BIRD IN THE APARTMENT

Peace to MJ

I wrote this jam for Michael Jackson today.
Simone

Color Changing King
oh you my color changing king
i must admit i had my doubts
i wished for more, i wished for more
yeah we wall wished for more
but you gave us quite enough

and from my second story room
i read 300 miles south
they played you loud and danced around
your old stomping grounds
yeah what you gave was quite enough

and i know through out the time
a million empaths wished you'd rest
it's what we had to give with reason
while the rest committed treason
to the color changing king

in your open air prison you chose your food
moved your feet, made gestures crude
no i wouldn't call it captive, but you did
and now you're free

no i wouldn't call it captive, but you did
and now you're free

SHORT

Manhattan, Williamsburg, Bovina

People of the USA,

We we are coming to play a few shows. Do you know anyone in Vermont who would book us one? Or Boston?

One Hundred Dollars

22 Jul 2009 21:00	The Living Room	Manhattan, New York
23 Jul 2009 21:00	Bruar Falls	Brooklyn, New oYrk

TICKETS GO ON SALE THIS FRIDAY

terrible

David Waldman / PERFECT STRANGERS TOUR

This got taken by David Waldman, when we were in Texas.

We are embarking on the PERFECT STRANGERS TOUR with our perfect strangers, Deep Dark Woods.

11 Jun 2009 9:00	Towne House Tavern	Sudbury, Ontario
12 Jun 2009 10:00	Horseshoe Tavern	Toronto, Ontario
13 Jun 2009 21:00	Pearl Factory	Hamilton, Ontario
14 Jun 2009 20:00	Stone House	Peterborough, Ontario
16 Jun 2009 22:00	The Living Room	Kingston, Ontario
17 Jun 2009 20:00	le divan orange	Montreal, Quebec
18 Jun 2009 20:00	Black Sheep Inn	Wakefield, Quebec
20 Jun 2009 20:00	Wally’s	Guelph, Ontario

Comeau, Michael and Azzopardi, Tara

If you live in Toronto Ontario Canada, you're lucky today. The sun is smiling down, it's teeth blinging rays on the greyness that's been for half a year, disappearing the cold. Look to a vicious Spring, as insidious and all pervasive as its predecessor, the name of whom we need no longer curse.

If you live in Toronto, take time to check out a bit of Michael Comeau and Tara Azzopardi's work at this gallery, where there is a group show. If you live here, you probably have Michael and Tara's work for ages on the streets for years- Michael's the printer who's inspired a generation of new printers and new work from these new generations of kids who are drawing like him and printing around town - but his shows are less frequent than many and he isn't mangled in the interweb by his own intent, and so it's lucky to be in his real physical vicinity, for you get to see it all in real life, vivid, and really weird. Tara Azzopardi's drawings are beautiful and creepy, and the ones shown are in part drawn from the Missed Connections section of craigslist. She's more on the net so if you're into it search her. As if you want my words to describe visual art. snore. Go look.

-s

Black Gold

Co co (aka Colin Medley) shot this the other night at the shoe. Black Gold is a jam we'll be releasing in Alberta as part of the Regional 7" Series- about Fort McMurray.

Do you know what? we are going to Austin, Texas next week for SXSW. We're trying to find Willie Nelson. Please, if you know him, or are him, e-mail us.

Mortimer the Album by Mortimer the Band, featuring Mortimer's Theme

Little-known work by $100 Bassist Paul James Mortimer, and a major impact on the band's sound today. The second track, "Dragons Guard the Gates", was the original inspiration for the the B-side to "14th Floor".

We're hoping to bring attention to some of Paul's earlier projects on this blog, stay tuned!

Indie Awards Nomination

You can look at it here.
The picture is by Rick White from our last session. It went really good - the steak and mushrooms were amazing and the tracks came out almost as well. It could have been the food, or the mood, but somehow we all became very disproportionate to eachother.

Recording Vancouver

We're recording part 2 of the Regional 7" Series, called "My Father's House." It's about inheriting a slum. It'll be released on Deranged Records...

Doug Paisley- Record Release

This album is hype.

ET AUSSI

LE WEEKEND

This is the duet

Thanks for Colin at the New Town Throw Down for giving us this film. On Sunday it'll be pretty much like this, except in a big store and much less digital grain.

COME TO OUR FILM SHOOT

SIMONE AND IAN ARE PLAYING THIS DUET SHOW ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18 AT A STORE CALLED "SMASH" IN THE JUNCTION. IT'S A LIVE FILM SHOOT AND EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO COME TO IT.

IT STARTS AT 6 PM AND IS WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE.

2880 DUNDAS ST. W.

E-MAIL US WITH ANY QUESTIONS.

NOTHING'S ALRIGHT LIVE

This is from Christmas in July at the Horseshoe Tavern-
our record release. Thanks to Tony Romano for the footage.
I'm getting a good editing program soon. Feature length coming...

Toronto Star: $100 45's

Popular music critic Ben Rayner, from the Toronto Star wrote about us here .


In other news.

EXCLAIM: Regional 7" Series

Check it out.

Dusted Review

Dusted wrote a really thorough review of Forest of Tears - Thanks.

"Life might seem good on the northern rim of Lake Ontario – the Loonie is strong, Cito Gaston is back in the dugout – but Toronto’s One Hundred Dollars are here to remind us that, at close enough range, things are shitty everywhere. For starters, the six-piece country outfit cites leukemia as its honorary seventh member; lead guitarist and co-songwriter Ian Russell was diagnosed while the group was prepping its first EP for release – the poignantly titled Hold It Together. Yet even without that weighty bit of back-story, the 12 songs on the band’s full-length debut are deeply expressive of frustration, ache and loss.

