22 FEBRUARY @ LONDON MUSIC CLUB, LONDON- ALL AGES -
7.30pm – doors
8.00pm – Bryce Jardine, London local who is releasing his new cd very soon!
8.45pm – Sam Allen, hometown favourite.
10.00pm – Forest City Lovers, who are very very excited to be back in London.
$10 in advance at the venue or [click] / $12 at the door.

23 FEBRUARY @ VAN GOGH’S EAR, GUELPH
8.30pm – doors
9.45pm – The Cry Break - a heartbreakingly beautiful new band of Guelph alumni
10.30pm – Forest City Lovers, who are also very excited to come to Guelph!
$10 in advance at the venue / $12 at the door.

25 FEBRUARY @ THE TRANZAC, TORONTO
Out of this Spark (our label) 5th Anniversary
Lots of music in every room of the building, all night!
Featuring Forest City Lovers, Snowblink, The Meek, Jenny Omnichord, Richard Laviolette
$15 advance/door, available at Soundscapes, Rotate This

Capacity for all the shows is limited so buy your tickets in advance if you can! We wanna see you! xoxoxo

I hope your year has gotten off to a great start. Holy moly, it’s 2012! Mine certainly is starting well as I am leaving the (barely) wintry skies of Toronto and getting on an airplane to fly a few hours away. I’m taking a lovely vacation on the west coast to get some much needed sunshine and warm air. Sorry, no shows out here this time, this is pure vacay! And much needed. But when I get back, we will have a few shows to announce in Southern Ontario and some other upcoming fun things. So stay tuned!

keep warm
-kb

From their website: When a homeowner can’t keep up with the abundant harvest produced by their tree, they let us know and we mobilise our volunteers to pick the bounty. The harvest is split three ways: 1/3 is offered to the tree owner, 1/3 is shared among the volunteers, and 1/3 is delivered by bicycle to be donated to food banks, shelters, and community kitchens in the neighbourhood so that we’re putting this existing source of fresh fruit to good use. It’s a win-win-win situation!

From us: We have friends that volunteer for this org. They have a blast picking and it’s really amazing how it helps foster the neighbourhood community. The food bank gets fresh, ripe fruits to dispense to those who need it and the people that help out get something too. Pretty neat eh?

This month we will donate $1 to NFFTT for each t-shirt, tote bag or cd that we sell on our tour [dates] or through our online store [link]. And, as a bonus, we’ll donate another $0.50 if you take a photo of you with your swag and tag it on our Facebook page. Easy enough, eh? Go tell your friends.

We are excited to spread the word about NFFTT and hope that it will encourage groups to start in other cities. We’ll see you on the road!

xo
Kat

You may or may not know that I have a strong predilection for a good stop motion film; ones that are really old are even better. This beautiful selection of rolling and jumping clay comes from the film ‘Gumbasia’ (1955) by the very talented Art Clokey. You know Gumby and Pokey? Yep, same guy. He actually just died last year and it’s worth reading a bit about his life if you’re interested [click].

We have some new arrangements, new merch and lots of energy and we’d love to share with you. Please spread the word that we’re heading your way!

xo
Kat

November Dates:

5/ London, ON – APK Live
15/ Thunder Bay, ON – The Apollo
16/Winnipeg, MB – The Lo Pub
17/ Saskatoon, SK – The Fez
18/ Calgary, AB – The Palomino
19/ Edmonton, AB – The Black Dog
21/ Kelowna, BC – The Bean Scene
23/ Vancouver, BC – Railway Club
25/ Edmonton, AB – The Haven
26/ Regina, SK – The Exchange
29/ Sudbury, ON – Fromagerie Elgin

And  if you didn’t catch it when Exclaim magazine premiered it earlier this week, we have a new video out.  The parts that have Kat in it were filmed on the darkened streets of Oshawa Ontario. We’d like to thank everyone for not complaining about all the fireworks goin’ down in the park…

Greetings from Oakland, California. I’m in the Bay area for a few weeks to get some major writing done, check out the sea lions and play a few shows. If you are around please come out and say hello, slam down a high five or just tell me where the best taco truck is in LA.

September:
4 – Outdoor picnic show at Mosswood Park Amphitheatre, Oakland. Details/RSVP
5 – School Night at Bardot, Hollywood. Details/RSVP: itsaschoolnight.com
9 – Hotel Cafe, 1623 N. Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles. Early show 7pm. Details: Special show, no advance tickets, just at the door!  MAP
17 – Isla Vista Festival, Santa Monica. Details/RSVP

bye!

Happy summertime, everyone. Well, in the Northern Hemisphere anyways….

How has yours been so far? Done any amazing things? School’s out (yay!), lunch breaks at work can be spent outside (yay!) and if you’re lucky enough to be “funemployed”, there are so many adventures to be had (yayay!). Here at the Forest City Lovers camp, we’ve been taking it sort of easy this summer.

Oh, we totally played a high school prom though, and it was super FUN. [click]

and had a lot of fun at NXNE (Thanks Toronto!)

Everyone in the band’s been doing different things, keeping busy and creative over the last little while. Over in my corner, I’ve been spending my summer vacation holed up at my favourite-place-in-the-city-but-not on Toronto Island, making noise, crafts and paintings [click]. It’s a pretty special place. If you’re interested in the goings-on you can check it out over at my other blog [click]

I’m also super excited about a project we’re working on with the talented writer Michael Barclay [click] to celebrate the re-release of his book, “Have Not Been the Same”. I am picking up my copy next week, Kyle got his in mail a couple weeks ago and we all suggest you go pick it up and read it. [AMAZON] It’s a fantastic in depth look at some of the artists that rose up in 80s and 90s and became instrumental to the development of what Canadian music is today.

Next week we’ll be heading to Kearney, Ontario to play the quaint River and Sky festival. Looking forward to camping out for the night! Closer to home is Wolfe Island music fest, on the 6th of August in Kingston. There are few things more fun than playing Canadian festivals in the summer, that’s for sure. Something about spending the day outside in the sun (or rain) and the combination of fresh outdoor air and sweaty arm pits is a very, very special thing. Bring your bug spray!

Also, I rarely do this but this but sometimes I feel like sharing things that I think you should read:

The Book of Negroes by Lawerence Hill - I can’t recommend this book more. A fascinating historical fiction piece about a woman and her journey from Africa to the American slave trade and back. It’s a big book but, honestly, I could barely put it down when I started.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistestop Cafe by Fanny Flagg – I had heard about this book (and more about the movie) from my Granny my whole life and finally took the time to read it after returning from the Deep South. It’s really good, great characters and has sections written from the town gossip’s point of view in her weekly newsletter.
American Chronicle – How to Poison a Milion People by Prentending to Grow Potatoes – this is a very important article to read and if you hav a moment, please educate yourself about this situation. In a nutshell: giant amount of land purchased under the pretense that it would be for potatoes, turns out it’s a private company vying to build a massive quarry.
Sauce Farm - some of our friends live on a farm and do fun things like make syrup out of flowers and sell vintage clothes
Catcalled with Turnips - Liz Schieck writes passionately and anecdotally about food and the creation of such. I help her sometimes and there may or may not be ridiculous photos of me eating things.

xo KB