Bumping into... bob wiseman

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

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How are you? Where are you?

I'm in High Park.

What have you been up to since March or so?

Walking in High Park, sometimes at night I also walk it and wish I had the nerve to go into the same trails I do when the sun is out.

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

Yogurt, soymilk, kombucha, chocolate cake without sugar and baked beans, they are old things, but new for me to make. I'm feeling good about the way music is now being made telepathically.

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

The Master and Margarita. I wish I knew a country of people who celebrate that book every hour.

How are you feeling about 2021?

Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store.

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

There are scholarly papers out there about how insects improvise due to global warming.

Recording: Bob Wiseman

Artist: Bob Wiseman

Song: Piano Party [first section]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Piano Party), April 26, 2017.

Bob Wiseman - Piano Party [first section]

Jonathan Adjemian's Piano party series saw a pair of contrasting players on this night, with Bob Wiseman offering a stream-of-consciousness journey. Even in its jauntier moments, this was high-wire act/heavy concentration stuff, with Wiseman willing himself through note-flurries that would occasionally drop into meditative études before leaping back into the boogie-woogie hurly-burly. It's still a thrill to hear The Legend in action, and one must still Beware of Bob. [You can hear another recording of the full set here.]

Recording: Bob Wiseman & Liz Hysen

Artist: Bob Wiseman & Liz Hysen

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall ("Blocks Final Concert"), May 9, 2015.

Bob Wiseman & Liz Hysen - [excerpt]

This duo set, played on the piano at the foot of the Main Hall's stage, was brief enough that a good chunk of the crowd didn't quite realize it had come and gone. I'm not sure to what extent it was improvised, but there were a couple different ideas explored, including this segment that sounds a bit like Lubomyr Melnyk's interpretation of chopsticks.

Video: Bob Wiseman + Mark Hundevad

Following on the heels of Bob Wiseman's album release show (and talking about Mark Hundevad yesterday), a mysterious source has sent this footage below my way. It features Wiseman and Hundevad in the Tranzac's front room working out the arrangement of "Reform Party at Burning Man". It's a nifty performance in its own right, as well as a cool look at the working process between two savvy improvisers.

If you want to hear more from new album Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying, you can grab a download of "Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver Airport" at soundcloud. The album is available over at bandcamp — you should definitely check it out and get yourself a copy for a very reasonable sum.

Bonus! While you're over at bandcamp, you should also dig through Bob's back catalogue. Here's a few of my faves to get you started:

Recording: Aidan Closs + Mary Margaret O'Hara

Artist: Aidan Closs + Mary Margaret O'Hara

Song: Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying [Bob Wiseman cover]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), January 24, 2013.

Aidan Closs + Mary Margaret O'Hara - Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying

Full review to follow. After Bob Wiseman played the songs from his new album, the night's second set included interpretations — including this take on the title song — from a selection of friends and collaborators.

Recording: Bob Wiseman

Artist: Bob Wiseman

Song: The Reform Party at Burning Man

Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), January 24, 2013.

Bob Wiseman - The Reform Party at Burning Man

Full review to follow. Release dates are a slippery thing in this day and age, so I guess it didn't seem strange to wait 'til January to celebrate the album he put out last March, especially accounting for parental leaves and all. Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying has the hallmarks of his best work — sonic adventurousness, political commentary, carefully observed character sketches — and was presented first by Wiseman and his backing duo, and then again, with the songs interpreted by a rotating cast of friends.

Preview: SummerWorks Festival 2010

For the third year, Toronto's long-running SummerWorks festival is supplementing its theatrical programme with a Music Series. This year the music portion finds a new home at The Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington), and has expanded beyond just the concert-format shows of the past couple years to include Musical Works in Concert ("an opportunity for creators, composers, and lyricists with a platform to showcase musical work in development ") as well as shows in the Performance Bar (downstairs at the Ossington Theatre) where a bevy of musicians will be special guests to some manner of freewheeling drop-in improv.

It looks like a very well-chosen lineup that you can look over here. Many of the artists — both in the concert series and in the performance bar — will be familiar to readers of this blog, and I feel like I can recommend quite a few of them. Plus, I can back up my words with some live samples to give you an idea of what you might be in for.

If you want to read more about any of these artists, just click on the labels at the bottom of this post.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 5TH, 2010

Mainstage: The Hidden Cameras

Leading things off with a two-night stand is one of the city's most theatrical bands, a perfect fit for this Festival. In fact, word is that the band will be doing a theatrical re-interpretation of last year's Origin:Orphan. The band's performances always have the sense of being an event, and this one looks like it might be something special.

Listen! The Hidden Cameras - Fear of Zine Failure (Recorded at the Opera House, December 5, 2009.)

