Recent reviews and more.

Hello! Remember me? I've been blogging away over at Narratives, posting my weekly show listings, podcasts, and occasional other fancy things. I have some recent reviews to share with you: of The Junction's new album (and ticket/CD giveaway), the Jon-Rae Fletcher show at Sneaky Dee's at the end of July, and the RAA's CD release show.

Pick of the Week #29: The Parkas - You Should've Killed Us When You Had the Chance

Most of the picks of the week that are made on this here blog are because I really, really, like the albums; many of them are from bands that I feel are under appreciated, and, occasionally, its because I have some type of personal connection (real or imagined) with the band... this time its all of the above!

... read the rest of the story plus mp3s here...

The Parkas Final Show/CD Release. The Silver Dollar. July 25. 2009.

... yes, I have been gone for a while, thanks for noticing...

Today is the official beginning of Parkas week at the Burgeoning Metropolis...

Next Saturday is going to be like a funeral... of a new mother. The Parkas, who are awesome and I've have said so on a number of occasions, are packing it in as a band (they're dying). And, even though they're dying (figuratively) they're releasing a new album, You Should've Killed Us When You Had The Chance (the baby), which is pretty exciting, because we're going to have a way to remember the band.

So, the way I see things going on Saturday is more of a 'celebration of life (and their new bastard child)' rather than the show being a somber, sad affair (feel free to wear bright colours!); as well as, part OISE re-union (I hope). And, who knows, maybe playing their last show is exactly what the band needs to get their record on MTV and start making bazillions of dollars to quit being teachers and doctors and stuff...

*Although (History) Jen has pointed out that Amy Milan and Gentleman Reg are playing down for free down at the harbour front, Mike Brown (Parkas lead singer) points out that: 1/they'll be finished; 2/ they'll be playing again; and I'll point out that, 3/ the Parkas will be WAY more fun than either of them...

Who: The Parkas (duh!) w/ Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy & Whitebelt Octopus
What: Rock and/or Roll
When: 10:30 pm
Where: The Silver Dollar (College & Spadina)
Why: ... why not?
How (much): $6

Win tix to see the Tom Fun Orchestra at The Horseshoe along with a copy of their CD!!

We're partway through this 2009 concert going year, and for now, the Tom Fun Orchestra show that I saw back in January is sitting comfortably in my top 3 shows of the year. This band is one of the mostest funnest bands around and thankfully, they're coming back to Toronto again on Thursday August 6th at The Horseshoe Tavern. Opening for them will be a solo set by current Tom Funner Carmen Townsend, as well as local rock band The Coast.

I've got two tickets to giveaway to the show, along with a copy of their outstanding CD entitled You Will Land With a Thud.

All of the contest rules, along with mp3's and stuff, are posted here.

And while I've got your attention, here's some other stuff I've been up to:

I saw Sonic Youth at Massey Hall and talked about it here.
I attended a Bluegrass Festival in the town of Tottenham and talked about it here.
I saw Ohbijou perform an in-store at Soundscapes and talked about it here.

And I had a rather subdued involvement in this year's NXNE, but still managed to catch a little something everyday.

Day 1 is here featuring Spiral Beach, Amos the Transparent, The Love Machine, The Balconies, Pirate Love and Natalie Portman's Shaved Head.
Day 2 is here featuring Coeur de Pirate, One Hundred Dollars and The Deep Dark Woods.
And day 3 is here featuring The Sonics, The Zoobombs and The Dudes.

I survived NxNE... and here's what's happening the first few days of July.

Hello TMBC readers! Long time, no contact. My bad. Been busy with stuff (still am), but here's this week's listings and podcast. If you aren't paying attention to these, you really should! (Say I.) For my NxNE adventures, go here. Happy show-going/music listening, and happy Canada Day!

"Gravity Has Lost Its Charm"

Hey all! Bobby B, here. You may remember me from such blogs as It's Not The Band I Hate, It's Their Fans and Toronto Music Blog Collective. It just occurred to me that I haven't posted here for about a month or so. It's that dang life of mine getting in the way again. It'll do that sometimes.

In case you're interested, here's some of the music related things that I've been up to:

I saw The National at Kool Haus and reviewed it here.
I saw Lovely Killbots, Whale Tooth, Make Your Exit and Amos The Transparent at The Horseshoe and reviewed it here.
I saw Dog Day at Soundscapes and reviewed it here.
I saw The Fishwives, Hut and Pick A Piper at Rancho Relaxo and reviewed it here.
I saw Slakah The Beatchild at Revival and reviewed it here.
I saw Passion Pit at Lee's Palace but I haven't reviewed it yet because I just got home from the show two seconds ago. But I will probably review it here.

Also I found out about an obscure little local music festival called NXNE that is taking place starting tomorrow. If you're looking for some recommendations or you wanna know what I'm doing at NXNE, then you can read about it here.

