Darwin Deez at The Media Club (Vancouver)

People call him a hipster, but when Darwin Deez and his merry band of misfits took the stage, it was quickly apparent that they are actually a group of awkward guys who lose all inhibition when they are in their musical element. There is no Bohemian snobbery, just some really catchy guitar-based pop songs and some whimsical numbers of interpretive dance to famous songs, scattered throughout the Darwin Deez live set.

He only has one album under his belt so far, so he played everyone's favourite song, whether it was the apologetic love poem of “Up in the Clouds”, the clever de-personification of his new uninhibiting lady friend in “Radar Detector” or the dark wishes of endless annoyances upon his non-friend in “Bad Day”. As the show progressed, the dance numbers slowly faded into awkward yet entertaining stage banter, with Darwin repeating his catchphrase, “It just got Coldplay in this bitch!” after every song, and asking us how we say “Cheers!” in Canadian. By this point, his guitarist was loosening up and throwing in all sorts of seamless, yet out-of-key, riffs into the songs. I have a thing for bands that have the ability (and the balls) to throw out the musical math, and the Darwin Deez band has it in spades.

Near the end of the set, Darwin introduced his new rap mixtape Wonky Beats, entirely sampled from Willy Wonka and featuring Das Racist. All his band members participated, dropping beats and raps over the wonky beats. Cole the Guitarist even performed a continuation of Das Racist's hilarious “Shorty Said” — “Shorty said she wants to have a twosome/That's gruesome.” When they finally left the stage, the crowd shouted for an encore while Darwin and his band struggled between their nonconformity (encores are such an overdone routine) and the pressure of their fans to give them one last goodbye, which they did.

Darwin has a few US dates left before he heads to the UK and Germany, followed by an extensive Australian tour in April. His self-titled debut has been out for nearly a year, but is now getting it's official US release through Lucky Number on February 22nd! Cop it at your local record store!

Darwin Deez - Candyman (feat. Donovan Deez) (YSI) from the Wonky Beats Mixtape

Previously: Darwin Deez Q&A

GIVERS at The Biltmore

GIVERS were just starting their new single, “Up Up Up” when I arrived. It was love at first listen back in 2009 when I was among the first to hear and write about them, but this was love on a whole new level. Some bands are great on record and still manage to multiply their energy tenfold for their live show. The song began with an insane drum intro, then frontman Taylor Guarisco's vocals crashed in like a hurricane, rolling his eyes back and jumping around like a mad cowboy.

They started with their lead single, and things only got better from there. Tiffany Lamson, the other side of GIVERS' boy/girl vocal team, wowed the crowd with her dynamic vocals and instrumental ability, quickly jumping from drums to glockenspiel to ukulele. Halfway through the set, a couple of members from headlining band Ra Ra Riot came onstage to accompany GIVERS on violin and electric cello. Unless I missed it at the beginning, they didn't play my favourite, “Ceiling of Plankton”, which was the only downside to one of the tightest and most creative live shows I have ever seen.

This was the last show of their tour with Ra Ra Riot, but check them out at SXSW in March and Sasquatch in May! You can download their debut EP and a new promo for their upcoming debut LP at their Bandcamp page.

GIVERS - Saw You First (YSI)

Darwin Deez Q&A and Tour Preview

Darwin Deez is best described by random YouTube comments. Watch one of his music videos and you'll find comments like “i feel so much more hipster after watching this video”, “hes so retardedly happy” and “This guy is definitely Moss of The IT Crowd.”



He has just started his first headlining tour in North America and we'll be seeing him on Monday at The Media Club in Vancouver. Before his tour kicked off, we wrote him to answer a few questions.

SK: Hey Darwin! Glad to have you here on Silence Killer, if only by email. I understand you're back home in North America for another tour. How was the UK tour with Little Comets?
DD: Love those guys so much. They are so so so sweet. And manly. We had a good time prank calling their music biz contacts at 2 am in a Travelodge. And they rock.

SK: A lot of bands are terrible at describing their own music within traditional genres. Tell me about your music, using big and unusual words.
DD: It's heliocentric and electrochemical...not. Ummm, it's minimal. If i say it's minimalistic is that a bigger word? It's simple and funkadociously fresh. I don't like big words, I guess. I like to be very clear and specific as much as possible! I always just call it homemade, authentic indie pop/rock.

