TV Party was born when filmmaker Doug Nayler saw a gap between Toronto's many niche art scenes. Inspired by the recent Long Winter music and art series, he came up with a simple idea to bring the city's artists together: short collaborations between musicians and film makers based on the dead technology of clunky TVs sets and pre-internet television broadcasts.

Interviewing Oxbow was one of the most intense things I've done in recent memory. Even knowing the back story of the group, I was unprepared for how fierce, how sharp, and how full of fire these artists are.

Oxbow formed in 1989 and have never been interested in settling on a genre. In over two decades they've only released six full length records: a search for perfection that defies the demands of modern hype as much as their sound itself. Vocalist Eugene Robinson collages blues freak outs, guttural Birthday Party-esque gothic swagger and spoken word muttering over music that rises and falls between minimalist avant jazz to roaring, aggressive hardcore, metal, and noise - and everything imaginable in between.

If you weren't at the Garrison on Tuesday, you missed the most surreal performance of the season: go ahead and berate yourselves accordingly. Japan's Hikashu freaked me out like the best possible good natured psychedelic carnival haunted house: avant-garde vocalist Makigami Koichi has - I swear this to be true - at least seven people living inside of him: including a guttural voiced wizard of darkness, a small child, a beautiful lady, and - get this, I found him, he's alive - Elvis, the golden voiced King himself. Plus Makigami has a few more small people hidden in his theremin. Creepy.

Thanks Drake. Our summer festival round up goes up, and later that day you announce the line up for your OVO Fest. Thanking you right now for showing us who runs this city. It's you, Drake.

Toronto concerts worth knowing about in May, 2013.

OK, Erin didn't write this so if you came here for decent jokes, find her via Eat This, her classy soup kitchen.

Y'all are really lucky, though, because bands are getting into their warm-weather-happy-times tour schedules, and while NXNE isn't until June (and so far looks to be dis-a-pointing compared to Halifax's Obey fest) May is bumpin. Bumpin. Meaning I found some legit shows to hype for you, including Toronto Thaw 3, which will set the month on fire before we even notice it's here.

Last summer we interviewed the artist behind some of Toronto's most recognizable poster art: Tad Michalak of the popular Feast in the East series and DIY show promotion enterprise Burn Down the Capital. Michalak has designed posters for almost all of the shows he puts on in Toronto, and starting this weekend Toronto Laser Services will honour his work by displaying eight years of hand drawn and collaged posters.