HCFF 2011: #folkyeah

Yeah, we're still catching up on posts. But what better time to revisit what we did this summer than with the last weeks of fall upon us?

We've heard a lot about the big, multi-day, marathon folk festivals that define summer in Canada for our R3 friends: Winnipeg Folk Festival, Mariposa Folk Festival, Regina Folk Festival, Dawson City Music Fest, etc., etc. Maybe someday we'll be able to pitch our tent and attend one of these tests of musical abundance, endurance and sleep deprivation, but this summer we put the training wheels on and experienced our first folk festival Jul. 16-17 in London, Ont. at the Home County Folk Festival. Here are our most memorable moments.

• The Adventures in Solitude workshop with CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence, Sam Taylor and Marty Kolls. A book well worth reading, two musicians well worth checking out.

Grant Lawrence

Sam Taylor

Marty Kolls 

• The butterfly that landed-- and lingered-- on Grant's back jeans pocket.

"There was a butterfly where?"

• The power failure during Harlan Pepper's set. Unnerved at the first, they stepped up to the plate, off the stage, and performed a great acoustic set. Best part: the boys trying to get the mature audience to sing along to "Reefer": "I smoke a little reefer and hope my problems fade away..."

• Shawarma on the patio of the Barakat Restaurant with R3 friends.


• Emm Gryner. Her new album Northern Gospel is out now.




































• Hawksley Workman. We loved Hawksley, but couldn't help being a little disappointed by his (understandably) family-friendly set list.

• Our "for R3 blogger eyes only" screening of Winning America, CBC Radio 3's first documentary. Kudos to Brent Hodge.













•  A delightful breakfast the next morning at The Bag Lady, with a very hungover overbooked Grant Lawrence and an on-location taping of "Indie Craft Attack."


























• Amazing back-to-back sets Sunday afternoon from Dan Mangan-- giving the audience a preview of his latest album Oh Fortune, already highly lauded just a month after its release on Sep. 27.

• And The Acorn.

Show Alert: Deadmau5 "changing the American concert landscape"

The Fillmore Detroit
Thurs., Oct. 20 and Fri., Oct. 21

"There's a revolution happening in music right now, and it's being led by a man with a giant mouse head," who happens to be Canadian electronic artist Joel Zimmerman, aka Deadmau5. Join the dance dance revolution at the Fillmore Detroit tonight or tomorrow. Read the complete article about Deadmau5 by Adam Graham, pop music writer for the Detroit News, here.

A Pack A Day: Smokin'!

Did the Sirens of sensibility go off? We in the Windsor/Detroit area are lucky to have the opportunity to experience TWO (2) (DEUX) shows in our cities. Vancouver BC's The Pack A.D. play garage rock/pop/punk/blues that is fierce, unapologetic, and loud as hell on both sides of the Detroit River this week.

The Pack's Unpersons Tour comes barreling off the 401 beginning at the CBC Radio 3 Searchlight Best Live Venue Phog Lounge on Wed. Oct. 19 and rolls into Corktown's classic PJ's Lager House on Thurs. Oct. 20. Bring your earplugs and your dancing shoes.

Photos: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

Show Review: Al Tuck

Al Tuck

What makes a great show? Perfect vocals? Flawless synchronization between band members? A hair-flailing, high-energy performance? Sure. But sometimes great shows, like Al Tuck with Max Marshall and Alison Corbett, aka Black Molly, as his impromptu backing band at Windsor's Phog Lounge on Jul. 26, aren't the most perfect ones. "It might get a little scrappy," Tuck warned us. Scrappy isn't among the many adjectives we'd read about Tuck (PEI), but by the end of the evening, it proved to be almost as accurate as the accolades and laments, and made us fans forever.

Max Marshall

Marshall, the opener that evening, is a multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist, multi-band (The Windsor Salt Band, ASK) Windsor/Toronto musician. He was charmingly self-conscious on stage playing his first solo gig, and his folk/classical-inspired set, including some of the most accomplished guitar work we've seen in a while, was just plain charming. Corbett (St. John's, NL) has a similar pedigree, and is best known as a member of The Burning Hell.




So why did these two experienced session musicians-- Corbett on the violin, Marshall on the upright bass-- have such a hard time following Al Tuck? We've done a bit of amateur jamming in our day, and once you've got the basic chords down, usually some form of the standard 1-4-5, it's fairly easy to keep up and maybe even improvise a little. But Tuck doesn't do a lot of basic. Yes, his songs have verses, choruses, melodies-- and often beautifully crafted, wandering chord progressions. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, the songs of Al Tuck are a journey, not a destination.

