Hitting the Coast

Canada's East coast gets a ton of exposure. Bands like Dog Day, Wintersleep and Land of Talk tour and have enough press behind them that Nova Scotia is treated like the best kept geographical secret of this fine country. The West coast definitely has its own musical treasures, too, but Halifax seems to have a lot more familial based bands, while bands in the West play their cowboy roles wholeheartedly- acting as lone rangers who pop up when you least expect them to.


Ladyhawk, for example, I'd never heard of until I saw them play a friend's loft in Montreal. These fellows play fist pumping anthems for the hard-party crowd, and the crowd did indulge- people were riding on each others' shoulders half-naked while the band wailed through a fantastical and sweat-drenched jangly set. Their self-titled release, and most recent album Shots is a pretty damn accurate representation of their shows, only not as loud.

On the even crazier side, two-piecers Run Chico Run have scared the fuck out of me on more than one occasion. It's not their song content or style that freaks me out- these guys range from the sensible rockiness to the post-punkability- it's the ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous amount of talent these two possess. There are millions of talentless hacks out there- and these guys hog all that talent for themselves. Have you ever seen a drummer play keyboard and sing at the same time? How about a drummer and a guitar player who can do all of that. Both of them. Ridiculous. Here's on of their equally fantastic music videos:





Kids These Days were also great. I say 'were' because they haven't really released anything in the past four years since their side project Octoberman became more of a full-time dealie. Their full length, All These Interruptions is like a summer adaptation of a musical written by old Radiohead.

Then of course, there's the Thrush Hermit song, The Day We Hit The Coast- which is technically by an East Coast band, but its about how much they love the West Coast...so...I guess it ends up somewhere in the prairies? I don't know.