Tag: Canadian indie

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: My Son The Hurricane [2023]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

My Son The Hurricane live at Bluesfest 2023

Artist: My Son The Hurricane
When: July 12th, 2023
Where: SiriusXM stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: So we’re exactly two weeks away from the first night of this year’s edition of Ottawa Bluesfest. For the longest time, I was debating whether or not to attend due to being initially underwhelmed by the lineup. But this, I realized, was truly due to the previous year being much more aligned to my own personal taste. In the end, I broke down and got a full festival pass, partially* because of sets like the one I am featuring today. I had never heard of Niagara, Ontario’s My Son The Hurricane before wandering over to the SiriusXM stage early on in the evening but it wasn’t long at all before I was caught up in their energy, right along with the rest of the crowd. Theirs was a mad mix of Mighty Mighty Bosstone ska punk, Jane’s Addiction cali surf rock, old school Chili Peppers gnarly funk, and whatever you call the racket that Rage and the Machine gets up to. They have a dozen or so members that make up a big sound, all contributing to a musical message of change, acceptance, and love. A set I’ll not soon forget, to be sure.
Point of reference song: “Mr Holland’s locust”

Sylvie Kindree on vocals
Chris Darling, Fraser Gauthier, and Alyssa Shangham
Chris Sipos on guitar
Cooper Hannahson adding some beats
Ashlee Standish on the keys
Raphaël Désilets with his trumpet
Sylvie flirting with Alyssa
Raphaël Désilets, Lisa Gudgeon, Chris Sipos, Victoria Cox, and Danno O’shea representing the banner
Sylvie, Cooper, Justin, and Craig
Victoria Cox on the baritone sax
Equality!

*But also because I love live music and finally decided there were more than enough sets that I wanted to see to make the pass worth the money.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #15 Venus Furs “Chaos and confusion”

<< #16    |    #14 >>

“Paul Kasner is a perfectionist in the same way Kevin Shields, Anton Newcombe, and Thurston Moore are perfectionists. So, it’s probably befitting that all three of the aforementioned artists were among the many influences on Venus Furs, the self-titled debut from Kasner’s solo moniker of the same name.”

These are not my words but those of music writer Dom Gourlay conjured for one of my favourite music zines, Under the Radar. These are the words that he opened his eight out of ten review for “Venus Furs”, still the only album released by Paul Kasner’s project. And yes, these are the words that goaded me into checking out the album after I had missed its initial launch in July of 2020. I gave it a handful of spins on Spotify and found that it was indeed within my wheelhouse and was quickly on the website for Silk Screaming records, the label Kasner set up to release said album, and ordered a copy of it on vinyl for my record shelves*.

Paul Kasner is a Montreal-based songwriter, multi-instamentalist, and producer, who has toured with The Horrors and The Twilight Sad, and has worked by himself for many years on this one album, working to get it just right. Indeed, it is a lovely and tight 8-song cycle of guitar heavy, psych rock, toying with shoegaze and noise rock along the way.

“Chaos and confusion” is the five minute opener that layers acoustic strums with wispy reverb drenched electric licks. Meanwhile, the poltergeist on drums keeps time and space in check with a menacing leer and the bass line eases its way in and out of the miasma like a perfect stitch line sewing up eternity. And floating just above it all is Kasner’s vocal track, affecting his best Jim Reid/Peter Hayes impression, a woeful tale of gambling and loss.

*It later muscled its way into my top ten albums list for that year.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Rural Alberta Advantage “The rise and the fall”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Rural Alberta Advantage
Album Title: The rise and the fall
Year released: 2023
Details: Limited edition, gatefold sleeve, grey

The skinny: Tonight will mark only the second indoor concert I’ve attended since the beginning of the pandemic. I’ve had my eye on the show since it was announced in the fall, finally pulled the trigger on a ticket last month, and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since. Sure, I’ve seen the Toronto-based indie rock trio three times already, but the last time was almost nine years ago, and each of their performances have been incredible and memorable. Of course, I’ve been listening to them pretty much non-stop over the past week, including spinning their latest record on the trusty turntable. The Rural Alberta Advantage’s fifth album, “The rise and the fall”, didn’t quite make my top ten for 2023 but I definitely made sure to list it among my honourable mentions for the year. And when I saw it on the shelves at Rotate This during my marathon vinyl store shopping spree on Boxing Day, I didn’t hesitate to rescue it for my collection. As I said in that aforementioned post back in December, it is so much “more of the frenetically told tales of Canadian minutiae that we know and love”.

Standout track: “AB bride”