No Stone

"I had a chance to talk to the band leader/lead sax/writer/composer of No Stone, Mike Nadal. With twenty years of experience, ten years of that on the sax, it seems that Mike's main purpose in life is music. Together with his high school friend, Brandon Merenick, Mike strung together talent from Humber and york music programs, both of which he is an alumni of..."

"...'I want people to know there's a different approach to pop. My goal when I was writing for No Stone was to invent catchy melodies that they walk awayh from a show singing, but also I feel there is a level of musicianship. So, I'd like listeners to feel a real groove not just something that is generated by a machine or computers. Like a groove established by real live musicians.'

Released in July 2007, their self titled album does a great job of showcasing their talent and is incredibly fun to listen to. But the real fun happens at their high energy shows, which 2007 has been a great year for."
- www.unchartedsounds.com (pg 16-17) article by Wil Preventis

Humber talent will be the highlight of tomorrow’s Boogie Down Massacre, a Halloween bash planned downtown at Revival.
KC Roberts and the Live Revolution, the winner of the Toronto Independent Music Award for Best Live Act of 2007, will headline the event. Also performing is No Stone and DJ Sean Sax.
The Live Revolution formed earlier this year. “Even though we’re considered funk, there’s also jungle, hip hop, house and rock in there too,” Roberts said. “Right now, we’re just a tossed salad.”
The band has opened for the Black Eyed Peas, performed at the Beaches Jazz Festival, and played for 20,000 people at the Marijuana March.
Roberts is now working on mixing his album Parkdale Funk, to be released in February.
Roberts has played with other bands in the past but is happy with Live Revolution. “I couldn’t have a better band. We have a top horn section, the rhythm section is deadly and the keyboards are scientists. It’s raw music with a lot of intelligence behind it.”
Opening act No Stone saxophonist Mike Nadal attended Humber for music but left in 2003 to pursue a music degree at York. Humber was still a valuable experience he said. “The ability to play with great musicians, gain that knowledge and just generally develop a great sound when we were there was great.”
Nadal and drummer Brandon Merenick formed No Stone in 2002. They came up with the idea to create an “urban fusing jazz” sound when in high school together.
In the past year, No Stone released its self-titled debut album, had a completely full press at the Markham Jazz Festival, a packed CD release party, had members play with Arabesque.
The event will feature a costume contest and will have a red carpet entrance, including fake paparazzi.
Roberts’s manager Peter Moscone said it’s going to be the most insane show the band has ever put on. “He’s playing tunes that he has written specifically for this show.”
No Stone is also sure to impress. “It’s going to be a really huge party,” Nadal said. “You get to see the best live performer in Toronto…and I think we do pretty well ourselves.” - Humber Etc.

My friends can tell you, I'm a huge supporter of local artists almost to a fault. There are songs on my iTunes player that admittedly would not even get a second listen if not for the fact that they are by Canadian (or even Toronto and Mississauga specifically) artists. Some of my favourite films are Canadian and I love dragging my girlfriend to watch some local theatre. ("Local theatre" is redundant, yes.)

Which is all happy and cozy, but now, as a journalist, I'm in the position where I frequently have to review this stuff. And I'm finding I grade CanCon on a different scale. My gut turns to knots when I'm about to a give a bad rating to a well-meaning and promising local artist. I've adopted this habit of giving harsher numerical ratings, but then writing nice things in the copy, or vice versa, just to even things out. I'm a Libra.

It's kind of a copout -- and the fact that I'm writing about this at all shows I have issues with this practice. I need to grow a bigger backbone (but I don't want to) or I need to get out of this field altogether and write real news stories.

That said, last Friday I went to go see two local bands play at Revival -- KC Roberts and openers No Stone (featuring Rawsteady). One of my old workmates is the band leader/saxophonist for No Stone, so I was just coming to support my boy. The show was incredible.


The energy coming off that stage was unbelievable, from the guest emcees Rawsteady working the two-step while rhyming, to lead vocalist Kirsten Rea getting her Jessica Rabbit on, I was blown away that so much local talent gets lost under the radar. I remembered why I wanted to support/report on the scene in the first place.

I'd post more about KC as well but he's been getting his share of shine lately. I will say though that he covered the Thundercats theme song and it was amazing. I don't mean amazing in an ironic hipster way, I mean it was amazing -- the vocal arrangements, the guitar solo, the horns.

The talent it out there, and it's not latent or rough or unpolished or whatever else. It's dope, and it's worth searching for.

- Scene Guy