Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: Playin' Along

Recorded at Lee's Palace, March 31, 2011.

Mantler - Playin' Along

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Destroyer

Destroyer (The War on Drugs / Mantler)

Lee's Palace. Thursday, March 31, 2011.

Mantler was a savvy choice for an early opener at this show, dovetailing nicely with the headliner's smooth and mellow new direction. Chris Cummings has been doing that for awhile, and here the trio was playing to a relatively thin crowd, but probably one with a lot of people who hadn't been exposed to Mantler's superbly-composed lounge-pop before.

On a stage crammed with gear, Cummings' Wurlizer and Jay Anderson's drums were squeezed right up near the front of the stage. Along with Matt McLaren's bass, the band produced a snappy funk from the low-key leadoff of "Playin' Along". "I Guarantee You a Good Time" won over some of the crowd and as the place filled in, the band held their own in terms of amount of attention being paid to them — which is always a victory for the first band up playing to people here for someone else. And Cummings elicited some cheers as he stood up to rap out a verse on closer "I've Been Destroyed". After the set, I overheard one guy approvingly describing the set to a late-arriving friend as "kinda like Bacharach", so it seems that the tuxedo-clad singer managed to make something of an impact.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Playing songs from their then-pending Slave Ambient album, Philadelphia's The War on Drugs were, at the time of this show, still mostly talked about as being the band Kurt Vile used to be in. That album would go on to make something of a splash, and put the band on an upward trajectory to a point where they're now generally being considered on their own merits. But still, I guess the seeds had been planted, as there was a fairly-full house for the quartet.

A balky microphone rendered Adam Granduciel's vox in opener "Best Night" staticky and incomprehensible, but his guitar work was pretty tasty. I dunno if it was that bad mic or something else, but he seemed to be in a testy mood at the outset: "Can you put some fuckin' sauce on it?" he desperately sneered at song's end — which, as "Baby Missiles" started, apparently meant some massive reverb. He'd repeat the call a couple more times in the set, to the extent that a few guys in the crowd were soon also calling for more sauce on it.

Underneath the sauce, his vocal delivery registered as sub Dylan-y, a flavour which was imparted even more strongly in "Buenos Aires Beach", with a folk-rock 12-string-style guitar part. So there were some tensions here between the band's retro-y fundamentals and the more contemporary tweaks. For the latter, besides that fashionable reverb, there was a tidy regularity to the rhythm section — drummer Steven Urgo was holding things together with a laptop and click-track. That imparted a sleekness, that when set against the Americana-ish vibe of the vocals, seemed to be the band's most distinguishing feature — as if they were trying to find a synthesis between a stack of Tom Petty albums and another of Thrill Jockey discs.

The mellow "Brothers" did bring their old bandmate to mind, sounding like it could nestle quite nicely on a mixtape next to Kurt Vile's "Jesus Fever". But even better was "Coming Through", where the guitar tone channelled Lindsay Buckingham and the steady rhythm channelled nothing so much as Fleetwood Mac in a concise three minutes, a more intriguing package than closer (and older track) "Arms Like Boulders" which stretched out more and leaned a bit more on the Dylanisms.

It was a forty-minute, eight-song set from the band, a lot of them in the five-minute range, in that zone between popsong concision and jammy looseness. And as the set progressed, Granduciel's mood improved — a few songs in he was fixated on the notion that the hometown crowd might, at any time, start a chant for Destroyer's saxophone player Joseph Shabason.

Listen to a track for this set here.

Shabason's "You Belong to the City"-esque sax licks would indeed be central to Destroyer's new sound on Kaputt. On stage, that was reproduced alongside trumpet player J.P. Carter (Fond Of Tigers, Inhabitants). The 80's-inspired smoothness was the album's big talking point, but somewhat unsurprisingly, in the live setting it all sounded like, well, Destroyer, with the new stuff getting scuffed up a bit and the older songs getting some smoothed-out treatments. But there's no doubt that soft-rock vibe was palpable right from the start with album-opening track "Chinatown".

Before the show, I was having a beer with J., and mentioned how it'd be interesting to finally see Destroyer play, upon which he swiftly reminded me that we had, in fact 'em, back in 2008. On being told, the memories of that show flashed back into my consciousness, mostly about the quote-unquote eccentric behaviour of leader/vocalist Dan Bejar. That persona was on display here, as the band launched into "Blue Eyes", with Bejar stopping the song after its first line. He was peering back to the soundman, thinking he was being signalled, though it turned out to be a false alarm: "I'm hallucinating," Bejar muttered, one of the few verbal asides he'd offer. On the whole, Bejar — who wasn't wielding a guitar this time around — came off as more closed off and inward-directed than previously, though still to some degree like he was playing a character.

Instead of wild-eyed rock prophet, though, his mode here was closed-eye visionary, delicately gripping the microphone as he sang. Like his multi-layered lyrics, it's hard to know whether to take his presence at face value — while on stage, is he self-consciously playing the role of anguished artist? Does he maybe really feel that way a bit, but then plays it up for gravitas? I don't assume to say, but there were times that he looked acutely uncomfortable. On the other hand, he also showed a sharp awareness of his surroundings: as "Painter in Your Pocket" was getting started, Shabason was struggling with a beer bottle when Bejar non-nonchalantly reached in his pocket and handed him an opener.

