- Secret Colours
HOT MONEY RECORDS: Mike Wright
I've been feeling really excited about bands from Halifax lately, there seem to be a lot of motivated people recording and releasing. Some bands I can't wait to hear more from are Bloodhouse, Cold Warps, Bad Vibrations (Husband + Knife, Air/Fire), The Lodge, Gamma Gamma Rays, Cat Bag, Dog Day, and a bunch more.
RADIATOR COLLECTIVE: Alex Currie
I like that I'm hearing more of a garage rock influence coming from some of the bands I like. Also, it seems within our group that everyone is having a great time with music lately. Everyone seems really invigorated. I may be biased because they jam in my basement but I'm pretty excited about what the Meat Curtains have been up to.
DIVORCE RECORDS and DISTRO: Darcy Spidle
I'm a new dad, so I haven't been out enough this year. I try to follow along, though. You have people like Radiator Collective doing everything from noise to folk. Some of my favorite bands coming out of that camp include ECT, Pig, and Secret Colours. There are stellar crust bands like Contagium. I've been digging some of the new stuff Charles Blazevic has been doing as Dreamsploitation. Data Cave and Meat Curtains are exciting. I just heard a band called Cat Bag that I really liked. I am a fan of the Ether, Friendly Dimension, the Snapped in Half catalogue. I’m forgetting more than I'm remembering... all the local DIVORCE stuff: Dog Day, Flat Denial, Mess Folk, Husband & Knife, Torso, Gown.
HALIFAX POP EXPLOSION: Waye Mason
I liked the Coast article about "best music of 2009" and that was really interesting because there were legitimately another 30 artists that could almost have been on the cover that were not quite there yet. On top of all the exciting music that is starting to get out there nationally and internationally, there are all these really young bands, Crissi Cochrane, Jenny MacDonald, In This Style, Gamma Gamma Rays, Last Call Chernobyl, and about a half dozen more that are about to release records and are all really amazing. I think that there won't be any one genre that will dominate, no "Halifax sound" again, thank god, but metal, punk, indie rock are all in the mix.
DIMINISHED FIFTH RECORDS: Josh Hogan
Halifax has an incredibly diverse music scene. Outside of the D5R roster of bands I'm personally excited to see how 2010 will go for local acts like Last Call Chernobyl, a killer young metal band who will be performing at the 2010 Warped Tour, The Stanfields, Celtic fused drunken rock music, Myles Deck and the Fuzz, a fantastic punk band, Cuban Assassins, another fantastic punk rock band, In This Style, proggy indie rock, Old Wagon Whiskey, another great band to drink to, Broken Ohms, groove-filled stoner rock, and I'm sure I'm forgetting an ample amount of other awesome bands.
JUST FRIENDS RECORDS: Mat Dunlap and Dave Ewenson
DAVE: I like The Lodge a lot.
MAT: Hot Money Records is pretty awesome, they have so much energy/ambition. It will be exciting to see what comes from the ashes of York Redoubt, all of those guys are great, and will clearly go on do many cool things. Garrett Mason, The Beginners, Andrew Watt & The Glory Glory, Cold Warps and Cat Bag.