Windsor/Detroit Live Music: October 11 -The Awkward Stage (Vancouver) w/ Hot Panda (Edmonton) & Brasstronaut (Vancouver)

My, oh, my, the end to a massive week of juggernaut shows has one hell of a way to cap it off.
Here's how I tell everyone about this show...

The Awkward Stage is fronted by Shane Nelken...know him?...the guy who does Ask Shane on CBC Radio 3 and has been featured on Radio 3 TV...like right here:


He's a funny guy with a skill for songwriting, and we're really excited to have his band back at Phog!



They were here once before, and I foolishly gave in to my day off, and did not come in to see the show. Not this time. THIS Mint Records band will not get away a second time. And better yet...they are playing an all-ages show at 4pm the same day!



Hot Panda is hard to pin down musically, so I'll let their myspace page do the talking:
"When you get compared, in the same breath, to everything from Daniel Johnson to the Talking Heads, you know you have a sound that's hard to pin down. Since their formation during the particularly chilly winter of 2006, the members of Hot Panda (Maghan Campbell, Keith Olsen, Chris Connelly, and Heath Parsons) have yet to sit down and have the discussion that goes: "So, what should we sound like?". The result is a swath of tunes that sound like anything and everything. Brit pop, gypsy swing, opera solos, Robert Pollard style lo-fi jangles, glammy Roxy Music keyboards, and "melodies that will be impossible to dislodge from your temporal cortex" (ChartAttack), all find their home in the music of Hot Panda...sometimes all in the same song!"

Enjoy some Hot Panda on video...


Brasstronaut, who originally had this gig, was psyched to share it with these other two fine bands, both with Mint Records, and I think this move will prove to be a great one when all is said and done...
Our pal Edo, from Bend Sinister, who is in Brasstronaut, was excited and geared-up to have all these bands planned in one place, and you should be too, dammit!!

Below are recent reviews and press, as copied from Brasstronaut's website:
" 13/09/08-THE TORONTO STAR: http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/497575 "With a core lineup of trumpet, flugelhorn, piano and voice, this Vancouver band doesn't exactly arrive with a surfeit of referents. In ambience, though, this title track of a four-song EP occasionally evokes the indelible lament that Elvis Costello co-wrote for perennial cult figure Robert Wyatt, the elegantly mournful "Shipbuilding."" - John Sakamoto 18/09/08-THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT: http://www.straight.com/article-162390/brasstronaut-binds-kindred-sonic-spirits "Brasstronaut binds kindred sonic spirits-The quartet’s conservatory-trained members aren’t too hifalutin to enjoy a bit of lowbrow humour. Judging by the lumbering melodies and delicate instrumentation on Brasstronaut’s one would expect the Vancouver jazz quartet to engage the Straight in a sophisticated conversation about the classical tradition—or something equally as hifalutin—when we gather on the upscale patio of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s café. The fact that the group’s vocalist and pianist, Edo Van Breemen, whips out a hilarious impersonation of Sloth, the lovable man-ogre from the ’80s teen cult hit The Goonies, puts a different spin on things entirely...." - Jenny Charlesworth 19/09/08-HEROHILL REVIEW: http://www.herohill.com/2008/09/reviews-brasstronaut-old-world-lies.htm "Brasstronaut is almost impossible to describe as a band. Not because their sound is so different that it defies classification, although to be fair, there aren't any bands that combine sounds the same way they do. No, it's more that they use so many familiar elements and styles on their four song EP, that words sort of lose meaning....""