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, and where to check them out in your favorite Canadian city! Pack your bags! We’re going on a road trip!
This was an act I was told I absolutely had to see as well — Sabrina Korva, whom I wrote about briefly before on TransCanadaRadio, put on a super rockin’ show at The Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge at Dundas on Thursday night.
One of Sabrina’s publicity agents, Diane Foy of Skylar Entertainment, was super nice and loaded me up with all kinds of listenables! She also introduced me to Sabrina who was absolutely exhausted after her high-energy show. This tiny lady really brought the house down with big sound!
It’s a small world — David used to play music with some high school friends of mine years ago. Recently I posted a Facebook note asking my friends to recommend great Canadian artists and I noticed David Martel’s name came up many times and with good reason! I can honestly say that this guy blew my mind. I went in as a nearly blank slate, only having listened to a very short clip of his stuff via his Myspace. But armed with the praise of my friends, I went to check him out at Sunrise Records on Thursday, the first day of NXNE.
For me, NXNE has been a blur. A late arrival last night, Old Testament-style weather and Internet problems makes me wonder how I’m going to survive the rest of the festival. Here’s some quick thoughts on what I’ve seen so far:
**Don’t plan major travel on Friday the 13th** Seriously, I don’t know how we survived in our ‘83 Yugo as flash flooding and concentrated blasts of electricity battered us along the highway. Only the desire to rock kept us alive.
**Plan to dance on Friday the 13th** All the bands playing at the Silver Dollar Room had one goal in mind: sweaty booty grinding. A special nod goes to the lead singer of Oholics for bringing his Happy Mondays inspired Swedish dance moves to Canada.
**Swedish bands are weird** On that note, it was quite a trip to see Oholics. They describe themselves as a six-piece psychedelic electro-rock band, but you have to think of them in terms of The Hives meets INXS meets the Yardbirds. I mean, they have one member of the band dedicated to playing two tambourines at once and a sitar, as elctro-wails whirled around him.
**Band of the Night: the Hoa Hoa’s** These Toronto natives certainly represented for the hometown crowd. There music is a combination of groove and evil: you just want to dance and/or punch someone in the face. Their guitarist was great — loud, crunchy, articulate playing — and their bassist set her amp on fire. Major points for the predominance of hollow-bodied guitars.
That’s it for now. Off to a Vice-sponsored BBQ and then the Horseshoe for the CBC tract. Follow our exploits on Twitter and Flickr!
The 10pm show of the night for me on Thursday night was a tough call — lots of cool sounding bands playing all over the city! But I was told I absolutely had to see these guys so off to the Horseshoe I went… and man, were they awesome!
Now, normally I don’t like to compare artists but I’ll do it when I can say ‘just as fantastic as…’ so, if you love the B52’s you will absolutely love The Wet Secrets! Though they told me “Us? If you love sex, you’ll love us!” Heh.
One would think that marching band costumes combined with B52-esque vocals would be far too over the top, but these guys really pull it off. I was absolutely enthralled by their funky beats and brass solos not to mention the cool majorette costumes — very slick.
This Edmonton based band really pumped up the crowd and got everyone dancing by playing original songs like “Secret March” and the hilarious “I Teabagged Myself (With Two Really Fucking Heavy Cans Of Paint)” — got a lot of laughing and chant-a-long from the audience.
Tuesday June 10th was Dan Mangan’s second time around at the Mercury Lounge last Tuesday. For the Merc to be close to capacity on a Tuesday night, this show had to be more “than your average going out to encourage a friend and his band” performance.
Said the Whale warmed up the crowd and then it was time for Dan. Joined by friends John Walsh on stand up bass and Andrew McCormack on drums, playing songs from the album “ postcards and daydreaming. They gave me the chills more than once. Dan’s voice is like a beautiful black hole that you just want to fall a sleep in with a smile and dream about his songs. He had the hole crown smiling.
My musical background is mostly electronic but when the music is good I can recognize it. He has such a simplistic approach to music. All he needs is himself and a guitar to deliver beautiful music. Check out this interview and live performance to see for yourself.
He will be playing more shows this summer, so here are some dates and other artists that he will be performing with.
A nice easy going vibe from Vancouver made it self heard when Said The Whale dropped in the Mercury Lounge Ottawa Tuesday, June 10th. Delivering a clean and truthful set of songs from there new album “Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia”, and some even newer unreleased stuff that I loved even more!
With all the thousands of bands taking part of the web community, Youtube.ca invited Said the Whales to there launch party last November.
Said the Whale are presently on a cross Canada tour. They will be playing with an amazing list of artists including; Hey Ocean, Dan Mangan, Matthew Barber,Lotus Child and The Hermit. Check your city to catch one of their shows, you should definitely hit it! S.T.W also have some slick T-shirts, I got my self one.
