Fantasia Festival is back and Dare To Care Records is providing the musical excitement for the night, oh yes. And we’re bringing the following DJs:

Jimmy Hunt (Chocolat)
Pat Vézina (DJ Prions en église, C.H.O.B.)
Annie Q. (Korova / Casa Del Popolo)
Micot Trachine (Catherine de Tricot Machine)

It’s free and it’s going down at Club 1234 (1234 de la Montagne, dooowntoooown)

Rumour has it that this will be a night to remember, including special FX stuff, over the top costumes and just all around plain awesomeness. You can check out the Fantasia schedule if you go here. Just as every other year, this whole festival is filled with gems, so go nuts and read that program carefully.

Lake of Stew will share the stage with bluegrass duoUncle Monk July 7th, at Divan Orange in Montreal. Also on the bill are folksters Colin Moore and Paul Greene. But back to Uncle Monk: it should be noted that the mandolin player is no other than Tommy Ramone, the last surviving member of the legendary punk band. Yes, we’re talking about THE Ramones. And if you’ve seen Uncle Monk live, you already know he’s alive and kickin’.

NDG buff Jay Baruchel stars in the amazing new indie summer sensation (we’re feeling pretty Roger Ebert today) "The Trotsky" and our own beloved Malajube wrote the entire score for it. Anne-Marie Cadieux as a bonified milf, Colm Feore as an evil principal, an amazing soundtrack... What’s not to love?

The title pretty much says it all, but still, we wanted to take a moment to warmly thank all those who voted for us in the "Best Local Music Label" category. We won, yeeeah! Also, thanks for mentionning our French sister label Grosse Boîte. And last of all, we don’t know if we should say thank you, but we find it most peculiar that Jean Leloup made it as #8 "Best Montreal Weirdo." Let’s say we think you for that as well.

Even us don’t have any idea what Malajube’s crazy conceptual show Cubes rubiques is made of, but what we know is that there are still a few tickets left to see this magical feat at Francofolie’s June 14th. Click here to grab them before they go!

Summertime now rhymes with another Stereo Total album! Dare To Care Records released "Carte postale de Montréal", last year, a great French compilation from their impressive catalogue, with some never before released Quebec covers. This summer, they’re back with a new album, which will also be released on Kill Rock Stars in the United States. Just to give you an idea of the general awesomeness of their 10th release. "Baby Ouh!" will be available May 4th online and May 18th in stores.

Baby Ouh! tracks
Comments by Françoise Cactus & Brezel Göring


1. Hello Ladies
Françoise: The music is surprising, but the lyrics are very "social romantic“. Isn’t that old fashioned?

Brezel: Stereo Total is not doing analysis about social problems, nevertheless we know in what kind of world we are living in.

2. Alaska
Françoise: This is a very cold and elegant way to express a heartache. Frustration turned the unhappy lover into a robot, she became a remote controlled monster, a fridge...

Brezel: Low-fidelity is not only in mentioned in the lyrics, also the music is lo-fi. Despite the tightness of disco-music, the machine sounds in this song are handmade and untight.

3. Divine’s Handbag
Françoise and Brezel are fans of John Waters and they ask themselves: What is inside of Divine’s handbag? The curious young girls know it already: everything that goes well with bad taste.

Brezel: This song is a nightmare for parents: a school girl choir sings about the content of
Divine’s handbag, which is not at all suitable for juveniles: lubrication gel, multicolored pills,
hormones...

Françoise: The song was mend to be a catchy pop tune, but the bruitistic sounds stand somehow in the
way.

4. Andy Warhol
Françoise: Here comes more underground culture. This song is dedicated to the super cool artist Andy Warhol, who became a victim of his own coolness, when he met Valerie Solanas, who shot him.

Brezel: The idea of this song results of our efforts to stretch the name "Aaaaaaaaandy Warhol“ to the length of 16 bars. Together with "Alaska“ and "Baby Ouh“ it is part of the"cheat and revenge“ trilogy on this record. In this song the story ends almost with murder, in"Alaska“ it ends with becoming icy...

5. Barbe à papa
This song was written by Brigitte Fontaine. That’s why it’s poetic and hilarious. It’s a song about the carelessness of youth.