SK: Math time. ____ + ____ = Darwin Deez. First things that come to mind. Don't say MGMT + Yo Gabba Gabba. Those are mine.
DD: Thriller + Dismemberment Plan?

SK: Where do you go when your creative parts are in need of new inspiration?
DD: I don't know. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I guess. My parents' house, in other words.

SK: I think your jheri curl/pornstache combo is a perfect fit for the Deez steez. Do people ever make awkward comments about it, or tug your curls to see if they're real?
DD: Thank you! It's something. I like the way they both frame my face so I've kept them. And it's good to be recognizable in this business. And yes comments, and yes tugging.

SK: What do you do in the "green room" to prepare yourself before your set?
DD: Eat Asian food, I guess. And hope it doesn't sit too heavy in there while I'm dancing around like an idiot!

SK: Often when I go to a concert, the band says that they love the audience and it's their favourite place to play, but sometimes I think they just say that to every audience. What is your actual favourite place you've played?
DD: Seattle. But Vancouver was also a great show (that's the stage persona talking). We were opening for Bishop Allen and Throw Me the Statue last year and we actually got encored. As an opener!

SK: Tell me one popular band/singer/musician you're into right now, and one not-popular one. Then tell me your favourite album of 2010.
DD: One popular band I'm into is the Floyd. I'm having a moment for Dark Side of the Moon this week. A not popular one is my friend Jacob Ciocci's noise band, Extreme Animals. My favorite album of 2010 is Shut Up, Dude by Das Racist. Their first mixtape. Genius.

SK: I love your lyrics. You definitely stand out, lyrically, amongst the bands I'm into right now. What is the cleverest line you've written?
DD: Sweet, thank you! I think it might have been this rap couplet: “Rayanne Graf takin' a spray tan bath with Ray Bans on / the gay man's gone / for Christmas / Ricki / chasin' Angela Chase / wish she / was my so-called wife.” But you have to be a My So-Called Life fan to get it. Maybe “You are a radar detector...[because] you are always looking out for me.” That one's for everybody, but again you have to be familiar with an uncommon piece of electronics to get it!

SK: That's all! Any parting words for my readers and your fans?
DD: Please come to our show in Vancouver and check out myspace.com/friendsband and listen to “Friend Crush.” This band of our buddies will be gigging with us and it's one of my favorite songs of 2010. It's actually worth visiting myspace for!



Darwin will be at The Media Club in Vancouver on Monday, supported by Fol Chen, followed by twenty US dates, ending in New York City. Pick up his self-titled album anywhere or come see him live! I hear he likes dancing.

The Dandy Warhols at The Commodore

The Dandy Warhols have always been a guitar band. There was the exception of their sixth album, 2003's Welcome to the Monkey House, which was an electropop side-project in all but name, having been produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes. The record label took things further than The Dandys were comfortable with, resulting in the band releasing the original mix of Monkey House in 2009 as The Dandy Warhols Are Sound. The Monkey House version of the album is actually better, but it's still a bastardization of who The Dandy Warhols really are—a rock band that has spent their career caught between the post-grunge underground rock snobs (mostly journalists) who think they're sellouts and the psychedelic stoner rockers who love them anyway. In either case, they're not an overproduced pop band, but The Dandys really don't give a fuck. Sure, they were never major label material anyway, but whatever—now they have their own record label and all the benefits from years of major label publicity.

When it comes to their live show, they still just do whatever the hell they feel like doing. They began the show with no entrance, no lights were dimmed, but as soon as they walked onstage, they went into a distorted, noisy and altogether monstrous version of “Be-In”, the opening track off their sophomore album Come Down. “We're a dramatic shoegaze band that plays music so epic that your whole body will hear it when you close your eyes. Just kidding! Now we're a pop band!” No one actually said that, but they went straight from the throbbing massiveness of “Be-In” to their electropop hit “We Used to Be Friends”, aka the Veronica Mars theme song. But, rather than playing it the way Duran Duran intended, they made it a guitar song, and did an OK job of it.

