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| Mad June at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
Oct 20 2012 – While Indie Week Canada may be late in the year, it has many top local and not so local bands that define the indie scene. While many prefer to take a second mortgage to see U2 from the balcony of Rogers center, seeing a number of bands in a cozy intimate setting for a low price is hard to beat. Like other music festivals, Indie week offers a full slate of music with the potential for a pub crawl even at this time of year. Toronto is blessed with 3 such music festivals: Canadian Music Week (read our recap here), NXNE (read our recap here) and Indie Week.
Indie Week Canada runs for 5 nights (Oct 10-14) at 19 venues in Toronto and features music industry and digital media panels and most importantly live music. The event has been around for 8 years and offers the balance of a festival with a contest. The winner headlines Indie Week Ireland, the other location for the Indie Week festival. As expected the Winner of Indie Week Ireland wins a trip to Canada and T-Mak World did catch the winner of the past 2 winners from Indie Week Ireland at this year’s festival in Toronto.
The 2012 event included over 175 bands and we were able to take in the shows of a number of bands that well represented the variety in the indie scene today. Our coverage started with Breached at Bovine on Thursday and ended with Altimira on Sunday at Rivoli and include a whole bunch a great bands in between.
On Friday T-Mak World saw Mad June, The Suburbians, Leading Armies, Atlantis Blueprint, Kingdom of Few, The Stanfields and The Stogies
Mad June
Mad June is a rock band from Montreal that rocked Cherry Cola on Friday and showed that girls can rock as good as the boys and they should be given credit as a great indie band not a great “girl” band. While their sound has a distinctive flavor of Ramones, they should appeal to fans of both post punk (Ramones, Smiths, Clash and so on) but also modern pop rock bands such as Florence and the Machine, The Killers, to fellow Montrealers Arcade Fire. With very distinctive vocals from Vanessa McLean and two guitarists who played riffs that would make Johnny Marr (The Smiths) proud they have a unique and refreshing sound. Mad June was the winner of Friday’s Girls Rock competition at Cherry Cola which garnered them an invitation to play at the El Mocambo on Saturday night.
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| Mad June at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
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| Mad June at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
The Suburbians
The Suburbians are the 2011 Indie Week Ireland winner and if you are a fan of modern rock such as U2 you should check out this band. Coming from London, they have a sound that continues to show why that parcel of land in the Altantic has produced some of the best music in rock. At their show they play homage to one of their homeland’s best by playing Moby Dick. They are well on the way to potential stardom and wish them luck in the future. If they become the next Coldplay or U2, it will be nice to say you saw them at Indie week.
Leading Armies
Coming from Limerick Ireland, Leading Armies are the 2012 Indie Week Ireland winner and received a free trip to Toronto to headline Indie week Canada. Leading Armies is a 6 piece band that has a very up tempo and danceable beat that is influenced by rock, reggae and ska. Their sound is infectious and the more you hear it the more it grows on you. Once you see them it will become obvious why they won the contest in Ireland and why the soon will be in everyone’s collection and their beats will be in everyone’s head.
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| Leading Armies at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
The Stanfields
There is a lot of buzz and excitement about The Stanfields in their home province of Nova Scotia and it is spreading. This is a kind of band I have been waiting for a while. They are a mix of The Pogues and hard rock with AC/DC first coming to mind especially since lead singer Jon Landry is cut from the same mold as Brian Johnson. The Stanfields played a “balls to the walls” hi octane 45min show at the El Mocambo on Friday that showcased their latest album Death & Taxes. Their show was definitely one of the gems of Indie week.
These five working class lads feature not only 2 guitars but also a bouzouki played by Jason Wright. A bouzouki for those not familiar is an instrument common in Greek music and has a sound similar to a mandolin. Their harmonies will get you singing and dancing whether that is your calling or not. The 45min show climaxed at the end with The Dirtiest Drunk (In the history of Liquor) which is their first single. The song is up there with The Pogues “Streams of Whiskey” and Thin Lizzy’s “Boys are back in Town” for Irish or Celtic drinking songs . One could envision the song being sung alongside Louie Louie and other drinking classics at every bar and college dorm or frat party for years to come all across Canada.
The band is busy touring Canada this fall. Let’s hope they return to bring their mix of hard rock, blues and celtic music back to Toronto and show us why everyone has a story about them who meets them.
http://thestanfields.ca/
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| The Stanfields at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
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| The Stanfields at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
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| The Stanfields at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
Kingdom of Few
Kingdom of Few played the Underground garage and The Hideout during Indie week. The band is from Calgary and had Ty Deer on lead vocals filling in for normal vocalist Curtis Butala who was at home as his mom was having surgery. Hopefully all went well back in Calgary and his band did entertain with a set that had a lot of variety of music styles and they ended up in the finals for Indie week Canada.
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| Kingdom of Few at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
Atlantis Blueprint
Atlantis blueprint are a local band that played The Hideout during indie week. They play very radio friendly modern rock and vocalist Adam Skinner vocals his band entertained the crowd at Hideout. Drummer Alexis Von Kraven who’s has a unique style of drumming especially during an extended drum solo that is clearly inspired by the master drummer of rock namely Neil Peart.
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| Leading Armies at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
The Stogies
The Stogies are another hard rocking band from Halifax that are full of loud guitars, with a dash of keyboards and powerful vocals all in an action packed show. They have a great stage presence and we hope the make Toronto a regular place to play.
http://www.thestogies.com/
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| The Stogies at Indie Music Week on Friday October 12 2012 |
