By Sabrina Carnevale

Veteran punk/emo outfit Moneen have been entertaining audiences since the band’s inception in Brampton, Ont. in 1999 and their most recent release, The World I Want to Leave Behind, is their fourth full-length studio album. Released through their new label, Dine Alone Records, this is their first venture with drummer and good friend Steve Nunnaro, who replaced former drummer Peter Krpan in the spring of 2008. The remaining members, singer/guitarist Kenny Bridges, guitarist/singer Chris “The Hippy” Hughes and bassist/singer Erik Hughes, cite Nunnaro as a significant contributor when it came to putting the 12 tracks together. In addition, this time around, they changed up some of their songwriting techniques by taking on a more simplistic approach, while continuing to thrive with their trademark melodies. Moneen recorded the follow-up to 2006’s The Red Tree at Toronto’s Rattlebox Studio and enlisted the help of producers Brian Moncarz and David Bottrill (Tool, Muse). Their most recent cross-Canada tour had them travelling with friends Sights & Sounds. Stylus had a chance to chat with Bridges in the downstairs of the newly renovated West End Cultural Centre when they played a show in Winnipeg on November 30, 2009.

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By Jenny Henkelman

It’s a long way around the world. When indie pop outfit An Horse pulled into Winnipeg in September, 2009, Kate Cooper and Damon Cox were more than a little run-down-looking, a little weary—offstage. Onstage, of course, the guitar-drums duo were impeccable and compelling, both in the UW quad and, I’m told, at the Lo Pub the same evening. Touring solidly this past year in support of their critically acclaimed debut full-length, Rearrange Beds, the pair are about to take a hiatus to write a new record. “We’ve nearly finished the cycle of the record we’re on,” said lead vocalist and guitarist Cooper. Continue Reading »

Cruisin’ to Bruise
By Sabrina Carnevale

Dragonette singer/songwriter Martina Sorbara epitomizes the almighty frontwoman role by combining a strong undercurrent of sex and swagger with a slinky, flirtatious style. And keeping true to the rock ‘n’ roll way of life, her music career is reminiscent to a string of sexually-charged relationships—the singer has been involved in numerous projects, both on her own and in group settings.

But this time, she’s promoting Dragonette’s sophomore release. And in true Sorbara fashion, she’s doing it while sporting some pretty fantastic spandex.

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Pluckin’ Away

By Sarah Petz

There aren’t a lot of bands who can hop from playing a gig in the dingy nonchalance of the Times Change(d) to a children’s festival, or from a wedding reception to a university restaurant. But local band the F-Holes, who have a versatile sound that could be called jazz or blues as much as it could be country or swing, are doing just that. Continue Reading »

Love and Spitfire

By Kent Davies

From the ashes of Alberta punk act Bogart comes a deadly duo of potent garage rock and country soul. The combination of Miesha Louie’s fearsome guitar work and earnest, heartbreaking cries, combined with the hammering drums of Justin Landstorfer, is something of a Canadian rock ’n’ roll revelation. Tackling issues of personal loss, love and lust, they bring a level honesty that lends itself to the ferocity of their approach. Their live garage-rock confessions have already garnered quite the following their hometown of Calgary. Now the duo is hitting the top 20 on the Canadian college charts and receiving positive reviews for their first ful-length, MMMade for Me, just released on Winnipeg label Transistor 66. Stylus caught up with Miesha Louie before their Albert gig at the halfway point of their lengthy coast-to-coast tour. Continue Reading »

From Love to Hate and Back Again
By Taylor Burgess

They’ve only just released their third full-length, XXXX, but it’s safe to say that You Say Party! We Say Die! will forever live on in our collective Canadian consciousness. Yes, there have been the rowdy shows at the now-closed Collective Cabaret, and equally rowdy shows at the Royal Albert, with lead singer Becky Ninkovic making everyone twist and clap and yell “Cold Hands! Hot Bodies!” But Canadian bands, even inciting ones, do come and go. YSP!’s legend has so much more attitude than that.
First, there was the incident at the Canada-U.S. border in 2006, where they matched wits with officials. The Vancouver five-piece had a major U.S. tour booked, starting in Seattle, but they hadn’t received the necessary paperwork in the mail by the night of the first show, so they approached the border, planning to use booked recording time in L.A. as their excuse for crossing. The border officials checked online and came up with the band’s tour dates. YSP! WSD! explained that they had planned to cancel them, but hadn’t yet. Always looking to thwart criminal masterminds like this dance-punk band, the crafty border officials called the Seattle venue, which enthusiastically replied that the band was most certainly playing that night.

