All in the name of TUNS

--taken from: Guelph Mercury Tribune (listen to the podcast here)

by Vish Khanna

In a way, the band TUNS reflects almost all of my musical interests from the most formative years of my life as a cultural consumer and processor.

On November 5 at the Ebar (41 Quebec St.), they play Guelph for the second time after an Island Stage set at this past summer’s Hillside Festival, which was fun, spirited, scrappy, and as enjoyable as I’d hoped it’d be. The band consists of Chris Murphy of Sloan, Matt Murphy of the Super Friendz, and Mike O’Neill from the Inbreds. That’s their musical pedigree any way. They do other things too.

But those bands they were or are in (Sloan remains a going concern; the other two outfits come and go when the mood strikes) meant everything to me as a teenager. I grew up listening to the radio and watching MuchMusic a lot. If I had surrogate parents, they were electronic boxes that revealed hidden cultures of music, comedy, and storytelling of every sort.

My gateway into this world was my cousin Anand. He had a bunch of tapes and eventually CDs and, when we’d visit his and my other cousins in Scarborough, we always stayed late or spend the night, which meant I’d get to watch Saturday Night Live or Late Night with David Letterman. Anand first played me some best-of Beatles tape and I was immediately hooked on the band and music generally. Including one of his other favourites: U2.

For some discerning music fans, U2 are now a guilty pleasure or a band to be outright derided for their preening, rock star posturing, and performative emotional manipulation. But for a kid like me, growing up in the 1980s, their blend of outspoken political songs, catchy melodies, and vaguely post-punk style seemed super cool to me and I was all in. I got every record, every single, every magazine, every book, every video, every film. Obsessed is what I was.

Chris Murphy and Mike O’Neil were too. While their work in their respective bands and even now in TUNS tends to draw comparisons to great pop artists and harmony singers in the Beatles, Everly Brothers, Kinks or the Stones, they came of age when U2 were among the most interesting rock bands going.

I interviewed TUNS recently and asked them about U2 because I’d kind of heard through the grapevine that, while they’ve probably a little over a decade on me, the band also meant a lot to them when they were younger. It turns out that U2 almost made its way into the sound of TUNS.

O’Neill told me that, when they first convened, Chris would play drum parts from actual songs he liked, in their entirety. He’d just, part for part, play a song by Led Zeppelin or the Cure and Matt and Mike would come up with fresh guitar and bass lines over top. The formula worked so well, TUNS released a whole self-titled album’s worth of original songs in August, and the source inspiration for Chris was buried.

A notable failure in these experiments was an attempt to write a new song via U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and its iconic beat by Larry Mullen Jr. Apparently it was super amusing.

When I graduated to other bands after U2, they included Sloan and their own label murderecords’ roster, which included the Super Friendz and later the Inbreds. I first saw Sloan at Peter Clark Hall in Guelph in 1994. The Super Friendz opened the show and I was 16 years old. The independent, Canadian culture that these guys opened me up to, that particular night alone, permanently altered my aesthetic and led me to dig deeper for underground art that, say Rolling Stone, wasn’t covering because they mostly just covered U2.

So, while TUNS finds a group of friends coming together as a tremendous musical unit after decades of friendship and shared experiences, it’s also a sound that brings me full circle in a way I never imagined. Good or bad, we share bands together and may not even know that we’re doing it. Sometimes you just gotta ask.

--taken from: Guelph Mercury Tribune (listen to the podcast here)

TUNS of fun

--taken from: The Guardian

Nova Scotia-based band delivers “cool” performance at Sportsman’s Club in Charlottetown

© Todd MacLean/TC Media Matt Murphy, left, Chris Murphy and Mike O'Neill of TUNS perform at a recent at the Sportsman's Club in Charlottetown.

by Todd MacLean

I remember the feeling I was struck with in walking into a bar in downtown Halifax in the fall of 1997, shortly after I had turned 19, and amid the energy of the Halifax Pop Explosion of the mid-90’s.

I had maneuvered my way to a good spot near the stage to see The Inbreds — a band I was a big fan of — and a band that was, along with bands like Sloan, Plumtree, the Super Friendz and Thrush Hermit, part of the phenomenon of the indie rock supernova taking place in Halifax in that remarkable era of music.

And, if I were to try to give a one-word summary of the feeling that that rocking-melodic duo brought to the bar that night, I think the only word I could use would simply be “cool.”

Last week in Charlottetown, I was brought right back to what that feeling was like.

