Big Rock Finish… reviews of independent music

This is a bit of an odd repost, but I really liked Fuscia. Currently I know Mikey S, who was the bassist at the time I knew the band, is playing bass for Nathan Down . And Shawn started a new band called If Looks could Kill. I don’t have any real updates on the other former members of Fuscia, but check out those two links, and try and I’ll see you later!

Oh, you have to see their live show. I didn’t really get to see Fuscia at Warped tour but I did get to see them May 5th at the Rim Rock in Ajax, Ontario. For a stage the size of my futon mattress, 4 band members, and 3 camera guys doing nothing but tripping all over the band members, these guys have an awesome live show.

They play with each other on stage. Not in *that* way you sick perverts. But there’s lots of movement, there’s lots of involvement, and of all the bands I’ve seen, it’s the first time I’ve heard Mikey sing. But it’s great to see bands where the members sort of say hi to each other while performing, instead of being super rigid and set in their little 2 foot square of personal invisible bubble.

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!

Name: Abbie Gale
Album: Family Life
Released: Unknown
Members:
Evira (vocals)
Salvatore (guitar+baritone guitar)
Pedal (guitar+keyboards)
Achilles (drums+loops)
Bon Bon (bass)

Website: http://www.abbiegale.gr/
Record Label: Vacant Records
Favourite Song: Say the Words (Track 3)

Abbie Gale hails from Patra Greece. One of the more inspiring things I’ve noticed regarding musicians is the fact that many are able to record in a language that I’m sure is not their native tongue. Being from Greece, I’m making the broad assumption that their main language is… well… Greek. I do understand that English is taught in many countries for a global approach to world-wide domination… but like Celine Dion who had to learn English from learn-as-you-go cassette tapes well beyond her adolecent years… I can’t imagine trying to learn a new language that I’m not already 100% comfortable in… and then trying to write songs to it.

They register themselves under Indie, Pop and Rock on their myspace page. I don’t see any reason to argue so I will accept their labels as is. I definitely enjoy the diversity of the songs on this album. Every song could probably have one additional classification added to it, but still following the general “pop/rock” culture. Some songs are happy and whimsical, like Say the Words… others slightly more haunting like Kid Still Lives.

The songs on Family Life remind me of… a lot of European Pop songs. I don’t know if my readers know of my humble beginnings, but I fell in love with music when the pop market became super-saturated with boy groups, girl groups, or in essence, bubble-gum pop groups, but for some odd reason I was only ever really drawn to the European groups and artists, rather than their American counterparts. There was something at least a little bit unique about the European groups and artists, and I’m noticing that this happens whether they are manufactured for the masses or independent musicians making their mark on the world. There’s just a style that is uniquely European.

While I have no near-future plans to travel to Greece, I would like to see Abbie Gale play a live show. Partially to enjoy their music, as they are very talented musicians and song-writers, partially to see another international band, partially because I want to travel, and part to see their fan-base. Where I said earlier about being in awe for musicians to write and record songs in another language? To see their fans embrace another language because it is in a song.

So on March 4th, 2008 I was headed to Toronto to see a bunch of bands play at the Tattoo Rock Parlour venue. I was hired to see/shoot BROOMFILLER and obviously would end up seeing the other bands as well.

The first band of the night was local band called The Apollo Effect, then the headlining band Cold Driven who is on tour from somewhere out west and BROOMFILLER would close out the show. Of course, seeing as it was a school night, and a night where we were under threat of massive dumping of snow, I was not extremely pleased at the idea of staying super late. Alas, Cold Driven’s singer ended up sick and stayed in their massive bus and the show went ahead with the opening band, then the closing band immediately after, and my mind was rested the next morning.

The Apollo Effect hit the stage with what I felt like no introduction, a handful of well-dressed men came on and they started playing. I remember already being tired from a long & stressful day at work, and watching them was just nice to sit back and listen to some music. Thankfully, some really good music.

The guys on stage were very cool in the “I know I’m cool… but that’s okay, we’re sure you’re cool too” sort of way. It’s hard to describe since I’m writing based on a while ago at this point. I did very much enjoy the music, and while taking a few pictures here and there just to set up shots for later, I throughly enjoyed taking photos since all the guys are also quite attractive, a big plus in this industry.

It bugged me that the venue had a lot of red lighting and not much to cancel it out, meaning most of my shots include an in-focus lead singer, and not much else. I know that a band is more than just the lead singer, and like to portray that in my photography. Bah.

Their songs? Very well put together, like their outfits. The whole mood of the venue was one of a lot of people enjoying what they were hearing. The venue gave way to a lot of people sitting down and chilling out, so not a whole lot of excitement on the floor but everyone would have been able to see the band, everyone cheered the band on, and dare I say everyone who showed up enjoyed their music. I certainly did, and not having a clue who they were before hand, I can honestly say I’d definitely go see them again next chance I get.

Alright, so I’ll admit not a review of any particular sort. I met these guys (and the drummer, sadly, nearly impossible to take a good photo of a drummer as an amateur photographer…) while working a photo gig for the Showman’s League Presidents party.

And while I’m not into doing reviews on cover bands most of the time, they did some original jazz tunes during dinner, but I think what brought me to actually wanting to write about them… is that they were able to cover just about anything. You haven’t heard funky until you’ve heard Lil’ Jon & Usher’s song covered by a couple of French Canadian white guys (and girl) on instruments that are real and not computer generated.

Anyways, if anyone’s looking for a band to play some corporate function, I would actually recommend them. Also, while it’s near impossible to get a good picture of a drummer, it’s also near impossible to get a bad picture of a guy playing a saxophone.

Alright, so this was my first ever introduction to S.N.A.K. and it was definitely an eye opener. My best friend really had some issues with this band, being the former drummer, and refused to come with me to the show. To be perfectly honest, I only went to the show because jemo was playing and being that they were the last act of the night, generally means I end up getting introduced to other bands that come before. No biggie.

The night started with me being promised to be on the guest list by jemo, and when I showed up I was greeted with people whom I’ve never met before, but assumed they were in one band or the other, who were kind enough to let me in on my word that I am supposed to be on the guest list. Later when I met up with the guys from jemo (outside, I went to go find them since they had gone for dinner) I had no hassles getting back in when I walked in with them.

SNAK was the band who set up the show and usually when that happens you want to be somewhere in the middle. You have your own fan base show up, you have fans that come for the band before that hopefully will stick around, and you have the fans that come for the band after you, that hopefully showed up early. It’s a good ploy that’s for sure.

So remember me saying my best friend used to drum for them? That afforded me to get away with a copy of SNAK’s first album sayin’ you’re done. And me being the big dorky geek that I am, thusly ran around the venue trying to figure out who on earth was even in this band to get their autographs. Nothing funnier than going up to perfect strangers and saying “Can I have your autograph??” and them giving you just the slightest in strange looks as they’re sure they’ve never met you before.

Couple that with the fact that you then pull out a 6 year old CD that has been “off the market” and the questions start flying. They all signed it for me which was pretty awesome. Well, the three main guys, Dave, Tynur and Alex (aka wee one… now that there’s two Alex’s in the band) who were actually on the original disk that I had brought with me. And I tried desperately to keep how I got my CD a secret but someone finally figured it out.

But as to the show, it was great. SNAK somehow brought in a giant tube of bracelet glow-sticks to give to their (and anyone’s) fans and I was able to steal two and thread them through the eyelets in my ears, just to prove that I could. I would go in for certain songs and give them a listen, I definitely liked what I heard, and the crowd loved what they were witnessing. And I would go outside and hang with jemo since they were working the door while SNAK was on stage.

I think my favourite part of that night, and what made me fall in love with the band, was that Alex (wee one) comes up to me right at the beginning of the jemo set, and hands me a copy of their newest disk, 6 Months of Sundays, so I could hear what they had been up to since the last album that I had. That was just the sweetest thing ever. And when I popped it into my car that night, I decided they were people I had to keep in touch with.

And I did!