Alison Corbett and Max Marshall

Marshall and Corbett gamely tried to keep up, but scrappy it was. It didn't help that Tuck had to abandon his buzzy "parlor" guitar for an electric, and borrowed Marshall's guitar as well. Both instruments seemed to require a lot of retuning to different keys between songs, giving Tuck plenty of time to entertain the modest audience with stories, humour and observations on par with Norm MacDonald. We were disappointed that we never had a chance to hear Corbett really cut loose on the violin before she had to leave.

After a break, Tuck returned more relaxed for a second set; Marshall's earlier solo stage nerves gave way to witty banter. When he finally implored Tuck to "Play something I know," the atmosphere changed from "face down on the page" (Brave Last Days, 1994) to everyone on the same page on hits like "brother from another mother" (My Blues Away, 2005), and at the request of jojodillon, a lovely rendition of "Wishing Well, recorded by Joel Plaskett but penned by Tuck himself. Happy ending to a scrappy show.

We picked up Tuck's 2010 release, All Time Favourites, afterwards and it didn't leave the CD player for days. With every listen, our appreciation grew, and we expect it to grow even more when Tuck's new release, Under Your Shadow (New Scotland Records), drops on Nov. 8. Listen to the single "Slapping the Make On You" (produced by Joel Plaskett) here. If you're lucky enough to live in eastern Canada, Tuck will be touring in support of the new album-- with Sudbury's Ox as his backing band.

Nov. 3: Kingston, ON-- the Mansion
Nov. 4: Ottawa, ON-- Raw Sugar
Nov. 5: Montreal, PQ-- Grumpy's
Nov. 8: Fredericton, NB-- The Capital
Nov. 9: Moncton, NB-- Plan B
Nov. 10: Halifax, NS-- The Carleton
Nov. 11: Charlottetown, PEI-- Hunter's


Photos: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

Show Alert: Said The Whale w/ We Are The City @ The Crofoot

Sun., Oct. 16
The Pike Room at The Crofoot, Pontiac
Doors at 5 p.m
 
Sometimes getting a band to come to your city is as simple as asking. More often it involves a lot of waiting, hoping, near-misses and then, finally, when you least expect it-- Camilo the Magician steps in and suddenly there is no difference between real and a show.

"I need to see where you made that card go..."

Every Sunday the Crofoot features a lineup of Metro Detroit bands playing the Pike Room with an early door time of 5 p.m. "We got a call from Said The Whale's agent looking for a date in Detroit," said Chad Nicefield, talent buyer for The Crofoot. "We already had our local show going on in the Pike, and our Eagle Theatre and the ballroom were too big, so they agreed to combine the local acts and their tour package."

"Watch my eyes, put a coin in my hand now and squeeze real tight, I'll make both sides heads..."

The results bring the intelligent, picturesque alt pop of Juno award-winning Said The Whale (Vancouver) to the Detroit area for the first time ever, along with the spare yet expressive alt rock of  We Are The City (Kelowna). Our review of We Are The City's show at Windsor's Phog Lounge in March remains our third most-viewed post; read (and hear) more about Said The Whale, the subject of CBC Radio 3's first documentary, here and here.


Local bands opening for Said The Whale and We Are They City:


Sean Earle
Trey Simon
Suitable Paradise
Kisses For Charity
Armour The Lion
 

Announcing: N2D Media Group

For Immediate Release
October 10, 2011

N2DS2W Launches Media Division

Dearborn, MI-- And you thought all we wrote about was Canadian indie music. In fact, one of us has been a writer/editor/web designer and communications specialist for more than 20 years. Together-- Cathleen Hagan and photographer Russ Gordon as N2D Images-- we're putting the logo we love on the work we already do. Visit our new website at www.n2dmediagroup.com to learn more. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Show review: Beeps in Wolves' Clothing, Part 2

Beeps in Wolves' Clothing, Part 1

Dan Boeckner, Handsome Furs

Alexei Perry, Handsome Furs

Montreal's Handsome Furs-- Dan Boeckner, Wolf Parade bandmate of Spencer Krug, and wife Alexei Perry-- had hoped to end the evening with 1 a.m. fireworks outside of PJ's Lager House in Detroit's Corktown. But prudence prevailed and we had to settle for the aural pyrotechnics the Furs and Parlovr delivered earlier that night on Sat., Jul. 30. (The aforementioned fireworks were part of a glorious display over the shores of Lake Huron later on in the summer.)

