Kestrels

We are playing at the on August 8th (this Friday!) as part of the very cool .us series alongside .band (fresh off Music Nova Scotia Awards nominations! — I produced and mixed their debut record so it’ll be good to finally share a stage). Tickets are $10 and are available at the door only. Doors at 8:30.

I haven’t played a full band Kestrels show in Truro since around 2011 when we played at the Douglas Street school, but we used to play Truro all of the time when we started. Our first 7” called Seaside was mostly recorded at this legendary apartment on King Street (some crucial production work and mixing by ), just a few blocks away from the Marigold. It had a huge, beautiful open concept top floor which was home to several bands. The apartment stayed in our friend group at the time and if memory serves correctly the rent was $350 a month. I wouldn’t exactly call them halcyon days, but I’ve been thinking about those early TAAC grounds basement shows and American Apparel hoodies and black rimmed glasses quite a bit. (Still half-committed to black rimmed glasses, by the way.) My goal was to have a 7” out before we played our first show but it didn’t quite happen. I think we sold posters with a download code on our first “tour” (Halifax, Truro, and a pizza place in Sydney) because the shipment was delayed. I ended up cutting and folding 200 sleeves for that 7” back in Lornevale back in my childhood bedroom. Punishing! Somehow Grant Lawrence heard that single and put it on his top songs of 2008 for CBC which seemed like magic at the time. That single is pretty cool; hopefully I’ll get it online at some point.

Anyway — that’s how this whole thing started.

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

It’s going to be a fun night and I hope you can make it out. I’ve got a fresh shipment of our new record on LP and CD as well as a bunch of shirt designs and other fun stuff. I even unearthed a few LP copies of A Ghost History and that aforementioned Seaside 7” (no sleeves, unfortunately). See you there!

Sick poster by

Fun night at in Hamilton. Thanks for the great pics and videos as always! See you tonight at