Forest City Lovers

We were in studio this week working on a song for an upcoming super awesome compilation. We’ll give you more details when we are allowed to. But I can say that we spent the day with our awesome engineer James Bunton (who also took all the photos) and his super cute kitty. Oh and of course pizza and falafel was involved. See you soon! xo

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

If you were at our Toronto show, you’ll know that there was a tower of cupcakes beside the merch table. They were lovingly made by Claire, Mika and myself and they were free with a pay-what-you-can donation to the food bank. After the show there were a few cupcakes left (I don’t take offense…haha) and a good amount of donations for the local food bank. Today I had some time so I went shopping and donated all the food I bought with your donations to the food bank in West Toronto that feeds local families.

So thank you very much for your kind donations while you [hopefully] enjoyed the treats. xo

O highway I travel! O public road! Do you say to me, Do not leave me?

Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?

Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me?

O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.

- “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman

When you are touring, you get used to being in very close quarters with your bandmates. Squishing in vans, hotel rooms, hanging out and playing music with the same people for an extended period of time can be both challenging and rewarding. It’s a true test of friendship and temperance in all situations, good and bad. I count my band as some of my best friends and  I am so lucky to have a small [but ardent] family of brothers-from-other-mothers and sisters-from-other-misters that enjoy traipsing the land in a rolling block of metal and body odours as much as I do.

This tour was so successful for us, and we can’t thank everyone enough. We were constantly surprised and encouraged at the warmth and positivity we received from so many people we met (and re-met) along the way. I was happy you remembered us! Thank you to our new friends, our old friends and those who opened up their homes, lives, Sunday nights and pocketbooks for us along the way. You make me so excited to be able to do this.

Here are a few highlights:

We are waiting for the Subway sponsorship…

We were the most tanned beach bunnies around.

Evening Hymns + Lovers = Awkward photos

Dear mountains watch over us, we small beings by the sea.

Now it’s time for us to start preparing for the Toronto cd release show and a string of Ontario shows in the fall. You can purchase advance tickets by hitting up your local independent record shop in Toronto. They’ll be available at the door but we always suggest getting advance because this just might..be …a …party.

xo to the moon
-Kat

I am cross posting this with our Exclaim blog for the sole reason that I just had to share the fantastic time we’ve had in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. This has been our absolute most favourite (and awesome!) show on this tour. It all began when a girl called Cindy emailed us and asked us to play her town. I told her, “well, if you can get something together – we’ll be there!” And boy oh boy, did that town ever come together. We had the pleasure of working with Cindy and Shann (a lovely woman who helps run music events in town) who organised our night at the historic Lyric Theatre. The space was beautiful, expansive and old. The building has been saved from demolition by the local volunteer committee and they are working hard to restore it to its original beauty. Originally a popular theatre in war time, with live caberet and silent films, italso featured an apartment complex above the theatre for the caberet performers, and later the widows of the war.

Our show was such a success. We had a great all-ages crowd, so attentive and quiet, and it was really getting to know some of the audience members after the show. I can’t speak more highly of everyone that helped to run the night, they were incredibly hospitible and friendly beyond our wildest dreams. We will DEFINITELY come back to this town. And we have high hopes that others will stray from the Trans-Can and visit this inspiring community.

thank you so very much.

-kat.

Hiya. Kat here. Back from the beautiful bounty of enigmatic England. The trip was brilliant, good shows and lovely people were had. I got hooked on Marmite, cheap Guiness and Gaymers pear cider. Mmmm….

Thank you to everyone that came, played, befriended, helped and supported. Hope to see you very soon. Here is a brief summary of the trip in photo form:

the Canadian Blast group shot in Liverpool

Mika and Kat in Fun-don

Photo by Anika in London (.com)

Homewards bound, oh homewards bound. “Home is not where you live but where they understand you.”

In other news:

- here’s an interview we recently did that you can now feast your online eyes upon: “Forest City Lovers love their Green Space” – Inside Toronto
- keep an eye out early next week for lots of great information including some tour dates, pre-order information and lovely bonuses that we’re throwing in just because we lurve ya.

xo kat

FCL at the Canadian Blast BBQ

We have returned, weary and dizzy, from our fantastic week in Austin, Texas. It was such a vibrant, exciting place for the time we were there. People streaming out of bars at all hours of the day and night, high on life and stuffed with Lone Star and breakfast tacos. I think I ate more burritos and tacos in the last seven days than I have my whole life. That’s including my brief Taco Bell obsession in grade ten…

River runs through it.

The weather was so sunny and cheerful, up until Saturday, and it was a nice respite from the grey Toronto that we’d left.  We spent the week relaxing and hanging out with new and old friends and playing/watching music. We went on a lovely SOCAN boat cruise around the lake and thus, saw Austin from a few different angles. Christian even got a great new haircut in the artist village!

Kyle on the boat.

Combined I think we saw about 50 (or more?!) bands play, and very few of those were from Canada. It was a nice chance to see bands that might not come through Toronto any time soon. My personal favourites were Fool’s Gold (Ethiopian-style you-can’t-stop-dancing), Local Natives (definitely live up to the hype) and Wye Oak.

Big thanks to XM Radio and Six Shooter Records for having us at their amazing Six Shooter House to record a session (you can listen to that here, it’s airing a few more times) and to our hosts Dave and Graeme, amazingly warm ex-pats that showed us a great time. And thank you to SXSW for all the hospitality, amazing food and drinks and lovely Artist Village where we could chill out in the sun. ( All that said, we did have to drive through a snowstorm in Texas and bitter cold winds in Arkansas and Kentucky on the way home. It seemed like the storm was travelling roughly 120km/hr on the same highway as us. Such is life.)

Snow...in Texas?

A big hello to our new friends from near and far and we hope we see y’all again soon!

We’ve posted a couple shows in NY state in April, tell your friends!

Here is a video of an interview with Explore Music that I recently did. Like the plaid? Very Canadian…

xo

kat

Thanks for the photos Karl Raupp.

P.S. Alan Cross now has a copy of our vinyl and that somehow fulfills a dream I’ve had since I was 11!

So we have finished our first chunk of recording with Chris and now we’re on the last leg. How exciting is that? We have 8 songs almost done and another few are wrapping up this month. We are pretty happy with our hard work so far and I hope it’s all worth it. The songs are sounding pretty big, with some new exciting sounds. I hope that this album will be a step forward for our band. We’ve been really working hard to get arrangements together and planning some exciting aural treats. For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos from the studio days!

Kyle rockin' bass.

Percussion masters.

Kat in the studio.

Alligator and chips.

We also got to play some shows lately and I didn’t really bring my camera along BUT I did capture a few good shots our lovely skating day trip in Guelph and of the alligator and chips that Christian and Tim had in Hamilton and the killer game of Guess Who that we played. I wish we could have captured the amazing Outburst sesh we had because it was GOLD.

FCL like ice skating.

Also, you should check out our song If I Were A Tree on the Explore Music Podcast with Alan Cross.

Keep an ear out for me hosting the Grocery List on XM the Verge in the next couple weeks!
Airing:
February 15 at 2:00 & 10:00EST 11:00 & 7:00PST
February 18 at 7:00EST/4:00PST
February 20 at 12:00EST/9:00PST

Until next time, stay warm!

xo Kat

Paris rocks.

Examples:

nice people
beautiful city
good coffee
biere emporter
soiree poche
nouveau amis

c’est tout pour maintnant!
(photos are of our acoustic show in paris at our friend’s flat)