Mechanical Canine
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TO MY CHAGRIN out now
via Don Giovanni Records!! dongiovanni.co/tomychagrin James Walsh’s house has a few issues. Oh, and there’s the rat problem.
The home inspector neglected to note the foundation caving on the west side. The retaining wall out front isn’t doing much retaining. And ceiling spots are getting worse by the day from pipe leakage. Walsh wasn’t expecting the rats. He’d set out to find a comfort we all seek at some point, when you’re thrown out into the world and you’re obliged to build your nest. He found himself an old house, and it’s the one he turns into an arcing metaphor on his band’s new album, To My Chagrin by Mechanical Canine (Don Giovanni Records). The devotedly DIY Philly emo-punk band are on their third effort, following 2020’s Good Photography and 2022’s Walls Covered In Mildew. The debut was a Radiohead-indebted take on indie-punk by a new college band testing its capabilities, and its follow-up trimmed down the fat into a whirlwind of Walsh’s inner dialog set to zany rock music, unconstricted by any preconceived notions of the emo tag’s boundaries. To My Chagrin is a further sharpening of the band’s sound. Thirteen tracks fly by in 23 minutes, and the first 11 are an assortment of 30-second intrusive thoughts blurted into mini-songs, and two-minute bangers squeezing multiple compelling ideas — maybe a country strut or a folksy outro — into the songs’ anti-structures that inevitably revert to punk meter. It’s all over the place. If you hear a catchy hook, don’t expect its return. Within the unpredictable course of a Mechanical Canine song is a look-alike reflection of Walsh’s self, and the picture isn’t always pretty. On lead single “Mechanical Canine Saves Emo,” he drops perhaps the deepest-cutting couplet on the LP: “Reality sank my realized dreams / And it could sink me / I’m barely treading.” It’s a defeatism that pops up throughout the LP; the tragic monologue of a chronic overthinker. And when he tries to encourage himself, it can read as cynical — like he doesn’t believe the positive affirmations that conventional wisdom tells him to make. With the five-minute finale, “Watercourse”, Walsh returns to his house analogy: “We live with these walls, and I love what’s between them,” he shouts on the song’s screamo midsection. To that point on the album, he hasn’t earned the listener’s trust as a reliable narrator, making it hard to take such a warm-hearted proclamation at face value. Walsh is doing his best to hang on, praying that he can save him from himself. What’s doubtful is if he believes he can. On To My Chagrin, Mechanical Canine know their sonic identity and refine what they do well: playing frenetic, explorative, sometimes-wacky emo-punk music that opens a cracked window into the ugliest fissures in Walsh’s mind. It can be kinda scary in there — just keep an eye out for rats.
08/20/2026
We’re playing a show on Wednesday 8/26. It’s with our old friends in stand and wave! and our new friends in cole n’ carrie n’ sean. Dm for address. Have fun 👍. Flyer by 😖
08/20/2026
We have a show!! It’s next Wednesday in West Philly and we’ll be joined not only by our old friends stand and wave! but also our very new friends from Ottawa in cole n’ carrie n’ sean. Be there 👍. Have fun!
07/04/2026
We have officially made it into Canada!!! We play our first ever international show tonight at OTTAWA’S SCRUFFIEST VENUE 🐶 with Camdeb XD Rayn :D Gary :0 bob ? and a DJ set from Geunf
Doors 8:00
Music 9:00
$10 / PWYC
07/01/2026
Surprise! We’re playing a couple shows this weekend, including our very first show outside the United States. Be there.
02/11/2026
Hello all, we’re back with another couple shows coming up very soon…
1) First is 💎DIAMOND FEST💎 in Wilmington, DE at on Feb 21st / 22nd!! It’s being put on by our friends over at and there’s way more cool stuff going on than I can type here so check out the links in their bio for tickets and whatnot.
It’s been Over A Year(!!!) since our last full-band Delaware show, so we hope to see lots of familiar faces :)
2) After that is a solo acoustic set in Philly on March 1st at with &
$10 PWYC // 6:00
Live photos by in Pensacola, FL
+photos of my kitty at the vet the other day (he is okay)
01/25/2026
Our friend (and a former Canine!) Vera just had her apartment in West Philly burn down this weekend.
I’m sharing the link to her rebuilding fundraiser here so anybody who is in a position to send financial support can do so.
Click here to support Jocie K's story *SupportVeraAfterHouseFire *spotfund is the easiest place to create beautiful and free online fundraisers. It takes just minutes to start raising money today.
01/04/2026
Tonight is the final night of our short little tour! It’s been real fun being back on the road again.
This evening, we return to Raleigh, NC and are playing with .exe and !!
7:30 // $10 // see ya there?
Also pictured: and a shirt given to me by .atl at the show last night…
/////
Story time: I went to yesterday solely for the purpose of drinking my beloved Surge soda again for the first time in many years. If you’ve known us since the early days, you’ll know this is a very big deal for me lmao… I even called them last week to confirm it was still there, and I was told they did still have Grape Surge. Cool, close enough. I got super excited, and bought a ticket.
On my way in, I was complimented by a bunch of employees because I was wearing my old surge hoodie, “oh hey nice sweatshirt, yknow you can drink it upstairs!” etc… I get inside, they scan my ticket, and the first employee I see once I’m inside goes “cool sweater, we just got rid of that one here…”
!!!!!!!!!!!!
So anyway, friendship with the Coca Cola corporation is over. They are now my mortal enemies, and .atl are our new best friends for getting that shirt.
is Cherry Pepsi any good? I guess I have to start drinking that now instead of Cherry Coke…
01/03/2026
“Drink Barq’s: It’s Good!”
Holy s**t, we had a ton of fun in Pensacola, FL last night!! Tonight tour continues in Decatur, GA at with .atl // and
$10 // 6:00 // see ya there?
Also pictured: we went to the beach yesterday and Nicky set his Zona down in the sand and then tracked the sand in with his can to the restaurant we went to after the beach.
01/02/2026
Tonight, we return to Florida with a show at The Den in Pensacola, FL!! It’s been a while since we’ve been here, and also I believe we’ve never played FL panhandle! (we did play Tallahassee once before, and I asked the people at the show last night if that counts as the panhandle, but they seemed unsure)
FRI JAN 2nd // at .den850
with: .del.diablo &
$10 // 7:00 // see ya there?
also featured: our reunions with Bucees and the MS Quik-E-Mart
double also, while driving as I type this, we saw a cybertruck on the road
01/01/2026
Nicky says Happy New Year!!
We’re playing our first show of 2026 tonight in Hattiesburg, MS at Total Recall. Hattiesburg was seriously one of our favorite stops on the last big long tour we did, and I promise I’m not doing that stupid dinosaur rockstar thing where they just say whatever city they’re currently in is their favorite.
doors // 7:00
$7 PWYC
with our friends in:
Local Image
Pasta The Band
also, we took a detour into New Orleans on our way to MS today and we learned that all four members of CCR were born in California and not in fact the bayou. Truly disheartening. Nawlins was fun tho.
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