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FemBots

Life is good.

About Me


With the release of their fourth album, Calling Out (2008), the FemBots have set off in yet another direction while in many ways returning to their beginnings. Born out of improvisation and experimentation, Calling Out sees the FemBots once more stretching themselves musically to produce an album that is daring yet accessible.
The FemBots began as a home recording project of Dave MacKinnon and Brian Poirier and their debut, Mucho Cuidado (2000), featured songs written and performed on power tools, toys and broken down thrift store instruments. The duo quickly carved a unique space in the Toronto music scene bringing their post-industrial folk songs to the stage using tape loops and reel-to-reel machines mixed with often frantic live performances.
Their critically acclaimed second release, Small Town Murder Scene (2003), adopted a more atmospheric approach with traditional instrumentation and soulful laments. The third FemBots record, The City (2005), built on this earlier work while taking it up several notches with banging piano chords, catchy choruses, soulful vocals, swinging guitars, woven strings and horns. The City – that landed on several top ten lists for 2005 – pushed the stark black and white vision of their earlier albums into full technicolor.
The FemBots originally envisioned their fourth album Calling Out (2008), as an entire album using an assortment of junkstruments, musical instruments created from garbage by artist Iner Souster. Eight months into the project it became clear that the junkstruments were simply too unpredictable and too difficult to work with to sustain an entire album. Rather than scraping the project entirely, the FemBots used the junkstrument instrumentals they had recorded as rhythm tracks, the rock and roll chassis that the rest of the songs are built on.
Calling Out also marks another departure for the FemBots. This is the first time Dave MacKinnon and Brian Poirier have collaborated with other musicians during every stage of the writing and recording process. In the past MacKinnon and Poirier wrote the songs, then brought in other musicians to fill out the arrangements. With Calling Out the songs were built up from improvisations with Iner Souster and drummer Nathan Lawr.
The result is a collection of pop and rock song built on a foundation of odd sounding home made instruments, resulting in their most straightforward and strangest record to date.
The FemBots have drawn comparisons to Califone, My Morning Jacket, Latin Playboys and Wilco but their sound is not easily categorized. Influenced by a wide range of music - from Rock ‘n Roll, Blues, Soul, Country, and Folk - they continue their genre bending approach, honing a new style from the old. With each new album the FemBots transform in ways unforeseen, yet strangely familiar.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 3/15/2005
Band Website: fembots.net
Band Members: Dave MacKinnon
Brian Poirier
Nathan Lawr
Iner Souseter

Influences: Mohamad Ali, Buster Keaton, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, The Clash, James Brown, William Kennedy, Eddie & Ernie, Bob Wiseman, Harry Smith, Maps, a good hair cut, Spike Jones (not Spike Jonze), Jane Jacobs, The Winnipeg General Strike, The Paris Commune, London, sometimes Toronto, a good book is good, a good non-fiction book is better, The Taking Of Pelum 123, 70s cop movies set in New York or San Francisco, wine, a good bottle of scotch.
Sounds Like: a good time, most of the time.

Calling Out is available on line at -
iTunes
Zunior.com
puretracks.com
and is available on vinyl at www.savedbyvinyl.com

FemBots - Good Days

FemBots - Ship Breaking

FemBots - My Hands Are A City

Record Label: www.weewerk.com
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

The Making of FemBots Calling Out - Videos online

Our good friend and co-conspirator Iner Souster has been making behind the scenes videos for each song on the new record. The videos for Good Days is up now. More will follow.
Posted by FemBots on Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:47:00 PST

FemBots To Release Fourth Album September 16th

From chartattack.comIt's been three years since Toronto's FemBots released an album of their eclectic folk-rock music, but Weewerk will change that when it puts Calling Out in stores on Sept. 16.FemBo...
Posted by FemBots on Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:42:00 PST

The Last Week-End of Mixing, Mixing, Mixing

I know I've been saying this for a while now but we're really and truely so, so, so close to being done. We're recording some horn parts this week-end, finalizing our mixes and mastering the record la...
Posted by FemBots on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:09:00 PST

Notes From A Windowless Room

It's hard to tell what time it is, let alone what day it is. We've been wrapping up the last nagging little bits of recording and I have started mixing the record in earnest. At the end of the day I f...
Posted by FemBots on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:01:00 PST

Recording Update Number??????????.........where am I? Who stole my pills?

I know we've said it before but we're really in the home stretch now. The album is starting to sound like an album and in my mind I can see the pieces fitting together. We spent a week at the Maki fam...
Posted by FemBots on Sat, 03 May 2008 10:42:00 PST

Recording Update Number Who Knows What

We’re back from our long week-end recording trip to a Sudbury basement. Much food, beer, wine, taquila and weed was consumed and once the smoke cleared we had 5 songs in the can. They ...
Posted by FemBots on Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:27:00 PST

Recording News - Update

We're in the home stretch! The new record is finally taking shape. We've got more songs than we need and we're still writing. We'll be heading up to Nathan's place on the 15th of March to try to nail ...
Posted by FemBots on Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:43:00 PST

Recording News Pt 3

We spent the past week-end holed up in Nathan's basement. In between meals and drinks we got a fair bit of recording done and have managed to add another 13 bits of songs to the ever growing pile that...
Posted by FemBots on Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:12:00 PST

Recording News Pt 2

Since returning to the city from our session at Cordova Lake we've been working away like mad. This generally means getting up at 8, letting the dogs out, making coffee and spending the morning writin...
Posted by FemBots on Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:24:00 PST

Recording News

We've just returned from a 5-day recording retreat at a cottage in the Kawartha Lakes and it feels like we've finally turned a corner with the new record. We spent the week working out band arrangemen...
Posted by FemBots on Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:53:00 PST