Gig: The Phonemes / Michelle McAdorey

Blocks Presents: The Phonemes, Michelle McAdorey and Betty Burke

The Gladstone Hotel (Melody Bar). Thursday, November 26, 2009.

Out again for the monthly Blocks Recording night at the Gladstone, this time with a couple acts on the bill I was interested in investigating, plus one familiar one. From a genre perspective, sort of an interesting night as well, as all three acts were pretty different from each other, but each could, at some level, be placed in some corner of the big category called "folk".

We were a little off the pace in getting there — stupid hybrid buses with their propensity to just quit working — and arrived with Betty Burke¹ already on stage. Managed to grab one of the last remaining tables and settle in. I'd been eager to check them out pretty much ever since I'd heard about 'em, mostly based on the fact that Maggie MacDonald² was involved. The band is normally a trio with Shaun Brodie — or possibly a five-piece now with rhythm section — but on this night it was only MacDonald and Holly Andruchuk. I was not familiar with the latter, but she has a solid CV of folkie hell-raisin', and is obviously a strong source of this group's musical direction — a sort of straight-ahead roots-rock. Or as MacDonald would put it, "we're in the true story business" — punk like Woody Guthrie was punk.

MacDonald is not the world's greatest singer, but she's a helluva vocalist, and it was great to hear her hitting her characteristic cadences, like in one song, coming down hard on those opening syllables: "New York and London are under water / lovers and liars swim together" — but also cool to hear those tics in a new musical context. "New Job", the final song, which included a sort of origin story of the band's name was rather good fun. I only caught about three-and-a-half songs, but I dug what I heard, and look forward to checking out the full band. More gigs, please.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Next up was Michelle McAdorey, who was certainly part of the draw getting me down to the show. Probably best known for her work with Crash Vegas, who'd flirted with Canadian semipopularity in the early '90's. Following the band's dissolution, she'd released a solo album at the other end of this decade, but had been keeping a low profile for the past while. Lately, she'd been said to be playing with some of the members of the local improvised music scene, and it was from this pool that she drew her lineup for this gig. This was the first show for a band including Eric Chenaux³, Ryan Driver, Martin Arnold and Blake Howard. I'd seen half of these guys playing just recently with The Reveries, and having that context in mind certainly helped me to sort of appreciate the musical place this group was coming from. Aiming for a meeting point between folk/songwriter and improvisational urges, there was a musical tension between droneyness and widdley-wah guitar, bringing to mind, say, MV & EE in a sort of mellow, rustic mood. It also felt — especially on songs like "Love Don't Change" — like it was bumping up a bit to that fine line that separates fluid musical exploration and noodly stoner jamming. With that in mind, I think I enjoyed some of the quieter, textured moments more, although they were a bit less at home in this environment, the crowd split between Friends of Blocks out eagerly soaking in the show, and those just out for a drink in a bar where some band happened to be playing. Given that, I'm already eager for this band to play somewhere in a more hushed environment — Music Gallery show, anyone?

Listen to a track from this set here.

The couple times that I'd seen The Phonemes during the summer they were playing as a duo + guests, with Magali Meagher playing with John Tielli on guit and theramin. This time the pair were accompanied by the keyb work and vox of Stephanie Markowitz, which fleshed out out the sound rather well. Meagher is an intriguing songwriter, her plainspoken lyrics flirting with a pop sensibility in a come-hither manner. It was certainly interesting to hear some of the new songs that I'd heard presented in a stripped-down format at this summer's shows getting filled-out arrangements, and Meagher's consistently upbeat patter and share-the-stage ethos — Maggie MacDonald was called up to add some percussion on "Steeples and People" — were good entertainment. But the fact that I was winding down with sleepiness on a work day sort of had me drifting a bit as things went on. A scattering of chatty people — including a table of oblivious young folks busily trying to impress each other with banalities and bottle service — was a bit of a distraction, too. But generally good stuff, and a nice step forward with the new material.

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¹ The name, it turns out, comes from a story about Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite pretender to the British throne, who, following his defeat in battle fled into exile disguised as his maid. All sorts of interesting things here to be spun out about gender/power/representation and so on, or as Maggie would say on stage, cutting to the chase: "we're named after a drag queen from three hundred years ago". Also note, adding to the mythic value of the band's name, that it was a MacDonald who came up with the plan and saved the prince.

² MacDonald, sort of a rockstar combination of Rosa Luxemburg and Ava Gardner, is currently a member of The Hidden Cameras and formerly of beloved post-punk Fall-owers Republic of Safety.

³ Chenaux, it turns out, had been a late-era touring member of Crash Vegas, so his creative partnership with McAdorey is a fairly longstanding one. I recall having enjoyed Crash Vegas back in its time in a "pop" sort of way — it strikes me that it would be interesting to perhaps revisit some of that in light of what I know now and see how much of this current freak-folk kind of vibe is there in nascent form.