Sid Williams Blue Circle Series: The Matinee and Good for Grapes

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Friday, September 19th, 2014
7:30 PM

Two amazing Vancouver bands! GOOD FOR GRAPES Good For Grapes formed in September of 2010, after a group of friends took a trip to Victoria, BC for some modest busking. Since the moment they stepped onto the ferry, they were an attraction. Drawing unexpected crowds, naturally this young and aspiring band took form. Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia this original folk/alternative six-piece group have been gaining momentum ever since they stepped into the music scene. Beginning by supporting charities and foundations, their unique folk sound has been accepted into a large variety of venues. During this time, their live stage performance has evolved into an incredibly active, folk stomping, energetic show, which always results in an extremely enthusiastic and involved audience that is growing at every turn and garnering great reviews. “…beautiful vocal harmonizing, with enough reverb to keep Fleet Foxes afloat.” – John Lucas, The Georgia Straight Entering their very first Battle of the Bands (Rogers urMusic Battle of the Bands), they surprised the community by winning the Vancouver vote. As if this wasn’t enough, venturing further into the competition found them winning the National vote by a landslide, making them the National winners. Soon after, they entered Supernova’s “Band on the Run to the UK” competition. After drawing huge and unexpected crowds to their multiple shows, they quickly won the qualifying round, the city finals, and advanced on to winning the National Vote AGAIN. Ever since, the young band (just out of high school) have been playing an array of shows, appeared on Shaw television, and captured the attention of the Canadian music industry. In the summer of 2011 the band traveled across Canada to Toronto. Here they met with several management firms and agencies, and recorded at the famous Coalition Studios. After finishing the tracks at Vancouver’s own Greenhouse Studios and eager to show the world their unique and widely appealing sound, Good For Grapes independently released their first self-titled EP to rave reviews. “From the first track, it becomes clear that this band has both unique talent and creativity among all five band members, combined with an expanding range of influences from Mumford & Sons to Bon Iver.” – Amy Van Veen, UFV’s Sound Bites from “Cascades” The band’s first official single, “Skipping Stone”, is receiving great reviews and helping the band gain additional exposure through airplay on local Vancouver radio station The Peak FM. Recently, the band joined the Watchdog Management roster (Hedley, Mother Mother, Katzenjammer). With their self-titled EP released and 1st single off to a great start, the band plan to continue touring across Canada throughout the rest of the year. __________________________ THE MATINÉE – back by popular demand! Shoot out the lights, and stone the roses—there’s some strong autobiography going on between the lines of The Matinée’s debut full-length album, We Swore We’d See the Sunrise. Taking its title from a line in “L’Absinthe”— the true story of a night of madness and delirium experienced while on tour in Quebec told between bouts of sparkling down-country guitar work from Matt Rose—what we hear is a band whose five members have known each other since high school, throwing everything they have into a record they’re treating like a milestone. And the work was hard. Emboldened by their third place win in the 2011 Peak Performance Project and the subsequent record deal that followed, The Matinée ducked in and out of different studios, experimented, and generally strove—because they could— to be as great as possible for the year or so they spent working on this much-anticipated release. It all started to gel with Steve Berlin. With REM and The Tragically Hip in his past, it was no surprise when the veteran producer turned out to be a strikingly good fit for the band. His native feel for Americana with a nice fat backbeat—supplied in spades by bassist Mike Young— is right there in the southern rock redux of “Sweetwater” and “Let Her Go”, which recall countless roots-rockers from Ryan Adams to The Sadies. But Berlin and band were both eager to colour outside the lines. The starlit “December Slumber” is like a widescreen sonic painting with pedal steel guitar, while “The Road” is a stadium built anthem that plows the middle ground between rural festivals and the urban hipster ground-zero of your choice. With a live show generally known to be an uproar of stomping, clapping, and blazing chops, The Matinée are in the rare position of being welcome at both. Meanwhile, “Long Way Home” throws different time signatures into its chunky country-rock frame, “Who Stoned The Roses” allows guitarist/back up vocalist Geoff Petrie to highlight the bands attention to harmony, and throughout the album drummer Pete Lemon takes the listener even further into the outer reaches. If the seven Berlin-produced tracks find The Matinée exploring the studio and finding new depth, the two they drummed up in lightning sessions with Hot Hot Heat’s Steve Bays have an almost leavening effect. In particular, “This Town” is an impossibly bright slab of baroque pop with a middle section that could have been smuggled in from Abbey Road. And “Young & Lazy”, as the band well knows—it’s the first single—is an instant classic; three-and-a-half minutes of Tom Petty-esque radio rock in the classic mold, given a light and summery touch by the band and fashioned to stick to the roof of your brain after one listen. The song’s lyrics are a warm tribute to idle youth, and the bond that has carried The Matinée all the way through to this, the key moment in their career. According to vocalist/lyricist Matt Layzell, We Swore We’d See the Sunrise is their “coming out”; after years of roadwork and growth, playing everywhere from prisons to air force bases and every watering hole in between, it’s a record that simultaneously matches their explosive live show while advancing their craft by orders of magnitude. “At the end of the day we just want a career,” Layzell states. “We hope this is setting us up for the next 20 years.” Clearly still not exhausted by the sheer amount of work that went into We Swore We’d See the Sunrise, guitarist Matt Rose is determined to follow through. “We’ve passed the point of Young and Lazy,” he says, “we’re a little older, wiser, and working our asses off.” MEMBERS PRE-SALE JULY 29 AT 10 AM ON SALE TO PUBLIC AUGUST 5 AT 10 AM http://sidwilliamstheatre.com/2014/09/the-matinee-and-good-for-grapes/