The group will map out their first batch of shows since the pandemic on March 11
by Allie Gregory
CanRock supergroup Anyway Gang are back with another helping of tunes from an upcoming body of work first teased back in summer 2021. After sharing "Alternate View" earlier this year, the group — led by Sloan's Chris Murphy, Hollerado's Menno Versteeg, Tokyo Police Club's Dave Monks and Sam Roberts — are back with "Out of Nowhere."
The track arrives courtesy of Royal Mountain Records alongside a new music video by John Smith. Here's what the band had to say about the song's inception:
As artists often are, Sam was somewhat unable to put a finger on the moment of divine inspiration behind the song "Out of Nowhere." The evil record label, never satisfied with anything really, sent Sam deep into the badlands of Alberta with a handful of Peyote and instructions to "Don't bother coming back unless you have some god damn answers for our Department of Creative Metrics!!!!"
Months later Sam returned with the following carved into his forearm: "Track Synopsis: 'Knives out! The Kings and Queens are face down in their plates of wild boar and sleeping pills. Out from the shadows, the squires and knaves creep with blunt kitchen knives...are they out for blood? the throne? or just a quick taste from the old Master's table...."
This latest release marks another entry in the band's follow-up material to their 2019 self-titled debut.
Anyway Gang have promised news of upcoming Canadian tour dates on March 11. As per a release, "To celebrate [their new material] they will be doing a Canadian tour in May, and because they now have more than 8 songs to choose from, they won't have to play "Big Night" twice like they did at the first show. (They might anyway, but they don't have to)."
Until then, sit tight and soak up the psychedelic new music video from the band below.
With concerts once again impossible in much of the country, Sloan are preparing a new streaming concert film. Rather recording than a new performance, however, they are sharing a previously unreleased concert film from way back in 2000.
Alive & Alright: Between the Bridges Live Feb 4/2000 will premiere on February 4 through Side Door. Shot in black and white, it finds the band playing their entire Between the Bridges album (plus a B-side) at a Toronto warehouse. It was captured by Mike Andringa. It's the same performance that was used as a music video for the song "Friendship."
In a press release, Sloan explained, "Our point of reference was the wonderful black and white, rocking performance by Led Zeppelin on Danish TV from 1969. If you've not seen that, it's recommended!"
For those who buy a ticket but can't watch it on February 4, the film will continue to stream for a week after the premiere.
DAVE "BOOKIE" BOOKMAN, MAY 30, 1960 – MAY 21, 2019
It’s been a year since we lost our dear friend, Dave Bookman. Bookie represented everything that was good in this world. His life was about love, honour and music; if you knew him, you knew how much he affected a change in the way we listen to music. Indie 88 planned to mark this time with a wonderful live tribute for his friends and fans at the Horseshoe Tavern, but those plans have since had to change.
Plans for that evening will now comprise of a week of celebrations and memories, on-air and online, from artists such as Chris Murphy of Sloan, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Sam Roberts, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., Steven Page, City and Colour, and many more. On Wednesday May 27th, we’ll release them all together online and play them all on-air.
Presented by Bell Media in tandem with Music BC and Creative BC and now in its sixth year, The 2020 Canadian Songwriter Challenge is underway in a new online format for emerging BC artists and songwriters. The top 15 teams for the #CSC2020 #AloneTogether challenge have shared their songs with the public, who voted on the entries. Those votes are in the hands of the judges, and the top 5 songs will be announced on June 1, with each team receiving $1K to record, mix, and master their song at an eligible BC studio of their choice.
