Psst: Eric Bachmann is alive

Crooked Fingers, Geese bait + Toronto live music listings

In case you’ve been circumnavigating the moon, the New York Times recently published a list of — ah, you know what? Fuck it. Just read anti-lister Michelle Mercer instead:

Against the List, for Love of Art

I’m a firm believer in year-end lists for reasons of discovery, and because they’re essential timestamps that counterweight overwhelming ephemera in the online age.

But canonical lists like the NYT one are, way more often than not, pointlessly controversial clickbait. Brad Mehldau, noted Billy Joel fan, agrees. Plus, listicles are so 2010.

I’ll admit I didn’t read the NYT piece: do I need to learn about Bob Dylan’s greatness or that Taylor Swift epitomizes a generation? Does anyone? What’s with the “living” qualifier? Is having a pulse more important than whether or not you’ve written anything great in several decades?

So let’s talk about Eric Bachmann of Crooked Fingers: a man who is obviously objectively one of the greatest living songwriters, in the US or anywhere else — and, no, of course I’m not just saying that as a fellow tall, white, bald and bespectacled Gen X man in North America raised on guitar music imbued with worldsick melancholy.

What, you think I’m biased?

Crooked Fingers – Swet Deth

(Merge)

Eric Bachmann is alive.

That’s not a given: six months ago, the 56-year-old suffered a near-fatal heart attack, from which he’s still recovering. He’d already finished this new album — including a song called “Hospital,” about not wanting to die in one, after being admitted for a panic attack. And his nine-year-old son had already drawn the morbid artwork that inspired the album title.

He talks about all that here.

So not only is Eric Bachmann still alive, but he deserves to be celebrated for his body of work: Eighteen albums in the past 33 years, eight of them under the name Crooked Fingers.

You want references? Fans/friends Sharon Van Etten, Matt Berninger (The National) and Mac McCaughan (Superchunk) show up here. Neko Case has recorded one of his best songs (“Sleep All Summer”) and invited him into her band. He sings on one of Spoon’s best-loved songs (“I Turn My Camera On”).

You want an entry point? Seriously, start anywhere. Swet Deth is as good a place as any. Maybe the 2022 solo live album on Bandcamp, recorded in a Colorado cave. Or any of his last three records before this one (which includes one Archers of Loaf reunion album), all of which stand among the best things he’s ever done.

You know who hasn’t been as consistently great in the last 10 years? Pretty much all the geezers on the NYT list.

Even as a huge fan, I often take Bachmann for granted. When I first heard 2018’s subdued No Recover, for a while I thought, foolishly, do I need another Bachmann album? Over time, that particular mood piece has become one of my late-night favourites.

Similarly, when Swet Deth arrived this past February, it was a slow grower — one that I now play constantly. It’s full of the rich melodies, minor keys, melancholy folk, new wave anthems, and lyrics about how “from the swelter, there is no shelter / It’s only shady when we’re dancing in the ruins.”

Mostly, though, it felt like a letter from an old friend. Maybe even from the specific friend who first introduced me to Bachmann’s music — a friend who died at 52 of a heart attack, I’m now reminded. A friend for whom I learned to play and sing Bachmann’s 2016 song “Mercy” on the piano, as a way of dealing with grief.

Swet Deth is informed, obviously, by morbidity — and again, it was written before his heart attack. Bachmann is a father worried about leaving his child early, and who’s had more than a few deaths in his immediate family lately. As I wrote last week, welcome to your fifties.

Hence the advice on closing track “Steady Now”:

The time is now
Time to choose what to lose, what to save
What to keep as you creep to your grave

Gonna keep my Eric Bachmann records when it’s time for Swedish death cleaning.

Bachmann had to cancel a series of full-band shows this spring, due to his ongoing recovery. But his cardiologist has greenlit a solo fall tour of house shows — and is leaving room open for September 19-20 for shows in Toronto (or area), in between stops in Detroit and Buffalo.

Want to host him? Contact Undertow.

All news no snooze

Leave it to Laura Snapes, the British writer who facilitated one of the only interviews with Mary Margaret O’Hara in the last three decades, to write the definitive piece about the real men behind Angine de Poitrine. Here’s to Brits who understand Canadian weirdos! Closer to home, Lydia Perovic writes about the duo’s place in avant-garde traditions in classical minimalism, Ubu Roi, Canadian arts centres, and Tranzac-core.

Speaking of Canadian prog, the NYT’s Hank Shteamer has a personal take on what it was like watching Rush rehearse in Toronto.

Never-Ending Present readers: Aisling Murphy at the Globe and Mail goes behind the scenes on the months-long journey to bring the Tragically Hip musical to the stage at Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius. It’s on there until May 24. A little bird told me that Steve Berlin (Phantom Power, Music @ Work) is going to produce the cast album.

