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 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!
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.
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.