By this point, the cloud of smoke over the stage from the smoke machines and the cloud of smoke over the crowd (of a more natural origin) had joined. Everyone was blazing and I was starting to feel high just from breathing. I don't know exactly where the Dandys lie between stoner rock and alternative rock or grunge or whatever, but in Vancouver, all rock is stoner rock. Call them what you want, but the Dandys are rockstars. We came to see a rock show and damn if they didn't give it, playing song after song from all over their discography, drinking and bantering between songs about how they were going to take all 900 of us at the sold-out show to Morrissey's for the afterparty—200 people inside and 700 on the street, having a toke with the band. But mostly, the just rocked out nearly two hours. At some point around the end, it looked like they were going to finish with some ridiculously random beatboxing and sound effects back-and-forth between Court and Zia. I think they played something after that, but by that time I was too exhausted, thirsty and high from second-hand tokes to remember or to take notes. No encore necessary—I think one guy yelled “one more song!” and then realised that the Dandys had just sated us with a show more than twice as long as most bands will do nowadays.

Catch The Dandy Warhols in Seattle tonight (Friday) or any of their six remaining west coast dates!

If I just introduced you to the Dandys for the first time with this sweet review, here's a couple tracks to get you started.
The Dandy Warhols - Be-in (1997) (YSI)
The Dandy Warhols - The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers AKA The Ballad of Sheriff Shorty (2008) (YSI)

Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates

The last time we reviewed Cosmo Jarvis, he was singing a charming song about Melanie, the girl next door and the grimy-but-cute boy who is in love with her. Cosmo is back with a fiery new single “Gay Pirates”, which is well, a love song about gay pirates. He brings on the charm once again, turning whatever you'd expect from the title, into a tragic ballad of two swashbuckling lovers.

Buy the single on January 23rd or pre-order it now from Cosmo Jarvis, where you can also download an acoustic version of the song! The single is the first from his upcoming sophomore album Is the World Strange Or Am I Strange?, slated for late March 2011. If you're in the UK, he has a few upcoming live dates before Christmas!

Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates (Acoustic) (YSI)
Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates (Live) (YSI)

Biltmore Double Feature: Diamond Rings and Bonjay

Some bands sound good, albeit toned down, when you hear them on record. Then you go see them live and you're absolutely blown away by their energy and their immense stage presence. I have a strange habit of finding bands likes this. First there was The Bloody Beetroots show a few weeks ago, which the most explosive electronic show I've seen since Massive Attack. Then last week I saw Mayer Hawthorne, who sounds soulfully mellow on record, but puts on a show that induces an earthquake of nonstop dancing madness.

Tonight was double feature night at The Biltmore. Two separate shows, with Diamond Rings and a slew of opening acts taking the early show, followed by Bonjay for the late-night dance party.

During the opening acts, what really hit me hard was the driving electro sound of Vancouver's own Humans. I haven't found the one song I really liked that he sang about his shoes, but I'm listening to their album right now and I found another one. Avec Mes Mecs is their new album and the title track has my stamp of approval.

Humans - Avec Mes Mecs (YSI)

Diamond Rings has it all: a glamorous image, a riveting stage presence and a way of making his live music sound even bigger and better than the record. Between opening acts I was actually reading an article about him in the local Beatroute mag. John O'Regan's colourful new project had rather humble beginnings. He was hospitalized with Crohn's disease in the summer of 2008, but once he was recovering, he brought in his acoustic guitar and little Casio keyboards to write music. By the end of his hospital stay, he had the nurses coming in on their breaks and he would play for them.

He took the stage, instantly heating up the crowd with his scorching electro beats and his low-range indie rock voice. He sounds like a less-gloomy Matt Berninger, the frontman from The National. And he can dance! He was all over the stage, which had a mic for him on each side, one with his table of beat machines and one with his electric guitar. His shirt came off within a few songs (I still don't believe that The Biltmore actually installed air conditioning) and he showed off an elaborate necklace that his friend crafted for him from, in his words, at least five organic free-range unicorns. It seems that Diamond Rings has taken a lesson from fellow Toronto glam electro artist Peaches. Image is everything and extravagance is essential when it comes to live electronic music.

Diamond Rings got cut off at 11pm, after what seemed like a very short set. The crowd definitely wanted more, but there was nothing he could do about The Biltmore's "curfew". The stupid thing is, the next act, Bonjay, still didn't go on til after midnight.

