TRANSCANADARADIO is proud to celebrate Canada’s Current Cultural artists and their locations! Traveling across Canada’s vast surface and finding the best of the under and above-ground artists who are rooted in, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Beats, House, Breaks and all that afro-Jazz… and where to check them out in your favorite Canadian city! Pack your bags! We’re going on a road trip!
As we wrap up our NXNE coverage, we wanted to give you one last chance to grasp a taste of what it was like to be in Toronto for one sweaty week of music. Check out the best images we took of NXNE (ignore the poor composition and low resolution; we’re very DIY).
That’s right, folks, we’ll be there! And we hope you will be too! The Ottawa International Jazz Festival is the National Capital Region’s premier music event. Entering its twenty-eighth year of consecutive programming and operation, the Ottawa International Jazz Festival is the second longest continuous- running jazz festival in Canada, and boasts the biggest loyal audience of any event in eastern Ontario! It is known to have presented some of the most dynamic jazz artists on the scene today from the traditional to the avant-garde.
So be there or be square, ya dig? All the hep cats will be there, man. Watch for us and be sure to say hi!
As a wrap up to this NXNE-rich week on TransCanadaRadio, we’ve compiled the very best of the great music we saw and heard over the course of the week.
Here are the top 6 bands that all of us at TCR agree were the very best of the best, in no particular order:
Click here for TransCanadaRadio’s top 6 artist picks from NXNE ‘08!
Toronto based band Tokyo Police Club have made their cover of The Rentals’ “Friends Of P” available to stream and download at friendsofp.org. The song was previously only available on the bonus disc to the U.K. version of Elephant Shell, but the band have teamed up with the Lupus Foundation Of America to give more people a chance to hear it. All money raised from donations made on the site will go to lupus research. The first 50 people who donate $15 or more will receive a free “Friends Of P” tote bag.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body attacks and destroys its own tissue and cells. It has no cure, can be fatal, and can damage the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver, skin, lungs, brain and other body parts.
Tokyo Police Club recently remixed The Coast’s “Tightrope” for a seven-inch single that’s out now on Toronto’s Magnificent Sevens Records. Click here for Tokyo Police Club’s July Canadian festival dates!
As you may or may not recall, the NXNE event I was looking forward to the most was seeing Julie Doiron perform at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern. Well, let me tell you, that day was working very hard against me. I was having some accommodation issues so I was lugging around all of my equipment with me in a backpack. It then proceeded to totally down pour — thunder and lighting and cats and dogs and all that.
So here’s me, running in 6 inches of water from venue to venue in flip flops with a bag full of electronics while the rain just absolutely pours down on me. Doug got absolutely stopped up by the rain on his way into Toronto, so I was trying to hit as many venues I could and check out as many bands that night as I could. Around 10:45pm I decided to make a run for it (in what seemed to be the heaviest part of the down pour) from the Velvet Underground down the street to The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
To continue reading about Julie Doiron’s show at the Horseshoe, click here.
Doug’s ‘Impressions’ posts gave me an idea — now that my NXNE hangover has passed (caught up on sleep, did endless loads of laundry, sewed my poor, abused travel bag…), I’d like to talk about a few of my experiences and sum up my time at NXNE in Toronto. Alright, here goes. Doug style.
**Wifi is damn hard to find in downtown Toronto** Seriously. I could not believe how difficult it was to find wifi free or otherwise! As a blogger, it’s likely I should have secured several places from which to blog. It was just ridiculous. More than once I found myself sitting on the sidewalk outside of a random apartment building err… tapping into someone else’s unsecured network or sitting on the floor of the Holiday Inn facing a very specific direction in order to keep the weak signal connected. Bah, I say. Bah!
**I really like 70’s-esque funk/pop/psychedelic** Yep. Turns out I like psychedelic music a whole lot. It seems that some of the acts I enjoyed the most at NXNE all had elements of psychedelic pop or funk: The Hoa Hoa’s, The Wet Secrets, Spiral Beach… all totally awesome bands. This was a learning experience for me. I never knew this about myself. I feel like I’ve grown as a person. Now I can listen to the B52’s and grow out my beehive unashamed and rooooooooam if I want to! *totally grooves*
Caught these guys sort of by accident while walking through Yonge-Dundas Square on Thursday on my way to see Sabrina Korva, Stand, and David Martel play at Sunrise Records.
They certainly caught my attention with their rockin’ guitar licks and the massive crowd that had gathered to watch them play.
On Saturday night Doug and I got a chance to see Hey Rosetta at the Horseshoe Tavern. I really enjoyed these guys. The vocals were stellar! And I’m a sucker for string instruments, man. The upright bass and violin definitely won me over. And it’s always great to see a lead singer get totally in to the music they’re making - shows a real love for the craft.
If you haven’t seen them perform before, I suggest you do. But if you absolutely can’t, do yourself a favour and watch the above video.
The Small Sins played on Thursday night following The Wet Secrets. These guys had a really intriguing electro sound. Often times during the set I found them to be similar to late 80’s Radiohead or mid 90’s Pulp though, as we all know, I’m hesitant to compare — but I’ll qualify it by saying that I totally love both Radiohead and Pulp so needless to say, these guys are great in my books.
My favourite song from their set was “On The Line” which has very catchy lyrics and a pretty driving percussion bit.
Like many bands Doug and I saw this weekend, Small Sins had a very enthusiastic tambourine player — which was super fascinating to watch! He was really into the songs which is always great to see!
But don’t take my word for it, listen for yourself!
It’s late Sunday night, which means I’ve just started to recover from Saturday night at NXNE. Here’s what went down:
**Bring more than one pair of shoes to NXNE** Two straight days of pounding the pavement to check out bands and then grooving to their tunes will do serious damage to even the sturdiest of footwear. The final blow was the Spiral Beach show at the Horseshoe; I should have taken their advice to remove my shoes and dance in my ‘tomatoes’.
**Toronto bands know how to represent** Seriously, the Hoa Hoa’s Friday night and then Spiral Beach last night? Pretty much from the moment they took the stage, they had a packed and sweaty crowd screaming and jumping until they could nary jump and scream any more. I particularly enjoyed the pylons, the speech bubble, and the ET finger-touching moment with the crowd. Check these guys out before they become so big you can’t get as close to the stage as we were last night (check the Flickr feed for evidence).
**Front stage is not for the meek** That reminds me, why do fans of bands get in line early, rush to the front of the stage, then spend the rest of the evening hating being there? This one goes out to the poor girl at the Horseshoe that spent her evening covering her ears and trying to avoid stray limbs hitting her. Other people who should not be front stage: NXNE photographers who take up too much room, stay too long, and refuse to dance; overtly drunken ‘friends of the band’ and their girlfriends.
**Listen to Rebekah Higgs** She has a wonderful voice and a big guitar. You are doing yourself a disservice by not checking out her cd.
**My ears are still ringing** Rock ‘n’ roll.
