CMW Day 4 A Textbook Tragedy, Sights & Sounds @ Sneaky Dee’s
By day Sneaky Dee’s is a Mexican restaurant but at night it’s a hub of culture and indie music. I’ve never had a chance to check out the second floor venue before tonight and I was going in with high expectations. At first glance I was disappointed with what I saw but once I got a chance to settle in the location has this sense of mystique to it that I grew to love. This evening showcased Baptized in Blood, A Textbook Tragedy, Forgiven Rival and Sights & Sounds. The Saturday evening show at Sneaky Dee’s was actually the first show to sell out for Canadian Music Week and in all honesty coming into tonight, I was going almost completely blind. With the exception of Sights & Sounds, I had never seen or heard of either of the other bands. I already spent the previous three days attending venues of my choice but I wanted to take a risk on my final day. If I never take a chance to listen to an artist outside my genre preference then I might never be able to expand my palette. It also gave me the opportunity to give each group a fair and neutral shot and pitching their sound. Call it a musical equivalent to speed dating shall we?
Baptized in Blood began and set the pace for the rest of my evening. My ears perked during initial sound tests when I started to hear the use of distortion pedals. For whatever reason, the name of the band never eluded to anything in my mind prior to that very second. The play it safe voice in my head was having a field day of laughter. Luckily I didn’t listen to it because I actually enjoyed Baptized in Blood’s set list. From the very first moment lead singer Johl Fendley uttered the words ‘’Good evening Toronto, get the fuck over here” he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Roughly 150/200 people in the front end closest to the stage came over for the set. Some of the smaller scale concerts I’ve been to in the past had the impression that the band was fearful of the audience and would always reassure them of their appreciation for attending. I know it’s good common courtesy since fan and band go hand in hand but try and understand it from my perspective. Sometimes you have to have no compromises with your music and that’s the first impression I got from them. The “stay or go we don’t care” attitude means you never compromise to appease the mass audience, and you know what? Not a single person left. Early into their performance most of their songs were fast beat and high paced with a lot of noise. Most of their songs were new samples from their upcoming album and one cover song (sorry I don’t have the name). I got a serious Iron Maiden 1980s style heavy metal vibe with a bit of a signature twist to give them style.
Baptized in Blood – Lightning Speed
From Vancouver BC, A Textbook Tragedy followed up with an identical but different take of heavy metal. The vocals didn’t do it for me. They were a lot lower in tone and felt more aggressive. Their rhythms were more clearly syncopated then Baptized in Blood. For that reason I found it hard to follow with each song. All members of the band really used the entire length of the stage to show their energy. The crowd responded well to those high energy actions during songs ‘Dude I’m On Alesse’ and especially ‘Intimidator’. The anomalous guitar sequences matched well with tempo changes in their music. Complete and abrupt stops in some of their songs felt like a mind reset and doesn’t let you settle in, but for this type of music that’s a good thing.
A Textbook Tragedy – Dude I’m On Alesse
Forgiven Rival takes the flow of the bands before them and takes it a step further. The members of Forgiven Rival really moved as one, they shared and fed off each other’s energy and it’s hard to describe but it felt to me like they could sense and react off each other’s movements. Once again, hard to describe but it was constant and easy to see during their set. Their music seems to combine aspects of metal with dissonant guitars with vocal clarity and beat of post hardcore. I got a Silverstein vibe out of them during ‘They Grey’. Meanwhile other songs like ‘Like The Affects of Wind’ really define their sound and clearly set them apart from anything I’ve heard during Canadian Music Week.
Forgiven Rival – Like The Effects Of The Wind
Stepping out of the land of obscurity and into familiar territory Sights & Sounds were the band people wanted to catch. It was the buzz outside in line and it was the buzz in Sneaky Dee’s. Fifteen minutes of sound testing, equipment check and crowd chatter the stage lights black out. A single note played on what sounded like a synth. It roared through the entire room. Loud enough to get everyone’s attention and loud enough to shake the entire second floor….literally. After it dimmed down the stage lights came on and the band got into their set. My first wise crack thought was ‘Why didn’t any of the other bands do this?’ It seems like a simple method to make an impression on the audience during a venue where you get roughly forty five minutes to make a first impression on mostly new listeners. By comparison the music of Sights & Sounds sounds very soft. A good portion of their set included material from their upcoming album ‘Monolith’. Lead singer Andrew Neufeld has a voice that can hit a decent range of highs and lows. Even with excellent support vocals from Matt Howes, Andrew would occasionally put high emphasis and stress on the Shure SM58 (which is not easy to do) causing the output to distort, break and squeal at times.
Sneaky Dee’s second floor venue is dark and mysterious and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t had a chance to see it for themselves. At almost every venue artists sell their music to people and it can get cluttered with an on-the-spot setup. At the back on the right hand side they had tables set with everything you could want from the artists. It’s a great setup and gives people instant gratification with something tangible. On Sunday I ‘want’ to attend the concert at the Phoenix but there are a few factors out of my control so I never added it to my formal itinerary. Canadian Music Week wasn’t only fun. It was also informative. In the afternoon on Saturday I attended a few conferences at the Fairmont like ‘Can Artists Afford to Give Away Their Music for Free?’, ‘The Trent Reznor Case Study’ and ‘Words and Music: Hear Here, The Songwriting Listening Session’ I wanted to see the other side, I wanted to see the artists perspective to music. Most of these were open forum discussions about how to maintain and evolve with the changing industry. Although I didn’t pen down any formal notes I did take down some rough discussion overviews. I really value the opinions of the reviewers at AWmusic (you the readers as well) and it would be interesting to get their take on some of the overviews.
