Nights of Noise: A Weekend Preview

Tonight, if you’re feeling adventurous/nostalgiac, the West End Cultural Centre is presenting the 100 Mile Musical Diet, including Magnum K.I. covering the Weakerthans’ Reconstruction Site in entirety and Paper Moon playing Red Fisher’s War Wagon in full. Homage or blasphemy? You decide. Starts at 8, and the West End don’t wait.

Also, at the Garrick tonight, powerpop powerhouses the New Pornographers are playing with the Mountain Goats. Seriously? Seriously.

This Friday, if you prefer to have your concept of music constantly rearranged, if you choose to get out of your dank humid basement (which we know is plastered with posters of esoteric bands and filled with shelves of complete Brian Eno discographies), you’ll find a couple of rad shows.

First up, a band that we covered in the newest Stylus, the experimental trio Radian from Vienna. send + receive and CKUW are bringing them to the WECC, where they’ll rumble off stuff from their latest record Chimeric, which, as Stylus writer Curran Faris put it, “deals with the fundamentals of rock music: energy, dynamics, and sheer volume.” They’re playing with the awe-inspiring Tim Hecker and Didi Bruckmayr. The show starts at 8, and FYI, the WECC won’t wait up for you, so don’t be late.

If, however, you are of the night owl variety, you could see new local noise outfit White Dog play with Blind Squab,and touring Spirit Abuse. Chris Jacques of White Dog sent us an email about it (including a video of one of Spirit Abuse’s solo escapades), so we’re assuming that he’s pretty excited, and if he’s excited, then it’s something to get excited about. That’s happening at the Plug-In I.C.A. at 10 p.m. for $5.

And lastly, two gentle Toronto bands of the indie pop variety will be slaying the Rudolf Rocker this Sunday. The Phonemes and Metal Kites are going to be supported by Ingrid Gatin, and it’s going to be a big good old fuzzy pop time.

Ingrid Gatin

By Jenny Henkelman

ingrid_gatin
Ingrid Gatin’s got a piano, an accordion, and a tear-jerkingly beautiful voice. All of these things are perfectly suited to the average living room recital or concert at the café down the street. But something in Ingrid Gatin keeps pulling her out of her comfy Wolseley environs. To a cabin in the Saskatchewan woods; to a train crossing the lonely stretches of Northern Ontario; to a transformed gallery space in the Exchange.
Gatin’s first migration took place when her family moved from small-town Saskatchewan to Brandon, where  started up in the musical way early. She’s studied piano since age four, and says she’s always benefited from a “hugely musical” family. “There’s always singing and music playing going on on both sides of my family,” she says. “I was always involved with choirs. A good, wholesome music upbringing.”
With that groundwork laid, Gatin was soon sucked into the music scene in Winnipeg when she moved here after high school two and a half years ago. Her friend Ida Sawabe played stand-up bass in a bluegrass band, and soon dragged Gatin along to practice. “They gave me a mandolin and they said, ‘Here’s how you play C and G and D. There, you know every bluegrass song!’ Ting, ting, ting! And then I was in a bluegrass band, the Magnificent Sevens.” Continue reading “Ingrid Gatin”