Alvvays' show at the Casbah on Oct. 5 was a flash in the pan. I stepped in from the cold five minutes before their set started and barely had time to break a sweat before lead singer Molly Rankin was announcing that they were about to play their last song of the night.
My experience wasn’t any different from the one I have when listening to the Toronto jangle-pop band’s infectious debut record — I didn’t want it to end and was left a bit put out when it did.
Like any show happening in the cozy venue just off Main Street, it was an intimate affair. Standing only a few feet from the eager crowd, Rankin thanked everyone for attending and asked if the sole three people who attended their last Hamilton show were in the audience. The blonde songstress was greeted with peals of laughter at such a suggestion but adamantly insisted that it had really happened. The rest of the band — Kerri MacLellan, Alec O’Hanley, Brian Murphy, and Phil MacIsaac — seemed equally happy to be past that “real dark shit” (in Rankin’s words) and in a phase of their career where they would draw a capacity crowd on a Sunday.
While their debut was dropped in the summer and shares certain elements with fellow female-led surf-rock outfit, Best Coast, Alvvays’ material is imbued with a much more emotional depth. The self-titled album’s strength lies in Rankin’s exquisite lyrics that marry well with the simple song structure created by the band and made rougher around the edges by producer Chad VaanGaalen.
The set was a tight one, running only ten songs and leaving everyone pining for more as the characters in Alvvays’ songs so often are. Rankin was comfortable on stage (which might have something to do with her lineage) and her radiant smile seemed to be meant for everyone. Much of the stage banter was left to her and she made sure to inquire if all the short people could see and implored everyone to help them out. Being 6’3 myself, I always feel a healthy amount of guilt for being #bornthisway, but I encountered no derision from the dwarves around me.
The odd time that guitarist Alec O’Hanley interjected with his own witticism, I get the feeling he wished he hadn’t. O’Hanley went to thank opening act Heat for “heating things up” but immediately regretted his pun and apologized for not being able to concoct something more elegant on the spot.
Not willing to leave one of their own out to dry, the rest of the band launched into album standout “Party Police”. I must confess that tears were shed on my part as Rankin’s angelic voice pierced through the air and stabbed repeatedly at my heart, which felt like it was under attack by a dull kitchen knife for the song’s entire four-minute duration. The band closed their all too brief show as I dried off my face with ‘”Archie, Marry Me”, another banger that had the audience packed around the stage both bobbing their heads and shouting out the lyrics. While Alvvays might not be back in Hamilton for a while, they’ll always be in our hearts.
Tom Krell cuts a looming figure with his 6’4’’ frame towering above others. What surprises most is that Krell has the voice to match his distinctive height. Those who were near the Hamilton Airport Stage this past Saturday were in for a treat in the form of Krell’s delectable falsetto.
With his latest record, “What is This Heart?”, Krell has separated himself from the torch-bearer role thrust on him by buzz-purveying music blogs. Despite his singing style, Krell is much more than a poster-boy for the recent insurgence of so-called “alternative” R&B. On WITH, his third full-length release, Krell shuns the crass stylings of the lesser creatives he’s been grouped with in the past and succeeds in making a brilliant sounding pop record that is at once his most ambitious and intimate yet.
Clad in an indigo blue button-up, Nike Air tee, designer sweatpants, and Kobe’s on his feet to help him balance out well, Krell was in jovial spirits. Despite the chill in the air, Krell was able to create a warm atmosphere with the help of his band.
The majority of Krell’s set list was culled from WITH, but the greater portion of the audience seemed to already be aware of the June release. Supercrawl is very much a public festival, with people walking down James during and in between shows, but the crowd gathered by Jackson Square did their very best to maintain a reverent silence for Krell.
Despite the sombre nature of some of the songs he was performing, Krell allowed himself the odd wisecrack to relieve the inevitable tension. During one breather, Krell pointed to his guitarist and keyboardist and noted that they were Canadian to the obvious delight of the crowd. During another, he gave a shoutout to Hamilton’s own Jessy Lanza and all the dogs at the festival. Before launching into his next song, Krell pointed to the drone flitting around the overcast sky and jokingly asked, “can we get that drone out of there?”
