No Shame & The Singing Lamb Present A Warm & Fuzzy Non-Denominational Holiday Party (Night Two) (feat. The Magic / Everything All The Time / THOMAS / The Winks)
The El Mocambo. Friday, December 17, 2010.
Besides having well-chosen acts, it generally feels good to go to a No Shame show. As is generally the case, when I showed up for this one, Lauren Schreiber was working the door, issuing warm greetings and collecting canned goods. And also marking hands with a customized stamp reading "W T E M" to celebrate the night's bands. "W", in this case, denoting The Winks, visiting from Montréal. I came in not knowing anything about the band, but I got a notion of what would be coming when I saw the slightly eclectic instrumentation (the band featured cello and mandolin but no guitar) and the arch look (saucy modern-day flappers).
And indeed, as the first song unfurled with skreeling stings against Todd Macdonald's plinking mandolin, the term "dramatic" crossed my mind. Perhaps a little too self-consciously so, even — which might well put it in a certain sort of Montrealish vibe. Parts of the set felt like expository excerpts from a musical rather than pop songs, more based on a shifting multi-part dynamics than singalong hooks. Which is to say, a bit out of my sweet spot.
Fortunately, the artsy sense of pagentry was carried beyond the music, so I was at least entertained by the band's performance. Vocalist/cellist Tyr Jami kept busy, whether leading some co-ordinated on-stage moves or jumping down to prowl the empty area in front of the stage. In fact, a cover of "Waiting For My Man" ended up with both Jami and her co-vocalist slumped over "dead" on the floor. The Ken Kesey-inspired closer "Wakonda" did draw me in, so there was some value here, even if I found most of the music to be only fitfully engaging.
Listen to a track from this set here.
On this night THOMAS was just the titular Thomas Gill, though he brought his band with him in laptop form. Of a set filled with new songs, Gill commented, "they're christmas-y... but they're actually also the kind of songs my band is going to start playing." With that he launched into "Jesus Was Born", with just his spindly voice and nimble guitar, and indeed it fit into the Christian lite-rock vein that he's been veering toward lately. Mid-song, he triggered his laptop, which added a smooth backing track behind him, drums and ethereal synths and the unmistakable voice of Felicity Williams.
After that, he put down his guitar and just sang, giving a karaoke air to the set, but playing some interesting stuff like "The Kingdom". At the very least, it was cool to see something that was very much a work-in-progress, as Gill averred to having knocked out some of the tracks that morning. I had described THOMAS' songs to A. as being like those mellow Jesus songs that you always skip past on Prince albums, and this was proving me dead on.
It was kinda a weird scene, with the increasingly loud crowd yapping while noise from the "Jingle Bell Rock" party bled through the ceiling from the upper room, all gradually creeping their way over the music from the stage. Undeterred, Gill beckoned to non-present bandmates as the laptop played their parts. Giving some hints of where his sound was coming from, he did a cover of "Earth: The Story So Far", from Prefab Sprout's spiritually-inclined Let's Change the World with Music album. And as for where it's headed to, there were more prominent beats on the 'gospel-house' track "When I Thought I Wouldn't Make It".
The crowd was getting thicker and no more interested in what was going on in stage, and Gill remained self-contained and unconcerned. And myself, it's not that I didn't like the music — I've managed to overcome my initial reluctance and become intrigued by what Gill's doing1 — and not that this wasn't an entertaining/weird scenario, but it did feel like more of a sideshow en route to the heart of the night.
That would be sets by two bands that I had come to lump together in my mind — not just for their music, but also the way I reacted to their 80's revivalist sounds the first time I heard them. For both bands I'd started with an anti-nostalgic suspicion, but eventually succumbed to the groovy fun of it all.
What with vocalist Alanna Stuart's other band blowing up pretty well, there hadn't been much from Everything All The Time lately. Additional seasoning wasn't needed to enhance Stuart's already potent stage magnetism2 — her presence simply demands attention. As the band finished getting ready, she invited the crowd to get closer, and unlike the previous acts the area in front of the stage was soon filled in. With the lights now illuminating the spinning disco ball, there was an instant party vibe.
The band offers Video Hits-worthy synth rock anchored by Stuart's fabulous pipes. Like the last time I saw 'em, the band started off with a slow one that took its time to build up, while "Getting Higher" delivered more of an immediate punch. It was a pretty similar setlist to what I'd seen last time, though there was the addition of "New House", a brand new one at the slower end of the band's spectrum making its debut. That was followed by the Whitney Houston-isms of "Telephone Conversation", and then the final blast of "Start.Stop", with Stuart, fully fired up, grabbing a drumstick to smash a cymbal. At set's end, the room was definitely warmer than it had been going in.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Another point of similarity between EATT and The Magic is how many members each band has keeping busy in other projects, making it worthwhile to grab a chance to see 'em playing together when the opportunity arises. Though they'd been around, it'd actually been almost a year since I'd seen The Magic playing. They also eased into their set, with "Never Lock the Door" which starts off slightly morose but builds into an upbeat falsetto rocker, and then chased that with a mid-tempo "newish song".
There was no horn section on this night, just the core five-piece centred around Geordie Gordon (vox/keyb) and his brother Evan (keyb/keyb bass) plus Sylvie Smith (keyb/vox). There might have been a bit of rust on the band's part, and it was only after after "No Sound" that the band (as well as the crowd) started moving, Gordon asking, "did members of the Toronto Dance Academy just join us at the front of the stage?"
There wasn't quite the same energy as I remember from the heights of the last time I'd seen 'em, but not every night can have the electric lurch of a New Years' Eve. And even if Gordon wasn't quite hitting the top notes, it was still good fun. Plus, there were a couple of new-ish songs that I hadn't heard before, including a solid slower one (possibly called "Slipping Away" ). As always, the Smith-led "Call Me Up" was a highlight, after which Gordon commented, "we're finally getting warmed up!"
MIDI problems stopped things for a couple minutes, but the band kept the momentum going with drummer Aaron Curtis and guitarist Jordan Howard driving "5th Business", a rocking good bit of new wave tastiness. That energy carried over to "Mr. Hollywood", meaning that the closing segment definitely made up for the less vigourous first few songs, and keeping The Magic's rep as a party-rockin' good time intact.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Given how Gill's countenance ranges somewhere between serenity and bemused detachment, I remain curious as to how much this a musical, as opposed to spiritual enterprise. "This song is total bullshit," he cheerfully commented while introducing the last one, and though its mode of expression was a little cheesy ("When we say 'Merry Christmas', we really mean 'I love you'".) the message is pretty much the same as the other songs.
2 It's rather interesting and instructive to see the different, more self-contained, body language that Stuart brings to the stage here as opposed to Bonjay. Still magnetic, but with an icy, internalized edge.
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