2011 Mariposa Folk Festival Grows Again...

        More performers were added today to the 2011 Mariposa Folk Festival line-up , the Festival takes place July the 8th to the 10th on the beautiful shores of Lake Couchiching in Orillia,Ontario. 
       Performers that were added to the already amazing bill are...Yeshe, David Celia, David Myles, Michael Pickett, Richard Knechtel, Wendell and Wheatley, Eh?!, and plus a SURPRISE ARTIST that goes onstage just before Emmylou Harris!!!

     ***DON'T FORGET PRICES GO UP MAY THE 1ST!!!***

Here's just a taste of Yeshe

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Is there a Royal Wedding ? Could have fooled me

In the spirit of the "Royal Wedding" that is taking place 
this week in jolly old England between Wills and Kate I thought some maybe this might be appropriate...enjoy!!!











Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

“Hears a Track from our latest Album”....The words no concert goer ever wants to hear

         O.K., so let me set the record straight, I’m no musician, I’m no singer, I’m no songwriter in any sense of the word, so I don’t know how it feels when you have to write and record new songs, when you get that urge so bad that you have to share with others what’s floating around in your head, but there is one thing I do know...if you are an artist that has been around for more than 25 years..Nobody, and I mean Nobody wants to hear your “New Stuff” LIVE!!!

I guess most of you are wondering now what this little rant stems from? Here ya go.....

       So last weekend I was down on Yonge Street in Toronto at Sunrise Records where The Spoons were scheduled to do an in store performance, here’s where I fully admit a great admiration for The Spoons, the classic line up of Gord, Sandy, Rob and Derrick put out some really great New Wave hits in the early 80’s, and I can still throw on the Greatest hits CD today and listen to it the whole way through. Now, this was probably my bad (Do people still say that?), since I did already know that they had recently wrote, recorded and released a new cd called " Static In Transmission”, they would be playing stuff off of it, but to only play two old school tracks and all the rest was made up of new stuff...come on, give a dog a bone here.  I know the hardcore fans that were there (The two large guys both dressed in yellow singing word for word to every new song would fit that category) loved it, but the other 99% of us were there just for the “Hits”.

       I’ve have been too many shows over the years where you get the  “established” artists that decide to inflict on the crowd 4 or 5 new songs, then throw in a hit here or there . I’ve actually watched an entire audience of almost 20 thousand people sit down for 20 minutes or more while the band run’s through the new stuff, it’s kind of sad.  

               Back in September of 1995 myself and some friends got tickets to David Bowie’s Outside Tour that he was co-headlining with Nine Inch Nails. When this tour was announced it was a dream line up, how could you go wrong, here you have The Thin White Duke playing alongside Trent Reznor, it was just a very cool idea, then we got the word that Bowie had decided not to do any of his back catalog on this tour, he was only doing one “Classic” song per night and the rest was all new stuff…..oh David, now I’m into new music as much as the next guy, I’ve always considered myself to be pretty forward thinking when it comes to music, up on everything that comes along, but when I decided to go see Bowie (whom I had never seen before) I was looking forward to hearing all the classics…it was not what I or anyone else in attendance expected. Bowie was only 3 or 4 songs into his set and the crowd had started to leave, it wasn’t pretty. Now I stuck around to the end because if I pay money for a show I’m sticking around for the whole show, but for a performer like David Bowie to just play all “New Stuff” was a disastrous choice on his part.

          Now I know my little piece won’t have any effect on the big artists that continue to torture us with those new songs show after show, but if I can just get through to one young band that might grow up one day to fill the stadiums of the world and who will just play “The hits”…then my work here is done

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Toronto’s 2011 NXNE Festival...Whip It OFF! until your Fucked Up

               Yesterday Toronto’s NXNE Festivals and Conference gave us a good chunk of the music artists they have lined up for their 2011 Festival. As I did a quick scan of the list there were a few names that jumped out and smacked me right away...

