The internet as a whole has never been a reliable resource for detailed or even accurate information re: Radiohead. Many sites that attempted to provide some measure of service have long since gone dark as well. The overall effect has been “Radiohead” search results that yield random and/or abbreviated shards: songs and album titles unaccompanied by detailed artwork or any additional context, low quality videos preceded by advertisements and shuffled via algorithms, and so on…
That ends with the unveiling of the Radiohead Public Library. From today, visitors at Radiohead.com will be able to create their own library card and membership number, and access a highly curated and organized archive of the band’s catalogue and corresponding visuals and various artifacts associated with each album: Detailed artwork, official videos, and ad-free HD live and TV performances, B-Sides and compilation tracks, previously out-of-print merchandise to be custom made on demand, band members’ “office chart” playlists from around the time of In Rainbows, The King of Limbs and A Moon Shaped Pool recording sessions, and more.
To commemorate the Library’s opening week, Colin and Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway and Thom Yorke will each take a turn serving as librarian for a day beginning January 20 and ending January 24, each presenting a curated selection of archival material across the band’s social media channels (as well as their own Radiohead Public Library cards).
Finally, coinciding with the Library’s opening, a number of previously unavailable Radiohead rarities have been made available to stream and download, including the band’s 1992 debut, the Drill EP, “I Want None of This” from the 2005 charity compilation Help!: A Day in the Life, and the 2011 TKOL RMX 8 remix EP.
Fans of Canadian rock will have a lot to celebrate this summer as the Saints And Sinners 2020 Tour will bring together four legendary bands – Big Wreck, Headstones, Moist and The Tea Party – on stage for the first time. The nationwide trek kicks off June 26 in Penticton B.C. and heads east before culminating in St. John’s NL on July 30.
With over a dozen Gold and Platinum certified albums, hundreds of thousands of concert tickets sold and some of the most incredible hits among the line-up, the tour will be a once in a lifetime rock music spectacle. Every night will be a new experience for fans with a rotating, surprise line-up for each show and each band could not be more excited about hitting the road on this amazing tour.
The Saints and Sinners 2020 Tour has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket (where available) will go to the Unison Benevolent Fund and their work providing counselling and emergency relief services to the Canadian music community.
The Saints and Sinners 2020 Tour presents a significant snapshot of Canadian rock history over the past 25 years and will be the must have ticket of the summer.
Fronted by Toronto singer/songwriter/guitarist Ian Thornley, Big Wreck burst onto the scene in 1997 with their debut album In Loving Memory Of…, including the hit singles, “That Song,” “Blown Wide Open” and “The Oaf.” Following a hiatus from 2002-2010, the band returned the following year with the #1 single “Albatross” and the album of the same name. Big Wreck has maintained a full-time schedule since then, releasing their sixth studio album …but for the sun in 2019 and embarking on a 50+ city North American Tour.
That other band from Kingston, Ontario has been spreading the rock and roll gospel since its inception in 1987. Fronted by the charismatic Hugh Dillon—now enjoying acclaim as an actor as well—the band added to its impressive body of work with 2019’s PeopleSkills, its fourth album since returning to active duty in 2013. Ferocious as ever, Headstones remain Canada’s most vital and beloved rock and roll outlaws.
With their multi-Platinum selling albums in the mid-to-late 1990s that included hits such as “Push,” “Silver” and “Resurrection,” Moist’s popularity in Canada rivaled that of their grunge-era peers just over the border in Seattle. Following a break in 2000, whereupon singer David Usher embarked on a successful solo career, Moist reunited and released Glory Under Dangerous Skies in 2014, which included the chart-topping hits “Mechanical” and “Black Roses”. Original bassist Jeff Pearce rejoined in 2019 for a sold out national tour marking the 25th anniversary of Moist’s debut album, Silver.
With a career spanning over thirty years and nine major-label releases, The Tea Party, composed of Jeff Martin, Jeff Burrows, and Stuart Chatwood, have successfully gained the attention of fans on a worldwide level. In addition to selling over 1.8 million records worldwide, they have toured a countless number of times throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia. Much of the band’s success can be attributed to their larger-than-life stage presence. The Black River EP is the first record from The Tea Party since 2014’s The Ocean at the End. The release is a kickoff to a year-long celebration, as the band will be embarking on their 30th year together in 2020.
