Tag: The Smashing Pumpkins

Music Festivals by William Ruben Helms

Spring and summer, along with warmer weather are just around the corner. And you know what that means? Festival announcements, followed by festival season.

Presented by Bell and Coors Light, OSHEAGA Music and Arts Festival‘s 17th edition will take place August 2, 2024 – August 4, 2024 in Montréal‘s gorgeous Parc Jean-Dreapeau. Over the course of 16 previous editions, OSHEAGA has become a global reference for great music and top-notch festival experiences: Attendees come to the Montréal and the festival to experience something that they simply can’t find anywhere else. Located on two islands, one which is man-made, just off the shore of Montréal Island and Vieux Montréal, Parc Jean-Drapeau was the site of the Expo 1967. The park has one of the most stunning views of Montréal’s skyline and Mont Royal, and while in the park, you’re able to catch a wide variety of artists, both emerging and established across an array of genres.

Festival organizers and books have curated this year’s festival with the explicit mission of appealing to fans of every genre, style and generation. Grammy nominated, rinsing folk pop artist Noah Kahan will be headlining the festival’s first day, August 2, playing what will be a rare festival set this summer. Fans of singer/songwriter pop can also catch Hozier, who played a sold-out show at Laval’s Place Bell last year; Teddy Swims, the genre-bending artist, who has dominated Tik Tok; Melanie Martinez, the alt-pop phenom, who has amassed over 12 billion streams and more; and singer/songwriter and actor Reneé Rapp, who starred in the Broadway production of Mean Girls — and played a much-talked about, sold-out show at MTELLUS last October.

If you dig punk and alt rock — and you were a child of the 90s or came of age in the 90s, OSHEAGA has got something for you: 90s punk icons Green Day will be headlining the festival’s second day, August 3. Fully expect to hear tunes from Dookie, American Idiot and more. But personally, I’d love to hear songs off Warning. Beloved old-school punks Rancid, rising Los Angeles rockers The Linda Lindas, riot grrrl legends Sleater-Kinney and The Smashing Pumpkins are the day’s biggest names. The Smashing Pumpkins return to the OSHEAGA stage for the first time in 17 years.

SZA, the biggest name in pop at the moment will be headlining the festival’s third and final day. And if you dig genre-bending pop anthems. T-Pain will be making his OSHEAGA debut. The festival’s bill features a wide variety of Afrobeats and Afropop including Grammy Award winner Tyla, who won the first ever Best African Music Performance Award for her global smash hit “Water;” Nigerian artist Ayra Starr; Haitian artist Michaeël Brun, who played a sold-out Festival International de Jazz Montréal show last year.

If you’re a hip-hop head who digs both chart-topping and underground emcees from across the globe, OSHEAGA will have something for you: This year’s lineup will feature Denzel Curry; Bronx emcee Lil Jay, who played Place Bell back in 2022; Swedish, experimental beat-driven sensation Bladee; British emcee Skepta, who has made a name for himself for pairing UK grime-driven bars with Afrobeat influences; Belgian emcee Hamza, who spits bars in a silky French; and Moroccan emcee ElGrandeToto.

If you dig electronic dance music, OSHEAGA will have something for you: Wildly popular Dutch DJ and producer Martin Garrix, who headlined last year’s îLESONIQ Festival will be playing; acclaimed French electronic duo Justice will be playing OSHEAGA to support their first album of original material in seven years; British electronic music artist and producer Labrinth, best known for the music in acclaimed series Euphoria will be making a rate live appearance this year, too. Additionally, there’ll be live performances from Overmono, Iréne Drésel, Confidence Man, The xx‘s Romy and DJ sets from Uncle Waffles and Mochakk.

This year’s edition will also proudly showcase homegrown acts. Roughly a third of the 2024 lineup features artists from Québec and Canada at large, including Ontario-based TALK, an acclaimed, multi-Juno Award-nominated, bilingual artist, with massive following in la belle province will be playing the festival. Acclaimed, Prince Edward Island-based indie outfit Alvvays are on the bill. Local funk outfit Clay and Friends, who I believe I caught at M for Montréal in 2019 or so will be playing. ASDIQ Félix Award winner CRi and local hip-hop outfit Planet Giza will also be playing on the OSHEAGA stage.