The intricately produced music did not suffer when being translated to the live setting by a three-piece band. “Repeat Pleasure” and “Childhood Faith In Love” were still as delightfully catchy as their album counterparts, and Krell’s undeniable passion was infectious. As he crooned into his two separate mics, Krell clutched at his shirt as if he didn’t know what to do with all his pent-up angst.
The Chicago resident’s sadness soon found an outlet in “Suicide Dream 1”, a cut from his debut record. Krell explained that the song had been written for his best friend who promptly passed away soon after it came out. The mournful track was chill-inducing in its starkness.
I stopped going to church because I don’t believe in god anymore, but Krell’s performance of “Set It Right” — before which he reminded everyone that Supercrawl was a special festival but that there were still “a lot of hungry people out there” — was much more spiritual than anything I’ve ever felt while kneeling on pews.
The backing track died down for Krell to list off the names of people he missed, but as if he recognized that everyone was on the verge of tears (myself included), Krell launched into an uplifting rendition of Young Thug’s “Lifestyle” which put a smile on everyone’s face.
In many ways this thematic dichotomy represents everything Krell’s music is about: confronting your own burdensome issues while keeping the ability to have fun and laugh at yourself close to heart.
Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette
With the recent release of their three-part single “Argentina” and an upcoming album, Forcefield, set to come out in spring 2014, the announcement of a Tokyo Police Club concert on McMaster’s very own campus was a bit overwhelming. This feeling only grew when I learned that Ottawa’s Hollerado would be there with them, along with Aukland, a band featuring a McMaster student.
I’ve been a big fan of Tokyo Police Club, the four-piece indie-rock band from Newmarket, for quite some time, and it seems each of their albums brings something new and fun to the table. Everything from the seemingly random lyrics to the ridiculously catchy hooks has left me coming back for more every time. Still, one of the things that truly defines a band is how well they play live, and their show last Saturday only reaffirmed everything I love about them.
Before getting ahead of myself, it goes without saying that the opening acts were definitely also quite a treat. Hollerado has grown in the last few years in terms of both stage performance, and song writing technique.When I last saw them, they were playing a small stage at Edgefest, and were clearly still tightening their sound. Vocals were strained at times, and the collective energy of the band sometimes lost control – and not in a good way.
This time around, hits like “So it Goes” and “Pick Me Up” from their latest album White Paint really brought out the energy in the crowd. More importantly, the erratic energy of singer Menno Versteeg was concentrated directly on making the show as fun as possible, and his vocals showed serious improvement. Between conversations about Dave Monks hating dogs and their suggestions to the audience that we try “every drug ever,” Hollerado’s stage banter certainly succeeded.
The same could be said of the lesser-known opening band Aukland, who successfully wowed the crowd despite a relatively short set. I can’t deny the existence of a very positive bias towards any band out of Mississauga (having spent too many bored suburban nights there growing up), but no one can deny the musical tightness Aukland showed on stage. While they still have much to learn from the bands that followed them, Aukland seems well on their way to being able to see the same success on their own, and they really pumped up the audience for the main event.
With that in mind, Tokyo Police Club continued to deliver what the audience was looking for. The simple, solid riffs and quirky keyboard sounds that the band is known for were as engaging and as exciting as ever. Even better, the band played much from their upcoming album and it appears to be another step in the right direction. Whether it was the occasional Strokes cover, or the closing acoustic version of “Tessellate,” everything about the show seemed to go exactly as planned.
Although Toronto’s Kool Haus is better fit for raves than psychedelic rock concerts, the easygoing Aussies that comprise Tame Impala made themselves at home this past Saturday. The quintet of Kevin Parker (vocals/guitar), Jay Watson (synth, vocals), Dominic Simper (guitar/synth), Nick Allbrook (bass) and Julien Barbagglo (drums) displayed an ability to acclimatize that seems beyond their years. An eclectic sold-out crowd upwards of 2000 people filled the warehouse-like venue, attesting to the band’s heady rise to prominence as a must-see act. From the stonewashed Levis-wearing older men who probably have Rolling Stone subscriptions and stories about the Aerosmith shows they drove cross-country to see in the ‘70s to the bespectacled hipsters who just got off shifts at artisanal, fair-trade coffee shops on Queen Street, I was among good company.