Devo: Come on, you have to be a real hard ass not to like at least one Devo track, these guys have been around forever and still making and performing great music.... de-volution is inevitable

OFF!: Keith Morris and company are going to bring their anti-establishment/hardcore vibe to the 2011 festival, and I for one will be there to feel everything

PS I Love You: Kingston Ontario’s assault on our senses will continue when PS I Love You invade the festival. These 2 guys have the ability to produce music that not only makes u move but destroys a few brain cells at the same time...can’t wait

Men Without Hats: The Safety Dance…That’s all I have to say

Digable Planets : there was this whole scene back in the early ‘90’s that had Hip-hop and Jazz being fused together, and Digable Planets lead the way with their 1993 record “Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)” I remember really digging the single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)", I’d like to catch them just to see what time has done to their sound.

Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield: Another that’s all I have to say act, if Evan and Juliana can just do an acoustic version of “It's a Shame About Ray” then I’ll be a happy man

No Joy: Another Montreal buzz band that’s been lurking in the back of my mind for a bit, their fuzzy, shoegazing sound is hypnotic enough to strike a chord even within the hardest hipsters hearts.

Rusty: Much Music+1990’s=Rusty.....With their album “Fluke” and the Bruce LaBruce video for "Misogyny”, these guys just gave a real kick in the Ass to music at the time, a very welcome reunion

Here’s a complete list of the artists confirmed so far:  Lull, A , Aids Wolf ,Anti Flag ,Art Brut ,Belle Phoenix ,Bensh ,Black Light White Light,Black Lungs ,Braids ,Chad VanGaalen ,Chris Velan ,Chuck Ragan ,CJ Ramone ,C’Mon ,Cory Branan ,Crocodiles ,Cults ,Dance Laury Dance ,Dave Hause , DD/MM/YYYY , Deerhoof , Descendents , Devo , Digable Planets,Dirty Beaches , Doldrums ,Dum Dum Girls , Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield ,Evening Hymns ,Forest City Lovers ,Gauntlet Hair ,Gentlemen Husbands , Hafdis Huld , Hot Water Music ,Houses , Jean Caffeine , Jen Castle , Joey Cape & the Bad Loud , Julianna Barwick , Kevin Seconds , Kovak , Kydd , Labirinto , Land Of Talk , Lower Dens , Marta , Men Without Hats , METZ , MINOTAURS , Miri , Mockingbird Wish Me Luck , MONOKINO , My First Tooth , Nive Nielsen & The Deer Children , No Joy , OFF! , One Buck Short , Parlovr , Pat Jordache , Polyphase , Prince Rama , PS I Love You , Pujol , Red Mass , Rosie and Me , Royal Bangs , Rusty , Secret Cities , Sharks , sharks took the rest , Snowblink , Stars , Suuns , Talk Normal , Tape Deck Mountain , Temperatures , The Blues Preachers , The Bouncing Souls , The Dodos , The Flatliners , The Luyas , The Pack AD , The Pharcyde , The Postelles , The StandStills , The Star Department , Thees Uhlmann & Band , Twin Shadow , Ty Segall , Uncle Bad Touch , USA Out of Vietnam , We Are Wolves , Wild Nothing , Will And The People , Woodsman , Writer , Zoon van snooK

The Festival runs from June 13th to the 19th 

A very hectic but exciting few days for music in Toronto ...” like totally for sure”

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Death From Above 1979 Live at Coachella 2011...Just because I Can

Hey Everyone
No real reason behind this post , I just really dig Death From Above 1979, and this performance from Coachella was Sweet...Enjoy
Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

The Strokes Make some Coachella Magic

          I’ve always been on the fence with The Strokes. I still remember while working at Round Again in the early ‘90s when they first came on the scene, I gave them a shot, more than once and I don’t know why but they just never did it for me. I remember thinking why is everyone else digging these guys and for me nothing....that changed last night. 

      Like most of us I wasn’t even close to being able to get to the 12^th edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, so like most of us I was glued to YouTube last night, and their live feed. After catching some Duran Duran (a guilty pleasure from years past) and then a bit of electrofunksters Chromeo (If these 2 Montrealers can’t get you to dance then you have no soul) I then switched over to catch some of The Strokes.  I thought maybe I’d watch/listen to a bit while I was working on a piece for the Blog, I was not too worried about missing it. 

