Summerworks
What: Summerworks
Why: Celebrated long-running theatre festival that added a musical component four years ago.
Who: In its short run, Summerworks already counts some of the cream of the current Canadian musical crop as its alumnus – this year’s class seems certain to add to that list. For specifics, keep reading.
When: There will be six nights of live music double-headers running over the course of the festival’s week-and-a-bit duration, with the night-by-night breaking down as follows – there’s also opening and closing parties on the 4th and the 14th.

Friday, August 5 – Hooded Fang, Steven McKay
Saturday August 6 – Bonjay, Lioness
Wednesday August 10 – Great Bloomers, House League (featuring members of Forest City Lovers, Matters, Evening Hymns and more)
Thursday August 11 – Bruce Peninsula, Jennifer Castle
Friday August 12 – Miracle Fortress, Ruby Coast
Saturday August 13 – Green Go, Powers
Where: The Lower Ossington Theatre in Toronto (19+)
How: Tickets for each show are $10 in advance but courtesy of the festival, I’ve got three pairs of passes to a show of your choice to give away. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want the Summerworks” in the subject line and your full name and the show you’d like to attend in the body. Contest closes at midnight, August 4.
What else: BlogTO has previewed some of the acts performing at this year’s festival.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “Light Flight”
MP3: Hooded Fang – “ESP”
MP3: Miracle Fortress – “Miscalculations”
MP3: Jennifer Castle – “Neverride”

Frank YangHands down, the best thing to happen to NXNE in recent years is the designation of Yonge-Dundas Square as the festival’s main stage and making the shows staged there – usually featuring the lineup’s biggest names – free for everyone. And what’s better is that despite being located in pretty much the most central and public place in the city, there’s been no signs that they festival has been concerned about diluting the quality of the performances to be a little more family-friendly; witness last year’s near-carnage of Iggy & The Stooges or the mid-day ass-shaking sissy bounce clinic put on by Big Freedia. Passers-by were offended by the latter – and to be honest I don’t blame them – but that it happened was great.

And it was just as great that Thursday evening’s programme featured an early evening slot from a band whose credentials were impeccable; a Polaris Prize-winning local act with mounds of international critical acclaim and fronted by a national television personality. Who just happened to be called Fucked Up. And the best part? No one cared. Actually, check that – it didn’t even matter that no one cared because it implies that there were concerns about people being offended. The best part was that the show was fantastic. I don’t think I’d have believed you if you told me a couple years ago that I’d become a Fucked Up fan – I figured that respect was as far as I’d get, but fact is I think their latest David Comes To Life is terrific and I can’t think of anyone I like more as Toronto’s musical and cultural ambassadors right now than them.

After being introduced by the festival emcee – a role that Damian Abraham played last year – the band tore into “Queen Of Hearts” from the new album and Abraham tore into the crowd, body surfing into the masses and largely disappearing into the circle pit and general tumult while somehow continuing to sing. The punk rock revelling continued through the first portion of the set as Abraham’s bandmates dutifully cranked out arena-sized rock from the safe confines of the stage, with Abraham eventually climbing out to bellow out the rest of the set from the edge of the barricade while the fans carried on moshing, surfing and generally carrying on. And through it all, the spirit was amazing and celebratory, quite a far cry from the dark vibe of last year’s Stooges show, though to the casual onlooker the mayhem might have appeared similar. For Fucked Up, it was a sort of warm-up to their more familiar club-sized show at Wrongbar later that night, but for everyone else, it was a pretty high bar set for the rest of the night.

Time Out New York has an interview with Damian Abraham and the brand-new video for “Queen Of Hearts” is linked below.

Photos: Fucked Up @ Yonge-Dundas Square – June 16, 2011
MP3: Fucked Up – “The Other Shoe”
MP3: Fucked Up – “Ship Of Fools”
MP3: Fucked Up – “A Little Death”
MP3: Fucked Up – “Queen Of Hearts”
MP3: Fucked Up – “Neat Parts”
Video: Fucked Up – “Queen Of Hearts”
Video: Fucked Up – “Black Albino Bones”
Video: Fucked Up – “Crooked Head”

I was pretty proud of myself for getting from Yonge to Ossington on bike in less than 8 minutes, even if it meant being a sweaty mess for the Modern Superstitions set at The Garrison. I’ve liked to check in on the local quartet from time to time, happily seeing the potential obscured by awkwardness at V Fest 2009 be more fully-realized in a much more confident Halifax Pop Explosion set last Fall. And the upward trend continued on Thursday as the band sounded louder and punchier than ever before, with new material that sounded less immediate but more impressive in its ambitions. While they could have done pretty well simply being “The Strokes fronted by a cute girl”, they’re obviously looking to do something more and that they’re arriving at these conclusions before their debut full-length is released can only be taken as a good thing. The next time I see them, I expect they’ll be ready to take on the world.