Fellow Perth natives The Growl did a good job of keeping the anxious crowd attentive - or at least as well as anyone opening for Tame Impala can. “Smoke It Down to the Bone” was a groovy piece of stoner blues-rock that was commandeered by an earth-shaking bassline and the frontman’s grizzly vocals. To say that they are the Aussie version of The Black Keys — except they haven’t sold out (no shots, though) — would be fair, but they exceed the comparison.
After a quick soundcheck, which may have just felt that way because of the plentiful number of drinks imbibed, Tame Impala suddenly strode on stage to clamorous applause. Without greeting the multitude of fans, the band complacently jammed before launching into Innerspeaker standout “Solitude Is Bliss.” Even when distorted by vocoder, Parker’s John Lennon-like vocals sent girls swooning into fits. Although the song is about the frontman’s introverted mentality, it brought the crowd together as they ironically sang along to lyrics meant to alienate him from others: “you will never come close to how I feel.”
Flanked by a projection screen that displayed trippy visuals and whose fluctuations seemed to be synced with Parker’s Rickenbacker guitar, the band deftly wove their way through Lonerism’s “Apocalypse Dreams” without appearing to be phased by the large crowd. Heavily touted for their live performances, the band showed their worth with “Music To Walk Home By,” which, even through the Kool Haus’ shoddy sound system, sounded better than the studio version. Sure, the band might’ve employed a genius sound engineer, but the jam-packed closing minute of the song was too well performed to be a fluke. Not content to give the crowd a breather, Allbrook sent the fans into a rabid state with the visceral bassline of “Elephant”. Those who had been politely swaying to and fro lost any sense of middle-class reservation and avidly banged their heads along to the fuzzy jam reminiscent of the ‘60s.
Tame Impala ramped the energy up even further with Lonerism’s clear standout, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.” In a brief three minutes, the band expressed their mastery of the oft-done wrong psychedelic genre in a perfect sonic blend of their maximalist use of technology. The 14-song set was tight, but short (too much so) enough to leave everyone pining for more.
Although he had the crowd ready to proclaim him Toronto’s new mayor (God knows he’d fare better than the current KFC poster-boy in office), Parker maintained a steady distance from the concert-goers and made little banter other than to thank everyone for their support. But even without that paltry bit of interaction, the band’s music was more than enough to captivate. Tame Impala is clearly on their way to selling out bigger venues, and next time they roll through Toronto they may well have graduated to the stunning acoustics of Massey Hall. Along with many others, I look forward to it.
tomi milos
By Jemma Wolfe
It has become par for the course that any large artistic event that one attends is “made possible” by corporate sponsorship and that we can expect the corporation’s logo, name and brand to have a prominent presence. Recall the Skydome being renamed to the Rogers Centre or “Virgin Mobile Presents Osheaga” Montreal music festival.
On a local level, think Theatre Aquarius’s transition to Theatre Aquarius Dofasco Centre for the Arts, the TD Festival of Friends, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton BMO Financial Group World Film Festival. What a commercial mouthful.
Most recently, the commercialization of an artistic event or space was witnessed in McMaster’s win of the TD Pump It Up contest. Last Thursday, Nov. 22, approximately 2,500 McMaster students had the opportunity to attend a free concert at Hamilton Place’s Wentworth Room.
The show opened with Young Empires, then Dragonette performed, and Steve Aoki closed the night. These popular musicians’ performances however were completely overshadowed by the corporate presence of TD.
Walking into the venue, one had to move through a green-curtained TD tunnel of sorts, plastered with the TD logo and lined with TD representatives.
