Ben Fox and Branko Scekic - Photo by Amanda Macchia

The Horseshoe Tavern was hit by the innovation and rich ambience of three unique bands last Saturday night; a foursome from Brooklyn, NY sandwiched between two hometown units.

After an opening set by Seas, Toronto’s The Darcys flooded the venue in their typical fashion – stretching syncopated dissonance to all four corners and gliding through bending transitions and twisted structures. “House Built Around Your Voice,” among others, demonstrates the flattering juxtaposition of frontman Jason Couse’s only slightly calloused vocals with the general harmonious chaos and intricate arrangements of the band’s instrumental elements.

Bear Hands then proceeded to deliver their colourful indie rock to the northern crowd. Although the mood they instill musically is far from the spectral area of which the sound of The Darcys and Dinosaur Bones reside, the jittery, electric elements of their style and the simplicity of their melodies was a fresh turn for the line-up to take.

To close the show, headliners Dinosaur Bones showered the warmed-up audience with a balanced blend of melodic balladry and moody, electric progressions that may have become the signature sound of the five-piece Toronto outfit, as they consistently draw music-listeners to their live sets. The shuffling rhythm and crying blues licks featured in tracks like “Royalty” demonstrate the band’s ability to integrate traditional elements of rock into their innovative craft. Meanwhile, the classic structure of “Sharks in the Sand,” paired with its authoritative melody and muddy descending minor chords offers listeners an idea of the strong visual element of the band’s artistry. And so perhaps the name rings true: Dinosaur Bones are of significance today, but with a constant reminder of the ways of yesteryear.

Dinosaur Bones - Photo by Amanda Macchia

The good folks at Listen Harder and The Singing Lamb would like to remind you that Toronto’s own Dinosaur Bones will be performing at The Horseshoe Tavern this Saturday May 14, alongside Broooklyn’s psych-pop band Bear Hands and fellow-hometowners The Darcys.

Dinosaur Bones released their debut LP My Divider this past March and have been touring across Canada since.

Doors @ 9. $12/$10.50 adv Tm-Hs-Rt-Ss.

Hollerado

It would be cliché to say that Hollerado rocked the boat last Thursday night, but they did play rock music at The Boat, so cliché my ass.

Following a set by Clothes Make the Man and The Darcys’s covers of Constatines songs, Hollerado graced the indefatigable Toronto audience with their presence, tearing out song after song of preposterously addictive pop rock, the sound of which would make Weezer run back to their drawing boards.

After a deliberately out-of-tune rendition of “Happy Birthday” for a friend of the band’s, the sound of impassioned cries of “Hey Philadelphia” from the ardent show-goers filled the venue as Hollerado hammered out “Americanarama.” Sharing the mic with the crowd for their entire set, Hollerado felt no need to hoard attention, also continuously allowing Branko Scekic of Dinosaur Bones to supplement their performance with backing vocals, piggybacks, and the occasional rap.

Sustaining a healthy level of energy throughout the night, the band turned out audience-appeasing songs like a cover of The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” and Hollerado’s own “Do the doot do doot do” (that anyone could figure out the words to), eventually leading up to a short-lived crowd-surf by steadfast frontman Menno Versteeg, thrusting himself upon an ill-prepared crowd and facing the consequences.

“Juliette,” the second single off of the band’s 2010 debut Record in a Bag, brought the vitality of the whing-ding to it’s peak, it’s simple chord progression being accompanied by surprisingly rhythmically-accurate handclaps from the audience and the consistently solid accompaniment from the band.

Hollerado left The Boat in sweaty disarray, having performed every track with the same passion and fervor as they did for each one that preceded, ultimately leaving the crowd a bit burned-out, but still begging like paupers for more.

For More,
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/hollerado

Have you made plans for the May long weekend yet? Going camping, planning to crack open a beer or two, maybe hauling that dusty BBQ out of the basement and firing it up? Let’s be honest though, other than that, there’s not much going on.

If you live in Halifax or Nova Scotia however, you might want to check out Long Live the Queen, a brand new music and arts festival coming this May to the North End of Halifax.

Curated and organized by Halifax musicians and artists, the festival will take place from May 21-23, and will include performances from the likes of Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees, Laura Barrett, Rich Aucoin, Julie Fader, The Darcys, Wordburglar, Braids, Ghettosocks, Jenocide, and many more. The festival will also showcase local artists, music videos, and comedy performances.

For more information, including how to get involved as an artist and/or volunteer, you can check out Long Live the Queen’s website or become a fan of the festival on Facebook.

No Shame promoter Lauren Schreiber shares her favourite songs of 2009!