3 Day Tickets are already available. Single-day tickets go on sale Friday at 10:00am. Pricing and links are below y’all.

OSHEAGA 2024 TICKET PRICES
(Taxes and service fees included. Prices are subject to change without notice.)

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET / SINGLE-DAY: starting at $165 CAD
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET / 3-DAYS: starting at $395 CAD

CASINO DE MONTRÉAL GOLD TICKET / SINGLE-DAY: starting at $320 CAD
CASINO DE MONTRÉAL GOLD TICKET / 3 DAYS: starting at $745 CAD

PLATINUM TICKET / SINGLE-DAY: starting at $685 CAD
PLATINUM TICKET / 3 DAYS: starting at $1,620 CAD

American Express Cardmembers can get Front Of The Line® presale tickets started yesterday at 10:00am ET and goes until tonight at 10:00pm ET tonight.

Click HERE to take advantage of the offer.

3-Day Tickets are available here: https://osheaga.com/en/tickets-osheaga-2024

Single Day Tickets will be available here, tomorrow morning: https://osheaga.com/en



Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay MUNYA Tackles The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight Tonight”

I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of virtual ink covering the rising Québec-born and-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer Josie Boivin, the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project and JOVM mainstay act MUNYA over the past couple of years.

And if you’ve been frequenting this site over that same period, you may recall that when Boivin was asked to play at 2017’s Pop Montreal, she had only written one song. Ironically, at the time, Boivin never intended to pursue music full-time; but after playing at the festival, she quickly realized that music was what she was meant to do. So, Boivin quit her day job, moved in with her sister and turned their kitchen into a home recording studio, where she wrote every day. Those recordings would become part of an EP trilogy with each individual EP named after a significant place in Boivin’s life: Her debut North Hatley EP derived its name from one of Boivin’s favorite little Québecois villages. Her second EP, the critically applauded Delmano EP derived its name from Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based bar Hotel Delmano. The third and final EP of the trilogy, Blue Pine derived its name from the Blue Pine Mountains in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Since the release of her critically applauded EP trilogy, the Québecois JOVM mainstay has released a string of singles including the Washed Out-like “Pour Toi,” a single centered around the aching and unfulfilled longing of being forced to speak to a loved one from a distance. Boivin has also been busy working on her highly-anticipated full-length debut Voyage to Mars. 

With a background in opera and jazz, Boivin’s life has been centered around two big dreams: to be a musician — and to go to Mars. “I love space. I love aliens. I love thinking that we’re not alone in this big strange universe,” she says. “Those things give me hope.” Naturally, that hope led to Voyage to Mars, an album that derives its title from Georges Méliès’ classic silent film Le Voyage dans la Lune. Slated for a November 5, 2021 release through Luminelle Recordings, the album’s material feels beamed in from another, more beautiful and whimsical world. 

Last month, I wrote about Voyage to Mars‘ first official single “Cocoa Beach.” Deriving its title from the name of a Florida town, located about 15 miles from the John F. Kennedy Space Center, the song features a driving and funky bass line, four-on-the-floor, squiggling Nile Rodgers-like guitar, glistening synth arpeggios and Boivin’s dreamily coquettish vocals singing lyrics in English and French. The song is centered around the JOVM mainstay’s unerring knack for crafting a razor sharp, infectious hook — and fittingly, a ton of space and space travel-related imagery.

“’Cocoa Beach’ is a song about being fearless, about finding your inner force and embracing failure as your path to happiness,” Boivin explains in press notes. “It’s about pushing yourself over your limits and accomplishing the impossible through sheer force of will. It takes courage, dedication and many failures to reach your dreams…and that is the origin story of MUNYA.”

Voyage to Mars‘ latest single is a slow-burning cover of The Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Tonight, Tonight.” The cover sees the JOVM mainstay stripping some of the original’s bombast away for an intimate, bedroom pop-like production centered around shimmering and reverb drenched guitars and skittering beats paired with Boivin’s ethereal and plaintive vocals. But what the MUNYA covers does is retain the song’s melancholy and wistful air within a breezy, hook driven framework.

