The Key Frames

Genre: Rock
Secondary Genre: Folk Toronto, Ontario Canada Contact

While it’s a difficult feat in a roots scene as accomplished as that of Toronto, The Key Frames have found a way to contribute something both unique and startlingly straightforward. Driving roots-rock, soaring harmony and gutsy soul rub shoulders in a controlled blaze of tried-and-true melody.

Artist Information

Biography

Spend a bit of time walking through downtown Toronto and live music will jump out at you: from buskers, from small stage matinees, outdoor events, open second-floor windows and from somewhere else, rumbling up above where you can’t see it.

Having been around now for almost five years, The Key Frames have been all of those bands at one point or another.

After a busy summer at home that included a well-received appearance at Toronto’s North By Northeast Festival (NXNE), a borrowed van and rented trailer got them to Halifax and back last August to promote their full-length debut, “Out On The Point”. With fourteen gigs in just nine days, the band was working literally day and night. Both the tour and the album were a tight but varied exploration of what The Key Frames do best: rootsy, banjo-inflected rockers; gutsy, Everlys-meet-Stax vocal harmonies; soaring, classic pop hooks next to lonely late-night laments.

One listen will tell you that guile isn’t really their thing. Finding the depth and contrast in simple and appealing melodies, however, is.

Building on the enthusiastic audiences, blog and alt-weekly love, and college radio chart forays they garnered the first time around, this summer’s model has been dubbed “Low Light High Light”. Featuring the veteran production of Josh Finlayson (Skydiggers, Gord Downie) and mixing engineer Don Pyle (Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, The Sadies), and replete with eleven new tracks, their second disc shows stylistic continuity in equal measure with evolution. It retains the same energy and effortless attention to song craft that fans of the band now expect, but this time out, viewed through a glass darkly.

“There’s kind of a startling transition between one day finding yourself with a couple of songs and a couple of bars to play them in, and the day when you wake up in a camper on a club-owner’s front lawn, drive four hours, play a record store and a bar, and do a local TV spot,” explains guitarist and singer Rob Webster. “At that point, you realize that something nobody expected is being built, and it’s walking and breathing, and you and four of your friends are at the control panel. It’s not like you’re getting paid, really, but the songs are standing up straight, and the stakes are just a bit higher. So what do you want to say?”

The Key Frames return to eastern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes between July 11 and 20 as a quintet, and then continue west and north to Dawson City, Vancouver and back again as a duo from August 11 through September 3.

“Low Light High Light” will be available from the stage this summer, and released in the fall of 2012. “Out On The Point” is available through iTunes, Bandcamp, and other online retailers, and at select record stores. The Key Frames’ complete gig listing and more is available at thekeyframes.com, as well as on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter (@thekeyframes).

Instrumentation

Rob Webster - Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica
Theo Edmands - Banjo, Vocals, Harmonica
Ryan Higgins - Vocals, Bass
Brian Passmore - Vocals, Guitar
Dan Schwartz - Drums

Discography

LOW LIGHT HIGH LIGHT
Coming soon!

OUT ON THE POINT
CD, Digital Download
Released May 31 2011

"Steal You Away"-"It's The Women"
Free Download
Released Dec 30 2009

"Annie, Annie"-"Our Age"
Free Download
Released Jun 15 2009

Links

Audio

  • The Divide
    Listen  
  • Steal You Away
    Listen  
  • Ballad of the Eleventh Concession
    Listen  

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

  • Album Review: The Key Frames - Out On The Point [+ Show ]

    Album Review: The Key Frames – Out On the Point By GDK When this first came on I had myself a li...

  • The Key Frames - Out On The Point [+ Show ]

    The Key Frames Out on the Point Self-Released Anyone remember an early 90s American band called...

  • Out on the Point - The Key Frames [+ Show ]

    Toronto, Ontario roots rock band The Key Frames is comprised of banjo player Theo Edmands, guitarist...

  • "Steal You Away" Live on CTV Morning Live

    Original air date: Sept. 7, 2011

  • "Our Age" Live on CTV Morning Live

    Original air date: Aug. 30, 2011

  • Key Frames offer diverse musical stylings [+ Show ]

    Key Frames offer diverse musical stylings Published Friday August 26th, 2011 Toronto band refuses ...

  • Pick of the Week [+ Show ]

    The Key Frames OUT ON THE POINT (Snarlophone Music) Full of country rock twang, pop guitar jang...

  • Time is key for The Key Frames [+ Show ]

    Time is key for The Key Frames The Toronto roots-rockers bring their well-honest first release *Ou...

  • Key Frames (video interview) [+ Show ]

    (A cool, though exceptionally hot, interview, as well as some performance footage from our greasy CD...

  • Review- “Out on the Point”- The Key Frames [+ Show ]

    Posted on July 13, 2011 by glasspaperweight reviewed by Michael The blue sky and grey-brown la...

  • NOW Mag NXNE 2011 Coverage [+ Show ]

    Like the itinerant folksingers, country rulebreakers, British invaders and roots rockers from whom t...

  • Bending Elbows: Order a six-ounce tumbler [+ Show ]

    ... Friendly and clean and not cheap, the Eton House also fails at being divey by offering a solid b...

  • The Key Frames - Out On The Point [+ Show ]

    Toronto-based foursome [sic] The Key Frames have filled out their debut album, Out On the Point, wit...

Setlist

A typical set might comprise roughly 75% original songs, 15% interpretations of folk standards, and 10% cover songs.

For example:

Annie, Annie (R. Webster)
Cindy (trad., arr. T. Edmands)
Pig in a Pen (trad., arr. R. Higgins)
You're His Baby Now (R. Webster)
The Divide (R. Higgins)
Wanna Be Rain (R. Higgins)
Ballad of the 11th Concession (R. Webster)
The Bullet To Lay Me Down (T. Edmands)
Our Age (R. Higgins)
Feel Like A Fool (R. Webster)
A Light is Gonna Shine (R. Webster)
Look at the Sea (T. Edmands)
Get Up Jake (J.R. Robertson [The Band])

Basic Requirements

Calendar

DateTimeVenueCity
Jun 2, 2012 Saturday 9:00 PM Gladstone Melody Bar Toronto, ON, CA
Jun 23, 2012 Saturday 4:00 PM Kerr Village Summer Celebration (outdoor) Oakville, ON, CA