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Little Foot Long Foot – NXNE 2012 Emerging Artist Spotlight and Concert Review

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Little Foot Long Foot

 

June 11 2012 – For the 18th straight year, North By Northeast (NXNE) is happening in Toronto from June 11th to the 17th 2012. NXNE is a music festival, conference, and even a film festival all rolled into one. NXNE is the most anticipated summer music event in Canada and aims to bring exposure to Canadian music of all genres and in general to support the Canadian music industry. Over 650 bands and 40 films converge for 7 days in Toronto and put us on the map in terms of large artistic and creative gatherings. Modeled after the fabled South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, we are very pleased that Toronto is hosting NXNE and we are certain that NXNE will grow in both number of attendees and stature in the music industry (much like Toronto’s International Film Festival has). SXSW is plagued by over commercialization and unless you’re deeply embedded in the industry you can forget about watching the big names. NXNE will also feature large free performances at Yonge-Dundas Square for four nights with the Flaming Lips being the main attraction on June 16.

After we weeded through all the bands bios found here and listened to their music, we were still left with a long list of bands that we were interested in finding out more about. We approached some of our favourite bands to request interviews for our Emerging Artist Spotlight series. Today we set our focus on a band from Toronto named Little Foot Long Foot. All bands we talked to are asked similar questions to each other so we can get to know them better. The bio on Little Foot Long Foot’s NXNE bio page reads:

This aggressive blues-with-bite combo could be the White Stripes’ ringers if Jack White’s macho growl was closer to Beth Ditto’s gospel borne holler. Promoting June’s sophomore album ‘Oh, Hell’.

 

 Here is what the band had to say to us:

  • Hey there Little Foot Long Foot, thanks for taking the time out to talk to us. Let’s start off with the obligatory introductions. Who’s in the band and what instrument does everyone rock?

Little Foot Long Foot: We are:

Joan Smith – vocals/guitar
Isaac Klein – drums
Caitlin Dacey – organ/vocals

  • How about the history of the band, when did you get started and how did it happen?

Little Foot Long Foot: Isaac and Joan originally met in a Zeppelin tribute band called…wait for it…Red Zeppelin (cuz Joan’s hair is red…GET IT??).  Isaac was Bonzo and Joan was Plant. We tried a couple of four piece original incarnations before simplifying into a two-piece riding the White Stripes train for 3 years. We eventually got too big for our britches though and Caitlin came along to save us from White Stripes comparisons and the ‘which is little foot and which is long foot’ question.

  • Who are some of your musical influences?

Little Foot Long Foot:
Zeppelin (natch)
Queens of the Stone Age
All Jack White-related musical projects
Dave Grohl-related personal hilarity

  • We found you as we were searching through the mountain of artists being featured at the 2012 NXNE. Why should a music fan come and see your show instead of all the other choices available to them?

Little Foot Long Foot:

BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO BE GROSS!! 

Seriously, ‘gross’ is a positive term in this context – the Bovine is that special kind of legendary T.O. venue that is very conducive to rowdy, dirty, drunken rock shows. We’re obviously not the dirtiest of the bunch in terms of smell or appearance, but we pack a mighty wallop. It’s a scientific fact that NXNE hits a fever pitch at 12am on the Saturday night – if you tend to stand with your arms crossed while nursing a bottle of beer for an hour while admiring intricate synth noodling…then you should probably check out some other show.

 
Little Foot Long Foot
  • What is your favorite single line of lyrics the band has written and why?
 

Little Foot Long Foot: “The secret to stay young is always feel old”

  • What does the rest of 2012 and 2013 hold for you?
 

Little Foot Long Foot: We’re opening for most excellent bands Radio Moscow and Biblical on July 12th at the Silver Dollar…and we’ve got a residency at the Bovine on Wednesdays in August (again…it will be GROSS!). After that we will give ourselves a makeover and record a new album. We’ve also got some song placements coming up in a couple of fancy movies (our song ‘May’ was just in an Eva Mendes movie called ‘Girl in Progress’).