“My sister shared the ‘Tonight, Tonight’ video with me at a very young age, I vividly remember feeling certain emotions for the first time: longing, sadness and a hopeful melancholy,” Boivin says in press notes. “In a weird way it was also my introduction to exploring space and the infinite possibilities that humans can achieve if they embrace the urgency of now. With everything going on, I felt like it was time to share my love for this song and hopefully inspire a new generation to realize life is a galaxy of endless possibilities, as long as we don’t hesitate and act now.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding member Hugh Matthews (guitar and vocals), Drew Schapper (drums and Johnny Moretti (guitar) Melbourne, Australia-based shoegaze trio Pretty City can trace their origins to when Matthew sent demos to Schapper and Moretti, who all knew each other from Melbourne’s music scene. And as the story goes, after two rehearsals the newly formed trio began playing shows around Australia and receiving attention for a sound that’s indebted to The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and The Smashing Pumpkins; in fact, their Heights EP was released in 2013 to critical praise from several national outlets including The Music.

Building upon the success of Heights, the band recently finished a tour of Australia’s East Coast to support the release of their critically applauded single “Mary Go Round” and to build buzz for the forthcoming release of their full-length debut effort, Colorize. The album’s latest single “Running Around” is an enormous, arena-friendly song with equally enormous and anthemic hooks paired with dense, fuzzy, feedback slathered power chords, thundering drumming and earnestly sung vocals in a song that channels classic Brit Pop and shoegaze — but with a modern sheen and earnestness that ensures that their sound and aesthetic isn’t derivative.

The Australian trio plans to make their Stateside debut during next month’s SXSW in Austin, and I suspect that we’ll be hearing quite a bit more about them over the next few months.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past few months, you may recall that I wrote about the British and Brazilian industrial rock band Plastique. Comprised of vocalist Anelise Kunz, multi-instrumentalist Fabio Couto and producer Gabriel Ralis, formed back in 2010 and with the release of their self-titled debut and their sophomore effort, #SocialScar, the trio received both national and international attention for a sound that’s inspired by Nine Inch Nails. Garbage, PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp, Brody Dalle, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Prodigy and The Beastie Boys. Adding to a growing national and international profile, the band was named one of the Top 5 in Marshall’s Ultimate Band Contest in 2013.

Naturally, wanting to build upon the steadily growing buzz around the band, the members of the trio initially went into the studio with the intention of expanding upon the sound that had won them attention. But once they started writing material they realized that they all feeling an inordinate amount of pressure to come up with something new, and as the story goes they went on a hiatus with the hopes that some time off would help. As the band’s Anelise Kunz mentioned in press notes their first single in some time “Quake,” “came out as a sign of hope . . . there was no pressure, the vocal jam just happened, and soon we were all involved in getting this one ready to go!”

“Lips,” Plastique’s latest single is informed by a series of demos the band had recorded while working on their previous single “Quake,” and in many ways that spirit of experimentation informed the track. Sonically, the song pairs layers of scuzzy, heavy metal-like guitars, industrial clang and clatter, propulsive drum programming and anthemic hooks that you can imagine a crowded club of enthusiastic fans shouting along to paired with Kunz’s sneering, growling punk-leaning vocals. In some way, the song (to my ears, at least) reminds me of the punishing forcefulness of Ministry (in particular, “What About Us?” one of my favorite Ministry songs) with the attitude of Garbage (in particular, “Supervixen“). Throughout the song you can tell that the band does not fuck around; they’re going to take names and kick ass — but with an irresistible sultriness.

 

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Inspired by Nine Inch Nails. Garbage, PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp, Brody Dalle, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Prodigy and The Beastie Boys, the British industrial rock band, Plastique formed in 2010. Comprised of vocalist Anelise Kunz, multi-instrumentalist […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

A Q&A with The Lonely Wild’s Andrew Carroll

The Los Angeles-based band, The Lonely Wild’s debut EP, Dead End landed at number 19 on this site’s Best of 2011 list. Through that debut, the band won quite a bit of attention throughout the blogosphere, and […]