Behind the frontman was a seven-piece band, giving full-force to the new material's lush arrangements. It admirably rendered the Kaputt material with the same smooth hammer deployed on the album and applied the same treatment to the older stuff in the setlist. "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" (from 2004's Your Blues) was considerably bulked up from the original's acoustic guitar/flute mellowness, there was an excellent version of "My Favorite Year" and a spatter-y "3000 Flowers" that melded a rocking edge with the sax line.

Of the new songs, "Downtown" was notable for featuring dual bass action. "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" featured the same extended intro as the album version, the song stretching past the eleven-minute mark but never feeling too prolonged. The main set closed with the weird disco-isms of "Song for America", and a slowly decaying synth pattern kept playing as the audience called for an encore. Returning to the stage Bejar commented, "as always, you're too kind," about his most protracted direct communication to the crowd.

The encore would only turn out to be one song, but that would be the expansive "Bay of Pigs". Clutching a handful of lyric sheets, Bejar returned to the stage accompanied only by a guitarist and keyboard player Larissa Loyva (whose backing vox throughout the night were a key element of the band's sound) though eventually the rest of the band would filter back to join in as the song slowly ramped up from floating textures to mutant pop. There was an enjoyable crack in the façade when, mid-song, the musicians nearly broke each other up, the "da-da-dums" punctuated by Bejar's half-cut-off laughs. Even if this was a less-forceful show than when I'd seen them before, it was more insistent on my memory, and I reckon that this time I won't forget that I saw Destroyer play.

You can check out something from the latest album here, or listen to an older track get the Kaputt treatment here.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: Crying at the Movies

Recorded at TIFF Lightbox, March 9, 2011.

Mantler - Crying at the Movies

My notes for this set can be found here.

Event: Mantler's Visual Music

Mantler's Visual Music

TIFF Lightbox. Wednesday, March 9, 2011.

Although this was also the first night of Canadian Music Week, I decided to take it easy, and just head out though the rainy slush to this special event at TIFF's new Temple of Cinema. A free screening, in co-presentation with The Music Gallery, this was a programme of shorts curated by Chris Cummings. Known as Mantler when he performs on stage, when not singing his sad songs Cummings has had a long affiliation with TIFF, as well as an academic background in film. So it's no surprise that his selection of music-related cinema was quite a distance away from the typical music video.

In fact, the films hewed much closer to the avant-garde, with many showing audacious experimentation with both content and form — several, in fact, were pioneering in their use of direct animation.¹ Starting with a pair of works by Oskar Fischinger, the programme led off with the self-descriptive Motion Painting No. 1 (1947, 11 min.), with hand-painted animation set to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto², and the quicker, explosive Allegretto (1936-1943, 3 min.), which was quite sublime.

That was followed by a trio of films by Len Lye, starting with the bold, punchy Trade Tattoo (1937, 5 min.). Apparently commissioned by the British Post Office, even with the zingy references to Industry! and the Power of Correspondence ("THE RHYTHM OF TRADE IS MAINTAINED BY THE MAILS"), this visually audacious Technicolor riot was probably not what they were expecting. Even now, we don't have a good vocabulary for this sort of nonlinear boldness — we tend to quickly slip to lazy drug jokes and trippy, psychedelic references.

Rhythm (1957, 1 min.), which is an editing exercise in exactly that, juxtaposing the flow of industrial work to tribal beats.

And Free Radicals (1958-79, 4 min.) pushed that further into abstraction, employing designs — suggestive of both lightning and dancing figures — scratched directly into the film stock and cut to Maori drumming.

The experimental works of the NFB's Norman McLaren are well-known in his home country, although I wasn't familiar with either of these selections. Synchromy (1971, 7 min.) was visual cinema in the purest sense, moving the film's soundtrack into the visual area, so you are literally seeing what you are hearing. It sounds like it had prefigured 8-bit chiptunes music by more than thirty years.

Synchromy's frenzy is in direct opposition to the beautiful simplicity of Lines Horizontal (1961, 6 min.). Although there's probably a math paper to be written here on its use of standing wave patterns, the best thing is to just blank out a little and flow with this, like a kid watching hydro wires rise and dip from the back seat of a car:

After that minimalist exercise, Larry Jordan's Gymnopedies (1965, 6 min.) felt like a rococo edifice, the headlong rush back into complexity feeling almost florid after Lines Horizontal's rigourous minimalism. Employing cutout animation with a Victorian surrealistic bent, this felt like Monty Python-era Terry Gilliam rushing headlong towards Fantastic Planet. But under the calming influence of Satie's forever-and-always gorgeous piece, it found its own meditative rhythm.

A departure from most of the rest of the programme — and its longest piece — Warren Sonbert's Friendly Witness (1989, 22 min.) had a different sort of formal audacity. This exercise in montage mixed together home movie clips cut (in the first half) to rock'n'roll songs, the combination creating a sort of set of personal references akin to Chris Marker. The quicker flurry of selections preceding it might have lowered my attention span, but not as much of this stuck with me.³

The screening portion ended with one last blast of trippiness. Cecil Stokes' When the Organ Played ‘Oh Promise Me’ (c.1940s, 3 min.) was apparently made as a tool in the treatment of the insane in an era when Bing Crosby was considered calming, if not therapeutic, featuring a brain-melting visual field created "using crystallized chemicals and polarized light" set to Der Bingle's soothing tones.

And in addition to all of this was a short performance after from Cummings, playing a brief solo set with wurlitzer and Rhythm Ace. Although he was obviously inspired by the films he presented, Cummings' music is certainly less abstract, and he had no lack of thematically-appropriate material, leading off with "Author".

