The Weeknd is looking for a professional guitarist and bass player in or around the Toronto area to travel and perform live in concert. Those interested please send all information to: theweekndband@gmail.com

Include: name, age, instrument, and a photograph if possible. Any additional youtube video footage, credentials, etc. of performer is welcome.

Serious inquiries only please.

Deadline is Sunday January 8, 2012.”

Apply here.

1/26/12 – The Town Ballroom (681 Main Street Buffalo, NY)
1/27/12 – The Opera House (722 College Street Toronto, ON)
1/28/12 – The Ritual Nightclub (133 Besserer Street Ottawa, ON)
1/29/12 – Corona Theatre (2490 Rue Notre-Dame Quest – Montreal, QC)
1/30/12 – The Middle East (480 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA)
2/1/12 – Irving Plaza (17 Irving Plaza New York, NY)
2/7/12 – The Sound Stage (124 Market Place Baltimore, MD)
2/8/12 – Theatre of the Living Arts (334 South Street)
2/9/12 – The National (708 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA)
2/10/12 – Greene Street Music Hall (113 North Greene Street Greensboro,NC)
2/11/12 – The Masquerade Upstairs (695 North Avenue N.E. Atlanta,GA)

Very rarely, we see hear new releases his time of year. It’s a chicken-or-the-egg thing: arts & culture media are busy compiling year-end “best of” lists, and record labels push to get the year’s releases out before this occurs. Not to mention the holiday cheer, and the holiday food that ultimately gets the best of us for a lazy until we make that New Year’s resolution to lose the extra pounds.

The exception is Edmonton’s Dylan Khotin-Foote, melting hearts under his HAPPY TRENDY moniker. Khotin-Foote lessens the somewhat post-punk, monotonous tone of his vocals with happy (couldn’t help it) tambourines, whistles, and handclaps. Imagine a less eerie Chris Greenspan (oOoOO)… underwater. Bubbly, distant, bliss.

After returning from a couple weeks in Europe with Foxes In Fiction, the touring duo trudge on. (The latter will be teaming up with Ricky Eat Acid in 2012). Digital copies of HAPPY TRENDY’s Die Young EP became available over a month ago, and can be streamed, downloaded, and/or purchased via bandcamp.

[bandcamp album=1641529349 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

Helping the band achieve such an ecstatic atmosphere was their undeniably tight performance. The trio nailed their vocal harmonies on tracks like “Tell Me” and “Just Another Day” and the energy each member exuded was contagious. Their exuberant audience was instantly captivated yet seemed to fall even more in love with the music as the show progressed.

The entire group stood at the front of the stage, enhancing the intimate vibe of the show. Even percussionist Tim Arnold appeared comfortable up front standing above his drum kit, maybe just preferring to perform beside his band mates rather than shrouded in the shadows at the back of the stage.

Good Old War had no problems connecting with the crowd throughout the show, but they took it a step further during the encore when they ventured off the stage and into the middle of the floor for an unplugged singalong. There was something touching about punks with holes in their ears so big you could fit your fist through and indie kids adorned in plaid encircling the band, all singing along to the same song.

Relatively few bands can claim to have such a diverse and devoted fanbase.

The band strummed the chords to their last song surrounded by their fans. It was the perfect note to end on and an even more personal show because of it.

- Sean MacKay

EastScene: What’s it feel like being back in Toronto and on this tour for the first time in 8 years together again?

Mark O’Connell: It feels great, yeah.

John Nolan: I remember this place in particular, we played in 2003, maybe, and it was our first show in Canada. We were gonna play in one of the smaller rooms here and actually got moved to the bigger room. We had no idea what to expect—we’d never been to Toronto before—and we get here and it was just people lining up so early, hundreds and hundreds of people, and it was mind-blowing.

ES: How is it coming to a country for the first time and not knowing anything about your fanbase?

JN: It’s amazing and it’s hard to comprehend. With touring in America, we started to do very well after a while, and that was pretty mindblowing. At least we had been touring around and working and doing that. It’s weird when that happens and you haven’t even been somewhere yet.  You don’t really know what to expect or what to think about it.

