We just played the Rancho Relaxo last friday as part of Two Way Monologues' Untied Way Fundraiser. Fun was had by all, and thanks to Dan for organzing the whole thing. Some nice pics and reviews follow. Also, congrats to Elaine who played the Rock Lottery at Sneaky Dee's this past Saturday, she was superb! and hot! awwwwwww
Pics of Rancho Show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quadb/sets/72157603351812828/
Pics from petenema.com
http://www.petenema.com/article.php?story=twm-65
Review of Rancho Show from "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans":
Key Witness really impressed me. Their music is steeped in variety and community spirit as they played a set that was full of boundless energy. The tunes were unique in that their style is not easy to define, but that doesn't make it any less accessible. They reminded me of some of the bands in the highly confusing math rock genre (i.e: Do Make Say Think or Explosions In The Sky) but J.M McNabb's vocals have a definite twang in them that leans more towards folksy territory. What I really appreciated was that this was very much a group affair. McNabb took center stage while singing of course, but then he would always back up so as to allow the rest of the band to take their turn at the spotlight. And there was a lot of band up there. Besides J.M on vocals, guitar and harmonica, you also had other members playing bass, drums, cello, fiddle, slide, mandolin, etc, etc, etc and, upon sampling some of the tracks on their myspace page, it sounds like there may be even more instruments involved. They seem to be taking the idea of jam band folk rock to the next level and I'm certainly excited at the prospect of seeing them again.
http://itsnotthebandihateitstheirfans.blogspot.com/2007/12/two-way-monologues-65-rancho-relaxo.html
Review of Rancho Show from Torontoindie.com:
Key Witness followed with some opening songs that revitalized the crowd and got them on their feet. The red lights along the wall-the only illumination the venue had-the buzz of the large crowd, the smell of booze and good times in the air all set the perfect atmosphere for some good old rock and roll. With throaty vocals, Key Witness came on strong and got people dancing. I watched the entire stellar set without moving from my vantage point, standing on my chair.
http://www.torontoindie.com/?p=198
We also won the track-fu at Two Way Monologues (which we're sure had nothing to do with the fact that we played their showcase):
Hey, Key Witness were one of the fantastic bands that played at TWM 6.5 on Friday night! That's the second time they've played a showcase, in fact, and they have been well-received at both. (Also, they are nice guys who indulged my blathering about Neil Young for a while pre-show. Something else needs to happen to me soon, or I won't shut up about that for months.)
Anyway, they've just released their new album, Mercury In Retrograde. (If you want to hear some of the songs live, they have a album release on December 15.) This is one of the tracks, and it's just lovely -- melancholy and sparse and sweet/sad. Certainly bodes well for the rest of the disc. These guys are one of my favourite Toronto bands I've seen this year, so I'm really looking forward to throwing this on my iPod.
http://www.twowaymonologues.com/trackfu.php?trackfuId=141