Rock Plaza Central’s “(Don’t You Believe the Words of) Handsome Men” has been around since the May release of …at the moment of our most needing, but it took until January for the video to come out… and it couldn’t be more timely. In the wake of Toronto’s weekend protests on the controversial prorogation of Canadian parliament, the video has recast the song as a commentary on the shiftiness of politicians.

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When Career Suicide formed ten years ago as an ode to early-’80s American hardcore, no one in the band thought it would last.

Yet it, along with other vets like Cursed (defunct) and Fucked up is now considered a gem of sorts for hardcore punks in Canada and abroad – their now-classic Attempted Suicide LP can be found anywhere in the world, embraced as far away as Japan (thanks to Forward, the “Don Corleone” of their scene), even influencing youngster Slovakians to cover them at their grade school assembly. (more)

Without epic quests, lavish sets or choreographed fight scenes,  High Fidelity doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a musical theatre adaptation.  In fact, most of the film and the novel it was based on take place within a record store, where instead of taking action, the characters spend most of the story discussing pop culture and compulsively making lists (something we can sympathize with).

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Self-defeatist or realists, call them what you will, but Guelph/Waterloo band the Decay is giving away its debut full-length album This Month’s Rent  – with its punchy pop punk and Rancid-esque vocals – for nothing but a suggested donation to Juicebox, available here. (more)

Today our Bands to Chase in 2010 series ends with our remaining ‘guest lists’. You can find the first set of lists in Part One. When deciding on Toronto (and area) bands to profile, we solicited advice from promoters, bloggers and everyone else we could think of.  It’s hard to put limits on creative types, so we just asked them which bands had them excited and why, allowing them to get as personal and esoteric as they saw fit. At least a few of our experts decided to take this as a challenge. Read on to find out what we mean.

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In our Bands to Chase in 2010 series we picked the 21 Toronto bands likely to make a splash this year, picks with which some of you (gasp) were not in agreement. But we didn’t act alone. To provide the most measured list possible (and maybe to protect our own asses), we based our selections on the advice of bloggers, promoters and all around music junkies. Now it’s time to unveil our sources and perhaps inspire you to adopt one of this city’s troubled garage punks, or even introduce you to a genre you normally wouldn’t check out unless strapped to an auditory-torture device. It’s time to pass the blame. Here we go with Part One: (more)