Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile: The Labour Of...

Before we dive into Halloween concert previews and hype, let's get our final monthly feature post on the site today, and apologies for this being a day late! As usual, this is our monthly Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile, which is our monthly look at a metal, hard rock, or punk band that isn't from the Sault Ste. Marie area, but does feature (or used to have) one or more regional natives in any of their past or present lineups. This month's selected band is another in our recent absorption of punk bands into our coverage, and they were a well known Toronto-area band in their heyday, so read on below for what you should know! (Updated on November 27th)
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The Labour Of... (Toronto, Ontario)

Lineup: (Saultites in RED; ex-members in italics)

Julian "Jules" Swift Phillips (vocals/guitar)
Curtis Faux (guitar)
Brenton Ellis (bass)
Tosh Imai (drums)
Noah Earle (guitar)
Christian Wilde (bass)

Official CBC Music page: http://music.cbc.ca/#!/artists/the-labour-of
Official Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/7741842034
Official Soundclick page: http://www.soundclick.com/thelabourof
Official Reverbnation page: http://reverbnation.com/myspacethelabourof
Official PureVolume page: http://www.purevolume.com/thelabourof
Official Supernova page: http://www.purevolume.com/thelabourof

Local Info: The Labour Of...'s last known full lineup featured two Sault Ontario natives, those being guitarist Curtis Faux and bassist Brenton Ellis (a.k.a. Diamond Brent Panther), both of whom have been very prominent here and in the Toronto area! Collaboratively, both guys manned the more comedic Toronto project The Sexual Vigilantes in the late 2000s, and simultaneously joined Brent's then-Lion Ride bandmates Mikey Hawdon & Mark Rand in the hardcore punk band Detroit, with whom Brent sang lead. Brent & Curt reprised their Detroit roles with the Toronto cult favourites Maximum RNR in the early 2010s, while Brent will also be notable locally from work fronting the late 1990s punk band The Bombed Squad & currently co-singing with Destroilet, and Curtis currently plays with the thrash metal band Chainbreaker, and alongside Labour Of... bandmate Jules Swift in their band The Cola Heads. If you like pop punk though, The Labour Of... will be more your style!

Band Bio: Active from at least 2004-2009, The Labour Of... became a prominent sight among Southern Ontario punk bands in the mid-2000s with their "M4K heartcore" style of emo-influenced pop punk, with members all coming from diverse musical backgrounds. Surviving information on their run is minimal (especially concerning their early years), but frontman Jules Swift was the band's visible leader, and also used the band's name for his own independent recording studio. After Curtis and Brent replaced Noah Earle & Christian Wilde circa 2007, The Labour Of... played at the former Foggy Notions in the Soo that November, recorded a demo named "Moving Ahead", and announced plans to record a full length CD, but it's not explicitly stated on extant pages if it came out. Searchable news on The Labour Of... is minimal after 2008, and they likely quietly dissolved the following year, though you can frequently see Jules & Curtis with The Cola Heads in Southern Ontario.

While far removed from the hardcore punk sound that you might be more used to from Curtis & Brenton's other collaborative band work, their poppier and more emo-influenced sound had a good energy that was definitely had a timely sound for it's era, and Jules has a very good voice with a great range to suit the material! Their last full lineup definitely had the more polished sound too, and while there isn't a ton of surviving songs of theirs on their pages, you do get a good sense of The Labour Of...'s chemistry and sound! I'll concede that this isn't my favourite punk subgenre, but The Labout Of... made it work for them, and fans of bands like Nebraska Arms or Northwest should like them! You can check out studio original songs from The Labour Of... at the above links, and there are a scattered selection of YouTube videos from their later run too, including this artistic clip of the guys playing their demo's title track "Moving Ahead" in Toronto in February 2008!


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I hope you guys liked this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! As has been the case in recent years, we'll take a brief break from our normal profiles in this series next month so we can update past installments as part of an extended special post on or around November 26th. Basically, this will be our chance to update posts in this series, restore or replace dead photos and certain links, address band breakups, reunions, and lineup changes, and address what these bands are up to now, if anything. Watch out for that late next month, and stay tuned for more news and Halloween concert previews this week! Thanks everyone!