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December 22, 2012 – It’s no easy task to distill a year’s worth of great music down to a Top 10 “Best of” list. The first thing one realizes is the subjectivity of the undertaking. Music is entirely subjective. People’s taste in music is as unique as their fingerprints. No two are alike.
Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers made the point pretty well when Rush was finally announced as entering the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. On Weekend Update, he joked, “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced this year’s inductees including Donna Summer, Public Enemy and Rush. “Who are those other two?”, said fans of any one of those”.
To say that something is definitively “best” would not only ignore the subjectivity of personal taste, it would also require seeing every possible entrant, an impossibility. Is the scope limited to Toronto? the GTA? Ontario? Canada? International? There’s really no logic in a territorial limitation. We don’t need to know, and don’t care, where a band resides. We only care about our experience, when and where we saw them.
So what then can we definitively say with some certainty? We can say, definitively, only our own preferences. That is, if we’re able to distill a year’s worth of incredible music down to a short list. That in itself is an almost impossible task.
Canada produces some incredible rock bands but our list is not exclusively Canadian. Two American bands made our list and two others, Mexico’s Beta and Spain’s Eldorado were honourable mentions. In all, T-MAK World saw over 160 bands at least once this year, some several times. Some were big names, like Roger Waters, Rush, Creed, Thomas Dolby, The Black Keys, Neil Young, Van Halen and The Who. Many cover bands like Michael White and The White and Zeppelinesque, but the majority, well over a hundred, were original indie bands. Most were written up in the pages here but many worthy ones weren’t posted for one reason or another. However, all of our Top Ten definitely were covered here and all except Black Owls and One Bad Son were seen more than once.
At its core, T-MAK World is about classic rock, blues rock and prog rock. We’ll occasionally cover the odd hipster band, but cardigans, berets and those who cover Beyoncé aren’t our style and won’t be found on our list. Factors influencing the list were subjective. They were all about how much we liked their music, how good their show was, how skilled they were as players, how dedicated they were to putting in the work to “make it” and ultimately, their likelihood to “make it”. But mostly it was just about how much we dug ’em.
Unlike the Top 10 Concerts of 2012 or Top 10 Albums of 2012, the Top 10 Indie Bands are presented in alphabetic order.
So without further ado, let’s get to the 2012 T-MAK World Top 10 Indie Bands of the Year!
Alert The Medic
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| Alert The Medic at The Hideout |
We saw this Nova Scotia based band twice in 2012, at The Supermarket and The Hideout. Their second album We, The Weapon is an outstanding collection but it’s been a while since it was released in 2009. As we move into 2013, we hope there’s a new CD in their future. They played a great new song at The Hideout in November. Haven’t seen Alert The Medic? Check out this song and we’ll see you at the next show!
http://www.alertthemedic.com/
Bella Clava
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| Caitlin Dacey |
We saw Bella Clava twice at NXNE, first at the Bovine, then at The Hideout and again at the Bovine Sex Club in August. We profiled them here. This is a great hard rock band led by Caitlin Dacey on lead vocals and organ (and occasional guitar). Steve Suttie on guitars and Scott Hannigan on bass. Bella Clava goes through more drummers than Spinal Tap, the most recent and best that we saw was Zeppelinesque drummer Jody Brumell. We’d love to see him become a full time member of the band.
http://www.bellaclava.ca/
Black Owls
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| The Black Owls |
We saw the Black Owls during NXNE in June at The Hideout. We also profiled them here. Frontman David Butler evokes David Byrne of The Talking Heads. They play great quirky rock songs.
http://www.blackowls.com/
The Blue Stones
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| The Blue Stones |
The Blue Stones is a duo of Tarek Jafar on guitar and lead vocals and Justin Tessier on drums. They play rock in the style of The Black Keys. They released their second CD this fall called “How’s This Sound?”. You can read our answer to that question here. We saw them several times in 2012, including the Sister at CMW and NXNE, at the Horseshoe in May and August and the Bovine in October and December. We profiled them here and you can see our video interview with them here.
http://www.facebook.com/thebluestonesmusic
The Bright Light Social Hour
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| The Bright Light Social Hour |
T-MAK World caught The Bright Light Social Hour twice in Toronto (Yonge-Dundas Square and Danforth Music Hall) and once in their hometown of Austin. The Bright Light Social Hour is a band that must be seen live. TBLSH is a difficult band to categorize. It’s southern blues rock with an uptempo dance beat.
http://www.thebrightlightsocialhour.com/
In My Coma
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| In My Coma |
In My Coma is the trio of Jasper James on guitar and vocals, LauraDoll on bass and Mike Paterson on drums. Their music is heavy, modern and loud and we love it. We saw them at The Painted Lady during CMW, at Cherry Colas in June and The Horseshoe in November. Our spotlight article is here. You can check out our review of their CD Magnets and Miracles here.
http://www.inmycoma.com
Little Foot Long Foot
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| Joan Smith |
We saw Little Foot Long Foot several times in 2012, the Rivoli, the Bovine for NXNE, the Comfort Zone, the Bovine again and Lee’s Palace. They began as a duo of Joan Smith on guitar and lead vocals and Isaac Klein on drums. They released their first album, “Harsh Words”, in 2009. They added the organ of now departed Caitlin Dacey on 2011’s Ian Blurton produced masterpiece “Oh, Hell”. Jeff Heisholt replaced Dacey on organ this fall.
http://www.littlefootlongfoot.com/
One Bad Son
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| One Bad Son |
We saw Vancouver’s Saskatoon’s One Bad Son at CMW at Cherry Colas and were blown away. We profiled them here. Their single Scarecrows was recently at #15 on Canadian Rock charts. We also loved their music so much we reviewed the album entitled One Bad Son here. If we had to put money down on which one single band has the best chance of “making it” One Bad Son is that band.
http://www.onebadson.com
Steve Hill
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| Steve Hill |
We saw Steve Hill at NXNE and then again at the end of November at the Horseshoe where we interviewed him. He’s an extraordinary rocking blues guitarist from Montreal.
http://stevehillmusic.com/
TimeGiant
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| Tyrone Buccione and Ryan Watson |
TimeGiant is our most covered Indie band. We’ve described them as a heavy prog rock band in the style of Rush or Triumph. We love their high energy live shows. TimeGiant is Tyrone Buccione on lead vocals, lead guitar and sax, Ryan Watson on guitar, Pat Wilken on bass and Charlie McKittrick on drums. Check out our video interview here. The band is working on the next album now and we can’t wait to hear it. Below is a selection of some of the coverage we have given the band.
Emerging Artist Spotlight CMW at The Supermarket Rivoli in May NXNE Horseshoe in July Horseshoe in September Rivoli in October for Indie WeekWhen you see well over a hundred indie bands a year, it’s incredibly difficult to narrow down the list of the best to just 10. The following are Honourable Mentions that are great bands that we love that were just outside the Top 10.
Honorable Mention list (an alphabetic order):
Beta
catl
Eldorado
Happy Endings
Louder Than Love
Radio Moscow
Stone River
The Reason
The Stanfields
We’d love to hear from you. Who did we miss from our list this year? Leave a comment below!
Article and photos by Steve Mallinson
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Thank you for including the Bright Light Social Hour in your review. Have been big on this band since seeing them at I Mother Earth at during CMW. Bought both the CD and EP that night. Checked them out before I went to the show. (My stepson wanted to see I Mother Earth.) Great show but too short. Was great to see them again at Yonge Dundas Square. Again another great show considering they had all of their instruments and other equipment stolen in a mall out west.
We love you guys. See you soon!! xo Black Owls