Happy Birthday Ronnie Wood!

Celebrating Ronnie Wood's birthday with The Birds appearance in The Deadly Bees, "How Can It Be?" and more!

Nichol Robertson's Country Flash @ The Bell & Beacon, Monday

Guitarist Nichol Robertson is joined by Kelly Sloan, Vivienne Wilder & Mike Belitsky in Country Flash. Starts at 9:30 pm. 

Nick Flanagan launches his Mortal Komedy LP at Thirsty & Miserable, Wednesday

Nick Flanagan says he'll have "vinyls" of his new comedy record Mortal Komedy (see above) at Thirsty & Miserable on June 3.

Writes the Flanster...

"Can’t even believe this is happening! My new album MORTAL KOMEDY is out June 1st. I just picked up the vinyl copies yesterday. They look really good.     I’m so happy with how the album turned out. Thank you to the monarch, Davida Nemeroff for putting out the vinyl on her label Tujunga and to Michael Palumbo for recording the show and patiently mixing and co-producing it with me!Would love to see you at the release show." - Nick Flanagan

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Yes, you've heard those things right. Nick Flanagan! Mortal Komedy! Next Wednesday (June 3)! Tickets very very limited as Thirsty and Miserable (2102 Dundas St West), while being a great bar, is SMALL. That means not many seats! Perhaps you want one of those seats? You should. Tickets are $27.94 advance. Get 'em while you can via Dice right here. There's also a Mortal Komedy listening party on Monday, June 1 at 7 pm hosted by Nick for which you can RSVP (as well as purchase a digital copy of the new album) right here. 

Nick, aka FLANS, will have copies of 'Mortal Komedy' on vinyls! With an S! Brought to you by Tujunga Records!

He will be joined for the show by The Big 3 (Ben Stager, Sam Burns, Nathan O’Hare) & Ahn Phung (flautist). Wow!

Do you like jokes and or laughing? Well. You know what to do. Check out the snazzy NDY Gig flyer below. Tell a friend. 

90s Nostalgia: The Melvins w/ Jesus Lizard, Helmet @ The Apocalypse Club, 12/07/1990

King Buzzo and crew put on a blistering performance with Jesus Lizard at Toronto's Apocalypse Club. 

Happy Birthday E.T. Mensah, Ghana's highlife trailblazer

Remembering bandleader E.T. Mensah on his birthday with a few gems backed by the Tempos Band including "Inflation Calypso"

Patton Oswalt chats with Jimmy McDonough about his Gary Stewart biography

Patton Oswalt gets the low-down on Jimmy McDonough's new Gary Stewart book, 38 years in the making. 

RIP reggae archivist, writer & champion Steve Barrow, 1945-2026

Sadly Steve Barrow, co-founder of archival reggae label Blood & Fire, has passed away. He'll be greatly missed. 

One of the best friends roots reggae and dub ever had, Steve Barrow was a record collector, writer and DJ who ran the Daddy Kool record shop selling Jamaican music in London's Soho district starting in 1975. Building an impressive vinyl collection while amassing a deep knowledge of the breadth of Jamaica's vast musical exports, Barrow lent his expertise to Trojan and Island where he assembled crucial compilations of important overlooked recordings before co-founding the influential Blood & Fire archival label in 1993. 

Barrow and his Blood & Fire crew helped kick-start the 90s resurgence of interest in dub by releasing an unbroken string of brilliant collections, showcasing well-chosen gems from King Tubby, Keith Hudson, Horace Andy, Yabby You, Glen Brown, The Congos, and others in tastefully designed packages that were always informatively annotated and drawn from the best available sources with a portion of the proceeds going to artists/producers responsible. The superior quality of Blood & Fire's output forced more established labels to rethink how archival compilations were done. Suddenly, it was no longer sufficient to knock out bootleg quality comps with a slap-dash sleeves, sans accompanying notes and session credits – everyone had to raise their game. 

Steve Barrow was also the co-author (with Peter Dalton) of The Rough Guide To Reggae Music, the first authoritative and comprehensive reggae guide covering the entire history of the music and related subgenres as well as providing insightful profiles of key players. Rest in power Steve, you'll be greatly missed. Check out a few interviews with Steve and a few of his boffo collections.