Saints And Sinners 2020 Tour Dates:
June 26 – Penticton, BC – South Okanagan Events Centre
June 27 – Abbotsford, BC – Abbotsford Centre
June 29 – Victoria, BC – Save On Foods Memorial Centre
July 1 – Prince George, BC – CN Centre
July 2 – Lethbridge, AB – ENMAX Centre
July 3 – Regina, SK – Brandt Centre
July 4 – Edmonton, AB – Edmonton Convention Centre
July 6 – Calgary, AB – Big Four Roadhouse (Stampede Park)
July 7 – Brandon, MB – Westoba Place
July 8 – Winnipeg, MB – Bell MTS Place
July 11 – Rama, ON – Casino Rama Resort
July 15 – Laval, QC – Place Bell
July 16 – Buffalo, NY – Artpark Amphitheater
July 18 – Ottawa, ON – RBC Ottawa Bluesfest *
July 23 – Halifax, NS – Scotiabank Centre
July 24 – Moncton, NB – Casino New Brunswick
July 30 – St. John’s, NL – George Street Festival
Today, the Columbus, OH band Caamp announced new co-headlining tour dates with Minnesota’s Trampled By Turtles. These additional tour dates cap off an extensive, mostly sold-out North American run of dates which kick off in the spring of 2020 including dates with The Lumineers and stops in Madison, Portland, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Charleston and more. See all tour dates below.
Caamp recently scored their first #1 at radio with their single “Peach Fuzz,” made their late night television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and followed that up with a killer performance on CBS This Morning Saturday. After a victorious festival season playing Firefly, Shaky Knees, Forecastle, Outside Lands, Austin City Limits, Great Escape and many more, Caamp kicked off a major US headlining tour on September 24th and sold out show after show. Tour highlights included multi-night stints at Thalia Hall in Chicago, The Basement East in Nashville, Royale in Boston, Brooklyn Steel, 9:30 Club in D.C. and Newport Music Hall in their hometown of Columbus.
Trampled by Turtles are from Duluth, Minnesota, where frontman Dave Simonett initially formed the group as a side project in 2003. At the time, Simonett had lost most of his music gear, thanks to a group of enterprising car thieves who’d ransacked his vehicle while he played a show with his previous band. Left with nothing more than an acoustic guitar, he began piecing together a new band, this time taking inspiration from bluegrass, folk, and other genres that didn’t rely on amplification. Seventeen years and counting, their crossover appeal has taken them Top 30 album on the Billboard 200 to television appearances from Letterman to Conan and festival stages from Coachella to Lollapalooza with hundreds more in between.
Caamp Tour Dates
3/3/2020 – New Orleans, LA – Civic Theatre *
3/4/2020 – Birmingham, AL – Saturn *
3/6/2020 – Okeechobee, FL – Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival
3/7/2020 – Savannah, GA – Savannah Stopover
3/8/2020 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music Hall *
3/11/2020 – Knoxville, TN – Bijou Theatre *
3/13/2020 – Covington, KY – Madison Theater *
3/14/2020 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue *
3/15/2020 – Kansas City, MO – The Truman *
3/18/2020 – Grand Rapids, MI – Elevation at the Intersection *
3/20/2020 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant *
3/21/2020 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall *
3/27/2020 – Millvale, PA – Mr. Smalls Theatre #
3/28/2020 – Baltimore, ME – Ram’s Head Live #
3/29/2020 – Asbury Park, NJ – Asbury Lanes #
3/31/2020 – Providence, RI – Fete Music Hall (Ballroom) #
4/2/2020 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Ballroom #
4/3/2020 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Ballroom #
4/4/2020 – Portland, ME – State Theatre #
4/6/2020 – Syracuse, NY – Westcott Theater #
4/7/2020 – Buffalo, NY – Town Ballroom #
4/9/2020 – Detroit, MI – Majestic Theatre #
4/10/2020 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee #
5/23/20 – Napa, CA @ BottleRock Napa Valley
6/2/20 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek ~
6/5/20 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion ~
6/6/20 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center ~
6/10/20 – Gilford, NH @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion ~
6/12/20 – Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center ~
7/16/20 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre !
7/18/20 – Sandy, UT – Sandy City Amphitheater =
7/19/20 – Bonner, MT – KettleHouse Amphitheater =
7/21/20 – Bozeman, MT – Emerson Center Lawn =
7/24/20 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield =
7/25/20 – Redmond, WA – Marymoor Park =
$ – w. Support from Angela Perley
* – w. Support from Bendigo Fletcher
# – w. Support from The Ballroom Thieves
~ – w. The Lumineers
! – w. Trampled By Turtles and Erin Rae
= – Co-headline with Trampled By Turtles
When James Corden takes a moment to opine on the hits that defined 1999, Camila Cabello shows up with The Filharmonic ready to defend the biggest bops of 2019, and the only way to settle it is a riff off. Camila offers Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Shawn Mendes’ “If I Can’t Have You,” and James counters with Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and Santana’s “Smooth,” before the two settle a beef over a duet of Camila’s “Señorita.”
