At The Oldfolks Home: Toronto

Bringing a little bit of home to Toronto.

Poor poor Toronto. I walked all over you. I ate all of your food. I even carried a small Winnipeg snow cloud into you. I hitched it to the back of the van and it survived the 25 hour drive. Just add moisture. Toronto, you have a lot of that. The picture above is the view from my great pals Shaun and Whitney's place. Whitney had a birthday so Shaun took her to NY and they gave us the keys to their palace with one condition - I was not to talk to any heads from a certain Toronto label.

Lucky for everyone, my networking skills have improved greatly over the past few years. I used to be terrified at industry events because I was self-conscious and usually fuelled by all types of boozes. My interactions with people were awkward at best and in the case of my meeting with this Toronto label, it was disastrous. In fact, the story is infamous. Nowadays I feel way less intimidated by people who I perceive to have more power then I. I actually enjoy it! I spent a lot of my time this week meeting new people. Talking to promoters, bands, label heads, etc. was all so interesting because everyone has a unique experience within the industry. I also saw a ton of great bands.

Oldfolks Home played an amazing showcase. We didn't win the Cow Puncher award, but we did win over some ears. It's a wonderful thing when someone is so touched by your music that they take the time to walk over to you, and maybe extending themselves past their comfort zone, and tell you how much they enjoyed what you do. The CMW show was probably our best. I'm looking forward to coming back to all these cities.

Here is a list of all the bands my ears had a taste of:

Shy Kids - Global Village Backpackers (GVB)

The Breezes - Horseshoe

Like A Motorcycle - Bovine Sex Club

Oldfolks Home (audience!) - GBV

Cadence Weapon - Kool Haus

Rococode - Velvet Underground

Pkew Pkew Pkew (gunshots) - GBV

We Are Wolves - Sneaky Dee's

Grounders - Sneaky Dee's

Mac Demarco - Sneaky Dee's

Apparat Organ Quartet - Hoxton

Revelstoke - Hoxton

Sóley - Hoxton

The Beards - Bovine Sex Club

Abramson Singers - Cameron House

Pull My Strings - GVB

Papermaps - Rancho Relaxo

BOLD = favs. I could have seen more on Saturday, but I probably walked a combined total of 10 hours this weekend, and my feet didn't want to anymore, so I ditched the fest early in favour of sleep and some Oz. Plus I woke up this morning and made some granola. Yup! More pictures!

Oh, Pat's. I love this place. I love their gingerbeer.

This is Sóley playing at Moog Audio. I forgot I saw her here too!

Shy Kids.

Like A Motorcyle.

Dinner after our set. Yum!

Candence Weapon

Rococode.

Pkew Pkew Pkew (gunshots)

The Big Things! Productions ladies. I bought them all ice cream because they were working so hard and they put on some pretty solid, well-run shows. And they're also super awesome people.