       So The Strokes take to the stage (late, true Rock & Roll) and kick right into a set that I can only describe as mind changing, from the beginning chords of “I Can't Win” to the final notes of “Take It Or Leave It” those 5 New Yorkers ....well what can I say, they blew me away and I’m not the type of person to be swayed after only one performance, they did it...Long Live The Strokes*!!!

 

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

* I take no responsibility if they decide to call it quits after I’ve made this statement...Knock on Wood

Record Store Day 2011...Riding the Wave to Sunrise and Beyond

           So like many thousands of others I waited anxiously outside in the pouring rain (or snow in some cases) for the doors of the stores to swing open and for our bank accounts to be drained like it was Christmas and Boxing Day all rolled into one...yesterday was Record Store Day 2011, or if you’re a burgeoning Twitter Head like myself it was refered to as #rsd2011. 

                Since I still live in a small town with no independent record store to speak of (insert the Chant Wal-Mart Sucks if you like, fine by me) I had to make the almost two hour trek south to “The Big City” of Toronto, this meant a 4am wake-up call so I could get down there early enough to get a half decent place in line, or so I thought. My destination was Criminal Records on Queen Street, and as I pulled up in the pouring rain I noticed a few poor souls already standing outside...it was 6:30 AM, the store opened at 9 AM. This whole experience brought back a flood of memories of my friends and I travelling to either Barrie or Toronto to wait all night outside either Sam’s or Cheapies to get tickets to shows and meeting all kinds of new and different people. 

      So after I had parked and walked over to get in line with my other RSD warriors the rain had started to come down even harder...and of course I had left the umbrella (which we have a thousand of) at home and all I had on was a hoodie...go figure eh. As I stood there 3 other guys showed up and they had umbrellas, the day was starting to look up. We all stood there in silence for a bit until conversations started to form, and of course they were all music based, who else but music nerds would stand outside in the pouring rain at six thirty in the am just to buy records.  We talked about shows we had seen and what we were hoping to get our hands on (My main target for the day was David’s Town by Fucked Up).  The countdown had begun, then Josh from Criminal Records pulled up out front of the store like a rock star and walked in, you could almost feel a collective sigh of relief that the long wait was coming to an end.  

     I checked the time on my phone because as I had realized about an hour earlier my watch was running about 20 minutes slow (didn’t go over to well with the nerds) then I saw that it was 9 o' clock on the dial...so let’s get ‘er on I was thinking in my head. We then got the report from the front (four people ahead of us) that the door was opening. As the door opened we shuffled in to a brightly lit store with the Criminal staff all standing behind the counter waiting for the beautiful black gold requests to start firing at them. We stood in line checking out some of the RSD product that they had placed up on the wall the previous night, it was all nice but what I wanted was behind the counter safe and sound waiting for me to retrieve it. As I approached the cash the guy behind the counter must have recognized me from my Facebook pic because he totally nailed it right on the head what I was there for , the Fucked Up record (we had been conversing for the last few weeks about what was coming in and quantities).  So there I am spewing out names of the pieces that I wanted (a little Sonic Youth for my wife, a little OFF! For me) , then the guy that was at the cash beside me, who was one of my music nerds with umbrellas from outside shouts out a title that I had told him about, I then say to grab me one of those too while you at it...then Josh uttered the words that any black blooded record collector wants to hear “That was the last one”  , that’s right the guy who didn’t even know about this record before I told him about it had just snagged it right out from under me...I guess all fare in love and records eh?

           

               When I got back to my ride the first nerdy thing I did was snap a pic of the Fucked Up record and post it to Facebook, sorry but it just had to be done,  then I sat there and surveyed the damage that I had just accrued to my bank account...was it worth it? Hell Yeah! 