MO: On that tour, too, I think we were playing to 300 kids and by the end, it was like, 2000. This was in a two and a half month span, so that was like, “what the fuck”.

ES: What was it like recording this album together, fifth one, and back to the original five?

JN: It was great, and I think it was a great experience for us all. It was pretty different for me, I don’t know how different it was for the rest of the guys who had worked with Eric before, but we had a lot of time to really work on songs and hammer out details. I’d never had that experience. It’s always been a much more rushed kind of thing, and you just get through it and hope it comes out good. This was very, every day we had a lot of time to think about songs and develop them. It was pretty awesome.

MO: I think I enjoyed myself on this album more than any other one. We were having a good time, enjoying the songwriting, and having a fun time throughout the whole experience. It was hard work, but very enjoyable.

ES: Did the creative process change a lot over the years?

MO: No.

JN: No, not really. When we first got back together to work on songs it really felt the same as when we were working on songs in Mark’s parents’ basement. We have a way of collaborating that I think is pretty unique to these five people and that was just exactly the same as it has always been.

MO: Yeah, which was strange because we didn’t know how it was going to be. After the first or second day, we were like “this is nothing different.”

JN: Yeah, it was really surprising, actually.

ES: How did it come about? Who contacted who?

JN: It was Mark who put this whole thing together.

MO: You know, we found ourselves again being extremely unhappy and I couldn’t take it anymore. I would go home and talk to my wife and say, “I hate this” and just going through those emotions… I always wanted John and Shaun in the band—there was never a time I didn’t want them in the band—and Adam and Eddie weren’t ready for them to come in the band. So I was kinda like, “alright, it’s not gonna happen,” but John was actually doing a solo tour and was visiting as his parents’ house. Shaun called me and said, “John’s in town, let’s go out” so we went out and that was when I knew that this had to happen. It would be so much fun and it would be good to have a blast and have things get patched up, possibly. Short story long, it happened. I talked to Eddie and Adam about it and they said, “alright, fuck, let’s give them a call.” Shaun was down but when I called John, it was a bit of a shock. After a couple of minutes of talking to him, he was willing to give it a try. I was very excited about that. I was literally pacing back and forth in my room.

ES: You guys seem so genuinely happy.

TBS: Yeah, we are.

ES: Are you content with the record and how it turned out?

JN: We are very happy with it.

MO: It sounds great, the songs are really good.

ES: It’s very catchy

JN: Yeah, it is. I was saying the other day that we are so proud of this record. We worked so hard on it and put so much of ourselves into it. It’s just, when I first would see anything even remotely negative on the internet or something, I would just be like, I couldn’t believe it. Like, how is it possible that somebody could not like this? It doesn’t make any sense to me!

MO: They’re lying! They’re lying to themselves. That’s what I thought, you’re fucking lying! You love this shit

JN: You’re just pretending

MO: Yeah, you’re just pretending for some odd reason. Dicks.

JN: We couldn’t be more proud of it, you know. It’s like our little baby.

ES: Have you felt a lot of pressure from fans over the years to get back together?

MO: All the time. And I’d be like, “yo, I agree with you” but I couldn’t be saying that with other people from the band being around. You know what I mean? That whole time, there was a lot of that.

ES: You guys are playing a Straylight [Run] song. How did that come about?

MO: It happened in that first conversation.

JN: Yeah, it did.

ES: Was that the compromise?

MO: Well, I was trying to convince him a little bit. I was like, “dude, we’ll do whatever you want to. We can throw in a Straylight Run song into our set.” And we did.

JN: It wasn’t something that I was pushing for, you know. I think you and adam talked to me most about it, that that was something you wanted to do. And I thought it was awesome, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be like, “you guys gotta play one of the songs from my old band if I’m gonna do this!” It wasn’t that kind of thing. They just wanted to do it and they thought it would be fun, and it is.

ES: On that note, are there any songs that you refuse to play live?

