Our new ‘record’ or ‘EP’ or ‘album’ or whatever you want to call it is online here:

http://barrier.likeweeds.org/trailbreaker

As of right now there are no plans to release it in the real world.

After a relatively long and fully unproductive run, Barrier is over. We played what will likely be our last show on Friday at the amazing Dumpy Fest 2006 celebration, with a million of our friends. It’s hard to explain how perfectly that show summed up our run: a sweaty room packed with people giving it their all, and us unable to play our own songs. It was the support of all our awesome friends that really gave the band any shred of worth that we had, more than any crappy songs we wrote about how awesome it is to have wicked friends. Personally speaking, as someone who doesn’t even know the name of a single chord and can’t tune a guitar even when given twenty minutes alone with a tuner, it was kind of mind-blowing to see so many people going nuts, crowd-surfing on tombstones, bleeding into Zellers alien shirts, hanging from the ceiling pipes, constantly showering beer, falling over drum kits and singing along to songs that I never figured anyone would listen to more than once.

Some people make music because they want to go on tour and see the world, some people look at music as artistic self-expression or a way to communicate things they can’t in words, other people look at it as a way to make money or gain social status. Seriously, that show on Friday was the only musical aspiration I’ve ever had. A space that we all made our own, a night separated from any monetary goal save giving our touring buds (Orphan Choir, who played our first show, and Horses, whose members are like brothers to us) enough cash to get to the next city on their tour, a diverse bunch of bands genres playing genres of music that long ago were abandoned by the “what’s cool” mob, people not giving a shit about anything other than having a good time and being nice to each other. A bunch of people dancing as hard as they can to music that’s basically impossible to dance to, and for whatever reason, it seemed to mean something to some of them.

Together we all proved that we don’t need fancy big names on hip labels to get psyched off of our asses on punk music, and that was all it was ever supposed to mean in the first place. We really never did much in the five years that we were a band, but after Friday, as far as I’m concerned: mission accomplished.

Live Dumpy.

PS: We recently recorded our second EP, which we’ll be putting up here for free download in a couple of weeks.

PPS: See you all at next year’s Dumpy Fest.

We have a few shows this month:

Friday July 9th @ Brohaus (364 Dupont, Toronto ON) with !ATTENTION!, Shared Arms, Crucial Dudes

Saturday July 10th @ some bar in Windsor, ON with Orphan Choir and The Decay

Saturday July 17th @ Babylon (Ottawa, ON) with Year Zero and Tiltwheel

Our last show is going to be Friday July 23rd 2010 at a special event we’re calling Dumpy Fest 2006 featuring:

BARRIER (last show ever)
HORSES (toronto/east cost)
ORPHAN CHOIR (windsor)
KALE (local emo-punk)
PALS (rare appearance, pop punk feat 3/4 of barn burner)
PANTY HOS (”the lady danzig”)
TO THE CLIFFS (ex snake master, ensorcelor, ballast. 3 guitar thrash metal insanity)
THE CATLIN ELM (screamo/posi)

@ Friendship Cove 215A Murray St. Montreal QC

All Ages 6pm

This is going to be our final set. Evan is going on an east coast soul search/vision quest after which he will probably end up at school in Toronto.

We started recording this weekend for an EP of 7 new previously unrecorded songs. We hope to have this finished and out by July 23rd but we havn’t figured out how we will release it. We still have maybe a dozen CDs left and a couple of patches and 1 or 2 weird sizes of shirt. We might have some more new shirts for these final shows.

We are playing this show on march 13th:

I put up our cd online so you can download it for free. Find that here. We still have ~50 copies of this left if you want one at a show or from us, get in touch.

Some photos from the Ottawa show last night thanks to master photographer, Paul Galipeau. The entire weekend was amazing, thanks to everyone who came to the shows, rode along with us or helped out with gear or booking.

Here is the (amazing) flyer for our Toronto show with Orphan Choir and !ATTENTION!

We’re also playing MONTREAL and OTTAWA this weekend. See below for the Ottawa flyer.

The Montreal show is THIS SATURDAY!

at Squalor, 3627 Notre-Dame O.

with Preying Hands, After The Fall and Year Zero. 8pm, 6$.

The entity known as BARRIER is back in Squidsness! Please come sea them when they take to the stage in several weeks time, with some of their most trusted allies, such as Toronto’s ATTENTION!, Windsor’s ORPHAN CHOIR and Ottawa’s YEAR ZERO. They are having trouble containing their excitement as they emerge from the cryochambers enclosed in which they have spent the summer hibernating in suspended animation. Also joining them for the Squid’s share of their upcoming dates is Albany’s pop punk powerhouse AFTER THE FALL, who are venturing across the border for the first time to lay waste to our cultural desert.

Here are the shows:

NOVEMBER 20 – SHERBROOKE @ SOME PLACE

NOVEMBER 21 – MONTREAL @ SOME PUNK SPACE (with PREYING HANDS, AFTER THE FALL, YEAR ZERO)

NOVEMBER 22- OTTAWA @ SOME HOUSE (with YEAR ZERO, AFTER THE FALL, FROM THE DEPTHS {ex CATHARSIS (!), CRIMETHINC RECORDS)

NOVEMBER 28th- TORONTO @ SOME BAR (with ATTENTION, ORPHAN CHOIR)