This is because Pat Deighan (of Back Alley Music and The Trailside Café) organized a show featuring a band called TUNS: a new super group that consists of Mike O’Neill (bassist/vocalist for the Inbreds), Chris Murphy (bassist/vocalist for Sloan, and drummer in this group) and Matt Murphy (guitarist/vocalist for the Super Friendz).

(And by the way, for anyone who might be familiar with “TUNS” as being short for the Technical University of Nova Scotia – yes, the band’s name is in reference to this.)

These guys formed last year when they released their debut single called “Throw it All Away”, before their first major live show at Massey Hall, in Hayden’s Dream Serenade benefit concert in October, 2015.

They released their self-titled debut album this past August and their new single, “Mind Over Matter” reached number one on CBC Radio 2’s Top 20 chart.

TUNS is on a Canadian tour this fall, and before band members embarked west across the country, a crowd of close to 175 enjoyed a taste of TUNS fun last Thursday night at the Sportsman’s Club.

It was a bonus, too, to catch the opening act — Liam Corcoran and his band — who took the stage right around 11 p.m.

Playing to the enthusiastic gathering crowd, the former Two Hours Traffic front man delivered tunes from his 2015 album “Rom-Drom”, along with some new songs too.

(As Corcoran is currently in the studio putting the finishing touches on a new 10-song record called “Nevahland”, most of the tunes he performed that night were of this new material.)

It was then at about 11:45 p.m. that the bar began to be pumped full of the sound of TUNS, as we were hit in the chest right away with the kind of slick chordal hooks, melodic chants and driving percussive grooves that one would expect from these three seasoned rock musicians united in one powerhouse trio.

With Mike O’Neill laying down the bottom end on his sweet Rickenbacker bass, Matt Murphy on his red and white Fender Telecaster guitar, and Chris Murphy excelling at the balancing act of playing the drums and singing at the same time (all while skillfully keeping his glasses on), the band nailed out songs like “Mixed Messages”, “To Your Satisfaction”, “Mind Over Matter”, “Throw it All Away” and more.

And with many tradeoff and harmony vocal parts between all three singers, surrounded by the support of a tight rhythmic foundation, it was just an hour-long set – but that was all the time that TUNS needed in order to make their impression.

Indeed, the era of the Halifax Pop Explosion may be long gone, but 20 years later, in TUNS, the aftershock is now strongly ringing out.

And to reiterate, if I were to summarize in one word the feeling that this pop aftershock brings about, that word would simply be “cool.”

--taken from: The Guardian

Hot gigs this week: Retro is the new black + shows for Halloween

--taken from: Ottawa Citizen

by Kirstin E. Endemann

The place to be on Saturday is Zaphod’s, where indie-rock supergroup TUNS, made up of Sloan’s Chris Murphy, Matt Murphy (Super Friends, Flashing Lights) and Mike O’Neill (Inbreds), is throwing a concert party with East Coast exuberance. The band is a passion project formed by musicians to write what they adore: fresh originals that borrow from their favourite parts of music, from Beatles-esque harmonies to power-pop hooks and classic Canadian, guitar-heavy rock: “We made an album that was built around our love for singing and singing together,” said Matt Murphy.

The self-titled album — TUNS is pronounced tonnes, for those wondering — is a collection of imminent good-time classics that are easy to enjoy live even when heard for the first time. Of course, the sheer joy the band gets from playing to an audience helps; Murphy may have said something about plans to “destroy the stage” (not literally) at the Ottawa show.


--taken from: Ottawa Citizen

Halloween weekend shows feature The Hidden Cameras, TUNS

--taken from: CBC News

by Jessa Runciman

Chris Murphy from Sloan. Mike O'Neill from The Inbreds. Matt Murphy from The Super Friendz. Three musical heavyweights, one dream-team for anybody who loves 90s East Coast indie-rock.

TUNS (pronounced "tunes") gets its name from the now-defunct Technical University of Nova Scotia, where Murphy, O'Neill and Murphy used to play basketball and take part in science fairs as kids. Musically, the band is an exercise in thirds, with each member contributing equally to the harmonies, instrumentals, and shared verses.

Young Rival opens the night at Zaphod's for TUNS's show there on Saturday.

--taken from: CBC News

TUNS Marquee Club, Halifax NS, October 21

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Ryan McNutt

If you were to organize a summit of Canada's best scientists and pop-heads and ask them to scientifically engineer an alt-rock vocal-harmony supergroup… it wouldn't be at all surprising if the result came out sounding an awful lot like TUNS.

