WL450 - A Little Something About The Bands
By wavelength ~ Posted Monday, February 9th 2009<!--StartFragment-->
Wavelength 450 – 9th Anniversary Festival - February 12-15, 2009
Four nights of independent music — featuring 19 bands at five different venues!
Below is a little something about all the bands playing this years festival, brought to you by Jonny Dovercourt, Doc Pickles, Ryan McLaren and Kevin Parnell.
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Day 1 - February 12, 2009 @ The Music Gallery
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The Theremin: the only musical instrument in the world played without being touched. That's right — *playing the air*. Invented in 1919 by Russian physicist León Theremin during Soviet research into proximity sensors, the Theremin captured the imagination of American concert-hall audiences following its creator's move to New York. Later, its eerie, otherworldly sounds became familiar to viewers of schlocky '50s science-fiction films, and then to pop music fans for its cameo appearance on the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." Interestingly, many of the most notable theremin virtuosos have been women, starting with classical thereminist and León's great unrequited love, Clara Rockmore. More recently, Lydia Kavina, Carolina Eyck, Pamelia Kurstin — and now, Dorit Chrysler. We're thrilled to have the chance to bring this fantastic Austrian musician, currently based in New York, to perform at Wavelength 450. Creating moody pieces of pop pleasure, Dorit's theremin is usually accompanied by her voice and laptop beats. Consider this "electro-pop" that brings you back to the *original* "electronic music." - JD
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Crochet Shakespeare lucid dreaming tea parties with Olympians in drag. German cabaret rock opera actors prowling for gnomes and eggs in the knots of gnarled trees. A bridge! But a bridge to where? A gleam off a butter knife growing sharper under watchful and hungry eyes. A rocking chair rocking on steady splinters. Lovers asleep under a blanket of decomposing leaves and fortunes. Little strips of paper inked with invisible kisses and fingernail shavings. A wind chime summons flint and flame. A house rattles its bones under the weight of held breath. Archers winks. Ballerinas plie on French pressed coffee, skating on the crema, ribbons saluting children and politicians on lunch breaks. - KP
The breath of descendant ghosts pock-mocking the hallway windowpane as you flick off the last bulb of light before retiring for the night. The lulling glow of the muted television at four AM replaying a story told too many times before. The slight sway of a dead branch on a tree across the street in the neighbours yard revealing glimpses like a nude mirror. Footprints and paw tracks circling around and eating themselves in freshly fallen snow. An empty grave. An echo across a frozen lake hunting for any embers still burning. In your bed huddled under the blankets with a gun, some gum, a flashlight and a tin can telephone, waiting, just waiting. - KP
Day 1 After Show @ The Cameron House
Loitering Heroes are something special amongst the recent spate of local bands. They're a throwback to local music history, recalling Sea Snakes, Holding Pattern/Burn Rome In A Dream and Deep Dark United, with a sense of whimsy and experimentation often lost by bands that take themselves too seriously. And yet, there's an undercurrent of very serious musicianship here. The lineup is filled out with respected jazz musicians Don Scott and Michael Herring, as well as Sister Suvi's Nico Dann. The result is a beast quite unlike any else in this city, and shouldn't be missed. - RM
The Diableros can swing from subdued and heartfelt to a sound that urges the song on like a team of impatient oxen. The roots are from deep in the bedrock of jam band Canadiana and as a result their sounds can blend seamlessly into the Toronto winter like a Caribana poster on a telephone pole in February. They're the ultimate "show and tell" band and leave visitors spellbound, they're the wedding afterparty at the cottage band. - DP
Day 2 - February 13, 2009 @ Wrongbar
If you listened to the last Barmitzvah Brothers album, you may have noticed that it sounded like a split album between two different bands. Shortly after it came out, the band indeed split, with Jenny Mitchell striking out on her own as Jenny Omnichord, and Geordie Gordon forming The Magic. The Magic's debut EP blends an old-school pop style that references crooner-like lounge and disco. Their hooks dig into your brain and make a nest. And sometimes they wear cute shorts. - RM
Surprise: One of the best things about having multiple programmers at Wavelength is that sometimes some of us supposedly "in charge" show up at Sneaky's on a Sunday and have no idea what's going on. Such an unsuspecting frame of mind helps out when it comes to having your face melted off by a band of searing awesomeness. Our man Kevin Parnell came across Child Bite, an as-yet little-known quintet of dudes from Detroit, Michigan, and booked them for a Wavelength last October. Yours truly was truly blown away by their super-tight blend of no-wave freakouts and steamrolling rhythms that reflect their hometown Motown's R&B heritage. Truly heavy-duty, teeth-clenched-intensity stuff — *yes*. The MP3s you can sample on their MySpace page don't really do them justice, so just trust in the Wavelength stamp of approval and get your ass down to Wrongbar in time to have it whupped and then shook by the one and only Child Bite. - JD