6. No Controles
This hymn is sung in Spanish: don’t try to control Stereo Total. It’s a cover, originally played by the band Ole Ole.

7. Du Bist Gut Zu Vögeln
The lyrics were written by Wolfgang Müller, founding member of the 80s concept-noise-music-performance-underground-band Die Tödliche Doris, which was part of the ingenious dilettante movement in Berlin. The lyrics are based on a word play (gut zu Vögeln = you treat birds well, gut zu vögeln = it’s a pleasure to fuck you) – almost impossible to translate. Dear non-German-listeners, lean back, forget about the words and enjoy the birdcall-record-scratching...

8. I Wanna Be A Mama
Stereo Total love the movies of Almodovar. They were thrilled to find out that he had a band in the 80s. In this song Brezel states he wants to become a mother and he spreads out his educational concepts. We don’t know if the pope will endorse this...

9. Babyboom Ohne Mich
Here comes no fun! Babyboom – not with me! There is a karaoke-version of this song, where you can fill in the blanks "_____ not with me!“ with whatever you dislike.

10. Lady Dandy
Françoise: Here’s a song for lesbians: "Lady Dandy ...love is just a prison... " What could have happened, if Lady Gaga was named Lady Dandy?

Brezel: This is an inside view on emotional dandyism: the Dandyette is ice cold...

11. Illégal
Françoise: That’s not French, this is Québecquoué! The language they speak in Montreal.

Brezel: Even though this song recorded on a wobbly tape fails all quality standards it got a lot of airplay in Canada.

12. Wenn Ich Ein Junge Wär
Françoise: This is a cover by Rita Pavone, an Italian 50s singer, wearing a leather jacket, short curly hair and freckles. It was already covered by Nina Hagen, who added a more rebellious dimension to the song.

Brezel: If I were a boy, I would avoid the fetishism about technology that boys normally have. What was the good thing about electronically produced music? Simple machines from the flea market, fast production that would turn the listeners’ expectations inside out. Energetic music, whereas the origin of the energy is unknown. There are no professionals, because the music has just been invented and nobody knows how to do it "the right way“. This is a song about being an amateur for lifetime and it makes fun of the male stereotypes: "After my sex-change I’m gonna become a professional football player and a motorbike macho!“

13. Tour de France
Françoise: We are modern, we are sporty! This Kraftwerk-song is good for bike pedaling and Farfisa organ pedaling. It was recorded in Berlin at the Endart-Galerie together with the Oberkreuzberger Noseflute Orchestra.

Brezel: Probably they were very drunk when they recorded this one.

14. Larmes de métal
Metallic tears: while Earth is heating up, our hearts grow colder.

15. Elles te bottent mes bottes?
This song is totally old-fashion. It’s like in the scene in Jean Luc Godard’s "The Despise", when Brigitte Bardot asks Michel Piccoli, whether he prefers her hair or her skin...

16. Baby Ouh
Françoise: The only long song on this record. It’s about true love, and the fact that it lasts longer. Very kitschy: the drums are very fast while the singing is extremely slow. This cheesy melody on the Electro-organ is not bad at all.

Brezel: A dark and sinister song, where desperation goes along with a Mickey-Mouse-Voicetransformer-effect.

17. Violent Love
Françoise: The lyrics were written by Udo Lindenberg. They show, how horrible it is, to be a musician. But it is not so bad after all! It depends how IN-trovert or OUT-trovert you are, it depends how you fight for your visions... It shows also how to succeed as a romantic dreamer: when released for the first time, the song did not do very well. At least it was released.

Brezel: Maybe you will laugh at this song.

Currently on tour in America We Are Wolves will be hitting good ol’ Europe right after they get back. These are the tour details. It’s a great read if you pump the volume to their most amazing new video for « Blue » while reading it.


May 15th – Lyon, FRANCE @ Nuits Sonores
Place de la Bourse – Lyon 2e
In collaboration with Pop Montréal Festival
w/ Gambletron and Lesbians on Ecstasy
5 PM - 8 PM
Free!

