SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2010
Dance Into The Future New Year's Eve at Junctions, Riffs/Mercy Superset. Photo c/o Anne Crawford Major. You can't see him, but Chris is keeping it real in the back on the drums.
So Laurence Currie arrives in a week to produce and record 7 tracks with us.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2009
XMAS SHOWS December 12th at The Ship, December 27th at The Rock House and December 31st at Junctions. Is it the holiday spirit or the spirit of pop?
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2009
MusicNL Conference The Irish delegates rock. Playing a showcase at the Delta St. John's shortly - 9 songs in 30 minutes.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009
Twitter Follow us here.
TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009
Summer Well it's a been a while since we've last posted. We were unable to tour with Whale Tooth in June, but we hope to at some point in the future. We have been busy though. A COCA gig in June, a Mightypop show just this past weekend. In between, seeing a newly mixed version of Another Month through the hands of Laurence Currie and Lacquer Channel Mastering (LISTEN TO THE NEW MIXES HERE), and laying the groundwork for some recording this fall. Check out the new mixes for sure. Upcoming: a gig at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, September 24th.
Chewy A fond farewell to our bass player Mathieu Lacombe who moved to Montreal. He played bass with us during countless gigs and you can hear him on Another Month. Seeya chief, boss....guy.
The Once Phil Churchill (our new bass player and backup vocalist) and Geraldine Hollett (backup vocalist) together with our friend Andrew Dale have recently put out an album. The band is called The Once, and their self-titled debut is an extraordinary piece of work. You can hear samples of their superb arrangements and sweet sweet harmonies on their website and myspace.
MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009
Shows, Demos, Tour ..........After the highs of CMW it was back to lows of -10. But it was good to be home, and we had some preparations to make. We'll be returning to Toronto in May for a trip that'll include a gig at The Rivoli on May 16th (Luke's birthday). In the meantime, we're playing at The Ship with Pneumatic Transit and Kujo on April 24th, and finishing up recording demos at Great Big Studio with Mark Neary. After waiting out some tendonitis in Chewy's wrist, deadening Jamie's snare, and capturing Mark's stellar backup vocal talents, they are sounding like grade A demos. Check out some pics of the sessions here. We're also in the midst of collaborating on a SUMMER TOUR OF EASTERN CANADA with Toronto band Whale Tooth, which will take us from Toronto in mid-June to St. John's in mid-July. Dates to be posted shortly on the SHOWS page.
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009
CMW The festivity at Rancho Relaxo is fast approaching. We're excited to check out these other bands. Our CWM lineup will include Jon Hynes and Rajiv Thavanathan. Check out the poster:
So that's Saturday, March 14th at Rancho Relaxo, 300 College St., with Modernboys Moderngirls, Les Handclaps, Whale Tooth and Peachcake.
HOME What a weekend at the ECMA's. We got a lot of ideas from seeing other bands and talking to the people that we met. It was pretty sexy. Boy did we have some interesting cabbies though.
While we were there, between the meetings and the inter-band wrestling championships, Luke did an interview with Toronto-based online music mag Two Way Monologues, the entirety of which you can find here.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2009
Well, the Dead of Winter Dance Party turned out just as we had hoped...a grand festivity of blacklit beats. We'll definitely try that again next year. Meanwhile expect a spring show at The Ship with some different seasonal twists.
After tomorrow night with Mardeen and Al Tuck at The Ship it's off to Corner Brook for the ECMA's. We've got 4 shows to play, as outlined above.
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2009
Guestbook no longer needs sign in, will accept any and all posts anonymously.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2009
Show Tomorrow Night January 3rd, with Smack 4 Smack at CBTG's!!
Demo Recording We received some funding from MusicNL to record some of our new songs with Don Ellis at Fat Track Studios in February. We've had several buns in the oven for a future album and this demo session will be the beginning of all that.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2008
***** Mercy, the Sexton wishes you a Merry Merry, and will be doing so at three shows over the Christmas season. We are playing: Dec. 22 @ the Rock House w/Ye-Yeti, Sports and Solid Gritty, Dec. 23 @ The Ship w/Maggie Meyer, The AE Bridger Band and The Pathological Lovers and Dec. 31 @ CBTG's w/The Subtitles and the Gramercy Riffs.
The Atlantis Music Prize, we won! That's right, we won the inaugural Atlantis Music Prize from the scope. The list of ten nominees was narrowed down to three (Hey Rosetta!, The Satans and us) and somehow we managed to come out on top. Thanks guys. We were presented with medals, a big poster that looked like this:
and a gift certificate for 1000 to Music City. We are thinking PA...
CBC Radio 3 Interview After we won the Atlantis, the CBC Radio 3 people contacted us and set up an interview with Luke. You can listen to it and read their blog entry here.