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Stylus heads to Brandon, avoids fights

By Michael Elves

They say you can never really go home again, but since Brandon hosted this year’s Western Canadian Music Awards, I returned to the Wheat City—where I haven’t lived for over a decade, but where I spent my formative years—to take in the sights and sounds at showcases and sessions held during the weekend of September 17-20.
While much of Brandon remains the same as when I left, there have certainly been changes in the intervening years; 18th Street North now looks like Kenaston at McGillivray, with its big-box stores replacing what was once a great tobogganing hill. The Keystone Centre has been re-branded the Westman Communications Group Place and fused to Canad Inns like a conjoined twin.

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By Jonathan Dyck

Chad VanGaalen may be many things to many people, but one thing is certain: he embodies the do-it-yourself aesthetic at every imaginable level. From self-production and designing his album artwork to building instruments and animating his own music videos, it’s difficult to think of something VanGaalen isn’t good at. Now, after three diverse albums of homespun folk rock, the Polaris Prize-nominated Albertan has released his electronic side project, Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz, under the moniker Black Mold (on the Calgary-based label Flemish Eye). Stylus caught up with Chad VanGaalen to discuss his musical alter-ego, his artwork, and why it’s unlikely that he’ll be invited back to perform at the Winnipeg Folk Festival any time soon.

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By Taylor Burgess

It isn’t uncommon for young bands to be some combination of reckless and precise, but Winnipeg indie quartet Right Through seems to be the inverse of metal and hardcore bands, opting for the lo-fi sounds of ’90s indie rock instead. Rather than worrying about specific scales, these boys worry about harmonies and rocking hard.

The band started about two and a half years ago when Jesse Hill, 19, was playing in the Fo!ps, and Cole Woods, 18, and Rob Gardiner, 18, were in the Playing Cards.

Over a coffee in the Exchange on a soon-to-be bitter autumn evening, Jesse said, “We played shows with each other, and then we became friends, and we started jamming.”

Woods added, “And then Rob and I have been friends for a long time, been playing together in bands for a long time.”

“Well, he was just Rob’s brother,” said bassist Alan Gardiner, 16. We all cracked up.

Tease each other as they might, they still have faith in each other. Jesse said, “If I’m stuck with a song, that’s like the perfect time to bring it to Right Through, because I’m really confident in these guys’ abilities to take something I have and make it way better.” They can most definitely read each other, and when they play, they’re in the same mind-space. I picture them swinging their arms and pounding their guitars among mostly barren trees and snow-dusted ground , much like a world presented in their promo photos.

They’re careful not to–or perhaps it never even crossed their minds to–name-drop any influences, but their brand of loud-quiet-loud indie rock is somewhere between Pavement and post-rock, limited to two guitars, one bass and a drum kit.

Late in October, the band will be releasing their first full length album, titled the sun hot. They recorded it themselves, with the help of Jesse’s brother, getting all of the instruments done in a couple of days, but then doing the vocals over a much longer stretch–the next six months.

It was quite vexing for Jesse. “I’m a pretty big perfectionist, so just the fact that I was on my own recording my vocals, over and over again, I got really obsessive about it… It was just really stressful. And it probably would’ve been less stressful if… uh… we were in…”

“In a real studio?” Cole offers.

The CD release will be on October 23 at Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, a venue the band plays frequently. If you’ve never been there, you should also know it’s one of the better venues in the city. The sound carries like a dream, full and dramatic, and always compliments Right Through’s drastic shifts in dynamics, from slow strums and muttering to gut-wrenching and screaming. As Hill says, “We try to be as quiet as we try to be loud.”

By Jenny Henkelman

As the weather starts pushing Winnipeggers back indoors for the winter, a new televised concert series is set to bring live, local music to your home television set. Live at the West End captures six performances by Manitoba-based acts and is the brainchild of Johnny Marlow. He’s been a record store owner and an indie label rep. Now he’s working in a new venue: on-demand TV.

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