Happy Birthday Emily! – a riot of fun at NXNE – Thursday, June 16, 2011

I had too much to dream last night

NXNE, the annual music festival swallows the entire city of Toronto for five days from June 15 to 19. Barely emembering the days where 300 bands in 30 clubs was the norm and dashing along Queen Street West to try to find Sully in some nondescript basement bar, then trying to cover 500 bands in 50 clubs, NXNE has exploded to include squares and parks and even the Toronto Pearson Airport. Plus NXNE has added a movie festival, too. The music, the music, the music is what NXNE is all about though.

So there could be no better circus to celebrate Emily Bones’s birthday that to be back with Mittenz at Silver Dollar again. Mittenz were a cataclysmic bundle of fun who kickstarted the night at 8 pm. A lot of musical might and flight of fancy. We just simply adore this quartet of ladies. And how could we forget to mention the matching dresses of the two wifeys?

Although it initially looked like they were going to be reduced to a four song set, they had extended time to almost forty minutes and delivered the goods, starting with Bucket List then their musical parade of catchy and beachy fun tunes. And keenly aware of the scene they throw in their dig at the Lady Caca who was in town during the fest for some other event down at MuchMusic. The early crowd swelled up in numbers and provided the impetus for Mittenz to perform at their best.

NXNE runs like clockwork in a Dan Burke world, then Mittenz teardown and Purple Hill setup and came onstage at 9. “Where are you from?” They came onstage with an old style sound reminiscent of Soul Asylum in its heyday. It was a Thursday night at the Silver Dollar. Very friendly types from Toronto, wearing t-shirts trying to assert their macho and wearing T-shirts with “Trust your Looks” across the front, they were promoting a new CD that was in the recording process and playing songs from it, and at the same time promoting a CD they were anxiously trying to give away for free. Cute song of the night: Unicorn Rainbow.

Purple Hill - NXNE - 9:04 p.m.

Elvyn from Peterborough or Toronto or “we’re from everywhere”, had an assortment of diehard fans shouting out their love for the band. What might have been dicey was the sobriety and gender of the people shouting out their love for the singer. Have they really been around eleven years and finally worked their way to land a ten o’clock slot on stage, and AA recovery victims? The sound is psychedelic laced with reverbery soaring spacey “We’re from the future of rock and roll, We play the past or rock and roll” David Roback sounds. Love songs traded off on vocals between the brothers on guitar and drums. Ellie. Superb song.

Chains of Love @ 11 p.m.

Chains of Love. Where are you from? “We’re from Riot City” were a visual
treat to eye and a fashion parade on stage, the ladies on vocal and guitar in killer tight little black dresses and heels on stage? And the dudes were insouciantly cool – but the glitzy and glam looks belied the surfy Raveonette tunes that were tight tight tight in the arrangement and playing.

Crocodiles @ midnight

Crocodiles from San Diego, California were the successors and cap-off of the night at least here
as midnight struck. The singer in the black Elvis Costello skinny suit and Misfits t was the coolest of the cool this side of Oasis Liam Gallagher as the focal point of a killer quintet with female drummer and keyboardist on Farfisa, then add bass and guitar feedback, all players and crowd bobbing their heads and necks in time, pulsating to a hypnotic beat and soaring searingly loud loops,  and reverberating distortion. A modernist Stereolab.

Dirty Beaches came on at one but the beck of the last TTC demanded that we leave but not without at least saying farewells and hugs and thank you to Mittenz, who still remained the highlight of the night just because of all the bands that night they remain genuine. Plus the margherita slice from Fresca’s which sits where Massimo’s used to be, but it’s the same delicous pizza with pesto and peppers. The misty rain landed on the streets as the girls at the streetcar stop with a bicycle between them searched for their fares.

More killer heels and another killer night at NXNE in Toronto.

– 30 –

Bloody well right Paint at Silver Dollar

DSC_1158-Edit, originally uploaded by Midnight Matinee 24.

PAINT
SILVER DOLLAR
MAY 12, 2011

While this may be a little late in the writing, we felt we had to write something right nonetheless lest it go forgotten.

Those not present at the May 12 return of Paint to the Toronto scene missed a show of remarkable proportions. Time concentrated in the studio has aggregated a brand new Paint – the secret weapon being the very be very aggressive stance and posture of Mandy on guitar whose Corganstylings have taken over the Paint sound. As always the laconic Marcus on bass more Entwistle laidback than usual but noodling up and down the neck in complex time with the Andre of the weavy in and out of beat – which brings us to the enigmatic puzzle that is the lead singer and guitarist who is a jack of all trades from mirthful comic icebreaker in the making to frontperson and greeter of crowds. Oh, his name is Robb.

While the set only featured one new song to come from the new CD, it is evident the recording process has brought out the harsh angularity and romanticism of Vienna Lillywhite compounded over the lush and languid Lanois beauty in the bloody red Paint.
The setlist was all too brief condensing six songs into forty minutes but they sallied forth, conversing and playing in what was a clear preparation for a NXNE showcase, mixing up the conventional order of things starting off with In Disguise and ploughing into the strident If The Walls Could Talk which has been a natural closer to the end set song. Home is the natural black and white song with the call and beck refrain where Pulp and Smiths fan can sometimes land on something familiar. Girl in a Frame and She Leaves were as catchy as ever but man, that crunch in the guitars. And ending with the track from the first recording Can You Hear Me. It’s all one song. And one grand experience. Paint, we missed you.

Listening to a rough mix of the second CD now and it absoooooooooooolutely kicks it. On the initial runthrough the mix sounds dry, but filled with the emotive vocal stylistics from the singer and a passionate rumbling bass and guitar. Drums are rock solid. This album Where We Are with new songs Boomerang continues Paint’s foray into catchy pop that inherits its influences and spins them into something new for the modern era. 

Hear Mittenz Hear Them Roar to the Eye of the Tiger

Mittenz
The Silver Dollar Room
March 5, 2011

The Silver Dollar harkens sighs and sounds from numerous Elvis Mondays and groovy neon friendships and Laughing Apples and even Cowboy Junkies on August nights packing the blues bar back when Elliot Lefko was running the show. Times have changed and so has the Silver Dollar inside. All the bright lights and sprawl of tables and bars and poles and mirrors and doorways and steps leading up to the stage have disappeared but the place still retains that rocky raucous sound of the blues – photos of stars past such as Muddy Waters still line the walls in commemoration of a day gone by.

Mittenz on this Saturday night carry themselves on the stage with all the brash and sass of The Pretenders in their first album period. Everything about them is open and ingenuous in the good way – this was mayhaps their second full gig as a rock quartet with dextrous and tricky drummer Lindsay Bird who has a way of spinning the sticks – nothing looks affected as the grrls truly rock out with guitars hewn as battle scythes and axes. And it is all fun fun fun and go go go go-go’s as they exhaustedly keep a non-stop never stop dancing and prancing and happy mood on stage- belying a tough exterior of tattoos and Laura on bass with baseball caps and Emily Bones and Mary Deth wearing matching punk rock prom queen dresses with such élan [albeit with different touches and fits] that you dare not even think of mocking them.