Photos: Modern Superstitions @ The Garrison – June 16, 2011
MP3: Modern Superstitions – “Visions Of You”
Video: Modern Superstitions – “Mercy Line”
Video: Modern Superstitions – “Visions Of You”

Leaving The Garrison, my tour of the worst venues in the city to take photographs in continued at The Velvet Underground where The Two Koreas were set to perform. I’d seen them way back in 2007 and was impressed enough at the time, but not enough to keep up with what the quartet in the years since. A recommendation to give their latest Science Island a spin confirmed that they were still at it and their facility for combining big guitar riffs with shouty yet melodic vocals was even sharper than before. And live, with frontman Stuart Berman’s dance moves thrown in, it was a good way to spend a half hour or so. And then it was back out into the night.

Spinner gets Berman to write about the duality of being in a band and writing about bands for a living.

Photos: The Two Koreas @ The Velvet Underground – June 16, 2011
MP3: The Two Koreas – “Midnight Brown”
Video: The Two Koreas – “Midnight Brown”

Getting to The Silver Dollar for 11 was strictly a logistical move to make sure I got in but it turned out to be one of the most fortuitous of the weekend, as it allowed me to see Chains of Love. The Vancouver outfit don’t do anything new whatsoever, but that’s rather the point. They take the spirit of ’50s and ’60s girl-group pop and writing new – GOOD – songs in that style and deliver them with genuine rock energy and plenty of sass and style, thanks to the charisma of frontwoman Nathalia Pizarro. A couple of gear issues threatened to stall their momentum early on but when they got going, there was no stopping them. An unknown quantity with only a 7″ and handful of MP3s entering the fest, they left as one of the bands everyone was talking about.

Photos: Chains Of Love @ The Silver Dollar – June 16, 2011
MP3: Chains Of Love – “You Got It”
MP3: Chains Of Love – “All The Time”

San Diego’s Crocodiles, on the other hand, came into NXNE with all the hype and lots to prove – not many bands get a three-night residency at a major festival for their Canadian debut. If they thought for a minute that they didn’t deserve the attention, however, you couldn’t tell from behind frontman Brandon Welchez’s Ray-Bans. Drenched in nothing but red light, they came off as cool as you could imagine and and as loud as you’d expect. On last year’s Sleep Forever, they found a good balance between the lo-fi psychedelic garage aesthetic of their scene and their fondness for big pop hooks but live, it was all about the drone and the volume. As such, guitarist Charles Rowell became the real star of the show as the amount of racket he was able to conjure out of his axe was most impressive, layering noise upon fuzz upon more noise, all delivered in riff form. Welchez gets points for simply being audible overtop of all that, but you couldn’t really hear anything more specific than that. Still, even so, a pretty bracing – and deafening – debut.

Spinner has an interview with Rowell, who post-gig also told them why they’ve never played in Canada before (hint: it’s what you think).

Photos: Crocodiles @ The Silver Dollar – June 16, 2011
MP3: Crocodiles – “Sleep Forever”
Video: Crocodiles – “Hearts Of Love”
Video: Crocodiles – “Sleep Forever”

I would have been happy to call it a night at that point but the fact that I was there, and Vancouver’s Dirty Beaches – whose debut Badlands was long-listed for this year’s Polaris Prize earlier that day – was up next was a pretty good argument for sticking around. And with regards to what Alex Zhang Hungtai – he who is Dirty Beaches – is about, all I can say is I don’t get it. I mean, I kind of do; his one-man, no-fi bedroom Elvis act certainly has a unique style to it and works on record in creating an atmosphere. But live, with Hungtai either shrieking or muttering into a plastic condensor mic or coaxing squalls of noise out of his guitar over simple looped beats, it was just kind of perplexing. The people around me went nuts, I went home. Dirty Beaches return on September 24 at the Phoenix as support for Peter Hook.