May 17th – Zürich, SWITZERLAND @ Hafenkneipe
Militärstrasse 12, 8004 Zürich
Tickets : CHF 22
Infos

May 18th – Leuven, BELGIUM @ STUK
w/ The Man Up North
kunstencentrum, Naamsestraat 96, Leuven
Tickets : €10,00
Infos

May 19th – Tourcoing, FRANCE – Inrocks Indie club tour @ GD Mix
w/ Warpaint and Surfer Blood
5 place Notre Dame, 59337 TOURCOING
Tickets : €10,00-€15,00
Door : 8 PM
Infos

May 20th – Paris, FRANCE – Inrocks Indie club tour @ Maroquinerie
w/ Warpaint and Surfer Blood
Maroquinerie, 23 rue Boyer, 75020 PARIS
Tickets : €15,00
Door : 7:30 PM
Infos

May 21st – Rennes, FRANCE – Inrocks Indie club tour @ Ubu
w/ Warpaint and Surfer Blood
Ubu, 1 rue Saint Hélier, 350000 Rennes
Tickets : €10,00-€15,00
Door : 8 PM
Infos

May 22nd – Normandy, FRANCE – Inrocks Indie club tour @ Saint-Lô
w/ Warpaint and Surfer Blood
Place du Champ de Mars, 50000 Saint-Lô
Tickets : €10,00-€15,00
Infos

May 23rd – Kortrijk, BELGIUM @ Sixen Festival
w/ Trans Am and Psychic Paramount
Free!
Infos

May 25th – Munich, GERMANY @ 59 to 1
Sonnenstrasse 27, 80331
Tickets : €12,00 adv
Infos

May 27th – Berlin, GERMANY – Thursday’s Child Party club night @ Magnet
Greifswalder Strasse 212, 10405 Berlin
Tickets : €5,00
Infos

May 28th – Amsterdam, PAYS-BAS @ The Winston
Warmoesstraat 129, 1012 JA Amsterdam
Tickets : €8,00 adv
Infos

Dare to Care Records is proud to announce the upcoming dates of We Are Wolves’ North American Tour. Oh yes, this will be a busy spring for the synth punk trio. First off, our beloved We Are Wolves are joining forces with thee mighty Wolf Parade for an East Coast Canadian tour this Spring. I guess they got pretty chummy when Arlen Thompson and Hadji Bakara (respectively the drummer and circuits bender of Wolf Parade) worked on the production of We Are Wolves’ Invisible Violence. Either that or they really wanted us to throw bad lupin puns around like there’s no tomorrow.

Then, they will shares several Canadian dates with Parlovr sponsopred by Pop Montréal who are proud to present the 5th annual POP OFF tour. In the past 5 years we’ve had the pleasure of showcasing such bands as Malajube, Think About Life, Clues, Plants and Animals and Duchess Says on tours all across Canada. This year, We Are Wolves were granted that opportunity. For more details about the Pop Montreal festival and POP OFF, go here.

TOUR DATES

March 18th M FOR MONTREAL SXSW SHOWCASE, Paradise, Austin, TX
April 1st Impérial, Québec, QC, 8 PM**
April 6th The Ale House, Kingston, ON, 8 PM**
April 7th, Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto, ON, 8 PM**
April 8th, Echo, Los Angeles, CA (US)
April 9th, The Cellar Door, Visalia, CA (US)
April 10th, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco (US)
April 12th, Rotture, Portland, OR (US)
April 13th, The Vera Project, Seattle, WA (US)
April 14th, Venue to be confirmed, Victoria, BC ++
April 15th, Biltmore, Vancouver, BC ++
April 16th, Heroes Pub, Kamloops, BC ++
April 17th, Republik, Calgary, AB ++
April 18th, Pawn Shop, Edmonton, AB ++
April 19th, Amigo’s, Saskatoon, SK ++
April 20th, The Albert, Winnipeg, MB ++
April 21st, 7th St. Entry, Minneapolis, MN (US) ++
April 22nd, Subterrean, Chicago, IL (US) ++
April 23rd, Call The Office, London, ON ++
April 24th, The Garrison, Toronto, ON ++

** with Wolf Parade / ++ with Parlovr for the POP OFF! tour