Have a good night and I'll blog to ya soon.

The lyric "gravity has lost its charm" is from the song Doom by Hut. Amazing song!

Pick of the Week #23 - Still Life Still

This week's pick = Still Life Still... "not just a Broken Social Scene knock off!"

See the full post at the BM.

Weekly update!

Listings + podcast!

My picks for the Polaris Prize

Interested in what I'd pick if I were a Polaris Juror? No, eh? Huh...

If you change your mind, my post is here.

Introducing Great Bloomers.

Check out my blog for a little "shout out" post about Great Bloomers, a young band with a new record and a cross-Canada summer tour coming up. I met some of them when Tyler and I had them on the podcast ahead of their CD release show. You'll find a mini review, some free song downloads, links to other cool stuff, and the band's upcoming Toronto and Canadian tour dates.

Pick of the Week #22: Pink Mountaintops

Without belabouring the point (I belabour the point here), basically, I'm not really a fan of Stephen McBean, Black Mountain, or people from the West Coast (kidding! about the last part at least), but Outside Love by the Pink Mountaintops is quite good. In a nutshell, the album eschews the messier, grungier, side of Black Mountain and replaces it with a more accessible, free love, sort of boy-girl vocals. They haven't turned into the New Pornographers or something, but they have softened things up enough to win me over...

See last week's pick of the week: Howie Beck

This week's podcast + listings + other stuff!

The podcast is up here.

Featuring Flotilla ("Charlie, I'm Through"), Clara Engel ("Appetite for Pain"), Evening Hymns ("Sentimental Reasons"), The Darling DeMaes ("Girl Soldiers"), The Lovely Feathers ("Lowiza"), and Jordaan Mason & the Horse Museum ("Bird's Nest").

Tyler and I realized that we've already done a year's worth of podcasts! The first one covered the last week of May 2008. So here's to the start of year 2. Thanks so much to everyone who's listened!

As always, we're on the lookout for new music. Streaming from MySpace can be difficult or impossible some days---like yesterday, when the player wasn't at all reliable, so feel free to send me some song files (historyjenATgmailDOTcom).

Another podcast you should know about are the ones done by Justin Beach for the NxEW.ca music blog. Check out previous all-music podcasts here, and submit your band's music for potential inclusion (northbyeastwestATgmailDOTcom).

And the show listings for the rest of this week and the first half of next.

I took in some of the huge Pitter Patter Music Festival on the weekend. And it left me sick come Tuesday. Yeah, PPMF, I blame you. And all the great bands I saw: Octoberman, Sandman Viper Command, Pick A Piper, The Diableros, Sports, Cursed Arrows, The Speaking Tongues, Chang-A-Lang, Mt. Royal, Sarah D., and Drunk Woman. And Slim Twig and Wyrd Visions, too. Also, and most especially, Keith Hamilton. *cough* *sniffle*

Everything is great this week. Here's to hoping I'm well enough to take some of it in. My schedule looks like Flotilla on Thursday, Jordaan Mason et al. on Saturday, and Wavelength on Sunday.

This Saturday is the first AUX.tv "secret session" at TARA. All the details about this can be found here. The first band to do an acoustic session is The Ghost Is Dancing, this Friday at 5pm. It's free to go as long as you RSVP beforehand with your name and the number of people coming.

Finally, there's a new mini-documentary by Egin Kongoli about the Wavelength anniversary shows that happened in February. It's really great, and I encourage you all to check it out.

WL 450 from Egin Kongoli on Vimeo.

New Ohbijou Album "Beacons"

This may be the shortest post ever...

Ohbijou's Beacons came out digitally yesterday, will be out physically (in Canada) June 16, in the US a week later, and it is AWESOME.

You can read everything I've ever written on Ohbijou here.

Live in Sackville: SappyFest 2009 Linuep

A first look at the SappyFest 2009 lineup has just been posted at the Sappy Records website and I think I just peed myself a little in excitement. Take a look at it yourself and see if you don’t loose a little control:

http://sappyrecords.com/SappyFest_09/lineup.html

What a collection of bands! I missed the boat on submitting to perform this year, but I’m sure as hell going to try to make it to Sackville anyway this summer, as this lineup looks top notch (with more TBA).

Read the full post at Wolveshawksandkites.com.

2 Giveaways: Flotilla and Jordaan Mason & the Horse Museum.

Two giveaways happening this week, for new CDs just out this week:

Ticket/CD Giveaway & Review: Flotilla @ Tranzac, Thursday, 4 June.
CD Giveaway & Review: Jordaan Mason & the Horse Museum's "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head."

Review's of both albums, some free downloads, etc. Enjoy!

Pick of the Week #21: Howie Beck - How to Fall Down in Public

The executive summary: How to Fall Down in Public is certainly one of the better singer-songwriter albums released during this (2008-2009) Polaris calendar. It has a kind of nostalgic, golden age sound that reminds me of driving up to a beach with my parents in the 80s.

