Ten minute tea with Afternoon Tea. Spend ten minutes with Afternoon Tea. In the time it takes to boil one kettle, and let one cup of tea steep, we will have your daily art + music fix covered. Take your afternoon break with our Afternoon Tea curators. Need an extra lump of sugar? One more sip? If you have five minutes more (or ten), we have one more hit.
Today’s tea + soundtrack + visuals curated by Tristan Armstrong.
The title track of Tristan Armstrong‘s forthcoming album (available early 2025), “The Lonely Avenue,” is a cathartic release of rock-and-roll energy inspired by the dualities of urban life and a longing for home. Written during his early days in Toronto after moving from Vancouver Island, the song melds raucous rhythms with an undercurrent of melancholy, creating a dynamic sound that captures the bittersweet transition of leaving behind the familiar to chase a dream.
Rooted in rock, indie, and roots traditions, “The Lonely Avenue” showcases Armstrong‘s signature guitar-driven aesthetic, blending a Queens of the Stone Age-inspired groove with vintage rock-and-roll swagger. Produced in part at Lincoln County Social Club with John Dinsmore and recorded in Armstrong‘s Toronto basement studio, the track features lush mellotron strings and chugging guitars that evoke both grit and nostalgia.
Stream + share “The Lonely Avenue” now:
I wanted this track to be a good time – a release of rock-and-roll abandon that’s cathartic for me and fun for listeners. “The Lonely Avenue” captures the energy of urban life and the yearning for something deeper. – Tristan Armstrong
“Sheraton Gibson” by Pete Townsend
This is a track off of Pete Townsend’s first solo album, Who Came First released in 1972. Known for his power-chord windmill strums and anthemic rock writing in The Who, Who Came First shows the more sensitive inclinations of Pete Townsend. “Sheraton Gibson” is a song about being stuck in a hotel room in the Midwest, far away from home, and playing on an acoustic guitar to pass the time. It’s a sweet number with a tinge of melancholy.
“Keith (Man with Grill)” 2020 – Paul D’Amato
I was in Chicago recently (staying at a Hampton Inn, not a Sheraton) and I stumbled upon Paul D’Amato’s “Midway” at the Chicago Cultural Centre. It’s a photography series that features photographs taken in the neighbourhoods surrounding Chicago’s Midway Airport. It’s a landscape of interstates, strip malls, motels and light industry where working class people live in a setting that is not quite urban or suburban. I chose this particular photograph because in Pete Towsend’s “Sheraton Gibson” he sings about wishing he were at a sunny barbeque. Though the man in the photograph (Keith) is at a sunny barbeque of sorts, I’d venture to guess he may also have a longing to be elsewhere.
Fancy a cuppa, do ya?
After a morning and midday of pumping out high-test brew through my aeropress, it’s time to switch things up to some lighter fare for the late-afternoon. I’ll typically opt for a Moroccan Mint tea at that point in the day. There was a guy I went to highschool with who used to proclaim “that’s just mint” when he thought something was dope. Mint is indeed dope.
Tea + Me 