"That's sort of my love letter to the theatre," Cummings observed afterwards. " Now, I'll do my love letter to the cinema. [beat] It's called 'Crying at The Movies'". And that was followed by the new "Husbands", based on the Cassavetes film of the same name — both song and film closely observed and vaguely melancholic.⁴

Listen to a track from this set here.

In a brief Q & A afterward, Cummings talked about his relationship to movie music ("a bit of a lost art") and about having done some film music as a cinema student. Asked about how these experimental films might have influenced his music, he talked about his desire to overcome the plainest sort of narrative: "I'm always trying to find a less linear way of writing a song".

That made for a nice wrap to the evening. Well done all around, it was a thoughtfully-selected programme from Cummings. And as cool as it is that many of these are available on the youtubes, it was really excellent to see these on the big screen, in fine prints tracked down by TIFF. In our over-stuffed information-world, curation matters more than ever.

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¹ That is to say, they were created without the use of a camera — not to be confused with "direct cinema" in the documentary film sense.

² I can't find an embeddable video for either of the Fischinger works, but here are links for Motion Painting No. 1 and Allegretto. I'm not quite sure what's on offer with all the manga ads on this site — and apparently, my adblocker is way less effective for Japanese ads. Who knew?

³ I also couldn't find this one online at all, so I couldn't refresh my memory.

⁴ In Mantler-related news, 2000's debut album Doin' It All is getting a digital reissue, and to celebrate, Mantler + band will be playing the whole thing at a special show next Friday (December 2, 2011) at Holy Oak Café. A one-of-a-kind show that would be well-worth your time.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: Husbands

Recorded at The Music Gallery, October 1, 2010.

Mantler - Husbands

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Gabe Levine

Gabe Levine (Mantler)

Music Gallery. Friday, October 1, 2010.

A Friday night album release party at the Music Gallery, and an upbeat crowd of friends and family on hand for Gabe Levine, the night's headliner. In the night's spirit of bonhomie, he was on hand to introduce Mantler, who opened things up.

Having Chris Cummings' pop project to start was definitely a selling point for this show, as Cummings always guarantees the crowd a good time, both in deed and in literal song form. Sitting at the electric piano, he was joined throughout the set by Jay Anderson and Matt McLaren on drums and bass, effortlessly giving the material an unassumingly funky boost. Despite the relative freshness of his last album — Monody had been released back in the spring — Cummings was playing a bunch of new material, including "Flower of Laughter", this new father's song to his recently-arrived daughter. "Husbands", another new one, was a discourse on watching the Cassavetes flick of the same name¹, a subject that foregrounded Mantler's longstanding cinematic interests.²

After "Uphill Battle", another yet-unrecorded song that's been in the repertoire for awhile, the set closed out with a couple tracks from Monody, including the smooth anthem "Childman". As always, this was a top-notch set, and, yes, a guaranteed good time.

Listen to a track from this set here.

The last time I saw Gabe Levine was in the same venue, but otherwise, this was a considerably different show. Whereas that set back in June had been performed with a stripped-down trio, there was a big band this time around, reproducing the lush arrangements found on his new Long Spun Thread. Although this is Levine's first "solo" album, he has been active on the Montreal experimental scene with several bands in the past, including Black Ox Orkestar. As with that previous show, I was interested in how that past, more "avant" work might be informing the songs and arrangements here, which hew closer to the singer-songwriter path.

After starting off solo with album closer "Friends In Bed", a half-dozen musicians emerged to strike up the album's title track. The band included — deep breath here — Jay Anderson and Dan Gaucher (trading off on drums and percussion), Mike Smith (bass), Sandro Perri (keys and percussion), Jesse Levine (piano and keybs), Jessica Moore (backing vox) and Jeremy Strachan (sax/flute/guitar). If you keep your eyes on local stages, you might note that's a bit of a who's who right there, excellent musicians all, most of whom had also played on the album.

After a couple songs with that configuration, the band was joined by a three-piece string section (Julia Collins, Jane Levitt, Erika Nelson) to fill things out even more, including a tasty run through "Cruel Youth". In terms of lushness and orchestration, Lambchop comes to mind a bit here, if you filter out that band's more countrypolitan leanings. Levine did reach back to his old "experimental-country" band Sackville to play "This Machine".

It looks to be a fertile time for Levine, with a couple newer-than-the-album songs included in the set, both of which were highlights of the night — "Holy Relics" had a bouncy rhythm and tasty vocals from Moore, while the knockout sprawling gallop of the excellent "Where the Crown Don't Reign" was a rush of internal rhymes and instrumental swagger. The set ran just over an hour, finishing off with "Believe Me" — the first track on the album in a nice parallel to close things out.

The big band definitely brought these songs to life in a more vivid way than when I'd seen them before, so Levine's encounter with these local musicians — many of whom also skirt back and forth between "experimental" and "pop" in their other projects — can definitely be counted as a success. Long Spun Thread stands on its own as an album, and is worth checking out³, but seeing these songs played like this made them even more exciting. Levine is still playing around town with most of these musicians, so do keep your eyes out for a chance to catch him.

A couple selections from this set — check out one that's on the album here, and one that should be on the next one here.

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¹ "Songs about Cassavetes" must count as its own sub-sub genre by now.

