First off, I'm crossing my fingers that San Fran's Seahorse Liberation Army show at Pop Montreal will work out. I'm unfortunately stuck in Toronto and cannot witness the Canadian debut of a potentially legendary group. Their songs are immediately riveting...political but with a sense of humour, referential without being campy. The band is smart about when to draw the line between l'homage and originality. Although they draw from all kinds of ideas, beliefs and inspirational people - dadaism, Dutronc, Paris '68 - they avoid dogmatism and idolitry. Nor are they inaccessible or too cool or whatever most underground bands try to be. They are doing their own thing, but you've been invited to do it with them, and bring friends.

Club LAMBI - 4465 Saint-Laurent
C-Bizz Presents: 1:00 Mongrels ∙ 24:00 Myshel Prasad ∙ 23:00 Seahorse Liberation Army ∙ 22:00 Jon Cohen Experimental

Check out some of their music here, and make sure your friends hear it too.


SLA are ready to take your baby away.

Also, Blocks and Dead Astronaut have released a 12" Creeping Nobodies / Anagram split, available at Soundscapes and Rotate This for $12. It features 4 new songs, and it's some heavy, next-level shit. It leaves me salivating for more releases from these two explosive and prolific local bands. If you buy a copy, you get a password coupon that hooks you up with a free download of the entire split.



ESB PLAYLIST 9/26/06

GUY STEVOS - Voodoo Bateria
SOULWAX - Krack
SOULWAX - Miserable Girl
THE CREEPING NOBODIES - Sacrosanctions
THE CREEPING NOBODIES - Psychic Weapons
ANAGRAM - Mt. St. Capt. Doom
ANAGRAM - Manic Indulgence
CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (Spank Rock Remix)
SAILBOATS ARE WHITE - SAW (Cadence Weapon Hi-Speed Edit)
LINDSTROM - Limitations
DJ LOGIC - 9th Ward Blues
SMMW - Little Walter Rides Again
THE NEIN - The Vibe (Crash Bleeder's Remix)

GUY STEVOS - Voodoo Bateria

ESB PLAYLIST 9/19/06

TV ON THE RADIO - Hours (EL-P Remix)
SOULWAX - Slowdance
DJ SHADOW - SIx Days (Soulwax Remix)
LES GEORGES LENINGRAD - Skulls in the Closet
CHANNELS 3x4 - Jesus
DIRTY PROJECTORS - Two Young Sheeps
DIRTY PROJECTORS - Two Sheep Asleep
JAN JELINEK - Universal Bard Silhouette
BARNYARD DRAMA - I'm a Navvy
NOEL ELLIS - Rocking Universally

X-AVANT

Tune in tomorrow for a preview of...

The Music Gallery presents
X AVANT
New music festival
Sept. 21-24, 2006
Toronto, ON

===============
Thursday Sept. 21
Joe McPhee (solo and with Victor Bateman, bass; Michael Keith, guitar; Rob Piilonen, flute)
Deep Dark United
co-presented with AIMToronto (Interface series)
@ The Music Gallery, 197 John St.
7pm doors/$15 advance
=============
Friday Sept. 22
OM
Gordon Beeferman/Jeff Arnal Duo
Toca Loca
plus Istvan Kantor
@ The Music Gallery, 197 John St.
7pm doors/$15 advance
===============
Saturday Sept. 23
Tony Conrad
Barnyard Drama
Telephone, 20 Questions and Other Guessing Games
@ The Music Gallery, 197 John St.
7:30pm doors/$15 advance
===============
Saturday Sept. 23
Nuit Avant – featuring:
Jan Jelinek
naw
Akumu with Anne Bourne, cello
VJ Nokami + ether.mann (live/DJ)
co-presented with Mutek + Vague Terrain
@ The Drake Underground, 1150 Queen W.
9pm doors/$15 advance
===============
Sunday Sept. 24
Duo Diorama
(Winston Choi, piano; Minghuan Xu, violin)
@ The Music Gallery, 197 John St.
4pm/$15 regular/$10 member/$5 student (door only)
===============
Sunday Sept. 24
Dirty Projectors
Continuum Music presents Blip (works by John Oswald + Nick Brooke)
co-presented with Wavelength
@ Sneaky Dee’s, 431 College St.
9pm doors/pay what you can (door only)

=====================
TICKET INFO
X Avant Festival Pass $50
Individual concert tickets $15 (except Sunday concerts)
Advance tickets and passes available at Penguin Music (2 McCaul St.), Rotate This (620 Queen W.), Soundscapes (572 College St.), and online at www.artsboxoffice.ca
More info: www.musicgallery.org or 416-204-1080.