 
  • Imagine that you were asked to be the opener for any band’s world tour (both current and historical). Which band and tour would be your dream opening gig.  
 

Little Foot Long Foot: AC/DC – and no offense to Brian Johnson…but the Bon Scott era would be glorious.

 
Little Foot Long Foot

 

  • What is the future of the music industry? With the concept of the album and physical CD’s facing extinction, how will we be consuming music in 10 years? Are the economics feasible for emerging artists?
Little Foot Long Foot:I recently read of something brilliant…which i can’t happen to remember the name of, but it involved an online musical community where fans liked and shared music, as they tend to do already on facebook and twitter…but every time a liking or sharing occurred, the fan earns credits to buy more music, and a whole profit sharing event occurs with the artists. If this could be handled intelligently, I think something like that will very well be the future of music, because we have to encourage online sharing…ESPECIALLY emerging artists. Also…fortunately…a good live show will forever remain a good live show. Bands just have to be damn good live or they will perish…unless they’re really good at writing songs that sound good being played during Grey’s Anatomy…or if they appeal to tweens. But I do think emerging artists do indeed have a shot.

  • Where can people get your music/CD, is it being sold anywhere? 
 
Little Foot Long Foot:We wouldn’t have a song called “Sell Out While You Can” if we didn’t sell our music…easiest way to get our music is by going to our website merch page: http://www.littlefootlongfoot.com/merch.html . There you can find our music in a variety of forms (itunes, bandcamp, physical cds). And obviously you can pick something up from us at one of our shows.
 

 

  • At the end of 2011 we did our picks for top 10 albums of 2011. What album do you think we should include in our top 10 albums of 2012 article? 
 
Little Foot Long Foot: I’m going to be an asshole and ignore that pesky thing called ‘time’ and say that a band I have recently discovered called Blood Ceremony has a top album of 2012…even though it looks like their last album is from 2011. But they’re like Jethro Tull by way of Black Sabbath with a badass female singer! You can’t top that. Let’s just hope they release something in 2012 and then that can be my answer.

 

  • Any closing remarks for our readers?
 
Little Foot Long Foot: If you have read all the way through to the end of this interview, you are a true friend and/or fan, and I hope I can rely on you to dog sit for me one day…or at least come to one of our shows and bob your head a bit.

 

 
Thanks so much to Little Foot Long Foot. We hope that you can see them live. They are playing The Bovine on Saturday at midnight. The band’s website is here and as you would expect they are on Twitter and Facebook. In the meantime check out their video below from YouTube and check out our BONUS COVERAGE below!

As a bonus we have some coverage of the band from a recent performance at The Rivoli on Saturday June 9th.

Little Foot Long Foot
We had the chance to see Little Foot Long Foot on Saturday at the Rivoli and can strongly endorse the band as one of our Must See shows of North by Northeast. Frontwoman Joan Smith sings with a rare intensity and plays a riff based rock guitar a la Jimmy Page with a powerful crunchy tone. It isn’t something we normally (ever?) comment on, but it doesn’t hurt that Smith is a very attractive girl with the face of an angel. Isaac Klein is one of my new favourite drummers. Little Foot Long Foot doesn’t have a bass player but they don’t lack for low end sound. Klein’s thunderous drums would have made John Bonham proud (expect another Zeppelin reference to follow). LFLF originally was a duo of Klein and Smith but they added organist Caitlin Dacey a couple years ago and all I can say to that is, great call! 
Little Foot Long Foot
Dacey’s psychedelic organ sounds are reminiscent of Jon Lord of Deep Durple, Ray Manzarek of The Doors or John Paul Jones (there it is) and completely fills out the sound. Another cutie, Dacey’s beautiful eyes sparkle when talking about music and her influences. Little Foot Long Foot will play Saturday at the Bovine Sex Club at midnight. Any fan of Led Zeppelin would like Little Foot Long Foot. This is a band that must be experienced live and is highly recommended.  
Interview, Review and Photos by Steve Mallinson
T-Mak
Author: T-Mak

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