Toronto Star Anti-Hit list Yr Best was number like six or seven on this week's Toronto Star Anti-Hit List. You can read the blurb and download the entire podcast here. Just for the record, "retro" isn't in our vocabulary...
Guestbook The site is now equipped with a semi-serviceable guestbook. Right now there's a required login to comment, but that might disappear soon. Posts are anonymous.
T-Shirts We have brand new shirts screenprinted by Living Planet in St. John's on Americal Apparel cotton. There are two designs. They will be for sale at our shows; otherwise email mercythesexton@gmail.com if you are interested. Pictures to be posted shortly.
K-Rock The Corner Brook chapter of the K-Rock radio empire has informed us that Yr Best is now in rotation over there. So tune in on your way to the Valley Mall.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2008
The Atlantis Music Prize The undefatigable people at The Scope have concocted a new music award: The Atlantis Prize -- like the Polaris, but named after a mythical underwater city instead of a snowmobile. It aims to honour bands for the quality of their music, regardless of how many cds they've pushed or how much attention they've garnered. Luckily, someone...or something...has placed us in the top 10 shortlist for the Atlantis Prize. Check out the latest issue of The Scope in print or online.
MusicNL Awards Congratulations to the winners of the various awards, especially to Tony Murray who also put together a fine awards show. Bon weekend.
ECMA Compilation Disc NYC will be on the disc...if you're at the conference at Corner Brook in February we'll be in your bag... *UPDATE*: we'll also be playing the Galaxie Rising Star stage.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2008
CBC Radio 3 Podcast We were excited to find out on Friday that Yr Best made it to Grant Lawrence's latest CBC radio podcast. GL mentions what a time we had at Pop Montreal, and indeed we did. Teenage Head tops the podcast...sweet.
iheartmusic.net is run by a dedicated indie music blogger based out of Canada's cultural epicentre, Ottawa, who posts intelligent, witty and ridiculously substantive reviews of new Canadian music. We are proud to post his in-depth parsing of Another Month below. He has a sharp ear and a knack for pithy turns of phrase, and the effort he puts into his thoughtful reviews will be as clear to you as it was to us:
"It's not often that 'catchiness' can be cited as an album's chief liability, but in the case of Another Month, the debut EP from Mercy, The Sexton, that's by far the biggest problem. After all, on first listen, if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself bopping along happily to the catchy emo-pop of 'Yr Best' and 'Call Me Up'. It's bouncy, it's upbeat...it's the sort of thing you'll want to listen to again.
But when you do, you'll probably find that the EP's problems make themselves apparent very, very rapidly. Luke Major's vocals are kind of whiny. The keyboard riffs that were so fun the first time start sounding sickly sweet. And, above all else, the catchy hooks that were so irresistible the first time suddenly have become kind of obnoxious in their eagerness to please. This all may sound like an exaggeration, but it's most definitely not. Another Month is great if you want something you can listen to once and then never listen to again, but if you want an album you can really dig into, then you'll want to stay far away from Mercy, The Sexton."
Please visit www.iheartmusic.net for more of the same.
MusicNL has supported us throughout the year and we're thankful for them. This year their conference funacular is in Luke and Duncan's hometown of Gander. We will be attending in style in our dented van. We may even purchase a hubcap for it, or not. Sunday Night (Nov. 9th) at the Gala we'll be playing a song. It'll be cool playing on the wide stage. We were hoping to have Romesh play cello with us, but unfortunately he won't be there
iTunes Another Month is on there now should you wish...
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
POP Montreal Show On Peter Rowan's 'Peter Platinum' Stage at Barfly, Oct. 2nd ::::::: 01:20 The Danks ∙ 00:30 Two Hours Traffic 23:40 Mardeen ∙ 23:00 The Superfantastics 22:15 Smothered in Hugs ∙ 21:30 Mercy, the Sexton 20:45 The Maynards. Primo platinum lineup indeed. We plan on debuting some new tunes at this show which we will then translate back into English and play in our home province on the 11th.
Music Video Joey A. MacNeil from Halifax made a video for "Everyday and Every Night" in 5 days at 10x10 -- when we can we'll post it to the site. Monica Walsh, thank you so much. Thanks also to whoever didn't steal the clean laundry we left in the parking lot of a Dartmouth Church, and to M&B Transmission. Ouch.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 2008
New Website We bought out clerics for the domain name...toiled hard on the navigation...and we are proud to service you with this new site.
POP Montreal Show October 2 @ Barfly. We booked our plane tickets for this show and can't wait to play it. We're on the bill with Mardeen, Smothered in Hugs, The Danks and maybe a couple more East Coast bands.
Atlantic Film Fest - 10 x 10 We're making a music vid as part of 10 x 10, which pairs ten filmmakers with 10 bands and gives them 5 days to make to make a video in Halifax each year. Stay tuned for a posting of the moving picture. We think it'll be of Everyday & Every Night.