– Set for May 30, Walk Like a Refugee is a 24hr online telethon to support a refugee couple in Uganda. Organizer Elizabeth Bromstein has corralled some notable names to perform, including Chris Murphy (Sloan), Don Kerr (Communism), Amanda Martinez, Stand-up Comic/ CBC Radio host, Ali Hassan, a puppeteer, bellydancer, playwright, chef, and much more. Donation link here
Just as the covers of The 1975 and I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It connected the band's introductory full-length duo, the artwork of Notes on a Conditional Form links it to A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships. It's billed as the second entry into the band's third catalogue chapter, "Music for Cars" (named after their third EP). It tackles topics such as romance, youth, and politics while—as vocalist Matthew Healy told BBC Radio 1 host Annie Mac—being influenced by "British nighttime culture". Broken into nearly two dozen tracks that cumulatively last over 80 minutes, it's as if Panic! at the Disco and Childish Gambino teamed up to embody the current zeitgeist in a song suite a la Field Music's Making a New World or Sloan's Never Hear the End of it. With guests like FKA Twigs, Phoebe Bridgers, Cutty Ranks, and even Healy's father, Tim, popping up here and there, the album is contemplative and chameleonic from start to finish.
Filmmaker Edgar Wright was already a very active Twitter user but has been even more so during COVID-19 lockdown. A couple weeks ago, he live-tweeted a marathon of the first season of his cult series Spaced, and tonight (5/20) at 8 PM Eastern he's going to host a live-tweet of his great 2010 adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's beloved comic series, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, to celebrate its 10th Anniversary. The film is currently streaming on Netflix, so you can watch along too. Joining Edgar will be O'Malley, co-stars Aubrey Plaza, Brandon Routh, Ellen Wong, and Mark Webber, and screenwriter Michael Bacall.
If you've never seen the film (or read the comic), Michael Cera stars as Scott, a slacker and indie rocker who falls for Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and must battle and defeat her seven evil exes (including Jason Schwartzman, Chris Evans, Mae Whitman, Routh and more) while trying to score a record deal. The film is steeped in videogame culture, and is a perfect fit for Wright's hyper, pop-savvy style. It has rock bona-fides, too: Nigel Godrich did the score, and Sloan's Chris Murphy was a consultant on the film, making sure Scott's band, Sex Bob-omb, looked legit. (Maybe Nigel and Chris will join in the tweeting.) Scott Pilgrim is a great rewatch, too, and tonight's tweet-a-long should be fun.
While hunkered down in isolation, members of Anyway Gang have shared a brand new music video for their track, "Eyes of Green" from their debut self-titled LP.
Having planned to release the visual effort ahead of an upcoming tour schedule, the band have shared the work early because, as you can imagine, they won't likely hit the road anytime soon due to ongoing tour postponements in the wake of COVID-19. Instead, the animated video arrives today alongside a political statement from the band, rallying against capitalism and its effects on climate change.
Read the band's statement below:
"Eyes of Green" is a song and video about the extinction of humanity. It was written long before this pandemic, and its theme addresses an issue that we must face when we eventually emerge from our cocoons. So today we've decided that we should release the video.
We hope this pandemic is Mother Nature's way of sending us all to our room to think about what we've done. A moment for us all to reflect and take stock, reset and reflect about how we are going to live when things get back to normal.
We'd like to dedicate it to all the healthcare workers and brave humans working at the neighbourhood grocery stores, taking care of the sick and keeping us fed, until we can get to the other side of this.
"Eyes of Green" was animated and directed by Bossie's Anne Douris, who further suggests the clip is a criticism of unregulated capitalism.
"It's suicidal to pursue endless growth," Douris said in a statement. "A capitalist succeeds by cutting costs and gaining wealth. Workers are treated as disposable. The environment, collateral damage. When we're poor, sick or dead (and probably underwater) who will be left to buy the latest birthday cake-flavoured breakfast cereal? It's not just that capitalism can't survive itself (it can't). Civilization cannot survive capitalism. Democratise the enterprise. We're fucked otherwise."
Anyway Gang formed late last year, combining Sam Roberts, Chris Murphy of Sloan, Dave Monks from Tokyo Police Club and Hollerado's Menno Versteeg for a new Canadian supergroup and the release of their debut LP Anyway Gang. The record arrived in November via Royal Mountain Records.
