The Suburb on Tape 2 Tour is now at it's end with the final show now in Quebec City at Sacrilege on the 9th of May (which is also 2 days after my birfday).
If you have checked it out yet please see my new video and share it!
It is the Suburb on Tape 2 single comprised of a number of home videos of me and my family in Brisbane in the 90s.
Hope you enjoy it!
Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows and bought a tape.
A BIG THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE WHO HELPED ALONG THE WAY! (If I have forgotten anyone, let me know! And then hang me in a public place and throw rotten vegetables at me)
251 Rue Dorchester, Quebec City, QC Wednesday, 10 April Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - Quebec Mini-Launch
Les Shows de Grenier
w/Jane Ehrhardt & Gianna Lauren
Quebec City, QC Monday, 15 April Coop Sur Genereux
w/Sam Eloi
4518 Avenue Papineau, Montreal, QC
Saturday, 20 April Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - Montreal
L'Esco
w/Attention!, Fellow Project, Prevenge
4467 St Denis St, Montreal, QC
Tuesday, 23 April Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - Ottawa
Avant-Garde Bar and Gift Shop w/TBA
135 Besserer St, Ottawa, ON
Wednesday, 24 April Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - Toronto
The Smiling Buddah w/Juvon Taylor, The Captain Andrew Bootstring Band
961 College St, Toronto, ON
Saturday, 27 April Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - London
The Raddish House w/TBA
London, ON Thursday, 9 May Suburb on Tape 2 Tour - Quebec City Sacrilege w/TBA 447 Rue St-Jean, Quebec City, QC
THE WEEKEND PRE-GROG REVIEW - POP LEON @ L'Agitée 11 March
I have been extremely slack lately and have not gone out to see a band except for my own gig on the 12th!
PopLeon were one of the headliners for the night and I was opening the show.
Pop Leon are an extremely diverse bunch of musicians from the Apple Laptop to the Trombone. They have a lot to offer musically and on Monday night at Agitee they killed it like it was the last show they would ever play! A brilliant display of energy by an amazing talented bunch. Tommy the singer announced that it would be 'Chuck's' last night (the drummer). The best indicator of their charisma was the fact nearly the entire bar were dancing up the front like it was their last night alive! Including one hilarious bearded gentleman performing some sort of a mixture of a River Dance/Irish Jig/Head banging .
Pop Leon are a live favourite for me and I really hope they find a drummer soon so that they can get back to doing what they do best!
ALL ROUND NICE GUY DAVE JOINS THE CRU
I have found a pianist/madolin-ist/guitarist/bassist/singer/drummer/strummer and all round nice guy to play some shows with! His name; Dave. So now we have some sort of a 3 person live cru, we're like De La Soul except nowhere near as bad ass.
TWO MAN WOLF PACK
It is exactly what the name suggests.
When two lone wolves unite there sometimes can be a deadly mixture of creative wolf juice that will spill into the universe and create an EP and tour of Quebec.
Well this is the working title for a collaboration I will be doing in the next few months. It's gonna be pretty much a do whatever the fuck enters our head project. I might even do a cover of this! :
New film clip! Currently talking with A City By The River and will hopefully have a new one up in the next few weeks. We may be editing some of my old home video footage for it but we will see how that pans out.
NEW GEAR!
New gear! I just bought an RC-50 loop pedal. Looking forward to giving that a whirl!
RECORDING!
Recording! Back in the studio again with Mr Simon Paradis for Suburb on Tape 2. We have demoed the potential single and it's sounding good. Here are some photos of Simon doing the 'Drum Magazine' pose and me doing my thing where I stare into the distance with headphones and take a photo of myself:
TOUR!
So here is what's happening! Tour dates under the 'Shows' section of this site but for your convenience I have put them here too...Look at that! EASY! Other than this there will be a Facebook event soon! I would really appreciate it if you could send the invite along to any of your friends living in Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa or London. It would be a big help.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Cercle for Julie Doiron on Wednesday I hope you all had as much of an awesome time as I did!
It was a really really great night and Julie was a nice lady who borrowed my guitar for a short set at Sacrilege. We had some beers and talked about music venues and annoying people who make noise complaints about the venues even though they were the ones who chose to buy a house/appartment right near a music venue.
Some more tapes sold and some more friends made! Here is a happy snappy of me being all serious and cool on stage:
The Weekend Pre-Grog Review - Construction & Destruction
The weekend pre-grog review goes to construction & destruction. AWESOME experimental indie rock band from the land of Canada. I played a show with these guys on Wednesday night and was blown away.
We did a CD swap so I got a copy of Mutatis Mutandis! yesssssss.
Parts of their live stuff reminded me of the Drones and a lot of Neil Young & Crazy Horse. They were a very raw and confronting band with a lot of energy. Their songs were well crafted and very original - nothing was generic but nothing was out of place either - A solid band that you should be listening to! Click on the swan for a link to their bandcamp!
TOUR! TOUR! TOUR! WANT ME TO PLAY AT YA PLACE?
April be the month for my SUBURB ON TAPE 2 TOUR!