Performance Bar: Allie Hughes

Allie Hughes has transcended past a flirtation with reality TV (as a contestant on How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria) to craft sophisticated pop that's smart enough not to alienate jaded listeners in Toronto's indie scene, daring to be a technically proficient singer in a milieu that often prefers the cough-ahem-authenticity of the rough-hewn.

Listen! Allie Hughes - Headmaster (Recorded at The Garrison, March 5, 2010)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 6

Mainstage: The Hidden Cameras

see above

Performance Bar: Maylee Todd

Whether performing space-funk workouts with her band Pegwee Power or performing soulful solo jams on her harp, Maylee Todd brings star power to the stage.

Listen! Maylee Todd & Pegwee Power - Aerobics in Space (Recorded at The Drake Underground, March 25, 2010)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 7TH, 2010

Performance Bar: Tasseomancy

Previously known as Ghost Bees, this duo of twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman transfix with their spare folk stylings. A little bit of off-kilter spookiness that would go down well in any cemetery or haunted house.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 8TH, 2010

Performance Bar: Laura Barrett

One of the city's best, Laura Barrett brings her kalimba-powered songs to bear on pressing issues of love, optimism, and other science projects.

Listen! Laura Barrett - Ferryland (Recorded at Jason Collett's Basement Revue, Dakota Tavern, December 22, 2009)

MONDAY, AUGUST 9TH, 2010

Performance Bar: THOMAS / Snowblink

Most recently gaining attention as Owen Pallett's on-stage co-conspirator, Thomas Gill — the band THOMAS' namesake — has in fact collaborated with many local musicians in addition to leading his own combo. With falsetto vocals augmented by Felicity Williams' soulful pipes, THOMAS dares to be soft in the face of a hard world.

The musical partnership of Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman, Snowblink takes a beautiful voice and wraps it in reverb and antlers, then loops more voices around that. The band have been playing some choice new material lately, and often throw in a stripped-down cover recasting a song you thought you knew in a haunting new light.

Listen! Snowblink - unknown (Recorded at Poor Pilgrim Island Show 4 (St. Andrew-by-the-lake Church), July 18, 2010)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11TH, 2010

Mainstage: PS I Love You / Diamond Rings

Singer/guitarist Paul Saulnier of Kingston duo PS I Love You fills the stage with guitar and bass (courtesy of foot pedals), bringing a hard-edged rock attack with DOR attitude. Suitable for those who want to hoist their beers up in the air but not alienating those who want to dance.

Listen! P.S. I Love You - Facelove (Recorded at Wavelength 494, The Garrison, December 20, 2009)

Quickly becoming a sensation, Diamond Rings (a.k.a. John O'Regan of local rockers The D'Urbervilles) has gained notice and rapidly-increasing audiences not because of gimmicks or eye-catching videos so much as from bringing some top-notch pop songs to the stage. Presented with increasing assuredness, O'Regan knows how to meld melancholy bedroom pop with electro-glam bombast, pulling off more than a few anthems in the process.

Listen! Diamond Rings - Something Else (Recorded at Owen Pallett's 30th Birthday Party, Lula Lounge, Sunday, September 6, 2009)

Performance Bar: Grand Analog

Reggae and soulful flourishes complement Odario Williams' ecumenical hip-hop, brought to life with an energetic live band. A guaranteed party-starter.

Listen! Grand Analog - Not Enough Mondays (Recorded at Daps All-Ages V, Kapisanan Philippine Centre, April 10, 2010)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12TH, 2010

Mainstage: The Wilderness of Manitoba

Those who came to folk-rock via Fleet Foxes will find as much to like in this band as those who came to folk-rock via Crosby, Stills & Nash. Featuring warm harmonies and banjo, this band has advanced their craft pretty rapidly in a fairly short time. (appearing with The Mountains & The Trees, Entire Cities and The Weather Station)

Listen! The Wilderness of Manitoba - Evening (Recorded at The Garrison, January 21, 2010)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13TH, 2010

Mainstage: Picastro / Evening Hymns

The two adjectives that come first to mind when describing Picastro would be "sleepy" and "downer" — this is not music to listen to while operating heavy machinery. But there's a melancholy beauty in the slowly-spun arrangements behind Liz Hysen's songs. Highly recommended for those who don't finch in the face of interiority.

Listen! Picastro - Hortur (Recorded at Wavelength 500 (night 4), SPK Polish Combatants Hall, February 13, 2010)

Jonas Bonnetta's Evening Hymns, meanwhile, also have a bit of a haunted quality to them, evoking ghost-filled forests and abandoned cabins. Working in a roots-y vein, Bonnetta is capable of creating striking music on his own, but fleshed out with a band works toward a ragged grandeur.

