A week ago, I had the chance to see the Toronto band Born Ruffians perform at DC9. I listened through their new album Red, Yellow and Blue (Warp Records) several times throughout the weeks prior to the show, but other than that, didn’t know a whole lot about the band. I was surprised how young all three of the band members are, and they had the physical appearance of any typical high school band. The main difference though is that they played like they have been doing this for a long, long time. I had a great time watching the Born Ruffians perform and encourage you to check out their site to see if they are touring near you.
Clap Your Hands comes to mind when listening to the Born Ruffians, mainly because of Luke LaLonde’s distinct voice, that can at times be comparible to Alec Ounsworth, but I like them more than Clap Your Hands. Their music is some of the best indie rock I have heard recently, and while at first I thought this was an album I would only occasionally listen to, the catchy songs have only been growing more and more on me. With the combination of instrumentals, lead vocals, and doo-wop back-up vocals their music give off a 1950’s vibe that makes them stand out from the masses of indie rock being produced today.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYPiN1qqkk[/youtube]
First music video (Hummingbird)
Even though I am not typically one who particularly likes Pitchfork’s overwrought reviews, I really enjoyed reading their review of this album. Pitchfork Contributor Stuart Berman made some great points:
Arriving in Toronto three years ago from the nearby town of Midland, on paper Born Ruffians seemed antithetical to the prevailing group-hug atmosphere: they boast no auxiliary horn or string sections, no spotlight-stealing guest female singers, no balaclava-clad dancers– just three unassuming kids in standard guitar/bass/drums formation.
It is impressive how much the band has going on at one time, given that there are only three of them. They have a much more simple dynamic than most of the stand-out bands coming out of Canada, yet are able to do so much with the basic formation they have. At the show, my favorite part was watching Mitch DeRosier (bass) and Steve Hamelin (drums) sing back-up vocals. Mitch showed a lot of passion on bass and vocals and was jumping all over the place on the small stage at DC9.
On a side note, I don’t know what has been up with Canada, but one good band after another keeps popping up out of the country. Talk about an act of terror, US! What are we going to do about this? Can we really accept not being the number one country producing today’s best music? We need to up the ante. Any suggestions? All I’ve come up with is improving our music programs, er, bombing Canada.
It’s nice to see these dudes getting recognized south of the border. I had the privilege of seeing them this past summer at a local music festival. At that point I’d only really heard “This Sentence Will Ruin / Save Your Life”, and I was so glad that the rest of their songs were just as energetic and fun. I decided to write down notes from the show and I think this sentence pretty much sums up everything: “They were all about sending out an untamed energy to the audience; caterwauling, yelping and chanting instead of singing like regular folk do.”
Does that pretty much sound like what they did at this show?
P.S. Please don’t bomb my country. I’ve kind of grown to like it, in its non-blow-up-edness.
but we have to do something and with the apparent best thing recently come out of the US being vampire weekend… we don’t have much choice
Haha, I am glad that you Americans are starting to worry about us Canadians. We are slowly but surely going to take over the world, starting with the music industry. Hahaha. Please don’t blow us up though I am sure you will enjoy becoming a Canadian.
The healthcare would be nice I suppose…
“We are slowly but surely going to take over the world, starting with the music industry.”
Jolene, be careful what you say. Bush just read your post and doesn’t know that you are joking. You, on behalf of all of Canada, just threatened our safety. You may have single handedly started WWIII between the US and Canada. Talk about the power of the internet…
Jacob,
You are a communist. Socialized health care is for people who hate our freedom. Do you hate the US’ freedom?
Alie!,
Let me know the bands you are listening to! You know all these bands before I do. And yeah, Luke definitely doesn’t sing like them normal folks. There was some yelping and chanting. It was sweet. PS. I like your vocabulary (i.e. caterwauling)
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