Jay Ferguson: I'm standing in a coat check line next to Big Daddy Kane while someone mistakens me for Beck as I'm watching John Cale sit alone at a table tapping his fingers.
Chris Murphy: We toured with Redd Kross in 1997 and they brought this precocious 17-year-old kid along who was in a band that were signed to Geffen and he was such a little brat but I loved him. A few years later I went to see a movie called Rushmore while I was on tour in D.C. and the lead was this kid Jason Schwartzman. I didn't even put it together until later that he had been that bratty kid. I adored Rushmore and I've become friends with Jason.
Andrew Scott: I've had way better brushes with normal people —— celebrity is such a let down, for both sides.
Patrick Pentland: A bronze Ronald McDonald sitting on a bronze park bench. Not much of a talker.
The series features two artists from two countries every night in April, including members of Sloan and Wolf Parade, Luna Li, Ellis, Fred Penner, Nap Eyes and more
In the age of physical distancing, music livestreams have been popping up quicker than anyone could reasonably track – though we are featuring ones with a Toronto connection in our new virtual event listings). Now there's a full livestream world tour, courtesy of local label Royal Mountain and NPR's World Cafe (which is hosted by Toronto expat Raina Douris).
The World Tour livestream series runs throughout April at 7 pm ET, featuring two artists, each from a different country, every night. The schedule will be published at the beginning of each week. Shows will run live on Royal Mountain's Instagram.
The list of confirmed artists (heavy on the Canadians) includes: Haviah Mighty, Chris Murphy (of Sloan), Young Guv, Robin Hatch, Luna Li, Dan Boeckner (of Wolf Parade/Operators), Hatchie, Ratboys, Dave Foley and Annie Murphy (of Schitt's Creek). Find the full lineup of performers announced so far on the poster below.
Here's the week one schedule:
April 1
Royal Mountain Records founder Menno Versteeg (of Hollerado) & World Cafe host Raina Douris + Fred Penner (Vancouver Island, Canada)
April 2
Nap Eyes (Montreal, Canada) + Crake (Leeds, UK)
April 3
San Mei (Gold Coast, Australia) + Islands (Los Angeles, USA)
April 4
Bartees Strange (Washington DC, USA) + Sam Roberts (Montreal, Canada)
April 5
Ellis (Hamilton, Canada) + Alexandra Savior (Portland, OR, USA)
April 6
Hubert Lenoir (Quebec City, Canada) + Gustaf (New York, USA)
April 7 (9 pm start)
Ducks Unlimited (Toronto, Ontario) + Say Sue Me (Busan, South Korea)
Royal Mountain Records is the latest label to get in on the exploding livestream game, announcing a nightly series featuring the likes of Sam Roberts, Kids in the Hall's Dave Foley, Sloan's Chris Murphy, Wolf Parade/Operators' Dan Boeckner and many more.
The "World Tour" livestream series is a collaboration between Royal Mountain and World Cafe. Starting tonight, it will run nightly throughout April, with each livestream starting a 7 p.m. ET and each featuring two artists via Royal Mountain's Instagram. The schedules will be posted every seven days.
In addition to the aforementioned artists, the livestream series will feature Hatchie, Ratboys, the Beths, Nap Eyes, Ezra Furman, Haviah Mighty, Manchester Orchestra, Shady Nasty, Say Sue Me, Tim Burgess (of Charlatans), Moaning, Hannah Georgas, Field Music, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Fred Penner, Bartees Strange, Tim Baker, Jayy Grams, Tim Baker, Dizzy, Annie Muprhy (Schitt's Creek), Abby Jasmine, Ellis, Young Guv, Hubert Lenoir, Nick from Islands, San Mei, Ducks Unlimited, Little Junior, Luna Li, Wild Pink, Into It. Over It., Higher Power, Deanna Petcoff, Boniface, Mav Karlo, Robin Hatch, For Keeps, Jessica Mindrum, Rogue Tenant, Jensen McRae, One Lung, Kirty and Lily Konigsberg.
