B.A. JOHNSTON INTERVIEW

This is my first interview I ever did. I interviewed Hamilton's favourite son B.A. Johnston when he stopped at Murphy's Pub in Oshawa, Ontario on November 20, 2010.

SK: When did you start making music? You’ve only been releasing albums since 2002 but when did you actually start?

BA: I guess probably around 2000 was when I first started playing shows and stuff like that.

SK: Well did you write music before that?

BA: No, well I knew a lot of people that played in bands. In high school most of my friends played music but I didn’t, and then I went to university, in my first year…I guess not even my first year, maybe I was playing in the 90’s. Yeah, maybe since like ’98 or ’97, I can’t remember.

SK: Like open mics and whatnot?

BA: Yeah, I did open mics for a long time. I lived in North Bay for a little while so I played a lot of shows. There was no local bands in North Bay, so I was one of the 3 bands, and I just played guitar. I don’t even think I even really had songs, I think it was kinda like weird improv. The audience would be like, ‘sing a song about Power Rangers’ or something and I would do that.

SK: So that’s where you got influenced to do songs like you do now?

BA: Yeah, songwriting…my subject matter’s always been pretty similar for the most part.

SK: Just stuff you like and random things?

BA: Yeah, random things, and a lot of cultural reference stuff

SK: What part of your life do you write about, the relationships and stuff, because it seems like you’re writing about the past.

BA: I try to keep a lot of the BA Johnston records treading similar ground, I try to tackle all the same subjects and I try not to evolve it purposely. As far as subject matter goes, I’m really worried I’ll alienate people if I change too much, which is kind of lame but I guess that’s the way it is.

SK: So you keep half the songs on each album about relationships and half the songs about random stuff?

BA: Yeah, I’ll do relationship stuff definitely because that stuff seems to be popular, and then a lot of songs about food, and that kind of stuff. Food songs, Hamilton songs, video game songs, Peterborough songs.

SK: What differences are there with the new album (Thank You For Being A Friend)?

BA: I would think the biggest change in most of the records is that who produces them has varied over the years, so they tend to sound a little different. Subjectwise, this new record probably just has less party songs than Stairway To Hamilton did. It had more songs with the beat in the background, this record’s not as much of that.

SK: I think the new album is a lot more professional sounding than your other albums.

BA: Yeah, the guy did a really good job. I have no complaints on that end, that’s for sure.

SK: How did you get signed by Just Friends Records?

BA: Well I lived in Halifax for a while. They put on a show for me before I met them. I played in a couple of people who run the label’s garage. And then when I moved there I was putting out My Heart Is A Blinking Nintendo and I just asked if they would put it out. I mean, it really doesn’t even say all that much. They basically did the album art and put their logo on it.

SK: Why do you think …Blinking Nintendo is your most popular album?

BA: I’ve sold a lot of that record because it’s been around longer. I think Stairway To Hamilton’s probably just as good, …Blinking Nintendo’s just been out for 3 more years. I think the guitar songs are pretty good. I worked on the songs for a long time before the record came out. A lot of my records are really rushed, but on that one I got to take a lot more time, which doesn’t always happen. I was playing instruments more, like I was playing my guitar at home a lot more than I usually do. It was an inspired time.

SK: When did you start touring like you do now, for most of the year?

BA: Maybe like 2005, 2004. I think my first cross-Canada tour was in 2004. Since then it’s slowly gotten busier and busier. This year has been particularly busy, tour-wise. Compared to most bands, I tour more than they do I bet.

SK: How much time have you had off this year?

BA: I’ve had one weekend off since Labour Day. But this has been really busy because the record came out right after Labour Day so I wanted to play as many places as possible right when the record became available. This next week I have a couple more shows and then I have a month off. I think I have a week tour in January, and then in February I won’t do much. Usually September-October and March-April are my super busy periods.

SK: What are your musical influences, since everybody knows what your lyrical influences are.

BA: Probably my biggest hero in high school was a guy named Daniel Johnston who was a songwriter who I think was from Texas. I guess he’s a bit crazy but he writes these really beautiful songs, but I guess he actually is a crazy person which I didn’t realize. It’s weird to say that I’m a better musician than someone but I probably am a better musician than him, as far as technically playing guitar goes. But he writes better songs, they’re just really sweet, innocent songs, and I was really into his music when I was younger for sure.

SK: How long do you think you can keep on touring like you do?

