10
Mar 10

Jam Night with The Balconies // 03.23.10

If you haven’t heard yet, one of our favorite bands, The Balconies, are heading out on their first ever cross-country tour this spring.  The rest of Canada is truly in for a treat; these guys and gal are awesome live and you’ll be hummin’ the tunes for weeks and months.  Check out the The Balconies myspace to find out when they are hitting your town and get your ass to one of their shows!

To help pay for their inevitable misadventures on the road, they’ve very cleverly roped me in along with a bunch of their friends to play a tour fundraising show.  The Balconies and special guests will be playing cover songs from the 60s and 70s all night – everything from the Beatles, to The Clash, from CCR to The Buzzcocks.

This is gonna be a ton of fun and surely a very messy and wonderful night.

Just $5 at the door!

Along with the Balconies (www.myspace.com/thebalconies), guests from the following bands will be performing:

The Golden Dogs – www.myspace.com/thegoldendogs
Modernboys Moderngirls – www.myspace.com/modernboysmoderngirls
Make Your Exit – www.myspace.com/makeyourexit
Fox Jaws – www.myspace.com/foxjaws
Arietta – www.myspace.com/arietta
Oh No Forest Fires – www.myspace.com/ohnoforestfires
Whale Tooth – www.myspace.com/whaletooth
Corduroy – www.myspace.com/thebandcorduroy
Janes Party – www.myspace.com/janespartyband
The Archives- www.myspace.com/insidethearchives
Brett Caswell – http://brettcaswell.com/


05
Mar 10

CMW Preview March 10-14

We’re bunkered down right now for the next couple of months rehearsing and recording a new MBMG record.  Next week though, we’re gonna take some time out to catch some great bands during Canadian Music Week in Toronto.  Here’s our cheat sheet schedule of shows we want to catch; these are definitely guaranteed to be some of the best shows of the fest. If you’ve got any recommendations, comment back with who and where and most importantly why!

Here’s our list:

Wednesday
12 a.m., Lee’s Palace, Zeus

Thursday
10 p.m., Silver Dollar (Carey Kurtin/Dan Burke Presents), Dinosaur Bones
11 p.m., Horseshoe, Hollerado or The Garrison, Fields of Fur
12 a.m., El Mocambo (Audioblood Showcase), Clothes Make the Man
1 a.m., El Mocambo (Audioblood Showcase), Make Your Exit

Friday
10 p.m., Bread and Circus, AfterpartY
11 p.m., El Mocambo, Parlovr
12 a.m., The Garrison, Metz
1 a.m., Sneaky Dee’s (Travis Porter Presents), Corduroy
2 a.m. Silver Dollar, Parlovr

Saturday
9.20 p.m., The Horseshoe, The Balconies
11 p.m., Lee’s Palace, Sweet Thing
1 a.m., Silver Dollar (Dan Burke Presents), Darlings of Chelsea
2 a.m., Silver Dollar (Dan Burke Presents), Give Us the Daggers

Sunday
10 p.m., Phoenix Concert Theatre, Born Ruffians


22
Feb 10

The Cutting Room Floor

Having a few weeks off after having been on tour has been great!

We’ve started demoing tracks, just at home for now, getting ready to head back into the recording studio in March.

In the meantime, check out some live video clips we’ve posted up from our Toronto show back on Jan 23 – we’ll also be posting up some mp3s from some of the shows that we’ve done so you can stick ‘em on your ipod.

Video: Missmybabygirl – I Might As Well Break It (2009)

Video: Olive Hearts – Unreleased


12
Feb 10

I Left My Heart in Ottawa

Ottawa was our our last city on this tour and for our last stop, we played at Cafe Dekcuf for an iheartmusic.net showcase – hands down one of the best music blogs in Canada. We’ve been proud and lucky to have played a few of Matthew’s shows this past year and this one was as sweet as the rest – we got to see The Allrights, an Ottawa garage band, with members from the Centretown Cripplers, a band we’ve had the pleasure to play with before. We also got to play with Guelph’s Burn Planetarium who played our Toronto cd release show way back in September.

We get asked all the time which towns are our favorite to play and sometimes people don’t believe us but we consistently have the best time in Ottawa. You folks have treated us amazing every time we show up and we have done some crazy shit in your town that’s filled our storybooks for some time. It was the perfect city for us to end this tour.

Check out Burn Planetarium – myspace
Check out The Allrights – myspace
Check out iheartmusic.net – Must read Canadian Music Blog

IMG_0386Geoff.Gum vs. Juan.Bud

IMG_0393Juan and a couple of Burn Planetariums

IMG_0394We were lucky enough to hang out with these lovely ladies.


07
Feb 10

¡Three Amigos!

[The Amigos are facing down El Guapo's men]
Dusty: [whispers] Tell us we will die like dogs.
El Guapo: You will die like dogs!
Lucky: No, we will not die like dogs, we will fight like lions!
- Three Amigos (1986)

IMG_0374_peter

This past Friday in Peterborough was our last tour date with our three amigos, Nightwood. As we continued onto Ottawa, it truly wasn’t the same without our compadres there. It was much, much better. Finally, we were free and clear of these montrealers.

Of course we’re kidding! We missed ‘em right away. We couldn’t have lucked out any better in finding these amazing tour mates and hope we get to stay friends for a really long time – at least till the summer.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch us together on one of our tour dates this past January, don’t fret – we’ve got lots of video footage that we’ll be posting up and if you haven’t yet, get on it and check out Nightwood now: www.myspace.com/nightwoodband

They have songs of the ass-kicking variety and I recommend you purchase their vinyl, it is not only beautiful but comes with a download card so that you can put all your tunes onto your ipod. Good deal? Yes! You can purchase here


03
Feb 10

Oh No Forest Fires: A Tribute

ohnoforestfires

If you’re part of the local Toronto music scene, you’ve seen or heard of Oh No Forest Fires’ shows. If you’re in a band, this is one of the bands you’re always wanting to play with – they play their hearts out and are tremendous fans of music. A couple of weeks ago, for a bunch of reasons, they called it quits.

We were playing the same night as ONFF’s last show, but want to congratulate Rajiv and co. on everything they’ve accomplished. Just to show you how insanely passionate they are about music – they break up and release a new record at the same time!

They are putting the finishing touches on it, and I’m sure you’ll be able to hear it here when it’s done.

I did make it to their ‘09 December show at the Horseshoe and here are some pics of the night (at Chromewaves.net) as well as some of us friends (Modernboys Moderngirls, The Balconies, Dinosaur Bones, etc), getting up to sing “Feliz Navidad” with ONFF at the end of their show. It was my last time seeing them, and if I had to miss the goodbye show a few weeks ago, this was a terrific night to remember them by.