More artists will be announced, but for now, you can see the first week's schedule below.
Basically no shows are happening due to the coronavirus outbreak (though some artists are doing livestreams instead), but if you’re already jonesing to see a show, or just need a brief distraction from the insanity of the world right now, thankfully there’s YouTube which has an amazing array of live footage from throughout the history of pop music, from clips from concert films, TV performances and other pro-shot footage, to tons of fan-shot video from shows. If you’re looking for a place to start, we’ve been picking some of our favorites. Here are five more:
Sloan @ Arboretum Music Festival, Ottawa 2016
Sloan are a cult band in the U.S. but in Canada they are pretty famous, having had a number of big hits in the ’90s including “Money City Maniacs” which remains a hockey stadium classic. Here they are in their element, at Ottawa’s Arboretum Music Festival in 2016. Usually for Canadian festivals it’s just a greatest hits set, but this was part of the anniversary tour for 1996’s great One Chord to Another, so we get that whole album played in full, plus a second set of hits, including “Money City Maniacs,” “Losing California,” “Penpals,” “The Other Man” and their grammar-gaze anthem “Underwhelmed.” Look out for when drummer Andrew Scott comes from behind the kit to sing his songs, and bassist Chris Murphy takes over on drums and goes full Keith Moon. [Bill Pearis]
The coronavirus pandemic has continued to change life as we know it, meaning the vast majority have been cooped up inside our homes as we practice physical distancing. The quarantine experience has us realizing just how physically close to one other we once were, and our favourite pop culture pieces have started to look particularly unsafe in the era of physical space. As such, we here at Exclaim! have taken it upon ourselves to edit some classic Canadian album covers to make them a little less likely to transfer a virus.
Below, you'll find a handful of images edited by our staff that update album covers for the current predicament the world has found itself in. Part instructional and part us trying to do something with our cabin fever, these new takes on the classic album covers will hopefully keep you company as you spend yet another weekend indoors.
Without further ado, here are some Canadian album covers updated for the era of social distancing.
The Sloan boys were most certainly putting themselves at risk by posing so close together on the cover for their 1994 sophomore album Twice Removed, but we made sure to split them up a little. After all, they spend so much time touring and making music together that they'd probably rather not be forced to move into a self-quarantined house either.
Former Halifax band Sloan has postponed the eastern Canadian leg of its Navy Blues Tour due to concerns over the spread of the corona virus. Fans will have to wait for an announcement for new Maritime shows, including scheduled stops at Truro’s Marigold Cultural Centre and Halifax’s Marquee Ballroom. Promoter Sonic Concerts has also announced rescheduled upcoming shows for Rose Cousins and Alan Doyle at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in the fall, a postponed Basia Bulat concert (new date TBD) and a cancelled Michael Kaeshammer concert.
In an increasingly familiar refrain, more East Coast shows by prominent Canadian artists have been put on hold due to ongoing concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Up first is Halifax-bred Canadian indie rock stalwart Sloan, which was heading east in April and May on the band’s Navy Blues Tour, celebrating the reissue of its landmark hit album from 1998, now freshly remastered and reissued in a deluxe box set. On Monday afternoon, promoters of the Saturday, May 2 Halifax show at the Marquee Ballroom, Sonic Concerts, announced that due to health and safety guidelines, that show, along with others on the tour, would be postponed until a later date, and that fans should hang onto their tickets so they can be honoured then.
The band also had a Friday, May 1 show planned for Truro’s Marigold Cultural Centre, after performing in New Brunswick and P.E.I., but a click on the venue’s Ticketpro link confirms that show has also been postponed “in order to comply with current government guidelines to avoid the spread of coronavirus.”
There is zero unrest, except a little more honking from the overfull parking lot and some spousal squabbling. Some people walk with smiles of disbelief. ”I’m almost embarrassed to be here,” says Chris Murphy, 51, front-man of the band Sloan. “As if I’m buying into the fear."