Heck, even if you were just picking from the Halifax indie boom of the 1990s, you'd probably end up realizing that Chris Murphy (Sloan), Matt Murphy (the Super Friendz, the Flashing Lights) and Mike O'Neill (the Inbreds) were your best options. It's not just that they know their way around a hook; it's that the three have a remarkably similar vocal timbre, making for harmonies in which it's hard to tell where one voice begins and the others end.

Despite their connections to the city (and the fact they borrowed their name from the nickname for the old Technical University of Nova Scotia, now part of Dalhousie), the band's first show in Halifax was low on banter and stuck mostly to business: thanking the crowd, pitching their one album and playing every one of said album's breezy, catchy guitar pop songs. Tracks like "Mind Over Matter" and "Throw It All Away" were delivered with record-quality poise, still leaving room for the veterans to drop a few rock poses and guitar/bass solos into the mix for good fun.

Before the show, I heard multiple attendees speculating if the band would perform any songs from their various other projects. I had my doubts, but the numbers always win: one nine-song record isn't quite enough to fill a set. So into the encore went two attempts by the band to navigate their way through O'Neill's super hummable "Wasted Time" and, most excitingly, the Flashing Lights' "High School." The latter — in this author's opinion, one of the best power-pop songs to ever come out of this country — may have been more energy than precision, but it sent the large, keener crowd home on a high.

--taken from: Exclaim!

Halifax indie pop pioneers join forces for TUNS at this week's Halifax Pop Explosion

Sloan, Super Friendz and Inbreds members make a compelling case for power pop at Marquee Ballroom on Friday

--taken from: LocalXpress

Matt Murphy (Super Friendz, Flashing Lights), Mike O'Neill (the Inbreds) and Chris Murphy (Sloan) bring their new trio, TUNS, to the Halifax Pop Explosion on Friday at the Marquee Ballroom. (Vanessa Heins photo)

by Stephen Cooke

How appropriate that Halifax Pop Explosion, the festival, should host the Nova Scotia debut of a trio formed by musicians who were part of the so-called Halifax pop explosion, the movement, of the early 1990s.

TUNS is the new entity formed by Sloan's Chris Murphy, Super Friendz and Flashing Lights co-founder Matt Murphy, and Mike O'Neill, whose band the Inbreds moved from Kingston to Halifax in the mid-1990s to get closer to the action.

Ironically, it was O'Neill who stayed, emerging as a gifted solo artist as well as a collaborator of Trailer Park Boys creator Mike Clattenburg, while the two (unrelated) Murphys put down roots in Toronto, but it'll be like old times when all three are onstage at the Marquee Ballroom on Friday night, with Partner, Monomyth and Century Egg.

"I'm kind of the new guy in the band, even though I've been around since '96 or whatever," chuckles O'Neill. "But those guys will talk at length, and I won't know when it's coming, where they fall down this hole about old places or bars or players.

"That's how the name came about. We were all trying to come up with one, and I think we out-clevered ourselves several times, with sheets of paper with all these names on them, and I could tell these guys wanted something that referred to Halifax. Maybe they're a bit homesick or whatever, but they needed something that referred to Halifax.

"At some point I said, 'How about I start bringing things that refer to Oshawa? Sunset Heights!' But no one was listening to me."

The name TUNS is a reference to the institution formerly known as the Technical University of Nova Scotia, the Barrington Street campus eventually absorbed by Dalhousie University. Its student lounge the T Room featured at least one show by City Field, Matt Murphy's collaboration with Halifax musician and artist Mitchell Wiebe, and it's the sort of inside reference that only a Haligonian of a certain age would get.

Perhaps it's also indicative of the feat of engineering it takes to get Murphy, O'Neill and Murphy in the same place at the same time — Matt Murphy is also a busy producer for Vice Media — for writing, rehearsing and recording. As a result, TUNS' self-titled debut has a sense of urgency about it that crackles with life and the need to get everything done right the first time.

It helps they've been friends for so long. O'Neill notes the idea for the trio actually dates back to when the three murderecords mates shared rehearsal space in Halifax in the '90s, and hashed out a few tunes for the hell of it.

"I think the first song we made up at the time was based on the fact that the Sobeys on Queen Street was open all night," he recalls. "So the song's chorus was, 'I know you're open when it's late.'

"That's all I remember about it, and the fact Matt sang the chorus, but that was our first jam and Chris was on drums, and that was close to 20 years ago."

More recently, O'Neill found himself increasingly in Ontario for work and to visit his mother, and during one hangout with his transplanted pals, Chris Murphy suggested reviving the trio concept.

"He asked why don't we jam at Sloan's rehearsal space and see what happens," says O'Neill. "I don't think I felt any of the nervousness or pressure that I would have if we had done this in our 20s. It was just like, let's do it and keep expectations low.