Never-Ending Present readers: the Tragically Hip are marking the 10-year anniversary of their final tour and show with a live album from that time, creatively titled Live July 22 – August 20, 2016. It’s out on August 21; the day after, CBC will be re-broadcasting the final show in its entirety.

Hearts on Fire readers: The Walrus writes about Corb Lund’s battle against coal mining in his beloved Alberta, which he’s been fighting for the past six years. He’s diligent and serious about it — because that’s how he always rolls. “This is not good for my career,” he admits.

Hearts on Fire readers: Sudanese-American artist Sinkane, a.k.a. Ahmed Gallab, got his start playing in Caribou and Of Montreal in the mid-2000s. He writes candidly about his night-and-day experiences with both, and, in short, why Dan Snaith is a total mensch. Sinkane plays Hillside this summer.

The full Toronto Jazz Festival schedule is now out, including all free concerts. It runs June 19-28.

Holy Fuck, Geese on the Beaches!

Geese recently announced a second Toronto show this November at the 2,700-capacity club History. Meanwhile, there continues to be moral outrage that their management hired a company that employs fake fan accounts on social media. One digital marketing professional offers this helpful reminder:

The best thing to keep in mind is very rarely is anything on the internet an accident. Everything is planned and nothing is real. While you can manufacture awareness with a hefty budget, you can’t manufacture fandom. That’s an experience that requires years of work and buy in from every angle—artist, manager, label, agent, and, of course, the fans.

And as this Guardian piece points out:

Geese were already popular before they employed Chaotic Good, and social media sentiment wasn’t what drove critic-led outlets such as Stereogum and the New Yorker to name their 2025 album Getting Killed the best of the year…

“The interesting thing about Geese is that the streaming numbers are actually quite low,” says [a marketing professional]. “For the amount Geese are being talked about right now, you’d think that number would be a lot higher.”

That last comment really caught my eye. So how popular are Geese, really? Let’s check one obvious (but flawed) metric: publicly displayed Spotify stats, FWIW.

Here are 20 acts I thought would serve as useful comparisons and context, acts that I’ve either written about lately, or have/had 2026 shows in Toronto at History, Massey Hall (those two venues have similar capacities), or larger venues like the amphitheatre or the arena. These are their current Spotify stats for monthly listeners as of May 2026, which means how many individual Spotify users streamed one or more of these artists’ songs in the last 28 days.

Please enjoy my 2010-ish clickbait listicle:

Bibi Club: 17K. This is actually quite a good number for a critically acclaimed new Canadian indie band. Most other Polaris-bait has numbers smaller than this — though Charlotte Cornfield is at 100K.

Arkells: 544K. This is a typical number for a current artist who’s very successful in Canada with only niche audiences elsewhere. Let’s look at legacy artists: Blue Rodeo is currently at 387K; Alexisonfire, 782K — though Tragically Hip are at 1.3M, and gay hockey fans Wolf Parade are at 1.8M).

Timber Timbre: 549K. So a guy who was effectively cancelled in the past eight years has only slightly better streaming numbers than one of the hardest-working commercial pop bands active in Canada? Even assuming a posthumous bump, that’s still impressive.

Waxahatchee: 817K

Broken Social Scene: 1 million

Goldie Boutilier: 1.5 million. I love her new record, and had really no idea how popular she was, even after seeing her sold-out Danforth show. Not surprised, though.

Holy Fuck: 1.6 million. Holy fuck, indeed! Again, I had no idea. Good for them. Great new record. Almost as big as Geese!

Geese: 1.7 million

The Beaches: 1.7 million. Just as big as Geese! (but not Wolf Parade)

Angine de Poitrine: 2.1 million. Bigger than Geese!

Wet Leg: 3.7 million. Like Geese, also accused of being overhyped, “industry plant,” etc., and equally tainted for hiring Chaotic Good. And yet: deservedly popular, both on and offline.

Charlotte Cardin: 3.8 million. Perhaps the most popular Canadian that most Canadians have never heard of. Their loss.

Arcade Fire: 4.1 million. Pretty good 2026 numbers for a band that people pretend not to like anymore.

Metric: 5.6 million. Canadians might not think Metric are almost as big as Robyn, but they are — and those are definitely not all Canadian numbers. Nearly five times as big as Geese! (With a 25-year catalogue, of course, as with Robyn)

Big Thief: 5.8 million. Of all the current American indie faves, this band does the least to play normal industry games, and yet is perhaps the biggest of their peers.

Robyn: 6 million

Rosaliá: 31 million

Noah Kahan: 33 million. Well, this really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Olivia Dean: 59 million. Another 2025 second-album-breakthrough act, and exponentially bigger than Geese!