FESTIVAL BALLIN'

Work has taken me to a number of festivals this summer, and as I mix off the stage I can't help but soak it up like a sponge, whatever the fare. A couple weeks back, I caught Murray McLaughlin, a legend in his own right as far as Canuck folk goes, at Shelter Valley.

"In the eighties," he told us from a stage made out of a porch barn, "it didn't matter who you'd talk to. It could be a baggage handler at the Vancouver airport or a Bay Street lawyer. You'd mention Brian Mulroney, and they'd all say 'Mulroney, that son of a bitch!' And that was Canadian unity back then."



MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN - Farmer's Song
MURRAY MCLAUGHLIN - Honky Red

A week and a half later, at The Guelph Jazz Festival colloquim, I met Greg Tate of The Village Voice after he gave a talk entitled "The End of Black Music - Jazz in the Digital Age", which actually was more about hip-hop and the legacies of jazz rather than jazz itself. I'm all for it, especially since many (but not all) jazz peeps often forget that jazz isn't just Mingus and Armstrong and Jelly Roll anymore.

Also present at the colloquim were Bob Ostertag and Rene Hebert, who made music with video game controllers, accompanied by live video and totally on the fly animation. They call it "living cinema", and while it's political in it s nature, it's not necessarily "message art", as Ostertag put it during a discussion on the artist and soial responsibility.



Unfortunately I only spent two days there, and would have loved to have stayed for the likes of Black Ox Orkestar, Torngat, Bell Orchestre, The Hylozoists and Sao Paolo Underground. But alas, perhaps next year I'll spend a day there after the work is all done.

ESB PLAYLIST 9/12/06

NADIYA - Tous Ces Mots (Sebastien Remix)
SEBASTIAN - Ross Ross Ross
SEBASTIAN - Dolami
KID KOALA - Slew Test 2 / Mosquito vs. Water Buffalo / Slew Test 3A
MOSES MAYES - Rock It So Hard
MOSES MAYES ft. Phatt Al + N.I.Gel - Come Out to Play
BONDO DE ROLE - Melo Do Tobaco (Jokers of the Scene Remix)
DJ PHD - Stay Building
DJ PHD - Rockittrajectory
GLASS CANDY - Ripe Apples
THE RAPTURE - Callin Me
THE AVALANCHES - Run DNA
KLAXONS - Atlantis to Interzone (Crystal Castles Remix)
CANSEI DE SER SEXY - One Way or Another / Teenage Kicks

Ottawa's Disorganized (DJs/producers Booth and Chameloenic), have been making a name for themselves by taking their Disconnected party on the road. Over the past few years, party people across the Toronto-Montreal corridor have been initiated to the sounds of Soulwax, The Glimmers, Vitalic...not to mention a whole host of mashups, remixes and edits from across the party music spectrum. Their Disconnected mixes ranked among the best acquisitions for many listeners across the blogosphere, and thus, their influence has extended far beyond their home base of the Babylon night club on Ottawa's Bank Street.

They're under a new incarnation as Jokers of the Scene, and they've released some new shit called The Canadian Boys Club Tour Mix '06, which drops some major crazy-ass bombs all over your life. Included in the mix is their own piece of bumpin glory, "Juggle It", as well as some strange cameos by the likes ok PJ Harvey and The Strangeloves. Hook that shit up for your bad self at Call Me Mickey.

This is what one of their parties looks like:



Tune in next Tuesday @ 6pm ET for new + unreleased material from SebastiAn, Kid Koala, Glass Candy, DJ PhD, Radio Birdman and The Born Ruffians.

ESB PLAYLIST 9/5/06

JOKERS OF THE SCENE - Juggle It
DEV 79 + CARL KEVORKIAN - Hometown
LOUWOP THE DIRTY GENERAL ft. DJ PhD - Raw Shit
CIARA - Oh (Cadence Weapon Remix)
LADY SOVEREIGN - Blah Blah Blah (Cadence Weapon Remix)
RICK ROSS vs SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO - Hustlin Hustler (Cadence Weapon Hi-Speed Remix)
FIELDS - Heretic
TOMMY GUERRERO - Just Ain't Me
PETER, BJORN + JOHN ft. Victoria Bergsman - Young Folks
PETER, BJORN + JOHN - Amsterdam
THE RAPTURE - The Devil
THE RAPTURE - Pieces of the Poeple We Love
THE RAPTURE - Get Myself Into It (Serge Santiago UK Edit)