² This will also be on display at "Mantler's Visual Music", a free event at the TIFF Lightbox billed as "an exploration of the common ground between avant-garde film and music" including a screening of a series of shorts followed by a musical performance.

³ The album is digitally available on a "name your price" basis at Levine's bandcamp page.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: I Guarantee You a Good Time

Recorded at The Tranzac, May 6, 2010.

Mantler - I Guarantee You a Good Time

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Mantler

Mantler (Sheesham and Lotus)

The Tranzac Club. Thursday, May 6, 2010.

A big party in the main hall of the Tranzac Club to celebrate the release of Mantler's new Monody album. Although his first three albums came out at a more regular clip, there's been a gap since 2004's Landau, and as a regular player on the local scene, there were evidently quite a few folks waiting on a new disc.

The room filled up during the opening set by Sheesham and Lotus, purveyors of fine old-timey music. Working in the Southern proto-string-band tradition, the pair (also known as Sam Allison and Teilhard Frost) might superficially seem like an odd match with the smooth sounds that would be coming from the main act, but there's a whole tangle of connections at play here.¹ The pair play mostly banjo (Allison) and fiddle (Frost), but there are some other interesting things tossed in — including such devices as the "sepiaphonic monophone", an antiquated amplification horn the pair sing into. The songs were drawn from a variety of sources, from traditionals like "The Fox" to newer stuff like Porter Wagoner's "Head Over Heels In Love With You" — but it all sounded spot-on, coming out with the right amount of slightly tinny raggedness.

"Don't let the sounds of Sheesham and Lotus distract you from getting one of those new Mantler records", Frost said to the room. It certainly didn't distract the crowd from chattering away, the band playing to a semi-indifferent majority standing around in the back. The band didn't let that get the best of them and kept on through their set, but it did lessen their impact a bit. This isn't the sort of music that requires a conservatory-quiet audience — a certain amount of enthusiastic whooping and clapping and dancing is more of a natural backdrop — but the general impression here was that the bulk of the crowd weren't looking for that kind of revelry.

Mantler is a character.

Not in the sense that he exhibits some sort of gregarious personality; the very concept of Mantler is the creation of local musician Chris Cummings, and not merely a nom de guerre. Perhaps the two aren't entirely different — take a Wurlitzer electric piano, add a tux and a persona of a lounge singer laughing to keep from crying — but don't just assume that the one is the other.

That electric piano is, perhaps, at the core of the Mantler sound — soulful and funky, but not without a certain limp softness. That latter can be found, a bit, on the new Monody — a decent album, but even as I was listening to it, I was making comparisons to how I remembered some of those songs in a live setting, with a bit more funky electricity in the live arrangements.

And one could see from the outset that this was going to be a fairly full-on kind of show. Rather than setting up on the main room's stage, there was a large amount of gear set up on the dance floor — certainly enough that the stage would have been rather crowded. But at the start of the show there was just Cummings, playing alone, starting off with "Author" and the melancholy "Crying at the Movies", both from the new album.

With the mood established (and the crowd much more attentive than they had been), he slowly built up the sound around him, adding more and more players with every song, starting with Steamboat rhythm-meisters Jay Anderson and Matt McLaren on drums and bass. A couple more songs as a trio before Christopher Sandes (organ) and Nick Taylor (guitar) — also in the Steamboat camp — joined for "Uphill Battle", a newer-than-the-album tune.

Long-time collaborator Dennis Frey² added backing vox on "Playin' Along" (from 2004's Landau). Once joined by Mike Smith and Andy Scott, there was an amazing run through "I've Been Destroyed" with Frey hitting the vocal hook hard for the duration of the song as Cummings stood up to rap out a verse. Hot stuff!

"You might be asking how we can top that," Cummings commented at the song's end. The answer was more of a moreness as the horn section (Joseph Shabason, Jeremy Strachan, Bryden Baird and Tom MacCammon) took the stage. "Childman", "In Stride" and "Fortune Smiled Again" would get big horn arrangements, closing out the hour-long main set in a widescreen bookend to the single-spotlight closeup it had started with.

Returning to the stage for the encore, Cummings commented, "I wrote this song in 1997, and my life is a lot better now. Don't take it too literally," launching into "Lately I'm Sad". Indeed, Cummings was justifiably pleased with the night's turnout and reception, and was willing to stretch things out a bit, returning to play one last song solo, ending the night like it had begun. Well-written songs are amenable to a variety of backdrops, and while Mantler's shows range from one-man-with-a-beatbox affairs to full band blowouts, they're always a fine time — but best of all when we get all of them in one go.³

You can check out a couple songs from this set here and here.

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¹ The keen-eyed might note that both of these guys played on Mantler's new album. In fact, Allison has been a collaborator with the night's headliner for a long time, going back to their pre-Mantler project Hall Of Famer. Plus, like the headliner, there's an underlying theatricality to Sheesham and Lotus' act, bound up a bit in the tensions between knowing that these guys are playing in character, but at the same time expressing something beyond character.

² I later heard someone describing Frey's appearance as "more Mantler than Mantler!".

³ Mantler is playing next Friday (July 16) at the charming Holy Oak Café with Jay Anderson and Matt McLaren — a show that will be at the more intimate end of the spectrum.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: I've Been Destroyed

Recorded at The Tranzac, May 6, 2010.

Mantler - I've Been Destroyed

Another one with review TK. Suffice it to say Mantler slowly built up to a dozen musicians behind him and totally, well, destroyed.