MO: Well, there’re songs that, when we used to play them, I used to be like “aw man, do we have to play this?” and I feel bad because Adam really likes a couple of the songs that I couldn’t stand playing

ES: Like what?

MO: I think the song “Twenty Twenty Surgery” is an awful song.
ES: I like that one!

MO: I really don’t like it and I’m really happy that I don’t have to play it anymore! Horrible song.

JN: In your opinion!

MO: In my personal opinion.

ES: Do you guys ever get sick of playing the same songs all the time? But do you also feel pressure from the fans to play them, just because they really love them?

JN: I think that because people still get so excited when they hear those songs, it makes them exciting to play. There are certain songs that, when we get together to practice before a tour, we don’t spend a lot of time playing “Cute without the ‘E’”, you know? There are certain songs that we’ve played so much and we know so well. When we get out in front of the crowd, there hasn’t been one time that I haven’t been excited to play any of the songs.

MO: It makes it exciting to see their reaction. That makes it new every single time.

ES: Taking Back Sunday has been cited as a huge influence by so many bands. How do you feel about that, and about the bands that you don’t necessarily like?

MO: It’s very flattering.

JN: Yeah, it is very flattering. We’re so old and out of touch that I don’t think we’re even fully aware of which band are influenced by us. I know I’m not, but I know it exists and I know they’re out there. There’s bands that look up to us, but I’m just not tied into what’s happening with younger bands enough to really know—which is probably not a good thing. I need to be more aware of what’s happening in the new youth culture.

MO: Yeah, we don’t really know. We don’t listen, I don’t know. When John and I and Adam we on our bus the other night til like, late—I don’t want to say the time—we listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival, you know. That’s where we’re at in our lives.

ES: “Bad Moon Rising” is an awesome song

MO: Oh, dude, great song. “As Long As I Can See the Light”, that’s my favourite. But that’s where we’re at right now. It’s not like “Hey! Let’s put on the new, pop-punk-emo band coming up.” You know? We’re in our thirties.

ES: You guys all married? Have kids?

MO: Yeah

JN: Some, yeah. Eddie and Adam have kids. Shaun is not married, but he will be in just a couple weeks. Then we’ll all be married, officially, as a band.

ES: When you guys have kids, what would you tell them about your proudest moment?

JN: From our career?

ES: Anything, really.

MO: I don’t know…

JN: I’ve never thought of that, before…

MO: I think just the fact that we’re a band that’s able to do this. Like, go to a state and people actually want to see you play music….that’s something that I’ve wanted since I’ve been a little kid and now, you know, it’s been happening for the last decade. That doesn’t happen—that’s not real life. It doesn’t really happen with people, so we’re just extremely blessed people.

JN: Yeah, I totally agree with that. It’s hard, too, because there’s been so many things, positive things, and it’s hard to put a single moment down as the best, but I agree with that.  When I think about the fact that we’ve been made it through this long and people still want to see us play music, I, I just can’t believe it. I feel very proud of that.

MO: Yeah, it’s a strange thing.

ES: How is it touring with Thursday?

JN: It’s awesome. Those guys are the best.

MO: Awesome dudes.

ES: Have you known them a long time?

JN: We go way, way back to 2001-ish. They didn’t like us so much at first because we, we kind of were coming up behind them.

ES: Shoved them out of the way?

JN: We didn’t shove them out of the way. We sorta more rode their coattails [laughs] so they were a little skeptical of us at first, but over the years we go to know them, and they got to know us, and then they started to like us. This is the first time we’ve ever toured with them, though, so it’s cool after all these years of knowing and then finally getting to do a full tour. Their new album is great and the direction they’re going in is really cool. They’re just awesome guys and put on a great show every night. It’s amazing.

ES: What’s up with your new video for “Faith (When I Let You Down)”? Whose idea was it?

JN: That was the director’s idea. It was all his thing. He came to us with that. Mark was immediately into it. I was a little scared of the idea but I think it turned out awesome.

