The Bowery Presents

The Bowery Ballroom upcoming shows

Born Ruffians

Winter Gloves / First Rate People

Venue:
The Bowery Ballroom
Date:
Sat 10/02
Notes:
18+
Doors: 8:30 PM / Show: 9:30 PM
$15
Tickets
Winter Gloves
official website
myspace
Winter Gloves began as one guy's way of figuring out how to plug himself into life in the big city. It was a single microphone and minimal equipment gathered into Charles F's downtown Montreal apartment to piece together all the distances he'd covered since growing up in rural Quebec. The jarring shift of such a transition seemed to peek through every chance it could, a constant inspiration as much as frustration that was drafted in the band's self-released Let Me Drive EP of mainly demo tracks. Today, Winter Gloves is Charles F (lead singer/songwriter/wurlitzer), Pat Sayers (drums), Vincent Chalifour (synths) and Jean-Michel Pigeon (guitar/glockenspiel). With only a handful of live shows behind them at the beginning of the 2008, Winter Gloves was already receiving invitations to join bands like Tokyo Police Club on a series of sold-out tour dates. Such well-attended shows helped spread what was becoming the wildfire of the earlier EP demo tracks that spiked on top 10 lists with record downloads after being made available on iTunes, and lead to top pick coverage at both major annual music festivals in Canada, Canadian Music Week and NXNE. After the Canadian release of the band’s full length in the Fall of 2008, the band continued on the same foot as things had started with dates alongside Tokyo Police Club and a slot at Toronto’s Virgin Festival before hitting the road across Canada with Vancouver’s You Say Party! We Say Die! and Quebec’s Beast. Reactions to the album and these shows immediately secured showcase opportunities at International conferences, invitations for further touring and secured spots on “Best of 2008” yearend lists including “Best New Artist” from iTunes Canada. The about a girl LP is ten songs driven by the sounds of keyboards and drums, all wrapped up in a constant buzz of bass and gritty synths.
Born Ruffians
official website
myspace
Enter us! Toronto’s Born Ruffians - Luke Lalonde, Mitch DeRosier and Steve Hamelin. We are the next link in the evolutionary chain of contemporary pop music, mixing drums, bass, and electric guitar, an almost unheard of combination, with bits of harmonium, piano and plenty of “hootin and hollarin' to create a sound we call “the best we could come up with!"

Being a genetically advanced “homo-superior” three-piece, originally from Midland, Ontario, we’ve blazed through the United States of America and Canada twice, in our white, five-seater mini-van, leaving in our wake two clogged toilets and a clogged shower, one crashed into pregnant woman (the child is fine), and hopefully hundreds of satisfied fans. We’re about to embark on that rambunctious journey once again.
First Rate People
myspace
A year ago, FIRST RATE PEOPLE were an acoustic folk-rock outfit playing R.E.M. covers at farmers’ markets and town fairs in their native Owen Sound. But since relocating to Toronto, the band have picked up the indie/R&B gauntlet by inviting cardigan-clad undergrads to grind on the dancefloor to their sample-savvy soul-pop jams. After debuting their slinky first single “GIRLS' NIGHT” a few months ago, the band have racked up not only favourable critical notices from the webzine world, but testimonials from celebrity admirers including Matt Berninger of THE NATIONAL and filmmaker VINCENT MOON.

The band’s EP, It’s Never Not Happening, shows that “Girls' Night” was no one-off fluke, further consolidating their bookish indie-pop base with lush disco grooves on tracks like “ORION” and “CHARLIE KAUFMAN”. But even as the band transform themselves from acoustic strummers into cosmopolitan pop producers, FIRST RATE PEOPLE aren’t about to forget their roots — they’ve already got the third weekend of August booked off for a return to Owen Sound’s Summerfolk fest. - Stuart Berman (PITCHFORK , EYE WEEKLY)
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