David Byrne: American Utopia Sony Centre For The Performing Arts Toronto ON

Fri Aug 10 2018
David Byrne: American Utopia Sony Centre For The Performing Arts Toronto ON

Just about the time, David Byrne was stagger dancing around a grey stage to "Blind", bulldozers were leveling the Beijing studio of dissident artist Ai Wei Wei, as arts programs across North America were getting the shiv in the ribs and Riot Pussy are again doing time. Once again, subversive art is under attack everywhere. So layered with the joyous and uplifting, especially as in bodies out of seats. David was a laying out a to-do list for the resistance. Ah, but we were there for the music and that never flagged nor disappointed. The set covered material from Talking Heads, Byrne solo albums from all periods, some collabs, a Love The Giant and some from the newbie, most given redos to fit a fun and funky vibe.

BTW Honyock, Dead Soft, Hosannas, June West, Carmen Toth, Tragedy Ann

Fri Aug 03 2018
Honyock

Listening to Honyock feels like walking through a post-war home that hasn’t been redecorated since 1975. Here, smoke-stained curtains obscure a hazy sun and a floral couch faces a stern stone fireplace. And, here, a dusty electric organ rests against a wood-paneled wall where, in any other house, a flat screen might sit. But while sitting at the Formica table beside a rattling, honey-colored Frigidaire, this home feels familiar, comfortable. This transportive power of Honyock’s music, though, is no serendipitous accident. Indeed, their first full-length El Castillo, produced by David Vandervelde (Father John Misty, Jay Bennett), seems like the outcome of some cosmic strategy—of fate, or something similar.

Like the best bands that take cues from the past—Wilco and Dr. Dog, Whitney and Kevin Morby, The Sacramento four piece combines the aesthetic of this era with songwriting that’s as distinctive as it is memorable. “Patron” features a dusty, retro aesthetic—a sun-faded roadside hotel, a cactus’s long shadow. It’s hard not to hear Elvis Costello or Roy Orbison in this opening track.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ New Album Released October 12

Fri Aug 03 2018
is Costello & The Imposters

Elvis Costello and The Imposters – Steve Nieve (keyboards), Davey Faragher (bass), Pete Thomas (drums) – have made a sensational new album that ranks alongside the best work this singularly great artist has ever produced.

 

Recorded in Hollywood, New York City and Vancouver, British Columbia, Look Now is beautiful in its simplicity, reflective in its lyrical vision, surrounded by melodies and orchestrations that are nothing short of heavenly. It’s the first album Costello has made with The Imposters since the 2008 release of Momofuku and his first new album since the acclaimed 2013 Roots collaboration, Wise Up Ghost.

 

Anyone anywhere in the world who has seen Elvis Costello and The Imposters live can testify to their unmitigated swagger. Costello’s suspicion that it was time to return to the studio was confirmed while on the Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers tour of the USA, last summer and he realized the power and sheer musicality of The Imposters had never really been fully captured on one record.

BTW Lightning Echoes, Sammy Duke, Miss Emily, The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer

Fri Jul 27 2018
Lightning Echoes

Alternative pop duo Lightning Echoes is taking listeners on a spherical journey of sound with their newest release, “In Circles”, available now from the usual suspects.

The Vancouver-based pairing is equal parts singer/songwriter Kaitlin Deavy and producer Alejandro Zarazúa. Having teamed up in February 2018 amidst their respective studies on music and production, the multi-instrumentalists were driven by their shared vision of music and human connection. On “In Circles” you’ll hear seemingly simple melodies swirling among complex layers of indie, folk, and what the two call “smart pop” elements.

Classic Rock Greats, The Guess Who, Return With ‘The Future Is What It Used To Be’

Fri Jul 27 2018
The Guess Who

The Guess Who are responsible for countless rock classics, which still retain a major presence on rock radio - “American Woman,” “No Time,” “These Eyes,” etc. The band is set to return on September 14th with their latest album, ‘The Future IS What It Used To Be’, released via Cleopatra Records (available in CD, Vinyl, and Digital formats).