MO: I just thought it was so strange, you know

JN: It’s a strange video

MO: I thought it was kinda funny, shows our lighter side and that we’re able to have a sense of humour, and it’s funny. Just the “Welcome to the Jungle” video idea, and getting addicted to catnip, I thought it was hilarious.

ES: Are you guys fans of Keyboard Cat?

MO: I’ve actually never watched a cat video.

JN: I have seen Keyboard Cat. I always saw the, I think it was after the original video came out, there’d be something happen in a video and then it would say, “play him off, keyboard cat”. That was funny. I like that. It’s really one of the only ones I’m familiar with on any level. That’s what’s really weird about it; we haven’t really kept up with cat videos over the years.

ES: Well, that’s the thing now!

JN: And we just decided to capitalize on it.

ES: How did you all meet? How and when was Sky Larkin formed?

Katie: Well, Nestor and I were in a band together in High School, and then I went to University in London and started writing songs. Nestor came to visit London with his family, and just by complete coincidence was staying right down the road. There was a drum kit in the basement of the student halls where I was living, so he came around and we tried out a few songs that I had written, and we were like, “okay, we should make a band out of this”. I was living in London and these guys were living in Leeds, and we were just kind of doing it on the holidays and whenever we could make it work, but because of the internet and how instant it is, people would start asking, “Hey, when will you guys have a single out?”. I eventually moved back to Leeds, and we put out a single with an independent record label. Later on we signed to Wichita, another indie label.

ES: You released your debut album The Golden Spike earlier this year. Tell us what it’s all about.

Katie: Well, the reason it’s called The Golden Spike is because, like most debut records, it’s hard to thematically pin it together as one, because the songs are from different times. The Golden Spike was driven to commemorate the finishing of the American railroad, as this object that had this significance instilled into it, and that’s how I thought I would feel when I held the record in my hand.

ES: Earlier this year you encountered Nardwuar The Human Serviette. How did you all first come to discover him? Is he really that famous all the way out in Britain?

Nestor: No, no, he’s not popular there at all. Katie had this DVD that she had ordered of him, so whenever we were in London, we would all watch it together. This crazy man going around interviewing all of these really cool bands that we really liked.
Katie: I had searched for bands on the internet and came across him, and I ordered DVDs of him from the internet. It was the thing that we would throw on in London and say “Hey, come watch this guy interview Snoop Dogg!” We had asked people in Vancouver if they knew him, and someone got back to us and we spent our whole day with Nardwaur.
Doug: We tried that in Toronto with Kenny and Spenny, but nobody really knows those guys. SOMEONE must know those guys.

ES: Who do you guys look to for support as a band?

Katie: Well, it’s the great thing about touring with a band like Peggy Sue, who we bonded with, because we both really felt like fish out of water.
Nestor: We met them at a show we were playing, at the end of L.A fashion week, and it was like, “hey, were’ really English and a bit scared, you’re really English and a bit scared. Let’s be friends. And then after that it was just like, let’s go on tour together! We’ve been really lucky with the bands that we’ve gone on tour with, so far.

ES: Who are the Awesome Pals?

Katie and Doug: Copy Haho, Dananananaykroyd, Los Campesinos, Dutch Uncles, Hot Club de Paris, Johnny Foreigner, and a couple other bands

ES: Exactly how did the Awesome Pals come to be?

Katie: Well, ‘cause Calum [Dananananaykroyd] does these things.
Nestor: Basically one day, we turned on the internet, and Calum started this blog, and he sent us a message saying “hey, this is the login information for our blog” and we were like, well, okay.
Doug: The guy that does all of our online stuff got a picture that he’d drawn and pasted of Sky Larkin, and he was like, “guys, someone sent us a really weird picture”, and we saw it and we were like, “yeah, that’s Calum”. It was a picture called “Sky Larkin playing a gig for me in my bedroom”, and we had to explain that he was in Dananananaykroyd, and we really knew him.

ES: With Johnny Foreigner’s recent release of remixes for their new album Grace and the Bigger Picture, you guys helped out a remix titled under an alias for the track titled “illchoosemysideandshutup“. Why the alias? What is its origin?

