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The Damn Truth at The Central – Gig review and photos
March 24, 2011
By Natascha Malta
The Gig: The Damn Truth?
Where: The Central, Toronto, Ontario?
When: Thursday 17 March 2011?
In One Word: Meaty
It hasn’t quite been a week since Canadian Music Week concluded, and I have to admit that I’m feeling a little burnt out as far as the whole music scene is concerned. I don’t feel particularly excited going into tonight’s performance. Like many bands yet to release an LP, The Damn Truth’s online material is a mixed bag of hits and misses. Waiting for the gig to start, I am seated at in front of the stage by myself when a dark-haired girl in a vintage mini dress stops to say hello to me- not because she knows me, just because I’m en route to her table. It takes a minute to recognize that the girl is actually Lee-La from the band, and because it’s still way too early for the show to start (and because I’m a little bored) I decide to see if the band will have my company.
The band is made up of regular Montreal giggers Lee-La and Tom, Dave and David. They got together two years ago when they were cast as the back-up band on a Much Music performance for a now failed pop-princess. They are quite happy to have me join them, and as they regale me with stories from the frontlines of rock and roll, and beer- I start to lose my moody blues. Tonight’s show is the second last tour stop for the band before heading back to Montreal to record. The tour started off last weekend at booze-drenched CMW show at The Hideout- quite a different atmosphere from tonight’s dinner crowd at the Central. Three of their tour dates have been in Toronto and they seem to be enjoying the city and it’s vintage shops, where they picked up the duds they’re wearing tonight.
At about 10 after 8, the band decides it’s time to start the show. The introductory riff to the band’s first song of the set sounds Jimi Hendrix-like, so I find it interesting when I later learned that Lee-la and Tom recorded an album with the man who first brought the icon to Canada. The first few songs traverse the territory of sexy, blues based rock and roll- and I certainly have no qualms when the band conjures up a little magic from rock legends passed to liven up their set. Lee-la voice is an impressive instrument that’s part gritty and part pretty, and you get the sense that the music just comes naturally to the band.
After four or so tunes, Lee-la brings out the acoustic guitar to play some tracks off of the EP. These songs are decidedly poppier than the others, and almost sound as though they belong to another project. I’m not as into these tracks, and am excited when the songs delve back into the black- punctuating the psychedelia with a fog machine. Some of the best moments are when the bare minimum amount of instrumentation is used to flesh out a meaty groove, especially since this genre is traditionally rife with self-indulgent soloing.
The last song of the night is a little ditty written by Tom about Montreal and his girlfriend that does a good job of summarizes the Damn Truth experience. The chorus goes “Oh Montreal, chew me up and spit me out. You’re rock and roll. Leave me lying naked on your floor.” A damn fun show, if a little short. I can’t wait for the LP to drop, I think the songs would be a hoot on vinyl.
© Natascha Malta, Music Vice - Music Vice
Discography
Debut LP, Dear in the Headlights, to be released in summer 2012. No official release date yet. Kinda Awkward, the lead track from this release, Too Late and Downtown are available to listen to on this EPK.
Dear in the Headlights (2012)
1. Time and Again
2. Kinda Awkward
3. I Want You
4. Too Late
5. 1964
6. Downtown
7. Desert Song
8. Picture Perfect
9. Just a Reflection
10. Montreal
11. Dear in the Headlights
Too Late Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89uxZ4aJE4
Dear in the Headlights Teaser Video: http://youtu.be/ok-XL9E9vfE
Has not been shipped to radio yet.
The Damn Truth EP (2010)
1. Move On
2. Fictional Affection
3. Just a Reflection
4. Timeless Man
Video for Fictional Affection: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOGa-sB3drw
#11 on CKXU 88.3MHz (Lethbridge)
#18 on CJSR 88.5MHz (Edmonton)
Airplay on Radio Centre-Ville (Montreal, CINQ-FM) for "Move On" and "Timeless Man".
Photos
Bio
A few things to know about The Damn Truth: they play rock & roll, they call Montreal home, and they’re all pretty decent liars.
The story begins with Lee-La, Montreal-born but partly raised in Israel where she first met and began to play acoustic music with Tom. Joining her on a return trip home, Tom immigrated to Canada and the pair found themselves recording an album in Toronto with the man who first brought Jimi Hendrix to Canada, Barry Labotta (Phase One Studios), only to end up finally settling down in Montreal.
Tom attests to not remembering much about the process, never having felt that it was the record they really wanted to make. “It sounded like two folkies from 1962 playing, well, folk songs.” But after a few months on the road they found themselves out of copies and the option to print more was outweighed by an itch for something new.
And so the story goes, they met David and Dave on an MTV video shoot, having been assembled as the backing band for a now failed pop princess. They all got free shoes for taking the gig. Tom’s fell apart almost immediately, David has since retired his, Lee-La’s are still in the original box and Dave never actually got his pair. But in the end, the shoes are hardly the point.
Moonlighting as “The Grinders”, the four played hundreds of cover gigs in their hometown. You’ve probably seen them working one of Montreal’s notorious watering holes, the likes of Brutopia, the McKibbins circuit, Cock & Bull, Méchant Boeuf, Ye Old Orchard, The Burgundy Lion.
In a short while, a handful of Tom and Lee-La’s original songs were arranged and recorded for a four-song, self-titled EP with the help of acclaimed Montreal producers François Lalonde (Céline Dion) and Jean Massicotte (Lhasa, Patrick Watson, Pierre Lapointe). The EP includes the songs “Fictional Affection”, a song bordering on anthemic about a love melting away in duplicity, and the heartrending “Just a Reflection”, a lullaby for a life lost too soon, cut in a single take.
They now have a video on YouTube for "Fictional Affection", filmed entirely on 16mm black and white film, but what they are recording these days might call to mind an image for the phrase “1969's evil twin.”
While Lee-La has the innate ability to both haunt and lull you all at once, at other times she can both snarl and soar. And though Tom's sound often appears to be on the verge of pouring over, it always remains in it’s own comfortable pocket. Backed by a rhythm section that displays a decade of experience (David and Dave have played in bands together since their teens), the result is a band quickly finding their stride in a city that hasn't really embraced their brand of vintage rock & roll in many years.|
Even though they're not a part of a click or a scene they have always been able to attract highly talented people to their project. They continue to play upwards of five nights a week, in a number of different configurations, and now find themselves playing entirely original shows for a growing fan base.
This year will bring a self-produced debut LP of new material that has been crafted entirely as a unit during far more live performances than rehearsals. The recordings are moodier, darker and lusher, showcasing every band member’s growth in the studio. A release can be expected for the summer preceded by a tour of Eastern Canada this spring.
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