Big Rock Finish… reviews of independent music

July 25, 2008.

To most people it’s a day to have fun and frolic in the sunshine. To my friend Jana (www.jananas.com) it’s her birthday and she’s going to celebrate it Christmas-in-July-ified! Problem being, this was also the same night that Cousin Alex and Tynur were to celebrate their collective birthdates by throwing a big party at Smiling Buddha Bar including, if anything else, the chance to get up on stage and make fools of themselves in front of all their friends, family and well-wishers.

So what’s a girl to do? I go to both! The fun and exciting part is the fact that it will be a really relaxed environment and the bands are great. Wee Alex is in both which makes for some interesting wardrobe changes, if anything just so the photographers can properly tag which band is on stage at what time.

But seeing as how S.N.A.K. was the first to perform (of which I only caught a portion of their set, being late(!) to the venue) they played to some pretty hip and happening crowds that… for the most part avoided the dance floor like the plague. I avoid it too so I guess I can’t really say anything bad about them. But we get the dancing songs up, and everyone will come up and hang out violating the dreaded Toronto semi-circle.

As Wee Alex changes from a black t-shirt to a white t-shirt, Señor Kasio hits the stage with lots of fun songs about… lots of subjects. We have tattoos, bloody noses, stolen cars and Iraq or Afghanistan or something to do with fake turkeys. Midway through THAT set, of course you have Cousin Alex of S.N.A.K. and Steve of Señor Kasio doing the just-married intertwined-arm shooters, some bump and grind dancing between the both overly-sweaty gentlemen, before more members of S.N.A.K. start hitting the stage in funny sunglasses and overall crowding the very small centre of attention.

I have to admit, I had my doubts that the stage at Smiling Buddha Bar would be able to hold the collective members of both bands, and I was right! Tynur was off the stage the entire time, and Dave! and Steve both were running into the crowd to dance like the fools they pretend to be.

And I think my favourite of the night was the encore of “I Wanna Fuck” if all else, because it was requested by women in the crowd shouting “We wanna fuck again!”

Name: bellevue
Album: the road to recovery
Released: 2008
Members:
Dan Snyder – bass, harmony vox, percussion
Jordan Bruce – drums, percussion, harmony vox
David Cyr – guitar, harmony vox, percussion
Brent Hough – guitar, vocals, keys

Website: www.bellevuemusic.ca
Record Label: Music Maul Industries
Favourite Song: Track 1 – I’ve Been Meaning to get Therapy

So this is a first for me, a band that I had no prior knowledge of sent me an album to review. That’s not the new part, the new part is this is the first time a band whom I still have very little knowledge of, sends me their second album to review. Bellevue has been here from pretty much the beginning. No autographs this time, they sent me a signed disk last time, but whatever, it’s only so many autographs I can keep track of!

Myspace, and therefore, the band, classify Bellevue as a rock, indie and alternative band. When I play The Road to Recovery and then listen to Lost in Space, I’m pretty surprised it’s the same band in some aspects. There are obvious similarities considering it is the same band, and at the same time I feel like Lost in Space was written years and years ago, when it really was released quite recently in the grand scheme of things. I think this album is more upbeat in general, faster tempo and a happier, funner (?) album.

I think I will stick by what was likely my original verdict on Bellevue, have a house party and throw them into the mix. Not litterally of course, unless they’re into some sort of ultimate fighting. Alright, so previously I wanted to do the laundry while listening to Bellevue, no longer the case. Some songs are a chill out with a beer on the back patio type of song, and some songs are the drunken “let’s try to sing along to songs we don’t know the words of” type of songs. Now I’m envisioning Bellevue Karaokee night!

Sadly I missed the CD Release party that was on June 7th at Buddhas, but make sure you go see Bellevue at the Drake Hotel on July 5th 2008! I’m going to try to clear my calandar, but I think I already have a photo gig. Boo-urns.

I had gone to Lee’s Palace to see Harlot, who was headlining this particular show that night. And arrived just early enough to catch the last half of The Weather Underground (www.theweatherunderground.ca). Having missed half their show, this will likely be a short review.

I didn’t know any of the songs they played, except one sounded oddly familiar. Everyone’s convinced it was a cover, while I am not contesting it, I feel that I’ve watched them play at other shows before, which is why I recognized the song. (Not that I know what it is) Either way, the band sounded really good, really loud, and much the rock band that one would expect.

Most of my experiences with the band stemmed after the set. I went up to the lead singer to ask about buying a CD. I was two dollars short but he let me buy it anyways. I asked to have it signed, with a sharpie, and he searched high and low for a sharpie to autograph my cd with. Then searched high and low for the rest of his bandmates to also sign the CD for me. I even had the bass player autograph the cd “To eBay” for me.