Doug: Tell that was something that I was doing for a while, I had done songs a couple of years ago and I really wanted to work on the album. We have the same manager so I asked if I could and did it.
Nestor: What’s your alias, Doug?
Doug: Coati, which is like, a little South American animal, it’s like a raccoon.

ES: What was it like messing around with a friend’s song?

Doug: I really…I had done a couple of Johnny Foreigner’s songs just on my own, just for fun, and they were like “yeah, it sounds better than the other mixes, you should do one for us one day”. This was the first time where I actually had separate tracks, and he’s such an amazing guitarist that it’s so nice just listening to those tracks on their own.

ES: A lot of Awesome Pals bands have recently put out free EPs and singles and remixes on the Internet (ex. Los Campesinos! with The Sea Is A Good Place and Johnny Foreigner with Feels Like Summer and Grace and the Bigger Picture remixes). What compelled you to put your Smarts EP out on the web for free?

Katie: I think it’s basically, when you’re a band that’s not like, a sort of U2 style band like 99 percent of the bands out there, you realize very quickly that the internet is your best friend, because it’s just a way of communicating so quickly and so directly.

ES: So what were you going for with the Smarts EP? Smarts is very unlike what we heard on The Golden Spike. What’s Smarts all about and why that sound?

Doug: Well, we had like a day to record the two songs, so there was definitely a sort of urgency behind it, and we went into it thinking, “okay, we’ve got about 14 hours to record this, so let’s just do it.
Katie: We actually recorded in the same place that Black Sabbath recorded, so we were kind of channelling their spirit in recording. Apparently if you take the soundproofing off the walls in the studios, you can see pentagrams that Ozzy would draw, but we didn’t dare.

ES: How has the power of Internet, more importantly the power of Twitter affected your music/popularity?

Nestor: I think it’s great because it’s right from you, the artist, and right to the people, rather than having four or five filters in between. It kind of takes away the smoke and mirrors because everyone’s on the same platform as everyone else.

ES: With your current tour you’ve been handing out these handy “Letters to America” zines with messages addressed to particular stops on your tour. What was the inspiration behind this?

Katie: I had always wanted to take something with us on tour that brings something from home, and it’s full of bits from all these other artists that are touring, and we collectively pool our resources into these zines. I wanted the other artists to write for themselves, rather than me just writing “this band is good” 12 times. The bands are basically writing letters to the cities or places that they’ve been. I’d definitely want to do it again.

ES: What is “The Crypt”?

Katie: The Crypt is this space that we’ve been using to write, and we recorded the acoustic version of “Matador” there. It’s underneath a Victorian in a part of Yorkshire, outside of Leeds.
Nestor: It’s a creepy looking church on top of a hill beside graveyards, and you have to drive up this big long winding road to get to the church. The crypt is actually set in the hill, and the man that built the church is actually buried in a tomb within the Crypt, it’s pretty awesome.
Doug: Before we were in there, it was a Sunday school. So it’s like, covered in loads of murals and stuff from horror movies, with children’s handprints on the walls. We’ve only been there in the summer and it’s gorgeous, but we’re going to be there for the next couple months so it’ll be very interesting.

ES: Where do you guys hope to be in 5 years?

Katie: Toronto!
Doug: Anywhere in eastern Canada, listening to hardcore punk music.
Nestor: I’d like to be playing music, really.
Doug: Play music really?
Nestor: Well yeah, instead of what I do now. If you look closely you’ll actually see I don’t even play, it’s just a backing track.

Doug: I’d like to be in Broken Social Scene. I’d love to be doing this part time, when I’m not playing with Broken Social Scene.

ES:  If you weren’t playing music, where would you be?

Doug: I would be trying to do music. It’s all about music.

What can we expect next year from Sky Larkin?

Doug: Recording the best album ever made.
Katie: The best album part two, aside from what we’ve already released.
Doug: By summer, I want to write a jazz odyssey based on the works of some war poet.
Katie: That’s what all English bands do, write something about a war poet.
Doug: Have a record out, tour with some amazing Canadian bands, with three word names. About things that aren’t fixed anymore.