Listen! Evening Hymns - Dead Deer (Recorded at the Out of This Spark 3rd Anniversary Party, The Garrison, January 22, 2010)

Performance Bar: Nifty / Bob Wiseman

A one-man band with a laptop and bin full of electronics, Matt Smith (a.k.a Nifty and/or Nif-D) is also a master of the looping pedal, folding layers of his own vocals into his real-time electronic compositions. Equally capable of creating ambient soundscapes and dancefloor bangers, Nif-D never plays the same set twice.

Listen! Nif-D - Centre of Gravity excerpt (Recorded at Centre of Gravity, November 21, 2009. Bite Your Tongue #2)

Returning to the music programme after presenting his musical/theatrical hybrid "Actionable" in last year's SummerWorks, activist, bon vivant and Canadian music legend Bob Wiseman may bring some or all of these elements to this show: guitar, accordion, keyboards, storytelling, outrage, short films, love songs.

Listen! Bob Wiseman - The Disappearing Trick (Summerworks Festival (Factory Studio Theatre). Saturday, August 15, 2009)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 14TH, 2010

Mainstage: Bocce / RatTail

Last chance to dance! As kinetic and mildly chaotic as the sport that they are named after is not, this synth-rockin' crew will probably leave the Lower Ossington Theatre in a sweaty mess.

Listen! Bocce - Disco Juan (Recorded at Lee's Palace (Friends in Bellwoods 2 release party), Friday, August 28, 2009)

Purveyors of a smartly-torqued indie-rock sound, trio RatTail features guitarist Jasmyn Burke's vocals, with a flattened monotone affect that veers off into yelps, as the most immediately arresting element in their arsenal. They fit well against the lean post-punk groove of the music, with Ryan Mounsey's bass often seizing the melodic lead space against the slashing guitar lines.

Listen! RatTail - George Mounsey (Recorded at Wavelength P.S. Kensington, May 30, 2010)

Recording: Bob Wiseman

Artist: Bob Wiseman

Song: The Disappearing Trick

Recorded at the Factory Studio Theatre, August 15, 2009.

Bob Wiseman - The Disappearing Trick

My notes for this show can be found here.

Performance: Bob Wiseman, "Actionable"

Bob Wiseman — "Actionable"

Summerworks Festival (Factory Studio Theatre). Saturday, August 15, 2009.

Me and Bob Wiseman have a history.

In fact, Bob Wiseman meant — means, I guess — a lot to me. One of the first musicians I dug when I realized that music wasn't just on cassettes and on MuchMusic, pretty much the first time I came to really dig someone through seeing them live.

First time I saw him would be in '92, I guess, if I'm doing the math right. Winnipeg. Went to The Spectrum¹ to see Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet — which, given they did the music for Kids in the Hall made them about the coolest thing under the sun in my book. Tour support were Huevos Rancheros who had their own take on the instrumental twang-rock thing. There was another opener, who didn't fit in that mold at all, but who suddenly had the dancefloor full of people sitting on the floor, watching raptly as a guy played his keyboards and sung his strange little songs.

A couple months later, I came across one of his albums, used, and bought it on a whim. And it hooked me. And after that, every time he came to town, I went to see Bob Wiseman. He'd stop in Winnipeg pretty frequently, because of family ties, so there were a good string of shows — some with band, some solo — that were different every time. Often filled with new, not-yet-released material, sometimes with more banter than songs, these shows were among the ones that taught me that going to a gig wasn't just like listening to the album, but louder.

So I was really into Bob Wiseman. I remember when "Accidentally Acquired Beliefs" came out, in '95. I put on my Bob Wiseman t-shirt (oh, yes!) and strolled down to the music store to go get a copy. And I especially remember a couple of shows at the Blue Note Café, summer of '96, with a new and totally kick-ass band that played what was to me at the time the best show I'd ever seen in my life — so good that I went back the next night to see them play the same set again and was equally blown away.

And then things changed in my life and I moved to a different city and didn't have the time or money to go looking for live shows any more. And I thought less about Bob. Our drift was probably exacerbated by the fact that after '97's More Work Songs from the Planet of the Apes there was a long gap between studio albums, and Bob became "something I used to listen to". But still, he wasn't entirely absent: after I bought my guitar and tried to learn how to operate it, the first song that I realized I knew the chords to, without having to look them up online but just from listening to the song as I was walking down the street, was Bob's "10,000 Miles".

And when, a few years ago, a lengthy recording hiatus ended with some new stuff on Blocks I bought the albums, but kinda kept my distance from his live shows for some reason, maybe figuring that anything I saw now couldn't live up to my memories.

It's against that background that I went to see Bob's show, "Actionable", at the Summerworks Festival.² Graduating from the music programme (in which he appeared last year) to the stage side of things, Bob hasn't so much changed his show (from what I can gather) as much as the context in which he's delivering it. His monologues and songs (on guit, key and accordion) were accompanied by video projections to create a multimedia happening that managed to feel like more than a gig — but perhaps also less like a fully-conceived theatre piece.

Which didn't particularly bother me too much, seeing as I was there for the music. Playing old and new songs, Bob played both some of his "actionable" songs that had resulted in layers' missives being sent his way ("Have a Nice Day", about notorious Canadian lawyer Douglas Christie, "Rock and Tree" about the political connections behind the 1973 Chilean coup³) as well as songs about love and confusion ("The Disappearing Trick", "Who Am I?").

Although it's outside my specific knowledge to go on too much about the qualities of this as a piece of live theatre, I found it interesting to put myself in the place of someone who might have come to this knowing nothing about Bob and his music. My feeling is that though they'd find some entertainment here from the songs and the thought put into the presentation, there'd also might be a sense of frustration at the lack of a dramatic arc through the whole thing. Although the "actionable" concept — discussing the various times over the years that Bob's songs have been frozen in their tracks by lawsuit-fearing suits — is used as a sort of thematic linking device in the show, it remains just that — a series of stories. there's no development of dramatic tension or a sense at the end how this has affected Bob as an artist or social activist.

Listening to this set of songs also raised some additional questions that the loose narrative didn't really touch on, mostly revolving around the time-bound nature of political songs. Is the "Actionable" concept just an easy way to prolong the life of topical songs that might now otherwise feel a little dated? For example, "My Cousin Dave", Bob's epistolary paean to David Geffin, is, these days, suffering the time-lapse wilting of pretty much any pop-culture riffing — much as I delighted in the song during all those mid-90's gigs. On the other hand, some of the songs taking a longer historical view still feel cutting, including "Response of a Lakota Woman to FBI Intimidation Circa 1973 Pine Ridge"⁴. The flipside of this time-boundedness, though, is that when the songs touch on something more immediate (such as the name-naming "Cpl. Monty Robinson, Const. Gerry Rundel, Const. Bill Bentley and Const. Kwesi Millington", about the death of Robert Dziekański) it feels as if they're touching a nerve.

I was also thinking about the fact of this show as an escape pod for Bob, a means to play music to attentive, relatively eager audiences in a theatre instead of in bars, before indifferent crowds there for something else. Is this a viable approach for other musicians to take? How does this kind of situation change the dynamic between artist and audience? At this performance, the audience clapped between songs, but besides some laughter, there was less of the back-and-forth energy between stage and crowd than might be expected at a gig. Does that make it a less fulfilling gig when people are interacting less, or does the audience's very attention make up for it?

In the end, this was a worthy performance. Besides Bob's songs and engaging manner, credit is also due to Marissa Zinni, who worked behind the screen providing the live visuals (and showed off a good set of pipes on "Rock and Tree" — perhaps more backing vox are indicated?). Because this was, after all, a visual show as well as a musical one, I will provide here this link to a youtube performance⁵ in this show's style, to give a flavour of Bob interacting with the screen:

And in the end, the show also reminded me of some of the reasons that I used to dig Bob Wiseman so much in the first place — not just the songs, but the sense that this is someone I'd want to have a cup of tea with, and listen to his stories. I've changed, Bob's changed, but it's still cool. I didn't mean to stay away for so long, I guess, but welcome back, Bob.

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¹ Or was it The Pyramid then?

² I must have picked an auspicious afternoon to check the show out, as the audience was populated by some of my favourite Bob-affiliated pop stars.

³ This song was, in fact, pulled from In Her Dream, Bob's first album, by Warner records just prior to its release. But you can download that song, along with the rest of that album — and it's a good 'un, too — at the Free Music Archive.

⁴ This one was played here on the guitar but accompanied by a mournful piano line playing on the screen — a particularly effective use of the audiovisual setup. Ex post facto question: does presenting this as "theatre" rather than "music" give the artist a loophole where they don't have to argue against the old rockist critics who rant when a musician is playing in any manner that is "not live"?

⁵ True story: because I sort of felt that different rules apply to what one can "take" from a theatre performance as opposed to a gig, I felt mildly weird about sharing a recording from this show. Just to make sure I was staying on the side of the angels, I emailed Bob to see if I was stepping on any toes and he not only responded that it was okay, but sent me some youtube links in case I needed any visuals to illustrate my points. A true mensch!