Green Go commands you to dance!
Get ready, Hillside. Guelph group Green Go are going to blow. you. away. Guaranteed. Hometown heros always make for a great show and these dudes have been demanding their pound of sweat from audiences all over southern Ontario.
I’m not a big fan of electronica. I just have bad memories of terrible 80s songs, I guess. But groups like Holy Fuck, Shout Out Out Out Out and Bocce have been slowly curing me of the shivers I get when I hear a synthesizer.
Green Go joined their ranks last year when I discovered their single “Mad Man Max.” A few songs from their album Borders started to find their way onto my iPod and I wrote about them for the entertainment blog I created for the newspaper I worked at. I said they should have made it onto the lineup for Hillside Inside. They didn’t.
But they DID sign to Pheromone Recordings and release their album Borders in April. Right around that time, word started to spread about their Remix Project, in which they took songs from their favourite Canadian groups and put their own spin on them. They got favourable writeups in the Star and the Globe and various other rags. And now, they ARE playing Hillside! Ahhh, sweet vindication!
Borders is alternately dreamy and funky and gritty. They have risen up out of the basements where they played for years and are coming into their own as a group that you should watch out for or, at the very least, get out of their way. Their album is a sonic smorgasborg and if I, a person who loathes most electronic muisc, loves this, imagine what it will do for you! The thing that sets them apart from most electronic/synth groups are the vocals. Several tracks see accomplished pianists Ferenc Stenton and Jessica Tollefson employing some harmonized shout-singing that is charmingly bossy and frantic. Fun and funky pop is the order of the day for “Brains For Breakfast” and “Danger Bay,” which uses my all-time favourite thing: hand claps. You guys, I am a sucker for hand claps! They’re sassy!
The Remix Project Vol. 1 sees Green Go reinterpreting songs by The Rural Alberta Advantage (not actually from Alberta) and Gentleman Reg (not actually an albino). “Sleep All Day” and “How We Exit” are fantastic in their own right and it takes a great remix artist to do more than put an annoying dance beat under the song. Green Go will not ruin your favourite song. They will rebuild it. They will make it better, stronger, faster. More danceable.
Green Go perform noon Saturday on the Lake Stage at Hillside Festival. Be there. Get funky. Get sweaty. Dance!
Gentleman Reg performs Sunday at 5 p.m. on the Island Stage. The Rural Alberta Advantage play at 6 p.m. the same day on the Lake Stage.
Buy Green Go albums and MP3s on Maple Music and iTunes.
Green Go - Brains for Breakfast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Green Go - Danger Bay: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Gentleman Reg - We're In a Thunderstorm (Green Go Remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download The Rural Alberta Advantage - Sleep All Day (Green Go Remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