Carbonated summer nights in wine drunk tree shadows. Steamed up eyeglass wobble through throngs of scantily clad mimes. Thunder lit alleys hiding pocketfuls of neon abdomens and faceless wristwatches. Second floor apartment balcony beer cans. Buried bodies on the beach waiting for the crashing waves with welcoming mouths. Sugar shocked weekends of early morning coffee sex. Backseat math equations with extra-marital racecar prize winners clocking hours at the Laundromat. A designer fixed price menu. Arms into arms stumble lips and looks, knowing looks. Florescent predators with diplomat passports and hotel keys. Cocktails on the rooftop in the hot tub with the lights off. Footsteps like heartbeats on sidewalks and bedsheets. - KP
Too many long island ice teas later and the drinks have turned into rusty nails with lipstick tattoos of disconnected phone numbers and matchbook hotel rooms. Chevrons chevrons chevrons a breeze watering your eyes and the impressionist beacons of lampposts and mischievous faces wearing jackets with only inside pockets. The clock reaches scrambled eggs and freshly stale coffee only corners corners corners of your eyes have reasons to believe. Where is that streetcar? Where are my keys! WHERE ARE MY FUCKING KEYS! The cars sound like detuned violas. The houses unfamiliar bubblegum pop. Your footsteps a heart murmuring past live fortune cookie providence. - KP
Stepping Up: It's amazing that two of Toronto's most exciting new bands of the last year sort of came to life as a result of their bandleader stepping out of the spotlight. Jon-Rae Fletcher moved back out west and most of the rest of The River is now countryin' out the jamz as $100. Meanwhile, The Old Soul mainman Luca Maolini seems to be taking some kind of break, and TOS bassist Matt McLaren has stepped up, or rather, sat down at his keyboard, to steer this recently christened ship into a deep lagoon of, well, *old soul*. So: Steamboat are a good-time, Stax-soaked "rock'n'soul" band. They're not afraid to swing like The Band circa '71 or cover an Eddie Floyd tune — and heck, why would anyone? Oh yeah: because it takes some chops. Which they have got, in spades. You should have seen the ridiculous dance floor they inspired at the recent Wavelength 446 — hence their late addition to the 450. But we're also looking forward to hearing their supposedly most sedate incarnation, playing the songs of Mantler and Sandro Perri... coming soon to a Tranzac near you? - JD
Day 3 - February 14, 2009 @ The Polish Combantant's Hall
Christine Duncan is force of nature, literally one of the most unique voices in the Toronto music community. Combining fierce vocal technique with fiery delivery, experience in genres from improvised jazz to country, unbounded creativity and community-mindedness, Christine has excelled as one-half of Barnyard Drama, alongside drummer/partner Jean Martin. But in early '08, she took things a step further by unveiling her new project, the Element Choir. With anywhere between 12 and 50 members taking part at any given gig, Christine has assembled a fluid yet dedicated collective of singers who enjoy doing strange things with their laryxes. Sound-singing has a long history, through artists like Phil Minton or Paul Dutton, but here it's explored on a grand scale. Christine has developed an entire vocabulary of conduction cues through which she can direct and loosely "structure" the choir's vocal improvisations. You've probably never heard anything like it, and it has to be seen to be believed. - JD
Jessie Stein left Toronto a few years ago and upon her departure the lights of our fair city dimmed a bit. I associate her departure with the post-Torontopia It's Gonna Be Us era we're living in today. It didn't take long for her to find her voice and a new outfit called the Luyas, an electrifyingly eclectic bright light that shines out of Montreal and we always look forward with delight to her return. When Wavelength released the lineup for 450 and Carl Wilson posted it on his beautiful Zoilus blog, he posted an accompanying photo of Jessie. - DP
I can't remember how I found out about Hooded Fang. In my mind, they've always existed, putting on rad all-ages shows, making fun fur monsters, and being the soundtrack to my laundry-room dance parties. But it's only been a year. They majority of their members moved to Toronto from Montreal in last fall, started the band in the winter, played their first show on February 14th 2008 and only then began stealing the hearts of damn near everybody that sees them. Their brand of indie pop somehow manages to be assured without being a dick about it, recalling the more upbeat moments of Belle and Sebastian but avoiding the preciousness. This is how it's done, kids. - RM
