One of my personal favourite bands, the Tony D Band, will be playing at The Fat Cat (with MonkeyJunk) in St. John’s, Newfound land this coming Friday and Saturday. So if you’re in town, pop in and catch the show at 10pm. You’ll have a blast, I promise!

26 Sep 2008 22:00 The Fat Cat w/ MonkeyJunk St.John’s, Newfoundland
27 Sep 2008 22:00 The Fat Cat w/MonkeyJunk St.John’s, Newfoundland

Formed in 2002, and containing members of such noteworthy Maritime bands as Next To Red, Empty Handed and Not Funny Anymore, Hospital Grade’s sound is the sound of possibilities; the sound of plastic chairs being thrown out of the way to make room for movement; the bright, shining sound of the warm hull of a sturdy vessel breaking murky, restless seawater beneath a foggy Bay of Fundy sky. Under it all is a nervous twitch that could change everything in a heartbeat things could soar, plummet, or fall apart completely.

Hospital Grade released their first CD, Written Axe To Trigger, in 2004 on Kansas City, MO’s URININE Records, and followed it with a U.S. Tour. They just released their sophomore album, Secrets & Sawdust, on BBQ Records.

29 Aug 2008 22:00 The Seahorse Halifax NS
11 Sep 2008 19:00 Kent Theatre **ALL AGES** St. Johns NB

Newfoundland rover Don Brownrigg wants to go far. From the mountains and rivers of the Codroy Valley to his newfound homestead in Halifax, his musical meanderings are catalogued in his Wander Songs debut release.

Buy Wander Songs from CDBaby now:

The album features some of the city’s finest, including former Thrush Hermit drummer Benn Ross , Down With The Butterfly ’s Kris Pope , radical rhymer Tanya Davis and songbird Jenn Grant . Ottawa’s Jim Bryson makes an appearance on electric guitar, too.

“Benn was the first to offer up his help,” says Brownrigg. “That really boosted my confidence and got the ball rolling. Working with everyone was very comfortable and natural. I think the best advice when making an album of your own is to make sure you are the worst and least talented and you’ll be fine.”

With a little help from his friends, Brownrigg has created a timeless anthology. Over the course of the past few years he’s been simmering, finding his footing around town, lending his keyboard talents to Davis and vocal help to Vanessa MacArthur . He was featured in the liner notes of Jesse Dangerously and The Heavy Blinkers ‘ release Verba Volant and the song is “The Day’s Arc”, which also features a rapper named Rez Villain. You can pick up that album here:

“I have gained the utmost of respect for anyone that’s gone through the recording process,” says Brownrigg. “You hate yourself, you love yourself, you want to be other people, but you eventually settle into yourself and what you’re doing.

“I started a couple of times and put it away, as I didn’t think I was ready. I knew I wasn’t ready.”

Wander Songs is a winding soundscape of thought, as the album is a personal passage through the roots of friendship, the yearning for love and growing into oneself. Brownrigg is a self-proclaimed thinker, observer and creator. His soft-spoken pensiveness reflects the precision and artfulness of his music.

“People and things that are natural inspire me,” says Brownrigg. “I always say that I’m living in a generation or two too late.

“I sometimes get overwhelmed in the craziness and unnecessary necessities surrounding us. With everything advancing and being so overstimulating and overbearing, we’re getting a little too vanilla as a society. I get inspired by people doing their thing once they find it, or by doing something that’s a little out of the norm because it’s their trail that their beating in the grass.”