BA: That’s a very good question. Every year I tend to say ‘this is it, I’m not going to do it anymore’. Usually I really get burned out by May, I want to kill myself in May because I’ll be on tour for most of the year, so then I’ll take May off. The last couple of years I’ve played Sappyfest in the summertime in Sackville, New Brunswick, and that kind of gets you back on track, gets you pretty inspired to do stuff. I think anytime music becomes your job you’re going to have periods where you’re really burnt out and periods where you’re kind of excited. As long as I stay interested in it, I think it’s when you feel like you’re losing momentum that’s when I find you want to stop doing it.

SK: Well, what else would you even do?

BA: Well that’s another reason why I don’t stop.

SK: You could sell hot dogs.

BA: That is probably what I thought, a hot dog restaurant.

SK: Or you could start a used car dealership.

BA: I know a lot about used cars now. I probably could do that.

SK: How many cars have you even had?

BA: Well, I’ve had a lot of cars explode, because I was buying a lot of cars or people would give me cars that would basically last one tour and they would break.

SK: You have the Previa, you have a Grand Marquis…

BA: I had a Grand Marquis, it exploded. My mom gave me a Mazda, it exploded. I bought a Tercel, it exploded.

SK: And an AMC?

BA: I have an AMC but it’s too scary to drive any real distance. It just goes to the grocery store. I mean, I’ve taken it to Peterborough to play a show and it was very scary. Basically fill up the gas and don’t stop the car. It has four wheel drive and everything, but random horrible stuff happens. It just stops working all the time.

SK: Are you comfortable with the level of popularity you have right now?

BA: Yeah, I mean, obviously I’d be happier doing better at shows but I find the most fun shows are the ones that have 100 or less people at them, because it’s easier for me to interact with the crowd and it’s probably more fun for the audience when it’s more quiet. I find the shows that are really busy, it’s sometimes hard to keep the audience’s attention.

SK: Not the ones that have like 2 people.

BA: Well when I play shows for 2 people it’s really easy because you don’t have to play for very long and if there’s only 2 people they’d be forced to watch you out of guilt because there’s no one else there.

SK: What if you suddenly became extremely popular, if one of your songs just took off?

BA: I wouldn’t hate it, just because I would want the sweet money that hopefully that would get, but I’m not holding my breath. I find I tend to do well in towns I don’t play very often, like I played Waterloo last week and there was 50-60 people at that show, so I’m quite happy with that too.

SK: Probably the college crowd.

BA: Yeah, but it’s like, I don’t know that many people in Waterloo. It’s not like I knew a lot of people in the audience. I find it’s weird to go to a town where you don’t know people, it’s mostly strangers, and then there’s a bunch of people there just to see you play. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, how crazy that is.

SK: And strangers like you?

BA: Yeah, because when you first start playing music mostly you’re playing to your friends, and slowly over time your friends stop caring and don’t come anymore and then it’s strangers and then you realize ‘I actually have fans’ and that’s kind of a strange thought.

SK: I’ve always imagined you hosting a TV show in your basement, that seems like something you’d do, like at the beginning of your DVD.

BA: I’d love to do that, a lot of people have talked to me, saying I should do more video stuff or start trying to market myself in that way which I’d again, love to do, it’s just I have no idea how I would do it.

SK: I don’t know, just make DVDs instead of CDs.

BA: Yeah I guess that would make sense.

SK: What’s the best show you’ve ever played?

BA: I don’t know off-hand, I played a show at Sappyfest two years ago, that was pretty amazing, it was probably the busiest crowd I’ve had, there was 200-300 people, people from all over Canada that had come to the festival and they all knew all the words so that felt really really good. Most shows tend to be a lot of fun, but I couldn’t really pick out just one. I do a lot of nights that are terrible more than nights that are amazing.

SK: Usually ‘Grease Lullaby’ is the only song people know the words to, right?

BA: Oh yeah, well ‘Grease Lullaby’, people know the words to that, even places where I assume they don’t know the words. Usually I don’t sing it and then a few people will start and I’ll feel guiltily obligated to.

SK: Just because it’s the catchiest song. Keyboard or guitar, which do you prefer?

BA: I write more songs on the guitar, keyboard kind of evolved. I found a keyboard in my parent’s house under a staircase and started to write songs with that just the break up the monotony of seeing a songwriter all night with guitar. But I write most songs on guitar, I find these days if I’m going to write a keyboard song I have to go to the basement and sit down at the keyboard and say ‘I’m gonna do it’. On guitar I’ll play while I’m watching TV and I tend to write songs a lot faster with guitar. My keyboard songs are all just based on the auto-beats, and I’ve already gone through the four chord progressions available.

SK: Yeah, like ‘Squirrel Song’ and ‘Call Me Lothar’ are the same.