 

The band is Garry Peterson (Drums, Vocals), D# (Lead Vocals, Guitar, Piano), Will E. (Guitar, Harp, Vocals), Leonard Shaw (Keyboards, Flute, Sax, Vocals), and Rudy Sarzo (Bass, Vocals). The album’s first single,‘Playin’ on the Radio’, will be released on July 17th. It can be heard on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services. Also featured on the album are several special guests including, Tommy Shaw (Styx) on vocals, Brent Fitz (Slash, Gene Simmons) percussion, Jim Kale (Guess Who founding member) and Michael Devin (Whitesnake) on bass guitar.

Sylvia Tyson & Scarlet Rivera at Hugh’s Room Live

Fri Jul 27 2018
Sylvia Tyson Photo Credit Christopher Lawson

They’re back! Sylvia Tyson and Scarlet Rivera will once again light up Hugh’s Room stage on August 7th.  They last appeared there together in 2016 where they put on a show for the ages and there’s no reason to believe that this upcoming night won’t be just as epic Canada’s living legend and a huge part of the fabric of Canadiana and our roots, Sylvia Tyson is a joy to watch and I’m pretty sure  she will  perform some staples from the Ian and Sylvia days including “Someday Soon” and “Four Strong Winds” And her big hit as a songwriter that she performed two years ago where she said “the first song I ever wrote in 1962,” which  was “You Were On My Mind” a big hit for We Five”. Sylvia said tongue in cheek, “My accountant asked me if I could write another one of these.”

Violin legend Scarlet Rivera is the perfect compliment to Sylvia spellbinding presentation. Scarlet is a legend in her own right having performed with Bob Dylan in The Rolling Thunder Review among a host of others greats.

Rory Block A Woman’s Soul: A Tribute to Bessie Smith

Fri Jul 27, 2018

As a young teenager Rory Block — her full name is Aurora — grew up in New York’s Greenwich Village at the height of the “folk revival.” At 14, already an accomplished guitarist, she discovered the Delta blues — then part of the wide world of folk music. She vividly remembers hearing Mississippi John Hurt in 1963, and spending time with Son House, Fred McDowell and the Reverend Gary Davis.

Her first recordings (under the pseudonym Sunshine Kate) were made for Elektra Records, but she didn’t return to the studio until 1975 when she recorded for RCA Victor and Chrysalis before signing to Rounder Records, for whom she cut more than a dozen albums. She has also recorded for a number of other labels, in between endless tour schedules.

Along the way, she has won five W.C. Handy Awards (now known simply as Blues Awards) from the Blues Foundation, two for “Traditional Blues Female Artist,” and three for “Acoustic Blues Album of the Year.” She’s earned a gold record in Holland, and toured from one end of the United States to the other end of Canada, not to mention Poland and Norway and Italy and a half a dozen more European countries.

The Beaches Jazz Festival Celebrates 30 Years!

Fri Jul 20, 2018

The Beaches International Jazz Festival is a 10-day music festival held each year in the lakeside Beaches community of Toronto in the month of July. Originally started in 1988, it is now one of Canada's largest free music festivals with nearly 800,000 attendees, throughout its 10-day span. The Festival takes place across a number of venues; stage concerts are held in several different parks within the area and also along a two-kilometre stretch of the Beach main street - Queen Street East.

Every year, the Festival brings in internationally acclaimed performers while also showcasing local talent, including “new generation” jazz musicians. The Festival now hires around 1000 artists per annum, including 50 bands for its “StreetFest” event along Queen Street East.

BTW Rayland Baxter, Moby, Annie Bonsignore, Rae Spoon, Stephanie Ratcliff, Sirens Of Shanti

Fri Jul 20 2018
Rayland Baxter

Alt-country/Americana artist Rayland Baxter has offered a new song from the Butch Walker-produced project, Wide Awake.. "79 Shiny Revolvers" was the first song Rayland wrote during his three-month-long isolation quest at Franklin, Kentucky's secluded Thunder Sound Studios. He composed fifty songs there, ten of which eventually became Wide Awake.

"79 Shiny Revolvers" is, in Rayland's own estimation, one of the most important songs he's ever written. Its lyrics burst with irony and cutting humour to interrogate our nation's fixation on guns: "You really wanna save the world, man / well, I wanna save it too / we can blow em away / the American way."

