Hooded Fang, Brides and $100 at Polish Combatants Hall
The Eye Weekly cover story on Wavelength Music Series’ 9th anniversary festival came as a surprise to many, as founder Jonny Dovercourt revealed that the weekly showcase will cease steady operations a year from now, on its 10th birthday. It will move to a new one-off format, and cease to champion the best of new bands every Sunday night at Sneaky Dee’s.
While the announcement means that there are less than 52 regularly scheduled Wavelengths left to enjoy, it provides the anniversary festival an added sense of urgency, because we’ll all have to look a little harder to find the best of local music once the weekly shuts down.
A late Valentine’s Day dinner reservation meant sacrificing opening sets from Element Choir and The Luyas, but it was encouraging to see the underused and underappreciated Polish Combatants Hall at capacity upon arrival, as Richler lovers Hooded Fang were burning through a set of twee-pop ditties. While Lorna Wright’s xylophone was largely inaudible under a wall of more powerful instruments, and singer Daniel Lee didn’t seem able to conjure up much energy, but the band’s bouncy rhythms more than made up for it.
Local art-rockers Brides are the kind of band who sound better when you close your eyes. It’s the difference between songs and sounds, and the urge to listen rather than look is born from the desire to properly absorb their rich sonic offerings (and less from the fact that they aren’t much to look at). Under the eerie pink lighting and swirling psychedelic projections on the back wall, their set conjured for me what Paul McCartney must have felt like when he stumbled upon Pink Floyd making soundscapes for weird evenings in the London underground scene. That said, Brides hit their stride when groovy basslines emerged on top of danceable beats. They got me shuffling my feet—with my eyes closed, of course.
In a town characterized by manic handclaps and bloated collectives, it’s quite refreshing to hear traditional, melodic country music. This is the charm of $100, who have over the course of a year become one of our fair city’s most hotly-tipped acts, thanks largely to the charms of their full-length debut, Forest of Tears.
The band’s pedal steel, organ, and worn-in vocal chords of singer Simone Fornow are a warm and familiar combination, but that’s not to say $100 are derivative. Far less familiar are heart-wrenching country tales written about rides on TTC streetcars and the Princess Margaret Hospital. $100 manage to defamiliarize country by taking a Nashville sound and plunking it onto the red upholstered seats of the Bloor-Danforth subway line. It’s country music we can call our own.
The ballad they threw in towards the end was the highlight of the evening—Fornow introduced it as a Valentine’s Day slow dance. As couples and soon-to-be couples swayed slowly under the pink lights of Polish Combatants Hall, $100 proved themselves worthy headliners. Gone were the clap-happy and the psychedelic, and all that remained was a wistful love song. Fitting—this was a Valentine’s Day well spent.
Rating: VVVV
— Rob Duffy
Headliners Foxfire unleash the disco at Sneaky Dee’s
In 1999, the weekly live music series known as Wavelength was founded by a group of Toronto musicians in an effort to rejuvenate the city’s struggling indie music scene. Nine years and 450 shows later, it’s difficult to imagine such a situation, given the health of Toronto’s homegrown music. A capacity crowd packed Sneaky Dee’s on Sunday night to hear the lineup of burgeoning bands at Wavelength’s 9th anniversary festival.
San Francisco natives Mi Ami kicked off the night with their experimental blend of punk and dub (an instrumental style originating in Jamaica, where reggae songs are stripped of their vocals and remixed to emphasize bass and drum rhythms). The trio’s unique sound made for an enjoyable if unconventional set—at times, you could almost discern a melody before it exploded into ear-splitting cacophony. Lead singer and guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick seemed to generate all of the band’s energy, with his helium vocals and spastic dance moves, hopping around the stage barefoot.
Mi Ami were followed by the mediocre Thank You, whose whining synth riffs and subdued stage presence made for a forgettable set. The effluent melodies of Toronto-based electro-pop group I Am Robot and Proud flowed seamlessly, with a flute complementing the undulating keyboard and guitar lines. The fourth act of the night was experimental trio Vowls, whose clarion phrases and strong rhythms kept their music from becoming a discordant mess.
When headliners Foxfire finally took to the stage after 1am, it was evident that the crowd had been waiting for them. With all seven band members crammed onto the tiny stage, they delivered an explosion of disco sounds and manic energy that put the opening bands to shame. Although Foxfire have a reputation for hard partying and gimmicky live shows (the Wavelength website concedes that the band is better “known for their costumes, their partying, and turning the dance floor into a sweaty pile of half naked bodies” than their music), their musical output has evolved considerably over the past few months. The costumes and matching outfits have been discarded, for the moment anyway. (While such farcical behaviour can be endearing; in the music industry, it is rarely enduring.) With the set list comprised of old and new tunes, the band have developed a more mature sound (if disco-pop can be called mature) compared to that of their self-released EP, on which half of the songs sounded like they were plucked from the soundtrack to a cheesy 80s musical.
Still, music was only part of the equation—the show wouldn’t have been nearly as electrifying without Foxfire’s characteristic antics: lead singer and frontman Neil Rankin strutting and gyrating across whatever stage space he could find, and co-vocalist Hannah Krapivinsky belting out tunes in her dulcet voice. When Rankin descended into the audience to dance with the crowd, the mass of fans swayed so wildly that they nearly knocked over the speakers (but swerved to collapse on top of me instead).
The band hadn’t even left the stage when they were coerced into an encore, debuting a new song entitled “With Somebody,” and ending the night with a cover of Kiss’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.”
As the night wrapped up, MC Doc Pickles thanked the audience one last time and revealed that Wavelength will put on another 50 shows before calling it quits. But even if Wavelength is coming to an end, Foxfire undoubtedly have a bright future in the Toronto music scene—perhaps even somewhere beyond.
Rating: VVVV
— Niamh Fitzgerald
