It’s time to send out that email newsletter query – you know the one: “Do you want to stay on and receive news about PAPERMAPS?” We’ll be doing that soon…so heads up…meanwhile…we’ll be at the Dance Cave tonight (529 Bloor St. West, Toronto / above Lees Palace) playing live at 8:30PM in support of Tin Star Orphan’s double vinyl release…lot’s of instagraming to follow.
-d
June is a big part of festival season here in Toronto. There are two major “rock music” festivals held here: CMW and NxNE. Being a good little local indie rock act, I applied to both festivals and was pleased to learn that we were accepted to both for a third year in a row. For reasons outlined in THIS ARTICLE we were ousted from the NxNE lineup this year (or rather, given a rather uncouth ultimatum). Even though one festival is regarded by some of my more “hip” friends as somehow being “more cool” than the other, in the interest of my own mental health I opted to play the festival that spat less bile at me. To be honest, I don’t give a single fuck about what festival is “cool,” or “hip” or whatever – I care more about how I’m treated as an artist and a human being. For the record, I really don’t favour one festival over the other. The two festivals are about 34 days apart and so, being a good little local indie rock act, I always knew that we would be playing a show in June here in Toronto one way or the other. So here it is:
We will be appearing in support of our good friends, 5th Projekt on Wednesday, June 18 at The Painted Lady (218 Ossington Ave, just South of Dundas W). Our set time is 9:45PM. The cover is a nominal $5. The show is being called FUNxNE, and that’s pronounced “Fun by North East.”
Here’s the FB Event (please join): https://www.facebook.com/events/257763064410178/
We have many Toronto shows in the next 3 weeks. Here are all the details:
Saturday April 19 (Tomorrow) -I’m playing a solo show at Cabin Fever Collective (1669 Bloor St W) for Record Store Day. 6PM Free Admission
Saturday April 26 – I’m playing solo again at Rancho Relaxo (300 College St.) 9:45PM $7
https://www.facebook.com/events/428080584003625/
Wednesday May 7 –The Velvet Underground (510 Queen St W) 9PM $10 or free w/ wristbands/passes
https://www.facebook.com/events/745104588843912/
Thursday May 8 – Solo show at Charlie’s Gallery (112 Harbord St) 8PM $10 or free w/ wristbands/passes
Friday May 9 – Ranch Relaxo (300 College St.) 1AM $10 or free w/ wristbands/passes
https://www.facebook.com/events/533117326815549/
Hello, Dean here.
It’s been a while since I’ve played a live show. Not since November of 2013(!), so I’m glad to announce three live Toronto appearances in the coming weeks. Two solo shows by yours truly: Saturday, April 19, 6PM at the excellent Cabin Fever Collective cafe and record store (1669 Bloor St. West) and Saturday April 26, 9PM at the venerable Rancho Relaxo (300 College St.). PAPERMAPS (full band) will be playing this years’ Canadian Music Week at the Velvet Underground (508 Queen St. West) on Wdnesday, May 7, 9PM (sharp!). Also on the CMW showcase bill are The Lost Chord and Waterbodies.
Cheers,
-dean
We have a Toronto show coming up:
When we were in Halifax back in early October our friends PIONEER VIDEO supported us by letting us play the middle slot between them and other local favourite, This Ship (who gallantly organised the event). We had no plans to play Toronto for a while until PIONEER VIDEO asked us to return the favour here on our home turf. Of course, we jumped at the chance. If you missed our CD release party last month (or if you simply love us) you should come out to the warm and cozy Cameron House (one of the coolest joints in town) Wednesday November 13 and to give a warm Toronto welcome to PIONEER VIDEO!
Set Times:
10:00 Marlon Chaplin (of Broken Bricks)
10:45 Pioneer Video
11:30 PAPERMAPS
Cover: TBA (probably $7)
Join the Facbook Event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/203244886524097/
A crew from Toronto’s latest rock station indie88 came down to our studio to shoot us performing/recording live. Here’s a pretty uptempo version of our first single, “The Hedonist.”
Visit the indie88 site here: http://indie88.com/video-papermaps-the-hedonist/
Hey,
Sorry we’ve been so slow to blog, but we’ve been so BUSY. We’ve got SO MUCH to cover here – I want to rely on pictures and links mostly. First off, I’d like to give a BIG THANK YOU to the folks of Beserker Lion (Bethany and the people of the amazing band, This Ship) for putting on such a great Hali show for us! This Ship are an amazing Halifax-based pop band and we can’t wait to do something with them here in T-dot ville and we also really enjoyed the math-rock styling of Pioneer Video. Either band is welcome on our turf! While in Halifax a bunch of things happened – like this NYC Blog started streaming our entire album (http://www.blackbookmag.com/music/blackbook-exclusive-stream-papermaps-gritty-darker-lights-1.65667) and we learned that we got into the 2013 CMJ Music Marathon in NYC (Saturday Oct 19 @ LeftField Bar). Pretty cool. We also found an awesome comic book shop with awesome friendly (and cute) staff in Halifax called Strange Adventures where we more treasures like this:
We also played Fredericton on our way out of the Maritimes and hit up Belle Montreal where we played an excellent show with the very excellent songwriter/guitarist Patrick Krief (fans of the seminal act, The Dears should pay particular attention). In Montreal we found an excellent Mexican Restaurant
I wish I remember the name, but it was only a block away from the Divan Orange. Please note the apple-pop. Very authentic!!! I had a great vegan salad, myself…
While on the road we learned that Darker Lights is was already charting nationally on college radio and climbing the Earshot! National Chart at #23.