BA: Yeah, it’s pretty much the exact same, there’s actually many of those songs are the exact same chord progression. Sweet G-C-D, that’s the best stuff.

LISTEN

B.A. Johnston

December 7, 2010: Freelance Whales, El Mocambo, Toronto, ON

           The El Mocambo is such a misleading venue. To get to it you have to walk past a multitude of shoddy Chinese establishments and then the entrance to the venue itself is marked by a giant neon sign (that barely works) with a palm tree on it and an unmarked old door. It just seems like the sketchiest place to the casual observer. Once you get inside though, everything changes. The sound is amazing, and so is the atmosphere, and it’s never too crowded. This then, was a fitting venue in which to see Freelance Whales.

            Just after 8:30 pm, Freelance Whales’ own Nicole Mourelatos, performing under her stage name Doris Cellar. Her set was a solo acoustic affair, except with ukelele replacing the normal guitar. Surprisingly, she played every song with just ukelele. The crowd seemed to really enjoy her, and by the end of her set, the El Mocambo was as full as it would get all night.

            Next up were Brooklyn (every band on the bill were from Brooklyn, NY) alt-country/indie rock band Mia Riddle. Mia Riddle is the name of the frontwoman/songwriter and the band just goes under her name. The atmosphere changed completely when they played, changing from a hipster coffee house to a bar in Montana. Mia and the band had just the right amount of country twang instilled in their music to be convincing. The only complaint I had about their set is that the banjo was mostly inaudible. Other than that, they sounded perfect, and a lot of their songs were extremely strong also. Generally, their best songs were the faster ones.

            After a surprisingly short set-up time (considering the amount of instruments they use) Freelance Whales started up their set. Surprisingly, they didn’t open with ‘Generator First Floor’, which was the first song on their debut album Weathervanes. That was surprisingly because that song is just a perfect opener. Instead they opened with a new song, which is always a sure way for a band to start off the set on the wrong foot. Sound issues immediately because apparent, but maybe that was also because no one knew the song. They then launched into ‘Kilojoules’ which sounded a lot better. They finally played ‘Generator First Floor’ third. Even that song, one of the best of 2010, didn’t sound right. Throughout their set, whenever all the band members played together it just sounded wrong. Not so wrong that it ruined the song, but wrong in a distracting way. However, when they reduced to playing one or two instruments or when the band members all sang together it sounded amazing. The sound was perfect for Mia Riddle, so I don’t know what happened. The band also played another new song that they had released onto the internet earlier this year called ‘Enzymes’. That song and the other new songs they played didn’t appear to be at the same level of quality as their older songs, but maybe in the studio they can be improved. Freelance Whales played Weathervanes in its entirety, which was nice. It’s always nice to see a band when they only have one album out because you can be mostly assured that they’ll play the song you want to hear.

            Overall, this was a good show, but not as good as it could have been.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Doris Cellar

Mia Riddle

Freelance Whales

Album Review: Escape The Fate: Escape The Fate

It’s nice to see that the spirits of 1987 and 2005 live on. On their third album, Escape The Fate (entirely unironically) combine the attitude of 80’s hair metal with mid-2000’s screamo/emo and a modern metal sensibility. That third element is what makes most of this album boring and unmemorable, and stops it from achieving greatness.

ETF’s debut album, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, (made with original vocalist Ronnie Radke) was a great album, and they’ve never achieved those heights since then. 2008’s This War Is Ours was simply terrible, with few redeeming features (yet it inexplicably raised the band’s profile). Therefore it wasn’t that hard to improve on it, and Escape The Fate does just that with flying colours, even though this isn’t a great album by any means. It starts off with an interesting intro, and then transitions into ‘Massacre’, one of the most blatant ripoffs in recent years. The song is almost a complete xerox of Bring Me The Horizon’s ‘Chelsea Smile’. Thankfully, the rest of the album sounds more like Escape The Fate themselves. They continue the defining sound they began on This War Is Ours, albeit in improved form. Most of the songs have catchy choruses, big guitar solos, and end up sounding mostly the same so it’s hard to find standouts. That’s just until you reach the end of the album. The final two songs are by far the best on this album. ‘World Around Me’ is unashamedly a power ballad, and is all the better for it. The chorus is very memorable, and the song is just well-written in general. It transitions into ‘The Aftermath (The Guillotine III). ETF have included an installment into their ‘Guillotine’ series on every album, and each time it has been one of the best songs on each album. This time is no exception. It’s about the only time they embrace their Dying Is Your Latest Fashion roots. It’s just great screamo. Speaking of screamo, yes, this album is very outdated sounding. It sounds like it should have been made in 2005, but I guess 13-year old emo girls’ music tastes haven’t changed THAT much in 5 years, so they’ll probably lap it up. Vocals-wise though, is where this album shows the most improvement, and Craig Mabbitt has never sounded so good. He’s really come into his own. It makes you wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t left blessthefall or The Word Alive.