Third Man Records is excited to release Broken Social Scene: Live At Third Man Records today. Hear the record digitally HERE. The vinyl version will be available in stores on February 28 — pre-order HERE.
Third Man Records had the pleasure of hosting the inimitable Broken Social Scene, carefully absorbing and recording their magnetic and unforgettable live set on the Blue Room stage. Epic, panoramic, and intimate all at the same time, the legendary Toronto collective Broken Social Scene began as an ebbing and flowing collective of artists in the late 90s, collaborating to create a distinct strand of indie rock that is both perplexingly maximal and straight-up catchy.
The band kicked off the set with emotive fan favorite “Cause = Time”, then transitioning into “Stay Happy,” the lead track from 2017’s Hug of Thunder, in all it’s hypnotic, horn-driven grandeur. Then, on the flip side, the album’s 2-song B-side wraps with the slow-build anthem “It’s All Gonna Break,” a song once described as “Bob Seger on acid.” Really, how else would you want a show to close?
Their live set was captured, mixed and mastered in real time via the world’s only live venue and direct-to-acetate lathe cutting studio. With the release of this live album, Third Man is very excited to invite all to be a part of this special experience, Broken Social Scene’s first commercially available live album, in the only venue in the world where performance, art and tactile transcription methodologies converge.
Five modern classic Bruce Springsteen albums are coming to vinyl February 21. 18 Tracks, Live In New York City, The Rising and Devils & Dust will be pressed on LP for the first time since their original releases between 1999 and 2005; additionally, Live In Dublin, recorded with The Sessions Band, will be available on vinyl for the first time ever here.
Platinum-selling band Big Sugar drops “The Better It Gets” today, the first track from their brand-new album Eternity Now set for release on March 27, 2020. This anticipated new track comes five years after their last album and Big Sugar is thriving with a new wave of energy, enthusiasm and optimism.
Grammy-nominated Gordie Johnson applies his signature 1970s thump and psycho-acoustic dub effects throughout the production of Eternity Now. Recorded and mixed at his Soundshack Studio in Austin, Texas, the album was written and composed entirely by Gordie and his wife Alex, resulting in a deeply personal record. Each track is rooted in his history of depression, addiction, self-destruction and redemption. After band-member defections and dealing with the death of Rasta elder and longtime band member Garry Lowe in July 2018, Eternity Now as an album and “The Better It Gets” as the first single, represent the next chapter in their personal lives and that of Big Sugar.
“‘The Better It Gets’ is an anthem to the power of neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to build new neurological pathways. I’ve lived it,” states Gordie Johnson. “If the message in our song can help even just one other person out there, it gives me inspiration to keep howling into the microphone.”
And howl he does. You can hear the magic flying between Johnson and his diverse troupe, this is a new kind of magic: a shiny alchemy that complements their hard-won transformation. A leaner, cleaner sound that swings from Tejano border rock to prog and psychedelia thanks in part to a guest appearance by Alex Lifeson of Rush on the title track. Gordie Johnson’s Big Sugar includes longtime friend and bassist Big Ben Richardson, keyboard and percussionist Alex Johnson, Rey Arteaga a master of Afro Cuban rhythms on congas, and Reggae drummer Richard Brown.
In the 90s Big Sugar emerged clad in Hugo Boss suits as the antithesis to the grunge esthetic with a unique combination of Jamaican rhythms, blues tonality and heavy rock aggression. They dominated the airwaves and highways with songs like “Diggin A Hole”, “The Scene”, “Turn The Lights On” and “Roads Ahead”. Their roots-rock-reggae style has built a loyal following, earning Big Sugar a Road Gold Award as they continue to sell out concerts across North America. Gordie Johnson’s guitar playing continues to influence a new generation of young guitarists as well as peers. To quote lyrics from the first single off the upcoming new album Eternity Now, “The better it gets, the easier it gets to get better.”
Big Sugar will be announcing upcoming North American tour dates in the weeks to come.
