Well, it was sort of my first foray into the Halifax scene. While I’d gone to a couple of the Halifax Pop Explosion shows, this was the first time I’d gone and checked out some of the local acts in their natural habitats.

First off, Halifax has a lot of café’s where people perform acoustic stuff, possibly because folk music is pretty big out on the East Coast. So, Saturday morning I decided I’d go check out a cool guy here named Ben Caplan play a set at the Ouro Preto Café which is pretty close to where I live.

So, at around 2:00 PM Ben started his solo set, which was pretty solid. Ben’s got some nice singing and playing technique, better than your average dude with a guitar, and his songs are pretty good. Some are fun, some are serious, some are a little bit of both. He also played two solid covers: the first was Bob Dylan’s “A Simple Twist of Fate” off Blood on the Tracks, the second was Wilco’s “Poor Places” off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. For the later, he had some kind of pedal that, at the end of the song, made it sound like a jet airplane was falling apart overhead. It was pretty cool.

I went out to try and get enough money for a second hot chocolate but alas, my checking account has no more money left in it (I’m trying to find a job at the moment…waiting for some call backs…any day now).

So I came back and Ben had a nice little three piece going on, with some dude on bass and this King’s girl named Fey playing violin. And man, Fey was rocking that fucking violin: bitch can play! Er, um, respectable young woman can play, really. Her violin actually really spiced up the whole set-up and so Ben delivered another nice little set.

In the evening I went out to see this show at North St. Church. The point of the show was to send this kid Sam to Ethiopia…where he will effectively save Ethiopia. Or something like that.

The first band I saw was The Lamp Shades (at least I think it was The Lamp Shades), which was two chicks and two dudes doing their own little pop thing. None of them were post-high school and they looked even younger. Still, they weren’t bad, they had the right idea, and that counts more than anything.

Then came The Gamma Gamma Rays, who were actually pretty good. They had a nice little indie-pop thing going with keyboards and the guitars and the girl playing mandolin and such. It was good stuff.

So in case any of you don’t know, I’m moving to Halifax in about two or so months. That’s right, sir grubbington the third is going to Kings university. Of course, regardless of where I go, there will be music, and I want know about it. I did a little looking into Halifax’s music scene and found out about a great band that released a great little album last year. That band is this week’s Band of the Week:

DOG DAY!!!

Dog Day is the quintessential indie pop band. Playful synths? Check. Female Vocals? Check-la-la. Quircky male lead vocals a la Tokyo Police Club or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Most Serene Republic or etc.? Checkasaurus. The requisite guitar and drum sounds + pop hooks? Checkalicious. So why listen to them? Cuz they fucking rock, that’s why! You might be like “Ah, I’ve heard it all before” but comon, it’s like the Beatles in the 60s, you heard the beatles and were like “sweet!” and then there was the zombies and you were like “okay, same shtick but still fucking sweet” and then Pink Floyd released Piper at the Gates of Dawn which was alot of the same shtick except by someone kinda insane and you were like “umm, yeah, fucking awesome”. Well it’s like that.

So on their album Night Group they basically write a bunch of snappy pop tunes featuring all the aforementioned ingredients. Unlike Tokyo Police Club though, the tunes DONT all the sound the same…as great as the sound may be. That being said, it’s not an incredibly eclectic album either, but it doesn’t need to be, especially at this stage in the game. They came out with an album that introduces their cool sound and it’s tight and consistent. So check it out. It’s catchy!

http://www.myspace.com/dogdaytheband