I hate being sick.
But anyway.
Musical discovery of the day comes from longtime webmaster here at the D, Mr. Brody. He was traversing the wilds of Myspace and came across Asher, an interesting little unit from southern Ontario. Mr. Brody lives in Illinois and thinks it's just hysterical that he's finding stuff in my own province while I sit around with my finger up my nose. Anyway, Asher are pretty impressive - and two girls in one melodic-metal band - and hot ones at that? Wow. Check them out ASAP. Sure, they sound kinda like Evanescence, but thanks to that band selling six million records, any female-fronted metal-leaning band will get that comparison.
Emanuel and a killer band called I Am The Avalanche are gonna hit the bricks together next month. No dates of interest to me or anyone in Canada yet, but we'll keep y'all posted. [punknews]
I've gotten my hands on the Canadian itinerary(two whole provinces, hooray) for Bleeding Through's headlining tour with Trustkill labelmates Walls of Jericho and relative newcomers to the scene August Burns Red(already one of my favourite modern metalcore bands). Check this sked out:
October 2, 2006 Anti Quebec City, PQ w/Blessed By a Broken Heart
October 3, 2006 Club Soda Montreal, PQ w/local act
October 4, 2006 Babylon Ottawa, ON w/local act
October 5, 2006 Opera House Toronto, ON w/local act
October 6, 2006 Underground Hamilton, ON w/local act
October 7, 2006 Call the Office London, ON w/local act
Word has it the local opening the last three Ontario dates is Arise And Ruin.
They're headlining the Radio Rebellion tour with openers Between the Buried and Me next month and onwards, but firstly, their third album is out Tuesday: Redeemer is about to drop from Norma Jean, who've done us all a favour and put the entire damn record up to listen to on their Myspace page. I'm pretty ridiculously awesomely stoked over this.
All these bands we've discussed thus far today have been acts that tour relentlessly; the type of band you go see and then you get home and they're in your backyard playing another gig at one in the morning. A band that doesn't do the touring thing all that exceptionally often, Propagandhi, have made good on their promise to tour part of the Great White North:
October 17, 2006 Thunder Bay, ON Killroy's
October 19, 2006 Ottawa, ON Babylon EARLY SHOW
October 20, 2006 Quebec City, QC L'Anti
October 21, 2006 Jonquiere, QC CNE
October 23, 2006 Montreal, QC Spectrum
October 25, 2006 Toronto, ON Funhaus
October 26, 2006 St. Catharines, ON L3
October 27, 2006 London, ON The Salt Lounge
October 28, 2006 Hamilton, ON The Underground
October 30, 2006 Timmins, ON GV Hotel
October 31, 2006 Sault Ste-Marie, ON Oddfellows Hall
I've never heard of The Skids, but they're an Scottish punk band of days of yore who did a song called 'The Saints Are Coming' in the late 1970s, and two bands you may have heard of are gonna do a cover of it with proceeds to the ongoing efforts in New Orleans, Louisiana. The organization behind this is Music Rising, which concerns itself with replacing musical instruments lost in the hurricane/flood. Those two bands, you wanna know? Oh nobody - U2 and Green Day. Wow. In a related story, Green Day are also being honoured by People For the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, who had this to say about the band: "Over the years, the group has lent their time and music to benefit many charitable causes, including the Live 8 concert series, Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, and the NRDC. [...] their latest multi-platinum album, American Idiot, has effectively raised social and political consciousness among audiences worldwide." Heady praise for a trio of snot-nosed kids from Berkeley.
Toronto rapper Manafest, with two full-lengths already under his talented belt(boy, that could be taken in a dirty manner, but we're all adults here) is releasing his third proper album Glory on September 26th. "The hip-hop songs are more the introspective side of my view and how I look at life," says the man born Chris Greenwood, "and the rock songs are more of outward looking in approach." [JFH]
Finally news about Underoath that isn't some stupid rumour about cocain use or "how come they actually have personal problems, they're a band, everything's fine": check out a clip from the upcoming video for 'In Regards To Myself' over here. The band are here in Ottawa September 26th at the Civic Centre with openers Silverstein, Moneen and He Is Legend. [absolutepunk]
It reminds me of my former creative partner and colleague Brian Kidd, without whom I may not have been writing about rock music for the last six years - and who loved this guy: the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens is about to release his first work in years. Story's over here.
Posted by mike at September 9, 2006 11:20 PM