I also met the artist who “designed” the artwork, he’s a painter who’s art they used for their coverart, and he got to see the CD for the first time and we talked about his art & where it’s displayed etc. I ended up leaving my CD with him while Harlot was starting.

Came back to find my CD had gone off with the artist’s girlfriend upstairs to Dance Cave so she could show all their friends his art, and I waited around to get it back.

The band is definitely filled with nice guys who are jokers, drinkers, and general musicians. While leaving and walking past the band as they were loading gear into their car we got to talk even more. I’ll definitely try to check them out again.

I’m working my way backwards from the beach party show that happened last month. First things first, Señor Kasio was last to go on. It’s never fun for me to go to a show on a school night, but for these guys I just had to. I wanted to see what the big fuss was about.

So Steve had been running around for weeks online promoting his beach party show, and something about some very large balls. As they were the closing band, it took a while to see this dream turn into a reality. Sadly, four metric tonnes of sand was not brought into the venue.

The boys took to the stage like fish being dropped back into their fish bowl. Always with the high energy, and hilariously in t-shirts, shorts, sandals and lei’s. I think the funniest was the lei’s. Or perhaps it was the sandals. Thankfully no one was wearing socks with them! I kind of hoped for Hawaiian shirts, because as Homer once said “Hawaiian shirts are for gay guys and big fat party animals… (and Bart doesn’t look like a big fat party animal to me.)”

I know all the songs by now, can attempt to sing and dance along with every one of them, and there was some sort of crowd even though it was a late night and everyone had work and/or school in the morning. The high energy in the singing and dancing on stage was always just enough to feed the audience the energy to keep going, and I do hope that we, as the audience, provide enough back to make being on stage worth it!

The large balls that Steve was boasting about was a 3 ft beach ball purchased online, and unfortunately there is a skill in beach ball mathematics that he did not learn until after his purchase. And while the crowd warmed up to the idea of tossing this thing around during the show, very few casualities were had.

The venue was somewhat empty, until the last song where it seemed everyone appeared out of the woodwork. Seeing as how Señor Kasio and S.N.A.K. share a guitarist, and generally are quite friendly, they seemed mainly to attack the stage, and add a more fuller feeling to the band… if not just simply sexually harassing them. They’re in a band, they should be used to it.

So in closing, the crowd could have been bigger, and it could have been held on a night that wasn’t a school night. I missed my unicycle club meeting for this show. But, as with all Señor Kasio shows, I’ll definitely be coming back again!

So I wasn’t expecting to spend tonight at a show, I mean, come on. It’s a school night. Then again, I didn’t have to be at work until late because there would be no power for a large majority of the morning, and I spend too much time on Facebook as it is, and found a message from Nathan Down saying he was just thrown into a show at the Reverb. Now, seeing as how I haven’t seen Mikey S perform in a while, and I haven’t seen him perform in this particular group, I thought why the hell not, I would already be downtown, and was pretty sure I could wrangle a dSLR from someone before showing up.

Two things.

When a set is announced at 5:05pm and is going to be happening at 8:30, it is extremely rare that you will be able to find everyone you need. I showed up around 9pm to meet and greet Mikey and was haphazardly introduced to “the gang” and to find out that Mikey would not be performing, as no one could find the band’s drummer, so Nathan would be performing solo.

When a venue has its liquor license pulled the night before the night of a performance, generally you will not have heavy crowds coming out to see the bands. I felt the wind whistling through my hair, or something equally poetic. I found it just a little bit hilarious, but found it absolutely appalling that the venue was now charging $3.75 for a 500mL of water.

I need to stop being so long winded.

So, Nathan was first to go on stage. And I really had no idea what to expect. I’d never listened to the sound clips or watched video clips online. I was expecting a guy and a guitar, in some nice sort of soothing type of mellow music, as he looked like a nice soothing mellow kind of guy.

Blown away, would be one way to put it. I did not expect the power in Nathan’s vocals, his voice, and just how he performs. I realize now that he would have made more sense with a band, since everything he did seemed just a little overpowering for a one-man show. But he had the skills, and everything sounded great.

Everything looked great too. Early on in the set someone in the crew yelled out at him to take his shirt off, and he made a comment about it being well known that he’s very shy. Now, I was beginning to recall many photos of Nathan Down sans shirt, so I was confused by all these comments. However when it was suddenly proclaimed that “It’s too hot in here!” I was now seeing a man with no shirt on strap a guitar around his shoulders. And the show went on.

I definitely enjoyed the show, even with the lack of alcohol, and lack of… crowd. I definitely felt bad for every artist that was scheduled to be there, because it’s honestly quite painful to sit at a venue with nothing to drink. Mikey promises to let me know of the next Nathan Down show that will happen, and I am looking forward to it!