"What ended up happening was, Chris's incredible archival instinct took over, and he was recording everything, with our permission, all of the ideas we had. We knew we were going to try and write songs, but he was the one who started to create this archive of ideas."

With Sloan between albums, and Matt Murphy in need of a musical creative outlet, things progressed quickly, with 50 or so riffs and melodies coming together. O'Neill again credits Chris Murphy's organizational skills with devising a rating system to determine which ideas had the most staying power with all three members.

"We just sort of voted for our favourites, and from that list, we narrowed it down to 16, and then the process of turning those riffs into songs began," he explains. "By that time, I was in Halifax and Chris and Matt were working together in Toronto, and I would send them the stuff I was working on from that list," says O'Neill, who calls the ensuing recording session "a most productive and pleasant process."

"We enlisted Ian McGettigan (Thrush Hermit, Camouflage Nights) and recorded what we had. I don't have to tell you how funny all those guys are, and we all love hanging out, so the whole recording process was a joy without — and I'm speaking for myself here — the insecurity of trying to prove yourself. Maybe that's the maturity talking; we've all been making music for years, Chris is still in the same band he was in in the '90s, and it felt more like a matter of keeping up with each other rather than trying to win arguments."

The self-titled TUNS album was recorded and mixed last year, and the trio planned to release it before Sloan was back on the tour treadmill this year with its One Chord to Another 20th anniversary project.

Things got pushed back to this summer, when the project was picked up by boutique label Royal Mountain Records, also home to Canadian indie favourites Alvvays and Hollerado, and remixed by the go-to production team of Gus Van Go and Werner F.

"So it turned into a super-busy time for Chris, because Sloan was out doing these stretches of One Chord to Another shows, and plus he's also a dad, so he's been running between both bands. But it's been super-fun, and we're also going out on tour with Young Rival soon, which I think is going to be a great bill," says O'Neill, who says he loves watching the Murphys' musicianship in action onstage, and blurring the lines between each others' songwriting skills.

"With one exception, where I'm singing words that Chris wrote, if one of us is singing, then that person wrote the lyrics, with the help of the other guys," he notes. "But in terms of songs and melodies, it was very much something that we arrived at together. So if I got credit for one of the songs, like I Can't Wait Forever, it may sound like a classic Mike O'Neill song, but I can't say who wrote what because there's a lot of Matt and Chris in there too.

"It's a novelty, it's so different when you feel like you have to point out what you've done. I'm more anxious to point out what the other guys have done, because I remember that more strongly."

--taken from: LocalXpress

“If you like The Beach Boys, you’ll probably like TUNS”

A trio with roots in Halifax’s time as centre of the music world.

--taken from: The Coast

by Morgan Mullin

The members of the pop-rock group TUNS were friends first, which is probably why their debut, self-titled record feels as familiar and tasty as a sonic slice of vanilla cake. Or, as Mike O'Neill says about the "vocally driven pop" the band makes, "Let's put it this way: If you like The Beach Boys, you'll probably like TUNS."

The mostly-Toronto-based three-piece ran in the same heady "next Seattle" circles in 1990s Halifax. Back then, O'Neill moved here from Ontario to join the scene with his band The Inbreds, and his TUNS bandmates are Chris Murphy of Sloan and Matt Murphy of The Super Friendz. O'Neill remembers feeling at home with the unrelated Murphys in '96, almost a decade before talk of doing an album together began.

"When you meet new people and you're like 'wow, I found people that are like me in another city,' you almost can't spend enough time with them," he recalls of that period. But a sense of loyalty to their own bands meant the jam sessions in those days never bore fruit.

That changed when circumstances drew O'Neill back to Ontario to visit, and back in touch with Chris Murphy. Monthly jam sessions began, and soon there were enough recordings on Murphy's phone to warrant an album.

Now, with a tour to back the LP and a headlining spot at the Pop Explosion, Exclaim! magazine bestowed the three-friend-jam-party "supergroup" status, a term that can get overused but here is nonetheless accurate.

"Of course we're thrilled. It sort of sounds like an all-star team," says O'Neill, laughing. "We just wanted to make a fun record together."

Singing, instrumental and writing duties were all evenly split, causing members to buck traditional designations like lead guitar or vocalist. The three are so in sync, their voices border on indistinguishable—to the point that O'Neill's mom could only guess who sings what songs. And she guessed wrong.

