Originally from St. John’s, Gramercy Riffs now call Toronto home for the most part. They’ve just come back from their first Canadian tour supporting Hey Rosetta! and also did a bunch of shows with Charlotte Cornfield as well as a NXNE showcase at this year’s festival. Currently, the band is focused on writing and demoing for a new record they plan to start in the fall. We here at The Indie Machine are certainly excited for that to happen.

Recently, we asked the Riffs (Lee Hanlon to be exact) to curate the 7 Day Mixtape and he came up with a theme – thunder and lightning – specifically the thunder and lighting storms that passed over last week. Lee had this to say about the experience – “I’ve never seen chain lightning before, so it was pretty wild to watch. These were some of the songs I was listening to that night. It’s a mini soundtrack for a hazy summer/heavy thunder summer night in Little Portugal.”

Stream the mix at the bottom of the page and be sure to check out the links and write ups for all the artists – you can also check out the Riffs at the links just below.

1. SHOTGUN JIMMIE – King Of Kreuzberg
Shotgun Jimmie rules. His new album Transistor Sister is one of my favorites this year and when I heard this song on CBC, the chorus kicked me in the face.

2. CASS MCCOMBS – County Line
I listened to this song everyday for about a month. I love the production on this tune. 70′s smoothness and a sexy falsetto chorus, look out!

3. THE PASTELS – Crawl Babies
I found this song on a Creation Records compilation. I fell in love with it!

4. HARRY NILSSON – Living Without You
This is a Randy Newman tune that Harry does on ‘Nilsson Sings Newman’. I really love the opening line in this song. The vocal run at the end cracks me up every time.

5. DANIEL ROMANO – Lost (For As Long As I Live)
Another of my favorite albums this year is Daniel Romano’s ‘Sleep Beneath The Willow’. He’s a great songwriter and I can’t wait to get a chance to see him.

6. COCTEAU TWINS – Heaven Or Las Vegas
I had all the Cocteau Twins records about 5 years ago and I just never listened to them. I rediscovered them in the van while touring across the country. It’s pretty great night time music. They also use a lot of Major 7′s which is right up my alley.

7. GALAXIE 500 – Snowstorm
I just got a copy of ‘On Fire’. What a gem! I can’t believe I’m only hearing it now.