Metric

METRIC takes over Drowned in Sound

We're celebrating the UK release of FANTASIES and it's METRIC Week on Drowned in Sound! DiS will be posting new content each day, including the online premiere of "The Rawside of... METRIC" documentary, track-by-track commentaries, some advice from all of us about exploring the cities we love, behind the scenes shots from our forthcoming video for "Sick Muse", The Beatles vs. Rolling Stones Discussion, contests and much more! Check it out!

So check it out. Before Christmas we did a tour across Canada in conjunction with a kids' charity and made a limited edition 7 inch vinyl single of "Help I'm Alive" originally to be sold only at the December shows. The world being what it is, the song got leaked onto the internet from the pressing plant and took on a life of its own. Suddenly, we were getting calls from radio stations all over the world, from Australia to Ireland, saying they were playing the hell out of "Help, I'm Alive". This totally caught us off guard. We never could have guessed that this song would be a radio contender! It's success proved our theory that programmers and listeners are more open minded than anyone gives them credit for! Meanwhile, we were all set to release "Gimme Sympathy" as our logical first single but "Help I'm Alive" continued to amaze & confuse us by climbing all the way up to the top of the charts. The song became Metric's first #1 hit and we thanked the mysterious universe.

What came next only makes sense in such a scenario. When I was working with Winnipeg cult-filmmaker Guy Maddin on visual projections for my Soft Skeleton tour, I met Maddin's editor and co-cinematographer Deco Dawson. Guy Maddin is known as the Canadian David Lynch and I love Deco's editing of "Heart of the World". Deco has since become one of the country’s foremost experimental film makers and a friend of the band. He edited Metric's live concert DVD "Live at Metropolis" and we brought him along to oversee the live filming of Fantasies on our December tour. A few weeks ago, as we were scrambling to keep up with the unexpected radio momentum of Help I’m Alive, we got a call from Deco saying he had a surprise for us: He had taken the concert footage of "Help I'm Alive" and turned it into something that looks like Yo Gabba Gabba on acid. Jimmy held a late night test screening of Deco's creation at Giant Studio to rave reviews and now we have decided to share it with the online world.

This is not a music video. This is a short film in an imaginary landscape and the soundtrack is "Help I'm Alive".
Thank you Deco.

Hey UK!

We'll be touching down in your part of the world soon for our European tour in May!

Check out the dates on our new UK micro site ilovemetric.com/uk.

There is so much going on around the world with us right now that we thought it might make sense to have a couple of these types of pages setup for each of the major territories around the world where we can post updates that are relevant to fans living there, without inundating the rest of you with information that totally doesn’t concern your part of the world.

While you're at it, if you live in the UK, come and join our new Facebook Group too! It’s also specifically dedicated to UK centric news & updates.

Big News!

Jimmy and I just agreed to do a series of 5 private acoustic appearances in Western Canada at the end of the month with support from some local radio stations in each of the cities we're going to visit... but there is a twist. There won't be any tickets sold for these shows. Originally, the only way to get in was going to be through radio station contests, but since we're going to be passing through and we always want to take care of you guys, we decided to move the shows into slightly bigger venues, while still keeping it totally intimate, so we can give out some tickets directly to fans. There are very few tickets available, so click here to enter to win.

We're also holding back some tickets for people who pre-ordered the record directly from us. Half of them will go exclusively to those who pre-ordered the deluxe limited edition, and the other half will go to anyone who bought any one of the Fantasies packages. These tickets will be randomly distributed.

For anyone who can't make it or doesn't end up being able to get tickets, don't worry, we're planning another massive Canadian tour for later this year.

Hey everyone!

300 tickets for our all-ages show on April 14th at The Mod Club in Toronto go on sale tomorrow on Ticketmaster! You'll need to use the password FANTASIES to purchase them we made it that way so you guys get first crack at the tickets since there are so few. The only other way to get in is to listen to 102.1 The Edge to win tickets.

We have a few other special events coming up soon too. On April 9th we're playing an in-store at HMV on Yonge St. in Toronto the show starts at 5pm, and be sure to stick around for the signing afterwards! On April 16th you can also catch us at 8pm at the Apple store on Sainte-Catherine in Montreal! That show will be recorded as part of the iTunes "Live from Montreal" series.

In case you didn't notice, the pre-order is over! If you bought Fantasies from us here, you should have gotten the download link already. The physical stuff will ship soon. As of now, if you buy one of the special packages with exclusive bonus material here you can download everything right away. The album also came out on iTunes around the world as of Tuesday!