See the full post at the BM.

First Impressions: Think About Life - Family

Hot damn! This is just what the groove doctor ordered. Family, the latest album from Montreal’s Think About LIfe, is simply fantastic. It’s a wonderfully layered, upbeat and candy-coated work of sheer exuberance that makes you forget your dog is dead.

Frenetic, soulful, and infused with an ability to make you move, listening to Family is pretty much the most fun I can remember having in a while. Hell, if Graham Van Pelt wanted to leave Miracle Fortress behind for good in favour of doing Think About Life fulltime it wouldn’t bother me at all (and I like Miracle Fortress, so that’s saying something). Suffice to say that I’ve been pumping this album pretty consistently since the moment I first popped it in the ol’ CD player and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Read the full post at Wolveshawksandkites.com here.

Over the Top Festival diary.

This weekend I took in the Over the Top Festival. From start to finish, I saw: Ghost Bees, Timber Timbre, The Ghost is Dancing, Clues, Woods (in-store), Bayonets, Tune-Yards, Think About Life, Oh No Forest Fires, Five Blank Pages, Tiny Masters of Today, The Guest Bedroom, The Budos Band, and Green Go. I could conceivably have seen a few more acts, and I suspect some people did. Still, that’s a lot of music.

For the full round-up check out my blog.

On a Quest for Glory, On a Quest for Glory (or, Shad is awesome)

The nuts and bolts of it is that Shad is pretty spectacular. I've been a big fan for a while now, advocated for him for the 2008 Polaris, but it took me listening to the Old Prince while I was driving back and forth to Oakville this weekend to realize how much I really like this album.

Its very quickly becoming one of my favourite albums ever...

See the full post at the BM w/ an unbelievable 6 minute freestyle...

Indie Music 82 (27 May - 2 June 2009).

Like this list? Join my Google Group to get my weekly Toronto indie music listings. Or, the Facebook group. Subscribe to my weekly podcast (or download the episodes) here, or through iTunes. Or just listen to the latest one, and all the other ones, at Zygiella. Make sure to check the rest of my blog for show reviews and photos, giveaways, and downloads.

Welcome to my weekly roundup of inexpensive indie(ish) musical happenings in downtown Toronto, all for $10 or less. If I'm missing something you think I should list, or you have any comments, let me know. I star (*) shows that most interest me.

This weekend I took in the Over the Top Festival. From start to finish, I saw: Ghost Bees, Timber Timbre, The Ghost is Dancing, Clues, Woods (in-store), Bayonets, Tune-Yards, Think About Life, Oh No Forest Fires, Five Blank Pages, Tiny Masters of Today, The Guest Bedroom, The Budos Band, and Green Go. I could conceivably have seen a few more acts, and I suspect some people did. Still, that’s a lot of music. I’ll post a full recap and review of the festival on my blog soon.

Sunday night I was out again, this time for a special edition of Wavelength at Sneaky Dee’s, my favourite venue. Remember Toronto II featured the reunion (sort of) of four bands that owned the scene in the 1990s and early 2000s: Grasshopper, The Electric Shoes, Katrocket, and Doc Pickles’ band. All the acts were good, and different, and though Grasshopper’s Derek Madison hurled himself, his guitar, and other stuff around stage, and birthday boy Jonny Dovercourt was on-stage screaming during the closer, “Neptune,” my favourite act was Steve Heyerdahl’s Electric Shoes. The crowd was a chunk of years older than I’ve come to expect on Sunday night, and the place was pretty busy, full of nostalgia and old friends reconnecting. I didn’t know these bands back in the day, but the excitement of the evening was infectious. A fun night. And thank goodness for earplugs.

Monday night I got word that Rock Plaza Central was doing an intimate performance at midnight at the Tranzac’s front room. A few minutes into the release day of their new album, the 6-piece band played an hour-long (at least) set to no more than 25 audience members. Yawd Sylvester joined them on piano for a couple songs. Near the end of the show, the band’s drummer punk-rocked it out, bashing his cymbals to the ground, swearing at his bandmates (in jest, of course), and leaving them to play on. Quite the rousing set by what is essentially a literary folk-rock ensemble. It felt special to be there. Or “magical,” as Chris Eaton, the band’s front-man, put it.

This week I'm recommending the Pitter Patter Music Festival, happening at various venues in Toronto (and 7 other Ontario cities) Thursday through Sunday. I'll be at Rancho Relaxo on Friday night, Sneaky Dee's on Saturday, and The Rearview Mirror in Kensington Market on Sunday (running the door; come say hello!). And I will likely be other places, too. You know me: I love show-hopping when I can afford it. The PPMF is all pwyc, so it's totally affordable. For all the details, see the festival website.

For the full listings, see my blog post.