On their major-label debut, Escape The Fate show signs of returning to their former glory, but they don’t really seem like they want to. They’re just content with their pop-metal that sounds like it belongs on the shelf with Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance 5 years ago.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Escape The Fate

November 26, 2009: Lights, Kool Haus, Toronto, ON.

This is the first review I ever wrote.

It's weird how music works isn't it? Tell me a year ago that a year into the future that someone like Lights would be my favourite artist I definitely wouldn't have believed it. But I'm glad I did randomly turn on the TV that one day last December and saw the Drive My Soul video and became instantly hooked.

Anyways, this show apparently was Lights' biggest headlining show to date, so she needed to bring her A-Game. Opening act Jets Overhead might have brought their A-Game but it wasn't enough to significantly wow the crowd, especially since they played for almost an hour, which seems far too long for an opening act that most people in the audience don't know. Half an hour, no more, no less, that's what they should have played. Still, at least they got a smattering of polite applause between songs, it wasn't completely still. The singer at one point went on a short tangent about the Olympics in Vancouver maybe not being a good thing, and I'm sure it went over 60% of the audience's heads.

Speaking of the audience, it was surprisingly diverse. I was expecting to be one of the only 19-year-old guys there, but I was proved wrong, there were quite a lot of guys, I'd say they made up at least 35% of the crowd. Of course there were a lot of little girls, but not as many as I thought there would be. And there were also the required Lights-lookalike girls, copying both her old headband-wearing style and her current messy-yet-not-messy hairstyle. There were girls so young they had to be chaperoned by their parents and adults who were there not chaperoning anyone. It just shows the appeal of Lights, she just makes great pop music.

That brings me to Lights. After a short musical intro she came on to deafening cheers, and immediately launched into 'The Listening'. The first thing readily apparent was how good the sound was. I'd never heard the music sound so clear at the Kool Haus. I don't know if they got a new PA or if it was just how well Lights music fit the venue, but everything sounded just perfect. The second thing I noticed was the seeming lack of energy in the crowd, that was probably my only problem with the night, no one moved! Sure most people sang every word and all the cheering after every song was suitably loud but still, it would have been much more enjoyable if the energy level was just off the charts and everyone in the whole place was moving/dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. For her second song, Lights played 'Lions!' which she introduced by saying it was about her favourite video game (IE WoW). From looking at this site and her forum, I was thinking that it seemed like it was people's favourite song on the album, but it seemed to get a really weak response, which was weird. Between songs Lights seemed to be at a lack for words, she seemed genuinely surprised/grateful/amazed that her music could be so popular and inspire such fanfare. I'm saying that because when most bands thank the fans and say they're the luckiest people in the world and such it never seems really believable, but with Lights you could believe every word. Even when she said the prerequisite 'this is quickly turning into one of my favourite shows ever' it seemed like the truth. Of course that was said after some scene boy who looked like a miniature Rob Dyer ran from side stage and hugged her and quickly was taken away by security. I'm still not convinced it wasn't staged, since it happened between songs which was too good timing. After that Lights threw a few curveballs into her set, including a beautiful solo piano version of 'Pretend', which sounded so identical to the version at the end of The Listening it wasn't even funny. Lights' voice over the whole night sounded exactly like the album, which most pop singers can't say they can do. It's even more impressive considering how Lights uses auto-tune in some songs and doesn't use it live. She hit all the bigger notes better than I've heard her do before. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, her older songs got the biggest reaction (even 'White’, which WAS definitely surprising, considering it's nowhere near the technical level of her newer songs). 'February Air', 'Ice', and of course 'Drive My Soul' all inspired bigger singalongs than any of the other songs, even 'Saviour'. She even performed an awesome new instrumental song that sounded amazing, since she doesn't feature nearly enough instrumental parts in her songs. Oh, and another thing, this Canadian tour is her first tour that incorporated a visual element into the set. For two songs, I think it was 'Face Up' and 'White’, she played black and white stock footage on the screen, first of buildings being blown up and atomic bomb explosions, and then of a bunch of 1930s horror movie footage, seemingly from Nosferatu and Frankenstein. Both of which were weird accompaniments to her music, especially the bombs. Anyways, eventually her initial set came to an end after a well-received 'Last Thing On Your Mind'. But of course no one was leaving, as the obligatory two-song encore was going to happen. She came back on, and arguably performed two of the highlights of the night (along with the aforementioned 'Pretend' and her performance of 'Quiet'). First she launched into a cover of Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight’, which was amazing, especially the fast synth-pop part at the end that was 'Second Go'-ish. Then she found a stool and a guitar, and performed 'February Air' for the second time of the night, but this time acoustically. Here you could hear just how good her voice was and how good the song itself was. But I'm not saying that second keyboardist Adam and drummer Maurie weren't playing well last night, because they were, they were essential parts of the set all night.

