400 BANDS IN 4 DAYS FROM OVER 20 COUNTRIES AT 50 INTIMATE VENUES VENUES AND A HANGOVER THAT’LL LAST UNTIL CHRISTMAS. It could only be NXNE in Toronto – The Live Music Capital of North America. Now in its 14th year, North by Northeast is Canada’s number one showcase for the best new independent music and music-related films. Whereas SXSW is a bit of an industry jolly – NXNE is all about the music (man!).
Toronto is huge but easy to get around and every corner we turned there seemed to be a festival of some kind – and not just music ones. There are food festivals (Taste of Little Italy, Taste of the Danforth); religious festivals (Sikh picnics at City Hall, Hari Krishna’s on the island); Art festivals and, of course, NXNE which is what brought us here in the first place. Highlights for Fused ncluded British gutter-folk-punk band The Gin Riots, the post-punk electronica of These New Puritans, the bitter sweet vocal styling of Carina Round and the fabulously Sleazy NYC glamsters Semi Precious Weapons. NXNE is where independent music continues to thrive and with 400 bands for just $39 (about £20) that is value for money you just can’t beat!
North by Northeast with The Gin Riots
It’s very late, almost sunrise on our last night in Toronto and The Gin Riots are discussing the NXNE experience in the back of a limo. ‘It’s been alright’ said drummer, Jack, as he reclined Caesar-like in the spacious backseat. This is a mammoth understatement… In the last five days we’ve played a packed out gig to screaming fans we never knew existed, we’ve supped and drank and discussed our upcoming video with cult director George Romero, done red carpet interviews at big swanky industry parties, and we’ve even signed bare breasts … my name on a woman’s tit…made me feel like one. Not that I’m complaining. It was our bassist Tim’s hand she originally requested, but his self restraint and modesty overcame him and it was left to me to do the gallant thing and step in. There probably aren’t many places we can go from here. Think I might just pack it in and go back to shelf-stacking…
The festival was a weird one – most of the bands playing were unsigned or up-and-coming so there was a lot of shameless self-promotion and competition. Party after party full of people nobody recognised acting like full-blooded A-listers. It has been a lot of fun though…some wicked music with some shit stuff thrown in for good measure, a plethora of cool bars and a proper carnival atmosphere, due to the random drunken revellers who frequent the city’s streets.
The Gin Riots are pretty bad at schmoozing, so we settled on lubricating the senses and talking shite instead. Not sure our strategy department had really done their job on this one; there were a lot of odd looks and slow head nods followed by frequent requests to repeat ourselves, especially when it came to our guitarist Cillian whose Irish accent becomes incomprehensible even to himself after one too many free martinis…
We met some great people that way though – the crazy-eyed burlesque dancer Adriana, who we had open for us at our Friday night gig; a Hooters waitress who proved beauty, boobs and brains can come in one tight package, and a wandering Zen hobo who’d given up his job as an engineer to live out of skips and ponder the false reality of the modern world.
Whoa! So there you have it, The Gin Riots came, we saw and we loved every minute of our weird and wonderful sojourn on the Toronto music scene. Back to the daily grind now…working the day job, writing new songs, re-recording the Polka and getting ready to host George come winter time to get that aforementioned video shot. “We’ll have a blast guys!” were his parting words to us four honoured lightweights. Damn right we will!
Photos: Carlos Weisz
