nxne09, the end

Here’s a little write-up of my NXNE experience:

This year’s festival was probably one of the most (if not THE most) lively music events I have experienced in Toronto... congrats to the folks who put the festival together! The sheets were buzzing with remarkable music each night and I saw countless enthusiastic/cheerful music lovers wandering from venue to venue till late at night/early morning.

Highlights from NXNE/bands I would see over and over again:

Patrick Wolf
Absolutely spectacular! Quite a few of you knew of my dislike/disappointment of the new record prior to this concert. I have listened to The Bachelor no less than 10 times since then!

The Daredevil Christopher Wright
Hands down my favourite discovery in this year’s festival.
Get their debut full-length, In Deference to a Broken Back here... or if you are in the Toronto area, it is available exclusively at Criminal Records.

Crystal Antlers
High energy and very entertaining, more reasons to love Tentacles!

Japanther
Another high energy band—good old punk music!

DD/MM/YYYY
This band was a surprise; I didn’t think they would be this amazing live! Their music makes more sense in concert form, but I still love Black Square!

Ghost Bees
What an astonishing set at Bread and Circus Saturday night! Not only are the two sisters extremely talented musicians, they are frakking hilarious as well!

nxne09, day 4 | part i

Crystal Antlers—June 20, 2009 @ Yonge Dundas Square
This band is highly entertaining!







see more photos at my flickr page


Japanther—June 20, 2009 @ Yonge Dundas Square
Great!




see more photos at my flickr page

crystal antlers: tentacles

Thanks to the recent success of noise bands such as HEALTH, No Age and most recently Wavves, more and more bands from this genre are getting noticed. One of those emerging band is Crystal Antlers. Their debut LP, Tentacles is everything a noise fan could ask for—40 minutes of loud and melodic rock. Style wise, Crystal Antlers sound quite similar to their fellow tropical punk act Abe Vigoda. Likewise, their continuous ruckus and wild energy reminds me of The Blood Brothers and Parts & Labor. Tentacles is able to achieve what quite a few noise records failed to do—going all out without being too exhausting.

Andrew [wicked-cool song]
Tentacles
Your Spears [wicked-cool song]
***all files expire in 7 days or until bandwidth reaches its limit

visit Crystal Antlers' MySpace here
Tentacles comes out on April 7th, you can pre-order it here