Overall, I’d say it was probably musically if not the best, then one of the best shows I've been to in terms of how good the songs sounded, but the atmosphere/energy level just wasn't as high as some of the other great concerts I've been to. But it was definitely worth missing the Star Wars symphony for.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Jets Overhead

Lights

November 27, 2010: Tattoo Show, EP Taylor's, Oshawa, ON.

            Backstage Photography had an idea. An idea to take pictures of people’s tattoos from around the college. And then put on a show to go with an exhibition of these tattoo pictures. So that’s exactly what they did. This is that show.

            A favourite of Takeover Management, First To Three opened up the night. It immediately became apparent that this band was an amorphous blob of music, with no defining characteristics whatsoever. Maybe they’re a punk band, but no one song is a pop song, and look, two other songs are just straightahead rock. They seemed to display no ambition of having any ideas of their own, but maybe that was the point. They weren’t TERRIBLE, but they also weren’t GREAT.

            Pickering pop-punkers In Lights followed, filling half an hour with as much catchiness as they could. This was another band with no new ideas, but that’s expected from pop-punk, a genre that hasn’t had any new ideas in 15 years aside from the addition of emo to its sound. In Lights put on a pretty solid performance, with a sound akin to The Maine, Cute Is What We Aim For, All Time Low and the multitudes of other bands in this genre. That said, In Lights were better than most of the pop-punk bands that have record deals and are selling thousands of records to 13 year old girls nowadays.

            Closing out the night were undoubtedly the best hardcore band in Durham region, Cedardale. Personally, this is the first time I’ve seen the ‘new’ lineup live. Earlier this year, former vocalist Corey Angus left the band, and guitarist Nathan Penney stepped up to lead vocal duties. This left the band with just one guitarist, and that leaves a big gap in their sound live. Nathan also isn’t as dynamic a vocalist as Corey was, seemingly screaming at the same pitch all the time unlike Corey. Nathan still does a good job though, and Cedardale are still a great band. One of the best things about them is that they know how to use synth to accentuate the music, and it’s never the lead instrument, it just lends atmosphere, and that’s something not a lot of bands have figured out. This band could do big things if they decide to pursue it.

            Even though the attendance was disappointing, it was still an enjoyable show, and everyone got to see the multitude of tattoos gracing the skin of Durham College.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

First To Three

In Lights

Cedardale

November 14, 2010: Anamanaguchi, Korova Milkbar, Toronto, ON

            Everyone probably had one of those nights in the early 1990’s. You know the nights I mean, trying to grip the sweaty controller as you tried to finally beat that impossible level of Super Mario Bros. 3 that you’d been playing over and over for 4 hours. Anamanaguchi are the band created to soundtrack those nights. And the show on this night was just as great as one of THOSE nights.

            A quartet hailing from New York City, Anamanaguchi specialize in making 8-bit music with live instruments. If you don’t know how that would sound, imagine a pop punk band playing an old NES and a Gameboy on stage, because that is almost exactly what Anamanaguchi are. They actually have old Nintendo game consoles on a table onstage, and before each song find some hacked 8-bit jingle (originals, not songs from old games) to play along with. This makes their music very nostalgic and upbeat. Easy to dance to.

            This made for a highly appealing proposition in the confined settings of the Korova Milk Bar. The upstairs venue would be bursting at the seams if 50 people were inside, and there were almost that many in the room tonight. It was hot and steamy as the guys walked onstage, and ‘frontman’ (frontman is in quotes because Anamanaguchi are an instrumental band) Peter began by saying ‘Because of birthdays and cupcakes and shit, we will play songs’. And play songs they did. And to those songs, the crowd danced. And danced. And danced especially hard to set highlights ‘Another Winter’ and ‘Mermaid’. ‘Mermaid’ is a ten-thousand-pound steamroller of a song, a good 3 times heavier than anything else they played and over 7 minutes long. Length aside, it still got the strongest reaction of anything played tonight and even inspired crowdsurfing in the tiny venue. Eventually the set came to an end, and Peter introduced the closer by saying ‘As you all know, we’re named after our 3 favourite fashion houses, Armani, Prada, and Gucci, but we still haven’t done a song with Gucci Mane. Until now’. They then launched into a pretty epic cover of Mane’s hit ‘I’m The Shit’, complete with sampled vocals from the original. Anamanaguchi didn’t play an encore on this night, but it didn’t even matter, because everyone was thoroughly satisfied with being brought back to their basements in 1994.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Anamanaguchi

October 30, 2010: Skalloween, EP Taylor's, Oshawa, ON.