My notes for this set can now be found here.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: Shadows and Counterparts

Recorded at The Tranzac Club, December 31, 2009.

Mantler - Shadows and Counterparts

My notes for this set are here.

Gig: Tranzac New Year's Eve

Tranzac New Year's Eve (feat. Diamond Rings, Jim Guthrie, Gentleman Reg, The Magic, Mantler)

The Tranzac. Thursday, December 31, 2009.

You could make a big deal out of New Year's Eve, I guess. Some people do. Having tried the various options, these days I mostly prefer to find a gig to go to and generally treat it like a usual night. Kudos to the Tranzac, then, for throwing together some sweet New Years' shows, that basically feature a likable selection of local artists and draw a nice crowd with some familiar, friendly faces. Having had a good time at last year's event (featuring The Bicycles ushering in the new year) I knew there wasn't anywhere else I'd want to be.¹

An abundance of choices in the early going, with appealing acts going down in both the main hall and the Southern Cross lounge. But I decided to stick it out in the more spacious room with Diamond Rings — just to have one last rendezvous with the single of the year and John O'Regan's other tasty pop confections, even if it meant missing the much-talked-about debut of Sheezer² — and even if that meant I'd have the too-damn-catchy Cure-like piano line of "On Our Own" stuck in my head for a few more days. Wearing a tunic covered with a constellation of glittering stars — as if he'd been taking a costuming class with Robin Starveling — O'Regan sashayed from guit to keyb with grace, even if his on-stage persona remains humbly anti-diva. Can't wait to hear more companions to the fine half dozen songs in his set right now. This was one of the sounds of 2009 for me, so it felt proper to have this set as part of the year's send-off.

Next up, a rare occasion indeed. With folks looking back over the past ten years, perhaps a very timely re-emergence for Jim Guthrie, whose work at the other end of the decade was no small part of the groundwork of T.O.'s indie explosion.³ As things were getting set up, I was getting excited, as it looked like he'd put together an all-star backing band for the occasion.⁴ "It's been awhile, so please go easy on us," Guthrie said as the seven-member crew began creating a lush backdrop for his songs.

Although there's been signs here and there — a much-talked-about commercial jingle; sideman duties with Islands; the Human Highway album; some soundtrack work, including local doc When We Were Boys — it's hard to believe that it's been so long since 2003's Now, More Than Ever. Whether because it's the most temporally proximate or it was more amenable to live band arrangements, it formed the backbone of the setlist, including the first three tracks. Then the band reached back to 2002's Morning Noon Night for "Trouble", the carefully modulated live textures adding a different dimension to the song than is in its somewhat tinny original recording."We're just playin' oldies tonight, all oldies," Guthrie commented, although the as-yet-unrecorded "Difference A Day Makes" (which appears to be bouncing around the net in demo format) got an airing. Going out on a mellow note, Guthrie grabbed his ukulele, ending with the existential love song "You are Far (Do You Exist?)". A welcome return, the significance understood by some in the room, even if he was playing to the chattiest crowd of the evening.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Not wanting to get stuck around more chatterboxes, as the crowd shifted during the set break I moved pretty much front and centre. And why not? Given that this had become, just sorta by accident, a full year of Gentleman Reg, it seemed quite befitting to have him right there for the last set I'd see before the turning of the year. And, indeed, it turned out sounding pretty good, even if I was blasted a little from Reg's guitar amp directly in front of me. And so, a fine forty-five minute set with all the usual highlights, including again the very fine new song ("what they said is true") heard at the Opera House show.⁵ By the time he hit the home stretch of "We're in a Thunderstorm" (again featuring Laura Barrett guesting on extra keybs) and "The Boyfriend Song" a different and, um, drunker crowd had pushed their way up to the front to engage in their own crazy dance party, one enthusiastic fellow even hopping up on stage to shake a leg. It's probably sort of the end of a cycle for Reg, and I imagine we might hear a bit less of him next year, recharging and building up some more new material, but I dearly hope he can maintain some of the momentum he's built up over the past while.

After the set, A. was headed outside for a smoke, and I joined him, just to get a breath of revivifying outside air. Which is how, with typical panache, I managed to miss all the excitement of midnight and the new year, heralded only by an unruly howl drifting over from the Brunswick House. Perhaps underwhelming, but I'm not one to set too much store on these kinds of celebration anyways. Better to just head back inside in anticipation of the next set.

"It's like Guelph invaded Toronto," Reg had noted from the stage — indeed true, considering that the Royal City provided us not only with himself and Jim Guthrie but also The Magic. Last time I saw 'em, I was admittedly feeling pretty punchy, as it was at the end of a day-long music-watching marathon, and I knew I'd need to have another go 'round to really suss 'em out. On this occasion, with a full set to fill, the band started a bit more on the soft side, with "Never Lock the Door" — a song which helps to tip their hand that their real genre is a revisitation of 70's smoothness filtered through 80's pop. But as soon as Geordie Gordon hit the falsetto part at the end ("I'll nevah lock the door!") he had the crowd onside and most such hair-splitting became redundant.

