Gig: Against Life III

Against Life III (feat. Fresh Flesh / Tonka & Puma / Doldrums)

"Dream in High Park" Stage. Friday, September 9, 2010.

Going to this was a last-minute decision. But given that the listed started time was at midnight, even the last-minute didn't come early. After the end of my night's more regular gig, I had some time to kill and consider my options. Not only was it cooling off outside, but I could feel the first vestiges of a cold coming on. Standing outside in the crisp September dead of night in my short pants was probably inadvisable. Plus, I did have some mixed feelings about the last event like this I'd gone to. But still I'd gone to that one, and as the hour grew late here I was heading out to this.

As is usual for these things, the location was revealed only on the day of the show. Showing their flair for finding "off the grid" spots in the city, the organizers this time came up with a familiar landmark — the amphitheatre in High Park most usually populated by summertime Shakespeareans. And so I found myself taking the Queen streetcar out past all of my usual landmarks and treading uphill into the dark, quiet park. I crossed paths with a couple joggers, but I otherwise was feeling the Omega Man vibe, peering suspiciously at the smudges off in the distance here and there.

Despite knowing that punctuality is not a virtue at shows like this, it wasn't long past midnight that I found myself looking for the path down from the road. I remembered it vaguely from previous trips, but it's always another matter entirely when it's pitch dark out. It actually wasn't that hard to find and I headed down to find the entrance gate blocked off with a metal gate and a WORK ZONE sign. Someone had invitingly moved the gate open by a few feet and I headed in. As I came to the top ridge of the tiered amphitheatre, I could see people moving about on stage, getting the generator going and providing a little bit of light.

I found myself a spot and started waiting for things to begin as the cool damp of night started to descend. The steep arcing rows of seats above the stage encouraged people to settle in and spread out, and soon, people were tricking in, calling out for friends and hanging out. The dark stairs leading down toward the stage were soon illuminated by tiki torches.

Things got started right at one, when it was announced to the crowd, "the vibe will be a lot better for everyone if you come on the stage". And right like that, I remembered why I like things like this. Although the sound system and artists were set up right against the far back of the stage, everyone had internalized that that was the place for the musicians and the seats were the place with the crowd. But with the announcement that membrane evaporated and the bulk of the people on hand got up and clamoured onto the stage. It's actually a pretty big space up there, so it didn't feel all that crowded.

And getting closer to the lone light illuminating the PA meant we could now see Toronto-via-Halifax rapper Fresh Flesh (government name: Zoë Solomon), who was leading things off. Her ultra lo-fi beats were on cassettes that were switched in and out of a walkman hooked up to the sound system, an apt backdrop for her rhymes, which featured a flow somewhere between Peaches and Tom Green and a propensity for whimsical subject matter ("mystic crystal power", ham, puke and the assertion that "space diamonds are real"). Some of it rocked the bells pretty well, and the minimal casio/drum machine beats were rather likable.

On the second song, the generator konked out temporarily, underscoring the patched-together nature of the sound system, and adding to the vaguely post-apocalyptic vibe of the whole night. As the air grew colder and it felt like this was one group of survivors — or outcasts — dancing together to keep warm in some remote sanctuary, the closing song with its "can't wait to celebrate nuclear war" refrain fit perfectly.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Between sets, a guy shuffled up beside me, leaned in and asked, "D'you want any MDMA?" I shook my head no and felt vaguely disappointed that I'd wasted all that time memorizing the street names of drugs in an attempt to appear "with it". It looked like the dude might have had some takers, however, as there was an element of the crowd that looked to be out for a Burning Man sort of pagan celebration, complete with hippie twirling dance moves.

And getting ready to play, it looked like a big bottle of wine was the mood-altering substance of choice for Tonka & Puma. Another facet of the always-busy Daps Duo, T&P is a pairing of Hooded Fang's April Aliermo (bass/shouts) and Daniel Lee (drums/vocals) featuring hardcore velocity, extra-sloppy style, all in a whir of April's extra-fuzzy bass and Daniel's howling. As their anthem says: "we're two cool cats with nothin' to do / so give us some booze and we'll kick it for you".