Once inside the concert space, the logo was projected in larger-than-life forms on multiple walls, TD representatives milled around the space, the stage was framed with TD banners and slogans, and all the columns were wrapped in posters. Even the lighting was usually green.
Throughout the night, the excessive presence of TD’s logos, colours and signage was oppressive, distracting and incredibly distasteful. Future corporations sponsoring events – by TD or otherwise – should pay more careful attention to the fine line that separates tasteful advertising presence of a corporation’s positive support of arts and culture, from the overwhelming corporate atmosphere that detracts from the artistic purpose of the event.
McMaster is facing off for the second time with Queen’s University for a free concert with Steve Aoki, Dragonette and Young Empires.
The annual TD Pump It Up contest has once again drawn an enthusiastic response from students on Facebook and Twitter. The contest offers three concerts to participating colleges and universities across Canada – one to each of its featherweight, lightweight and heavyweight divisions.
Last year, Queen’s won in the heavyweight division by outvoting McMaster. Both universities boast a tight-knit student community with a strong social media presence.
To vote, students must register on the contest website using their Facebook login or email address.
Currently, the contest site shows it is a tight race between the two universities.
To get to the finals this year, McMaster beat the University of Ottawa and Mohawk College, while Queen’s edged out Langara College in B.C. and Ryerson University.
The contest will close in less than 24 hours, on Monday Oct. 1 at 10 a.m. Those who vote will receive an email with the results when they are available.
On Tuesday September 4, electronic dance music rocked Faculty Hollow for the first time with the appearance of legendary producer Steve Angello.
The former member of Swedish House Mafia brought his popular sounds to Welcome Week at a time when mainstream infatuation with celebrity DJs couldn’t be hotter. The overwhelmingly positive response Angello’s appearance received is proof of the timeliness of introducing EDM to the campus amphitheatre’s previously rock-centric history. Al Legault, Director of MSU Campus Events, said Angello was sought after because “student energy is really high at the start of the week and we wanted the Tuesday show to reflect that.”
A tremendous 5,748 students in total enjoyed Angello’s two-hour-long DJ set – a record audience for MSU Campus Events staff who eagerly made use of the higher budget the recent Macpass levy provided.
For Welcome Week 2012, approximately 35 per cent more funds were allocated for the concerts than in years past. With pressure to demonstrate that the levy is worthwhile and adds to incoming students’ experiences, securing an impressive lineup for the concerts was a priority. “We wanted to match the caliber of the Welcome Week entertainment that other schools are able to showcase. I think a lot of students saw the value in that… and [with this concert] we were able to reach 25 per cent of undergraduate students in one night,” Legault explained.
The bigger budget show was an obvious improvement from previous years and the high-energy dance party and light show that accompanied Angello’s appearance was clearly enjoyed by the sweaty, wildly dancing crowd. Lasers rented from suppliers of the ACC shone 14 miles into the night and an LED screen positioned behind Angello provided a continuous psychedelic visual experience.
Throughout the night, Angello was tight-lipped, pausing his set only occasionally to shout brief encouragement (“make some noise!”) to the adoring crowd. Post-show, however, Angello was eager to comment on the energy of the night. He said, “Nothing beats a good crowd at an event and as a DJ I really feed off the crowd. Best of all is the fact that this is the next generation of music lovers so being able to do show like this one was a great experience for me.”
For the incoming first years, he offered this piece of advice: “Stay in school! You can come a very long way with ambition and dreams but education is the key to a good life.”
The sun was setting, the rain held off (mostly) and cotton candy and red bull were plentiful at the second Welcome Week concert on Saturday Sept. 8. The Sheepdogs, who had come all the way from Saskatoon, were headlining.
Their music exploded with such good vibes that there was even the hint of a crowd surf. It took two attempts and only lasted about half a second, but it was there.
Near the end of the set, the singer thanked everyone for coming out. Despite the fact that there was no drinking allowed at the event, the guitar player ran to his red plastic beer cup and handed it to someone in the crowd, to which the singer responded, “Well, that’s going to be taken away immediately.” And even if it was, at least the person got a good story out of it.
