December 10, 2010

STAY OUT OF THE MALL

yo
we are playing vish khanna's annual STAY OUT OF THE MALL show in Guelph on wednesday with:




and




It's at the e bar and the proceeds go to Leukemia research. Thank you doctor Dana Farber.

November 22, 2010

Location Location

As I write this blog post a warm november rain falls. doom. I am trapped here until we finish our record. I will give you little more context than that, simply because it is boring and the point of me writing is this: Two shows are coming up in December, one very different from the other.

INTIMATE AND INTERACTIVE
The first is a trio show, featuring Simone, Ian and Stew, on December 10. We're kicking it old school at the Tranzac and the money goes toward saving the Tranzac. It's with the Pining, and if you're the kind of person who hates our big shows at the loud bars, come to this.



FULL BAND LAST GAS
The second is a full band the following day, Dec 11 at the Canadian Corps. The Canadian Corps has been a cheap and stylish venue for many of Toronto's funnest times over the years. It's been host to many good times, including Ian's Cancer Beat party, a great Tropics show, and one really crummy party for my 20th birthday which was a valiant effort on my friends' parts but sort of blew because it was a 5 person joint party and we didn't all know each other very well. Who knows why a party goes bad? Any how, that party's in the past, and so will the Canadian Corps soon, as it has been sold. Luckily Colonel Tom of Lickin' Good Fried and Backstabbers fame has asked us to play a show and have one last gas there, so you can come to that and see a reunited Backstabbers set. (big deal)




We, as a band, will probably not be playing any more shows until we put out our new record. If you like us, come to this.

September 17, 2010

August 3, 2010

AMERICA

We just got back from Sappy Fest where we had a great time as we do every year. Soon we will be in America. For those of you who don't know, America is on Canada's southern border and has a great deal of power.

Saturday August 7 - Buffalo - Soundlab - 10pm
Monday August 9 - Manhattan NYC - National Underground - 8:45 - 10:30 with Serena Southam
Tuesday August 10 - Philly - Kung Fu Neck Tie - 10:55 pm - with Family Band
Thursday August 12 - Baltimore- The Windup Space - with Family Band
Friday August 13- Brooklyn- Union Pool -
with Family Band

Tell every friend, shout it from the roof tops.

June 25, 2010

No More Silence

On July 2nd, the duet is playing the Cameron House - the show's a fund raiser for No More Silence. No More Silence organizes events to call awareness to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on this land. I can only think of that kind of violence as a recycling of the violence of settling here on Native land, so that's why we're playing it.

Anyway, here's a press release about the event sent to me by the organizer. It's a part of Pride. It'll be a good show I think.
Here's the line up:

One Hundred Dollar Duet
Faith Nolan
Kay Pettigrew
Jani Lauzon

Doors: 9pm

30 Artists Coming Together Across Ontario to Support Families of Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) there are
over 580 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada.
This June, over 30 artists will be coming together to educate the public about this injustice and to raise funds toward a bursary in support of the educational pursuits of young women who have been affected by these murders and disappearances.

These events are organized for No More Silence by Liza Hancock, a fundraising
veteran with 30 years experience working with Canadian and International artists.
No More Silence is a Toronto-based network dedicated to ending these murders and
disappearances.

May 19, 2010

The Only Dignified Institution in the World


Fellow people,
It is with great pomp that I am telling you this: we are playing at the last of the dignified places in the city.

FRIDAY MAY 28th at 8 pm
we are honored to play up with the dignified hardcore phenomenon
FUcked Up
at the
Toronto Reference Library
(aka "THE BIG REF")

Absent of cinabons and baskin 31 robbins and racks and racks of polyester, the Toronto Reference Library is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, stacked full of wonder and knowledge. Mostly paper, some digital. But it's the paper that counts.

If we are lucky, Ian Russell will soon be making an entry about his love affair with the TPL. Stay tuned.
Go read something of consequence and dignity,
Simone

April 10, 2010

COMING SOON : MAY 14

This show involves all of these musicians playing amazing .



April 7, 2010

THANK YOU DAWSON CITY

Especially Allie and Chris who gave us a home in the Pit, and to the KIAC for flying us out, and to Barry for believing.

March 20, 2010

Duet Plays Victoria


On April Fool's day we are going to play a show at Carolyn Mark's "Last Resort"
We've received some confused e-mails saying "where is that? are you April fooling us?" and all I can tell you is this- it is a true real place. There is even an album that has been made from it pictured to the left. Now please, if you want to come to it:



ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR DUET
LIVE at THE LAST RESORT
THURSDAY APRIL 1, 2010
8 PM
$10
QUESTIONS? CONTACT - carolynmark2002 (at) yahoo.ca


March 10, 2010

DUET HITS THE KLONDIKE INSTITUTE FOR ARTS AND CULTURE

I walk around life with people all saying "Dawson City blah blah blah... " and don't listen too much because honestly, what I have caught about it is that it's the most beautiful place in the world. Really, why should i feel i'm being cheated of seeing the most beautiful place in the world? There's no way I could even get there and why want for what one can not fiscally or logically have? And how much more can a person desire? I already wished for World Peace and look at the place. But people, this week I learned that one should let oneself dream. Listen to the Universe and all the talk of Dawson City. Howl back the eternal Yes.

The Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture is hosting the Hundred Dollar Duet on March 26. We'll be coming to Vancouver right after and will be playing around a bit. Thank you KIAC. Thank you Universe.

March 4, 2010

Family Band are coming here.
























We're pleased to announce that we'll be playing a show on March 13th at Double Double Land, which is 209 Augusta. Even happier to say that our great friends Family Band are going to be there, along with our own family, Castlemusic. It's all blood.


It's an early show. Doors at 8pm. Five bucks. We're playing in a new incarnation to psych you out.

Here is how rad Family Band is:




February 9, 2010

SHOWS WITH ATTACK IN BLACK

We're playing with these guys:













10 Feb 2010 E Bar Guelph, Ontario
11 Feb 2010 Casbah Hamilton, Ontario
12 Feb 2010 Call the Office London, Ontario

It's our pleasure.
They look exactly like this in real life.

January 19, 2010

January 30 NYC



















Kim Krans of Family Band who has never made an ugly thing made this:

January 17, 2010

THE LONESOME ACE STRINGBAND and STRIPMALL BALLADS


Alright. We have a real good line up, though a strange line up, and maybe a little bit of an unknown line up. But these unknowns are totally known unknowns. So here are the details about The Lonesome Ace Stringband and Stripmall Ballads.


The Lonesome Ace Stringband is a trio of some of the greatest instrumentalists in this country, if not continent. I know this is a bold claim, but prove me wrong. Try to out fiddle John Showman, I'd like to see it. They all play in the infamous Foggy Hogtown Boys bluegrass. But the trio is different as can only be described by the following official bio:

The Lonesome Ace Stringband are Chris Coole (banjo and guitar), John Showman (fiddle) and Max Heineman (bass). Lonesome Ace lean toward the old-time side of things. They are a band without a website, a cd, or a myspace...they are a mystery...yet a familiar myste
ry...a mystery that fits like a favorite old shirt or glove (or gloves). The Lonesome Ace are students of Melodivisation, an all but forgotten school of music where the musician doesn't play the tune exactly the same way every time, but still plays the melody. Melodivisation takes elements of music, meditation, yoga, chess, tap dancing and jazz-fusion to create a sound that takes the listener on an ofttimes disturbing journey through time and space to the fourth and occasionally fifth dimension. At the root of the sound though, are three brothers and the down-home music they grew up playing and singing back at the old home place.

If you do not know much about the fourth dimension, please educate yourself:



The first guy playing on Friday is the bomb. He goes by "Stripmall Ballads" but he's been known as Phillips Saylor a little longer - he's been playing around America for years though he seems never to have aged past 17. We met him while he was being Carolyn Mark's side guy this summer. He blew our minds with his voice and guitar playing. But then we found out he wrote his own tunes, and the writing's some of the best going on right now in the world of folk or whatever the hell. He lives in DC, so we're lucky he's coming all the way up to play. He'll be on around 9:30 so come out earlier. According to the bio:

Stripmall Ballads is the latest musical manifestation of Phillips Saylor. A devout student of the American roots music tradition, Phillips got schooled on the road, spending his formative years playing shows to hobos under Maryland's rail road bridges, taking up claw hammer banjo and shape note singing in New England and breathing in harmony from the pews of Alabama and Georgia's Primitive Baptist churches. His professional work to date includes touring and collaborating with some of New folk'
s greatest acts, including Sarah Harmer, The Be Good Tanya's, Carolyn Mark, Baby Gramps, Jolie Holland and The Lonesome Brothers, picking and singing everywhere between East Tennessee to Edmonton. Phillips speaks his experience through a varied and dynamic catalog of songs on banjo and guitar.

After five years of fronting the critically acclaimed old-time revival duo, The Shiftless Rounders (featuring Ben Sidelinger), Phillips settled in the heart of the empire- Washington, D.C. and created Stripmall Ballads as a vehicle to focus on his original compositions and contextual performances. With a firm rooting in the traditional, Stripmall Ballads branches out into today's America, fusing virtuosic historical convention with contemporary lyricism. Reviving an old form of showmanship, an engaging form of showmanship, Stripmall Ballads draws out the audience, demanding attention for a new poetry.
Phillips is currently playing and recording his solo work in Stripmall Ballads, and touring with King Wilkie all over the USA. LISTEN TO THE GUY HERE.

January 7, 2010

JANUARY THE 22ND - MY FATHER'S HOUSE RECORD RELEASE




















At the Horseshoe Tavern Entertainment Complex... get your tickets at Rotate This, Soundscapes and the Horseshoe.