Apr 3 2014 – Little Foot Long Foot and Paint were in action at the Bovine back on March 20th for the Queen Street West festival that was going on that weekend. We’ve covered Little Foot Long Foot many times before so there isn’t too much to say. As I’ve said before, if T-Mak World had an Indie Hall of Fame, LFLF (along with TimeGiant) would be charter members and their inclusion in our annual top 10 is almost automatic. Yes, they are that good. But you knew that already.
However, this was not a typical LFLF show, it was the last Bovine appearance of drummer extraordinaire Isaac Klein who has decided to leave the band to dedicate himself to new fatherhood. While we certainly congratulate Isaac on the new addition to his family, it is with great sadness that we will miss his incredible playing and the humour he brought to the shows. Klein always had fun playing and by extension that fun was always shared by the audience. His playing and sound is/was a largely defining characteristic of Little Foot Long Foot’s sound. I could list so many songs where his thunderous contributions were key and Bonham-esque, but songs like Neko Case Hate Fucks Kurt Cobain and Sell Out While You Can jump quickly to mind. It wasn’t Klein’s very last show with Little Foot Long Foot however. They’ll be playing again at the Cameron House later this month.
It wasn’t a wake though. It was a typical Little Foot Long Foot show and while she may have long shoes she will need to fill (groan, sorry), one thing we know is this is still a band that will continue to revolve around frontwoman and guitarist Joan Smith’s fantastic riffs, lyrics and vocals and we’re confident that she’ll find an extremely competent replacement, just as she did when she replaced former organist Caitlin Dacey with total badass player Jeff Heisholt.
Set list
Half Man Half Mule
Goat
Neko Case Hate Fucks Kurt Cobain
Missing The Point
Senor Fugato
My Word
Kickface
(new song? didn’t recognize it)
Sell Out While You Can
The set included Kickface which hasn’t always been a common inclusion in the set. Kickface was recently used in the highly acclaimed Netflix original series Orange Is The New Black in the closing credits of one of the episodes and is generating interest in the band from new sources. That song has blasted in my car too many times to count and it was great to hear it live.
Paint
Last time we saw Paint was about a year and a half ago at C’est What? on Front Street. At the time, they reminded of the band Live and singer Robb Johannes vocals sounded like Ed Kowalczyk. That night Ryan Carruthers was admirably filled in on guitar, with Jordan Shepherdson on guitar now. Paint’s songs are highly polished smooth radio friendly songs. While common in the 80s and 90s, their sound is unique these days. Frontman Johannes is running for Mayor of Toronto and we wish him well. This is city is too great to be represented by a crack smoking, chronic drinking and driving, chronic binge drinker followed by chronic public embarrassments, chronic liar and for legal reasons will leave out the commonly used word for a mayor that refuses to attend the Pride parade, but you know the word that starts with a H and ends in phobe. He’s an international embarrassment who pathetically doesn’t even realize it and we wish Johannes well in his mission to replace him.
Review and Photos by Steve Mallinson
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