EP Taylor’s was surprisingly empty at the beginning of this show, considering all of the Music Business Management students who should have been there, but by the time the third band, High Top Society, started playing some Port Perry-style ska/punk, the floor was pretty packed. It took until then for the energy to reach a climax, because things were pretty sleep through the sets of the painfully average Curtain Jumper and the just plain painful Unconscious Encore. There were some technical difficulties for Unconscious’ set but they still weren’t good enough to overcome them. Those same difficulties led to some lengthy set-up times for all of the bands but the last 4 bands played well cnough to make up for it. The aforementioned High Top Society were probably the high point of the night, getting most of the room skanking and moving to the music. After them came Sound One, who would be more at home on a cruise ship then in a bar. They were the only band with a brass section and they also put the most effort into their Halloween costumes. They weren’t the most inspiring band but at least they were unique and memorable. The penultimate band were Treble Warriors, who brought the most energy to the stage of anyone all night, and they earned a rare (for a band that wasn’t headlining) request for an encore. Headlining, of course, were Mean Tangerine, who appeared on MuchMusic’s DisBAND earlier this year. They put on a good show and earned a few new fans. Overall, this wasn’t the greatest show I’ve ever been to (I’m also not exactly a ska fan) but it was well organized by the folks at Breakthru Promotions and MBM Concert Productions.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Curtain Jumper

Unconscious Encore

High Top Society

Sound One

Treble Warriors

Mean Tangerine

October 18, 2010: Enter Shikari, Annex Wreckroom, Toronto, ON.

             Enter Shikari have a reputation to keep up, a reputation as one of the most energetic live bands on the planet. And this night did nothing to change that.

            The first band to perform was British synth-rock/remix duo Lights Go Blue. They featured a singing drummer, a guitarist, and a lot of synth samples playing in the background. It seemed like the synth was more important than the guitar in their music so maybe their guitarist should consider switching instruments. They put on a good show, but being struck by the dual blows of being both the first band to play, and the least heavy band on the bill, they didn’t get the best reaction from the crowd.

            Next up was a screamo/metalcore band from Italy named Ms. White. Being from Italy, which isn’t really a hotbed of heavy music (other than the somewhat similar but much better electrocore band Helia), they weren’t really up to date on current trends and sounded like an American band circa 2007. Still, they are a recent signing to Rise Records so they probably have a bright future in North America. Their set started off extremely bland but got better as it went along and by the end they were playing better songs that incorporated more progressive elements.

            The third band to play were a quintet from Michigan going by the name of Sleeping With Sirens. They were probably the first band that played that people in the crowd were familiar with. However, that doesn’t mean that they’re good. Unlike Ms. White, SWS are up to date with current trends (of the Emarosa/Dance Gavin Dance/In Fear and Faith variety) so they didn’t do anything that you couldn’t see coming from a mile away. Their music was about as creative as their name (which sounds like it was dreamt up by an executive at a label). The singer’s voice was about as thin as body, and whenever he tried to sing in falsetto, he failed epically. Perhaps he should follow another current trend, Auto-Tune.

            Haste The Day played fourth, and a good 30% of the crowd was there just to see them. They’ve made a career out of adjusting their brand of metalcore every album to fit in with what’s popular. 2010’s version of Haste The Day features more singing than ever before, but most of their songs are still forgettable. The exception was ‘White As Snow’, which slowed the pace down and was really nice, almost achieving a Deftones atmosphere. They played their best known song ‘When Everything Falls’ last and it got an even bigger reaction than a lot of Enter Shikari’s songs.

