Louis Mistreated was an incredibly melodic emo band from Mississauga, Ontario that somehow escaped the radar of mainstream popularity. But I really feel like they belong up there with Christie Front Drive, Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is the...
Ellington was one of the most talked about band during the early 2000’s but also one of the most unfortunate and forgotten. Luckily, just enough material was recovered to be able to document this band properly. Ellington was formed in...
Trevor Dykstra (bassist) and Lee Shepard (guitarist) went to high school together and were always close friends. They started out a band together in 1995, each playing their instrument and signing dual vocals. They went to a lot of shows and...
This compilation could have been a landmark for Canadian hardcore, emo and metalcore of the 1990’s. “Could have been” because it was never released. The fact is no one really knows how close it came to coming out. Usually...
-The Formation Montgomery 21 was a Canadian brit-pop influenced emo band from Mississauga, Ontario, known for featuring (and mostly made up of) members of New Day Rising. Vocalist and guitarist Chris Gray formed the band in the fall of 1995...
Jonathan Thomas is a bit of a forgotten gem in the history of Ontario emo hardcore. In late 1994 Kyle Bishop was singing in Grade but felt that it wasn’t enough, so he bought his first guitar and started writing a couple of songs. At the...
Firestorm was one of the early “all-star bands” that formed in Southern Ontario. Matt White (from Two Line Filler) used to go down to Hamilton during his summer vacations. In late 1992, he hooked up with Ryan Hollingworth, Christian...
Loveless .1. (pronounced “Loveless One”) was Chris Gray’s solo band’s name. It is perhaps one of his most obscure endeavors. The name was used briefly from 2001 to 2002, between periods when Chris Gray performed under...
This bio was sent to me exclusively for this blog by band founder Paul Schedlich. I doubt I could have written a better one on this fantastic midwest emo band from Pickering, Ontario. I don’t find many Canadian bands with this specific...
Marc Stonestreet, Tyler Smith and Stephen McIntyre had all been friends since elementary school. In 1994 while they were in ninth grade, they got together with their first instruments and started learning how to play. Marc actually got...
Two Line Filler (or 2 Line Filler) was one of the best appreciated and most successful emo bands to come out of Canada in the 90s. And everything they did was amazing! Every release was a masterpiece. I wouldn’t say this band...
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted with Will McEvilly of Castevet (CSTVT) in May of 2010. It was originally published on Sadness By Name, which was merged with Abridged Pause Blog in 2013. -Alright so Castevet started when...
New Day Rising was huge. And I think that there are still a bunch of people getting into them these days. Even if the band has been broken up for over a decade, a bunch of blogs still talk about them and Eulogy Recordings still manage to profit...
Eliot Rosewater was a short lived band from Mississauga that was only around from December 1995 to October 1997, though they managed to record a great deal of material, and apparently had written over 50 songs. It featured Ian McPhedran on bass...
Ache Hour Credo is what came between M Blanket and Breakwater (for Dave Wenger at least). It was fairly short lived, of about 1994 to 1996. Some say that the first unofficial song from this band was the last M Blanket song recorded, “Kid...
This was originally the very first post. It has since been edited, ameliorated and reposted, with much more material in the download link (thanks to Ryan Moon and Doug MacGregor for all the help). So I am proud to present one of my absolute...
This Halifax band was formed in October of 2000. They released a 3 song demo and a 4 song CD-ep in their short career, before disbanding in March of 2002. Drawing influence from bands such as Grade and Boysetsfire (and also covering both those...
Shiner was the first band to be released on the greatly important B.C. label Slow to Burn Records. Dave Brown who ran the label played in the band. This was B.C. emo in the early 90s and it was damn good. A lot more like the mid-west emo that...
I can’t find much to say on Benchwarmer. They were from Victoria, BC and featured Paul Block who would go on to do great things in Render Useless. Not that Benchwarmer is bad in anyway. It’s great, as you can assume since they were...
This is my lucky first find of Winnipeg’s emo outputs. This band was a sister band to Grace Like Winter, but they were really poppy emo, like later Keepsake. They really weren’t around for long (May 1999 to 2000), and their split...
I found it pretty hard to find information on the band, other than the actual releases. It seems they were only around for a year or two, all their releases occurred in 1996.I found them incredibly melodic, and sort of experimental type of emo...
M Blanket was one of the earliest BC emo bands. Sometimes more punk, sometimes some ska thrown in (i know this doesn’t sound to their advantage, but I assure you, you will fall in love with them).I’m not sure why they always...
Editor’s Note: This interview was initially sent to Tim Kirkpatrick, James Glayat and Chris Irving at the same time back in September of 2009. Each member responded with their own version of the story. Bellow the interview, Tim...