Music, musings and miscellanea

With hipster garage punks and psychobilly vixens already eating up a good portion of Toronto’s live music audience Thursday night, it was no surprise that Lee’s Palace was extra roomy for a bill stacked with Toronto regulars. It’s a shame, because in a city teeming with blog-hyped gigs, a bullshit-free rock show is a humbling experience.

After turning heads last year with his unofficial score (or “synch,” as he calls it) to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Haligonian Rich Aucoin has to prove he’s more than a one-trick pony. He still soundtracks films clips, but now uses pieces in the public domain following some stern warnings from Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The cut-and-paste pastiche method he employed for new tracks plays like more of an afterthought than when he performs with the Grinch visuals, but the songs themselves are tight, catchy and filled with (figurative and literal) bells and whistles. As fun as Aucoin’s soundtracks are, his skills as a songwriter are slowly outpacing his need for visual aids.

Up next, and sticking out like sore thumbs, were Can-rock cast-offs The Waking Eyes. The Winnipeg quartet have come a long way since the heady garage rock days of 2004, pulling a Panic! At the Disco and morphing into a ’70s-pop–inspired indie-rock band. Whatever merit their new songs might have though was obscured by an onstage air of self-importance punctuated by choreographed head bops and leg kicks. The Waking Eyes came off like Spinal Tap dropping “Jazz Odyssey” on a half-empty bar. The guy playing video game and movie themes on piano between sets was more engaging.

Finally The Golden Dogs hit the stage, ripping through three tracks off 2006’s Big Eye Little Eye to start the show. These Toronto locals have played a smattering of gigs around town over the past few months to try out new material. But that hasn’t stopped the band — particularly keyboardist Jessica Grassia-Azzolini — from playing like 10-year olds hopped up on pop-rocks and Coke. Her face was hidden under a thick mane of brown hair for most of the show as she bopped along with each new tune, stopping only briefly to throw her formidable background vocals into the mix.

The half a dozen new tunes the Dogs dropped into their set show the band continuing to develop their propulsive power-pop sound. Some of the arrangements remain rough and there aren’t any hints at an upcoming artistic breakthrough, but they’re strong enough to stand next to the band’s best work and were enthusiastically greeted by the crowd. After exhausting their catalogue and themselves, the band left the stage having reminded everyone how much you can do with a little heart and some great tunes.

This story originally appeared on EYE WEEKLY‘s website.

Day one of NXNE started with a bang down at the Mod Club over on College St. Having grown up hearing Sloan blasting out of radios everywhere and discovering Ted Leo much later on in university, I’d never really made much of a connection between the two bands. But seeing them play back to back really highlighted the pop roots at the core of each band’s songs.

I made it inside in time to catch the opening riff of Leo’s “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone,” what (I assume) was the night’s opening song. This was my fourth time seeing Leo and his revolving group of Pharmacists (drummer Chris Wilson and his massive beard seem to be the only constant), and I have to say it was one of the best. Eternally stuck in high gear, the man seemed to take the 40-minute time limit imposed on the set as a challenge to cram in as many songs in as possible. He ripped through older tracks like his life depended on reaching to the next song, and treated the partially filled venue to about half a dozen new tunes. The band’s sound was greatly improved by the addition of second guitarist James Canty on tour. Leo comes from a DIY punk rock background, but the guy can shred and Canty’s steady rhythm playing gave him the freedom to do so. The best part of the night for me came with hearing the new tunes which, in this humble blogger’s opinion, were all a marked improvement over last year’s tepid album Living With the Living

Sloan hit the stage in high spirits, and they should be. Their recent offerings, including the three-day old Parallel Play, have reinvigorated and re-purposed the Halifax ex-pats, a fact all four members seem to realize; they played nine of the new album’s 13 tracks, including three of drummer Andrew Scott’s contributions. I got the impression that had it not been for guitarist Jay Ferguson’s soar throat, they would have played the whole damn thing. And even though he was audibly ill the few times he stepped up to the mike to speak, he jokingly tried to lead the band into a rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Peppered in between the new tunes were three cuts off Never Hear the End of It and “Everything You’ve Done Wrong” from 1996’s One Chord to Another, the only actual hit they played during the set. On paper this sounds like a wankerish move, but this was actually the most consistent I’ve ever seen them live (they’re usually pretty hit and miss). Their encore ended the show with blazing renditions of “The Good In Everyone,” which Murphy joked was “the most exiting two minutes in music” and “She Says What She Means.” As a testament to they’re dedication to his dedication to his adoptive home and its music scene, Murphy was spotted hours later down at the Horseshoe, chatting with Jim Cuddy and checking out some local bands.

So yeah, Queens of the Stone Age played down at the Cunard Centre last night, and yeah, they were awesome, but you can read about that all somewhere else on the Internet. What we’re going to talk about today is last night’s opening band Mugison. Mugison (pronounced Moo-gy-son) is the brainchild of  Örn Elías Guðmundsson and isone of Iceland’s top selling artists (that’s where he’s from if you hadn’t caught on yet). Normally he operates as a one-man plus laptop band, but for this tour he’s got a four peice backing band to beef his sound, giving the whole thing a beer-soaked blues on steroids vibe. The band hit the stage with an air of confidence around them and promptly launched into their set. Mugison’s songs run the gamut from Tom Waits’ caterwauling and Hawksley Workman’s falsetto with a little bit of Eels jagged edged blues mixed in for good measure. And ho-boy can these guys swing (Sasha Frere Jones should take note), thanks in no small part to their drummer who was standing up pointing his drum sticks at the crowd about as much as he was actually playing and the crowd ate it all up. If all this weren’t enough, the band played a second set later that night at the Seahorse Tavern. By the time this blogger got their the lineup ran up the stairs and across the front of the Economy Shoe Shop. So while I didn’t get in to see the band, I have no doubt that they had no trouble making new friends.