METRIC has news for you!

Starting today - March 31st you can buy FANTASIES on iTunes worldwide up to several weeks before it will be available in any other store around the world. Check out your local iTunes store to find the album, complete with digital booklet!

Of course, you can also purchase the album directly from the band's website in one of several deluxe packages (including digital download) complete with exclusive content not available anywhere else...

We're also getting ready to hit the road and show you all some love!

As a gesture of appreciation to our home-town Toronto fans, we have a few treats in store... We're going to be holding a secret show this week somewhere in Toronto. Keep your eyes peeled for clues on how to get in! On April 14th we will be performing an intimate all-ages show at The Mod Club with Holy Fuck. The only way to get tickets will be through a listen to win contest on Toronto's 102.1 The Edge or by going to Ticketmaster starting on Friday April 3rd at 10am EST. Since it's a really small room and there are very few tickets available, we made it so the only way to buy them will be to enter the password "fantasies" which is something we're only telling our fans and quietly announcing on our website. Still, make sure to grab your tickets quick if you want to come because we expect them to go fast!

Check out the Tour page to see where you'll find us over the next few months - stay tuned for more Canadian dates later this week!

The future is here and Metric delivers! We put a lot of love into making this album and now we're gonna personally guide FANTASIES to your virtual & physical door!

In addition to the straight up pre-order option we have also put together an extra-fantastic limited edition package for anyone who, like us, must have music at their fingertips at all times - in every medium in the known universe! This includes special things we made that you can't get anywhere except from us directly. When the band was talking about what to include a lot of ideas came up -- giant Metric robot dolls, anyone? In the end, we agreed that we wanted to include work that would give our loyal fans an inside perspective.

Hence the decision to include Jimmy's best-kept-secret cover of "Nobody Home" by Pink Floyd. Some of us who have done a lot of hanging out at the studio late night have had the rare treat of hearing him play "Nobody Home" on the piano when the mood strikes him, usually around 5 am. He played it for the first time in public at our surprise acoustic show at the World Cafe in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago, the crowd loved it so he finally recorded it.

Now you can have it for yourself when you pre-order FANTASIES from us!

We also decided to include a couple fancy photographic posters in the deal. For the first poster we pulled together our personal shots from the studio & from the road in classic black & white. Here's a sample of the vibe:

For the second one I chose my favorite works from this graffiti art collective called "Hollywood in Cambodia" that I discovered on my writing trip to Buenos Aires. As members of Metric we're all travelers so we decided to make the Hollywood in Cambodia poster a selection of postcards you can cut out and send through the old world mail if you want. It looks great as a poster but its nice to have the option of destroying it and chopping it up into pieces!

More on "Hollywood in Cambodia": In addition to their various works on abandoned buildings around Buenos Aires, they had one designated wall in a Palermo cafe where artists from the collective created an amazing mural by adding to, instead of painting over, each others' original images. As the custom in graffiti art is more often to replace another man's image with your own than to work around it, this wall is an impressive accomplishment and a testament to the fact that collaboration often yields more interesting results than strictly ego driven pursuits.

So there you have it! Our vision revealed!

It's hilarious how the world works. Now that we can finally get major retailers to stock our records, they're all going out of business! And the fact is we would love it if you chose to get your Metric fix here first, where we can make things exactly how we want them without compromise and throw in extra music and high quality artwork for the hell of it. In a fucked up way, this is perfect. Wherever you decide to get your copy of FANTASIES... we wanna say thanks for sticking with us!

This year is gonna rock like no other.

We're gearing up for another summer of touring, and we're so excited to be playing at this year's Edgefest in Toronto! We wanted to let you know that a special fan presale is taking place on Friday February 27th. Check it out and save $10 on your ticket! A portion of each ticket will also be donated to the Downsview Park Foundation.

See you in the sun!

It's official. It's happening.

Our new album - FANTASIES - will be in stores across the USA & Canada on April 14, 2009 and in the rest of the world shortly thereafter. Starting March 2, 2009, you'll be able to pre-order FANTASIES directly from us here in one of several excellent bundles including limited edition vinyl, deluxe hardcover CD and straight up download, along with some exclusive extras. Anyone who pre-orders will immediately get an MP3 of the first single "Help I'm Alive." Until then, here is a free download (top of page, left) of an acoustic version of "Help I'm Alive." We're also working on worldwide touring plans, dates will be announced soon.