                    The rest of my #rsd2011 in “The Big City” was spent chasing records and watching The Spoons (just Gord & Sandy now) at Sunrise Records on Yonge Street. As I think back now this was a very cool wave of nostalgia to ride and a fitting wave to end the day of rain

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Fucked Up in a whole new Silent Light

          As I leaned against the wall downstairs of the Toronto Underground Cinema, checking my Twitter feeds (@sonicmoremusic1) and studying the vast array of old and new movie posters that adorned the walls , the same questions kept replaying over and over again in my mind...what were Fucked Up going to do tonight ?  And would they be able to pull it off? We were all about to have those 2 questions answered.

    As part of the Images Festival Closing Night Gala in collaboration with Wavelength Toronto, Fucked Up had been asked to perform a live soundtrack during a screening of the 1928 silent film West of Zanzibar.  West of Zanzibar is about the vengefulness of a cuckolded magician paralyzed in a brawl with his rival , the film stars Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore.

      Coming back downstairs from checking the list and getting our tickets I noticed the doors to the great room had been opened, so I and my partner in crime for the night, celebrated concert photographer Kevin Lamb made our way inside.  As I leaned against one of the theatre seats we saw members of the band trickle in and out checking on their equipment and just basically getting ready for the performance. The band had all of their instruments and equipment set up right under the large movie screen, I was still running the question through my mind “What were Fucked Up going to do tonight ? “ ...that question was about to be answered.

   So after a much tripped out screening of the General Chaos Visuals film Luminaries and then some introductions of the people that helped put on the Festival it was time for the film to start. The lights went down, the opening credits started appearing on the screen and the music began.

        From that point on it was all just this swirling, wall of sound, blur of music and visuals. This was not the Fucked Up we had become accustomed to seeing live on stage over the years, this was a band without an In Your Face, Charismatically driven lead singer (Damian Abraham was in a seat enjoying what was going down with the rest of us), this was a band that was for lack of a better term Naked...this was a band that was stepping out front for the first time...and dammit, they made all of us in that audience sit up and listen.

    I don’t know exactly how much time and effort they had to work on this project, but they synced every high hat and snare with every snarl and scream up on that huge movie screen, they made us all believe that their music was the original.  Whether it was the one two three punch of guitarists Mike Haliechuk, Josh Zuker and Ben Cook, or the always solid bass playing of Sandy Miranda (at one point she just couldn’t sit down anymore and had to stand up to get it done) and the furiously depth and controlled drumming of the mighty Jonah Falco.

        The whole thing lasted approx about 63 minutes or so, but hours after I still had it buzzing in my mind.

   Fucked Up is a band that is well known to push the musical boundaries and with this performance, they didn’t just push them, they shoved them down on the ground and kicked the shit right out of them.....Thank You

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

What I Am listening too, Watching, or Reading right at this Very Moment...right now it’s Curb Your Enthusiasm

       O.K., so I have to start off by saying that I am and always will be a huge fan of the television show Seinfeld, I watched every episode as they aired, I must have watched them at least 10 times or more during reruns and I have them all on DVD (I know what you’re thinking and yes I’m seeking help for it), so this is what makes this announcement bizarre and in a way a bit disturbing...up until a few weeks ago I had never watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, that’s right, not a single episode ...please don't hate me

            As most of you already know I lost my job almost 2 months ago (If you happen to find it let me know.. ba dum chhh)...so it has afforded me the opportunity to stay up late at night and watch shit that I have been ignoring the last few years or so. A few weeks ago I noticed that Curb Your Enthusiasm was airing at 11:30 every night, I gave it a go and now I'm hooked, I just can’t believe that I have been missing out on this show for so long

 

          Larry David is a comedic genius, and from watching Curb Your Enthusiasm you can really see who was the real writing talent behind the early seasons of Seinfeld. You just watch this guy and wait for him to open his mouth and say something that you or I would never dare say . If your a fan of Seinfeld and miss it then please do yourself a favour and watch this show...you will not be disappointed

       Now all I'm hoping is that I don’t go back to work before I get to finish all of the season's

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS