Monday Roundup #61

Someday this space might be mostly concert listings again, but for now Monday roundups might include a romp through the MFS archives, some bandcamp suggestions, nods to a few livestreams, and sundry community notes (email me if you have anything that needs broadcast in the latter category!).

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Concert announcements:

Stranger Still [Laura Swankey/Randi Helmers/Rob Clutton/Pete Johnston] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-03-25 (Friday – early!). $pwyc.

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Shows this week:

Dan Pitt Trio [Dan Pitt/Alex Fournier/Stefan Hegerat] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-03-15 (Tuesday). $10/pwyc. [FB event]

Heather Saumer and the Imaginary Brass Band / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-03-16 (Wednesday – early!)

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It happened this week...

• ...on March 14, 2015 at Handlebar.

Germaphobes - Everybody Else

• ....on March 18, 2015 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).

Cole/Fisher/Valdivia - [set 1, first piece, part III]

[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]

Recording: Germaphobes

Artist: Germaphobes

Song: Fiji Whizz

Recorded at The Theatre Centre (Long Winter 5.3), February 4, 2017.

Germaphobes - Fiji Whizz

The season's third Long Winter found a spot just a few doors from its old Queen and Dovercourt home at The Theatre Centre. Using both the upstairs main space and the main floor Incubator, there was music up and down all night long. Germaphobes closed things out in the Incubator space with a rollicking rock party. Bringing some joyfully ludicrous hoodoo howls, it appears that Neil Rankin has borrowed a page from Elvis Costello's playbook with this would-be title track that didn't make it onto last year's Fiji Whizz. (It also gleefully borrows the little-bit-softer-now dynamic from "Shout" to good effect.)

[Brandon Caswell Douglas got some sweet footage of the night which you can check out here. Germaphobes will be playing at The Luyas' album release party (along with Mimico) at the Smiling Buddha on March 11th. Long Winter ends the season with a return to the Gladstone Hotel on Friday, March 24th with music by Deliluh, Leanne Simpson, Protruders, Doom Tickler, Bonnie Trash, Bunny, HEX, Midge, Clamaglamza, Joel Eel and Sistem.]

Recording: Germaphobes

Artist: Germaphobes

Song: Heavenly Hash

Recorded at Anchored Social Club (Feast In The East 5 Year Anniversary – Day 2), May 7, 2016.

Germaphobes - Heavenly Hash

Congratulations are due to Tad Michalak, Katie Jensen & Neil Rankin for their dedication in shepherding the Feast in The East series to its fifth anniversary. Providing a local option for east-end residents and a too-rare chance for the rest of us to fill in the terra incognita on the other side of the Don, FitE is a pretty unique event with its mix of food, art and music. Recently operating from Anchored Social Club (a converted Leslieville garage that will soon be lost to east-end condofication), this celebration (which came complete with a beautiful cookbook and tape compilation) required two nights to bring back some past faves that served as a de facto series "best of". I missed the Friday show, but Saturday night was complete with four bands that I'm always happy to see.

This rousing set-closer was also the big finale for last summer's Heat Shuts Off Overnight — though the lyrical reference to Feast in the East was added for this occasion. A sweaty dance-off of a set with the crowd packed into a converted DIY space, I found myself flashing back to seeing Gay at Oz Studios, so presumably this will also be the stuff that memories are made of.

Recording: Germaphobes

Artist: Germaphobes

Song: Magic Eye

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room (Wavelength 690 – Class of 2016 #5), January 22, 2016.

Germaphobes - Magic Eye

Presenting as part of Dan Burke's annual next-big-thing "Class of" series, this night saw Wavelength at its most Silent Shout-y, presenting projects whose sounds skewed towards various points on the electronic/dance continuum. Germaphobes (who'd dropped a tasty Pleasance EP a couple months back) were the night's most "rock band"-y outlier, but their new wave bop commotion had a reasonably body-moving effect on the crowd.

[Germaphobes will be playing Smiling Buddha on Saturday night (February 6th) with Montréal's Corridor.]

