’ve always loved drums and rhythm, I’ve always loved guitars and synthesizers. Oh look Matt is here!  Would you like to join the interview?

Matt: Sure.

Tomas: [Recapping what was said......]

Matt: I totally agree! [Laughs]

Tomas: Do you want to elaborate?

Matt: Well, I don’t want to be redundant, but some people say that your sound is defined by your limitations like how good you are.  Maybe if you’re really good at guitar you do a lot of guitar solos or something. So for the changing instruments, it’s like not all of us are as good at one instrument vs. the other, so the songs are bound to be different sounding.

iheartthemusic: You mention Frank Zappa as being an influence. What other things influence you, and it doesn’t have to be an artist or musician?

Matt: The answer is video games. We’re in the van all the time on tour and one of the dudes has an iPod with full out video games, people think we’re insane!

Tomas: All the good Nintendo music wasn’t made coincidentally it was made by a specific composer and I can’t think of his name at the moment.  The guy who made a lot of Nintendo music is a musical genius in a lot of ways because he incorporated all of these pop songs that have existed, they sound like Madonna or sound like Prince and then make them into a video game song that’s all just little synthesizers. It’s like DD/MM/YYYY, we’re incorporating all these pop influences and pop sensibilities and somehow converting them.

iheartthemusic: This is like old school Nintendo, right?

Matt: Yeah.  Like once you get into stuff like Play Station, you have Garbage on the soundtrack, like literally the band Garbage.

iheartthemusic: If you could choose, what is your most favorite thing to do: compose, tour, or make music videos?

Tomas: Write music.

Matt: Yeah, easily writing music.  You loose sight of it when you play if you play the same songs night after night. It’s still fun but it looses something.

Tomas: I don’t think that’s true, I think that sometimes you get a song after playing it certain amount of times, after sixty times you get that song finally,not how to play it but you begin to understand it as a musician or as a band member at least.

Matt: Let me rephrase, we’re a lot more giddy while we’re writing it and than afterward I still love the songs and everything but I don’t have that giddiness about it.

iheartthemusic: What do you want your fans to feel when they leave your gig?

Matt: Just like confusion I guess. I want people to be like “what was that?”.  My favorite is when someone says they liked it but they don’t know what happened.

interviewed by Kristen Tignanelli

photography by Joyce Wong

The Horseshoe Taven hosted one of the most anticipated nights on the Saturday of NXNE boasting a slew of amazing talent crammed into the same legendary location. The line up was unreal, and I mean that in the best possible way. What I loved most about it is that there was such an array of diverse artists, no act at this NXNE event was even remotely similar to the one before, which was refreshing to watch.  From the melodic and ethereal Woodpigeon, to the unique and unusual DD/MM/YYYY, there was a genre for every music lover out there.

First out was folk rock band Woodpigeon hailing from Calgary, Alberta. Their sound is not pretentious, it’s disarming and soothing and a touch melancholy, which is savoury to the ear.  Their layering of instruments also added a unique dynamic when accompanied by their hauntingly beautiful lyrics. Their sound is modern yet timeless,  pure genius in my opinion.

Tokyo Police Club was unfortunately not performing at this year, but if you are a fan you must check out Ruby Coast.  They are poppy indie rock band that sound… well… exactly like Tokyo Police Club.  Nonetheless, they are a talented bunch who play fun, upbeat, cheerful tunes that you can shake your tail feather to.

If you love beachy, breezy, Bob Dylan-esque folksie tunes you’ll fall head over heels for Mr. Jason Collett. This dapper gentleman engages the crowd with his calming voice and takes his fans on a poetic journey through his lyrics. His music transcends time, as do Woodpigeon’s, in that their songs are effortlessly timeless and could be listened to 50 years ago, now and in the future.

If what you fancy is indie Brit pop you need to check out Hot Panda.  They are a band out of Edmonton, Alberta that seamlessly infuse instruments such as accordions, harmonicas, and keyboards into their musical mix to make a sound all of their own.  Their sound is quirky and energetic and if you don’t have the urge to groove out while watching them perform you’ve got issues!!!

The best performance at the Horseshoe by far was from band DD/MM/YYYY.  This band pushes musical and performance boundaries with their unique brand of indie rock and thier unconventional stage show.  Their music is experimental mixed with doses of pure rock and roll and a dollop of crazy, which I mean with the best of intentions.  Their stage show is similar to their musical stylings: hectic, confusing and brilliant.  They are a force to be reckoned with and are easily one of my favorite performers coming out of Toronto at the moment.

As I left The Horseshoe Tavern, I stumbled upon a great performance at The Velvet Underground: Triple Cobra! Straight out of San Francisco, Triple Cobra was the best performance of the night by far.  I’m not the biggest fan of their music, which can only be described as glamorized cock rock, but their stage show was brilliant.  The performance value was through the roof, from the light show to the scantily clad Vegas-style back-up dancers, this band is a must see!

All and all, Saturday night at The Horseshoe and Velvet Underground tickled my musical fancy.  Can’t wait until next year!

Written by Kristen Tignanelli

Photography by Joyce Wong

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