Monday Roundup #120

Concert announcements:

Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior/Kurt Newman/Andrew Furlong/Jay Anderson / Colin Fisher / Nick Flanagan / (((M))) Man) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-05-14 (Sunday – 2:30 p.m.) [FB event]

Alaskan Tapes (Grace Scheele) / 915 Dupont St 2023-05-14 (Sunday). $21.41. [FB event]

Dana (Miserable Weekend / Crying High) / Monarch Tavern 2023-05-14 (Sunday). $14, 19+. [FB event]

Westelaken [I am Steaming Mushrooms album release!] (Little Kid [solo] / Only God Forgives) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2023-05-26 (Friday). $15 or PWYC @ door. [FB event]

The AMBiENT PiNG: Drone Day 2023/DRONE:KLUB:35 [live community drone event: droners, friends and audience are all welcome] (feat. dreamSTATE & friends) / Long & McQuade Clinic Hall 2023-05-27 (Saturday – 6 to 8 p.m.). $free. [FB event]

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Shows this week:

Intersection Presents (feat. Christopher Tignor / Alex Ven+Andrew Noseworthy’s Ambient Works) / Array Space 2023-05-02 (Tuesday). $15 ($10 students). [FB event]

Track Could Bend #79 (feat. Mira Martin-Gray [Hen's Teeth release celebration!] / Cetacean) / Wenona Lodge 2023-05-02 (Tuesday). $pwyc [FB event]

Portage [Diane Roblin/George Koller/Bruce Cassidy] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-05-04 (Thursday). $10 or pwyc.

Tania Gill Quartet [Tania Gill/Lina Allemano/Rob Clutton/Nick Fraser] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-05-05 (Friday) [FB event]

Freesound presents: Music for Violin & Electronics [works for violin and live electronics by James O’Callaghan, Christina Volpini, Taylor Brook, and Franghiz Ali-Zadeh] (feat. Aysel Taghi-Zada/Adam Scime) / Society Clubhouse 2023-05-05 (Friday). $15 general admission ($10 student/seniors/arts worker). [FB event]

Counterstasis [Glen Hall/Bill Gilliam/Joe Sorbara] (Brian Abbot/Paul Newman) / Annette Studios 2023-05-05 (Friday). $15/PWYC. [FB event]

Ur Audio-Visual presents (feat. Man Meets Bear / Norvaiza / Bird City) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-05-05 (Friday) [FB event]

Ronley Tepper & the Little Lips (Chris Pruden) / Sellers & Newel 2023-05-06 (Saturday). Minimum donation $20. [more info]

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Bandcamp corner:

• Don't forget it's once more Bandcamp Friday this week! Buy some albums, support some artists! Here's a couple things I'm keen on:

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It happened this week...

• ...on May 1, 2011 at Sonic Boom Records.

Yuck - Get Away

[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]

Recording: Yuck

Artist: Yuck

Song: Get Away

Recorded at Sonic Boom Records, May 1, 2011.

Yuck - Get Away

My notes for this set can be found here.

In-store: Yuck

Yuck

Sonic Boom. Sunday, May 1, 2011.

It's not nostalgia — or at least that most corrosive kind of nostalgia — if you're too young to remember the first go 'round of the thing you're venerating. It's that narrow door that makes Yuck — young British revivalists of 90's North American "alternative" guitar rock — seem charming (if not bracing) rather than depressing. Of course, the fact that these sounds from my own salad days are nearly as old as the crew playing them is a little blow that I'll just deal with myself, muttering over in the corner.

In town to open for Tame Impala at The Phoenix, the band also graciously dropped in to the basement at Sonic Boom for what would be their first local appearance. It would not be a stripped-down sort of affair, thankfully, as revealed by the blasts of guitar noise as the band set up and Daniel Blumberg's revealing inquiry as to the store's sound system: "Izzat the loudest?"

And indeed, the band played with pleasing volume — sporting, right from the outset, that delicious mix of crunchiness and gooey tunefulness on display throughout their self-titled debut full-length. The album would provide all of the set's songs, leading with "Holing Out" and "The Wall".

The basic four-piece (two guits/bass/drums) were unassuming on stage — not super-animated, but charming in their low-key British way. They also managed to endear me further with the fact that they'd taken the trouble to tack up their DIY banner behind the stage. They offered a half-dozen songs, easing down with the mellower "Suicide Policeman" before closing it out with the fabulous "Get Away", which features Mariko Doi's audaciously Doolittle-esque bassline.

The robust crowd — many of them about the band's age — didn't seem unduly concerned about pinning down the reference points. And though this is indeed such good stuff — I really enjoy the album a lot — I wasn't quite able to stop the racing part of my mind drawing lines back to bands gone by. You'll hear names like Dino Jr. invoked a lot for comparisons to the band, but I think they mostly bring to mind bands with a more tuneful mix of fuzz and melody — there's a direct line from Teenage Fanclub (circa A Catholic Education) to this band, and I left with this scrawled in my notepad: "This really makes me want to dig out that copy of nc17." What a drag it is gettin' old, but rock'n'roll revivals can spread their own little pixiedust bursts of rejuvenation if y'let 'em.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Collaborations #1: Video Round-up

With the frightening immediacy of NXNE out of the way for now, I'll soon enough be returning to my more usual place in the gig/time continuum. (Coming next week — reviews from 2011). While I get caught up on sleep and put the finishing touches on the next couple posts, how about some filler?

Despite my natural inclination to want to retreat to my wilderness cabin, remote from humanity, and peck away at my manual typewriter to craft my manifestos, keeping this thing running tends to put me in contact with folks. And as it turns out, one of the most satisfying parts of the whole operation comes when I can pass a recording back to a band:

And sometimes they show up in interesting ways:

I have a lot of respect for the people who faithfully document the music scene on video — they have a lot more stuff to worry about when they're at a show than I do. I've considered it a badge of honour to be able to help out with a couple of the city's best, including published author Colin Medley:

And I've also pitched in with Graeme Phillips and his army of camera operators:

These guys work in the present tense — a lot of this stuff I haven't even caught up to yet. Hopefully there'll be more to come!