This year, Toronto celebrated its 20th anniversary of North by Northeast Festivals and Conference (NXNE). The festival is popular both globally and locally, and provides many layers of entertainment for its fans, including events dedicated to arts, film, music, and comedy. Bands that have taken part in NXNE include Billy Talent, The Flaming Lips, Kid Cudi, Broken Social Scene, The National, METZ, and Death From Above 1979.
This year, The Ontarion had the opportunity to check out a bunch of bands participating in NXNE, including a few bands that are connected to the University of Guelph.
Guelph at NXNE: Midday Swim
From Toronto, Midday Swim has been all over Exclaim! for their hit track “Summer Eyes,” off of their self-titled EP. Made up of members David Krygier-Baum (vocals, guitar), Stephan Ermel (keyboards, vocals), Sebastian Shinwell (guitar, vocals), Craig Saltz (bass, vocals), and Max Trefler (drums), the band played a gig in this year’s NXNE.
David Krygier-Baum, a U of G alumnus, represented Guelph in Toronto’s music festival.
The Ontarion had the opportunity to find out how Guelph impacted Krygier-Baum as a musician.
“I have vivid memories that I often kind of revisit, of going to the Arboretum and walking the dog,” explained Krygier-Baum. “You know, figuring out a few things and what I’d like to do after school. And really, once again, just taking in that kind of removed-from-the-big-city feeling to just stay nice and calm and relaxed in such a beautiful place.”
Krygier-Baum also explained that Guelph brought his band members closer together.
“So I lived in Guelph when I was a student,” said Krygier-Baum. “Yeah, I lived all over. First-year, res. Second-year was Cedar Street. Third-year was in the South end, and fourth year—do you remember, there’s a house there. The nickname is the Slanty Shanty. That’s the white house that used to have a big barn behind it, the way downtown. So when I was in Guelph, the guys came up to visit me and so we all actually kind of bonded in Guelph. When I was in my fourth year of university, my dog, Jack—the dog that’s in the music video for Summer Eyes—he actually came and lived with me in Guelph and I worked at a group home just outside of Guelph and he came and worked as a therapy dog.”
Midday Swim currently has a self-titled EP available, which they recorded in a cabin in the backwoods of Canada.
“The mellowness of being up at the cottage and being able to relax – not having the delay tasks of all the things happening in the city distracting us,” explained Krygier-Baum. “By getting out of the city and going up to the cottage we were able to really sink deep into the music and make sure that we were taking our time with recording, experimenting, seeing what works, seeing what works better, and just having a good time as a band up north.”
The band had a blast during NXNE this year, and plan to continue recording and performing around the GTA.
Guelph at NXNE: The Folk
The Folk is more than just a weekend side project, it is a collective of passionate and talented musicians putting everything they have into their craft. Formed out of Guelph and Toronto in 2009, The Folk has been hard at work taking the Canadian independent music scene by a storm of psychedelic synth grooves. They describe their sound as “fuckpop… a distorted vision of digestible music,” and it really is something that needs to be experienced to fully understand.
The Folk’s core membership is comprised of twins, Sara (vocals, guitar, keys) and Emma Bortolon-Vettor (guitar, keys), Liam Magahay (bass), and Mark Ferrari (vocals, guitar, keys), with the recent addition of Simon Thomson (drums) and Alex Howard (sax). The band opened the bill for Montreal’s No Joy at this year’s NXNE festival, tearing up one of their regular Toronto haunts, the Silver Dollar Room.
The small venue allowed for an intimate experience that showcased the raw energy and emotion
emitting from the stage. During their extremely tight and dynamic performance, the band’s organic chemistry was hard to ignore. With a chorus of voices, heavily distorted guitars, and driving rhythms, The Folk presented a hard hitting “wall of sound” that has evolved along with the band’s experiences and influences. They took the opportunity to present some new material at NXNE that will be included on their full-length LP, Every Colour, Present Wonder, later this year.
Although the band members came together in Toronto and spent some time writing and recording their new album in Montreal, they still consider The Folk to be a Guelph-based band. Sara, Emma, and Liam grew up playing music in Guelph.
“There is a lot of creative and familial history here,” Sara explained. “There is a huge community in this city that values teaching and fostering creative expression.”
The Folk’s next show will take place at Jimmy Jazz in Guelph on Saturday, June 27. Come prepared to kick back, rock out, and dance along.
Guelph at NXNE: Damage Over Time
Damage Over Time, a punk-rock group from Toronto, recently got back together as a band and began performing around various venues in Toronto. With a few covers and an original song, “Cat Scratch Beaver”, the band is composed of members Alisha Trigatti, Christabel Syed, Lauryn Kronick, and Pam Sloan.
Trigatti, a U of G alumnus, represented Guelph in this year’s NXNE festival.
When asked if Guelph affected her at all as an artist, Trigatti replied, “Yeah, it totally did. I saw a lot of live music in Guelph – Guelph was a great town for small acts. I remember seeing Tegan and Sara, before they were super famous, they played at Van Gogh’s and made us sit on the floor, it was really weird, and we talked to them and stuff. That was cool, now they’re super famous [laughs]. I remember seeing a lot of people who went on to be bigger Canadian acts. It was cool. I saw a lot of cool bands [at Hillside] every year, too.”
Unfortunately, being an all-girl band still seems to be a rarity in the indie music industry, though Trigatti agrees that it still stands out, but that it’s not as uncommon as it used to be.
“I think being an all-girl band is this weird novelty thing [laughs]. We get a lot of people that want to book us, like “oh wow an all-girl band that’s not very common”, which is unfortunate because I know a lot of girls that play music,” said Trigatti. “It’s just that having an entire band full of girls is a rarity. In a way it’s kind of working for us because it’s unusual, but I do definitely think it’d be great if more girls started their own bands—I think that’s coming back, though. I see that in indie music and stuff there’s a lot of girl bands starting out.”