Friday, September 28, 2007

One More Time...

P.A. Music Festival

Friday September 28th,2007
-------------- The Avalon Front --------------
Colin Munroe (Toronto)
The Spades (Peterborough)
The Golden Hands Before God Conducts Incredible Magic Band & The Spirits (Windsor)
The Golden Dogs (Toronto)

-------------- Phog Lounge --------------
Adam Fox (Windsor) 9pm
The Pack (Vancouver) 10pm
Young Rival (Hamilton) 11pm
The Mark Inside (Toronto) 12am
Holy Fuck (Toronto)1am

Saturday September 29th, 2007
-------------- The Avalon Front -------------

The Locusts Have No King (Windsor)
Peter Elkas (Toronto)
Fjord Rowboat (Toronto)
The Most Serene Republic (Toronto)

-------------- Phog Lounge --------------
Five Blank Pages (Brampton) 9pm
The Helsinki Go (Windsor) 10pm
Yellow Wood (Windsor) 11pm
Bend Sinister (Vancouver) 12am
The Doers (Vancouver) 1am

Holy Fuck Video


Bend Sinister Video - Time Breaks Down


The Mark Inside Video - Live @ Phog


Young Rival Video - My Girl June


The Pack Video Snippet


(Half of) Yellow Wood Video at Artcite (pardon the discussion)


The Helsinki Go Video - Live @ The Avalon Front

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Windsor Live Music: The P.A. Music Festival Line-Ups and show times @ Phog

One more time.
The P.A. Music Festival Line-Up for Phog...here it is.
Tickets are selling like mad.
$15 per day.

Friday September 28th
Adam Fox & Company 9pm-9:45pm

The Pack (Vancouver) 10pm-10:45pm


Young Rival (Hamilton) 11pm-11:45pm

The Mark Inside (Toronto) 12am-12:45am
Holy Fuck (Toronto) 1am-1:45am

Saturday September 29th
Five Blank Pages (Brampton) 9pm-9:45pm

The Helsinki Go 10pm-10:45pm

Yellow Wood 11pm-11:45pm

Bend Sinister (Vancouver) 12am-12:45am

The Doers (Vancouver) 1am-1:45am

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Polaris Music Prize = Patrick Watson!! He played Phog!!!



It seems like if you want to win the Polaris Music Prize...Canada's most artistic album of the year and $20,000, you need to start with a strong album...but...
It would seem you have to play Phog Lounge!
I mean, it's the only correlation I can see between the two.

That said, get your P.A. Festival tickets immediately, as they are moving VERY well...and who knows...
You might catch a show by next year's Polaris Prize Winner.

Congrats Patrick!!



Thursday, September 20, 2007

P.A. Music Festival Tickets ON SALE NOW!


Get your tickets to P.A. now at Phog or The Avalon Front.
The tickets are $15 per day.
$30 for both days for all of you math wizards out there.
Or "nearly free" to someone in Toronto or Montreal.

The ticket will get you into both venues...according to capacity.
Your ticket is good for both venues, but if you show up to one of them, and it's full, you are guaranteed to get into the other venue. Your ticket DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU ENTRY INTO ANY VENUE, it "guarantees" you entry into ONE of the venues.
We are only selling the number of tickets that our capacities allows...so anyone who buys a ticket will not be left out of a show...although the seating is first come first serve.
If you play the cards right, you SHOULD be able to criss-cross back and forth between buildings to see what's going on at any given time.

So, if you MUST see a performer in one of the buildings, you will have to be there before everyone else who wants to be there. When a venue is full, it is full, your place is being held at the OTHER venue.

The point of P.A. is to deliver quality music to you at two venues, who have come together in the best interest of the show goers. We WANT you to move around between venues. We don't necessarily want you to camp out in a venue just to see the headliner. We want you to experience all that P.A. has to offer...so if you find yourself outside of a venue that has already filled up, know that there is an equally startling performance happening down the road, and that you are guaranteed to get in.

So buy your tickets soon, as they have already begun to sell well.

Know Your P.A. - The Doers (Vancouver) - September 29th @ Phog

From thedoers.com:
"The Doers are try-hards. A message for the Doers: do not attempt to incorporate
a jellybelly assortment of rock, pop, and jazz unless you have a bit more musical
training. And you’re not cool just because you managed to cram 18 tracks on an
album. Quality over quantity, guys. After about 15 seconds in, I felt like slamming
my iPod onto the dirty Fulcrum floor. The best way to describe this band is Cake
on crack. You have been warned."
From Exclaim Magazine:
"
Picture two gals and two guys who possess no shortage of energy and ambition, channelling the changes and intensities of Minutemen, Talking Heads and Mission of Burma into predominantly acoustic sing-song arrangements and you’ve got an idea of what Vancouver’s the Doers are all about. Whatcha Doin’? is the latest in the band’s speedy release schedule (they already have two EPs and a full-length under their belts) and it’s easily their most accomplished effort to date. Spaciously produced without sounding too clean or polished, Whatcha Doin’? presents the Doers in all their promising glory: fast-paced stop-start-filled tunes rush along with glee, bumping over vases and pedestals and laughing as they fall. To add further context, the Doers have a lot aesthetically in common with the ramshackle Blocks Recording Club and Ninja High School kids who are currently carrying a large portion of Toronto’s indie scene in their torn, proud pockets. The Doers seem to have no shortage of ideas for songs, either, as there are 19 filling out this album, and they’re all pretty dang good."

