No Shame presents The Wave Pictures / Maylee Todd and Pegwee Power / White Suede
The Drake Underground. Thursday, March 25, 2010.
Out for a No Shame night at The Drake. The joint is too expensive to have a drink, but it is a decent enough room otherwise to get up close to a band. And a nice combination on the night of someone I'd been meaning to see and a couple bands I hadn't heard of — a chance to hear something new.
First up in a quiet-ish room was the soulful sounds of White Suede, apparently playing their first gig. Looks like these revivalists are off to a good start, playing a well-rehearsed set of Motown-inspired soul/rock. There were also some thoughtful arrangements here, and the seven-piece played with a lean and uncluttered groove. Kritty Urinowski's vox — and some rehearsed dances moves, to boot — added a sassy counterpart to Daniel Bedard's slightly more deadpan presence. Reporting that they are working on an album, we got a half-dozen respectable originals (including the winning "Cold Kids" and "Colourblind") and the band finished off with a tribute to their roots with the tastefully-selected Holland–Dozier–Holland cover "(Come Round Here) I'm The One You Need".
There was a slight whiff of The Commitments here — I kept expecting the band to make a nervous comment about waiting for Wilson Pickett to drop in. But if there's nothing envelope-pushing about their sound, it was well-executed, nicely groovy and fit like an old pair of jeans.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The middle act was the big drawing card for me on this night, for though I've seen Maylee Todd on stage a few times before — belting out jams at a Henri Fabergé show, channelling Betty Davis at the Rock Lottery or getting a sluggish indie rock crowd moving at one of her "Sweatshop Hop" interactive exercise classes — I had not seen her doing a set dedicated to her own material. So, a chance to see her with her four-man backing band Pegwee Power, working through a range of styles, her songs swinging whiplash fast from quick to slow and salty to sweet, in a rockin' disco-funky-jazzy stew. Her set included both the jazzy sci-fi excursion "Summer Sounds" (with nice synth sounds from Andrew Scott) as well as a balladic harp and accordion duet (with stand-up bassist Chris Kettlewell pulling double duty). It's possible that her expansive, pan-genre vision might throw some people off, but Todd has such immense stage presence and star power to burn that it seems like she can carry off any song with brio. Even if she she stumbles over a line, laughing at herself all the while, it's in the service of letting the songs breathe with a loosey-goosey spirit.
Alongside the swinging "Hooked" (as catchy as its name suggests), the quieter stuff (including "Protection Plan 101", which saw Todd strapping on her harp) fell in seamlessly. And it still fit in when, not long after, she went big on the set's centrepiece "Aerobics in Space", working up to a joyful shout and imprecating her bandmates, including drummer Jay Anderson, who played the song like he was auditioning for a spot on an Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilation. The band closed with a pretty fabulous cover of Patrice Rushen's "Haven't You Heard". That name didn't ring any bells for me, but looking her up, the description of a prodigiously talented jazz musician with a string of R&B hits sounds like someone Todd could emulate. Her album Choose Your Own Adventure is coming out next month on the local Do Right! label, and should certainly gain some attention from a broader audience.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The headliners on the night were London's The Wave Pictures. I came in with no foreknowledge whatsoever of the trio. As they started playing, my first impression was of a peppy rock band, basic drums/bass/guit, with vocalist David Tattersall pulling out rocking solos on each of the first couple numbers. Very enjoyable stuff. With their combination of rock hooks and observational lyrics, the first sort of comparison that came up in my mind was of a mildly poppier Arctic Monkeys with a Violent Femmes undercarriage (thanks to Franic Rozycki's bass work) and heart-on-sleeve lyrics.
Which is interesting when compared to my after-the-fact impression when I sat down to listen to their Instant Coffee Baby and If You Leave it Alone albums (recently issued on this side of the pond as a double disc package), and found their recorded incarnation to be much more folk-forward. One song is a co-write with Herman Dune, and that's actually a pretty accurate sort of sign-post of their recorded sound. Though that foundation of their sound seems rather obvious in retrospect, on the scene and taking them in for the first time, that wasn't what I drew from it at all — I was enjoying some literate, frills-free rock'n'roll.
The band were equipped with some real top-notch songs, like "Leave the Scene Behind" and "Friday Night in Loughborough" (complete with catchy "la-la-la-la-la" chorus"). And switching things up, charmingly bashful drummer Jonny Helm came around from behind the kit to sing "Sleepy Eye", one arm held coyly behind his back as he sang in an unaffected voice. Not long after, Tattersall stepped down onto the floor to sing "I Thought Of You Again" sans amplification. Around the room — even in the back — everybody quieted down and leaned in to listen. Such a simple trick, but magical when it works.
I was pretty charmed by the band. And they seemed to be having a good time, both in Canada generally ("It's nice to be in Canada," Tattersall joked, "because we all worship the same Queen.") and in this bar particularly, impressed by the turnout at was, truth be told, a semi-full room.1
They closed with the doubleheader of "Kiss Me"2 and "Now You Are Pregnant" — "those two in sequence make biological sense," commented Tattersall — ending on a charming high note. This was one of those delayed reaction kind of sets, where you realize after the fact how enjoyable it was. Not that I wasn't chuffed with it at the time, but it grew on me even more in retrospect. The band already had a few fans in town — there were a couple people requesting songs — and now I'm among their number, so hopefully they'll make it back this way.
Check out a couple songs from this set here.
1 "It's really nice you guys came — you have really idea how many shows in a row we just did where there was nobody," Tattersall commented, attesting to the uphill climb there is for a talented but underexposed band trying to "break through" a bit in America.
2 Wherein the detail-minded might note that Tattersall substituted a lyric about loving Thriller for the album version's reference to Pet Sounds.
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