September 25th, 2011 - Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot
w/ Dinosaur Bones
Where: Doc Willoughby's
Tickets: $15 advance/$18 door - Buy your tickets for this show here! (Includes $5 off a Pop Okanagan Wristband)
Advance tickets also available at Leo's Video and Tweaked and Yummy Vintage Apparel
Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm
Ra Ra Riot finds strength in subtlety and refraction. This is a band that cooks with indirect heat — melding taut rhythms with lush chamber pop, subtle psychedelia, infectious melodies, and lyrics that tell the story of timorous souls shaking free. The seeds of their latest album, the orchard, were sown over the course of a couple of years, and harvested when guitarist Milo Bonacci compiled every stray idea and demo the band had accumulated since releasing their breakthrough album, the rhumb line. After assembling all those loose threads, the band took residence at the titular peach orchard in Penn Yan, New York and embarked upon mammoth writing sessions punctuated by new adventures in cooking, playing bocce, and simply enjoying the benefits of country living.
The orchard unfolds like origami — each undone corner revealing Ra Ra Riot’s collective knack for writing sterling arrangements, addictive hooks and subtle details. Furthermore, the orchard's impeccable sequencing and scant running time (the album runs just under the 40-minute mark) hits an aural sweet spot that will inspire spinning this album over and over again, each listen revealing some new blossom, fruit, or lovely flying insect that you hadn’t noticed before.
While you'd be hard-pressed to get them to admit it, Dinosaur Bones have inadvertently become the poster boys for abandoning education in the name of rock n' roll. In 2008, after months of prioritizing writing melodic indie rock songs over Hemingway essays, vocalist/guitarist Ben Fox finally packed up his guitars, leaving behind his undergrad and Montreal apartment for his hometown of Toronto. It was with that, a bold against-your-guidance-counsellor's-best-advice move, that Dinosaur Bones was born.
As soon as he re-planted himself in his home soil, Fox immediately began assembling a mosaic of former bandmates and friends-of-friends to give life to the skeleton of songs captured on his shifty 4-track recorder: Branko Scekic (bass), Dave Wickland (keys), Lucas Fredette (drums) and Joel Clifton (guitar). Raw as they were, the outside input from these fresh minds quickly turned his unpolished tunes into broody pop gems, dripping with haunting synth layers and a throbbing rhythm section. In less than two years since exchanging a University auditorium for a cramped 12-seater Econoline tour van, Fox and the fellow Bones have been efficient in inflicting enough damage on the Canadian indie music community to justify their namesake.
After releasing a self-titled, 4-song demo EP in late 2008, the band has hit the stage with Handsome Furs, the Rural Alberta Advantage, Born Ruffians, The Arkells, Malajube, Hollerado, and Sebastian Grainger, received praise from both college and commercial radio, and been personally invited to play some of the country's largest festivals. They've also outgrown many of the venues in their hometown, packing the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, among others, wall-to-wall with hundreds of rabid fans, often storming the stage for sing-alongs induced by their anthemic blend of hook-laden melancholy and broody charisma.
w/ Dinosaur Bones
Where: Doc Willoughby's
Tickets: $15 advance/$18 door - Buy your tickets for this show here! (Includes $5 off a Pop Okanagan Wristband)
Advance tickets also available at Leo's Video and Tweaked and Yummy Vintage Apparel
Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm
Ra Ra Riot finds strength in subtlety and refraction. This is a band that cooks with indirect heat — melding taut rhythms with lush chamber pop, subtle psychedelia, infectious melodies, and lyrics that tell the story of timorous souls shaking free. The seeds of their latest album, the orchard, were sown over the course of a couple of years, and harvested when guitarist Milo Bonacci compiled every stray idea and demo the band had accumulated since releasing their breakthrough album, the rhumb line. After assembling all those loose threads, the band took residence at the titular peach orchard in Penn Yan, New York and embarked upon mammoth writing sessions punctuated by new adventures in cooking, playing bocce, and simply enjoying the benefits of country living.
The orchard unfolds like origami — each undone corner revealing Ra Ra Riot’s collective knack for writing sterling arrangements, addictive hooks and subtle details. Furthermore, the orchard's impeccable sequencing and scant running time (the album runs just under the 40-minute mark) hits an aural sweet spot that will inspire spinning this album over and over again, each listen revealing some new blossom, fruit, or lovely flying insect that you hadn’t noticed before.
While you'd be hard-pressed to get them to admit it, Dinosaur Bones have inadvertently become the poster boys for abandoning education in the name of rock n' roll. In 2008, after months of prioritizing writing melodic indie rock songs over Hemingway essays, vocalist/guitarist Ben Fox finally packed up his guitars, leaving behind his undergrad and Montreal apartment for his hometown of Toronto. It was with that, a bold against-your-guidance-counsellor's-best-advice move, that Dinosaur Bones was born.
As soon as he re-planted himself in his home soil, Fox immediately began assembling a mosaic of former bandmates and friends-of-friends to give life to the skeleton of songs captured on his shifty 4-track recorder: Branko Scekic (bass), Dave Wickland (keys), Lucas Fredette (drums) and Joel Clifton (guitar). Raw as they were, the outside input from these fresh minds quickly turned his unpolished tunes into broody pop gems, dripping with haunting synth layers and a throbbing rhythm section. In less than two years since exchanging a University auditorium for a cramped 12-seater Econoline tour van, Fox and the fellow Bones have been efficient in inflicting enough damage on the Canadian indie music community to justify their namesake.
After releasing a self-titled, 4-song demo EP in late 2008, the band has hit the stage with Handsome Furs, the Rural Alberta Advantage, Born Ruffians, The Arkells, Malajube, Hollerado, and Sebastian Grainger, received praise from both college and commercial radio, and been personally invited to play some of the country's largest festivals. They've also outgrown many of the venues in their hometown, packing the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, among others, wall-to-wall with hundreds of rabid fans, often storming the stage for sing-alongs induced by their anthemic blend of hook-laden melancholy and broody charisma.
- Categories: Concerts , Past Events , Indie Rock
