Call the City

Chart listing for CIUT 89.5 MHz - Toronto

For the Week Ending: Tuesday, October 14, 2008
#10 Call The City, An EP By, Independent

For the Week Ending: Tuesday, October 14, 2008
#21 Call The City, An EP By, Independent
- !earshot - the national campus & community radio report

Chart listing for CFBX 92.5FM - Kamloops

For the Week Ending: Tuesday, October 28, 2008
#7 Call The City, An EP By, Independent - !earshot - the national campus & community radio report

Chart Listing for CKXU 88.3MHz - Lethbridge

For the Week Ending: Tuesday, September 9, 2008
#14 Call The City, An EP By, Independent
- !earshot - the national campus & community radio report

by Lauren Eldridge
Railway Club, Vancouver July 22, 2009

Call The City’s front woman, Vanessa Lee Sorenson, looks like Jenna Malone from that hilarious Christian high-school movie, Saved! They’re like an 80’s rock version of Paper Moon, with bite. Mike McHolm of 2nd Floor Suicide insists that they remind him of the B-52s, but I’ll stick with my Paper Moon theory until I look into his. Their set list includes “Mr. Muse,” which can be heard on their MySpace. Guitar player Julian Grawcott is amazing, with warbling sounds that are mesmerizing to watch. Ben Wilson’s drum kit is minimalized with only three drums and three cymbals, proving that it isn’t the size that counts; it’s what you do with it. I really liked their third-last song, featuring lyrics “Here we go, take me to a show,” and their last song features a delightful reeling of things that rhyme with “Caffeine and nicotine, turpentine, gasoline, amphetamines,” the list goes on.

http://backstagevancouver.com/?p=793
- Backstage Vancouver - Music, Concerts & Interviews Blog

January 2010, Artists 2 Watch

http://skopemag.com/2010/01/05/january-2010-sonicbids-“artists-2-watch”#more-18101
(scroll to bottom for interview)

Skope: How does it feel to be chosen as an A2W artist on Skopemag.com?

Call the City: It’s feels great! It’s an honour to be selected – it means a lot to us that you guys like our music, and that we’ll be reaching new ears and gaining new fans out there!

Skope: What have you been working on and promoting recently?

Call the City: We are in the middle of recording our first full length album. We’re doing the tracking ourselves, which has been an interesting experience – at times super fun, and at times totally crazy. Once the record’s done, we’re going to tour down the coast to LA. We’ve played some great gigs locally and are excited to get on the road. Also, we’re getting ready to play a show during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Skope: What about your music do you feel sets it apart?

Call the City: Our music is catchy but with intelligent, sincere song writing. At first the songs may seem simple, but when you really listen there is so much more behind it. We have an eighties, new-wave feel but everyone in the band has different creative influences, and that definitely comes out in the music. You can hear Bauhaus in the guitar, Blondie in Vanessa’s vocals and everything from the Police to Duran Duran in the rhythm section.

Skope: How did you start creating music and what are your long term plans with your band?

Call the City: Some of us went to music school and art school. We’ve known each other forever & we’ve played together in other bands before. Our long term plans are what you might expect: bring our music to people, get a chance to tour internationally and expand and evolve our sound in the studio and on stage.

Skope: When you are creating music what do you use as inspiration for lyrics & instrumentals?

Call the City: BBC radiophonic workshop plastic dr. who taikonauts american psycho martin heidegger voltage controlled oscillators devo nice kitties tintin & milou bleak landscapes eazy-e time bandits le corbusier blur loneliness professor calculus barry lyndon mies van der rohe odb plato’s symposium pixels stop motion super 8 tony millionaire britten and bream iannis xenakis alice in wonderland francis rattenbury police cars haircuts syd barrett omni magazine knut hamsun

Skope: What is the most exciting aspect of being a musician in the digital age?

Call the City: Instant international distribution, and the possibility of collaboration inside and outside the band. It’s also really leveled the playing field and opened doors, creatively speaking. The cost of making unique high quality videos and recordings is reasonable. It’s empowering, as long as you’re hardworking and talented.

Skope: What can we look forward to that our readers should know about?

Call the City: Our new single, “Bridge & Tunnel” will be available for download soon, and our first video and full-length album are in the works. We are also adding a synth player – Vanessa will no longer be the only girl in the band! - skopemag.com

Call the City
By Gregory Adams
Call the City (Independent)

Harking back to the early '80s, or at least to Vancouver's neo-new-wave scene at the beginning of this decade, Call the City's debut delivers a pleasantly punchy set of throwback pop. “Don't You Wish” storms out of the gates with a punky backbeat and Julian Growcott's warbling guitar lines. Vanessa Lee Sorenson's vocals chirp along with fervour as she excitedly sings, “Half-assed? I don't know how/It doesn't make a difference anyhow.” While the frontwoman sways in and out of tune on fist-pumping anthems like “Mr. Muse”, her quirky, energetic yelps more than make up for the unpolished performance.

Taking things down a notch, “Remind Me” chills on a half-time beat and funky bass line that, along with its bubbly teen-poetry lyrics, could easily score the final scene of The Breakfast Club. “I wrote you this song and I showed you how to sing it/And you jumped on the bed and you started to sing,” Sorenson muses on the Simply Red–indebted tune. It's hard to come up with something original when your sound is so steeped in the past, but Call the City delivers enough imperfect charm to avoid being written off as a calculated rehash.


http://www.straight.com/article-175449/call-city - The Georgia Straight - Vancouver Weekly

By Mark Bignell
Nearly Famous Music Festival
Friday, November 14 @ Railway Club


...Call The City are a female-fronted four piece that are a bit difficult to pin down. Definitely Punk/New Wave influenced. They sort of bring to mind acts like Souxsie & The Banshees, maybe early Blondie, but that really doesn't stick. The guitarist employed some intriguing shades to flesh out the songs. From flanged bass chords to an almost Bauhaus like atmosphere. The drummer was going at the cymbals like his drumsticks were the hind legs of a jack rabbit.
They had some good, fast, punky numbers and fair variation in their material...
- The Skinny Magazine - Vancouver Bi-Weekly Indie Music Paper