PERFORMANCES
Peter Frampton (Thursday): Frampton’s career properly took off in 1976 with his epic album Frampton Comes Alive! which features the songs we now know, love, and call classic – “Show Me the Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way,” and “Do You Feel Like We Do” – and was the best selling album of all time (to that point). True Story: Peter Frampton began his musical journey with a Banjolele – a “banjo-shaped ukulele.” I wish I could say I made up this word but it’s totally legit – it’s pretty much the best word mash-up since liger. Also very cool: you can make your very own banjolele. While I would be surprised if Frampton cracks out ye olde banjolele on Thursday, I am certain that he will bring the awesome sounds that have made him the legend he is (legendary enough, in fact, to have appeared on both The Simpsons and Family Guy).
WEB WATCH
While it may seem like early days yet for the flurry of TIFF-related blog posts here on Soundboard, the delightful tidbits have started to drop from the TIFF office including this one: Score: A Hockey Musical will be the Opening Night Gala here at Roy Thomson Hall on September 9. You may recall us mentioning the film back in February when it was still in production. Cameos from musical artists include Hawksley Workman, John McDermott, and Nelly Furtado.
If you missed Jimmy Cliff’s performance on Monday, you can check out this Tiny Desk Concert from NPR’s All Songs Considered. In fact, even if you did see the show, you should check out this video because it’s so great.
And over on TwentyFourBit you can prepare yourself for the Belle & Sebastian Massey Hall concert this October by checking out the group previewing their new song, “I Didn’t See It Coming,” live in concert.
YOU SHOULD KNOW
The work of alt-country heroes, The Sadies, would make cosmic cowboy Gram Parsons proud and we think they’re out of this world too. The Sadies are all about performing en plein air this summer: they just performed at Harbourfront Centre on the nation’s birthday (you can check out a pre-concert interview with band member Mike Belitsky over on the Harbourfront Centre’s blog Upfront) and now it’s also just been announced that the Sadies will be joining the bill for the Arcade Fire’s island concert in August. Arcade Fire is keeping busy too – just last week they promised to give $1 million to efforts to rebuild Haiti (matching your donations by text message – details here). The highly anticipated new release from Arcade Fire (with your choice of eight different album covers,) The Suburbs, is available in Canada starting August 3rd.
It would seem that musician-author collabs are the thing to do these days (recall: Justin Rutledge’s work with Michael Ondaatje on his song “Be a Man”). Ben Folds has just tag-teamed with Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, A Long Way Down, etc.) and according to NME.com the pair will be releasing a full album on September 28. For the time being, get your fix by visiting Huffington Post to listen to the duo’s “immortaliz[ing]” of Levi Johnston.
Stefania Paterak is programming coordinator at Massey Hall & Roy Thomson Hall
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