From the bated excitement of Aaron Levin:
As Toronto is set ablaze with music during one of Canada’s largest music festivals, we're proud to join our friends in providing an alternative to the chaos. NXNWyrd is a new micro-festival curated by Weird Canada, Offerings, Pleasence and Burn Down The Capital and is happening Thursday June 14 through Saturday June 16. As an imprint of Weird Canada’s nation-wide Wyrd festival series, NXNWyrd will focus on empowering guests to explore and discover the North American musical underground.
On top of stages shared by bands like Drainolith, Oneida-and-Sightings-related Man Forever, Sean Nicholas Savage, Sexy Merlin, and other emerging artists, NXNWyrd will feature a special Saturday Afternoon Mellow with vintage private issue New Age DJ’ing by yours truly and environs, smells, and comforts provided by Spa Kosmische.
Advance tickets for the entire weekend are $15, or priced individually for each show at the door. The weekend rate presents a deep discount if one plans on going to at least two shows. Full lineup, details, locations, and ticket information below.
Dates: Thursday June 14, Friday June 15, Saturday June 16 Festival Tickets: $15 (http://nxnwyrd.eventbrite.com/) Festival Website: http://weirdcanada.com/nxnwyrd Venues:
Featuring:
Date: Thursday June 14, 2012 Location: Double Double Land (209 Augusta Ave.) Price: $10 door. / $0 with festival pass. Doors: 9pm
To celebrate Toronto’s finest polyvinyl imprint, Pleasence has curated an enormous bill of talent from across Canada.
Featuring:
Date: Friday June 15, 2012 Location: Polyhaus (388 Carlaw Ave.) Doors: 7pm Price: $10 door. / $0 with festival pass.
Everyone needs an afternoon of mellowtude. Come and relax within Weird Canada’s HQ. Vintage and authentic New Age meditation music provided by Aaron Levin with environs and aromatics by Spa Kosmische.
Featuring:
Date: Saturday June 16, 2012 Location: Infinite Library (Upper Floor - 664 Queen Street West) Doors: 3:30pm Price: $7 door. / $0 with festival pass. Set-Times:
Astral Gunk (Sackville, NB)
ASTRAL GUNK was formed in September 2011 after 2 years of communicating through touring and email, the four members found themselves living in the same town while their previous bandmates were sprawled across eastern Canada. Drawing inspiration from a melting pot of punk, post punk, garage rock, pop, psych rock and everything in between, the prevailing sound is as much an amalgamation of influences as it is the product of four dudes drinking beer in a shed and avoiding their responsibilities. The gunk rockers are equally influenced by the rich history of rock n roll music as the current onslaught of Canadian and international bands they regard as peers and mentors.
Drainolith (Montréal, QC)
Drainolith is the droned-out, avant-cosmic project of AIDS Wolf guitarist Alex Moskos. We have heard tales of live shows nothing short of incredible.
Doom Tickler (Toronto, ON)
An intense miasma of gremlinized vocal workouts from Toronto’s L. Predy. Incredible, if not totally terrifying.
Energetic Action (Edmonton, AB)
Hailing from the petroleum wastelands of Edmonton, Alberta, Energetic Action have single-handedly revived the D.E.Y (Do Everything Yourself) aesthetic that defined the British post-punk invasion. In one fell swoop they have conjured an punk-driven intensity that compares to nothing the world is ready for.
Indigenous Nudes (London, ON)
Rude, nude, and dudes. We’re kidding. This avant-collage project from the unlikely town of London, ON, heralds back to a time when the Nihilist Spasm Band ran rampant through the streets of tinsel town, Ontario.
John Milner, You’re So Boss (Toronto, ON)
Intense punk crustaceans from Toronto’s underground nether maze. As brilliant live as their name is long.
Man Forever (Brooklyn, NY)
John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer who is perhaps best known as the drummer for Oneida. Man Forever, his vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience. John also plays in Brooklyn-based band Sightings.
