The New Deal (band)

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The New Deal playing at Thursday at the Square in Buffalo, NY

The New Deal is high energy three-piece live electronic band from Canada. With a drummer (Darren Shearer), bass guitarist (Dan Kurtz, now playing with Dragonette), and keyboard player (Jamie Shields (musician)), the music incorporates many elements of modern electronica, which they have branded live progressive breakbeat house.

The band formed in 1998 after a friendly, impromptu jam session they had at the Toronto venue the Comfort Zone. Upon listening to a recording of the show, they were transfixed by how much it sounded like a DJ mix. They subsequently released the jam session as their first album, This Is Live.

Originally billing themselves as an acid jazz group, they soon found themselves swept up into the emerging musical genre of livetronica. The drumming of Shearer often resembles the simplicity of a drum machine, while still tastefully complementing the accompanying music. Interestingly, Shields never loops a keyboard track and always plays everything live, even if a pattern is to be repeated. Thanks to the widespread sharing of bootleg versions of their first live shows, many distributed by the band themselves, a national buzz ensued and within two years they signed a major label contract with Jive Electro.

Although the promotion with Jive proved disappointing and the band fell short of a highly-anticipated crossover, they continued to tour and win over fans. They released several more live shows on their own label, Sound+Light Records, and came back with two studio releases in 2003, Please Be Seated and Gone Gone Gone (both on Sound+Light as well). In 2004, after nearly a year off, the New Deal brought out over 800 fans in some cities, showing a continued devotion from their fanbase. The band continues to tour today. As of yet, 140 shows can be accessed through the Internet Archive, under Live Concerts. Digital shows are also available on etree for downloading by BitTorrent. Modern New Deal Shows are somewhat rare to come across, depending on the time of year. They have had sporadic, and rare tours but have only some concerts available for download, depending on the venue setups, taper setups, and soundboard setups.