Bagel & Session Shut Up
Booking chaos was touched off in Toronto when two of the city’s busiest independent music venues suddenly closed their doors for good. By July 7 rumours of The Bagel’s demise were circulating on Toronto music message board stillepost.ca. With booker “Greg” nowhere to be found the locked doors displayed a crude hand-written sign which read “Tonight’s show cancelled, sorry”. Not only did this create confusion for bands who were booked to play the College Street eatery-turned-venue (as they were never contacted about the closure) but Toronto band Hot Monogamy had their gear stored at the club after playing what was then unknown to be the bar’s last show. The band made numerous attempts to contact Greg (who in better days had been nicknamed “Gregal” by regulars) for a week before finally getting access to their trapped equipment. Apparently unable to pay his rent, the venue was locked, and Greg evicted. This was universally seen to be a sad end for what had become something of a tumultuous indie success.
And no less than two weeks later (on Sunday July 16) a similar situation ended the short-lived run of emerging Queen Street hotspot The Session. Dutifully booked by local guitar-tech turned booker-of-the-people Keith Hamilton, regulars were shocked to see the doors chained and a “Notice of Distress” posted outside, also citing unpaid rent as the reason for eviction.
The closure of both these busy venues caused a flurry of rescheduling and cancellations, with many shows still up in the air. The biggest question mark left in the wake of The Session’s closure is where Hamilton will move his successful Pitter Patter Nights concert series. With well known acts like Pony Da Look, The D’urbervilles, Fjord Rowboat, Lunchmeat, and Now Yr Taken booked deep into September, Hamilton is now charged with finding a new home (it’s the fourth time he’s had to relocate in the past two years). Confident that Pitter Patter will persevere, Hamilton is currently looking into other venue opportunities.
Billy Talent gets Fucked Up
Local Popsters Billy Talent and Toronto Hardcore kids Fucked Up have finally tossed the gloves in their long-standing feud by both releasing tracks “disrespecting” one another. The conflict dates back to last fall went Fucked Up were playing a packed show at the Bovine Sex Club, Queen Street’s punk-rock Mecca. While a long line of Fucked Up fans were stuck waiting outside, a member of Billy Talent (who was well known to the Bovine’s doorman) was waved in to the at-capacity club. Upon learning of this incident, Fucked Up guitarist 1000 Marbles promptly banned any member of Billy Talent from ever attending his shows, noting in a Eye Weekly interview that “they take up room from people who aren’t slick douche-bag poseurs.”
The next move was BT’s, and they responded with the stinging cut “Where is the Line?” (off their new album, II) which features the lyrics “Urban Hipster, the new gangster, frontin’ by the club / When did they assume, putting on a costume / Gave them a right to ostracize… Answer one question / Where is the line? Where is the line? / Between your fashion and your mind?” With that question posed, Fucked Up wasted no time entering the studio to quickly produce their comeback track simply titled “The Line”.
Book-ended by two spoken word rants “The Line” is a minute-and-a-half of hardcore, punk-rock revenge. “Hey, high-hair”, singer Father Damian barks at the pompadoured Ian D’Sa, “gimme my fucking ketchup, with your fucking swoop haircuts.” He then continues to answer the question posed by Billy Talent, screaming, “The line is the bullshit that you put out, only your date-rapist fans would believe”. The song also makes reference to Billy Talent’s breakthrough hit, when a voice in the background quips, “Try Honesty? Try licking my balls!” Fucked Up conclude the song by flat out denying that this feud is any attempt to win over Billy Talent’s fans, or capitalize on their fame, “I wouldn’t want people that buy your fucking records to buy our records, people that buy your records are deaf, and fucking deaf and idiots… people who like you are worse than fucking Nazis… they’re shit eaters, they can eat my shit.”
Well known for their insane, and violent live shows (one Halloween, at Sneaky Dee’s they played their whole set with carved-out jack-o-lanters on their heads, like helmets) Fucked Up have just recently inked a deal with New York emo label Jade Tree (Cap’n Jazz, Jets to Brazil) who will release their double album Hidden World this fall. Billy Talent, the ball’s in your court now.
Thanks to seekriver on stillepost.ca you can download Fucked Up’s track “The Line” from http://www.sendspace.com/file/1ijo1c
The New Grunge do it themselves
Grunge died when Kurt Cobain blew his head off, right? Or maybe it was when Creed released My Own Prison? Naw, it was totally when Nickelback wailed their way into middle America with “How You Remind Me”. Wrong again? According to one underground Toronto movement, “Grunge didn’t die, it just went home”. So what exactly is this “new grunge”?
Tristan Campbell, bassist for noise-rock duo Fine Motor Control explains: “The New Grunge is basically a loose collective of bands from around Toronto that put on shows and started a community forum about a year ago, and now we’re venturing off into our first music festival.”
The idea to create a downtown music festival from scratch came after some disillusionment with high-profile indie-shin digs like North By Northeast. “I was at a friends show and he said, ‘Hey i got a sneak peak at the actual list of acceptances for North By Northeast and it turns out that there was like 350 invites and only 50 bands that actually applied got in,’ ” says Campbell, sipping on a McDonald’s cup filled with Vodka, “so that’s 50 bands out of thousands… so we were like OK, we didn’t get in, let’s just do our own festival instead”.
After staging their own anti-NXNE prostest, NotXNE, alongside the annual festival, the New Grungers are back with yet another festival, this time called NXNG (Never eXclude the New Grunge) which promises to be three nights where a diverse array of grunge is reborn live, with a vengeance. Featuring sets by well-known Toronto rockers remainameless, Fire Hydrant, Cold Dead Hands, Cinema, Fine Motor Control and more, the festival kicks off this Thursday, July 27 at Sneaky Dee’s, and then continues on Friday at O’Grady’s and then concludes Saturday at Rancho Relaxo. As an added bonus, passes from NXNE, and CMW will be honoured at the door, and the first 30 people to show up will receive a free NXNG CD sampler.
Born Ruffians warp ahead
After some heavy hinting from their tour manger about a month back, Born Ruffians are about to become our latest homegrown export. Hailing from Midland, this feral three-piece just signed not one, but two hot-shit record deals; XL Recordings (Tapes ‘n Tapes, M.I.A.) in the UK, and Warp Records (Maximo Park, Boards of Canada) in the US. The band is slated to release a currently-untitled EP in North America on October 17, but first it’s off to the UK for seven shows in England and Scotland. Rough ’em up, boys!