The sold-out show the Nova Scotian quartet Sloan are playing at the 7th St Entry on Friday is billed as “An Evening With Sloan”—that is to say, no opening act, so the band can take as much time as it wants to explore the dozen albums they’ve released over the last three decades.
Sloan are Canada’s most beloved alt-rock band that never broke big in the states—it wouldn’t be precisely right to say they are to Canada as Weezer is to America, but that puts you in the right neighborhood. And they still dutifully head south to play power pop classics like “Penpals” and “C’mon C’mon (We’re Gonna Get It Started)” in American clubs, before heading back to larger venues and festivals up north.
Sloan were one of the most openly Beatles-influenced bands to be snapped up by Geffen Records in the early ‘90s alternative-rock gold rush. But more crucially, they follow in the Fab Four’s footsteps of spotlighting each band member’s voice on nearly every album. Even Sloan’s least prolific songwriter, drummer/guitarist Andrew Scott, has contributed dozens of tracks, from hard rocking singles to Dylanesque ramblers like “Down in the Basement.”
Each member of the Halifax band has his area of expertise: Chris Murphy writes smart aleck anthems like their signature 1992 debut single “Underwhelmed,” Patrick Pentland has an effortless gift for glammy arena rock riffs, and Jay Ferguson sings swooning AM Gold homages with a gentle whisper of a voice. But over the years their styles and sensibilities have blended into a coherent group identity, even when they experimented with writing separately on 2008’s Parallel Play or grouped songs by author on 2014’s Commonwealth. This 28-track playlist cycles through a song from each member of Sloan 7 times—a song primarily written and sung by Murphy, then one from Pentland, then Ferguson, then Scott, then back through the sequence again.
Sloan’s first two albums, 1992’s Smeared and 1994’s Twice Removed, dressed their guitars in a fashionable layer of shoegaze fuzz. But the band’s latent retro leanings were still evident in their sugary melodies, and in songs like “I Hate My Generation,” where Ferguson wistfully declared, “If I was born in the ‘40s, I’d be a teen in the ‘50s.” Sloan’s brief stint as a major label band ended when they left Geffen and released 1996’s One Chord To Another on their own Murderecords label, embracing their old-school influences with dry British Invasion-style production and sweetly harmony-driven songs like “Can’t Face Up” and “A Side Wins.” The musical and professional risk paid off, with their best-selling and most beloved album.
The 2006 double album Never Hear the End of It is the jewel of Sloan’s post-‘90s work, an Abbey Road-style cascading medley of 30 interlocked songs, from the dreamy piano pop of “Right Or Wrong” to the 72-second ode to the Halifax, Nova Scotia punk scene, “HFXNSHC.” It also kicked off Sloan’s second wind as they finally became a full-fledged cult band in America, appearing for the first time on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and climbing higher on the chart with each subsequent album, including their latest effort, 2018’s 12.
Anyway Gang is a new supergroup that spans generations of Canadian rock. It consists of Sam Roberts, Menno Versteeg of Hollerado, Chris Murphy of Sloan, and Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club. They dropped by the q music studio to perform some new music from their self-titled debut album, which is out everywhere now. Joining them were Anne Douris on keys, Nixon Boyd on bass and Adam Hindle on the drums.
Below, watch the performances from Anyway Gang's live studio session. Watch Tom Power's interview with Anyway Gang above.
The legendary record will be performed front-to-back.
by Morgan Mullin
When Sloan dropped Navy Blues in 1998, it was after a few tumultuous years of attempted solo side projects and the hard work of cracking the U.S. market. Perhaps the reason why people went so nuts for the record was because it was proof their favourite band had weathered the storm—and still had its same sense of irreverent rock 'n' roll in a post–One Chord To Another world.
Or perhaps the band that made everyone believe we were the Seattle of the North needed no redemption arc. Perhaps the fact that the entire album slaps, even today, is enough.
Regardless of which camp you fall in, Sloan fans will be psyched to hear the four-piece is coming to Halifax to play the record in its entirety followed by a set of classic hits on May 2 at 9pm at The Marquee Ballroom.
