A few things: Megan Hamilton, Nightwood, Doc Pickles, Silver Speakers.

The talented, wicked-smart, beautiful, and otherwise awesome Megan Hamilton, who last fall relocated to Kingston, Ontario, has a central/western Canada tour coming up next month. It starts in Ontario and then she and her band will make there way out to Vancouver and back in a van. I wish them well! Go see them if you can. They are in Toronto on 14 May at the Holy Oak, host to many charming lower-key (but still rocking) shows.

Download: Megan Hamilton & the Volunteer Canola, "From Here to Vancouver" (See Your Midnight Breath in the Shipyard, 2009). I just had to offer up this one... ;-)

Here's the promo video for the tour:

A couple Thursdays ago I went to see a young Montreal band called Nightwood. The trio played at the Boat to a boisterous group of well-wishers and fans. I've been hearing some good things about this band from local music bloggers, and I wasn't disappointed by their set. Great vocals! Spunky attitude! So cute! My favourite song of theirs that I heard that night was "Sunken Mountain."

Download: "Sunken Mountain" (Carta Marina, 2009).

Wavelength co-founder and longtime MC Doc Pickles (Duncan McDonell) has been making music on his own and with friends for many years. And when he's done putting songs together and making some recordings, he shares them with the world, for free. He recently finished one such project, an "audiozine." It's called Move the Cube, and it's available here. In return for downloading the tracks, all Doc asks is that "you make some free songs for people." Anyone who knows him knows Doc's musical philosophy is basically that: Start your own band! Do it now! Do it often!

But that's not all. After doing Move the Cube back in early March, Doc recorded two more albums of free stuff, Throughth and Tesseract. If you check Internet Archive's own archives, you'll find plenty more Doc Pickles' compositions. Over at the Wavelength blog, Jonny Dovercourt tells us more about Doc and his music.

Another free recording comes from Tyrone Warner's Silver Speakers. The 6-song EP, called Fracture Clinic, may be downloaded here from GravenRecords. Here's a taste:

Download: Silver Speakers, "Wrong Blood" (Fracture Clinic, 2010).

Tyrone writes that the EP "is about my own struggle with faith and the battle against the physical implications of anxiety and depression. . . . The album also includes a cover of my favourite Mountain Goats song, and a echo-drenched version of an old hymn. Please note, this record has not been mastered, so at times it may be quieter than the highly compressed/produced tracks in the rest of your audio collection. Thanks for listening."