Amos Lee Unveils Hang On Hang On

Fri Jul 20 2018
Amos Lee Unveils Hang On Hang On

This was the hardest song for me to sing on the album,” says Amos Lee of Hang On, Hang On – the cathartic and soulful ballad at the center of his upcoming My New Moon (August 31 / Dualtone Records). While the record is largely focused on Amos finding strength in the courage of others – from relationships he built through Musicians on Call and the Wounded Warrior Project to inspiration he took from the Parkland survivors - Hang On, Hang On sees Amos use these experiences to work through profound loss in his own life. Written after Amos lost his grandmother, the song is set around the last night he spent with her: “I would’ve stayed forever,” he sings, “but it didn’t work out that way.”

Listen to Hang On, Hang On, here.

Ori Dagan The Music Plays On

Fri Jul 13, 2018

Ori Dagan has much to be proud of in his ever-changing musical journey in this crazy business we call music.“A Tribute to Nat King Cole” (Dagan's 3rd recording and the first visual album in jazz history) recently debuted at #1 on the iTunes Canada Jazz Chart, and its corresponding 12 music videos have screened at over 35 Music and Film Festivals worldwide, garnering over 300,000 views on YouTube, Winner of the Best Album, Silver Medal – Global Music Award, Nominated for Best Jazz Vocals- Toronto Independent Music Awards along with a list a mile long of reviews.

Dagan also teaches what he preaches by giving scat lessons and workshops to learn the “Shoe-bee-do’s” and “Shoe-bee-don’ts,” to anyone who wants to learn either professionally or just for the love of the musical era and greats who paved the way for so many in the jazz world.

BTW Barney Bentall, Kill No Albatross, Elizabeth Shepherd, Dizzy Mystics, minihorse, Ellevator, Allen Stone, Go North Music Festival

Fri Jul 13 2018
Barney Bentall Photo Credit Mark Maryanovich

True that storytelling through song has never been a weak point for JUNO Award-winning Barney Bentall. He continues to prove this with a rare excursion into single land on “Don’t Wait For Me Marie” and its cinematic, century-swapping video, available on YouTube now!

Between frames of fire and wild horses comes the tale of languished lust and Western greed, woven in a way only Bentall can deliver.

The song, of note, is one of many on The Drifter & The Preacher that Bentall says “ultimately wrote itself.

“There are times I look back and think, ‘well, that’s not where I thought this one was going to go,’” says Bentall. “With ‘Don’t Wait For Me Marie’ I thought, ‘I’m going to write a song about a guy leaving the Fraser Valley near Vancouver in the 1800s to look for gold in the Cariboo.’ I wanted it to be an uptempo bluegrass song because we were starting The High Bar Gang… I was very immersed in that style of music.

Singer Trudy Lynn Declares Blues Keep Knockin’

Fri Jul 13 2018
Singer Trudy Lynn Declares Blues Keep Knockin’

Six-time Blues Music Award nominee Trudy Lynn will release her new CD, Blues Keep Knockin’ from Connor Ray Music on July 27. Backing Trudy’s vocals on the new disc are musicians Steve Krase – harmonica; David Carter – guitar; Terry Dry – bass; Matt Johnson – drums; Jim Brady – trumpet; and Dan Carpenter – sax; with special guests Bob Lanza and Carolyn Wonderland on guitar.

Trudy was recently honored with three nominations for the Living Blues Magazine Awards, with voting currently underway at the magazine’s website: www.livingblues.com.

“I want to thank all my blues fans new and old, or should I say ‘mature,’ for being with me through my journey with the blues, both near and far,” Trudy says in the album liner notes. “My name is Trudy Lynn and I sing the blues for you, some old some new and some borrowed too. I love singing the blues! The blues knocks on my door, on my window and my heart. I must sing and I sing only what I feel and I sing to make you feel exactly what I feel!”

BTW The Shuffle Demons, Bernice, Emilie Mover, Danny Michel, Joey Landreth, Lauria, Goldilox

Fri Jul 06 2018
The Shuffle Demons

What do you get when you cross 3 amazing saxophonists dressed in wacky clothes, a crazy dancing drummer and a killer upright bass player and have them sing songs about Buses, Roaches and Hockey that spend 1/2 their time playing in the audience? The Shuffle Demons, that’s what!!!

