This is not a typo. I repeat, this is not a typo. This is: tpyo. NXNE is Canada’s equivalent of SXSW: a music and film conference/festival held in bars and cinemas across Toronto for one week. I shall do my best to be your guide for this bounty of new sights and sounds.
My preparation for this festival is a wee bit haphazard, having only discovered the festival was coming up a day before the music commenced (the industry conference, and whatever that entails, had started on Monday with music and film beginning on Wednesday). I’m sure that is was well publicized in all the weekly press, but being the glocal man that I am, I have neglected my own community and surroundings a little of late – choosing Hollow Earth Radio over any local station and reading odd reviews from places like Boulder rather than analyzing Toronto’s street press. Through briefly tuning into CIUT, the University of Toronto’s own radio station set in the historic and stunning oak-lined Hart House, I managed to enter a competition to win two NXNE passes, which I subsequently won. So here we are! I’ll be doing my best to get out to as many gigs as possible, but will also take the opportunity to sift through the list of artists on offer and share with you, the esteemed (and clever, and handsome) BoW reader.
Summer is slowly settling into its groove in Toronto, after a long, dark winter. A month of tempestuous weather (heat waves, cold snaps, tornadoes, thunder storms, etc) has given way to high 20-degree (Celsius – it isn’t that cold in Canada) climes and high humidity. Clad in short sleeve apparel my girlfriend and I hot footed to an area of town we rarely visit, Ossington and College, a gentrified neighbourhood filled with people in tight jeans and ray-bans (who have replaced the rougher clientele of not-so-long ago). Toronto is a very spread out city, a lot like Seattle in that respect, so certain paths are never trampled because of no other reason than there is a lot to see. The better weather and a free gig pass to every one of the 50 music and film venues across the city is a perfect excuse to connect (or re-connect as in my case) with the city. From receiving my pack of ‘goodies’ I was excited to see new bars, new places to eat and drink, and see some of the mostly-Canadian bands on offer. Toronto has a good public transit system, so bar hopping is possible and not extravagantly expensive (taxi-ing around the expansive city to make gig times would make you destitute devastatingly quickly [Toronto has one of the highest taxi fare rates in the world – fact]).
The Dakota Tavern was our first port of call, a lovely wood-lined basement venue, modestly decorated with fairy lights and old stuff. The Mighty Boosh episode with Old Gregg in it was filmed there (not true). It was 9pm and the Stanley Cup Final Game 7 was underway, but a healthy turn out of around 25 was in attendance for T. Nile, a British Columbian native whose style is termed under Bluegrass, which, by her own admission, “is just because I carry a banjo.”
The room was long, with the modest crowd evenly spaced around the basement, yet T. Nile managed to own the room with her excellent voice and sparse guitar (accompanied by a Rebecca the harmonizer). Soon, the crowd had gathered to the stage to enjoy her breezy West Coast melodies. Star of the set was ‘Trees’, inspired by, er, trees.
“I’m so happy to be playing right now,” she gushed, “that if you come and talk to me after the show I will probably give you my CD for free.” True to her word, she was darting out her debut At My Table after her well-received set. It is an excellent debut which I would recommend anyone to purchase. Or you can simply turn up to one of her gigs and perhaps she will just give it away.
Pleasantly surprised by the opening of the festival in a small venue that was not exactly on the beaten track, we stayed for the next two acts. Rob Moir provided a Gaslight Anthem-style set that was tuneful and passionate, but all too familiar. I’ve since started to look worryingly at the sheer amount of bands billed as “Alternative” on the listings that could produce similar sets to Mr. Moir and his backing band. The Toronto foursome was listenable, though.
By the third band the hockey had finished and Vancouver had lost. Smokekiller started his set at 11pm, which in my native England would have been the end of a gig night, and the bar started to fill up. The residents of Ossington and College descended the stairs into the once tranquil basement and proceeded to talk and shout and take pictures of themselves on tiny phones or pocket laptops or whatever people have these days. One lad in the group next to me kept slurring in a impressively loud indoor voice “I feel like I’m an actor in a movie, and I haven’t any lines in the script.” They were so loud that we couldn’t hear the poor chap on stage. Instead of resorting to the Vancouver tactic of mass violence, we chose to quietly exit and leave the bustling bar to go about its business until 4am (an extended license due to the festival). Trundling home, the streetcars were non-existent, leaving us to walk a good mile home in the sticky night air. I did not feel re-connected to Toronto – fact.
I’m impressed with the amount of people that have passes (paying $100 or more to enjoy all the gigs over the next 5 days without any lineups); it shows the city is behind the festival (in its 17th year) and that there should be some cracking nights ahead.
Today’s pick will be the band Snowblink (appealing name in the scorching summer sun) who recently did a Daytrotter session. Here is them covering Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”:
Thanks for venturing into the belly of this sprawling beast, Phil! These tracks are great. Looking forward to more dispatches.