When we got back from Montreal we had several video shoots to do. One was in our own studio with the people from Toronto’s newest radio station, indie88. This will be seen very soon on their website (where you can vote to hear our latest single, The Hedonist, BTW).
The other video shoot took place at a semi-secret location on/near the University of Toronto St. George Campus. A real-live FRAT HOUSE to be exact. This was the principal photography for our the official “The Hedonist,” music video. We had an open call for people to come out, dress up, appear in the video, drink bear, shake booty and jump around on a mattress. WE THANK EVERYONE WHO CAME OUT!!!
I’m not sure when the video will be released – probably sometime next week!! Stay tuned!!!
While this was happening, we learned that the very same song had entered the CBC Radio 3 R3-30 chart at #7!!!
That leaves us with one last announcement. Our CD release party!! @ Handlebar (159 Augusta Ave.) Thursday Oct 17.
FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/217668495063862/
We will be playing with Betty’s other band, Burn Baby Burn, the excellent The Effens and Locomotive 8. Our set time is 11:20 but COME EARLY and the cost of admission is $7 without CD and $15 with CD (that’s a $2 discount on the CD).
We’ve been busy. You know how you can tell? No blog post for weeks – no words here at the HQ – even as our newest album, Darker Lights is about to drop. All the work that goes along with releasing an indie record these days has gotten in the way… our apologies.
So there’s a lot going on…
First, the very first sound to be leaked from Darker Lights can be found and listened to here at: exclaim.ca. “The Hedonist,” just happens to be one of our heaviest selections from the new album…there’s more to it than that.
Second, we have a tour coming up (8 Shows in two weeks, plus 2 video performances). Here are the dates (also on Exclaim.ca). I was toying with naming this tour the “Follow Us Around Tour,” but opted to call it the “Autumn 2012 Tour” and to make some blog posts under that title instead. So stay tuned for my tour diary as it happens from the road (complete with photos, etc.). Meanwhile, here are the details:
September 28, Avante Garde Bar, Ottawa ON (w/ Danielle Knibbe, Brittanny Kwasnick and Greg McEvoy $5 doors 9PM)
September 30, Plan B, Moncton NB (details TBA, $5)
October 1, Gus’ Pub, Halifax NS (w/ This Ship and Pioneer Video, $5 doors 10PM)
October 4, Cellar Pub, Fredericton NB (w / The Kendra Gale Band)
October 7, Divan Orange, Montreal (details TBA)
October 11, Jimmy Jazz, Guelph ON (w/ the Ednas, $FREE$, doors 11PM) – join us after the Elwins show across the way!
October 12, Foxx Lounge, Barrie ON (details TBA)
October 17, Handlebar, Toronto ON (w/ Burn Baby Burn, Locomotive 8 and The Effens, $7, doors 8PM)
Third, expect more “leakage” in the coming weeks. The album officially drops Tuesday October 8 but astute followers will be treated to more sights and sounds before then…meanwhile we’ll start packing for our trip…
Poster:
The new album is finally done! Done! At least the music part is. I actually completed mixing more than a week ago (Sunday June 23) at the amazing 6 Nassau in Kensington Market. The record is being mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel as I write this. We are quite proud, excited and eager to share but I have to say it’s been a difficult but rewarding experience. I guess we say that about every release don’t we? It’s true. Our previous release, Inferior Ghost, was hard to make because I had to close down my recording studio (which was where we wrote/rehearsed) and at the same time we had to finish up and promote what should have been a full-length album but ended up an EP. I guess you can say there was a period of homelessness for us. We had no studio or rehearsal space between doing the last tracks for Inferior Ghost and touring to promote it. Inferior Ghost is really our half-finished sophomore album.
This latest album, Darker Lights, was difficult to make too. Musically, we had to start over from scratch because we lost two members right after the Inferior Ghost tour. I junked all the songs I was writing for our original lineup. We had to re-invent our approach and ultimately our sound. We also had to re-establish our home base – now a great little private studio we call Echo Valley. We had to write new material and we still had show commitments to honour. Darker Lights really began in the fall of 2012 with a writing phase tempered by a bout of writer’s block. We didn’t start recording “proper” until mid-February. Andy joined us in March and it is now early July. It took us 21 months to record our debut album and we did Darker Lights in five months – still, I feel it’s our best work yet.
There are nine new compositions and one “remake” of an Inferior Ghost song (which is like a whole new song now). The album (as of this writing) is just shy of 4o minutes long. It’s darker, heavier, more guitar-driven and more moody than the first album. That’s about all I can say at this point. We’ve been pretty good about keeping the work private so far – only sharing among ourselves and our inner circle. I’m proud to say that 90% of the record was tracked at our own Echo Valley studio and the remaining 10% was tracked at 6 Nassau at the beginning of a 15 day marathon mix session. Everything was engineered by myself and Nathan Vanderwielen.
Currently, we are working on a sequence for the record and should be putting the physical presentation together soon. Once we have a sequence I’m going to share some lyrics here on the blog – but no sounds yet…There is no official release date for Darker Lights. My guess is that it will be released sometime mid to late Autumn. I’m sure there will be a few teasers out there soon. Stay posted for more news.
p.s.
Next Toronto appearance: August 10 at the Rivoli.
-dean