The Shuffle Demons are a high-energy Canadian band that blends virtuosic jazz and funk playing with eye-catching costumes and over the top stage antics to produce a kinetic show. A hit at festivals all over the world, the Shuffle Demons are a crowd-pleasing, full-on musical group that backs up wild stage antics with phenomenal playing by some of Canada’s most talented musicians. Therefore, in the teeth of the summer's heat, the contrarian Demons are checking into Hugh's Room Live to go mano a mano with the club's AC system Fri. Jul. 6, showtime 8.30 pm.

Tribe Royal The Road to Muscle Shoals

Fri Jul 06, 2018
Producer Norbert Putnam
Producer Norbert Putnam

In November of 2017, I had the good fortune to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with the uber-talented and esteemed producer Norbert Putnam. Norbert gained his accolades for his productions, Jimmy Buffett, Dan Fogleberg and Joan Baez to name a few as well as voluminous sessions as a bass player and owning and operating one of the first independent recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee, Quadrefonic Sound Studio. We recorded at The Nutthouse Recording Studio and the experience was amazing.

BTW- Wax Mannequin, Dan Mangan, The Hearts, John Orpheus, Lucy Rose, Church of Trees, Cordovas, Julian Taylor Band

Fri Jun 29 2018
Wax Mannequin

The oft enigmatic Wax Mannequin (aka Hamilton, Ontario's Christopher Adeney) dropped his seventh album, Have A New Name, on June 22 through Coax Records/Outside Music The album was launched with Wax Mannequin's June 23 show at This Ain't Hollywood in Hamilton, followed by a full Canadian tour that kicks off July 14 at The Rivoli in Toronto.

As Wax Mannequin, Adeney has established himself as a profound lyricist and songsmith, as well as a self-effacing showman. His music also reveals him to be a student of the human psyche, constantly finding fresh and interesting ways to frame the people we are and the things we encounter. All of that is gloriously displayed on Have A New Name, the result of Adeney reuniting with producer Edwin Burnett, with whom he made some of the first Wax Mannequin recordings in the early 2000s.

BTW Cari Burdett, Jim James, King Princess, Heavyweights Brass Band, Amanda Rheaume, Mimi O’Bonsawin, Folly & The Hunter

Fri Jun 22 2018
Cari Burdett

World music fusion artist Cari Burdett is bringing her exotic fusion of jazz, art song, folk and opera eastward this June, including dates at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Toronto's Burdock Music Hall, and Montreal's Upstairs Jazz B. She'll be accompanied by members of her 4Tet who are also featured in the new video for "De Cara a la Pared," written and originally performed by the late great Lhasa de Sela. The video premiered exclusively at Roots Music Canada.

Audra Santa The Power And The Pain

Fri Jun 08, 2018

From Thunder Bay to Melbourne, Toronto to Cannes, Audra Santa's a happening thing. Started happening in Australia, where she spent ten happy years exploring the Aussie badlands and goodlands, playing in various musical projects, including progressive rock band, The Wandering, and Indie-folk duo, Amon and Audra. Her powerful, expressive vocals and talent for instaconnections with people were simply too evident for Audra not to go solo. Recording commenced at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne over Easter 2016 with high enthusiasm on all sides. For Audra though, it was a being put in a blender kind of thing, high on getting her songs down, low down inside with the certain knowledge that the marriage she had cherished with all her being, had put aside her music for at one point, was going off the cliff.

BTW- Good Lovelies, Margaret Glaspy, JP Maurice, Dálava/Lenka Lichtenberg, Natalie Prass, Rufus John

Fri May 11 2018
Good Lovelies

Juno Award-winning and definitely on a Spring roll, Good Lovelies' are on a tour which began with a buzzworthy show at Massey Hall on Friday, May 11th as special guests of headliner Royal Wood and carries on into June. The set showcases current album, Shapeshifters.

"We are so excited to announce our upcoming Canadian tour," shares the band. "This spring we will bring our new album, Shapeshifters, from Ontario to British Columbia. This tour is the culmination of years of writing and recording our latest album, and we hope you will join us as we, and our friends Mark Mariash (drums) and Steve Zsirai (Bass), bring these new songs to life."