Diamond Rings - All Yr Songs (YSI)
Diamond Rings - It's Not My Party (YSI)

After Diamond Rings, I left to find some late-night pizza. When I returned, there was a huge lineup of people waiting to join the Bonjay dance party. Luckily I had already been stamped, so I skipped the line and went inside. Bonjay started with that awesome song I already knew, “Stumble”, which is technically dancehall but is seriously sidetracked into experimental territory. It's like an atomic collision between Major Lazer, Animal Collective and maybe Rainbow Arabia.

A few songs later, they covered Caribou's “Jamelia”, which I didn't really take to when it made its rounds through the blogs, but Bonjay's Alana Stuart sang this one with so much intensity that I'm going to have to give it another run in my playlist. Next up was my favourite, “Frawdulent” which had a massive breakdown that doesn't appear in the recording. Their set felt a bit short as well, but Bonjay has only released on EP so far, so they had actually exhausted all their material.

Bonjay - Stumble (YSI)
Bonjay - Frawdulent (YSI)

Next up for Bonjay is Calgary on the 24th, as they head east across Canada for 6 more dates, then a couple US shows. Their debut EP Broughtupsy is out now on Mysteries of Trade.

Diamond Rings heads south for 11 US dates, starting on the 23rd in Los Angeles. His debut album Special Affections is out now on Secret City.

Doomtree's First Tour Hits Vancouver

Doomtree is a diverse collective of hip-hop artists from the Midwest, home of hip-hop's most underrated scene. Rhymesayers' own P.O.S heads up the crew, which includes an array of emcees and producers extraordinaire, Paper Tiger and Lazerbeak. When I talk to people from the Midwest, they have nothing but the highest praises for Doomtree, who many would consider the cornerstone of hip-hop in Minnesota. I have deep roots in one of Canada's finest hip-hop scenes, so this was a show I simply couldn't miss.

When I arrived at the Biltmore, Lazerbeak was already on stage. He usually takes the background position of producer, but right now he's Doomtree's rockstar of the moment. He just released his debut solo album, which I've been getting into lately. The album has an organic electronic feel to it, with catchy melodies and some great singing by Lazerbeak himself. For his set, he played electric guitar while Dessa backed him up on vocals and the others took over the tracks and drum machine.

I guess Doomtree likes to serve dessert first, starting things up with Lazerbeak before moving on the main course of breakbeats and underground raps. P.O.S brought the crowd into a frenzy with his double-time raps and triple-time breakbeat of “Drumroll (We're All Thirsty)”. I've seen him once before, and we was on fire as usual—onstage he's loud, excited and loves interacting with the crowd. Cecil Otter came up next with some raps from the deep, dark underground that brought me back to 5 years ago, watching my friends perform show after show in the local hip-hop scene.

Sims was next. His voice dominates and his rapid-fire flow feels like he's imprinting a headnodding subroutine into your subconscious. I can see why he received such high critical acclaim from URB Magazine and Okayplayer. His last album was in 2005, so I was glad to hear when he mentioned he has a new album with Lazerbeak coming out soon.

The emcees took a few more rounds, when finally singer/emcee/poet Dessa came up front to perform material from her new album A Badly Broken Code. It felt like a lot of the audience had been waiting for her, and despite an apparent headcold, she graced the mic beautifully.

Doomtree continued their rounds, including some great collaborations from their various albums, until finally Sims, Dessa and P.O.S brought the almost 3-hour set to a close with the “uh huh, uh huh, it's real gold!” chorus of P.O.S's “Low Light Low Life”. No encore necessary—Doomtree had just served us all dessert and a six-course meal of P.O.S, Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger, with seconds all around. Damn, I'm glad I chose that over karaoke last night.

Tonight they play Portland and then 21 more dates across the states and Canada. And of course, here are my top picks from Doomtree's latest offerings:
Doomtree - Dots and Dashes (YSI)
Doomtree - Kid Gloves (YSI)
Lazerbeak - Dream Team (YSI)
P.O.S - Goodbye (YSI)
P.O.S - Drumroll (We're All Thirsty) (YSI)
Dessa - Seamstress (YSI)