Both bands are seasoned globetrotting performers-- CNN filmed Handsome Furs' travels through Vietnam, China and Thailand for the series Indie Asia-- but sometimes Detroit's reputation precedes it. Not the one that makes us cringe, the one we're proud of:  a city home to legendary musical history, talent and innovation. For bands that get this, no matter where in the world they've been, playing Detroit has some significance to it. Which explains Parlovr's earnest query to N2D after their set-- "How did we do? Was it okay?"

Louis Jackson, Parlovr

It was more than okay. From the first note it was all zeal, appeal and everything between "Hell, Heaven" from Louis Jackson (vox, guitar), Alex Cooper (vox, keyboard, guitar) and Jeremy MacCuish (drums). Like the band's name, there's a slightly-skewed element to the "Speech Bubble/Thought Cloud" of their alt-rock that keeps it interesting, whether it's fuzzy, dissonant hooks, time signature changes, suspenseful phrasing and/or vocals that range from plaintive to piercing within a few measures. With only one full-length self-titled album to date, this Montreal band is just getting started. We've heard what's to come, and it's pretty darn okay.

Alex Cooper, Parlovr

Jeremy MacCuish, Parlovr

What does it take to get a 20-to-30 something crowd to loosen up? If Handsome Furs' catchy, often anthemic electronic pop/rock and Perry's possessed-by-the-music performance at the keyboards couldn't get them dancing, we don't know what would. It may be possible to resist the club beats and evocative riffs with your feet, but the subject matter of much of their catalog, from the 2007 debut Plague Park, 2009's Face Control to this year's Sound Kapital, makes Handsome Furs as enduring as entertaining. Their observations on cultural landscapes and incongruities are well worth exploring, whether through lyrics or Perry's journals on their website.

Photos: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

Show Alert: Hollerado - Meet The Mayors Tour

Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011

Next stop on the N2DS2W Fall road trip: off to see Hollerado, Canada's "hardest-working band," bring Americanarama to Mac's Bar in Lansing. Will the boys meet the mayor?

From Lansing, Hollerado heads to London, Ont. and Call the Office, for their show with The Pack a.d. and Wildlife on Fri., Oct. 7.

Photos: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

McLeod directs new Ashley MacIsaac video

Windsor writer-director Sean McLeod, who recently shot videos for Pat Robitaille and the now-defunct Yellow Wood, has completed a new video for one of the most celebrated Canadian roots musicians, Ashley MacIsaac.

As an extensive world traveler, Ashley's experiences have led him to create his first full-band recording since 2002, Crossover, on his new label So Plaid. Over the course of three years and with six different studios, the combined efforts of Ashley and his musical friends have led to an album with everything from Celtic crossovers to soulful ballads, both instrumental and lyrical. During the recording period, Ashley decided he wanted to follow up in the vein of his first major hit record, “Hi How Are You Today?”

Ashley has ventured into many different genres in the seven albums recorded since then, but Crossover is similar to his first big hit, containing different styles on one album and spanning the range of sounds and influences and musical textures that Celtic music has to offer. It's a testament to his roots and talent and is Ashley at his best, playing uplifting, foot stomping, traditionally rooted tunes, melancholy and soulful tracks and powerful rock jams. (From a press release issued by MacIsaac's management, Talk's Cheap and MacIsaac's bio on his website, www.ashleymacisaac.com)

Writer/director Sean McLeod shared some thoughts in an interview with N2D, posted below the video.

N2D: How did you and Ashley wind up working together?

Sean: It was actually Pat Robitaille who hooked up the collaboration between Ashley and I. Ashley wanted a certain look to match the tune and liked my videos for Yellow Wood and Pat, so we had breakfast one morning and worked it out.

N2D: Where did you shoot it?

Sean: We shot the video at a junkyard in Windsor and rented some warehouse space for the water scenes.   We built the set in there.

N2D: Any quirky or great moments?

Sean: The only two issues we really had during the production was we had put a Pelican camera case too close to a generator's exhaust while we were filming and kind of melted a hole in it, luckily the camera and everything that usually goes in that case was with us. The other issue was with a giant 20' by 20' white silk we had erected as a giant bounce board. It basically acts as a sail once you get it up there so you gotta really make sure its anchored and tied off well. Moving that around locations is always an adventure. But other than that everything went smoothly, the crew were great, special shout outs to Steph Copeland, Bronwen Wood and Ryan Pukay who all are amazing help on set!