Think About Life – Johanna

This song was on repeat the entire 6 hour drive back from Pop Montreal. The addition of Caila to the band was brilliant – that girl has pipes like whoa and gives 100% every time. TAL has gone from my favourite live band to my favourite much music video dance party; I’m regressing, and I love it.

Thunderheist – Jerk It

What can i say? Isis is young, sexy and the song is catchy as shit. It’s like peaches, only I feel really hot listening to it, instead of just dirty.

Green Go – Put Your Specs On Boy

GG are old hat to me – I feel like this album has been out for about twelve years. But the fact that I’ve heard their songs for ages shouldn’t touch the fact that they are great… really really great songs from a really really great album. Get a drink in me and put this on, and I still squeal THEY’RE PLAYING MY SONG! Every time.

Everything All The Time – Lazy Days

Britney and Beyonce move over. Catchy as fuck quality pop has a new face, and it’s EATT. Welcome to the only indie pop band I know who has a real singer. Plus I love each and everyone of them… just delightful people.

Sports The Band – Castlots

Between the harmonies and the basslines and the interband drama, I always forget just how good Sports are. Until I walk into a room where they’re onstage and all I can do is beam.

Dirty Projectors – Remade Horizon

I had to move to the front of the sold out room to understand exactly what the hell was happening. Is it a keyboard? A guitar? No… its vocals. Wait, what?! Motown in a meatgrinder – groundbreaking.

Gentleman Reg – You Can’t Get It Back

Either you like his voice or you don’t, but there’s no denying guy can write a song. It’s like I couldn’t pick between my favourite frontman, and my favourite front woman, so I got both. Reg is sassy like a pop diva, he’s the best of all worlds.

Pick A Piper – Rooms

You’re a summer festival, you’re a boy with slight B.O., you’re a joint rolled in cinnamon rolling paper. I love you, let’s stare at the stars.

Akron/Family – Everyone is Guilty

I drove to Hamilton to see these guys because I’m didn’t grab tickets to their sold out 2 night stand at Sneaky Dees with Born Ruffians. Worth It.

Animal Collective – Brother Sport

Every time Fez from Green Go spins this at a party, I get all ‘This is great! Who IS this?’ And it’s always Animal Collective. I actually bought this album in a store. This is significant.

Patrick Watson – Beijing

When his first album came out, I described my heart school heartthrob as creating music that sounds like Montreal. Cinematic, decadent, urgent and idiosyncratic. And endlessly romantic. Somewhere between the pots and pan percussion and the lush string arrangements is my hometown.

Portico – The Battle of Duck Lake

My favourite songs of the 90s are reborn in this CBC radio 3 hit.

The Darcys – The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead

Sure it’s a cover, but what a cover! This is how you do covers, people, pay attention. Just listen to that guitar solo! This is a cover enough to build an entire tour around… which is exactly what they did. I expect big things from The Darcys in 2010.

Great Bloomers – Speak of Trouble

Full disclosure; I manage these guys. But there’s a reason – they are The Band as arranged by Queen, epic twangy roots rock with charm and soul for miles. The album is a slow burn – I like it more with each listen, and young frontman Lowell Sostomi will be writing songs for the rest of his life. I can’t wait to see where he goes from here.

Evening Hymns – Dead Deer

I had to wait a year from the first time I heard these songs until the album was released. They almost didn’t make the 2009 cut off… Jonas! Way to build suspense. As expected, you were worth the wait.

Peter Wolf Crier – Down Down Down

A last minute discovery and one I’m still digesting. But the Minneapolis duo’s superlative Inter-Be may be my favourite album of the year.

Wooden Sky – Oh My God (It Still Means A Lot To Me)

For petty personal reasons, I REALLY didn’t want to love this album. But I do, and how. My opinion of Gavin Gardiner remains the same as the first time I heard him open his mouth… it’s a crime he’s not famous worldwide yet – every teenage girl should be mooning around her bedroom to this.

Wilderness of Manitoba – Evening

I wasn’t expecting to find one of my favourite albums in a backyard shed on Delaware street north of Bloor, but I did. And even though the music was coming from people I already knew and loved, I never could have predicted the delicate beauty of this album. Wilderness of Manitoba give me hope.

Timber Timbre – Demon Host

His Halifax pop showcase was legitimately frightening. Taylor’s talent is otherworldly…

NOTES

I would have included the Rural Alberta Advantage, Olenka and The Autumn Lovers, Tune Yards and Parlovr, but though they really saw acclaim this past year, their albums were originally released in 2008. And I would’ve included Bruce Peninsula, but I doan’t think the recording of Mountain is a Mouth , lovely as it is, reflects how magnificent they really are.

