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

With an audience where only the fans in the front row knew them well enough to sing along, Yukon Blonde was one of those delicious surprises that only a music festival like CMF can serve up on an (almost) otherwise tasteless platter. They captured everybody’s attention faster than you can say “record deal”. Both the roaring crowd and this fresh, 6-piece, Kelowna-grown band were in utter jollification singing and dancing along to the guitar-based, harmonics-infused, feel-good-about-life music. Keep an eye out for these guys….

All hail the front woman! The Balconies: finally an act with a chick leading the dicks! Though they suffered some technical difficulties, some even from rookie mistakes (wonky duct-taped mics, occasionally inaudible vocals, and some missed cues), give them some time to tighten up live, and The Balconies could become ubiquitous. Jacquie Neville who fronts – and demolishes – the rest of this 3-piece pack matches her killer voice with hard as hell baselines, and a mélange of grunge, punk power pop. Throw in some edgy attitude and a little demonic subtext, and The Balconies could corrupt even the sweetest of Susie Q’s. But it is fun music – never serious – making their performance all the more inclusive, and a must-see.

Next up were the boys from The Wooden Sky. Only one or two songs in their entire 9-song set did I actually recognize as being The Wooden Sky that I knew. Gone were the velvety soft melodies and tender-hearted vocals of their latest album, favoured was a performance driven by heavy folk rock. Gavin Gardener began the set outfitted as your typical hipster country bumpkin, only to rip off his glasses and tear away the plaid and carry the rest of the hardcore folk set in a dirty, over-sized beater. Surprisingly lacking in texture, this fast-paced performance of screaming vocals and hard-working instrumentals was nonetheless unapologetic, showcasing an alter-ego, an unfamiliar layer of the band’s meaty musical personality.

Two Hours Traffic held the prime set spot, but didn’t deserve it. Indeed, their wimpy pop sound, their conservative and uninspiring stage presence, their stale riffs and processed arrangements, and Liam Corcoran’s baseless vocals were all a disappointment for a billowing crowd awaiting their arrival. Traffic barely received a quarter of the response that (far lesser known) Yukon Blonde and The Balconies garnered. Re-affirming the age-old argument that there can be a negative correlation between talent and popularity- Two Hours Traffic sucked.

Although the crowd thinned out after Two Hours Traffic, spirits seemed to have lifted once The Junction hit the stage. Though the two bands share some musical characteristics, there are important differences that favour the latter. The Junction has way more edge, harder riffs, and what looks like a genuine desire to be on stage. A definite product of The Strokes/Killers/Kooks musical generation, The Junction perform with a refreshing sense of light-hearted humility. They are nevertheless a little predictable, and their sound a little “been there, done that”, so give the album a good listen before venturing out to their live show.

as reviewed by Brittany Smith

photography provided by Nancy Kim

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.

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.