            Speaking of Enter Shikari, it was about that time. They aren’t that big of a band yet that they have roadies to set up their stuff so they still do it themselves. The set-up times all night were pretty short so it wasn’t long before the opening synth lines of ‘Solidarity’ rung out across the Wreckroom. The energy level instantly tripled and everyone in the all ages section started moving and didn’t stop for the next hour. Enter Shikari had a lot of interludes and added new parts to their songs live to keep it interesting, including a ribcage-destroying dubstep intro to ‘Mothership’. They are big fans of dubstep, and at least 6 songs had dubstep parts, and almost that many had drum n’ bass influenced moments. Unlike most of the other electrocore bands around today, Enter Shikari are just as much (if not more) into electronic music as hardcore. After an energetic ‘Sorry You’re Not a Winner’ (which was their best received song), they started walking offstage, and the chants of ‘one more song’ started before all the members had gotten backstage. They came back quickly to play an encore of ‘Enter Shikari’ and ‘Juggernauts’ (with another added dubstep part). It was safe to say everyone in the room was satisfied.

            This show (Enter Shikari’s first headline show in Toronto in over 3 years) just cemented their reputation as one of the best live bands around today.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Lights Go Blue

Ms.White

Sleeping With Sirens

Haste The Day

Enter Shikari

Album Review: Abandon All Ships: Geeving

This is the debut album from electrocore sextet Abandon All Ships. One of the main elements that made AAS stand out from all the other local hardcore bands was the coherent songwriting they displayed right from the start. Where other bands gave the feeling that they started a song, put together a bunch of ‘cool ideas’ the various members had, stuck in a few breakdowns, and decided to end it four minutes later, AAS did not. Five of the songs on this album are re-recorded versions of older songs, and all of them are improved. Some of the new songs are just as good as the old songs, while others aren’t. ‘Guardian Angel’ is the standout song, the one you’re most likely to be humming after hearing it. For some, the Auto-Tune will be a complaint, but this genre of music just wouldn’t be complete without it, like 80’s pop without saxophone solos. You get the impression though that when this genre is dead, AAS will adapt and survive because they have the pop sensibility. They seem one of the only bands playing electrocore other than Enter Shikari that would be playing it even if it wasn’t cliché at the moment. They genuinely do enjoy cheesy trance and brutal hardcore, and aren’t just doing it because everyone else is. If you haven’t heard AAS, just combine Basshunter and The Devil Wears Prada in your mind and you’re 9/10^ths of the way there.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Abandon All Ships

September 27, 2010: Foals, Lee's Palace, Toronto, ON.

There was a strong element of body heat before Foals walked onstage. The sold-out crowd was abuzz about what songs they’d play, the sound guy’s choice to play Weezer and Deftones between bands, and apparently some sort of Jedi war. It seemingly took forever but around 10:15, the music silenced itself and Oxford, England’s finest (other than a certain other Oxford quintet that starts with ‘radio’ and ends with ‘head’) walked out onstage to thunderous applause.

            Earlier in the night, fellow Bris Esben and the Witch played a half-hour set. I was unfamiliar with their music coming into the night, but they played a good set. They sounded good, and vocalist Rachel often looked possessed. It only took until the second song for the three band members to gather around a floor tom and cymbal at the front of the stage and bang it maniacally and rhythmically for multiple minutes. Their music consisted of a lot of guitar noise with a very heavy electronic backbeat and a girl yelling or mewling over top of it. Sometimes it sounded like HEALTH, and sometimes it sounded like newer These New Puritans. There are rather a lot of bands that make this type of female-fronted experimental art-rock nowadays and I don’t listen to enough of it to tell how Esben and the Witch separate themselves from the pack, but they must have something special for Foals to specifically pick them to open for them.

            With that, it was time for the aforementioned Foals. They launched immediately into the title track from their latest album Total Life Forever. This began a theme of the night where their old songs got much better receptions than the new songs. That was a bit of a surprise since it seems like Foals fans universally liked the new album, some even more than the old one (Antidotes). This became immediately apparent when they played an old song, ‘Olympic Airways’, second and the energy level instantly increased. The highlight of the night was, predictably, their performance of ‘Spanish Sahara’ because it is their best song as well as their most epic. Speaking of epic, the ending of ‘2 Trees’ sounds epic on the album, but they somehow made it even more epic live. That was another thing, they regularly added new parts to the instrumental parts of their songs, almost always improving them. The two songs that got the biggest reaction on the night were ‘Balloons’ and ‘Red Sock Pugie’, both old songs, and it was surprising because neither of them were released as singles and neither were standout tracks on Antidotes. Yannis is the band’s singer/co-lead guitarist, and live he is cemented as the band’s definite frontman. He was the only member who said anything between songs and the only one who ever moved from the stage; he went into the crowd multiple times and at one point during the set closer (‘Two Steps, Twice’) he made it all the way to the back of the room and played while standing on the bar. Something that happened that somewhat negatively affected the set was that guitarist Jimmy had technical difficulties with his instrument throughout the second half. He had to get the guitar tech to switch/fix his guitars multiple times, but the rest of the band took this well, usually expanding the song they were playing or playing an instrumental while he was getting his problems resolved.