--taken from: The Coast

TUNS on stage at the Sportsmans in Charlottetown

--taken from: The Guardian

Back Alley Music presents TUNS featuring Chris Murphy (Sloan), Mike O'Neill (the Inbreds) and Matt Murphy (Superfriendz/Flashing Lights) at the Sportsmans Club in Charlottetown Thursday at 10 p.m., with special guest Liam Corcoran (Two Hours Traffic/the Love Junkies) opening the show.

Doors open at 9 p.m.

TUNS is a new band of equals, of collaborators, of experienced veterans who sound as exuberant as ever. It’s power pop with intricate melodies, electrifying rock ‘n’ roll written with a deep appreciation for song craft, states a press release.

--taken from: The Guardian

“From One Chord to Another,” Sloan Celebrates a Landmark at Daryl’s House

--taken from: NYS Music

by Mike Kohli

Sloan has been at it for 25 years, but could easily have been a footnote in Canadian music history if not for their fortitude. Formed at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax in 1991, the alt-rock quartet has made a name for itself in its homeland, winning several East Coast Music Awards and a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album — 1996’s One Chord to Another. This album, however, almost never happened at all.

Sloan was signed to Geffen Records early on, as label executives rushed to find the next Nirvana. As part of a burgeoning Halifax music scene that included Eric’s Trip and Thrush Hermit, that saw a gold rush to the maritime province from the labels, Sloan was the band that survived.

The band’s first two albums Smeared and Twice Removed were released on Geffen in 1992 and 1994 respectively. After a dispute with the label over lack of promotion for Twice Removed,  the band took some time off, leading some to believe they had broken up. Sloan self-produced and self-released the follow-up to Twice Removed, One Chord to Another.  Sunday night, the band rolled into Daryl’s House Club in Pawling for an intimate rendering of that landmark album on its 20th anniversary of release.

Sloan has made its bones sharing writing duties, vocals and instruments among the band’s four original members: Chris Murphy, Jay Ferguson, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott. Power chords, hand claps and Beatle-esque harmonies are hallmarks of the Sloan sound.  All these elements were firmly in place for the intimate audience of hard core Sloan fans this night.

Make no mistake, this is not a simple pop band. To survive 25 years in the business requires more than just catchy songs. The lyrics from each of the members reveal a depth that belies the catchiness of the music.

Throughout the history of pop music, many of the most poignant songs have carried a sense of darkness. The Beatles exhibited this to the extreme in “Run For Your Life” from the Rubber Soul album.  And while Sloan has never intro’ed a song as bluntly as John Lennon did with,”I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man,” a quick glance at Sloan’s song titles bears this out: “Everything You’ve Done Wrong,” Nothing Left to Make Me Wanna Stay.”  Sloan has the songwriting chops to turn a subject such as unrequited love into dark poetry with a pop melody.

Daryl’s House Club is an offshoot of Philly Soul legend and half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame duo Hall and Oates, Daryl Hall’s popular internet, now MTV Live show, Live From Daryl’s House. Hall opened the club in Pawling in 2014 as a venue to feature intimate gigs similar to those seen on his show. Tickets are sold as reserved seating or standing tickets and all reserved seats are at tables, allowing patrons to enjoy a meal and some drinks prior to and during a performance. The main performance space has room for a couple of hundred patrons. Wait staff meander in and out of the seated areas, taking orders and delivering dishes. It makes for a a dinner theater type atmosphere that doesn’t much allow for audience participation during a show, especially one for a band with such uptempo music.

This tour is a celebration of the band’s watershed moment. They’re playing the One Chord album in its entirety during the first set of each show. However, the music they were celebrating almost seemed like an afterthought as patrons ate their dinner during the performance.  Murphy commented on this fact a couple of times during the set, “Finish chewing your food and sing along with us on this one,” he said, introducing “G Turns to D.”

Despite the limitations on audience participation, though with many in the crowd being in their late 30s/early 40s, there may not have been a whole lot of physical participation anyway. The band rallied through the album in its entirety. The participation in the chugging “G Turns to D” included many hand claps and singing along from those in attendance. A smooth transition into the Beatles, by way of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, “A Side Wins” had fans swaying in their seats.

The set concluded with “400 Metres,” a song that wouldn’t be out of place on a Pavement album with its speak-talk lyrics. The hypnotizing keyboard presence mixed with Pentland’s guitar ended the set with a chill vibe reminiscent a late night ’70s FM radio show.

“Coax Me,” opened the second set, encouraging the devoted to sing along. This opened the doors to a rousing second set featuring many of Sloan’s greatest hits, including what is probably its best known song, “Money City Maniacs” as well as “Losing California,” a song requested all night long by some of the more boisterous fans in attendance.

