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Ep. #153: Jasmyn Burke of Weaves

Jasmyn Burke is the lead singer and co-founder of a great young band from Toronto called Weaves. If electronic, synthesizer-driven bands might be called computer music, Weaves make Internet rock—an open-minded, all-encompassing pop music that’s infused with all of the sounds and information that is currently available. They have received accolades from Canadian and U.S. media outlets and released their first EP this past April 1. On December 12, Weaves are playing Stay Out of the Mall XIII with METZ and Badminton Racquet at the Ebar in Guelph and here, Jasmyn and I discuss hanging out at her parents’ house in Ancaster Ontario, actually being raised in Toronto, making music the way you listen to music, being difficult to pigeonhole artistically, working with Morgan Waters who’s the Rosetta Stone of musical collaborators and translates her ideas into more of a pop framework, Dr. Ew, when bands like Alvvays and Weaves do well, playing in Rattail, Jasmyn’s nerves and overcoming performance anxiety rituals, introverts who become front people, no one’s going to die, growing up in Weston, the boring ‘burbs, a penny-farthing tattoo, suburban hunger, seeing someone play a Neil Young song and loving Bob Dylan, Hot Monogamy, having a passion for creating strong vocal melodies and lyrics, discovering your own voice, always loving Toronto and believing in its supportive underground music community, Drake, the city of Toronto’s notoriety of late, we do need another hero, insidious search history ads, Toronto pet peeves, avoiding condescending ghettoization, sometimes the less we talk about a problem, the more quickly it goes away, feeding off the tension about the differences between us, why Weaves release singles every few months rather than a full LP, batch versus incremental recording, writing and recording all of the time, the album will be dead, the Weaves album will be deadly, opening for tUnE-yArDs at Massey Hall, Merrill Garbus is super nice, not working much, not complaining, travel and recording plans, seeing Bob Dylan live, the song “Shithole,” finding alien song ideas in your iPhone Voice Memos, and that’s it.

Related links: weavesband.com buzzrecords.ca vishkhanna.com

weaves

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Ep. #146: Lee Paradise

Lee Paradise is the stage name of an endlessly creative young man from Toronto named Daniel Lee. Over the past few years he’s been a key figure in unique bands like Hooded Fang and Phèdre and he co-founded the Daps Records label. This past April, Pleasence Records and not unlike released the excellent Lee Paradise album Water Palace Kingdom and he’s been keeping busy ever since. On Friday November 14, Lee Paradise performs at Long Winter at the Great Hall in Toronto and, to mark the occasion, Daniel and I talked about two record labels, one record, why Lee Paradise was necessary, getting personal, going down to the basement to make a new Hooded Fang record, stress and on-stage meltdowns in Montreal, amoureux, pissing in a sink, love can be crude, tears and water and emo, making clean music dirty, making interesting music reggae, reacting to and reflecting Toronto, competitive juices, a normal crazy family life, not loving music school, rapping as Able D, Beastie Boys and Wu-Tang Clan, seeing shows at the Music Gallery as a kid, battles of the bands at the Opera House, high-speed electronic music, the Harris Institute is not like DeVry, why Daps Records came to be, making a living as an artist these days, selling out and making ethical decisions, sludginess, surf rock and Joe Meek, Hooded Fang’s musical journey, control versus collaboration, limitations are good, Hooded Fang tour dates including a Nov. 29 show at the Silver Dollar in Toronto, Moss Lime, Fixture Records, Milk Lines, Daps Records is still a thing, the song “Farisian,” and then it’s paradise lost.

Related links: facebook.com/leeparadisesongs torontolongwinter.com vishkhanna.com

Lee Paradise Colour Photo

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Ep. #124: Claire Cameron

Claire Cameron is an acclaimed writer from Toronto whose first novel, The Line Painter, won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Crime Writing Award for ‘best first novel.’ Her latest book is a harrowingly devastating one called The Bear, which is told from the perspective of a six year-old girl named Anna who must take care of her younger brother in the wilds of Algonquin Park after a horrible, incomprehensible tragedy strikes her family’s camping trip. The Bear is available now via Random House of Canada and Cameron is a participating author at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, where she’ll read on Sunday September 14. Here Claire and I discuss Toronto the cold and the hot and people in the city who complain, what inspired The Bear, how no one knows why bears attack, making other parents cry and laugh, reading and writing a six year-old’s perspective, how kids can stay in the moment, researching what kids say and think, how we understand death, how Stick might be comic relief, when Anna was a boy, coping with grief, Claire’s role in the story of The Bear, seeing things from her late father’s perspective, bears in society, demystifying bear attacks, Jaws and The Bear, the inspirational and tragic attack at Algonquin Park and basically living with black bears in Hearst, Ontario, Steven Herrero’s research on patterns and prevention of bear attacks, mothers with cubs might not be as dangerous lone, hungry males, collecting bear stories, don’t be a chicken turn musician, trying to teach one’s self to make hard-edged electronic music, how The Line Painter was inspired by a song Cameron wrote, loving Neil Young’s quiet/loud dynamic and seeing him in London, England, the Greendale tour, how Claire is working on at least three ‘dead books’ and at least one ‘live one,’ how people weirdly classify Claire’s writing in crime and horror categories, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, reading at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, and that’s all we could bear.

Related links: claire-cameron.com edenmillswritersfestival.ca vishkhanna.com

clairecameronsmall

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