Gig: Wavelength 500 (night 1)

Wavelength 500 (night 1) (feat. Bruce Peninsula / Evening Hymns / Pony da Look / Deep Dark United / Canaille)

The Music Gallery. Wednesday, February 10, 2007.

Walking over to St. George the Martyr Church, I had a most pleasing moment rounding the corner, the church coming into sight with the shifting lights of General Chaos Visuals visible through the tall windows. Ah, Wavelength. The first night of the go-out-with-a-bang five-night spree, celebrating the conclusion of ten years of Sunday night shows. Though not quite the end, as Wavelength is set to continue in a new monthly format, certainly a landmark occasion worthy of a big whoop-up and a look back over the past decade.

Inside, the lobby was filling up with concert-goers and musicians milling about, many flipping through their super-fancy commemorative 'zine. Heading in as showtime approached, the nave of the church was fashioned as an open space on this night, with the pews pulled aside and lining the walls, with their front rows occupied with small clumps of people hanging out and chatting until renowned Wavelength host Doc Pickles took the stage.

Welcoming us to "a celebration of putting on ten years of show that don't necessarily entirely suck," and taking some time to evaluate the failed mayoral candidacy of Adam Giambrone, the introduction worked itself around to the presentation of Canaille. Led by Jeremy Strachan, a veteran of more Wavelength shows that he could count — "two or three dozen," he noted during the set, when you add up all the hats he's worn over the years — the usual five-piece was enhanced with guest Carl Didur on keybs, adding some nice extra texture to a set frontloaded with some Sun Ra covers. The band had some minor rough patches in the first couple songs as they warmed up, but hit their groove with the zero gravity swing of "Love in Outer Space". A couple of Strachan's own compositions ("Quodlibet" and "Vincent Massey") rubbed shoulders nicely with the covers and set up the closing celebratory, Ayler-ish "Good Bits" — the most extended song of the set with some nice work from trumpeter Nick Buligan, who'd seemed a bit tentative earlier on. The rhythm section (Mike Smith, bass and Dan Gaucher, drums) were as spot-on as ever. The early crowd, a bit thin and well spaced out, were generally sitting down, many bobbing their heads to the grooves on stage.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Putting the audience in the jazzy sort of mindset was arguably a good setup for Deep Dark United, who took the stage wearing customized monogrammed earmuffs. The band, while not technically defunct, is not particularly active right now, making this show a bit of a rare opportunity to see a storied unit in action. Coming very much out of the Tranzac ethos of perverting pop structures with an improvisatory ethos, DDU — a vehicle for the complicated queasy-pop tunes of Alex Lukashevsky — played Wavelength in its first year, a sign of the longstanding ties these musicians have to the local scene. Starting off with "Dead Souls", Tania Gill's minor key piano backed Lukashevsky, building up to a howl of "Dead Sowlllllllllllllllllllllllllls!!". By the jazzy "Nun or a Bawd" (featuring Ryan Driver's rubberband bass and Brodie West's saxophone) the band had locked into their haphazard groove, and in "I Smoke By the Ocean", showed their ability to stretch out the textures of the songs like taffy, lending the song a sense of not so much dread as disorientation — uneasy listening, as it were. Not something you can easily graph points of comparison for, it's an entertaining singularity, if one that I'd rather reserve for special occasions. But it does get under your skin a little.

Listen to a track from this set here.

After that, it was time to stand up at Doc Pickles' urging, as he discoursed on the difference between arches and domes. Regardless of whatever else he was discussing, he was adamant that the crowd would want to be on their feet to take in Pony Da Look, whose operatic synth-rock is always a welcome excursion from the norm. The trio of singer-keyboardists, often switching places with each other, are backed by drummer Rob Gordon, and up front, it's the arresting presence and voice of Amy Bowles that really puts the band on a level all their own. Starting with a song on the more static end of their range — a slow, operatic intro of Bowles' echo-drenched vox over a synth drone before Rob Gordon kicked in with a ba-doom-ba-doom drum machine-like rhythm, all of which'd explode into something more cacophonic before ending back on the same quiet note it started on. After a couple songs, things got less gothic-spooky and more monster-mash-groovy on more upbeat songs like "Ravenous". The arch arising behind the altar made a fitting backdrop for the band, who should always perform in candle-lit churches, catacombs or graveyards. The set ended — with a new one? Bowles called out a title but I couldn't catch it — in a flurry of of recorder leading to shouts of "let the sounds echo!" as the mix did just that, her voice unfurling in a flurry of folded-over haze. Art-rock in the true spirit of Wavelength.

Listen to a track from this set here.

And then, in the best Wavelength manner, a completely different sort of band to follow. I had seen Evening Hymns not that long ago at the OOTS Anniversary celebration, and they would play a similar set on this night. Although this time, surrounded by a quiet and attentive crowd, a much better environment to appreciate Jonas Bonnetta's songcraft. Again starting with the slowly rising fanfare leading into "Lanterns", the band sounded better than I've ever heard them. And they took advantage not only of the space's acoustics, but also the grand piano on a lovely, quiet version of "Cedars". And then, just a couple more songs — including another appearance by new one "Cabin in the Burn" — and the set was quickly over. Cognisant of his relatively junior stature in the Wavelength cosmos compared to some of the other musicians that had played on the evening, Bonetta seemed humbled that he was asked to be a part of it.

Playing, as vocalist/guitarist Neil Haverty counted off, their ninety-fifth show, their fifth time at the Music Gallery and third time at Wavelength, Bruce Peninsula launched into the old-time shout-stomp of "Itty Bitty Baby" and signature song "Steamroller". Characterized, as always, by the choral-flavoured arrangements, the band also played some new material that, interestingly, sounds less directly inspired by old spirituals and more directly descended from The Fifth Dimension and West Coast pop — FM ready, that is to say, if it had only been released thirty-five-odd years ago. Best of all in this vein was "And When the Day Comes" ("This one's no longer called 'Chupacabra'," Haverty told the crowd, though some mutterings back and forth between the band members made it sound like it's not a settled issue). Meanwhile, during "2nd 4th World War", the band's music had wove such a spell on Doc Pickles that, like some sort of ritual gesture, he danced up on stage with a commemorative t-shirt to soak the sweat from Haverty's forehead, as well as the other players. And as if a spell had cast upon him, Haverty launched himself into the crowd as the band segued into "Satisfied", ranging far towards the far end of the room and back, bellowing throughout. That energy carried into the crowd-participatory "Crabapples", everyone shouting along, "Oh, hell no!" to the song's questions of "Do you have a good life? Got kids and a wife?"

The set ended with such guts-on-the-floor intensity, the band seemed almost a loss when called back for an encore, having to re-tune and upright gear that had been played as if there were no tomorrow. But they managed to do a nice job of "Shanty Song" to finish things off. A fitting band to close the night — not only in BP's inherently community-minded ethos invoking the spirit of Wavelength, but also looking forward with a band that's bursting with new ideas and moving forward with vigour.

Listen to a track here.