Psych! Edelic!
In a perfect example of music journalism I can really get behind, SEE Magazine assembled a team of tweens to assess this year’s crop of Polaris Prize nominees. They came up with this.
I was with 10 year-old Cole from the get-go, but then he was less than enthusiastic about my favourite band in the world and I read on to discover that he like KISS and Canadian football, so it seems our differences are actually quite profound.
The response to our record was pretty good, but 12 year-old Anna wasn’t at all impressed. We’ll see how it all shakes down come September 29, Anna… We will seeeee.
KISS, edmonton, polaris | Comment (0)Artsy
Yesterday we went to Tate Modern in London. Yeah, we may have an “unprintable” band name, but we’re some high-brow dudes (note my sophisticated omission of the definite article in the previous sentence) - don’t forget it. The highlight of the visit for me were a few pieces by Thomas Demand of Germany.
Only three festivals left! Lounge on the Farm today, Oxygen tomorrow, and T in the Park on Sunday. That means only six more flights til we return home, for a grand total of 16 flights on this tour. 16!!! That leaves a pretty dismal carbon footprint, I know. We’re working on it…
tate, festivals, london | Comment (0)Cowboy Cat rides again… For the first time.
Many of you have been hounding us for months now about where to purchase our insanely popular Cowboy Cat t-shirts online. Well, we finally got off our asses and did something about it - Cowboy Cat shirts are finally available online through MapleMusic: http://www.maplemusic.com/dept.asp?dept_id=3079.
Cowboy Cat, for his part, couldn’t care less, he just wants to continue riding our coattails around the globe. Here he is enjoying some Polish vodka in Bergen, Norway…
t-shirts, norway, cowboy cat | Comment (1)Pole Position
Small Music Festival > Big Music Festival.
This equation continues to prove itself time and time again, most recently with Festival Nowa Muzyka that we played a couple of nights ago in Cieszyn, Poland. The smaller size affords us more time to hang with our hosts, not to mention all the positives that come with playing to a smaller crowd. Not that Glastonbury wasn’t fantastic, it’s just so giant and the audience is about 50 metres from the stage.
In Canada we’re blessed with very small festivals like the Wolfe Island Music Festival, or the multi-stage but still small festivals like the Hillside and Dawson City Music Festivals. (I’ve been lucky enough to play all three!) Festival NowaMuzyka is well on its way to such levels of awesomeness. Especially if they continue to book bands like Battles, who battled through major technical issues to deliver a blistering finale of a set.
In celebration of Battles’ conquest, Brian rode the red bull for all it was worth and we discussed the almost always ill-fated idea that is the opening band “spontaneously” joining the headlining band for the last song of their set as evidenced by yours truly on one of the drums in this sad clip (note: Brian thinks the clip isn’t so bad, we’ve agreed to disagree).
Now we’re in the Norwegian town of Bergen, which is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. A big festival canceled but some local promoters picked up the pieces and we’re lucky enough to have been invited here to play a small show tomorrow night. It’ll still be light out when we hit the stage at 11:30 pm. The last time I did that I was in Dawson City, Yukon. Which reminds me, happy Canada Day!
festivals, battles, poland | Comment (0)