Photos: Dirty Beaches @ The Silver Dollar – June 16, 2011
MP3: Dirty Beaches – “Lord Knows Best”
Video: Dirty Beaches – “Shangri-La”

On a day where I would be seeing an Andy Bell and was writing up a band called Chains Of Love, how weird is it that an Erasure tour – including a September 11 date at the Sound Academy – be announced? Pretty weird. The show is in support of their new record Tomorrow’s World, due out this Fall, and tickets are $40.

Video: Erasure – “Chains Of Love”

As one festival ends, another begins. Or at least is announced. I speak of Summerworks, the annual convergence of theatre and music, and their 2011 music programme which was announced yesterday. Things kick off on August 4 with an all-day opening party and wrap on the 14th with same – details on performers for each are still forthcoming – but the evenings in between will shake out as follows, with all shows being held at the Lower Ossington Theatre with advance tickets $10 a night.

Friday, August 5 – Hooded Fang, Steven McKay
Saturday August 6 – Bonjay, Lioness
Wednesday August 10 – Great Bloomers, House League (featuring members of Forest City Lovers, Matters, Evening Hymns and more)
Thursday August 11 – Bruce Peninsula, Jennifer Castle
Friday August 12 – Miracle Fortress, Ruby Coast
Saturday August 13 – Green Go, Powers

The National Post talks to Shad, who will be playing a free show at Metro Square on July 1.

The Boston Globe has a visit with Chad VanGaalen.

The new Handsome Furs record Sound Kapital is streaming in whole over at Exclaim in advance of its release next week; Spin has an interview and a stream as well. They play The Horseshoe on August 1.

Stream: Handsome Furs / Sound Kapital

DIY has a pre-Glasto chat with Dan Mangan. His new record Oh, Fortune should be out in September.

Southern Souls has posted a video session with Little Scream.

Frank YangIt’s been almost a year since Caribou’s Dan Snaith walked off the stage, giant cheque in hand, having been crowned the 2008 Polaris Music Prize winner for his stunning record Andorra. But since then, things have been largely silent in camp Caribou since then, as Snaith was presumably hard at work on the follow-up record.

Then in May, word of a live show for the Fall. Not a tour, but the sort of special event that happens when Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips calls up and asks you to come out of hiding and play a show at an old country club in the Catskills, aka ATPNY. And as befits such an occasion, rather than just call up his usual co-conspirators and play a typical Caribou show, Snaith went through his rolodex, gathered together folks from Four Tet, Junior Boys and Enon, amongst many others, and essentially assembled a super-sized Caribou, an uber-Caribou – The Caribou Vibration Ensemble.

So while the ATP performance this past weekend in Monticello, New York was the big event, Thursday night’s show at the Opera House in Toronto was much more than just a dress rehearsal. The opening act for the evening however, Koushik, may have been. Though Koushik is billed as a downbeat electronic/pop/hip-hop artist, on this night he/they were essentially 3/4 of the Caribou Vibration Ensemble – of which Koushik Ghosh was part of – in jamming mode. Not jamming in the sense of everyone on stage trading solos, but more establishing a solid, unshowy groove and building simple melodies over top. They played pretty much straight through, trading instruments and letting things go where they would, then wrapping it after about 30 minutes – right about where hypnotic began to give way to tedious. Wise.

After about a half-hour intermission, Caribou took the stage, less a band than an orchestra with distinct sections (brass over here, massive percussion setup in the middle, strings in back, keys and electronics over here) and at a full fifteen members, dwarfed the nine-piece configuration of the openers. Now at this point, I have to offer context – or lack of. I’d only gotten into Caribou during the Polaris process last year, so I’d never seen them live and further had never really listened to any of the albums previous to Andorra, so frames of reference for the performance and reinvention of the songs is limited at best. But in this instance, I think that’s alright because doing things the way they were was entirely beside the point of the evening.

Across approximately 90 minutes and ranging through the two Caribou records and one Manitoba album, the Ensemble took Snaith’s already widescreen compositions and enhanced by an impressive light show, blew them up into IMAX-scale. Describable at various points thought the set – and sometimes within a song – as electronica, jazz, tribal, psychedelic or noise but never losing sight of the pop roots, the Caribou Vibration Ensemble was a sight to behold and a sound to be heard. The high points would have been the vocal numbers – a choral “Melody Day” and Jeremy Greenspan-sung “She’s The One” – had they been properly audible. Note to sound guy – when six people gather around the mics at the front of the stage, that might be a hint that you should turn them on in the PA. As it was, from up front they were still audible enough to impress but those should have been the show-stoppers.

