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| Canadian Music Fest in Toronto |
March 23 2012 – Canadian Music Fest (CMF) (as part of Canadian Music Week) continued last night. Canadian Music Week features four branches (Conferences, Film Festival, Comedy Festival, and Music Fest) and brings over 900 artists to Toronto for this their 30th year.
Our coverage of CMF began with Emerging Artist Spotlight articles on TimeGiant, Grain, Breaching Vista , Beta, In My Coma, One Bad Son, and Matt Groopie and The Bandits and we strongly endorse those bands. There are simply way too many other bands to see so a bit of research is needed to make sure you see the bands that suit your taste. We published a handy guide of our picks here in a simple to use .pdf document that can be printed and carried along as you bar hop. Finally in case you missed it we have a recap of the first night’s activities (March 21 2012) here.
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| Louder Than Love |
We started the night at Tattoo Rock Parlour to catch Vancouver’s Louder Than Love. The guys put on a powerful show and the music spoke for itself as to why this band is shooting through the ranks in Vancouver. We expect really good things from the band and can’t wait to hear more of their stuff. The band also was giving CD’s out at their show and that was definitely a cool thing to do. They are on Facebook and on Twitter.
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| Courage My Love |
We then crossed the road to catch Courage My Love at The Hideout. This is a band from Kitchener and their website tells us that the band is a “female fronted pop-punk trio w/ twin sisters on vocals, guitar and drums + male bass player.” They put on a solid show and kept the audience bobbing their head with their catchy tunes. The band is on Facebook and Twitter.
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| The Blue Stones |
The Blue Stones at The Sister were next. 2 dudes playing some dirty blues, sound familiar? Yes even the band admits that their influence are The Black Keys. With the success that The Black Keys are having we expect to see alot of imitators and thats a good thing because their music is great! The Blue Stones were very good and really made for an entertaining stop. The band is on Facebook.
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| Laganza |
The journey took us next to The Painted Lady for Laganza a band out of Muskoka. They clearly are very talented musicians and nailed their set of rock, blues and reggae influenced tunes. We really enjoyed this band and the solid rhythm section that accompanied the dual riffing guitarists. Vocalist/Guitarist Tobin Spring’s playing reminded me of Lindsey Buckingham’s blazing blues solos. Highly recommended this band as a great live bar band. You can keep up with them on Twitter and Facebook.
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| In My Coma |
We stayed at the Painted Lady for In My Coma. The three piece band starts their set by saying “You heard some great blues so far tonight but we hope you are ready to hear something louder” and man did they ever get loud. I tweeted “They just cranked it to 11 at The Painted Lady. Awesome” during their first song and aside from being loud, they were f*ing awesome. Jasper James has major rock star skills both with his vocal abilities and his guitar, Mike Paterson ruled the drums with great power, and LauraDoll showed us that a beautiful woman can indeed play a mean bass. I will go see this band again, and that is a promise! You can keep up with them on Twitter and Facebook.
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| Dustin Bentall Outfit |
Next stop was the Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave at the heart of Kensington Market) for The Dustin Bentall Outfit. Dustin is the son of legendary Canadian rocker Barnie Bentall and hails from Vancouver. This band had a very unique fusion sound with an emphasis on the fiddle, that sounded like Jimmy Page’s violin heard on Zeppelin’s live shows. The group stormed the stage with a very unique and fresh sound that deeply reminded me of something out of the southern States. Great stage presence and Dustin really showed his skills. You can keep up with them on Twitter and Facebook.
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| The Wormwood Scrubs |
Our next stop was The Hard Rock Cafe to catch The Wormwood Scrubs. This four piece Waterloo The band described themselves as “A rocker, a mod, a punk, and a music purist” on their CMW web page, but their music was good hard loud rock. It was unfortunate that the audience was sparse at this point in the night as the music would have gotten anyone’s energy up. The audience was composed of their friends and family and they were all as pumped as the band was! The band is on Twitter and Facebook.
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| Breaching Vista |
Our second last stop was the Bovine Sex Club to catch Breaching Vista. We profiled this band earlier as part of our Emerging Artist Spotlight and were glad to see them live. The alt-rockers from Kitchener played a tight set with great energy for 2am. The front man John Maksym was very dynamic and the band even played a solid Come Down by Bush.The band is on Twitter and Facebook.
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| Tupelo Honey |
Home stretch! 3am was the start time for Edmonton’s Tupelo Honey at Cherry Cola’s Rock and Rolla again. Oddly enough the place was packed (or not). 3am did not stop a large gathering of fans from hearing this band that totally nailed their set. The crowd responded in kind to the good thumping rhythms from Tupelo Honey The band is on Twitter and Facebook.