The Dirty Nil, from nearby Dundas, were the first of two openers. They were reckless, loud and catchy. The Toronto-based Great Bloomers were next up. Their folk-indie pop was pleasant.
Before the show, I got to ask the Sheepdogs about their story.
The band has been around for eight years, releasing three albums before their infamous Rolling Stone cover. Their latest album, the first on a major label, is self-titled and came out on Sept. 4.
Before all the magazine covers and major labels, the Sheepdogs were high school band geeks. “Ryan and I first met because we were in schools bands, like concert band,” said singer Ewan Currie. “We both played clarinet,” laughed Ryan Gullen, the bass player. “The macho-ist of the woodwinds,” replied Currie. “Well, after flute and piccolo. We never had a punk phase or anything like that.”
Going from a playing clarinet to the Sheepdogs took a bit of time, and the members were about 20 when it all started. From there, the Sheepdogs did what all young bands do: they toured as much as they could and prayed that they’d be able to afford gas.
“We had doubts. How can you not?” said Currie. “I think it’s natural to have doubts in everyday life, no matter what you’re doing. Certainly there are times where you’re like, ‘Why the fuck am I out here doing this right now?’”
Hearing that Currie doubted himself was understandable, but I wondered how he knew that his doubts didn’t mean that he should give it up. “It’s like an intangible thing, you just have to know,” he said. “It’s just a gut thing. You’ll find out, man.”
Despite the doubts, the Sheepdogs made it to the point where Patrick Carney from the Black Keys produced their most recent album. “He has one of those megaphone things, a cone, like an old-time director, and he sits in a director’s chair, and he goes ‘Cut, cut, cut! All wrong!’” said Currie.
“He wore a beret. He treated it like he was Robert Altman on the set of McCabe and Miller.”
“That was the strangest reference,” added Gullen.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an old western that, like much of the music that has influenced the Sheepdogs, is from the 1970s.
“It’s not like I wish I was in Woodstock and I wish I was in 1971,” said Currie. “I just like the stuff they were doing. The music more closely resembled roots music, like old country and blues and folk. It had chord progressions and melodies and harmonies, and bands were generally more adept at playing in a range of styles. It seems like a lot of bands now start by playing their original material instead of learning a bunch of other stuff. And as such, I think their sound gets really limited.”
I expected the Sheepdogs to be gruff and intimidating – maybe that’s because of their huge beards and shoulder-length hair. But they were friendly, down-to-earth and funny. Like their concert, it was a nice surprise.
Simon Marsello
I remember the day fondly. It was in the evening of Dec. 14, and the geniuses at Facebook’s marketing division finally decided to serve me up a semi-relevant sidebar ad. For once, rather than hawking the flavour-of-the-month Farmville imitator or peddling underpriced washer-dryer combos, this usually irksome service was tempting me with something fresh and unparalleled.
It seemed that Facebook was reimbursing me in some small way for thousands of hours spent trolling our generation’s bottomless social piss pit. My day had finally arrived; the ad proclaimed that Tool was coming to Toronto.
If this sounds melodramatic, it should. Let me backtrack for the benefit of the unfortunately uninformed. Formed in Los Angeles in 1990, this musical assemblage is best thrown somewhere under the umbrella of “progressive metal,” edging aside the high-flyers of the grunge era and burying itself somewhere in the part of the brain reserved for loveable cult bands.
My introduction to Tool was only two years ago, when I purchased their 2006 release 10,000 Days on a whim, a blind shot at a new musical pathway. My previous knowledge of Tool was limited to the label of “that stoner band,” and I was blown away. 10,000 Days fused pounding percussion and hopping bass with enchanting vocals and spacey otherworldliness.
Being entirely sold, I acquired what remained of their discography and embarked on full-tilt fandom. Checking their website every month or so for new tour dates and being repeatedly disappointed, the Dec. 14 revelation via Facebook required at least a triple-take. After confirming the ad’s legitimacy and amassing the few weird friends of mine that actually liked Tool, the tickets were in the mail.