From where I was standing, the vocals were sometimes inaudible and there was an amusingly trainwreckish quality to the minute-long songs — perfect party music for something like this. And helping to shake up the formula a bit, Airick Woodhead of Doldrums joined in to manipulate the sounds and add some messed-up vocals and the sloppy fun of it all actually came into focus for a few minutes. Much more of a soak in the madness-type of set than a hi-fi experience — but you're almost certainly not coming to something like this for the latter.

Check out a couple quick blasts from this set here.

Between sets, the music was mostly weird-rock and out-there mutant sounds from around the world — psychedelic Bollywood, disco drone and stuff like that. The stage was filled with people trying to keep warm with drunken dancing or drunken drinking. There was a lurching quality to people in general, just as there would be to the music as Doldrums got underway.

This would be the third time I saw Airick Woodhead's pop project — and it was rather different from either of my previous tastes. Woodhead, here in one-man-band mode, brought to life a crazy cut-and-paste world, starting with a snatch of sampled movie dialogue, adding all sorts of looped and sliced and treated vocals, all with glitchy beats being manipulated on the fly. One could have an "emperor got no clothes" reaction to this and call it gussied-up noise, but there is an underlying pop sensibility. And if it's a rather fragmented sort of pop sensibility, one gets the idea that comes from the fact that Woodhead's vision is at a slightly divergent angle to ours.

All of that would come across as even more messed-up in this environment, including some random weirdness with the sound cutting out every so often mid-song, all while Woodhead bounced around, including into the crowd, offering the mic around for any yalps the audience would like to throw into the mix.

And then, about quarter after two, less than fifteen minutes into the set, the real game changer of the night as the police dropped by to pause the show in the least-invasive manner imaginable. The two officers came up on stage and walked through the crowd to Woodhead, who kept the music going while carrying on his half of the conversation into his microphone, a woozy slo-jam beat still playing in the background.

"What's the officer, problem? "You're not into it? Whaddya think of this?" The cop actually made a sort of semi-apologetic ambivalent gesture but obviously got his point across that the music had to stop. Weirdly, there was no sense of confrontation ("Does it have to be us and them all the time?" Woodhead asked) as once the music stopped the police just turned around and left. Whether this was post-G20 goodwill or wanting to avoid an incident I wasn't sure — or whether they'd said something to the effect of "just make yourselves scarce".

With the music stopped, everyone stood around for a few minutes, unsure if the show was done or what. I lingered, but with that break my body suddenly remembered that this had started as a work day and I'd been going for quite a while. As some people started straggling out, the organizers weren't making any moves to shut things down, but thinking about the hike yet ahead of me I realized I was done for the night. As I made my way back to the road and was about to make my way toward the Bloor night bus, I heard the sound system come back to life and the music starting up again.¹

Listen to a track from this set here.

If you're a fan of music/drug analogies, Doldrums might be something like acid-laced cough syrup. And in a way, that kinda applies to the vibe of the whole night, which might be one thing imposing a limit on how much I felt I got out of this show. Maybe because I was mildly underdressed for the weather and had a cold coming on I felt less into it, but it felt like a less-successful happening than the last one.

There were definitely some positives here — this felt like the last fling of the summer and I would have felt a little sad to have missed it. And once again, I love the place-making (or "place-taking") element of this, giving a location a new, personal meaning. The next time I'm there, I'll be thinking, "yeah, I stood on that stage". But I also have the lingering feeling that I'm coming at things like this from the wrong way to be able to get into them fully. Is a show like this meant to be more than a debauch? Or is that the thing that each participant is supposed to bring with them? After all, this isn't pre-fab culture, presented to you in a microwave-ready pouch.

Anyway, once the weather warms up again, there will be more events like this. And I suppose I'm not saying that I won't be there.

---

¹ In fact, I heard after the fact that the rest of the night went off without a hitch or further interference.