—

Caveat: Who knows anything, really: maybe these are all bots? Ticket sales remain the ultimate test of actual fandom.

Grace note

Fran Lebowitz, in the Toronto Star:

Someone said to me, “People used to respect older people. They don’t anymore. Why is that?”…

Young people used to have old people to say, “Here’s how you kill a deer, ’cause if you don’t know how to do this, you’re gonna starve.” They taught them how to stay alive. (Nowadays,) why would people who are young respect old people? Old people are always handing them machines saying, “What do I do now?”

T.O. SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW

An entirely subjective and by no means comprehensive look at Toronto’s concert calendar, tailored to musically curious people who are probably (but not necessarily) over 40. My strong recommendations in bold. Suggestions welcome.

Don’t live in Toronto? Most of these artists are on tour, so check your local listings. Just kidding! There are no local listings anymore. Check the artists’ websites.

JUST ANNOUNCED (mark your calendars)

Polky, Syrenka: May 28 at Small World Music Centre

Holy Fuck, Kiwi Jr., Bonnie Trash, Ian Blurton’s Future Now, much more: June 5-7 at DoWestFest, outside the Garrison

Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People: June 19 at Sellers & Newel. Album and zine release.

Lorie Wolf and friends: June 20 at the Pilot 10.30 p.m.

Toronto Klezmer Society All-Stars: June 28 at Toronto Jazz Festival, Yorkville Park

Brain Candy: June 28 at Paradise Theatre, 6 p.m. Q&A with Mark McKinney and director Kelly Makin. Presented by West End Phoenix.

Etran de l’Aïr: June 30 at the Horseshoe

Finn Wolfhard: July 24 at Opera House

Fiver: July 24 at Dina’s Tavern (fka Silver Dollar)

Swervedriver: Aug 21 at the Phoenix

Jon Spencer: Sept 10 at Great Hall

Damien Jurado: Sept 12 at Horseshoe

José González: Sept 12 at Danforth Music Hall

Pokey LaFarge: Sept 18 at Concert Hall

Vieux Farka Touré: Oct 3 at Koerner Hall

Tricky: Oct 8 at Danforth Music Hall. This is the night after DJ Shadow is in town, for all you fans of 1996.

Allison Russell: Oct 22 at Massey Hall

This is Lorelei: Oct 30 at Lee’s Palace

caroline: Nov 14 at East End United Church

Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk: Nov 22 at Danforth Music Hall. They’re promoting their new memoir about their marriage. I can personally guarantee that the book has excellent copy-editing.

Steven Page’s “Steven’s Greetings”: Nov 27 at Danforth Music Hall

Choir! Choir! Choir! presents Unsilent Night: Dec 19 at Massey Hall (two shows)

Tonight and ev-er-y night!:

The Tranzac, Drom Taberna, Cameron House and the Rex Hotel all have several great acts a night — just go! JazzInToronto.ca’s Instagram page has essential daily jazz listings at various venues. East-enders: always something on at Castro’s or Sauce on the Danforth or jazz at Hirut. Latin and Caribbean scene: Lula Lounge. Check out the eclectic lineup at the micro-intimate Sellers & Newel bookstore. The Whole Note lists classical events and more. Fans of experimental music, report to Earlobe. Hamiltonians need HamOntLive.

Coming this week:

Sessa, Kolumbo: May 14 at St. Anne’s Parish.

Joe Jackson: May 14 at Danforth Music Hall. Sold out. As a longtime fan, my favourite track from the new album is this on-brand crotchety crankfest:

Radhika Das: May 14 at Massey Hall

Meghan Dowlan: May 14 at the Garrison

Eric Cheneaux & Ryan Driver, Rafael Toral, Masahiro Takahashi & Brodie West: May 14 at Standard Time. Presented by Tone Festival.

Rangreza रंगरेज़ा by AR Rahman and Rushil Ranjan, featuring Abi Sampa: May 14-15 at Meridian Hall

Mile End Kicks: May 15-19 at Revue Cinema

Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass: May 15 at Massey Hall. 60th anniversary of Whipped Cream! The man is 90 years old!

Richard Hell: May 15 at Toronto Reference Library. In conversation with Sean Michaels, about his recently reissued 2005 novel Godlike.

The Sattalites: May 15 at Hugh’s Room

Grupo Niche: May 15 at History. Legendary Colombian salsa band.

Buzzcocks: May 15 at Opera House

Flore Laurentienne: May 16 at Allied Music Centre (Massey Hall)

King Tuff, Mod Lang: May 16 at Sound Garage

Animatist, Miserable Weekend: May 16 at Baby G

Robby Hoffman (comedy): May 16 at Danforth Music Hall

Home Front, Bootlicker: May 16 at East End United

Glava Lava: May 16 at Drom Taberna 11.30 p.m.

