"Friends in Bellwoods 2" release party (Saturday) (Featuring: Sebastien Grainger, Canadian Wildlife, The Phonemes, Samir Khan, The Low Notes, The Cutting Edge, Dinghies, Kite Hill)
Tranzac. Saturday, August 29, 2009.
Friday night's show at Lee's wasn't the end of the story of Ohbijou's efforts to launch the Friends in Bellwoods 2 compilation with as much fanfare as possible. The final act came the next day with an all-day, noon-til-late, all-ages spectacular at the Tranzac with a whopping nineteen acts scheduled to play. The sort of gig that's as much of an experience as anything, and the sort of day where, once you had your wristband, you could leave for a nap or go for a haircut and come back and catch some more bands.
Besides the Bellwoods house itself, the Tranzac may well be the most perfect venue for this kind of thing, with its community-intense mythos. Something between a Legion and a rec centre — I swear, sometimes I head out of the main hall and expect I should be able to turn and walk over to a curling rink — the Tranzac is well-loved as a gathering place despite its slightly shabby appearance.
For me, the prospect of an all-day release party was at least as daunting as it was exciting, and I found myself wondering how much I would be able to take. One version of the plan for the day had me showing up later in the afternoon, but when I heard from a friend they wouldn't be able to make it, I was untethered from that. Could have hung around longer at home, but I knew I'd just end up sitting around, mentally checking off all the bands that I had missed. So I ended up arriving at about 2:30, missing the first four acts of the day. Found a centrally located table being held down by some members of the young team who were coming and going all day and joined them.
This is a bit more point-form than usual, but bear with me, there's a fair bit to get through. Just as a general note, these were very short sets, fifteen minutes or so, and usually three or four songs.
Sebastien Grainger: Playing solo and armed with his white acoustic guitar. "Now I'm gonna play one of my hits... maybe I took the wrong career path if I wanted hits," said Grainger before launching into "By Cover of Night", a song replete with intimate details, epic sweep and stadium-strained vox that implied it would, in fact, be a huge hit if it were done by Snow Patrol or some British band of that ilk pumping it out from the stage at Glasto. For me, a nice way to ease into the day as the caffeine was starting to kick in.
Canadian Wildlife: This turned out to be the first solo performance by Jennifer Mecija, singing and playing at the keyboard, sitting on a stool with one leg tucked beneath her. Sweetly nervous but singing in a lovely voice, these hushed but pretty songs were the highlight of the day for me. The set ended with a cover of Forest City Lovers' "Waiting by the Fence", quiet and with all of its sadness turned in on itself, a nifty contrast to the version played by Forest City Lovers at Lee's the night before.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The Phonemes: On this occasion a duo with Magali Meagher accompanied by John Tielli on theramin, guitar and quavering backing vox. Leading with "April, Let's Send His Colleagues An Email" from FiB2 and then a couple new songs of intelligent avant-pop before bringing on Kat Burns (vox) and Kyle Donnelly (bass) to finish with a stirring take of "Pain Perdu", a little pop masterpiece with one of my favourite-ever lyrical affirmations.1
Samir Khan: With Tusks unable to make it, bassist Samir Khan — revealing a sly, self-depreciating wit in the Jon Stewart/Jon Benjamin range — stepped up solo to "play some songs about male feelings, which is different than the usual set which is... songs about male feelings".2 Armed with just a bass and a looping pedal, he played four melodic numbers, managing to pull it off without sounding too spare, one new one (possibly called "Little Pirouettes"?) even having an Elvis Costello-ish ring to it. Tusks is pretty much an unknown to me, but based on this, sounds worth checking out.
The Low Notes: Expanding on the minimalism a bit was Paul Mathew's duo, with his electric guitar backed by drummer Kieran Adams. With a resonant voice, Mathew's songs had a slightly melancholy 70's FM undertow that was cut, on a couple tunes, with a latin vibe. The crew managed to squeeze in five songs in a longer-than-average set. "What They'll Find" threatened to get lost within the players' practising their virtuosity, but the more compact tunes were fairly tasty. The set ended with Tara Azzopardi joining for additional vox on comp cut "Glory Glory". Not viscerally electrifying, but some pretty decent stuff.
The Cutting Edge: One of only two bands without a song on the compilation to play all day, this crew's hands had, regardless, many fingers in its making. A side project of The Wooden Sky with that band's Gavin and Wyatt joined by Heather Kirby of Ohbijou on bass and Chris Stringer on lead guit. Feeling like the musical and emotional antipode to the in-store at the other end of the week, this unit exchanged The Wooden Sky's quiet introversion for a rockin' countrified outburst — well illustrated by the cover choice of Merle Haggard's "Reasons to Quit"3 Perhaps not as affecting as The Wooden Sky, but a nice burst of energy.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The Dinghies: Stringer and Kirby stayed on stage for the next set, joined by James Bunton for a couple songs of slapstick-y fun fronted by Casey Mecija and Germans' Tim Fagan. A bit of a lark for all involved, this was a case of the musicians not taking themselves very seriously and letting the audience share in the goofiness of it all. Crooning lounge vocal interchanges, hand drums and some laughs.
Kite Hill: The day's longest changeover came with a more-complicated-than-most setup, Ryan Carley's Kite Hill, featuring his piano and vox backed by Steve Lappano's drums and a three-piece string section: Mika Posen (violin), Anissa Hart (cello) and Tyler Belluz (double bass). Unsurprisingly, this lineup produced an orchestral brand of pop. After a pair of songs, the band was joined by Lisa Bozikovic on vox and some extra percussion for their FiB cut, the theatrical "Tom Thumbtack". The songs were compact but well-arranged and pretty choice stuff.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Read up on the rest of the day's acts here.
1 As Magali commented, the lyric truly captures the spirit of the occasion:
Every day we discover a new day
every night we discover a new night
All I want, all I want, for my friends
is to sing about it.
2 "I hate male feelings!" yelled back a woman in the audience.
3 On which Chris Stringer nailed that flanged country guitar sound.
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