Recording: Members of Century Palm + Germaphobes

Artist: Members of Century Palm + Germaphobes

Song: 6060-842 [The B-52's cover]

Recorded at The Dance Cave (DEATH TO T.O. V), October 30, 2015.

Members of Century Palm + Germaphobes - 6060-842

For its massive fifth year of Hallowe'en covers, DEATH TO T.O. upsized from its home at The Silver Dollar/Comfort Zone to Lee's Palace and the Dance Cave. That allowed it to keep its sprawling two-stage upstairs/downstairs dynamic even as it accommodated a bigger crowd than ever. Besides curating no fewer than seventeen (!) short sets, Dan Burke and Elliot Jones also kept things running on schedule, with one set starting quite crisply as the one on the other stage ended for nearly the whole night. And as always, the bands put in a lot of work — not just musically, but a lot of the time in trying to capture the look and mannerisms of the band they were covering.

Jesse Locke and Alexander Hamlyn from Century Palms supplied the new wave rhythm'n'throb, and up front Germaphobes' Paul Erlichman nailed Fred Schneider's sing-speak while Liz Collins and Julia Dickens served as vocal foils Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson. Mostly concentrating on the band's ace early stuff (though the post-Ricky era was acknowledged with the sublime "Roam" rather than the ubiquitous "Love Shack") the set ended with "Rock Lobster". The group completely captured the spirit, holding a joyfully-goofy sock-hop party on stage.

Recording: Germaphobes

Artist: Germaphobes

Songs: Door in the Floor + She's in the Heat of Her Life^*

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks Music Series: Heat Shuts Off Overnight), August 13, 2015.

Germaphobes - Door in the Floor

Germaphobes - She's in the Heat of Her Life

The SummerWorks Music series, evolving since its inception in 2008, feels to have really and truly settled into its identity both as another way for SummerWorks to celebrate its growing foregrounding of interdisciplinary art and as a unique feature of the city's live music scene. After a couple years of just stuffing some bands down in the basement to provide an après-play gathering space, 2010's Hidden Cameras spectacular (featuring a "dramatic retelling" their Origin: Orphan album) pointed the way forward — but it wasn't really until 2012 that the festival started to ramp up the practice of pairing musicians with artists from other disciplines to create unique, one-off events.

It was finally in 2013 that the "mature" music series fully emerged, with stand-out events from Maylee Todd and Snowblink. Since then, collaboration has moved to the centre. Last year saw the series' first visit to the Pia Bouman School at the edge of Parkdale, which became their home this year, giving the Series its own space (and a cool pop-up venue). Adam Bradley and the returning Andrew Pulsifer have played to the series' strengths with their musical curation, and all of the works this year felt like good additions to a series whose legacy includes the future memories of these one-of-a-kind shows.

In the tradition of The Bicycles' Young Drones, a band with songwriting energy to burn showed up at SummerWorks with a full set of new material, and a multimedia stage show to match. More of a loosely-defined concept album than a full-on rock opera, Heat Shuts Off Overnight nevertheless gained a reasonable amount of narrative heft thanks to the projection/puppetry work of Sarah Fairlie and Erin Fleck as well as Joanne Sarazen's acting as the band's on-stage avatar, an ennui-laden near-future urbanite looking for entertainment (or salvation) in her virtual-reality goggles. The storyline was left non-didactically loose, but the visual interplay of memory and desire was quite expressive enough — as well as the message that in the end, maybe what you need most is someone to dance with. (Not even some technical difficulties could derail the live presentation — in fact, in context of the show's themes, a couple ghosts in the system felt totally appropriate.)