As a bonus, I’ve included a clip of their show at the Merc and an unbelieveable experience that happened outside just after their show.In this video a local Ottawa ByWard Market vagabond, was so moved by the name of the band “SAID THE WHALE”, that he reached deep into his bag to show the band members that he had a “SAVE THE WHALES” pin! In actuality it was a “SAID THE WHALE” tour pin from Vancouver.
UPCOMING SHOWS:
June 5th, 2008 Vancouver, BC | Biltmore **CD RELEASE SHOW!!** w/ Lotus Child and Maurice
June 13th, 2008 Windsor, ON | Phog Lounge
June 14th, 2008 Toronto, ON | NXNE @ The Rivoli w/ Matthew Barber
June 15th, 2008 Hamilton, ON | Casbah
June 17th, 2008 Sault Ste. Marie, ON | Loplop’s w/ Hey Ocean
June 18th, 2008 Thunder Bay, ON | Jack’s w/ Hey Ocean
June 19th, 2008 Winnipeg, MB | The Lo Pub w/ Hey Ocean
June 20th, 2008 Regina, SK | The Exchange w/ Hey Ocean
June 21st, 2008 Lethbridge, AB | The Slice
June 22nd, 2008 Calgary, AB | VIRGIN FESTIVAL
June 25th, 2008 Canmore, AB | Canmore Hotel w/ Hey Ocean
June 26th, 2008 Golden, BC | Roadhouse Tavern w/ Hey Ocean
June 27th, 2008 Kelowna, BC | Doc Willoughby’s w/ The Hermit
Bambi here — your fearless blogger — braving the wilds of a downtown hotel’s tv lounge to bring you this post.
I have arrived! Left on the train to Toronto at 8:30am, settled in to the nearly bare train with my laptop and headphones and schemed and scheduled all the great interviews, live show reviews, and networking I’m going to be doing for the next four days. The week’s going to be packed full of things to do and see and hear!
When I arrive, I hailed a cab and drove twenty minutes to my lodgings — a $10 cab ride! I’m amazed by that… in Ottawa that would have been at least $30. Dropped my stuff off in my room and ventured back out on the town to check out the venues and to time how long it took me to get from one to the next. It was a lot of walking but was totally doable. Not many other cities can boast scenes like Toronto can!
I ended Day One with a cold beer with friends and a tour via car of the venues I hadn’t yet located in my treasure hunt.
Day Two begins at… 2am! Yep, that’s right! I’ll be back out again at 2am to see White Cowbell Oklahoma at The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern! Though not Canadian (though many members are), they’re rocking the kickoff NXNE show and I absolutely love these guys, so I’ll be there front row centre – will you?
Stay tuned for more blog updates, live reviews, video interviews, podcasts, and tonnes more. And be sure to keep up to date with our Flickr feed, too!
This stylish singer/songwriter is about to release her debut EP Hold Onto Myself with songs produced by Jim Huff (Edwin, Headstones), Mike K, CJ Eiriksson (Matchbox 20, Rob Zombie), and Michael Raphael (NEVE). Continue reading ‘The Best of NXNE: Sabrina Korva’
TransCanadaRadio’s Bambi and Doug will be at NXNE next week! We’ll be sitting down with a bunch of artists like Bonjay, The Elastocitizens, Dan Mangan, God Made Me Funky, and tons more so stay tuned to TransCanadaRadio.com for exclusive coverage of the NXNE music and film festival and conference!
Are YOU going to NXNE? Leave a comment and let us know. Or, better yet – don’t be shy! Look for our pretty faces (and, of course, the rockin’ TCR robot) and be sure to say hi!
Just in time for NXNE, The New Indie (presented by Canadian Independent Recording Artists’ Association (CIRAA)) has put out themed podcasts in the same vein as the festival itself.
“The New Indie – Making a living making music” is a collection of interviews with members of the music industry touching on every aspect of the new realities facing Canada’s independent recording artits. The music industry landscape is evolving very rapidly as a result of the internet revolution and other factors. The old star system is burning out, but simultaneously, there is a DIY system emerging for new artists, one we call The New Indie. Today’s artists must be in tune with these changes if Canada is to produce a healthy music industry for the next generation.
The following podcast episode, presented by the Canadian Independent Recording Artists’ Association, is of The New Indie, Volume 1 (click here for track listing/credits):
More episodes of the podcast will be available right here on TransCanadaRadio.com as soon as they come out!
Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for:
“Labels” podcast and download release date: June 10th
“Management” podcast and download release date: June 24th
“Publishing” podcast and download release date: July 8th
