North By North East at Clinton’s; Thursday June 7, 2007

North By North East at Clinton’s; Thursday June 7, 2007.

North by North East is a brilliant music festival that happens in Toronto each year. It gathers together a variety of musical genres and groups. The musical festival spans across three days, twenty-something venues and countless volunteers. I volunteered for this so I have been limited to one venue to review and critic, however the different bands sounded extremely different than what was expected. This venue was dubbed the rock and roots venue from the excel spreadsheet I was sent, actually, not so much.The first band that came on was WhosArmy a band from Toronto. They were really young and their sound was nothing out of the ordinary. It was super hard to judge a bands physical nature because I was outside of the venue where I could only hear what was going on with the occasional glance at what was going on with my hands on the cash register. Dr. Draw was the next band, or more of a solo project after reading the liner notes. This group is comprised on nine members from Montreal, a really large scene for Canadian independent music now a days I find. This musical spirit has been boasted by the mass festival Pop Montreal, hosting large names in the music industry. This band was not your typical “indie” act--despite the large numbers, they played with no vocals and also with a rich string section. This string section included a harp, a cello, violins and a guitar. The guitar helped rock things up a bit, as did the drum kit used. Their sound was unique because it encompassed several different genres and ideas from other groups that used similar instrumentation, which I can appreciate without claiming copy. I didn’t get a chance to look at them much because I was stuck outside but I managed to score a copy of their album and I looked at the centrefold and the group was comprised of a series of men that had a gino-style to them which caught me off guard. Aside from having a Montreal-French influence they definitely adopted a European flare to their music.Dr. Draw had no vocals which placed a greater emphasis on their instrumentation. The violins took the majority of the melodies played. Often picking up the pace with a drum beat, layering it with fancy violin work. There was also a piano used with layered their sound further. A song nearing the end of a set emphasized the short sound of the music played by everything being played staccato creating a dance style beat. They eventually threw in some violin parts, for someone who has no idea what I’m talking about think “Baba O’Reily” by the Who nearing the end when it gets really intense with the oboe or whatever woodwind instrument that is played. Ketch Harbour Wolves is from an array of Ontario. The North by North Easy guide compared them to the Arcade Fire and the Police which I highly doubted and I wasn’t too far off. Nowhere in this set did I find their songs laced with the Police in any way. Come their third song there was a similar progression of chords and melody that reflected Broken Social Scene’s “Major Label Debut”, I was able to sing the line: “I'm just comin' here to come down /I could be here /I could move town”. I could understand where they got the Arcade Fire influence from because the singers voice somewhat resonates the sound that the Arcade Fire’s singer Win Butler has. The similarity is the energy and the angst, which I like a lot. I didn’t think that Ketch Harbour Wolves were anything special however between Dr. Draw they brought in the largest audience.Fourth up was Acrobat another band hailing from the Montreal rock scene. The North by North East guide dubbed them Radiohead meets the Kinks, I was floored, an unlikely mix that Acrobat failed to live up to. The vocals had a very average mainstream voice that was nothing special to it, nothing memorable. Their sound wasn’t very solidified, by that I mean that they couldn’t decide on a sound, they were all over the place. Their band had a really great sound but I thought the vocals were weak. The only song I could sense a reflection of Radiohead was one at the end of the set. The similarities were not of vocals but simply of the music, utilizing similar techniques and sounds. They’re coming back on July 12 at the El Mocambo if you are at all interested in seeing this band live.Lastly, Mad Young Darlings came on, from Winnipeg, a city that I believe has some of the hardest groups to live up to, primarily to Canada’s heavy hitters the Guess Who. Mad Young Darlings were said to earn the audience’s love while ripping their hearts out, this juxtaposition of notions didn’t quite intrigue me in the brief write up. The front man for this band was a girl, which I really admired however instead of sounding completely new she sounded much like other female rockers like, Evanesence, Lacuna Coil and Canadian (failure and embarrassment) Bif Naked. I think to survive in a rock band girls do not need to be tough and angry, which most of these women try to do. I really didn’t like their sound it was quite often too loud and obnoxious. The lead singer put on a decent stage show, always moving and keeping the audience entertained. The band was dressed pretty well all wearing fancy black outfits and tiny splashes of red.

Thursday was good, lets hope Friday can top it.

June 8, 2007