Vanessa Carlton is excited to announce her much-anticipated sixth studio album, Love Is An Art, will be available March 27, 2020 via Dine Alone Records. Tying into the album announce, Vanessa unveiled her single “The Only Way To Love” now streaming HERE. Earlier this week, Vanessa unveiled the first leg of her Love Is An Art Tour featuring special guest Jackie O with tickets available now. The U.S. headlining dates kick off on April 2, 2020 and run throughout the month, with one Canadian stop in Toronto at The Drake on April 9.
Album and concert ticket bundles are available through Vanessa’s fan ticketing site and include a discount when purchasing a signed CD or vinyl along with a concert ticket. Signed albums will be available for pick up night of the show at participating venues at the merch stand. $1 for each ticket sold through Vanessa’s ticketing site will benefit the Nashville Ballet. “This tour is a seismic shift for me…” says Carlton. “I am bringing out a full band for the first time in 15 years! My goal is to bring the enormous landscape in the album to life, every night. The highs, the lows, the dreams in between. I am also thrilled to be sharing the stage with the fantastic songwriter Jenny O who will be opening all shows.”
Vanessa gave fans a first taste of the upcoming album with the track and music video for “Future Pain”. In the video, directed by Joshua Shoemaker (Margo Price, Hurray For The Riff Raff), Vanessa plays three versions of herself, a changing person within an unchanging tradition of having a drink alone at the bar. She sings, “I’ve got nothing to lose and nothing to gain but future pain,” paying homage to past mistakes of her former self while foreshadowing a familiar future.
Love Is An Art, produced by Dave Fridmann (MGMT, Flaming Lips), explores the eternal seesaw that is human connection: the push, the pull, the balance, the bottoming out. It’s that constantly evolving nature of love, expectations and compassion that Carlton analyzes from all angles on Love Is An Art, from romantic, to parental, to the friends that hold us up and the leaders that repeatedly let us down.
“Love is the energy you put out into the world,” says the Nashville-based Carlton, who was inspired in part by the 1956 book The Art of Loving by philosopher Erich Fromm, and by stories and struggles both in her interior world and the world around her. “And it can be so incredibly messy at times.”
Love Is An Art finds Carlton reckoning with toxic relationships (the confessional “Miner’s Canary”), eternal partnership (“Companion Star”) and the children who fill the world with love and grace while politicians fill their pockets (the passionate “Die, Dinosaur,” written after the shootings in Parkland, Florida). And true to Carlton’s skill as both a lyricist and an instrumentalist, the arrangements on Love Is An Art tell these tales as vibrantly as the words themselves: piano parts that speak of rage and tenderness, synths that burst and glow like dawn.
The album doesn’t just explore connections – it was also born of one. Carlton wrote the album with the acclaimed Nashville-based singer-songwriter Tristen, camped out and working while her daughter napped. “This record is about being out of my comfort zone,” says Carlton. “What’s going to happen when we do things that people assume are not naturally a match, like working with Dave Fridmann? I loved the idea of working with someone who’s known for a palette that isn’t associated with me, but it was a fit the second we started working together. Or what could happen when I sit with another writer, and just collaborate?”
The result is an extremely dynamic LP filled with sticky melodies and haunting phrases as well as experimental constructions: super high highs, super low lows, and song structures that break the mold from the expected. Unlike her previous, critically-acclaimed 2015 album Liberman, which Carlton describes as having a calming, almost meditative palette, Love Is An Art reads, and sounds, “red.” Huge. Passionate. The color of a beating heart.
Carlton has constantly challenged both herself and the expectations that surround her throughout her lengthy, accomplished career: she attended both the School of American Ballet and Columbia University, and was discovered as a singer-songwriter/pianist when a cassette tape demo was given to legendary music impresario Ahmet Ertegun. With her debut single “A Thousand Miles,” Carlton soared to the top of the Billboard charts and garnered multiple Grammy nominations, though that song is only a small fraction of the body of work and artistic identity she’s developed since then, ever evolving and growing as a performer and songwriter. In the summer of 2019, she pushed that even further, making her Broadway debut as Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Love Is An Art Tracklisting:
1. I Can’t Stay The Same
2. Companion Star
3. I Know You Don’t Mean It
4. Die, Dinosaur
5. Love Is An Art
6. Future Pain
7. Back To Life
8. Patience
9. The Only Way To Love
10. Salesman
11. Miner’s Canary
Love Is An Art Tour
April 2 – St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
April 3 – Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room
April 4 – Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theatre
April 5 – Chicago, IL @ City Winery
April 6 – Chicago, IL @ City Winery
April 8 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
April 9 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake
April 10 – Homer, NY @ Center for the Arts of Homer
April 11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Jergels
April 13 – Cleveland, OH @ Music Box Theatre
April 14 – Washington, DC @ Birchmere
April 16 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
April 18 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
April 19 – New York, NY @ City Winery
April 20 – Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head Tavern
April 22 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
April 23 – Atlanta, GA @ City Winery
April 24 – Atlanta, GA @ City Winery
April 25 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
Canada’s most accomplished singer-songwriter, Ron Sexsmith has returned with new music. The single, “You Don’t Wanna Hear It” is the first single from his forthcoming album HERMITAGE, Ron’s first album since his move from his longtime home of Toronto to a more bucolic life in Stratford, Ontario. Ron partnered with producer Don Kerr to create HERMITAGE; the two set up in Ron’s living room to record the album, with Ron playing all the instruments except the drums. This album marks Ron’s 25th year as a recording artist.