[Shannon Webb-Campbell, Chartattack (September, 2007)]

07 Aug 2008 22:00 The Ship St. John’s, NL
10 Aug 2008 02:00 Winterset in Summer Literary Festival Eastport, NL
03 Oct 2008 20:00 Pop Montreal Montreal, QC
10 Oct 2008 20:00 Popkomm Festival – Club Aufsturz Berlin, Germany

The Human Soundtrack – All Those Staring People

The Human Soundtrack – Babies Are The New Pursedogs

The Human Soundtrack’s, from St. John’s,  musical influences are harvested from vinyl, cassettes, and discs alike, dipping into whatever comprises its members’ auditory intake. This pastiche of blues, folk, pop, alternative, punk and the touchstone rock form unique, undeniably catchy tunes and dense, defined soundscapes. After warming up and tightening a sound in various confining rented rooms around the city of St. John’s, The Human Soundtrack began to play their music in front of real, live people in the winter of 2006. Since then, the band has been playing rigorously for over 2 years now promoting their 7 song EP and gearing up for the release of their full length album “Organs For Sale” which was released February 29th of this year. You can pick it up right here through CDBaby:

Just two days after writing Tony D’s name down on a TCR profile to-do list, I ran into him on a local Ottawa OC Transpo bus! Freshly frozen from dental surgery, I couldn’t miss my opportunity to present Tony with a fancy blue TransCanadaRadio business card! So, armed with a card and covering my swollen, drooling mouth with one hand, I stumbled towards him and told him about my plans to profile him on the site. He was super friendly and joked with me about my drool-shielding hand. Card in hand, I made an impression, there’s no doubt about it! So you, my readers, can look forward to an upcoming interview with Mr. Tony D himself in the very near future! For now, here’s a profile on this amazing musician. Do yourself a favour – check him out live. Pick up an album or two. You can hear some samples of them on his Myspace and on his official website. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

Along with nine European tours, national status in Canada and now seven albums under his belt, Tony D has established himself as a player and performer who really delivers the goods. At just 19 years of age, Tony had the pleasure of performing with the legendary Buddy Guy, starting a trend that would see him share the stage with such greats as Luther Allison, Bryan Adams and Michelle Shocked. A consummate performer, Tony D has supported the likes of both Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, Albert Collins, Robin Ford, Robert Cray, Koko Taylor and The Doobie Brothers. Tony has also toured throughout Europe with Jeff Healey in Denmark to rave reviews, including an outstanding performance in front of 20,000 crazed fans at the Skanderborg Festival. Another side of Tony that is not well known is his contribution to entertaining the Canadian troops for eight memorable days in war torn Bosnia and, in February 2003, in the Persian Gulf. These experiences changed his life. Tony has become so well respected in his home town by the blues community that when Gladys Knight cancelled out at Cisco Ottawa Blues Festival 2000, organizers turned to Tony who not only filled in but engaged the audience with a dynamic performance that drew the first standing ovation of the weekend. Since then, he’s held a main stage spot every year in support of the festival’s closing headliner. In 2001, Tony D performed a string of sold out theatre dates in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton opening for Buddy Guy. Also that year, Tony D released his first full blown acoustic album, “The Size of Your Shoes’, which features songs co-written with Anders Osborne and duet performances with both acoustic blues artist Ken Hamm and New Orleans favourite son John Mooney on slide guitar. In 2004, Tony D returned to his maniacal brand of blues by releasing his 6th recording, a full band album titled ‘The Jook Joint’. Heavily influenced by the haunting sounds of the Mississippi delta, The Jook Joint is a blues cocktail part Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Argentinean Surf Tango. From the raw slide drenched My Baby’s So Far cradled by a hip hop beat to the feed back caresses of Hendrix’s If Six Was Nine and the instrumental Asstango. Tony describes this as a ”montage homage to all the great artists who paved the way before us. We raise the dead with respect and order another round”. In 2007, Tony D released a compilation cd of the last 15 years of his recordings titled “Shake For Me…Again”. Remastered selections and outtakes to previously unreleased material. If you want to know what the Tony D Band is all about, this has it all.

23 May 2008 20:00 The Fat Cat St. Johns, Newfoundland
24 May 2008 20:00 The Fat Cat St. Johns, Newfoundland
30 May 2008 20:00 La Basoche Alymer, Quebec