How does Guelph do it? After the Guelph invasion of the early 00's that brought us Royal City, The Constantines, Jim Guthrie and others, I thought it might fade from our mental map and a generational turnover might leave that town musically high and dry. Not so. Not only has the scene there maintained, it's resurged, producing some of the most exciting and unique music in Canada right now. Brides stand out not only for having the best hair, but for being unique among it's local brethren, approaching something more... let's say skronky. Imagine a mashup between The Contortions, DNA and Teenage Jesus and The Jerks and you're getting close. - RM
Fingernail bitten and salted bootlaces the only reminder of your first high school crush since your last divorce. Well wishes that never made it to the mantle. Fifty cups of coffee never black enough. Two weeks learning to whistle in the wrong key. A pack of smokes in a rusted van planted in a suburban city outskirt. Hot chocolate and brandy and motorcycle calendars. A bottle of cheap local wine lying on the park slide. “I think we should break up.” “I think we already did that.” A cappella parenting and three hits of acid. A stolen bumper boat and your initials carved in a tree beside the initials of someone you haven’t thought about in awhile, a sorta long while now. - KP
Day 4 - February 15, 2009 @ Sneaky Dee's
Dub: Jamaican studio culture, wherein reggae songs are stripped off their vocals, the drum and bass frequencies are tweaked, the instrumental jams are extended and drenched in reverb. Mi Ami are steeped in dub and punk — Daniel Martin McCormick and Jacob Long were once part of hyperactive, drum-heavy D.C./Dischord crew Black Eyes. Now based in San Francisco, they're a trio with Damon Palermo on drums, and together Mi Ami are keeping alive the conversation beween dub and punk started by such bands as P.I.L. and the Pop Group in the late '70s. Fuzz and echo coalesce around clattering rhythms and manic vocalizations; it's one hell of a hellride to the bottom of the sea or the heart of the sun. Quarterstick, that arty offshoot of Chicago's Touch and Go Records (once home to the Jesus Lizard, Slint, Big Black and many other Important Americans) has picked them up and disseminated their Echononecho 12", while their full-length Watersports should be out any day now. They're here on a double-header tour with Thank You, and we're thrilled to have them help our Sunday night finale reach immediate lift-off. -JD
Baltimore: You're probably thinking of The Wire. Or John Waters. And we can't blame you for wanting to obsessively consider either. But, right now we're thinking of the fine tradition of spazzy post-punk bands from B-more: Lungfish, Oxes, Ponytail... and now, Thank You (ma'am). They are Jeffrey McGrath, Michael Bouyoucas and Elke Wardlaw, and they describe themselves as an "athletic rhythm/action unit," and though that reminds me of the old Steve Kado quip about "men who practice," I think it's something we're not hearing enough of. Especially around these parts, and with the recent demise of I Can Put My Arm Back On You Can't, I think everyone who might be thinking of starting a band — and do you really know what you're getting into? — should be showing up to this gig with notepads in hand. What we've heard of Thank You and their Thrill Jockey debut Terrible Two is mighty impressive, so their Toronto premiere on Feb. 15 should be a workout for your brain and appendages. - JD
Arpeggios! Swooshes! Electronic bubbles like a National Geographic special about volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean! Soaring cirrus clouds! Rainbow halos from the ice crystals around the sun! Northern lights dancing over the shining tundra! And this is just when Shaw-Han Liem plays all alone with his 'puters and pedals. Just imagine what would happen if he arranged this music into a full band. Well imagine no longer... - DP
There was much debate at WL436 about Owls. Specifically what sense does an owl have to give up in order to see at night? Many suggestions were forthcoming, many of them were probably scientifically correct, but the one that stuck was this: If an owl can see in the dark, it forfeits its ability to see in the light. That's how I came to understand the understated brilliance of Vowls, as I groped around in the dark of the song I realized that if I wanted to understand these textures of glocks and beats I had to stop looking for what I could see and instead to look for the shadows of what I was missing, suddenly polyrhythms leapt out of the sampled beats and hooks came out of the harmonies. Then everybody started to dance. - DP
Foxfire are mostly known for their costumes, their partying, and turning the dance floor in a sweaty pile of half naked bodies. But in the last year Foxfire have also stepped up their game musically, crafting a sly mix of pop, soul and disco with an emphasis on breakdowns and crescendos. Don't let song titles like "Black Light, Dick Fight" fool you, these kids are more than just a flash-in-the-pan. That said, the fun? Oh man the fun. Lead man Neil Rankin dominates the stage like a televangelist casting out demons. In fact, I'm tempted to call them Gospel Disco 'cause as soon as they're done you'll be falling to your knees, short of breath and praying for more. - RM
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