The band seamlessly traded instruments and vocals throughout the night. Murphy stepped behind Scott’s sparse drum kit while Scott grabbed a guitar and sang and Ferguson took up the bass several times. The formula of equals behind this band is what has kept it going for 25 years. All four members contribute to the whole. And while there’s a formula to the sound, Sloan is far from formulaic. Their songs echo past eras, yet remain uniquely their own.

Those in attendance on this night were the Sloan faithful in downstate New York. Some traveling great distances to see their cult heroes in the intimacy of Daryl’s House. They were treated to a special show from one of music’s hardest working bands.

In a more fair world, Sloan would be playing a sold out show at Madison Square Garden rather than a small downstate club in front of noshing patrons on a Sunday night in October. Somehow, you can’t help but wonder if Sloan prefers it this way though.

Sloan’s One Chord to Another 20th Anniversary Tour continues throughout the U.S. in November, finishing with a show in Buffalo at the Iron Works Nov. 19.

--taken from: NYS Music

Big Winter Classic returning in 2017 with more beer and bands, including Tuns and Said the Whale

--taken from: Calgary Herald

Canadian pop supergroup Tuns are performing at the Big Winter Classic in 2017.

by Mike Bell

It’s bigger. And possibly, um, classic-ier? We could, though, do without the wintery-ier.

After a successful and rather mild-weathered 2016 event, the Big Winter Classic festival is set to return next January for four days of music, beer, beer and music at a time of the season when the city could use it most.

Organizers announced the first wave of acts participating in the event at a special, surprise concert held at the Wild Rose Taproom Thursday night featuring Big Classic alums The Wet Secrets along with The Velveteins, Ghost Factory, The Wells, and others.

Acts already booked for the Jan. 19 to 22 fest include: Canpop supergroup Tuns, featuring Sloan’s Chris Murphy, Matt Murphy of The Super Friendz and Mike O’Neill from the Inbreds; West Coast indie act Said the Whale; East Coast electronic crew Holy F—k; Northcote, the project of Vancouver Islander Matt Goud; and Edmontoner Lyle Bell’s two projects Whitey Houston as well as the returning Wet Secrets.

More big-name acts will be announced over the coming weeks.

“We just want to keep transforming it and obviously making it bigger, making people more aware of this celebration in winter — of Calgary and Alberta,” says talent director B.J. Downey, who watched it grow from a one-day, one-room event to this year’s three-days in two bars celebration.

“Calgary was very supportive (this year). Obviously the economy is dead in Alberta and we still pulled it off without a hitch, so time for another round.

“We’re going back at it and we have some bigger bands from all of the place.”

As a result, not only will the event be held this year, inside and outside of 11th Avenue neighbours Last Best Brewery and Broken City, but some of the bigger shows will also head several blocks north to the larger capacity Dickens Pub, which has come on as another venue.

Downey, though, notes that while bigger there also remains a certain intimacy to the fest.

“The good thing about Winter Classic is that you can see some of these bands still on the top patio of Broken City or the patio of Last Best where only 120 people can fit, when normally some of these bands are playing in front of 6-800 to 1,000 people. It’s going to be nice and intimate interactions with these performers.”

They also dipped back heavily into the local music well, with such homegrown talent as Miesha and the Spanks, The Wisers, Bad Animal, The Torchettes, Napoleon Skywalker, and KJ Jansen from Chixdiggit infamy among the “ridiculous amount” of acts.

“I think it’s the locals that really make this festival,” says Downey. “It’s a small festival, on the grand scheme of things, so to have a lot of Alberta bands, that’s like the muscle behind the machine.”

Of course, the other local muscle that drives the Big Winter Classic is the beer — and not of the Molson variety.

It is also a showcase of this region’s thriving craft brewery scene, with last year featuring band and special cask pairings from such area crafters and keggers as Wild Rose, Big Rock, Village, Tool Shed and Dandy Brewing Company.

This year’s participants have yet to be finalized, but with the growth that’s gone on in the industry, expect some more names, new names and new tastes to be added to the festival.

So, yes, expect it also to be beery-ier.

--taken from: Calgary Herald

Canada band Sloan averts disaster in San Diego

Singer Chris Murphy deems the evening "awesome" from the stage

--taken from: San Diego Reader

Sloan took a short intermission and then returned for what would be a gift of a second set.

by Dryw Keltz

In the 1990s, four Canadians known collectively as Sloan took their home country by storm with a collection of albums that fused the alternative nation with the paramount aspects of classic rock. The group never broke as big in the United States, so it’s likely only their hardcore devotees were even familiar with One Chord to Another — the 20-year-old album they were playing on this evening.