Those complaints aside, it was still a wholly impressive and memorable evening and I can only imagine how terrific their set was at ATP – surely standouts of an absurdly stacked lineup. And now Snaith returns to crafting the third Caribou record and the rest of us return to waiting patiently, though he’s already on record as saying it will be a departure from the classic pop of Andorra. Holding up this experience as a benchmark for future Caribou live performances is also probably unreasonable, but that’s fine – it works quite well as one of those unique experiences that I feel lucky to have been able to witness. eye and Exclaim have reviews of the show while NOW was on hand to catch some video.

Photos: The Caribou Vibration Ensemble, Koushik @ The Opera House – September 10, 2009
MP3: Caribou – “Melody Day”
MP3: Caribou – “Barnowl”
Video: Caribou – “She’s The One”
Video: Caribou – “Melody Day”
Video: Caribou – “Irene”
Video: Caribou – “Hummingbird”
MySpace: Caribou
MySpace: Koushik

And to anyone who enjoyed – as I did – watching Caribou’s touring drummer Brad Weber beat the tar out of his kit for both the Caribou and Koushik sets, note that he has his own band in Pick A Piper and they will be at the Horseshoe this coming Friday, September 18, as part of the 100th show celebrations for local promoters No Shame. Also playing are Green Go, Ruby Coast and The Skeletones Four. This is something you should attend.

Land Of Talk have released a new MP3 from their forthcoming Fun & Laughter EP, out October 13. It dost scorch.

MP3: Land Of Talk – “May You Never”

The Hidden Cameras have finally added the hometown finale to their massive Fall tour in support of new album Origin:Orphan, out September 22, by scheduling what’s sure to be an over-the-top show at the Opera House on December 5.

Video: The Hidden Cameras – “In The NA”

And if you don’t want to wait till Winter for a little Hidden Cameras fix, consider heading out to James St in Hamilton come October 9 for Supercrawl, a combination street fair, art show and music festival that will be headlined by the aforementioned Hidden Cameras and also feature performances from Ohbijou and many more. And it’s an excuse to go to Hamilton. Who doesn’t want to go to Hamilton?

A whole mess of new videos meeting Can-con requirements hit the web last week. Great Lake Swimmers released a new one from Lost Channels. There’s features on the band at The Courier-Journal and Nashville Scene.

Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Still”

ChartAttack talks to Amy Millan about her new solo record Masters Of The Burial, out next week, as well as what’s going on with her bands Stars and Broken Social Scene. She plays the Mod Club on October 14 and has a new video from her new album.

Video: Amy Millan – “Bury This”

Also with a new vid are Cuff The Duke, who’ve got a two-night stand at the Horseshoe on October 16 and 17. There’s interviews with the band at Metro and The Corrie Tandem.

Video: Cuff The Duke – “Promises”

Oh No Forest Fires went wandering in a Newfoundland forest and refrained from setting any fires, instead they shot a live video. They’re part of a stacked bill at Lee’s Palace next Friday night, September 25, with The Balconies, Fox Jaws and Whale Tooth.

Video: Oh No Forest Fires – “New Cove Road Back Home” (Live in a Forest)

ChartAttack spends some time with Two Hours Traffic. They’ve got a gig at Lee’s Palace on October 16.

Threadless has a video interview with t-shirt models The Rural Alberta Advantage, and they’re also asking for help to name a new song.

The Line Of Best Fit declared last week Bella Union week, in honour of the UK label who brings the likes of Ohbijou and The Acorn to adoring British masses, and in an apparent show of solidarity with the label’s website, which went AWOL, TLOBF too went offline. But they’re back now and I can point you at a few of the features they offered including a guide to west Scotland from My Latest Novel, an interview between label boss Simon Raymonde and Midlake (new album forthcoming entitled The Courage of Others) and Ohbijou have put together a “get to know Canada” crossword puzzle. Of course, Line Of Best Fit readers are already well-acquainted with the Great White North thanks to their series of Oh! Canada posts and mixes, the fourth volume of which is now available to download.