Forest City Lovers

Dear Friends,

please keep an eye out for us in a town near you. Or maybe we can rendevous at SXSW under the Texan sun?

See y’all soon!

xo kb

CARRIAGE has been nominated for an independent music award. Please take a moment to go vote: HERE

xo

Hey guys, I know we have a small but mighty force behind us. Please, if you haven’t already, take a second and vote for us over at the XM Awards page. We’re really honoured to be  up for album and artist of the year.

xo to the max, Kat

I suggest that you listen to this song while you read this gigantic image-heavy blog post and marvel at the amazing string arrangement and the stunning use of pizzicato.

From this ordinary desk placed beneath an old single pane window (that looks out towards the tops of naked trees and green-and-brown crumbling rooves), I can see the sky is grey and lonesome. There are but two more days left in our year of twenty ten. Often it feels like the year has gone by so fast, but when I stop and reflect on everything that has gone on, there are years of memories dispersed throughout this twenty ten. Here is a sampling of some fun times in our year:

We started off the year in the studio, finishing up Carriage. Here we are making our producer Chris’s head spin with our demands.

Right after we wrapped up mixing the record we all headed down to Texas.

From USA to UK, spent some time reppin’ Canada in England while Carriage got mastered.

Spent the summer touring across Canada and US with lots of good pals (Evening Hymns being one of them). This is about the time that Claire joined our fantastic team to contribute even more beautiful strings to the mix.

We’re not on tour in this photo but just having a summer meeting with our label guru, Stuart. It looks like maybe we were waiting for our delicious food to arrive at this moment judging from our fake smiles. We love the Beaver!

Speaking of food, we heart Tubby Dog and hit it up every time we’re in Calgary. Just think how great we all felt, jiggling along in the van for hours on end, after eating this massive gastro mess? Worth it!

This year we learned how to play Crazy Knucks. We’ll show you sometime…

We released  CARRIAGE in July! This is the only photo I took from the night. I remember I had to run up to the balcony and snap it right before we went on.

“There is nothing more fun to do in Chicago than drink American beer and wear 3D glasses.” Truth.

But posing like this comes in a close second…

Lots happened in between all these photos, but I’m sure you don’t want to spend your whole lunch break looking at photos of our smirking mugs. Here we are at our favourite ‘Dep in New Brunswick posing with a giant pumpkin to begin our mission to take a group photo with every pumpkin we saw, wherever we went.

Towards the end of the year we wrapped up a super fun tour with these guys here and then headed back to our fair city. Our hometown show to cap off the year was a lot (tonnes and tonnes) of fun. We just can’t wait to get back into it next year.

You’ve probably noticed that most of the photos I posted here are of us doing things other than play our instruments. That was done with careful thought, you see, because although the shows are of utmost importance to our career, the friendships/family/fans/adventures in between seem to stay with us most of all. We are forever grateful for your fantastic support, smiles and affections. There are so many places to go and so many people to see., I hope we get there together.  On the note of together – sadly, our dear friend Neil is going through an  illness that needs some good vibes sent his way. Please go to bruce-peninsula.com to hear it from the horses’s mouth.  We hope you’ll send your warm wishes his way and consider donating to Princess Margaret Hospital here:  http://www.pmhf.ca/

As the year comes to a close, and everyone begins to look wistfully behind  them to collect their thoughts, I leave you with this sentiment:

“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, and judgment difficult.” - Hypocrites.

Thank you and xo Kat

We are very excited to announce that we’ve been nominated for an XM Music Award for best album (Carriage) and for artist of the year! If we win, it might be the only chance you’ll ever get to see Kyle wearing a tie. Kidding aside, we’d love your support and if you have about twenty seconds to vote, please do right here:

VOTE NOW

xo to the max,
KB

This past weekend was a lot of fun. We returned from our Pumpkin Patrol tour and played  a big homecoming show in Toronto. It was mega fun, and thank you to our awesome friends Allie Hughes, Hooded Fang and Golden Ghost for joining us on the bill. A few places reviewed the show and have some photos, you can see them here and here.