Know Your P.A. - Bend Sinister (Vancouver) - September 29th @ Phog

The parts of Bend Sinister became a whole in 2001. After tweaking their line-up to construct the perfect ensemble, the young band is ready to take the Canadian music scene by storm. They’ve just wrapped up their first cross country tour to promote their debut album Through the Broken City (Storyboard Label), and have been receiving rave reviews.

Bend Sinister’s music has taken the best elements of seventies prog and modern independent rock, and twisted them into something fresh that is pop pleasure on the surface and a challenging rhythmic, melodic puzzle under closer examination. With their definitive sound and commanding stage presence it’s no wonder they have been receiving such praise for what they love most. As Hamilton’s View Weekly states: “ Through the Broken City…is an epic, minor masterpiece…the band displays strong songwriting skills, excellent musicianship and enough oomph in their arrangements that the album is an interesting listen from beginning to end.” With such positive sentiments echoed in press across the country, the masses are beginning to sit up and take notice.

Also, CBC Radio 3 is joining Bend Sinister on this national tour...so who knows who's coming to this party?


Know Your P.A. - Yellow Wood (Windsor) - September 29th @ Phog

From Yellow Wood's Myspace page:
"Yellow Wood music means elaborate arrangements, sonic exploration, poignant lyrics and strong melody rooted in carefully crafted songs. We despise insincerity, arrogance, and defensive irony. There is hopefully none of that here, but instead honest vulnerability, hope, hate and love. We want to move you. - AR, December 2006"

Also:
"Welcome to Yellow Wood, the collective expression of three restless twenty-somethings: the brothers-Rideout (Adam and Matthew James) joined by Windsor music stalwart, R. Mathew Fields (Riverfront Ensemble, Full White Drag). We make music with rock band instruments, laptops, lyrics, and a penchant for the grand. We are from Windsor, Ontario, Canada (industrial border town, baby-sister city to Detroit, Michigan), though geography does little to indicate our sound. We want to move you."

Know Your P.A. - The Helsinki Go (Windsor) - September 29th @ Phog

What can I tell you about these guys?
They're so new, you're best to just go to their myspace page and watch the video an listen to the two samples they have.
GO HERE.

I love the shoegaziness.

Know Your P.A. - Five Blank Pages (Brampton) - September 29th @ Phog

From Now Magazine:
"Following Hunter Valentine at the Drake , Brampton indie kids Five Blank Pages tore a chapter out of the Eric's Trip book of moody, unassuming 90s alternative. Noyan Hilmi and lady friend Pinar Ozyetis traded innocent indie vocals over droning, low-grade-distortion guitar sound, bouncy Rentals-style keyboards and a rhythm section filled out by new addition Rajiv Thavanathan and Noyan's sis Chelen , who added sugary vox to offset her bro's dourness. "

Korean Kid DJ Prodigies

Sorry, I cannot NOT post this!
Awesome.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Official P.A. Music Festival Poster and Line-Up


Click on the image to see the line-up font larger...

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Earl designs P.A. Music Festival Poster

Tony and Scott at The Avalon Front are responsible for initiating www.pafestival.com which will be fully up and running soon.
Without them, I'd be promoting this thing through myspace messages and this blog.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Know Your P.A. - Holy Fuck (Toronto) - September 28th @ Phog Lounge

Sweet Jesus. Bring your dancing shoes.

From shorelinefestival.com:
Holy Fuck are festival circuit veterans, having played some of the biggest festivals in the world: Coachella (California), Vegoose (Las Vegas, Nevada) SXSW (Austin, Texas), POP Montreal, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. They have toured with Buck 65, Wintersleep, Metric, Wolfparade, and Talib Kweli to name but a few.
Holy Fuck tries to "mimic modern electronic music without using modern fail-safes like laptops and programmed backing tracks," according to their official bio.

Holy Fuck has just finished an extensive series of European concerts with Buck 65, including stops at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton, UK and Dublin Castle in London, UK.

They do it with duct taped keyboards, film editing gear, and without rehearsing. If you can plug it in, Holy Fuck will make music with it. The line up continues to mutate but maintains its core: Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Kevin Lynn, and alternating drummers Glenn Milchem and Loel Campbell.

