6 Nassau St. Archives - Kreative Kontrol

The excellent Toronto record label Idée Fixe celebrates its fifth anniversary this week with two hometown shows. On Thursday February 25, established and gifted artists like Jennifer Castle, Bry Webb, Alex Lukashevsky, and Schmidt’s solo outlet, Fiver, play the Horseshoe Tavern. The next night, Friday February 26, newer additions to the label like Bart, Doc Dunn & Co., Mauno, and Schmidt’s other band the Highest Order will play a show together at the Garrison.

Idée Fixe is owned and operated by Jeff McMurrich and Alex Durlak. McMurrich is a seasoned and well-respected recording engineer and producer who owns and operates a studio called 6 Nassau St. His credits include albums by Constantines, Alvvays, Bruce Cockburn, Rockets Red Glare, Fucked Up, and many more. Durlak is a musician and designer who founded Standard Form, a print shop and occasional label and publisher.

Here, they along with musicians Simone Schmidt of the Highest Order and Fiver, and Christopher Shannon of Bart, a new addition to the label, discuss the history and significance of Idée Fixe and celebrate five years of high quality work and mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

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Related links: ideefixerecords.com vishkhanna.com

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Culture Reject is the moniker of Michael O’Connell, a talented singer, songwriter, and musician who calls Toronto home. After years in the Guelph band Black Cabbage, O’Connell eventually went solo and has released two full-length albums as Culture Reject, including last year’s Forces. He and his band are playing the Hillside Festival in Guelph this July 25-27 and a while ago, he invited me to his home for breakfast where we talked about Guelph, Black Cabbage, and the Neutron Stars, sitting down when you pee, rice and peas and coconut milk and spices and hard-boiled eggs and peaches, tropical music, how to reggae it up, Cuba, white guys with guitars, how Black Cabbage happened and compromising, Nick Craine, touring Canada by bus with an ambitious Aaron Riches, tinkering with Culture Reject’s first record, how the new record Forces was made at 6 Nassau St., Tristan O’Malley’s transient, permanently on-loan synthesizer that is never coming home, the mystery lodge, how Forces reflects Toronto, people need to talk to people, misusing “the theme,” communication and modern parenting, the written word is the written word, maybe texting is good for us, maybe phones are bad for us, White Whale Records, the importance of playing great shows, sketch.ca, the song “Quicksand,” and no mas.

Related links: culturereject.bandcamp.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

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