well, I was pret-tey busy this NXNE… on the saturday I played SIX sets with various different bands… so I thought I’d give a little recounting of events as they unfolded….
WEDNESDAY
I headed to the NXNE conference centre to pick up passes and hang out with Ryan (aka the new assistant programmer for North-By!), which has been a ritual of mine for eight years now… after running into every single person I could think of, finally got to the heart of the conference where Ryan sits like a spider king, doing three things at once at all times. Good things happen at NXNE; I was asked immediately to fill in a last-minute cancellation slot at the Horseshoe that night at 9pm (hands-down the busiest venue of the festival.) So my new band Moon King would debut a couple days earlier than I had planned… sahwweeet!
incredibly, the lovely miss Maddy Wilde and Dan Lee were both available only hours in advance, and we played the first show of the week to a very appreciative crowd who must’ve been expecting Dance Laury Dance (who we filled in for) but were happy to dance regardless of Laury’s presence.
the rest of the night was spent back and forth between the Horseshoe and the Buzz Records garage up the street with the Daps/Buzz posse, until around 2am both Ryan and Snakes + Ladders co-conspirator Trevor Haldenby showed up! so, accompanied by these two BFF’s of mine, we hit Ryan’s hotel at the Hyatt, accompanied by a frenzied batch of new yorkers who were in town for Luminato, and had somehow found themselves at the wrong festival.
THURSDAY
over the last couple of years NXNE has inched closer to the mindfuckingly intense 24-hour aural/visual/taste assault that is SXSW, especially when it comes to the BBQ dayshows. I did my now-patented “walk in, realise I know nobody there, eat as much free food as possible, leave immediately” at the Slapback BBQ on queen st, then headed to the Untold City party at Bo’s old place on college, the site of MANY of the most fun shows I’ve been to… good vibes permeate the walls!! the patio was packed, many friends present, and caught great performances by Foxes In Fiction and Makeout Videotape, both of whom I’ve put on shows for in the last few weeks.
afterwards I headed down to Yonge-Dundas Square to catch my favourite band of the 90’s, Rusty.
SIKE!!! I was 8 years old in 1995, and didn’t hear any pop music until 2000. I’ve still never heard Rusty, and probably never will. anyway – I saw Fucked Up, they were incredible, and Damian is the nicest human being imaginable.
my brother Airick’s rideshare in Montreal bailed on him that morning, and so his plan of arriving on time for Doldrums‘ load-in at Sneaky Dee’s at 6pm was out the window – he made it to the venue JUST in time to run to an alley nearby and spray-paint some brand-new tapes to sell that night before the set. I picked up my first copy of the Doldrums/DDMMYYYY split flexi-7″ (which features a Doldrums demo that I had totally forgotten about) and Airick played one of the poppiest sets I’ve seen him do (ie, generally sticking to the songs instead of improvising, no ten-minute freaky-noise-stand-up-comedy-jams) which I thought was great. and DDMMYYYY KILLED IT, one of the best sets of theirs I’ve ever seen; the new stuff sounds super crystalline and clean, not as “hit-you-over-the-head” as the older stuff, and more intricate than ever. also, the entire crowd seemed to know all the words to the older songs, which is pretty cool when 250 people are yelling “head/channel/face/changer/eyes/channel/ears/changer/nose/channel…”
anyway, by that time the allergies had won, and I headed home to spray salt water up my nose.
FRIDAY
Friday morning me and Airick met up with Trevor in trinity bellwoods to do an interview concerning our roles as social experimenters… it was fun, and weird! (trevor, if you need more we can do more) then Airick ran to rent a battery-powered amp for his “acoustic” set in bellwoods that afternoon, while we stayed and caught Charlotte Cornfield’s “actually acoustic” set there. fun vibes in the park!! a caterpillar fell on my ear from the sky. the Doldrums set was great too, and didn’t seem to scare anyone away.
I spent the rest of the day at our combined Daps/Whippersnapper/Snakes + Ladders party at Kapisanan in kensington market. was SO nice to see my friends from Montreal (Tops, Grimes, Arbutus Records), Brooklyn (Tiny Victories), Halifax (Rich Aucoin), Baltimore (Fin, Burt, Virginia), and even Knoxville, TN (Royal Bangs) all in the same place at the same time!! all the bands sounded great, and the night ended with a spectacular combined Tonka Puma/Doldrums set which featured both me and Dan Lee on the drums, and a fifteen-minute “bringin you down” monologue from Airick (ie. the exact opposite of Rich Aucoin’s “pump you up” vibe)
SATURDAY
I mentioned earlier that I played six sets on this day. I’m pretty sure that’s the record for me thus far.
the first was at Henri & Juliann’s BBQ at !059 – we played a Moon King set; one of those funny shows where everything seems to break all at once, but whatevs. Laura Barrett, Dr.Ew and No Gold were all amazzzzing. I had to leave just as Tiny Victories were starting to make it down to 918 Bathurst (two blocks away) and load-in for our “official” Snakes + Ladders-presented showcase there.
me and Claire had been wanting to try out a Grimes set where I played drums for a little while now, so after running through each song exactly once, we played to a completely jam-packed house and if I do say so myself, TOTALLY KILLED IT. it went so well she asked me to play her other show that night too, which was at a little place called the Great Hall, playing after some dude named Chad Vangaalen (aka the guy who’s written some of my favourite songs ever.)
but wait – back to the Snakes + Ladders show. it was awesome. we had set up the stage in the kitchen, so this may have been the only show ever to feature Talk Normal, Prince Rama and AIDS Wolf all playing next to a fridge and dishwasher. I played drums with Doldrums (that’s set #4 if you’re counting), the space was totally chill, Alex Hellaluya DJ’d, and the old folks home next door did not call in a noise complaint. oh and mad props to Owen Pallett for selling everyone’s merch all night! haha
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we took a VIP NXNE van to the Great Hall, which had us feeling pretty P.I.M.P. that stage is HUGE! setting up just a floor tom and snare was pretty silly, but also even P.I.M.P-er. bummed I missed most of Chad’s set and all of Braids’, but still, it was amazing to play on a big stage again.
but NO, the night was not over!! we headed up ossington after the show to the Daps Records HQ, where we’d spend rest of the night and most of the morning drenched in sweat – 45 people were stuffed into a room the size of jerry seinfeld’s apartment, and I think we cemented Hut’s reputation as the best house-party band in Toronto. Airick crowd surfed IN AN APARTMENT. there was NO ROOM TO EVEN MOVE. we couldn’t find the power cable for Martin’s keyboard, so he just SANG ALL HIS PARTS. people were literally stacked two at a time in that room. Moon King played at 5am as the sun was beginning to rise (thanks to Odonis Odonis for letting us use your gear!! you guys ruled too) and we were beginning to feel as though NXNE would NEVER END…
BUT IT DID.
-Daniel Moon King
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