This was the long lost fabled debut show for Awaking State. Knowing the members of the band is always a plus when it comes to getting into a show for free. For this I was hired as their photographer, which works for me in that I didn’t have to pay to get in (although it was a really decent cover). For some reason Awaking State has a tendency to piss off Mother Nature, as their last show was cancelled due to an upcoming snowstorm, and this show was also scheduled for a snow-storm. Alas, the show must go on, and snow storm or no snow storm, Awaking State was going to hit the stage.

I think the funniest for me was that I arrived too early, and rather than go into a venue too early and look like a jackass, I proceeded to attempt to nap in my car for a few minutes. Of course Brandon (the drummer) happen to be outside at the time, watched me pull up, and proceeded to wait outside for me to come in. Finally giving up and coming up to the car to see why the hell I wasn’t going into the venue. I was, however, presented with my media pass to grant me access to the night’s festivities.

The first band, Blind Fire, went up and were pretty awesome. Had a good crowd going on early in the night and obvious they were a local favourite. Then the intermission as some generic rock music pumped through the speakers and I went to grab a beer.

Awaking State hit the stage with lots of effects I don’t expect at a live show. I know they’re very electronic based but it’s rare to see musicians come up with more than just instruments. I also noted there were more instruments than band members on stage and realized that was supposed to make sense. Awaking State started off strong. Going into songs that I have come to think of as favourites since they were released onto the internet. It seemed unfortunate that the sound person was having some difficulty knowing exactly what was required, as requests were made by Kent to change some things regarding sounds of this or the monitor in that. There was also a moment of laptop kerfuffel as Brandon had to jump off the drums to see what was going on.

The extra instruments were mainly a keyboard off to the side. Where I watched Kent, with a guitar strapped around his neck, to then go to the keyboard and play a few bars while singing into an extra microphone. I also found it just a little amusing that while Kent early on broke a guitar string, then went to change guitars, he seemed to have given up on a normal 6 stringed guitar, and went back to playing his first choice of guitar, which included said broken string.

The Toronto Semi-circle that was non-existant during Blind Fire’s set, happened during Awaking State. A perfect half circle of dead space in front of the stage that had a radius of about 5 or 6 feet. I was told later this was likely due to the fact that enough Torontoians were imported to Oshawa, is the reasoning for it. Although I will admit, being right up to the musicians was irritating as the stage lights hung pretty low and I’m sure if I was more careless I would have bonked my head!

I do look forward to seeing more Awaking State shows.

I do not look forward to driving home in 4 ft of snow the next day.

So my best bet for finding out new bands is to go see the bands that are playing… you know, the ones that aren’t the band that I actually planned on seeing. And Blind Fire is one of the bands that I was able to “discover” that night.

It’s hard to really judge or expect anything when you’re not only watching a new band, but also in a new town. I’d not been to a show in Oshawa in a long LONG time, and it very obviously showed. I was there to see Awaking State, since they were the main attraction and going on second, Blind Fire ended up being the local band that would go on first.

It’s taken me a while to understand the politics of who goes in what order, but I think I’ve finally figured it out. If you’re a big enough band, you go last. Make everyone wait. Save the best for last, and so forth. If there’s a group of pretty good bands, but no one will bring in the massive draw, you’re scrapping to play in the middle. In order to catch the people who stuck around after the first band, and to catch people who came in early for the third band. It’s a good mix. Sort of like at school, sit at the front and teacher will notice you slacking off, sit at the back and the teacher watches you like a hawk to make sure you’re not slacking off.

ANYWAYS! I’m here to talk about Blind Fire. They had a pretty good crowd going. Groove Lounge doesn’t exactly have a stage, although the drumkit is on a riser. So the band is ground level with the floor. The “stage” is marked by where the monitors are on stage so the bands can hear themselves. I’m not 100% sure, but Blind Fire seemed to be a local high-school band. It made sense, since their fans and everyone who came to see them were all in the high school/college looking age, and very obviously supportive of their friends.

The crowd, definitely in love with them. Myself and my colleagues, namely Awaking State, were also pretty impressed (From what I could gather, they were also a bit edgy being their big show) and I found it quite endearing that an older couple, quite obviously not the average high-school fan, was videotaping off the side of the stage. I grabbed my camera for practice, to see what I had to work with. The band ran around like only a young band can, makes my job more difficult, but made their fans go nuts.

Now, one thing you notice if you go to any show in Toronto, there’s always about 5 feet of space from the stage to the crowd, riser or not. Musicians that I talk to, all call this the “Toronto Semi-Circle”… being afraid of getting up to where the band can see you, and possibly interact with you. I normally don’t partake in this, but I will admit I feel a bit weird being the only person to break said semi-circle.

Blind Fire, didn’t have such a semi-circle. And that was awesome.

What else was awesome? One of the band members, his mom grabbed my attention during Awaking State. Asked me who I worked for. (Ego boost for me!) After I explained I was with the band, she handed me her card, complete with e-mail address, so I could e-mail her pics. I did. She loved them.