We’re getting ready to head to Rochester tomorrow to play the best bar with an upside down kitchen on the ceiling, the Bugjar with our friends Viking Moses. We’re heading down to NYC after that to celebrate with the Wild Honey Pie for their 1 year anniversary at the Living Room on Thursday and our first ever show in Brooklyn, with Golden Ghost, at Union Hall on Friday. Saturday brings us to SUNY Binghamton! We’re excited to visit our friends in the tiny town of Endicott and explore the mountains of upstate New York.

We’d love to know if you’re coming! Please RSVP to the Facebook invitations below:

Rochester @ the Bugjar (All Ages!)  VIEW INVITATION BUY TICKETS
Manhattan @ Living Room (Wild Honey Pie 1 yr anniversay, no minors)   BUY TICKETS
Brooklyn @ Union Hall (no minors)  VIEW INVITATION BUY TICKETS
Binghamton @ SUNY (All ages! Free!) VIEW INVITATION

Thanks for making this autumn a blast! xo
-kb

I hope you’ll join us! We’re playing an early (free! all ages!) show at Criminal Records on Thursday the 4th to get you pumped for Friday the 5th. Tell all your friends! xo KB

OCTOBER DATES (for tickets click SHOWS for links)
21- CKDU Lobby, Halifax – All ages 4pm
21- Foggy Goggle, Halifax 19+
24- Muse Artspace, Charlottetown – All ages – 6pm
24- Baba’s Lounge, Charlottetown – 19+ w/ Wilderness of Manitoba
25- Apohadion Theatre, Portland ME w/ Viking Moses
26- Temple Sound + Stage, Boston MA – All ages w/ Viking Moses
27- Bard College, Annendale NY – All ages w/ Viking Moses
28- Annex Theatre, Baltimore – All ages w/ Viking Moses
29- Morning Glory Coffeehouse, Pittsburgh – All ages w/ Viking Moses
30- The Magestic Cafe, Detroit w/ Born Ruffians, Young Rival
31- Happy Hallowe’en!

More dates in November, but they’ll get their own video.

Hope to see you there ! xoxo

Check out our brand new video for Tell Me, Cancer. Directed by our pal Ryan Marr! If you didn’t catch it on Spinner today, check it out below! xo

The shows this weekend were really so lovely. We always love visiting Guelph, a special place for us since most of us go/went to school there, and it was a super awesome sold out show. Thank you Guelph! It was our first time in St. Catharines but you sure brought out the warmth of the city. I am not used to people singing along, so thank you for that, it was such a nice feeling. London, the Forest City that we always hear about, you were great. So supportive to the new Emerging London nights and you packed the new APK Live. Great space, nice vibes all around. Thanks to Paterson for setting up a bumpin show and our friends Bruce Peninsula for tearing the roof off. We ended the weekend by playing at one of our favourite venues in Canada – the Grist Mill. It’s a beautiful historic, wooden mill by the river in Waterloo. Always all ages, always so quiet, and always the most rewarding show to end a tour with. So thank you for being so fantastic.

TO BE NOTED: We really do love cupcakes here at Forest City Lovers headquarters. In fact, if you gave me a cupcake I probably would be more than just a little excited. They are just such bundles of celebration! So imagine our surprise when the lovely Grace Kelly showed up to our London show with handmade custom cakes for our tasting pleasure?! We were stoked to say the least. Look at these things, they are so amazing!  And make sure to visit her Facebook page and drool over the amazing work there (my fav is the crazy bacon cake!).

We have a new video coming out this week – we’ll give you details in the next few days. Montreal this weekend for Pop Montreal and our boys kicking ass on the hockey team (I am the cheerleader this time, but next time, I’m in!).

xo – Kat