"Holy Fuck waste no time blasting into high gear on a rocket set for the centre of your pelvis, making it sway with a mixture of funky sensibility and chaotic urgency. As the swirling insanity builds and releases, you'll be powerless to avoid getting caught up in Holy Fuck's celebratory spasms."
- Eye Magazine review of "Holy Fuck"

"Holy Fuck blasted out opulent streams of saturated melody, clouds of glitter and confetti, nitrous-boosted dance dynamics. The live success of Wolf Parade's spiky indie rock would hinge upon their level of exuberance, and Holy Fuck set the bar awfully high."
- Pitchfork Media review of 2006 show with Wolfparade

"Top 10 Albums : Holy Fuck self-titled (Dependent) Best Show : Holy Fuck, Main Hall, Nov. 18 2005"
- Montreal Mirror 2005 Year in Review

"Lo-tech Toronto improvisers Holy Fuck are everything a party-oriented instrumental dance group should be - primal, rhythmic, flowing and, above all, exciting - but they don't use laptops or computer programs to get their hip-wiggling results. Instead they use cheap keyboards, a barrage of beat-up guitar pedals, old-school toy instruments and a wealth of unconventional and spontaneous lo-fi approaches to produce their swirling, manic sound, which closely mimics the ideals of electronic performance."
- Exclaim!

Know Your P.A. - The Mark Inside (Toronto) - September 28th @ Phog Lounge


It's been exactly one year since their last show at Phog...so look out!

From OttawaStart.com:
In a town with no particular music scene beyond a handful of pop-punk and metal bands, The Mark Inside unified through a desire to be a sore thumb amidst suburban inspired blandness. They were music fans first and foremost and still believed in the power of distorted guitars, drums and volume. Anyone could play loud, and most adolescent bands around the boys were playing at excruciating decibel levels, but very few made it anything but boring and painful. The Mark Inside began playing to amuse only themselves in rehearsal and having grown up on many of the same records as one another, they naturally drifted into sprawling, aggressive blues jams, winding chaotic climaxes, feedback squalls, lush melodies and thick rhythms which they tried to structure and turn into songs. Amalgamating their favourite elements of the British Invasion, late sixties psych-rock, a surprising contingent of Canadian independents, and punk rock to create a jarring modern rock sound that defies convention, The Mark Inside taunts genre-classification and demands attention.

While most teenagers were planning out their college or university destinations, The Mark Inside were planning out their musical careers. Now, years later, they're signed to the biggest indie label in Canada and are lauded by critics and music lovers alike. They've released a full-length album, shot a music video for their first single and have perfected a live show that decimates audiences nightly.

Know Your P.A. - Young Rival (Hamilton) - September 28th @ Phog Lounge



From Chart Attack:
After releasing two full-lengths, playing nearly 200 concerts across Canada and garnering numerous accolades, The Ride Theory have decided to make a change. Opting to retire their old moniker, the Hamilton quartet now wish to be known as Young Rival.

The band are working on their third album, and drummer Noah Fralick feels that things are wide open for the young act, making it the perfect situation for them to be reborn with a new name. The group have already created a new MySpace page for themselves, which includes a pair of demos that were recorded in New York in February.

"Things are really exciting for us right now," explains Fralick. "The songs we've been writing and recording for the next album have really brought out some new aspects in our band.

"We're not breaking from the spirit of our work as The Ride Theory, but we're certainly adding to it in a number of ways. We're no longer working with our old label, Sunny Lane Records, since that was only a one-album deal. With that coming to an end and our realization of where we're moving to musically, it just seemed logical to make the name change right now."

Having operated as The Ride Theory for five years, Fralick admits that it was hard trying to find a name to replace it with. Although several were tossed around, Young Rival emerged as the clear winner.

"It's a tedious process trying to come up with a new name," says Fralick. "We would browse through old lyrics, song titles, conversations, tour stories and such looking for possibilities.

"Ultimately, we found that Young Rival represented exactly where our heads are at. I think it elucidates our sense of new beginnings and the excitement that comes along with that, all the while realizing that the music business is still a tough place to be, and there are a lot of things we are still competing for."

For the time being, their two albums as The Ride Theory, 2002's self-titled release and 2005's In This City, will remain Ride Theory discs. This could change eventually, though. Focusing more on the future than the past, the band are looking forward to continuing to spread their infectious brand of garage rock as Young Rival.

"Most bands change their name when they've reached a dead-end of sorts, but we made this decision for the opposite reason," says Fralick. "Our writing has evolved naturally, and we feel like we have a lot of new and exciting energy.

"For a while we've been interested in having these aspects reflected in how we present ourselves to people. We're very proud of our history, but we want to approach our new beginnings with a new name. Hence, Young Rival."