"I get stabbed in the heart every time I look at you," Gordon informed the audience — but that wasn't so much a statement of angsty songwriterly anguish but the result of sartorial insistence, a pin for his scarf being the culprit. Most of the other bandmembers were no less elegant — Sylvie Smith was in a sophisticated shimmery dress, but managed to not be the shiniest thing on stage when Evan Gordon's gold lamé cape was accounted for. Still, Smith is a key factor here, adding excellent backing vox throughout (especially, say, wrapping her part around Gordon's lead on "No Sound") and taking lead for showstopper "Call Me Up".⁶

The sophisticated, slick sound that the band is aiming for — especially in their big-band, horn-section-enabled live configuration — was demonstrated on a cover of Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years", wherein the guitarists did a respectable job of reproducing the snake-y lead lines, but Gordon couldn't quite nail the smoothness of Donald Fagen's vocal. A couple of the songs misfired, but given that one or two of those are holdovers from their earlier, less-expansive EP that's soon to be supplanted by a full-length, it may well be that some songwriting growth has already taken place. But the lesser material was outweighed by the good stuff, and the band has really nailed their own sound. Plus, their party-startin', dance-inducing devotion to the pleasure principle is pretty winning, even if I'm not entirely amenable to that kind of thing.⁷ A fine time, leaving no doubt why a lot of folks are calling this group one to watch in the coming months.

You can listen to the most fabulous thing in the set here, but then, so as to not give short shrift to the hard workin' Geordie Gordon, you can also check out some more here.

After that energy blast, nothing would make more sense than something mellow to ensure a gentle landing. Nothing better, then, than Mantler, master of melancholy and electric-piano soul. Playing in the cozier Southern Cross lounge, the room was pretty full (with many fellow musicians in attendance) and sweltering. Admirably backed by Matt McLaren's warm bass and Jay Anderson's loose-limbed drumming, the Steamboat duo provided just enough restrained colour to fill in the songs without distracting focus from the tuxedo'ed singer. Leading off with the counter-thematic "I Guarantee You a Good Time" ("you are talkin' to a guy who's never had a sad day in his life"), might seem strange coming from a guy whose between-song banter includes segues like, "continuing the theme of inner pain..." — but maybe nothing soothes an ache and makes you feel good like a sad song and someone else's misery.

Riffing on the change of year, Mantler strongly urged the audience to call it twenty-ten and not two-thousand and ten ("they didn't call it 'nineteen hundred and ten', did they?"), before taking an opportunity to riff on the film 2010.⁸ The trio grew stronger as the set moved along, essaying such fine tunes as "Shadows and Counterparts" and "Uphill Battle". Sadly, as they were starting to really cook, I was fading just as quickly. Still, when Steamboat guitarist Nick Taylor joined them for a couple numbers (including a funky run through The Spinners' "I'll Be Around") to close the set, I got enough of a boost to last it out.

I thought that might be it, but the crowd called out for an encore, and the band came back to send the crowd home with the cheery combo of "Lately I'm Sad" and Gil Scott-Heron's "Home is Where the Hatred is". I was beat as I dragged myself over to the extra-late-running subway, but a good way to ring in the new year.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ The only mild criticism that I could offer at this well-organized event is the absence of any female-fronted acts on the main stage.

² "I don't know why you guys aren't watching them," O'Regan commented, after asking if Gentleman Reg was in the room to join in on a song, before concluding he'd be in the other room. Sheezer, for thems sans ears to the ground, is the new all-star Weezer tribute band, whose ranks include Dana Snell, Laura Barrett, Alysha Haugen, Magali Meagher and Robin Hatch — a tremendously talented lot who would be worth listening to regardless of the circumstance. It looks like there's some murky video from what I was missing here.

³ His first album, 1999's A Thousand Songs, was the first release on the seminal Three Gut label, of which he was the very namesake.

⁴ The members of the band were:

Jordan Howard - guit

Samir Khan - bass

Shaw-Han Liem - keyb

Nathan Lawr - drums

Randy Lee - violin

Jeremy Strachan - reeds

Nick Buligan - brass

⁵ Didactic Reg-trackers should note that Jon Hynes was handling the bass this time round.

⁶ It was presented with all-star backing vox from Kelly McMichael (Gentleman Reg), Jess Tollefsen (Green Go), and Jonas Bonnetta (Evening Hymns).

⁷ If only there were some time of the year where it'd be appropriate to resolve to change that sort of thing about oneself.

⁸ "What the hell happened to Jupiter?" someone in the audience shouted at mention of the movie. "I know!" Mantler replied, as if astonished.

Recording: Mantler

Artist: Mantler

Song: Togethernest

Recorded at Owen Pallett's 30th Birthday Party, Lula Lounge, Sunday, September 6, 2009.

Mantler - Togethernest

My notes from this show can be found here.

Gig: Thirty Years of Owen Pallett (Part III)

Thirty Years of Owen Pallett (feat: The Phonemes, 10,000 Watt Head, Mantler, Currently In These United States, Wyrd Visions, Diamond Rings, Hank, Domaine D'Or, The Magic)

Lula Lounge. Sunday, September 6, 2009.

This is the third part of the day. For an introduction and an account of the first part of the day, click here. For the middle part of the day, click here.

9:45 The Phonemes — During the onslaught of Brides' set, I didn't notice the screen being set up on the side stage. Turns out Magali Meagher and Bob Wiseman had worked out a song "with a subliminal message" for Owen, which turned out to be a fantastically fun take of The Beatles' "Birthday", with synchronized backing vox on the screen. Magali then played one of her new songs accompanied by John Tielli before inviting a crowd of friends on stage to add voices and improvise percussion to "Steeples and People". The server station against the wall was raided for salt and pepper shakers to clink together, cymbals were overturned, Bob strapped on his accordion and everyone joined in. Everyone stayed on stage to finish off with a rousing take of "Pain Perdu". Open-hearted and rousing indeed.

10:01 10,000 Watt Head — And then for something completely different. 10,000 Watt Head, revered in some quarters but an unknown quantity to me, turned out to be a fairly visceral experience. Imagine a rock band fronted by one of the zombies from 28 Days Later, but with dreads spilling out the top of a ski mask, and singing in a mic connected through a synth/vocoder that turned his voice into something like an angry cartoon fly.¹ As two drummers and a bassist back on the risers kicked up a heavy beat, the front line was more committed to chaos — or in the case of the guitarist, attempting to play on as vocalist Grasshopper fell over him, twitched about, and humped the air. The band's set consisted of eleven minutes of non-stop music — whether that was one or more "songs" or just an improvisation was pretty much irrelevant. There was a punkish sense of adventure to it, but not in a GG Allin sort of threatening/dangerous way — more of an unplanned/no safety net kind of way, like the drunk kids next door having a pillow fight while jumping on the trampoline.

Listen to a track from this set here.

8:14 Mantler — That quick , face-melting burst left an opening for Mantler, who was ready to go on the side stage, to play a bit of an extra-long set. Which was a welcome thing. Mantler (the nom de guerre of Chris Cummings) plays solo with electric piano and a primitive drum machine. Dressed in a white tuxedo, he affects the vibe of a lonely lounge singer crooning heartbroken lyrics² masked behind a jaunty Curtis Mayfield rhythm. A fine songwriter, the extra time for a couple more songs was welcomed by Owen, who was calling out requests. A guaranteed good time.

Listen to a track from this set here.

10:48 Currently In These United States — A bit of a blast from the other end of the decade³, CITUS were most active in a time that I was less attuned to cool local bands, and I must admit I had not seen them before. Centred around the boyish charm and yelpy vox of Matt Collins, the band harkens back to some sweet pillars of 90's alt-rock, like Archers of Loaf on pixie stix or a polemicizing Superchunk. Hit me in a Pavement-y sweet spot, it did.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11:23 Diamond Rings — Not just the pop sensation with the song all the kids have a crush on, Diamond Rings is, in fact, the alter ego of John O'Regan of the D'Urbervilles.⁴ Dancing up a storm as well as playing guit and keybs, John O. played three glammy new-romantic songs leading up to the "hit", all with a deft pop touch. His keyboards were decorated with a blanket or towel with a picture of a unicorn under a rainbow, a sign, perhaps, of the somewhat campy level at which he is pitching his persona. But there's also the seriousness of well-written songs underneath it, as well as a gee-whillikers sincerity projecting from the stage. A delightful romp — definitely waiting for more.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11:44 Wyrd Visions — During the first song, with the crowd chatter conflicting with the delicately intricate songs it looked like the experience might suffer in comparison with the incredible set from the night before. But an in-set imprecation to silence from Owen made things a lot better. Still, not quite the same magic of the stars and the crickets, but, on the other hand, even if it dispels the mystery, it was cool this time to see the artist and to be able to watch how he went about his work. Colin Bergh turned out to look like a mild-mannered radio announcer or travelling salesman, albeit one with a book of demon lore tucked away in his valise. Even with the crowd effect, still pretty enjoyable, and after two songs he looked to Owen, who raptly gave the nod for a third, stretching the set out beyond a half-hour.

12:17 Hank — Another legendary Blocks combo, the Hank collective is singer/guitarist Cab Williamson, backed by what could be dubbed an all-star cast, including Magali Meagher and Mantler (both seen earlier in the day on their own), plus Lex Vaughn on drums. British expat Williamson gripped his microphone like someone who had been reared on "proper" brit pop singers in full-on grim seventies light entertainment mode while the rest of the crew played like a hillbilly swing band aiming for doo-wop sophistication. Heckled by Owen into playing "Danes In Peril!", Williamson tried to get out of it by claiming not to remember the chords, at which point, Owen reeled them off, and then jumped up on stage to sing along.

12:46 Domaine D'Or — "This next band is so VIP," Owen told us, "I have to soundcheck their gear for them." It turned out to be creepily costumed Domaine D'Or, a duo named after the luxe vintage. They dramatically took the stage in frilly wedding gear, their faces covered by nylons with featured markered on, creating a wholly unsettling expressionless effect. Playing a florid style of goth-y dance rock, the pair was nothing if not captivatingly entertaining, even if all the weirdness kinda overshadowed the songs.

1:01 The Magic — "When did The Magic get so big?" shouted someone in the crowd just as the band was about to start playing. Not sure if meant the extent of the membership (eight, I believe, including horn section) or the fact that the room was pretty well-filled at this point. I was trying to remember why the band's name was vaguely familiar and it clicked when I saw Sylvie Smith, who had recently impressed while moonlighting on vox with Evening Hymns, at her keyboard. The Toronto/Guelph combo plays a sort of "big pop", 80's style, incorporating a wide range of sounds: various synth squiggles, vague reggae rhythms, country flourishes, all tied up in a bow. Having lived through a decade's worth of smooth 80's pop once already, I admit I found myself looking over my shoulder to see if this was history repeating itself as farce or tragedy. But that's my limitation, I guess, and I realize there are more than those two options. And the band was by no means narrowly aping anything. The songs were catchy, at least, so that counts for a fair amount. I wasn't won over, but am at least benignly neutral towards this lot, who I'm guessing I'll have more chances to evaluate.

Admittedly, I was also pretty beat by this time, having been standing around for pretty much all of the past, oh, nine-plus hours. As the band left the stage and the DJ's started up in earnest, I ducked out, trying to get myself home with what strength I had left. A great show overall, but not the way you'd want to spend every weekend.⁵

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¹ The vox were buried way down in the mix, ending up sounding like an insistent memory in the back of one's mind that would neither fully reveal itself nor just go away.

² "I've Been Destroyed" and "Lately I'm Sad" are typical song titles.

³ Their band website can still be found on Geocities, which feels like coming across a Neanderthal in a glacier. Some cool Wavelength gig pix from shows at Ted's Wrecking Yard can be found there, tho.

⁴ It's possible that as Diamond Rings, John O. is also fighting crime, costumed crusader-style when summoned by a giant diamond ring spotlight in the sky. At least I'd like to think so — I mean, that's what the tights are about, yes?

⁵ Which is, ironically, what I'd concluded one weekend previous, in no way figuring that I'd be at another all day marathon so soon.

Gig: Steamboat

Steamboat

Sneaky Dee's. Saturday, May 17, 2009.

What better way to celebrate the release of a twenty minute EP than with a two-and-a-half hour performance?

Headed down not knowing a lot about Steamboat. I know I've just missed seeing them two or three times in the past. and I knew I had seen various members ably performing in other bands — including, convincingly, The Old Soul. Plus, there was an impressive list of guests slated, so it seemed like a no-brainer. For six bucks cover and a seven dollar CD, it was incredible value for money.

Steamboat on their own roll five deep, such excellent players all that it'd be unfair to single any one out¹. Imagine the grease'n'gravy of Booker T & The MG's leavened with a soupçon of The Band, able to provide sympathetic backing across a variety of genres — specialists in all styles, to borrow a phrase. Over the course of two generous sets, the band played a lot of covers, with some of their own material thrown in — and given some of the top drawer stuff they were covering, it's a complement to say the originals, written and delivered by Matt McLaren in a soulful voice, fit in well. If there's any criticism to be made — and its a small one — it's that (at least as of yet, maybe) the band doesn't have as much of its own material to rely on. But besides relying on themselves, they also got by with a little help from their friends.

The first guest up was Doug Paisley, whose name was not immediately familiar to me² who mixed some country dust into the formula, performing a pair of strong tunes, including the ripping "If I Wanted To". Next up were Ian and Simone from $100, duetting on George Jones/Tammy Wynette's "Golden Ring" plus a roaring take through their own "Tirade of a Shitty Mom", the band bringing the menace to the latter. The first set ended with Alex Lukashevsky joining the band for a couple covers, including a bit of reggae-lite on Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come".³

After a break, the band threw down a few more numbers, before being joined by Sandro Perri and Mantler. I'm familiar with Perri's avant-pop stylings, but had not been exposed to Mantler, wearing a white tuxedo and taking over the electric piano, delivering some smooth, lounge-y tunes, leading off with "I Guarantee You a Good Time". Perri took a turn at the mike for an original (I think) that developed into an extended slinky groove of a coda.

Andre Ethier⁴ took over and led off with a tune which sounded like "You're a Big Girl Now" in a mellow car crash with "Dress Rehearsal Rag", a sax mourning the scene, and followed up with a powerful Joe Tex cover. Following that, the focus was back on Steamboat themselves, augmented for the rest of the night by an excellent Stax-styled horn section, which was put to good use on a ripping take of Eddie Floyd's "Big Bird" and a few more.

As the set wore on, the original groups of women dancing in front of the stage were increasingly replaced by tall dudes, bro-ing down and reaching over to grab each other's shaggy hair, celebrating some sort of drunken ritual. It was just the sort of night where there was so much music that at one point or another, a break was indicated, and there was a lot of turnover near the front of the room. After being on stage for over ninety minutes for their second set, the band ended with a one-song encore, fabulously tearing through "Can You Picture That?", originally by The Muppet Show's Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem. Matt McLaren admitted that this was a favourite song from his childhood, and, in this context, it felt like a telling formative influence. It was somewhat amazing that the band still had the energy to play with unabated energy all the way through. Added up, it was a thirty-plus song marathon — my second wind needed a second wind to keep me going through it all, but this was totally a lot of fun.

It's worth passingly noting that if a band were to come up with subtle variations on some post-punk group from some bleak Northern English town, they'd be hailed as visionary, but anyone working on subtle variations on some soul band from some bleak Southern American town is usually dismissed as merely retro. This is probably incorrect thinking. Steamboat are working and sweating, generating radiating waves of fun with excellent craftsmanship. There's serious talent in this band, both as sympathetic backing musicians and on their own stuff, so hopefully this EP is just a start. Daunting thought: how long will their release party be for a full-length album?

Listen to a track from this show here.

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¹ Although perhaps I will single out Christopher Sandes' organ — complete with Leslie Speaker — which really tied everything together throughout the night.

² Though it turns out that I have seen him perform in his Dark Hand and Lamplight project.

³ Interesting fact: a reggae-lite version of "The Harder They Come" with Alec Lukashevsky on vox sounds not entirely unlike "Two Princes" by The Spin Doctors.

⁴ Andre was playing one of those... what d'you call those four string guits that are bigger than a ukulele? One of those.