Show Alert - London: PS I Love You and Suuns

PS I Love You and Suuns @ Call The Office 

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 9:00PM

(Suuns video is brilliant but NSFW)

Show Alert: We're off to the lakes... The Besnard Lakes.

Since the current The Besnard Lakes and Malajube Canada/US tour is not coming through Windsor/Detroit, we thought we would take Windsor/Detroit west and invite the readers of N2D to join us for a road trip to Kalamazoo on Weds., Oct. 5.

The Besnard Lakes

Photo: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

The Besnard Lakes w/ Malajube 

The Strutt  773 West Michigan

Kalamazoo, MI     (Map)

Guess who's back?

Toronto's Fucked Up  return to Detroit this Friday, September 30 at Majestic's Magic Stick.
Fucked Up front man Damian Abraham, a hugely knowledgeable fan of Motor City punk, will
lead his "most perfect name for any band in rock history" as they bring David To Life.
Wavves (San Diego) and Mexican Knives (Detroit) open.


Photo: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

Show Review: Beeps in Wolves' Clothing (Part 1)

Yeah, we blew it when we didn't go. But who knew Wolf Parade would announce they were going on indefinite hiatus only four days after they played the Crofoot last November?

As fate would have it, we did end up seeing Wolf Parade this summer. Sort of. Well, two members of Wolf Parade, and their personal projects that helped precipitate the WP hiatus: Moonface (Spencer Krug) with Flow Child and Phantasmagoria on Jul. 15 and Handsome Furs (Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry) with Parlovr on Jul. 30, at PJ's Lager House.

Phantasmagoria

Flow Child

Except for Parlovr, all of these artists, either solo acts or duos, rely on a variety of computer-driven electronics for their sound, with quite different results. Flow Child (Montreal) was the most abstract, presenting improvisational compositions reflective of his stage name. Detroit-based Phantasmagoria (Lianna Vanicelli and Christopher Jarvis) easily earned this year's "best band we'd never heard of" nod. Their sound is generally spare, combining both space-odyssey and tribal elements, tempered with appealing vocals, harmony and melodies. They've been playing a lot around Detroit; we definitely recommend checking them out.

Spencer Krug's wiki is like reading a who's who of Canadian indie. So it didn't surprise us to discover that the gentleman providing percussion was Mike Bigelow, most recently the bassist with Wintersleep. "I started the tour solo, but it just wasn't working," said Krug. Solo if you don't count the stark white screen at the front of the stage that ran a video for the entire set of a lone, somewhat autistic man (wearing a Detroit Tigers cap!) dancing languidly.














"Like eating a small, heavy piece of cheesecake" is how Krug describes his second EP (although it clocks in at 37 minutes) as Moonface, Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped. Yes, the music is dense, but there's nothing ponderous about these baroque journeys. Why? We'll let Krug tell you (from his artist profile on Jagjaguwar):
















"You see, I have a little dude who lives inside me that loves pop music, and he sometimes finds his way into my hands. When this happens, my fingers move toward the catchiest melodies they can, like bees to flowers with the most pollen. It can't be helped. The little pop-dude inside me turns a few notes into a melody and I say, 'Okay, that's nice little dude, a little poppy maybe, but nice, maybe we can use that once, somewhere in the song.' And he says, 'But wouldn't you rather hear it over and over again? Maybe throw it in a few times now, and then a few times again towards the end of the song? And maybe that 'drone' in your left hand would sound better if you moved it up and down the keyboard a little bit.' But then I say, 'Come on little dude, I'm no fool, that's just a chord progression you're trying to get out of me.' Next thing you know we'll be repeating it over and over again, the melody will be a hook, and I'll have made another random half-pop song... It's music played with an organ, organ beats, organ beeps and bloops, and some digital drums. Music based on layers and loops, the hypnotizing sound of a leslie speaker, and the onslaught of melody." Listen.

Photos: Russ Gordon/N2D Images

It's Polaris Day!

Today is the day. Tune into CBC Radio 3 / Sirius 152 at 8 PM ET ( 5 PM PT) for the Polaris Gala hosted by Grant Lawrence and Damian Abraham. Commentary will be provided by Craig Norris and Vish Khanna.
It's Polaris Mania!

The 2011 Short List

Arcade Fire
Austra
Braids
Destroyer
Galaxie
Hey Rosetta!
Ron Sexsmith
Colin Stetson
Timber Timbre
The Weeknd