Last month marked the 13th anniversary of our first-ever show. On March 24, we achieve a new milestone—i.e., reaching that point in our career where playing a show before 9pm feels like the greatest invention in the history of ideas. Come out for a supper-time (7pm-9pm) serving of aging-hipster dad-rock at its crankiest! Supplementary noise provide by Not Of, the shit-hot power duo fronted by John Crossingham (of Broken Social Scene/Raising the Fawn). Non-committal RSVPs are being accepted here.

All truisms

Ten years ago this fall, we released our first capital-p Proper album “Altruists” (following a debut recording, Main Plates and Classic Pies, that was cranked out in our practice space onto laptop, distributed on burned CD-Rs and wasn't even mastered). We went into a proper studio—Green Door in Parkdale—and enlisted the production prowess of local legend Don Pyle, who infused our droning, monolithic angst musik with heretofore untapped devices such as double-tracked harmonies, vibraslap, and seagull sounds.

This band started off as a half-joke, a sort of proof-of-concept gambit to see if we could actually go through with it. We were already in our 30s, locked into careers; we even had a dad in the band already. We harboured no intentions of Going For It. This was always a part-time-punks proposition—an intra-mural league for five guys who suck at sports.

But with “Altruists,” it became more like a quarter-joke. We put it out through an actual label (Unfamiliar Records) and started to do Real Band Things like play Pop Montreal, and get featured on Vice magazine promo CDs, and open for groups we loved like Wire, Love Is All, and the Zoobombs. “Altruists” hit No. 2 on the CBC Radio 3 chart, and our song “U-Boat Commander” was nominated for two of the station’s Bucky Awards (in the two most important categories—Best Lyric and Best Bassline). The album got four Ns in NOW magazine even though most of us worked for their competition. We got to cut two live-to-air sessions on the XM satellite-radio station The Verge, who played the shit out of the record. Songs from the record were featured in everything from an NFL commercial (no, really) to episodes of the Food Jammers to a high-school dance scene in the Bruce McDonald film Trigger. But what really made us feel semi-legit was just how productive we were at the time—this was our creative peak in the sense that every practice session seemed to yield a new tune, before life started getting more and more in the way and the songwriting surge slowed to a trickle. (Our next full-length, Science Island, wouldn't surface for another five years. We wish I could say the delay was due to Kevin Shieldsian perfectionist tendencies; it was more a byproduct of the fact that it was starting to take us 58 emails to agree on a practice time.)

So to commemorate the 10th anniversary of this errant uptick in our latent rock-star fantasies, The Two Koreas will perform “Altruists” in its entirety on December 8th at The Baby G. And in lieu of a deluxe box-set reissue, we have at long last made “Altruists” available to stream wherever fine music is accessed for fractions of a penny.

Freak Scenics

We're opening for first-wave Toronto punks The Scenics (whose circa-'77 output was just reissued by Light in the Attic) July 7 at the Rivoli! Authentic pre-gentrified Queen West rock action awaits!

After taking 6 months off to, well, mostly just dick around on the internet, we return for a special engagement at the Dakota Tavern (249 Ossington Ave.) on April 14 that will see the band perform 2, count 'em 2, sets of new songs, old songs, and some middle-aged ones too, with the city's newly crowned bosses of the hot sauces, The New Enchanters, sandwiched in the middle like premium cold cuts. State your intentions here. 

Song Doctoring

The ever-reliable Tower of Babbling captured this audio evidence of our all-Clinic covers set last week at Death to T.O.

Autumnal wrangler

Two shows for the 2Ks happening in two weeks' time!

October 28: For the first time ever, we will be playing the Dakota Tavern, as part of Purple Hill's October residency. Details are here.

October 30: We will strap on the scrubs to perform the music of Clinic at the annual Death to T.O. Halloween cover-band blowout. Details are here. 

More us for Morris

#‎TBT‬: This is a photo of The Two Koreas playing our second show ever opening for Controller.Controller and Death From Above (pre-1979) at Cinecycle circa March 2004. Next Thursday (Oct. 8) at Lee's Palace, we'll be playing a benefit concert for Controller.Controller's bassist, Ronnie Morris, who was sidelined by two strokes last May. And, sadly, his situation exposes one of the cracks in our not-totally-universal healthcare system: the province only covers rehab costs for those under 20 and over 64. Ronnie's facing a recovery regimen in the six figures, so his many friends are coming together for an all-night fundraiser blowout dubbed “Do It For Ronnie!”

To start the night, The Two Koreas will be joining forces with members of Controller.Controller and Uncut for a one-night-only cover band we're calling Hit the North (no points for guessing the focus of our repertoire). We'll be followed by V ∆ N E S S ∆ , Flowers of Hell, Fretz (a.k.a. Metz + Fresh Snow), Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club and DJ Sebastian Grainger (DFA79). A shit-hot show for an A+ mensch.

More details and ticket info can be found here.

Scenes from last night's blissfully chaotic CMW show with FiDLAR at the Great Hall (as captured by Shane Parent of Exclaim!). From now on, we're only playing shows for 16 year olds.

It takes just five seconds of decision...

...to realize you want to come see us play this Spacemen 3/Spiritualized tribute night at the Silver Dollar on Friday! Proceeds go to the Burrito Brigade initiative to feed Toronto’s homeless. 

Springtime spectacular!

This show is going to be thawsome. 

Here comes Treble

Happy new year. Let's break some resolutions.

Best Show, or Bestest Show?

New theme song? Old theme song? Either way, it features the Two Koreas' own Dave Gee on drums. One of at least a dozen reasons to listen to the return of The Best Show. 

The Two Koreas: the 75th best band in Canada

Our choon "LP Winner!" made the CBC Radio 3 Top 103 songs of 2014 list, giving us irrefutable, government-sanctioned proof that we are better than Caribou and the Unicorns, if not quite as handsome as Sam Roberts.

Cheeky snaps

A Music Blog, Yea? took these saucy photos of our recent Cavern Bar set with Several Futures and Not Of. See if you can figure which one was taken at the precise moment Stuart sang the "thumbs aloft" line from "Midnight Brown."

After being a band for 10 years, we've finally entered our Cavern phase.

Declare your intentions here.