Here I am, promoting homegrown talent.

11 Hour Orchestra, a relatively newly formed band out of Vancouver. They mostly just busk on the street right now (portable speakers and all!) but tonight they have a real, honest-to-God paying gig booked.

Unfortunately they only have one track up on their MySpace page, but it's worth a listen:

www.myspace.com/11hourorchestra

Not bad!

Saw them play tonight. What a tight band!



Spoke briefly to the vocalist, David, and the drummer, Simon. They seem like really nice, mellow guys. I genuinely hope they do well. This is a band that deserves it!

My roommate drooled all over the drummer.

And I'm not going to lie. I didn't find David all that attractive, until I hugged him. His scent? Jeebus. Pheromones much?

I am a simple creature.

Not bad.

phunkdaddy said:

I know there's a lot of talent in Vancouver, but it was genuinely a shock to see a band this good playing on the street for nickels.

I love bands like this that have that organic, real, yet full and rich sound. I know the video's sound is iffy, but I can picture them on a record. They remind me of when Jason Mraz or Dave Matthews Band (the latter of which I'm not a huge fan of) gets in that groove, and it's as funky as it is folksy. Paolo Nutini, Eric Hutchinson, etc have that same vibe. It's refreshing to see folks than can play and sing and be funky, melodic, fresh, relaxing, and exciting, and not have to use power chords, and/or only one vocal cord, and an inordinate amount of spit to accomplish something musically (are you listening Korn? are you listening Slipknot?).

I want to hear more of these guys.

ernestsewell said:

I do too.

I've got Mr. Drummer, Simon, added on facebook now, so with any luck I'll be able to keep up with what they're doing.

This may be a sad statement on the state of current music, but I was really impressed that they appear to only use real, live instruments.

So far my only criticism of this group is that when they play live, the vocals have a way of being indistinct or getting a bit lost among the other sounds, though I suspect that's due to equipment more than anything else. More success should buy them the ability to get better sound equipment that'll fix that problem.