Windsor/Detroit Music: November Listings

November
1 - Alun Piggins (Toronto) wsg Dan Keeler's Last Stand
3 - Open Mic Surgery with Tara Watts
4 - Creative Class fund raiser
6 - Matthew Barber (Toronto) w/ The Spades (Peterborough) & Jerry Stamp (St. John's NL)
7 & 8 - Winners from the 48 Hour Flick Fest Music categories
10 - Open Mic Surgery with Tara Watts
12 - Sylvie (Saskatoon) wsg What Seas, What Shores
14 - CJAM celebrates 25 years on FM!
15 - My Son, My Son wsg Explode When They Bloom, Stereo Goes Stellar, & Michael Hargreaves (of Michou)/ All ages show early to be followed by 19+ show in the evening
17 - Open Mic Surgery with Tara Watts
20 - Levi Weaver (Nashville, Tennessee) w/ Erika Werry (Toronto)
21 - Fembots (Toronto) wsg TBA
22 - Kenneth MacLeod & His Esteemed Colleagues
23 - Woodhands (Toronto) w/ The D'Urbervilles (Oshawa) & Make Me Young (Toronto)
24 - Open Mic Surgery with Tara Watts
25 - Radio Free Tuesdays with CJAM
27 - Sunparlour Players (Toronto)
28 - The Boy From E.T. & The CFL Sessions performed by Henry Svec wsg Ron Leary
29 - The Original Lady Eyes w/ Pat Deighan and The Orb Weavers (PEI) & The Anti-Qs (Niagara) AND Sleep The Season (Welland, ON)

Windsor/ Detroit Live Music: Pan Canadian New Folk Ensemble (Christine Fellows, Old Man Luedecke, & Kim Barlow) Tuesday, October 14th

Above: Christine Fellows (Winnipeg/Windsor)
HUGE SHOW!!!
http://www.christinefellows.com/
http://www.kimbarlow.ca/
http://www.oldmanluedecke.ca/

Tickets:
$10 advance
$15 at the door

From Six Shooter Records:
"The brainchild of Christine Fellows, Kim Barlow and Old Man Luedecke, the Pan-Canadian New Folk Ensemble is a 19-date embodiment collaboration within the music community. Hailing from the Yukon, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, they will share the stage with accompanists on violin, cello and percussion, backing each other up through two round-robin sets of brilliant, shimmering arrangements of original songs. See tour dates below."

From The Almaguin News:
"Some of the country’s most innovative musicians have assembled to create a beautiful odd-sort stew of sweet frailing banjos, guitars, piano, a string section, warm harmonies and great, great songs.

Kim Barlow, Christine Fellows and Old Man Luedecke are cherished Canadian artists who span a wide geography as well as lyrical subject matters and musical styles. They will share the stage with accompanists on violin, cello and percussion, backing each other up through two round-robin sets of brilliant, shimmering arrangements of original songs.

Above: Kim Barlow (Yukon)

Touring collaborations are a time-honoured tradition, harkening to such auspicious creative convergences as the Rolling Thunder Revue. Though the music industry is by its nature competitive, artists thrive when they find opportunities to come together in song or studio, at festivals, or even brainstorming ideas from opposite ends of the country.

Throughout this 17-date tour, as the musicians in the ensemble absorb each others’ songs and styles, the show will embody the creative process of songwriting and the community that feeds these artists’ creative fires."

Windsor/Detroit Music: Mother, Mother (Vancouver) w/ The Wooden Sky (Toronto) & Chris Picco (St. John's NFLD) Thursday, October 16th

Oh wow. Tickets on sale now. $10
http://www.myspace.com/chrispicco
http://www.myspace.com/thewoodensky
http://www.myspace.com/mothermotherspace
About Mother Mother (From their myspace):
"MOTHER MOTHER is definitely not a band to sit idle. The Vancouver based quintet are back with their sophomore album, O MY HEART, out on Last Gang Records (Metric, DFA 1979, The New Pornographers). O MY HEART shows all of the signs of a promising future. They placed producer Howard Redekopp (The New Pornographers, Tegan and Sara, 54.40) at the helm, and set their course. The result, an artistic and original expression of modern pop music that beautifully combines novelty and nostalgia, profundity and play, to create a musical landscape that will leave the listener spell bound and captivated.

Mother Mother's use of rich vocal harmony, deeply poetic lyricism, and dynamic instrumentation are masterfully employed in this new collection of songs that mark the evolution and maturity of a band that stands out in today's music scene – a band with staying power, and one that pushes the bounds of contemporary pop/rock sensibilities. "
About The Wooden Sky:
The Wooden Sky are a band from Toronto. They're great. They used to be called Friday Morning's Regret. Now they are touring with Mother, Mother!

And the guys, aside from making amazing roots/rock (emphasis on rock), they are incredible guys...fantastic people. Go listen to them.
About Chris Picco (from his myspace page):
"Lyrically, the songs travel from moody melancholy moments to a quirky surreality earning Chris his growing reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter. Just ask legendary songwriter Ron Hynes, who has stated, "I consider Chris Picco to be at the vanguard of the young, new, adventurous Newfoundland songwriting community". Recently Picco showcased at the 2007 ECMA's in Halifax, and was featured as one of the top ten artists to watch for in Downhome magazine."

A story of the largest collection of vinyl records in the world.

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

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....""