Know Your P.A. - The Pack (Vancouver) - September 28th @ Phog Lounge



From Mint Records:
"Our Newest Band - The Pack A.D.!!!
September 5, 2007

Our tiny fridge is - um, make that WAS - full of Jack Daniels, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Coors Light; something wicked must be brewing in the Mint Records office. Only seconds ago, Mint Records signed on one of the most hardworking, coffee-fueled, howling, growling duos to come out of Vancouver. The Pack A.D..

Yes, the Pack A.D. are a duo. But do not expect a stripped down drum and guitar outfit. And, yes, the Pack A.D. are two women. But do not expect “girly” music. The Pack A.D. blends traditional blues and rock, with the focus on rhythm guitar, solid drum lines and singing straight from the gut.

So, watch out. The Pack A.D. are on the prowl, touring across Canada with their roaring self-released debut, TinType. Catch them if you can."

Old Lady is hipper than most



Sue Teller is money in the bank.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ron Leary on CBC Radio 3


Ron Leary is getting the royal treatment out on the west coast.
Listen to his CBC Radio 3 interview HERE!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Phog's Second Annual P.A. Music Festival Line-Up

You wanted the P.A. Music Festival Line-Up for Phog...and here it is.
Tickets go on sale soon.
$15 per day.

Friday September 28th
Adam Fox & Company

The Pack (Vancouver) *signed to Mint Records September 5th


Young Rival (Hamilton) *formerly named The Ride Theory

The Mark Inside (Toronto)
Holy Fuck (Toronto)

Saturday September 29th
Five Blank Pages (Brampton)

The Helsinki Go

Yellow Wood

Bend Sinister (Vancouver)

The Doers (Vancouver)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Menomena blows my mind with another two videos...


These Menomena buggers have done it again.
This is totally worth your time.
Somehow, they are taking their incredibly unique music and getting incredibly unique video to fit .
I have found YET ANOTHER stunning piece of video, apparantly filmed in a small plaza in the middle of Paris this summer.

It is amazing, and the last two minutes with the children is out-of-this-world!
All I have to say about the kids is...that little boy has better rhythm than most of my patrons.
I'm not kidding.
Check out his timing!

And at the end of the first video, you will see that the sound equipment is nothing more than the Zoom H4 recorder that my wife bought me last Christmas. It is superb.

Hey, and believe it or not...I was an inch away from booking them to play Phog this Fall.
They will play Detroit, but have informed me that they will visit us before the evening show.
Anyone who wants a heads-up had better tell me.


Monday, September 10, 2007

Final Fantasy...get your tickets!



Final Fantasy is back.
He is bringing Basia Bulat.
The tickets will be $13 each.
A steal.
The building has been full for every show of his, but with his triumphant return...as the first Polaris Music Prize Winner (for the most artistic album released in Canada in 2005), he will likely be even more sought after.
You can drag your butts...and wait to get tickets, but I will sell the first 60 tickets that I see the money for...resting in my hands...not on a promissory note.
The show is October 11th. A Thursday. One to remember.

Upcoming Shows...needing help...

I wrote a while back that I would list all of the upcoming shows without support from local bands.
Thus, local bands can see the blanks and say, "Hey, we should play that." If you get back to me about it before someone else...there's a good chance you'll be on the bill.

So, here are the shows WITHOUT local support.
Rocktober 2nd - The Details (Winnipeg)
Rocktober 7th - National Monument (Winnipeg) wsg Silent Seymour (Toronto)
Rocktober 9th - The Cape May (Calgary)
Rocktober 25th - The Mohawk Lodge (Vancouver) wsg Octoberman (Vancouver)
November 2nd - The Dudes (Calgary)
November 9th - Go Ghetto, Tiger (Vancouver)
November 10th - Les Kilt (Toronto)

So, those are the shows that need help.
They are all incredible bands...and I suspect there will be a race to secure these dates...but these bands are just a sprinkling of what we have in store.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Windsor Live Music: Twilight Hotel (Winnipeg) wsg The Mindframes

Yes, it is true.
Twilight Hotel is coming to Phog on Saturday.
TWILIGHT HOTEL IS COMING TO PHOG TOMORROW!!!!

This duo SMOKES when they play here.
They are a dreamy roots/rock folk-tinged couple who amaze with every visit.
I know that they say they are from Winnipeg, but I do not think they stay off of the road (not touring) long enough to call anywhere home.
This might be the main reason their songs are honed so minutely.
They are fine, fine people, and that played last year's P.A. Festival, kicking off the whole thing at Phog, and I am eagerly awaiting their set...and you should be too.

Joining Twilight Hotel is a band from Windsor called The Mindframes. They used to be called Summertime, but with some tweaking and focusing of energies, the new-monikered audio squad will make a wonderful, soft bed of sound for Twilight Hotel to pile onto afterward.