The Darcys

The Singing Lamb: First off, I must ask: is there an apostrophe in your band name?

Wes Marskell: It has no apostrophe in it at all!

Does that make you angry when people put that apostrophe in?

Not violently angry but I don’t know why people think…did you think we had an apostrophe?

No!

Good! I don’t understand why people think that we would and that’s why I get angry. It doesn’t make any sense; grammatically anyway.

Your MySpace doesn’t have one.

Nothing does! But people seem to slap that baby on there!

Speaking of your MySpace, I’ve noticed that the members of your band are all assigned hockey positions. Are you guys big hockey fans?

Well Kirby and I are the bigger hockey fans in the band; Mike’s into hockey too. It’s more of a joke about Dave’s aggressive bass playing than anything else.

Are you going to watch the game tonight?

We hope to; I think we’re playing towards the third period so we’re going to try and crank it up so we can watch it during the set!

Who are you rooting for?

Pittsburgh! If Sidney Crosby doesn’t win, he’s going to become the Lebron James of the NHL and then he’ll just be the great player that will never win anything ever.

Also on your MySpace, you refer to yourselves as “a band for people who love beards.”

I don’t know what that means!

I was going to ask that! What do you think people with beards listen to?

That was our response to the apostrophe, just to throw a curveball at them! I think it comes from when we were younger and we were looking at pictures, seeing people with beards and we were like, “This is what we want our audience to look like”. We just want lumberjacks to love our music, all these manly men to come listen to the Darcys.

What percentage of your audience are actually bearded men?

What percentage…Kirby’s dad came to our show once, he’s got a nice beard. It’s alright, I think the beard is coming back a little bit which is helping us out with the beard rock lovers.

You guys are playing NXNE next week!

Yeah that’s exciting!

What is it about festivals that you love?

Festivals are amazing and they’re a lot of fun to play because you always get to play to a diverse audience and people who normally won’t come out to check out your music will come and see you. I think the major draw for us is the community and whatnot and NXNE just gets better and better with every year I’ve been going so its a blast for us.

Are you excited to play with the other bands at your showcase?

Yeah, we know a couple of guys from Boys Who Say No and Great Bloomers and we started in Halifax as a band and played a couple of shows with Sleepless Nights out there so it’s kind of like a reunion show in a lot of ways. I think it’s a great showcase, there’s no huge names on the bill who are distracting!

What was your first band rehearsal like?

Our band started on the heels of a drunken scuffle in a bar and we convinced Kirby to be in a band with Jason and I and Dave so the first rehearsal was a matter of obligation and we were all hung over and we just started to learn Wilco songs. For the first two weeks we became a local cover band and from there on, we started writing our own songs.

Did you only cover Wilco?

There were a few other things but mostly Wilco at the time. I would say we mainly started off as a local cover band and moved on from there.

As everyone may know, you guys also covered Final Fantasy’s “The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead” – why that song?

There are a few different reasons. Kirby’s really attached to the lyrics and what it says; there’s a great write-up on the Juicebox site that sums up Kirby’s thoughts but I also think it was good for us because it was so different from what our band was like so it gave us a lot of room to make it our own and put our own parts to it. It was a lot of fun doing a cover like that instead of doing a song that already had drums, bass and guitar. It allowed it to be more than just a normal cover

Did you ever hear from Owen Pallett about it?

Yeah, he was on board the whole time! He was really gracious and said he loved it, although he could’ve been lying but he sounded like he meant it.

Do you plan on covering any other songs in the future?

Every now and then one pops up. We kind of do a joke cover of a Britney Spears and of Sheryl Crow and things like that. They come every now and then and they probably shouldn’t. Anything as intricate as “CN Tower,” I don’t think so but maybe. It’s possible!

How do you go about choosing which songs to cover?

We don’t, it’s more of a joke! We did a lot of covers right away at the beginning because we thought it was important to play it live and we played at least 50 covers.

Wow, that’s enough to make an album!

Oh, we can definitely make a double live album of covers if wanted to!

Are you going back into the studio anytime soon for a new record?

Yes, we hope to be in the studios no later than September; I’m really excited for it!

Awesome! And finally, if you were a singing animal, what would you be?

A pack of wolves

Why?

Because every time we seem to hit Alberta, all the gas stations sell tie-dyed nature shirts and our bassist Dave always buys wolf shirts so its kind of become the official mascot of the Darcys 2009!

For more of the Darcys,
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/itsthedarcys
Website: http://www.thedarcys.ca/HOME.html

Make sure to catch The Darcys at NXNE this year! They will be performing at Clinton’s on June 18th.