Holy crap! We Are Busy Bodies is five years old. The Toronto-based label has been with us as long as YouTube — and for a certain subset of the local indie-rock scene, its existence is as indispensable as the free video site. What began with young-ish impresario Eric Warner and the release of some weirdo Brooklyn art-punk duo’s split seven-inch is now a veritable mini-empire that includes pretty much the entire recorded output of DD/MM/YYYY, some of the best work by Japanther (the aforementioned art-punks), The Meligrove Band’s most recent effort and the instantly fetishizable singles from Toronto’s best new band METZ. Needless to say, the label’s fifth anniversary is one worth celebrating.
After Germans’ too-close-to-Killers-for-comfort brand of indie-rock and the lovable crazy-guy shtick from Mayor McCA (mind you, the latter is especially entertaining as proud Hamiltonian Christian Anderson Smith’s outsider art consists of tap dancing mid-audience and performing a “beverage trilogy” featuring a track called “Hooray for Beer”), the most anticipated part of WABB night at The Garrison gets under way.
METZ play pretty much the same set as the previous Saturday night’s show opening for the Constantines — and yes, it does seem that they are the go-to support act for anniversary gigs. But two METZ shows in the same week is hardly what I consider overdoing it. Besides, this set was arguably more intense (and definitely far louder) than their pre-Oneida slot last week at Lee's. That middle section of “Dry Up” where the riff is backed by just snare drum kills every single time, and the all-out bash fest of “Lump Sums” could peel wallpaper. Even if Chris Slorach’s fuzzed-out bass is a little lost in the mix, his and singer/guitarist Alex Edkins’ near-constant flailing made the band’s infectiously brutal stop-start grooves seem like the most exciting thing on the planet.
It’s already past 1am when the five members of DD/MM/YYYY (a.k.a. Day/Month/Year) take their positions amidst the sprawling mess of keyboards and drums and dig into a healthy serving from this year’s Black Square. As Matt King and Moshe Rozenberg pound out the interlocking double-drum rhythm of “Bronzage” and all members scream out its “Uh oh oh oh uh uh” refrain, DD/MM/YYYY come across more like a ten-armed beast simultaneously playing a bunch of different songs that all manage to synchronize based on some kind of alien algorithm. Even if you don’t know where the one beat is, your body can’t help but jolt along to the sinewy grooves.
A late-inning error in which they fuck up a relatively simple transition during “Digital Haircut” becomes a hilarious testament to the band’s well-oiled synergy: they take a moment to argue about their inability to play the part right after 129 shows this year, and then proceed to flawlessly navigate some of the most complicated rhythmic terrain of the set for the duration of the night.
Based on the kind of talent that Warner has helped develop during the five years of We Are Busy Bodies, the little label that could looks like it has a bright future ahead.