The band blasted out of the gates with album opener “The Good in Everyone,” a perfect song, one of the best “track ones” in existence. They proceeded to march through the rest of the album with “G Turns to D,” “The Lines You Amend,” and closer “400 Metres” being highlights.

The band took a short intermission and then returned for what would be a gift of a second set. They basically sprinkled crowd favorites (“Money City Maniacs,” “Losing California”) together with classic deeper cuts — such as the pristine Andrew Scott–penned “Sinking Ships” off their 1998 album Navy Blues. Another random inclusion was the AM radio on steroids “Don’t You Believe a Word” dug up from their 1999 album Between the Bridges. The band once again tapped into this album for the first song of their encore set, the majestic “The Marquee and the Moon.”

At one point singer/bassist/drummer (the band shuffles instruments onstage) Chris Murphy revealed to the crowd that while planning the tour they were advised not to play San Diego because it would be “a disaster.” An enthusiastic crowd seemed to prove the naysayers wrong, as he deemed the evening to be “awesome” from the stage.

--taken from: San Diego Reader

Rock favourites Sloan bring One Chord To Another tour to P.E.I.

--taken from: CBC News

Band celebrating 20th anniversary with East Coast tour, including Charlottetown stop Thursday

Rock group Sloan has long been a favourite East Coast act, and they even have an anniversary to celebrate on P.E.I. Thursday.

The group is playing a special show in Charlottetown to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of their hit album, One Chord To Another.

A staple of radio and video play, it featured the hits Everything You've Done Wrong, The Lines You Amend and The Good In Everyone.

It's always meant a lot to the band, as bass player Chris Murphy told Island Morning's Matt Rainnie.

"The story of this record is my favourite story of any of our records," he said. "First of all, it was our biggest commercial success, and it was done just with our own money. We spent about $8,000 doing it, and we sold, I dunno, 80,000 copies or something in Canada, maybe more now, that was kinda in the first year or two. That was as big as we got."

Almost last album

However, it was almost the group's swan song too, as they had decided to split up before it was done and out.

"When the record came out, we had broken up for real," Murphy explained. "We had decided we weren't going to do anything else, but we had a record label (their own murderecords), and we said, 'Well, let's do one sort of posthumous record, to put money into the label.'

"We didn't hate each other, we were just frustrated. We had been signed to Geffen Records in the States, which was big news and a big leg up for us, but the record we put out before, Twice Removed, which has since been lauded by critics, but it was a commercial flop."

The group felt let down by the big American label that had promised so much, and they no longer felt like they had a future.

Success revived group

But One Chord To Another made them stars in Canada instead, and brought them back from the ashes to become one of the country's longest-running and best-loved bands.

"We went through this process of becoming a band again," said Murphy. 'Let's make a record, oh we got a video grant, let's make a video. Let's play a couple of shows.' And then it was just gradual, and then a couple of months into it, 'What's going on here? Are we a band, or what's happening?'"

The group is playing a series of East Coast dates to mark the 20th anniversary of the album, and a trip to Charlottetown is always an important one for Murphy.

It turns out the famous Halifax musician isn't 100 per cent Nova Scotian after all.

"I was born in Charlottetown, and my grandparents lived at 201 Water St., and that's the house I lived in when I was a baby," said Murphy. "My dad's from Georgetown and my mom's from Charlottetown."

Murphy and Sloan will be playing the appropriately-named Murphy Community Centre in Charlottetown Thursday at 8:00 p.m. No relation, he said.

--taken from: CBC News

The good in every song: Sloan comes home with 'One Chord' 20th anniversary tour

--taken from: Local Xpress

Tour, box set celebrate the landmark period when the band's commercial success caught up with its creative output.

Halifax-bred CanRock champion Sloan returns to Nova Scotia with its One Chord to Another 20th anniversary tour, playing the Marquee Ballroom on Friday and Truro's Marigold Cultural Centre on Saturday. (LISA MARK)

by Stephen Cooke

Two decades ago, Canadian indie rock torch-bearer Sloan said its last goodbye to Halifax with a record that brought the band to a new level of popularity.

Now the One Chord to Another 20th anniversary tour brings the band back home after a successful spring run across Western Canada and down the west coast, and a summer of festival shows that's only just finished winding down.

"We just played one in the desert, near Joshua Tree National Park, some place called Pioneertown. There was Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock who were, no kidding, the best thing I saw there," says Jay Ferguson, who marvels at the staying power of the band best known for its 1967 hit Incense and Peppermints.

