Sloan set to play Port Hawkesbury

--taken from: Cape Breton Post

PORT HAWKESBURY — Sloan is coming to Cape Breton later this month.

The Toronto-based band, which hails from Halifax, will embark on six-date Maritime tour from Feb. 15-21. The tour is a celebration of one of their earlier catalogue albums, “Twice Removed,” which has been a fan favourite since its release in 1994, and which critics have heralded as one of the best Canadian albums of all time.

The tour will land at the SAERC Auditorium in Port Hawkesbury, Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. Sloan, featuring guitarists Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson, bassist Chris Murphy and drummer Andrew Scott, will perform “Twice Removed” in its entirety and follow it up with a set of hits from throughout their career.

--taken from: Cape Breton Post

Ring in the New Year with the AGO on January 3 with 1st Thursday Art Party

--taken from: WebWire

Exhilarating performances by Dan Bergeron, Basia Bulat, Jay Ferguson and others help celebrate the start of an art-filled 2013

TORONTO – The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) revs up 2013 with an irresistible Canadian-inspired 1st Thursday party on Jan. 3, 2013. Event-goers will enjoy art-making experiences, live music, art talks and rare out-of-the-vault sights from the Gallery’s collection of Canadian art. Doors open to adults 19+ at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale now, and revellers are encouraged to buy tickets in advance as they consistently sell out each month.

Toronto artist Dan Bergeron invites guests to help him create a one-of-a-kind mural in the Irina Moore Gallery. Known for his photo-based, paste-up street art, Bergeron will install The Great Canadian Apology Wall inside the AGO for one night only. The mural will feature photographs of party guests, who will write their own personal apologies on their portraits.

Party-goers have the opportunity to sketch landscape-inspired still-lifes composed by Toronto artist collective Life of a Craphead and local artist Jennifer Rose Sciarrino. For the novice, a paint-by-numbers art-making station teaches visitors how to paint a landscape like the Canadian masters.

Singer songwriter Basia Bulat fills Walker Court with her Juno- and Polaris-nominated tunes at 9:30 p.m. Inspired by her cross-country travels, Bulat’s symphonic folk-pop paints the North American landscape in soulful melodies. Casey Mecija of Toronto band Ohbijou takes to the decks all night long as DJ on the main floor while Jay Ferguson of Canadian alternative rock band Sloan mixes a special DJ set in Galleria Italia.

--taken from: WebWire

MSN Exclusives: Sloan

--taken from: MSN Entertainment

Matt [Schichter] sits down with Canadian alt-rock legends Chris Murphy and Jay Ferguson of Sloan.

Check out the link below to see the video!

http://video.ca.msn.com/?mkt=en-ca&vid=c7185240-0982-4b86-b61b-9d6ff2e3225c&from=sharepermalink&src=v5:share:sharepermalink:

Top 10 Reissues of 2012

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Brock Thiessen & Gregory Adams

1. Sloan

Twice Removed: Deluxe Edition
(Sloanmusic.com)














Having just Sloan's beloved 1994 sophomore album repressed on wax would have been enough of a treat, but the self-released box set for Twice Removed had the band mining the vaults for three LPs and a 7-inch's worth of treasure. While the extensive liner notes suggest this may have been the most difficult time in the band's career — from the rest of the group's assumed betrayal of Andrew Scott's move to Toronto, to managing label expectations and undergoing occasionally uncomfortable studio sessions — the album has most definitely stood the test of time. The full demos LP shows the evolution of the album, including a head-scratching grunged-up version of "Loosens," while the third LP showcases some of the group's more psychedelic moments ("Autobiography"). If you needed more proof that Twice Removed is downright Canadian classic, here it is. (G.A.)

--taken from: Exclaim!

Concert Review: Sloan’s Twice Removed makes for half of a perfect night

--taken from: National Post

by Noah Love

If you have lived in Toronto between Bathurst and Dufferin any time in the past 15 years, there is a good chance you have experienced Sloan’s omnipresence. You’ve probably seen Jay Ferguson or Andrew Scott riding a bike or Chris Murphy hanging out on College St. or Patrick Pentland at Loblaws. On a personal level, it went a bit further than that.

For three years, I lived next door to Ferguson and watched the rest of the band drift in and out from the couch. After that, I was less than a block away from Murphy. More recently, the group’s practice space was a block south of the building I moved out of in June. And from 2005-2007, I worked at now-defunct Chart Magazine, which featured Sloan on the cover more than any other band in its 18-year history. The very last of those covers was shot in my living room.

In spite of this, I have never been a diehard Sloan fan. I grew up on British and American indie rock, and Sloan existed in the peripheral. Their singles and videos were great, but I just didn’t seem to have the time for the records. I got a bit more into the band during my Chart years, mostly through osmosis. When I arrived in 2005, Sloan was on its cover again, with Twice Removed being coroneted the best Canadian album of all time by hundreds of music critics, musicians and industry people. It was the second time Twice Removed had won the critics poll — the first was in 1996, a mere two years after its release. (Joni Mitchell’s Blue took the top spot in 2000.)

Again, though, my relationship with that record is limited. Outside of People of the Sky and Coax Me, I spent more time with Twice Removed in the last week than at any other point. And that is because Sloan is touring that album, a tour that arrived at the Phoenix in Toronto on Thursday night, and which ends on Friday in Montreal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: album tours are never a bad idea. They re-energize your fan base, and if you pick the right record, it’s an event. Given Twice Removed‘s special status among those were were in their late teens and twenties when the LP came out, this tour was a mega-event for Sloan fans.

Having said that, I don’t think you needed a superfan to get caught up in Thursday’s emotional homecoming. There is another reason why album tours are great: they combine the power of live music with the careful sequencing of a studio record. Everything feels right. And everything about Sloan’s Twice Removed set, the first of two on Thursday, went tremendously right. Even if the band rushed it a bit — delivering the album’s 12 tracks at close to its 44-minute running time — the crowd had a hand in propelling the night forward. Singalongs, clapping — nothing needed to be prompted because Twice Removed is a burned imprint on the minds of many of those who attended.

After Jale’s Jennifer Pierce appeared to reprise her part on I Can Feel It, the group left the stage for about 30 minutes, but giddy enthusiasm flowed freely in the room. What followed took a bit of the shine off the evening. Sloan returned to play somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 songs. Many were hits, and everything sounded between pretty good and great. But songs from any album released after 2001 had a tendency to dull the energy level. The later part of the second set, which featured The Other Man and Underwhelmed, allowed Sloan to leave on a high note, but the whole thing felt like a bit of a missed opportunity.

I’m underrating it a bit. There were so few missed notes in a night-long celebration of Sloan. But this was a night where perfection was so, so close. It’s a shame it barely eluded them.

--taken from: National Post