Brownman Ali’s 5 Weeks of Miles: May 16 at Contxt by Trane. This week: “Plugged Nickel,” the Wayne Shorter years.

Kevin Breit and Don Rooke: May 16 at Tranzac 7.30 p.m.

Rebecca Hennessy presents La-Nai Gabriel, Alex Samaras: May 17 at Tranzac 7.30 p.m.

“Black Flag”: May 19 at the Horseshoe. 71-year-old founder Greg Ginn with a new group of twentysomethings.

The Velour Underground: May 19 at Baby G

Case Oats: May 19 at the Drake Underground. The Chicago indie rock/Americana duo, not the former Toronto deputy mayor.

Ari Lennox: May 20 at Massey Hall

Toronto Klezmer Society Epic Jam: May 20 at Tranzac 9.30 p.m. Come join! Sheet music and more info here.

Chapterhouse: May 21 at Concert Hall

Hidden Cameras, Sook-Yin Lee: May 21 at Longboat Hall #HeartsOnFire

Constantinople presents Crossing the Andes: May 21 at Trinity-St. Paul’s

Good Kid: May 21-22 at Danforth Music Hall.

Courtney Barnett: May 22 at History

Ace of Wands, Skye Wallace: May 22 at Sound Garage. Reviewed the new Ace of Wands here.

Abigail Lapell: May 22 at Hugh’s Room. Album release for Shadow Child.

True Stories (David Byrne): May 22 at Revue Cinema 9.30pm

The Ichi-Bons, the Deltas: May 22 at the Horseshoe

Key spring dates

Belle and Sebastian, U.S. Girls: May 25-26, at Massey Hall. Performing Tigermilk on May 25, If You’re Feeling Sinister on May 26. Lots of tickets available for Tigermilk!

Geordie Gordon, José Contreras: May 27 at the Burdock. Album release for a Toronto MVP.

Don Pyle (book launch): May 28 at Standard Time

Whitehorse, Chloe Doucet: May 29 at Danforth Music Hall

William Basinski: May 31 at Prepare the Ground Festival

Amyl & the Sniffers, L7: June 4 at Ontario Place Amphitheatre

Skydiggers’ 40th anniversary: June 5 at Hugh’s Room #HaveNotBeentheSame

Feist, Broken Social Scene, Alessia Cara, Paul Langlois Band: June 6 at Nathan Phillips Square. Free, fundraiser for UHN Foundation. Details here. #HeartsOnFire #NeverEndingPresent

James Blake: June 6 at History

All Things Go festival (a.k.a. Lilith 2026): June 6-7 at Ontario Place Amphitheatre. June 6 has Kesha, the Beaches and more; June 7 has Lorde, Wet Leg and more.

Fiery Furnaces: June 7 at Hugh’s Room

Black Country New Road, Horsegirl: June 17 at History

David Murray and Kahil El Zabar Duo: June 19-20 at Contxt by Trane

Lambrini Girls, Big Special, Big Girl: June 20 at Concert Hall. Postponed from April 28.

More Toronto concert listings until March 2027 are here and updated weekly for paid subscribers.

Here come the regulars

Every Monday: Tranzac open stage, 6.30 p.m. (Sign up at 6 p.m.)

Every Monday: Sean McCarthy’s Taproom Gang (trad jazz) at Steadfast Brewing 7 p.m.

Tuesdays in May: The Velour Underground at Baby G

Every Tuesday: Julian Fauth at Sauce on the Danforth 6.30 p.m.

Every Tuesday: swing night at Drom Taberna

Every Thursday: Strangetooth (bluegrass) at Tranzac 7 p.m.

Every Thursday: Good Enough Karaoke (live band) at Wheat Sheaf Tavern

Every Thursday: Corin Raymond at Cameron House, 6 p.m.

Every Saturday: The Happy Pals at Grossman’s, 3.30 p.m.

Every Saturday: Michael Louis Johnson and the Red Rhythm at Communist’s Daughter 4 p.m.

Every Saturday: Robertson & Kerr at Cameron House 8.30 p.m.

Every Sunday: Eastern European Brunch at Drom Taberna 1-4 p.m.

Every Sunday: John Borra at Communist’s Daughter 5 p.m.

Every Sunday: Colonel Tom at Cameron House 6 p.m.

Every Sunday: Doghouse Orchestra at Cameron House, 10 p.m.

Are you over 40 and/or did you grow up with freeform radio?

If so, curated Toronto concert listings from now until March 2027—are here for paid subscribers, and updated weekly.

Be kind to each other.

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