All of a sudden, 20 years doesn't seem like such a long time.

"These guys are in their 70s, but the singing was amazing, the songs were great, the riffs were awesome and so were the arrangements," says the guitarist, playing the Marquee Ballroom with his bandmates on Friday, and Truro's Marigold Cultural Centre on Saturday. "They could all play, and the place was going bananas. Highly recommended, if you get a chance to see Strawberry Alarm Clock. Who'd have thought?"

Then again, who'd have thought Sloan would have this kind of staying power all these years later? Especially during the turbulent period leading up to One Chord to Another, when the band cut its ties to major label Geffen Records after two well-received albums, and was on the verge of calling it quits before deciding to take one last kick at the pop-rock can.

Recorded at Laurence Currie's Idea of East Studio, located between the Macdonald and MacKay bridges, One Chord to Another would be Sloan's one and only record for the short-lived U.S. label The Enclave, started by the former Geffen A&R exec Tom Zutaut, who famously signed Guns N' Roses.

Despite some high-powered talent, acts like Belle & Sebastian and World Party, and distribution from EMI Music, The Enclave barely lasted a year, but it still gave the band a much-needed boost south of the border, before it imploded.

"Because it was a new label, the people who worked there were super encouraging, and really gung-ho to get things going," recalls Ferguson. "It was nice to get that kind of attention, or service, in America, but then Navy Blues came out independently through the Never Records Group, and then we wouldn't be with a label in the States until we went to Yep Roc about 10 years ago.

"They're a smaller label, but they gave us a great home base in the U.S."

The Enclave even agreed to go the extra mile and include an extra CD with initial pressings, Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! Inspired by the Beach Boys' 1965 Party! album, featuring stripped-down originals and covers with overdubbed party sounds recorded later at a gathering of friends at Cafe Mokka (later Tribeca).

Naturally, the Sloan Party! album is included in the new deluxe triple-LP box set edition of OCTA, along with an album of outtakes, a seven-inch single with two demos, and a download of yet more demo recordings the band felt were too lo-fi to commit to vinyl. "Everybody was asking for the Party album to be included, so we decided to make it the third LP in the box set. I'm glad we did, because a lot of people like that record," says Ferguson, who spent days with singer/bassist Chris Murphy scouring the archives for cool sights and sounds to include in the box.

"Chris and I have saved pretty much everything since 1991, so it's kind of justifying how we're going to monetize these boxes and boxes in our attics and basements," he says. "I've always been a fan of great reissues and nice repackagings, so to be able to archive this stuff so we can put it to use for ourselves, for me as a fan, it's fun.

"We'll try and come up with things that a fan would enjoy seeing, like lost photos or nicely annotated notes, and demo recordings and all that stuff. Basically, we wanted to create a box set that I would like to receive from a band that I like. We're probably not big enough to justify doing a deluxe box set for every album we've made, but I'm going to try and prove that we are!"

With that in mind, Ferguson says he and Murphy, along with guitarist Patrick Pentland and drummer Andrew Scott, are already looking ahead to a deluxe edition of OCTA's 1998 followup Navy Blues, best known for the hit single, and Future Shop jingle, Money City Maniacs.

"Hopefully we'll continue doing them as long as the fans will have them. The One Chord to Another set broke even right away, and we sold most of them within the next few months.

"We made 1,000 and I think there are 40 or 45 left, but it's the sort of thing that if you want to get it, you should get it right off the bat."

After the Maritimes, Sloan heads down the eastern seaboard and across the Midwest, playing OCTA in its entirety, from radio hits like The Good in Everyone and Everything You've Done Wrong to underappreciated songs like Murphy's soulful blast Take the Bench and Scott's complex album closer 400 Metres.

Listening to it now, the record still sounds bright and fresh, and it doesn't hurt that the tracks haven't worn out their welcome on stage, with either the band or the fans.

"With One Chord, everything clicked, and it's nice that it did because after Geffen was over for us, we took a year off, and then we made this record on our own in Halifax, self-funded, and put it out on our own label, and it became our biggest success," says Ferguson. "It was rewarding after going through all that stuff with Geffen, taking some time to get a bit of perspective, and then putting in the effort to do it ourselves. It was encouraging for us at a time when we really needed it.

"It's a solid record of excellent songs, and everybody contributes, but I also love the way that we made it, how it turned out, and getting to put it out on our own.

"I think that gives it a bit of a special meaning. Not to be corny, but you know what I mean."

--taken from: Local Xpress