ES: Favourite track on The Golden Spike?

Katie: Antibodies.
Nestor: Matador.
Doug: …
Nestor: Speed round, Douglas.
Doug: Matador

ES: Nestor and Doug: Hollywood man-crushes?

Nestor: Jeff Goldblum.
Katie: What?
Nestor: He’s amazing! I just think he’s so cool! Or Morgan Freeman.
Doug: I would say Johnny Depp, but that’s too obvious. I can’t think of another one.
Katie: [to Doug] You look a bit like Jeff Goldblum.

ES: Favourite football team?

Nestor: Brentford FC.
Katie: Who’s that?
Nestor: A small team from London.
Katie: You’re so indie!
Nestor: I always feel sorry for them because people say, “where’s that?” and I’m like, they have their own football team!
Doug: I would say Melbourne FC.
Katie: I’ve never been to a football match in my entire life.

ES: If you could only eat one food on tour, what would it be?

Nestor: American pizza by the slice. It’s massive, and it’s usually fresh.
Katie: I would say salad but that sounds really bad.

Doug: If I could eat one thing and it would be prepared properly for me, and wouldn’t make me feel like crap, I’d say steak.

ES: Any special messages for all your fans out there?

Katie: We’d love to come back to Canada, so if you’re having any sort of Bar Mitzvahs, birthdays…
Doug: We’d love to go to Montreal, or Ottawa. Maybe other places. There are only so many places I know in Canada.

Fans can listen to the bands’ tracks on their MySpace; you can also order The Golden Spike here.

The show kicked off with New Jersey pop-punkers Ace Enders (And A Million Different People). The band’s sound was really tight and their music was a really good match for The All American Rejects crowd. Arthur ‘Ace’ Enders, the lead vocalist, was really great at getting the crowd to participate; during the song “Bring Back Love,” he artfully turned the melody into a sing along with the audience. Overall they played an amazing set and I was sure to pick up their latest album titled When I Hit The Ground, which was released on Drive-Thru records last March.

Up next were the Shiny Toy Guns, a critically acclaimed rock-electronica band from Oklahoma. The crowd seemed to be confused by the change of pace as the Shiny Toy Guns have a bit of an edgier sound than that of Ace Enders and All American Rejects. Stunned and uninterested, the crowd nodded heads and talked amongst themselves for the majority of their set. However, in terms of their performance everything was top notch. Sisely Treasure, the female vocalist, was dynamite as she sang the selected pieces, specifically Ghost Town, their latest single. Gregori Petree, the lead male vocalist, was singing smoothly and effortlessly while playing guitar. All in all they sounded fantastic; unfortunately the crowd seemed to be caught off guard at the juxtaposition of sounds.

Then came the long awaited All American Rejects. From the minute lead vocalist Tyson Ritter stepped on stage, millions of digital screens showing the same teetering man in an orange shirt from a million different angles shot up into the air and didn’t come down for the entire length of their performance. In terms of the music the band sounded great and played a really entertaining set. Practically the entire audience was singing along to every word, stopping only to mention how attractive Tyson was or to check their multiple technologies, making sure one of them caught that wink or smile he flashed. That being said, band members definitely didn’t hold back when the opportunity came to indulge in a little face time with the fans, Tyson in particular. He appeared to be a tad tipsy and thus the sexual innuendo flowed freely from his fluctuating voice. He started into one of their most well known songs, Dirty Little Secrets as follows; “Are you dirty Toronto? If you’re dirty say ‘yeah!’ (yeah!) if you’re dirty say ‘hell yeah!’ (hell yeah!),” and I couldn’t help but think of the concerned parents sipping their beer in the balcony, watching their offspring flail in the audience, anticipating a very uncomfortable ride home.

Girls were relentlessly playing tug of war with a sweaty towel thrown by Tyson as I left the Phoenix Concert Theatre. It was definitely an eventful night, I had a great time and I would definitely see any of the bands again.