Happy New Year! So much has happened, I'm not sure where to begin. I started writing a tour diary from the December 2008 Canadian run-- replete with near-death stories from the frozen tundra-- but what i was writing veered off track and morphed into a lengthy ode to Murray Lightburn so i am going to leave all that on his voice mail and post some photos here instead.

The two week cross country tour ended in Vancouver, BC in the worst snow storm to hit the region in many years. We could see our breath on stage all three nights at the Vogue Theatre and the crowd danced with their parkas on. Tough! Love! There was plenty of nervous speculation that none of us would be making it home for the holidays. Luck was on our side though and on christmas eve we all scattered to various destinations-- I went to see my family in Northern Ontario before embarking on a road trip across Argentina, Joshua went on a fishing trip in Florida with his Dad then back to NYC and Joules headed to Big Sur. For New Years, Jimmy orchestrated a night of debauchery at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto before flying to Lima, Peru and making the pilgrimage to machu picchu. Anyone who attended Jimmy's NYE party probably still has a hangover, good luck with that. As promised, here are some photos from the tour. Thanks to everyone across the country who braved the storm to rock with us!

Hey, thanks for all the feedback on our video clip! I guess we aren't the only ones who have had a few existential adventures post "Live it Out". It blows my mind that our last album came out in 2005. Seriously, where did the time go?

I was back in NYC on Nov 4 for Obama's win, what a rush! Especially since four years ago to the day Jimmy & I were driving back to Canada with a U-haul full of dreams ( ok actually it was full of guitar amps, same thing). It was a Canadian border guard that told us W had won a second term. We were so grateful to be able to come home to Toronto but it was a harsh moment, leaving behind our place in NY and the neighborhood where we met Josh & Joules and everything else we loved about the USA. All the world hating on Americans was getting out of hand too and for a while there it looked like we would all be stuck in a perpetual war for perpetual peace. Now it seems at least the war in Iraq will end in our lifetime! And everyone who is still optimistic that things could be better can come out of hiding.

So yeah even as we are told the economy is crumbling and predictions for the death of the planet are dire as ever, at least in some ways as a species we are no longer headed in the completely wrong direction. Everything is in transition.

The music world is no exception. On the business side, a lot of people are scrambling to still somehow get super rich the old corrupt way while simultaneously pretending to be forward-thinking and vying for some piece of meaningless online celebrity/credibility. But for musicians and listeners things are only getting better. There is more music to choose from and there are more people who want to check it out. And we are witnessing the rebirth of vinyl! Good times!

Meanwhile, back to the dying planet: A lot of the good times musicians used to be able to take for granted are subject, like everyone else's these days, to internal moral questions that never existed on this scale before. It's not like anyone in the 1970s was considering the ethical implications of carbon emissions associated with touring on a bus, or flying - those lucky bohemians. But for us that is a big question! Like, how do we get all the tour bus companies in North America to revamp their vehicles and give us the option of a bus that runs on biodiesel fuel? Why does every concert leave behind a sea of discarded plastic cups and bottles? More importantly, can I really drink champagne from a reusable mug? I know, the answer is YES.

The idiot era has ended and it is no longer futile to give a shit.

Things can improve.

As for Metric, we are in a great place. For whatever reason, being in this band has always been epic, I guess because all four of us get such a kick out of getting in & out of trouble. Being in Metric is like being on a scavenger hunt, without knowing what you're after or why, but being incredibly determined to turn over every stone in search of a buried treasure. And as much as we needed to take our time making this record, we never forgot that feeling. It's the best. Can't wait to bring it to you.

Hello everyone, it's us... Metric. We want to fill you all in on where we've been and what we're doing next. This December, we're putting on a tour in conjunction with Jingle Bell Rock which we like to call the “Help I'm Alive” Tour. You can see all the dates here. A percentage of the proceeds from the tour will go to Covenant House and other local charities to help kids in need for the holiday season. The tour is with a bunch of our friends in Tokyo Police Club, The Dears & Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains. We will be performing our new record, and doing it in surround sound for the first time which we are really excited about and hope you will all love.

"Help I'm Alive" is also the title of a song from our new record. The record is done and ready to be heard. We are looking at release dates in the early part of next year and want to get it out to you all as soon as possible. Give us your email address and be the first to pre order the record and get music and stuff for free.

It's been an especially intense experience for us making this record. We know it's been a long time coming, and the four of us want to thank you for your patience from the bottom of our bottomless hearts. If you're curious, you can find out a little bit about the writing process by watching the movie above.

Can't wait to see you all soon!