Singer Simone Schmidt – who’s got a raw, world-weary drawl akin to Freakwater’s Catherine Irwin – brings the listener unabashedly close in the first few seconds of the leadoff track, “Careless Love.” It’s been 10 years and a handful of failed follow-ups since critics first swooned over the opener to Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, yet this track feels like a worthy passing of the torch. Schmidt’s song – a weary lament about a sloppy lover – has the same profane, arresting quality as Williams’ masturbation fantasy, only it works to opposite effect; “I lie on my back and moan at the ceiling” has been supplanted by “I never come but it don’t matter / I could be any other girl / My head planted on that pillow my eyes fixed up above / Is this what they meant when they sang Careless Love?” If I can still hear the former at the grocery store 10 years later, the latter feels deserving of more than a sliver of the same attention.

From here, Schmidt and Co. roll through a cycle of hardscrabble ballads about killers waylaid by inclement weather (“Snow and Rain”), lesbian lovers on the run from bigoted eyes (“Hell’s a Place”), and long shifts in a northeastern Ontario gold mine (“Fourteen Hour Day”). I’m not sure whether Russell or Schmidt do the bulk of the writing, but the results are uniformly impressive – these are songs that avoid sweeping generalities, training their gaze on small details like a hitchhiker’s thumbs in Quesnel and sooty boot stains on a flight of porch stairs in Timmins.

Veteran producer Rick White (Eric’s Trip, Elevator) knows enough to keep the no-frills backing of acoustic guitar, bass, organ and drums low in the mix, but he’s pretty generous about Stew Crookes’ pedal steel, which offers Schmidt a worthy foil. It dips and swoons through the waltz-time “Nothing’s Alright” and blankets her vulnerable vocals in “No Great Leap” (“If being poor’s my life’s crime / My body’s prison’s eastern standard time”). Instrumentally, things get gnarled towards the record’s end – the droning, low-hanging psychedelic haze of “Tirade of a Shitty Mom” and the naked slide notes of “Snow and Rain.” Yet, One Hundred Dollars is a band that sounds best putting their downbeat, idiosyncratic stamp on traditional roots forms. Forest of Tears is unrepentantly bleak, but some bummers are better than others and this one’s among the best of the year."

- Nathan Hogan, Dusted Magazine

Regional 7" Part 1: Release

Friday, December 12th is the date slated for the release of part 1 of the Regional 7" Series. It's also the date of our release party at the Silver Dollar. Advance tickets can be purchased at Rotate This and Soundscapes soon.



Regional Seven Inch Series sees singles on 7" records released all throughout the country on a variety of labels. The A side of each record necessarily deals with a subject thematically linked to the region out of which the label is based. So there are songs about cancer treatment in Toronto, and work shortage in St. John's, Newfoundland, and VLT gambling and the oil economy in Fort McMurray and cycles of colonization in Vancouver. This series will run indefinitely.

The cover art on this one is by Matt McInnes out of Hogtown.

One Hundred Dollars is playing at the Dakota in Toronto on Saturday November 15 with Steamboat. Come harness your Chi with us.

Our GOdfathers' Halloween

WE PLAY THE FUCKED UP HALLOWE'EN WEEKEND ON THURSDAY

FUCKED UP
FINAL FANTASY
$100
VIVIAN GIRLS
KATIE STELMANIS

David Eliade says it's sold out. Whatever, maybe you can get a ticket at the door. And go to the afterparty to see the two best rock n' roll duos in the city:

LULLABYE ARKESTRA
TROPICS

HUNTER & COOK MAGAZINE LAUNCH

Our friend Tony Romano & Jay Isaac just released this magazine called Hunter & Cook. It's got some good work in it. We played a show for it on OCtober 9th. Zach Sllotsky at takemorephotos.com took these pictures:

Regional Seven Inch

Regional Seven Inch is a series of 7 " records which will be released on a variety of Canadian music labels over the next year. The A side necessarily deals with an issue true to the general region of the label. Our first release, 14th Floor has already been blogged about by university student, Paul Mortimer (please see two blogs down, thank you). For those of you struggling internally with the question "What is a seven inch record?" please see the video below. Of course, we won't just hand the answer to you- a seven inch is different for everyone- no two people perceive them the same. But the kind of information we give you should help you on your way to understanding what a 7" is to you.





If you know of a good label in Saskatchewan, please let us know. Thank you.

SONNY BOY

And in other NEWS...

Our drummer Dave Clarke has a brand-spanking new baby boy now.
His name is Sonny!

totally...

So we recorded two songs yesterday at the Rogue studio in Toronto for the first installment of the Regional 7". Side a is a song called 14th Floor and the b side is a song called Migrant Workers. Owen Pallet did some MZNG fiddle on Migrant Workers and the session was recorded by our very own Stew Crookes. The release is going to be on Blocks in early December. The subject matter of both songs is pretty obvious but in case you're totally clueless here is a hint.


totally

in case you were wondering...

... our biggest influence for the album, Forest of Tears, was actually the roleplaying game Forest of Tears based on the works of J.R.R Tolkien. Contrary to popular belief that we have been friends and played music together for years, we actually all met in Quebec city at a conference for said game. Songs like No Great Leap are not about the monotony of work like reviewers say. Its about rescuing a princess from a dragon in middle earth. We thought it was pretty obvious but apparently you guys don't get it. Try reading a book sometime. GAWD

WE'RE COMING

THE DATES -
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 18 - PETERBOROUGH w/ Weird Weather + the Burning Hell
at Montreal House
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 19 - KINGSTON w/ Weather Station at the Artel
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 20 - GUELPH w/ the Burning Hell for Kazoo Fest at the Family Thrift Store