So far here are the dates, I'm still waiting on a locked in date for Toronto, Quebec and Sherbrooke/Trois Rivieres - wherever I end up going but here are the rough dates so far:-
Quebec City - TBA
Trois Rivieres/Sherbrooke - TBA
Montreal - Saturday 20 April @ L'Esco
Ottawa - Tuesday 23 April @ Avant Garde Bar & Gift Shop
Toronto - TBA
London - Sunday 28th April @ APK
I'm also looking to play HOUSE CONCERTS in between these dates and within these cities. Want to host a house concert? All you need is a house and friends. Email me if you're interested I would be forever grateful - harleyjamesyoung@gmail.com Born Sandgate Devotional
Born Sandgate Devotional, a terrible, terrible pun stolen from The Triffid's album 'Born Sandy Devotional'. I just wish I could use this pun somehow but it's way to cheesy so I'll just use it as a blog entry and leave it at that.
This week I am going to try and spend a full week writing material for Suburb on Tape 2 as well as some other projects. I have never dedicated an entire week to writing alone so it should be an interesting experiment.
Chick City
Chick city, what is it? Where is it? How do I get there? As Jeremy Neale might tell you, only a lucky few have actually entered chick city - a magical city populated by ice cold soda, all day surfing, a swimming pool with no rules on running and diving in the shallow end, Street Fighter Turbo on constant free play and of course...chicks. A place where even Nicholas Cage no longer looks concerned about things.
You see, Brian Wilson of course is the gatekeeper of the portal to chick city and everyone knows that in order to pass through the portal you must:
A. Distract Brian with a quality hit song and
B. Run through the portal at lightening speed.
Brian gets distracted by sad and happy hits. If you're looking to get to chick city here are some of the songs which have succeeded in distracting Brian Wilson in the past:
Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a house concert for Toronto musician Rob Moir and Quebec City musician Gab Paquet.
Here is my 2 cents and more...
GAB PAQUET -
Mr Paquet came early to the show. He was a little quiet but don't let that fool you - he has a big stage persona. Whilst I could not catch all of the lyrics, his wit kept the francophones laughing till they cried which was contagious enough for me to laugh also. His song about poutine made me hungry for more songs and poutine. I am a Gab Paquet fan and you should be too!
ROB MOIR -
A fan of Springsteen, Tweedy and Westerberg has already won me over. Can good taste equal good songwriting?? In this case absolutely. His voice reminds me of Jason Isbell and his songwriting incredibly Springsteen. The reason why I like this guy so much is that his music is so damn honest and sincere which is an incredibly hard thing find. Rob is no stranger to house concerts and from the performance it was evident that this man was a well oiled touring machine.
But before you hear the lie, here is the truth - a brilliant live delivery of the title track from the album live at @ chez moi on Saturday 12th of January:
Hi kids, now it is time for the Weekend Pre-Grog Review where I review something I have been listening to old/new/local/national/international whatever the case may be.
These come round very quickly but my pick for the week is Kurt Vile's Smoke Ring for My Halo!
The fourth studio album from Kurt and he is anything but vile IT'S GREAT (pardon the pun dear god I need to actually make these pre-grog reviews and not after-drinking-tired and hung over reviews).
Anyways - Kurt Vile - War on Drugs were awesome, so is he. Reminds me of Springsteen's Nebraska at times. Lots of reverb and I love it so much more than I can explain in this terribly under prepared review.
I would give it the following things based on how much I like this album:
4.5 dollars out of 5 dollars if it was a homeless person asking me for money
4 hadokens out of 5 in a street fighter II turbo match with difficulty set to easy on the first match where only 3 hadokens would be necessary for a sufficient lead against your opponent.
5 hearty man meals out of 5 even if I was really hungry I would give all of my hearty man meals to this album if it asked me for them.
A second plug of suburb on tape has emerged thanks to Indecent Xposure. Here it is for you all, I am very happy about how well it has been received. They had a lot of good things to say about A City By The River too - yay, a win for us all!
NEW YEARS - LOVE YA GUTS - MERCI A TOUS
As I post this it is 9 am on 31 December in Quebec and about 10 minutes to New Years in Australia.
This has without a doubt been one of the best years of my life.
I want to thank anyone and everyone who has come out to a show - I really really appreciate your support.
Merci à tous mes amis du Québec qui m'ont aidé tellement avec mon français et mon déménagement dans cette belle ville.
JANUARY GOODNESS & JULIE DOIRON
A busy year ahead too with plenty of shows for January already, plans for a new band, a new recording and a Canada tour around the corner.
Here`s January.
If you`re still feeling festive and eager to come out!
I should really make a second mention of the Julie Doiron show, a legendary Canadian singer-songwriter. I am really looking forward to this one - it is going to be a killer night sirs and ladies!
RECORDING
FEBRUARY - I hope! I am going to spend a week writing and finishing up a few things and hopefully this will be the start of Suburb on Tape 2.
THE WEEKLY REVIEW AND OR PLUG
I have neglected the weekly review again! This one is late because it has taken me while to think about it and definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I have been lazy.
The weekly plug goes to Martin Rivas and his album Reliquary.
I first heard this album when I was looking for shows to play in New York earlier this year and it has stuck with me since. The Brooklyn Accent is my favourite and it has pretty much been on high rotation in my head since the first time I head this song. I often end up singing this song drunk in the shower. The album is a really beautiful and honest piece from a very prolific songwriter. This is Martin`s 6th release and 4th full length album and I hope there is plenty more to come. His voice is also very Jeff Tweedy which never goes astray in my books.
THAT`S ALL FOR NOW KIDS! THANKS FOR READING AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!
COME OUT TO SOME OF THE SHOWS IF YOU FEEL LIKE DRINKIN` AND DANCIN`
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