Artist description One of the top up-and-coming alternative guitar rock bands in Canada, recent highlights include playing EDGEFEST 2000 in Toronto with Creed, Filter, Mathew Good Band and others as part of one of Canada's biggest summer music festivals.

Music Style Alternative/Modern Rock

Similar Artists Goo Goo Dolls, Semisonic, Foo Fighters, Psychadelic Furs, Everclear

Artist History Together for 6 years and led by singer/guitarist/harmonica player Tyler Smith, odin red tasted enough early success to convince them that, by 1997, the time was right to descend from Valhalla (or, as it’s more commonly known, Toronto) and make a serious and concerted grab for the Big Pop Gold Ring. In 1995, their song LQ-120 was chosen over 600 other entries in 97.7 Hitz FM's New Talent Search contest, and in the following year Toronto's CFNY FM included Birthday Girl on its 1996 New Rock Search CD.On the strength of burnished power-pop gem Lost for Days (their RipChord Records debut) and their powerful and ever-maturing live show, odin red continues to win friends and influence people. After having played over 400 shows over the last few years, the Rock Gods have been steering the band into ever-higher profile gigs, including the opening slots on Big Wreck’s and Wild Strawberries’ 1998 Tours of Southern Ontario and other recent dates with I Mother Earth, Wide Mouth Mason, The Tea Party, Rusty and EDGEFEST 2000. Gigs in 1999 included the prestigious opening slot for Grammy nominee Shawn Mullins at the kick-off for CMW’99, at which odin red was selected one of the “Rising Stars” of the international music festival. The band’s video for lead-off single Birthday Girl, directed by Mike (brother of Tragically Hip singer Gord) Downie, spent 5 weeks in rotation at MuchMusic, and the single itself (along with follow-up, Jaded) received play on radio stations coast-to-coast. Also in the realm of the visual, the savvy talent-spotters at CTV included their song Chester in an episode of hit tv series “Power Play” in the Fall of ’99.With the table thus set, the seeds planted, and the clouds seeded (choose your metaphor), RipChord and their national distributor Select are huddling in smoky rooms plotting the optimal strategy to bring odin red to a more prominent place in the forebrain of the public consciousness. The key weapon in their arsenal will be the band’s second record Forget About The Stars, which was unleashed on the public April 25, 2000. Produced and mixed by hot young board-jockey Eric Ratz (Big Sugar), the new record will continue in the band’s Neil Young-meets-Weezer-meets-Goo Goo Dolls-sends-a-postcard-to-Wilco-receives-a-nasty-email-from-Foo Fighters tradition, but with the kind of widened songwritng/sonic palette that deserves (and maybe even demands) respect in a post-Marcy Playground/Fastball world. Already, the album’s lead off single In Your Arm has started to make a strong impact, having been included on the CMW 2000 compilation CD and added to the playlists of a number of radio stations across Canada.Ultimately, it seems that, from the most fragile acoustic heartstring-puller to the thickest slab of guitar rawk, odin red can bring it all to the table, and all that remains is to spread the good word so that the masses can pull up a chair and dig in.

Group Members Tyler Smith - lead vocals, guitar, harmonica/Jason Lovell - lead guitar/Mike Shaw - guitar & backing vocals/Buddy Rogers - bass/Brad Yarrow - drums

Albums Lost For Days - November 1997/Forget About The Stars - April 2000

Press Reviews See artist website

Location Toronto, Ontario - Canada

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