In the meantime, fuel your excitement/nostalgia with this definitive ranking of all Sloan songs, from worst to best—and the time Halifax voted Sloan's turmoil—"from them breaking up to them not breaking up, with lots of bitterness about the band moving to Toronto"—the worst thing in the live music scene in 1998 in that year's Best of Halifax Readers' Choice Awards.
As we look back on the alternative and indie music scene of the past decade, it’s clear that the best albums were also the most forward-thinking, original, and experimental. Jack White’s Boarding House Reach interwove different sounds and genres into a cohesive whole that still rocked and rolled. Lorde’s Melodrama zeroed in on the growing pains of adolescence with painful, incisive detail. Unfortunately, on Anyway Gang’s eponymous debut, the band does little to close out the decade with a respectable performance. Failing to explore different sounds or pen interesting lyrics, the band falls short of any meaningful impact.
Anyway Gang is a recently formed Canadian supergroup consisting of Sam Roberts, Menno Versteeg of Hollerado, Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club, and Chris Murphy of Sloan. They are signed to the label Royal Mountain Records, along with other notable Canadian acts in the indie scene such as Mac Demarco and Alvvays. Anyway Gang struggles to live up to their labelmates’ reputations and don’t even manage to live up to the standards set by its previous solo works.
The lyrics on the album are painfully unoriginal and made worse by the whining, yelping vocals. Songs such as “Everybody Cries” and “Square One” feature choruses as boring as “Everybody cries / Everybody cries sometimes” and verses as uninspired as “Just put one foot in front of the other / We’ve all been there one time or another.” The songs all have the same jangly guitar-strumming, skipping rhythms, and dull cliches, as if the band used a formula devised for crafting forgettable indie rock.
Believe it or not, the lowest point on the project is actually not these two songs but the “Interlude” nestled between them in the tracklist. The vocal straining and overly serious tone of the 43-second snippet bodes poorly for listeners determined to make it through the rest of the album.
The four lines of the “Interlude” are enough to make any English teacher cringe, with no identifiable theme holding the lyrics together. “Cause without rain, there’s no shine / Without a stone, there’s no stream / And on the way, down the line / This’ll all just be a dream,” they sing. Common platitudes put to rhythm and melody, these lines do little to illuminate the purpose of the track or to function as a true interlude and connect elements of the album.
The one bright spot on the album comes on the sixth track, “Eyes of Green.” It features a catchy acoustic melody; confident, passionate vocals; and swirling choral echoes in the background. For the first time on the album, it seems that Anyway Gang is clicking and successfully recreating the sound of other indie acts known for producing energetic anthems: Blossoms, Sundara Karma, and Circa Waves. Unlike other songs on the album, the different members’ vocals meld together perfectly, and the song sounds like a true group effort.
Within this track, the tension builds with driving percussion and heartfelt choruses until one of the members starts howling, “It’s too late to turn back now.” It is a defining moment that shifts into an electric guitar solo that would have made the song better if extended. Unlike other tracks such as “Fly Francisco” and “Only One,” which are more sentimental and subdued, this song is fast and powerful and clearly suits the band’s sound better.
It’s perhaps harsh to characterize this album as a complete failure, as the song “Eyes of Green” shows promise, and the artists in the supergroup are all accomplished musicians in their own right. The project would have been improved if some of the weaker tracks were either revised or even cut entirely so the band could put its best foot forward on its debut.
It’s unfortunate that Anyway Gang didn’t take more risks on its debut, something it could have easily gotten away with since it’s understandable that as a new band, the members are still refining their sound. The group’s self-proclaimed motto is “three-chord maximum.” While this style has worked for bands as iconic as the Ramones and the Strokes, these past rock legends used these chords to greater effect, providing a bigger punch in their songs than the ones on Anyway Gang’s album. Three chords work sometimes, but Anyway Gang should realize that simplicity leaves no margin for error.
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