Slowcity Open Mic with Sam Jr., Simon and the Island, Hayden Thorpe, Bazooka Joe 204, Caroline Marie Brooks, Sam Weber, and Astral Swans

Will McGuirk October 14, 2021

By Will McGuirk

“Jump the fence, break the window, be a weirdo. Fuck the masses. Question what you’re taught.” - Sam Jr.

“What I do in a professional capacity exempts me from the responsibilities that other people my age are beholden to, in some ways I feel very free, but in other ways I feel very lonely watching other peoples' lives unfold, like I’m stuck in the same place." - Sam Weber

“It’s essentially about a broke, young weirdo singing to their partner about wanting to move away together to someplace where they won’t feel so strange.” - Matthew Swann, Astral Swans

Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Chastity, Andrea Ramolo, Jasper Sloan Yip, Ellyn Woods, Chris de Burgh, Bazooka Joe 204, Conditioner, Mauvey, and Thao and the Get Down

Will McGuirk September 15, 2021

By Will McGuirk

"This song is about stepping out of the silence and coming together to use our voices for change. There is power in numbers and in song and in carrying each other.” - Andrea Ramolo

“In ‘On the Beach’ we float through the ‘wild motion’ of this new frontier, affirming that we can ‘separate the water from the waves’ before looking up one last time “as the constellations drift apart and lose their shape” to say that we ‘would do it all again’” - Jasper Sloan Yip

“Many people have experienced the challenges of staying together despite being apart, and this is my own story of feeling that pull and hoping that a relationship would survive.” - Riley McCluskey, Conditioner

“Endless thanks to director Linda Mai Green and her fantastic team for giving me the opportunity to physically do what I have been trying to figuratively get at for so long: destroy artifice and defense and false altars, tear away shame and guilt strip by strip, and to be light and free enough to join my life and love, already in progress.” - Thao

Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Jasper Sloan Yip, Cots, Silver Pools, Homeshake, Charles Spearin, Astral Swans, Absolutely Free, and Bazooka Joe 204,

Will McGuirk August 18, 2021

By Will McGuirk

This edition of the Open Mic is brought to you by the letter K and the number awesome. Thanks for the years of support Killbeat.

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“We all spent a year inside. Not just in our homes, but inside of ourselves. For me, it began with the surreal experience of life imitating art in a scary way. I was ready to accept certain fates... But it didn’t go the way that I expected, and now, the strange calm that I was struggling with for so long is gone, and the world feels new again.” - Jasper Sloan Yip

“Human bodies are like celestial ones; just as a planet’s course is carved out in relation to others, our course - where we go and what we do - is compelled by forces of attraction.” - Steph Yates, Cots

“ I see Christianity and Capitalism as large-scale pranks pulled by the powerful and this video aims to celebrate some shining slivers of artful resistance." - videographer Cashew Soda: Silver Pools’ “Crushed Hat”

“I just try to make music that is honest about how I’m feeling.” - Peter Sagar aka Homeshake

“To have time on my hands and a studio at my fingertips certainly helped in making this record, but thematically, there’s a kind of reflection in the music that maybe comes from having spent so much time at home as well.” - Charles Spearin

”Typical coming-of-age feelings of loss and confusion were further conflated by prioritizing an emerging potential of a new virtual identity more ‘real’ than a physical self.” - Matt King, Absolutely Free