Man Made Hill (Toronto, ON)
Man Made Hill is a breathtaking work-out of sexual funk jams that has Susan Johanson getting busy on the dance floor. If you can match Man Made Hill’s dance regime, you’re guaranteed to loose 50 in 30. We’ll let you define the units and time frame. In the interim, GET FONKAY.
Mass Horns (Toronto, ON)
A blistering side-project of Young Mother, the drum-based guitar wrenching insanity will completely melt your face, body, mind, soul, wallet, children, home, job, and universe. This will be the last thing you ever see. Die fantastically.
Moonwood (Toronto, ON)
Moonwood conjure a choking atmosphere of worldly instrumentals. Their drawn-out explorations touch upon every ephemeral state. Their new jams stray from the acoustic cosmos occupied on their first album and dive deep into heavy Krautrock territory. We’re excited to see the climax of their being. Join us.
Pon De Replay (Toronto, ON)
We say it’s warbled tape jams because this collage project is just that. Can you deal with it? Or will you dance to it. You decide.
Sean Nicholas Savage (Montréal, QC)
Edmonton ex-pat and now-Montreal crooner extraordinary, Sean Nicholas Savage has established himself as the go-to man for all things love. It’s pop, it’s personality, it’s beautiful. Sean Nicholas Savage is nothing short of a miracle.
Sexy Merlin (Toronto, ON)
Easily the best-named band in canada, Sexy Merlin is an unstoppable erectro-drum kit explosion. harkening back to a time when Liquid Liquid filled cavernous halls with their insatiable drum-dance to the mother-land, Sexy Merlin will fill your mind with ecstatic sensations of eclectic euphoria.
The Soupcans (Toronto, ON)
Toronto’s Soupcans will vomit trashy punk jams of the highest calibre, and you will eat the spew up with utter delight owing simply to their incomprehensible personality the band emits on stage. An incredibly unique experience and worth ditching your dinner date to catch the sloppy seconds. What?
Spa Kosmische (Toronto, ON)
Spa Ksomische is the musically-inspired spa product-line of Naomi Hocura. We are talking bath salts inspired by Can. Do you need any more?!
TOPS (Montréal, QC)
Birthed from the ashes of Montreal-by-way-of-Edmonton’s Silly Kissers, Arbutus recording artist TOPS have redefined soft-pop into a mirrored acquiescence of mellowed delight.
Young Truck (Toronto, ON)
With an incredible knack for thrashing genre boundaries and creating a beacon of non-wave dance euphoria, Young Truck have become the premier gravity well for all things angular.
Burn Down The Capital
Burn Down The Capital puts on shows in Toronto. Our booking policy in dictated by personal taste, although we do tend towards noise, jazz & punk in the avant-garde, we are opened to pretty much any genre. We have been putting on shows in Toronto for about 5 years now & hope to continue doing so in the future. If you think we’d be into your music, please feel free to get in touch. Even though we can’t help everyone, it’s nice to hear from people who are into the same stuff we are.
Pleasence Records
Pleasence Records is owned and operated by Deirdre O’Sullivan and James Lindsay. We release music on vinyl records. Pleasence Records loves no one specific genre more than another, though we prefer bands and artists with a flare for the oddball and experimental. Pleasence Records would like to meet you.
Spa Kosmische
SPA KOSMISCHE is an exploration of the therapeutic relationship between sound and scent. Each product is hand-blended using pure botanical essences chosen for their therapeutic and aromatic qualities. Inspired by kosmische musik (cosmic music) and krautrock, a genre of experimental music that emerged in Germany in the late 1960s, Spa Kosmische creates meditative environments to help your body return to earth while sending your mind into orbit. Created for people who enjoy exploring outer and inner space.
Weird Canada
Weird Canada is an award-winning publisher of diy / fringe / experimental / self-released musics from Canada. Weird Canada explores the Canadian musical cosmos through the lens of physically-released ephemera across all formats, genres, and experiences.