Describing the new single Ron says, “It’s a song about someone who has their nose all out of joint about something and are not in the mood to hear the truth.”
In addition to the new music, Ron will be heading out on a Canadian tour in May of 2020. The 7-date run will bring him from Victoria to Ottawa, with stops in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Toronto.
Ron Sexsmith is one of Canada’s greatest singer songwriters. He has collaborated with the likes of Daniel Lanois, Mitchell Froom, Ane Brun, Tchad Blake, and Bob Rock. His songwriting appears on albums from Rod Stewart, Michael Bublé, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris and Feist. He has been awarded 3 Juno Awards, having been nominated 15 times including 8 nods for Songwriter of the Year.
At 56, Canada’s foremost well-heeled troubadour has made a most unlikely discovery: domestic bliss. All it took, it turns out, was leaving the city he loved.
Following 30 years as an emblem of Toronto’s west end, Ron Sexsmith reluctantly uprooted to the serene hamlet of Stratford, Ontario, and the melodic, playful, theatrically vivacious Hermitage came gushing out.
“Almost immediately after arriving here I just felt this kind of enormous stress cloud evaporate and all these songs started coming,” recalls Sexsmith. “I’d walk along the river every day into town and feel like Huckleberry Finn or something. It had a really great effect on my overall state of being.”
This new zen can be heard from the first moments of Kinks-esque album opener, “Spring of the Following Year,” as the serene sound of birds situate the listener into Sexsmith’s state of grace.
“We’d moved in the wintertime and I was imagining how pretty it was going to be in the spring,” he explains. “We have this sort of idyllic kind of existence — we have bunnies in the yard and are surrounded by trees on all sides, so we get tons of birds. Every morning I hear these cardinals and we had a duck in the yard; I’d never really noticed birds in Toronto.”
It’s not like he was planning to write his 16th long player as soon as he arrived, he adds. After all, Sexsmith was already quite busy turning his first novel, Deer Life, into a prospective musical. But when melodies as infectious as the Chi-Lights-inspired “You Don’t Want to Hear It” or the ear-worm inducing “Lo and Behold” entered his mind, he had to get them on record. Adding his signature mischievously astute worldplay (in “Dig Nation,” for example) to ground the album firmly in the Sexsmith oeuvre. Even the album’s title is a coy subversion of the 15 time Juno nominee’s own expectations upon arriving in Justin Bieber’s hometown. “I felt I’d reached the age where I could be a hermit finally, but it didn’t really work out that way,” he laughs.
Further reflecting Sexsmith’s new confidence, Hermitage is the first album on which he played nearly all the instruments, an idea he credits to producer and longtime drummer Don Kerr. “Don said ‘Why don’t you make one of those sort of Paul McCartney-type records?’ and it’s like a light bulb went on over my head,” he says. “That had never occurred to me.”
The result is the songwriter’s most self-assured collection, still charmingly subtle yet increasingly full of musical vigor, as on “Chateau Mermaid,” an ode to his own Stratford Graceland, or the surprisingly hopeful “Small Minded World,” (originally penned for the Addams Family film), in which Sexsmith croons, “Oh now don’t feel blue ‘cos they don’t get you, you’ll win this small minded world.”
“I think it’s a very upbeat album, lyrically,” he confirms. “It’s reflective of the sort of peacefulness that I’d recently felt. I’m getting more comfortable in my own skin.”
Tour Dates
May 3 – Victoria, BC – Alix Goolden Performance Hall
May 5 – Vancouver, BC – Rio Theatre
May 6 – Calgary, AB – The National Music Centre
May 8 – Saskatoon, SK – Broadway Theatre
May 9 – Winnipeg, MB – West End Cultural Centre
May 28 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre
May 30 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall
