Here is a little interview I did with Painting with Ella, Edmonton’s cutest folk trio! They were getting ready for playing at kaleido festival on 118th ave on September 10th, 11th, and 12th. Be sure to tune in to BT on September 8th to catch them playing in studio!
I have had some time to sit back and ponder a bit on Sled Island Festival. It was, same as last year, oh so magical. Never a dull moment. In fact there were frequent moments of genius. Nothing moves me like music, I much enjoyed the barrage of new and exciting music mixed with brilliant acts from days past. A time when much of the audience still listened to Raffi.
The diverse bills around downtown and solid schedule kept everyone busy. It was like a journey or pilgrimage really. The Last Day I stuck close to main stages. The Black Lips, No Means No, Big business, The Melvins(!), Dinosaur Jr. Oh man, Overload. I sensed a bit of a drop in the energy for Saturday. The past few days were catching up on everyone. We pressed on, determined to get every last drop of the festivities. Black Lips were my favorite of the Olympic plaza players. No Means No were a surprise second. Beating out the Melvins simply because watching them made me realize that I should have caught their show the night before. The legion was Packed for Hunter Gatherer, and Peace was quite sweaty. They sounded great, even at the start when they didn’t have a kick drum. No age were pretty cool, but kind of boring. I could have used more volume on the knob twiddler’s gear. The GZA obviously tore the roof off the mother. F*ked up effectively destroyed the remains. What a riot, Damien must have popped a ton of boners over watching the festival over those 4 long days.
I know I would have.
I have a bunch of photos so I am going to give you something to look at before my day 4 recap.
Friday July 2, Olympic plaza was the place to be. F*ked up, Why?, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Thermals, Built to Spill and Girl Talk! But first we killed a few hours at Recordland and then hit the pool, had a few pops. It was really quite incredible to hear F*ked up bouncing off of the the clean walls of downtown Calgary. I could hear it the moment I stepped out of my hostel. Heartwarming, although if Calgary ever got hip enough to lift the noise bylaw, the experience would be mind blowing. As I walked into Olympic Plaza it felt as if I got my second wind. I found an ecstatic Jon Mick in the beer gardens. He sang me a few lines of a Why? song and smiled. After finishing the first of many tall cans we found a cozy little spot by the stage. Why? sound checked. Their set was just as good a the night before. The drummers xylo-accents add a nice little melody atop the calm onslaught of almost too-literal lyrics. Jon’s all smiles as he sings along. Ted Leo tasted better with beer. When the Thermals started to play Pillar of Salt, I was grabbed by the shoulders and pushed into the middle of the the chaos by the stage. I lost my mind for a couple minutes, emerging a little sweaty and in need of another tall can. I planted myself close to the rails at the front for GirlTalk because I knew that things were going to go crazy when he took the stage. Things did, leaf blowers shooting TP into the crowd, a full dance club onstage. I checked my clock, knowing full well I had stayed a bit long. I had to move on, there was plenty of un-mashed music I could be hearing.
I hoofed it to Local 522 to catch Golden Triangle, I caught only the last song when they played at the Legion on Wednesday. It was quite rad, the venue was also totally rad. Cool animal paintings as well as really neat light bulbs hung from the roof. Once the garage surf journey that was Golden Triangle ended, my pals and I made our way to Dickens. It was neat to hear what Cex was doing these days – erratic drums with textured synth meanderings. I thought it was a pretty cool break between the dancey sandwhiching bands. The top bun was Whomadewho. They were so much fun to watch and dance to! All smiles on the floor in front of the stage. We were all invited onstage to dance and sing along, too! Suave Disco from Coppenhagen, definitely in my top 5 favorite acts of the festival. !!! were another delicious sandwich on top of that sandwhich.
Hey there so, I have a double day blog post since I kept myself too busy to blog yesterday. So what did I do? wellllll… Let my try and piece the night together, good thing I have my camera. I guess I started my Thursday off with Boys Who Say No, a tight little rock group with some tasty harmonies and catchy riffs. This was followed by an very energetic performance by Chain and the Gang. It was also fairly conversational, he kept asking us what we wanted to talk about, rock and roll and vinyl came up. Great dance moves also came up!
We then took a little break, took a dip in the pool at the Hyatt hotel. The Black lips had the right idea too, they were up there taking in the view and chlorine. At 6:30 the hostel which hosts me had a Canada day celebration BBQ. 5 bucks for a couple of beers and a burger always sounds good to me. Met a couple folks out from Saskatoon that came for the festival as well. After a few wobbly pops I looked at my watch and realized that I was missing Brazilian Money! off to Bamboo! Unfortunately they were done so I decided to have a beer and watch Cheeseburger rock out. Why? was next on the checklist. Dickens was packed and much of the crowd sang along with the too cool to full on rap or sing, Yoni Wolf. The night ender was definitely deerhoof. I was quite overwhelmed by the strange voice and song structure. That drummer is really really really awesome. really awesome. Once the set ended I needed to go to bed. Stumble stumble through downtown.
Fridays recount must wait, I need some breakfast.
Rolled into Calgary around 9pm and set up at the hostel. Yeah for affordable accommodations! It was decided at the doughnut mill, apparently a required stop for our caravan, that we would head to the legion. We arrived just in time for Quintron and Miss Pussycat and their phairly psychedelic puppet show. After jungle animals used party magic to make some secret pizza, they put on a rocking show for all. Organ solos and maracas equal sweaty dance party. The Almighty Defenders followed with a gospel soaked set. Helping us find our soul again. My favorite act of the night though was definitely Big Freedia. This southern bell really took the dance party to the next level! Bounce music from New Orleans telling us to dribble that A$$ like a basket ball. A couple friends and I volunteered to go on stage and help out with the butt shaking, however my little white butt cannot move as poetically as the bands back-up dancer.
Now I am off to take in some of the staggering amount of events going on today. Happy Canada Day!!
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http://twitter.com/RiverCityRuckus
I rigged up a system so that my record player plays out of my TV. This 80 pound wonder from the 80’s features the advanced technology of Space Command. Turns out that the sound that comes out of this thing is massive! Thank you kijiji ads for free things. I haven’t had a working record player for some time because my amp busted. Now I use my mixing board, routed through my VHS player so I can use a coaxial cable to plug into my ancient TV. At least the TV is good for something, it’s like opposite high-def that remixes whatever your watching by switching the picture to monochromatic purple. And sometimes it just turns off.
Not having a record player didn’t stop me from buying records, so I had a stack of un-appreciated wax. Not to mention my old faves! Now if i’m at home I have an album on, it is great. I keep going back to The Drones album Havilah. The Melbourne band have a pretty unique sound. Its a moody rural sounding rock. Rural as in, if you went any further from civilization you would be very acquainted with the wildlife. Apparently an earlier album was recorded in a barn. One track always seems to make me stop and listen, I found a video of The Drones performing the song in a radio studio performance. Here is Oh My by The Drones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wCWRsj-o0c
They have a free Mp3 for their song The Minotaur available on their website. http://thedrones.com.au/ mmmmmm free music. Here is a strange video for The Minotaur. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsahEX4vA9k&feature=fvw
Hope you enjoy the tunes. It sounds pretty good to me on this Thursday afternoon.
Jaded Hipster Choir is what, 17? No wait he can totally drink legally now. I remember that night at the strat. Here is a Mix he made exclusive for No Modest Bear, a Swedish blog. A sweet Swedish blog. He also has an album up on bandcamp.com. Pay what you want, pretty decent price. He has been really busy with some self promo action. Self promo for the new generation. He emailed a ton of blogs and tons of them feature his album. Jungle Rot, All everyone united, The Hype Machine, and probably way more. Now tons of people outside of Edmonton dig his music! All of these blogs are really cool, really cool people probably read them. I even found this post where he explains what “indie” means. That’s pretty neat. Long story short, he is all over the internet. He is probably gonna be to cool to talk to me soon. One time I took this picture and Thomas was standing behind me. He liked my picture, and he totally copied it. He told me so himself when jammed once before playing a show together as Bear Hug. Best band name ever?>Now Feral Children uses his photo as his profile picture on facebook! I am so jealous of Thomas, he gets some serious blog attention.
Original Feral Children shot
Thomas's version
What an awesome blog post.
Here is that M.I.A. video that you heard about. Did you even watch it yet? I like it.
Come to Remedy cafe tonight! there is going to be a nice ambient/drone/atmospheric/euphoric experience taking place. What that means is
Get lost in the sonic undulations.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=794170359#!/event.php?eid=104066649638467
:p thomas i love you.
Hey there true believers, here are some choice vids of wyrd fest! enjoy.
D’EON
Brazilian Money
Myths
Sharp Ends
Today I bring you a rough cut of a few of the acts whom we lost our sh*t over last year.
Hope after seeing peace again, you remeber how you felt when it was over.
Thoroughly Rocked!