            Overall I think the crowd was satisfied, and the general consensus was that it was a great show. Lee’s Palace is a nice venue because it doesn’t get extremely crowded or suffocatingly hot like some other places do, so it was a good place for this show to take place. The volume of the show also wasn’t extremely loud, it didn’t really cause  too much ear ringing in comparison to other shows. So, until probably 2 years from now when Foals come back, this has quenched our thirst.

-Scott Kendall

LISTEN

Esben and the Witch

Foals

September 24, 2010: Vacant Music Show, Armouries North Room, Lindsay, ON.

This show was significant in that it marked the return of Vacant Music to the Lindsay scene. Founded by Wayne Kennedy but nowadays run more by Zac Murray, Vacant were responsible for almost single handedly saving the Lindsay music scene after it died sometime in 2007/2008. They put mostly put on punk shows with bands from all over southern Ontario but also booked bands representing almost every genre. This March they held a so-called ‘Last Show’ in Lindsay because apparently after that they were only going to hold shows in Oshawa, but everyone pretty much knew that wasn’t going to hold true for long. They still will do shows in Oshawa after this one but also a few in Lindsay.

Anyways, let’s talk about tonight. The first two bands to play both embraced the uncommon concept of two dedicated vocalists and, similarly, both had one too many. In bands that have made their name by having two vocalists, such as The Blood Brothers and Set Your Goals, the singers generally have two totally different voices and spread vocal duties evenly. In the first band to play, Pontypool’s Construct (formerly Burning The Skyline), one of the vocalists (Mark) was completely unnecessary. His only contribution was occasional off-key singing that didn’t fit in with their pseudo-metalcore songs at all. He probably only sang 10% of the time. I’d recommend dropping him and fine-tuning their songs more before playing again. This was one of the band’s first shows so I can excuse the quality of their music, because they’re still maturing, but they did show some potential. Their other vocalist (Jordan) was good enough to stay with the band. After playing a few songs and everyone going outside the venue because the band said they were done, Construct played an encore with only 4 of their members (no bass and no second guitar), and it actually sounded better than their actual set. The second band was Ajax’s Ventura. Unlike Construct, both vocalists were represented in each song, but they had a different problem. Both vocalists sounded almost identical (in a live setting at least). Maybe eventually they’ll differentiate their vocal styles, but right now having two is unnecessary. Ventura played a style indebted to The Holly Springs Disaster and other southern hardcore bands, with more death metal-style growled vocals. They put on a good show (especially considering that this was their FIRST show), bringing a good amount of energy, even if the Lindsay crowd wasn’t feeling it most of the time. Musically, they were probably my favourite of the night.

Next up were the comparative grizzled veterans of Absence of Fear. Their particular brand of metalcore featured something the bands preceding them lacked, guitar solos. Unlike some bands which just insert solos so the guitarist can show off (more on that later), Absence of Fear’s solos contribute greatly to their music. They also brought energy to the room, and closed their set with a favourite cover of local bands, ‘Up In Smoke’ by The Holly Springs Disaster. Almost everyone in the room knew the song, and the ‘I AM ROCK & ROLL’ part caused about the only crowd participation of the night (other than moshing of course). I would say that Absence of Fear put on the best show of the night, but that’s probably also because they’ve been playing together the longest.

Last, but not least was The Dystopian Theory. Their drummer was the only female band member of the night, and she was good. The entire band was technically proficient. But here lies the aforementioned guitar solo problem. Unlike Absence of Fear, it seems like the solos in The Dystopian Theory’s songs were just randomly inserted to let the guitarist show off. At one point, between songs, the guitarist just played a random 2 minute guitar solo for no apparent reason, much to the non-appreciation of everyone in the room who wasn’t in/with the band and the canine population of Lindsay. Anyways, their actual songs may have been good (but not as good as Ventura’s or Absence of Fear’s), but they weren’t really audible because the sound was pretty terrible for their set. I don’t think that was really their fault, but still it kind of ruined their set, as did their screamer’s inappropriate use of Aviator sunglasses.

Anyways, this was a typical Vacant Music show, just with less punk than usual, and a few less people, but that was because the Lindsay Fair was on this weekend.

-Scott Kendall 

LISTEN

Construct

Ventura

Absence of Fear

The Dystopian Theory