Dec 31, 2013 – 2013 was a busy year for T-Mak World, hundreds of shows and hundreds of articles, CD reviews, Emerging Artist Spotlights and interviews, not to mention dozens of movie reviews. All this is distilled into our favourites of the year. We’ve already published our top albums and movies, up next is our top Indie Bands of 2013. “Indie” means different things to different people. We’re not referring to the jangly acoustic guitar folk pop style often associated with the term Indie. For us, it’s simply a threshold of growth. It’s essentially any band playing original music that hasn’t reached a mainstream, national or international status. We’re not talking about bands playing the ACC or Rogers Centre, or even Sound Academy or the Phoenix. We’re talking about those playing the Bovine, the Horseshoe, the Hideout, Silver Dollar, the Hard Luck, the Hard Rock, Cherry Cola’s, Lee’s Palace, the Annex Wreckroom, the Supermarket, the Dakota, the Rivoli, Sneeky Dee’s, Rancho Relaxo, the El Mocambo, Garrison, the Comfort Zone or any of the dozens of other great venues around the city and in the area.
It was a great year for music. There are six new bands on this year’s list which unfortunately means six had to be dropped off. We still love the bands that had to be dropped off but we didn’t get to see all of them in 2013 and if we didn’t see them, they can’t be on our list. In other cases, it was just a consensus of our favourites.
Top 10 Indie Bands of 2013
Presented in alphabetic order.
We first saw Biblical at the Comfort Zone in July of 2012 on a bill with Radio Moscow and Little Foot Long Foot (notably and still a little sadly, Caitlin Dacey’s last gig with the band). This year they blew us away again at the Bovine Sex Club at NXNE. Playing heavy stoner rock are Nick Sewell on vocals and bass, Matt McLaren on guitar, Andrew Scott on guitar and keyboards and J. Anderson on drums. This year they released Second Sight which is the first single off their upcoming album Monsoon Season which is expected to be released in March. Biblical ended the year opening a series of shows opening for Monster Truck. Biblical also wins the award for best band name. Ever.
Twitter: @BIBLICALBAND
The extraordinarily versatile Phil Naro is one of the most covered artists on T-Mak World and for good reason. From his hard rock band D: Drive, Led Zeppelin covers with Ozone Baby and Classic Albums Live, Supertramp covers with Rich Hamelin in band Dreamer, The Supertramp Experience and again Classic Albums Live, his forthcoming ELO tribute band Strange Magic also with Rich Hamelin, his frequent Phil & John Show shows with John Rogers and prog rockers Druckfarben, Naro is definitely the hardest working musician we know. Druckfarben is guitarist Ed Bernard, keyboardist Will Hare (another Classic Albums Live performer), Troy Feener on drums and Peter Murray on bass along with Naro’s vocals. The band released a DVD called Artifact this year of a March 2012 performance at The Mod Club.
Twitter: @Druckfarben
In My Coma remains one of our favourite local bands. Heavy, melodic and modern. In My Coma released an incredible video for Voices this year. Check it out!
Twitter: @InMyComa
If there were a permanent T-Mak World Top Indie Bands Hall of Fame, Little Foot Long Foot, along with One Bad Son and TimeGiant would be charter members. We saw LFLF several times during the year and they were, as always, awesome.
Twitter: @feettweets
What an unbelievable year it was for One Bad Son. Three songs highly placed on Canada’s rock music charts, each one getting huge radio play, two tours of Canada, first opening for Buckcherry, then again on their own. Then capping it off playing at the Grey Cup in Saskatoon where their beloved Roughriders won. It will be hard for them to top that in 2014, but if anyone can, it’s One Bad Son and we’re betting they do.
Twitter: @OneBadSon
Open Air was an incredible discovery at Indie Week. Classic blues rock done right. Great riffs and great vocals. We’re looking forward to their return next May for CMW.
Twitter: @OpenAIRrock
Public Animal was the most significant entry to the music scene this year. Part punk, part psychedelic, but definitely wickedly heavy, Ian Blurton’s new band also features Caitlin Dacey on keyboards and vocals, Eric Larock on bass and Ryan Gassi on drums. I ran out of superlatives a long time ago so don’t expect any new ones here. From their first performance at Lee’s they’ve blown away audiences at each show. They’re taking a break from recording their debut album to play some shows in Alberta this week.
Twitter: @thePublicAnimal
Perhaps the most soulful rockers in the GTA, Stone River plays Southern blues rock. Hanging In the Bowline (below) is from their upcoming album Euphoria. This is the sort of song that can be left on “repeat” cuz it’s got such a killer groove there’s always a need to hear it again. We can’t wait for this album to be released. Stone River was an Honourable Mention on last year’s list and we’ve corrected that this year.
Twitter: @Stone_River
We love The Damn Truth. The Damn Truth is a Montreal based blues rock band. They are Lee-La Baum on vocals and guitar, Tom Shemer on guitars, David Massé on bass and Dave Traina on drums. Baum is pregnant and due shortly so The Damn Truth will be on sabbatical for a while. We hope everything goes well and she’s able to balance motherhood while still being able to allocate some time to The Damn Truth.
Twitter: @THEDAMNTRUTH1
It was an incredible year for TimeGiant. They put out an album A Night To Remember, released a great video for I Am The Fire and played a series of great shows to huge audiences and opened for some huge acts, like Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience, The Tea Party and the Headstones.
Twitter: @TimeGiant
Honourable Mention List
We love all of these bands and it would be easy to make cases for any of them to be included in the Top 10. In fact, cutting the Honourable Mention List down to just these was hard enough as there are many more who are worthy, but together we’re listing 17 bands we love and we need to cut it off somewhere.
Bella Clava
David Barrett Trio
Diemonds
The Dyadics
Frankie McQueen
Last Bullet
Mokomokai
Article and Photos by Steve Mallinson