Flash-forward to the concert date. We hurtled towards our destination, gunning down the QEW in my friend’s Mazda and blasting Tool tunes in anticipation. Barring overpriced parking and hellish crowds, the pre-show excitement chill set in. The Tool show served as a beacon for every outlier in a 20-mile radius: the stoners, the junkies and the freaks. I was home.
Filing through the established turnstile-and-pat-down custom, we raced to our seats as the powerful crash cymbals of opener “Hooker with a Penis” resonated through the stadium. Setting aside our mediocre view of the stage from section 306, we took our place amidst the thrashing mob and followed suit.
As the band segued neatly into eight-minute epic “Jambi.” Lighters flicked in chorus and the ensuing weed smoke began to wind its way around the dome. Mid-set, Tool ripped through early-period favourite “Sober,” prompting my buddy’s obligatory, “Dude, is this fucking awesome or what?” And indeed, it was.
Jumping from album to album, Tool took us on a musical journey coupled with stunning backdrop visuals reminiscent of their award-winning album art. Vocalist Maynard James Keenan, pied piper of this unlikely personality cult, conducted his sinister orchestra from the back of the stage, gripping the mic with conviction as he bore his demons before the hungry masses. It was totally sweet.
When the cheers subsided, the lights came up and it finally became apparent that the boys of Tool would not be joining Toronto for a second encore, I trudged out of the stadium, feeling somewhat short-changed. My wish list of songs was nowhere near fulfilled.
But looking back, the energy delivered by the band was phenomenal. Each tune was nailed perfectly, and despite the relative lack of intimacy offered by the cavernous Air Canada Centre, the ticket was worth every penny.
Whether you like Tool or not, my feeling at that show is something to which even the casual music fan can relate; spending an evening with one of your favourite bands is always something to be cherished.
Julia Redmond
The Silhouette
Victor Hugo once said that, “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” As it turns out, he was right—the mind can interpret more meaning from music than people might have thought, according to Dr. Stefan Koelsch.
Koelsch, professor of Psychology at Germany’s Freie Universität Berlin, visited McMaster on Nov. 5 to share his knowledge on music cognition. The seventh annual public integrated lecture and concert was hosted by the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind (MIMM).
“[MIMM] deals with a kind of science we can all relate to, all understand,” said Dr. Gianni Parise, Associate Dean of Research and External Relations for the Faculty of Science.
The concert portion of the evening began with a performance by the piano duo of Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann. The two have performed together for more than two decades, playing in various cities across Europe and North America, earning much acclaim along the way.
Seated, facing each other, at two grand pianos at the front of Convocation Hall, they performed their first selection: Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz. Koelsch used this as a platform for his introduction of extra-musical meaning.
Koelsch explained that a lot of music tells a story. This is done by providing iconic, indexical, and symbolic meaning. The meaning elicits emotion in the listener, and this reaction is a key element of music cogenics and the central focus of Koelsch’s research.
To demonstrate the significance of emotion in music, Koelsch described an experiment that was conducted on a native tribe from Cameroon in which the participants, who had no prior exposure to traditional Western music, listened to clips of music and had to identify them with photos demonstrating emotions.
The results of the study showed that even with no background knowledge, the participants could properly identify the feeling of the music, lending insight into the universality of music.
Koelsch further explained the neurology behind musical interpretation. The part of the brain that processes music is the same part that interprets semantics, further supporting the concept of music as a language.
The lecture was punctuated with more musical selections. Margaret Bardos, an Ontario-based vocalist, joined the Bergmann duo onstage to perform such pieces as Climb Ev’ry Mountain and Send in the Clowns. Flutist Laural Trainor, director of MIMM, along with McMaster Music professor and flutist David Gerry, played the rather quirky song Cats in the Kitchen, composed by Philip Bimstein.
Even before the show was over, Koelsch brought the audience to their feet, encouraging a physical interpretation of the meaning in music while the Bergmann duo played selections from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
Koelsch extended concluding words of advice, “you don’t necessarily constantly have to think about musical meaning,” he said, “Sometimes you can just enjoy music and your brain can do the rest.”
