Line-up

Headliner
Cass McCombs Last time in Halifax: First time!

Venue

Sanctuary Arts Centre

100 Ochterloney St., Dartmouth, NS, Canada

sanctuaryartscentre.com/

Capacity: 200

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Cass McCombs biography

Singer-Songwriter Cass McCombs hails from Concord California, but resides in New York. He has a handful of studio albums to his name, and has been signed to Domino Records.

Cass McCombs was born in 1977 and honed his craft of song writing in New York City. He returned back to the West Coast and set up base in San Francisco, where he recorded his E.P entitled “Not the Way”. It was released on Monitor Records in 2002. This was followed by the debut studio album “A”, which was released on May 20th 2003. For the next couple of years, McCombs would tour, playing festivals and house shows.

The following year, after just one week of recording, he released his sophomore album, “PREfection”, which was released on January 11th 2005. It wasn’t long until he was back in the studio but the next time, to work on his third album, “Dropping the Writ” released on October 9th 2007. It was his first release with Domino Records, and it earned the accolade of Amazon.com’s “Best Albums of 2007”. He continued building his career, following the release, with an inevitable tour followed by heading back to the studio.

His subsequent instalment was an album called “Catacombs”, released on June 1st 2009 by Domino Records. The leading single from this alternative country instalment, “Dreams Come True Girl”, featured the vocals of Academy Award nominee, Karen Black on backing vocals. The album was later voted one of the 50 greatest albums of 2009 by Pitchfork Media.

2011, saw McCombs released two full-length albums, “Wit’s End” released on April 26th 2011 and “Humor Risk” released on November 8th 2011.

His songs have made it into the soundtracks of a couple of films, such as Thomas Campbell’s 2009 surf film "The Present" and TV shows, such as "Girls", where his song “Bobby King of Boys Town” featured.

Live reviews

Whatever you think of Cass McCombs’ music, you have to admit that he deserves credit for doing things the old-fashioned way; determined to become a singer-songwriter, he left his small-town home in California for New York City, with the aim of developing his musical abilities as best he could. In 2001, the 9/11 terrorist attacks had him heading back home again - as well as the fact that he’d run out of money - and it was in San Francisco that he recorded his sun-kissed first EP. It was enough to get him signed to 4AD, the label through which he made a name for himself with his debut album, A. He carved out a fervent cult fanbase therefrom, and continues to record and tour today, although he has switched imprints to Domino. He’s been on the road with the likes of The Decemberists, The Walkmen, Thurston Moore, The Shins and Iron and Wine in the past, and after releasing his seventh album, Big Wheel and Others, last year, he played five, rapturously-received shows across the UK this past January, with his London Southbank Centre show in particular meeting with rave reviews from the critics on a jaunt that also took him to Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol.

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