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!
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.
On Thursday night, I also stopped off at Free Times to see Andy Sheppard in action. I’ve heard his name from dozens of sources as someone impressive to see in person so I had to check it out for myself. I’ve never enjoyed folk music this much!
But Andy is not just a great guitarist and songwriter, but he’s also a storyteller. He told crazy tales of musical adventures to every — from launching rockets in South East Asia, to dodging bandits in North Africa, to living through earthquakes in the South Pacific.
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!
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!
Be sure to check her out!
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.
On Friday I sat in and participated in a very cool conference entitled “Ain’t Nobody Dope as Me: The DJ on Display with Jay Devonish as moderator and panellists Nasty Nav from NastyMix/Play De Record, Egon from Stones Throw, Lil’ Jaz who is an artist who also tours with Nelly Furtado, P-Plus, and DJ Grouch.
The topic of the panel was what successful DJs do to stake out their turf as trendsetters and tastemakers. They also swapped ideas about how new technology – computers, digital software, mp3s, podcasts and of course blogs – are changing the DJ culture and where things will go from here.
For your listening pleasure, I’ve brought the panel to you through the magic of the internet and a digital audio recorder. Enjoy!
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.
UPCOMING SHOWS:
14 Jun 2008 22:00 Savannah Room (NXNE) Toronto, Ontario
25 Jun 2008 20:00 Vancouver Jazz Festival @ The Media Club Vancouver, British Columbia
30 Jul 2008 19:00 The Living Room NYC, New York
Written by
Mathieu Coates