Musically, Neil Rankin and Paul Erlichman have added keyboards to their core group since I last saw 'em, and added some additional musical heft with special guests Sean Dunal (a.k.a. Sexy Merlin, percussion) and Karen Ng (alto sax, flute) joining them for the whole set. But besides pushing their sound away from the garage and towards New Wave glory (there was no shortage of Talking Heads in this set), the biggest conceptual leap forward was in the songwriting, with the band moving from snark to sympathy. Still, most of these songs could easily slip right into their regular setlists — though hopefully someone will take the initiative to mount a restaging of this ambitious enterprise. (And in the meantime, let's hope that the band strikes while the iron is hot and records these tunes, preserving this creative outburst as a concept album, just as The Bicycles did.)

^* Thanks to Paul for passing along the titles to these ones.

Preview: SummerWorks 2015

SummerWorks Performance Festival

August 7-17, 2014

The SummerWorks Festival is increasingly becoming a music destination because there's nothing else like it. Continuing its focus on constructing cross-disciplinary one-off events (rather than just plain ol' gigs), there's a chance here for local musicians to work with artists from other media to create the sort of immersive experience that is hard to assemble on the usual DIY shoestring.

Each of the seven shows in the Music Series would be worth going to just on musical merit alone; but with the special enhancements on offer, they're not to be missed. The thing that makes these compelling is that the tantalizingly vague descriptions are signposts beckoning the audience to one-time only events. Here's what's going down in the Music Series, with a few live recordings from my own archives as a hint of what you might hear:

• What Happens to JOOJ in 24 Hours: According to Bojana & Alex: Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Litovitz are undertaking a site-specific and time-specific challenge, sequestering themselves in the theatre for an entire day with the show acting as culmination. How directors Bojana Stancic and Alex Wolfson will interpret that day to the audience is a mystery, but do expect some of JOOJ's Suicide-meets-Dietrich cabaret tunes. [Friday August 7th, 10 p.m. @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Jooj - Crushed
• To Cast a Stone: this sees solo electronic musician Jill Krasnicki (a.k.a. Animalia) attempting "to create a sacred and otherworldly space to weave her songs through a spell casting ritual." Once again, that description is evocatively vague, but given that the show is being presented over five timeslots throughout the evening instead of one big show, you should expect the ritual to be a close-up and intimate experience. [Saturday August 8th, 6:00 PM/7:30 PM/9:00 PM/10:30 PM/midnight @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• What Fate Awaits Them?: I didn't make Most People's EP release a couple months back, but its mix of music and large-scale puppetry was described as a knockout. Add alien robot emissaries/entertainment units MATROX and this sounds like fantastic fun. [Sunday, August 9th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Most People - Release
  Listen! MATROX - Thank You
• Melancholiac: The Music of Scott Walker: Adam Paolozza and Greg Oh combine to try and give shape to an artist whose singular career arc is rather difficult to conceptualize, never mind encapsulate. From teen idol to menacing avant-crooner, this is being billed as "part concert, part spectacle, part existential variety show", mixing "unique sonic and visual interpretations of Walker's music" and including some special guests. [Tuesday August 11th, 6:30 PM/9:30 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• all you can hold: musicians like longstanding electro-experimentalists lal operate on the sort of terrain that gets swept under the rug a bit in the music scene's continual fetishization of the new. But they've been audaciously pushing boundaries and recombining various pop strains for long enough to deserve a helluva lot of respect. This show sees them performing a full set of new music embellished by "dance, costumes, digital painting and projections", representing their vision of a musical queer/straight alliance and mix of cultures. [Wednesday, August 12th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• Heat Shuts Off Overnight: As Germaphobes, Paul Erlichman and Neil Rankin have been honing the sophisticated pop sounds they were previously pursuing as members of the now-defunct Gay. This show sees them bring a whole batch of new songs to a show that uses shadow puppets, stop motion, and projections for an exploration of quotidian banality and the digital consciousness. Expect a performance by ANAMAI somewhere in there as well. [Thursday, August 13th, 9:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Germaphobes - Everybody Else
  Listen! ANAMAI - Lucia
• 2016 Spring Collection: The unexplainable grinning manifestation that is (are?) Still Boys has been something of a whispered secret for the past while, being shared like a ritual that gladdens the hearts of even the most jaded music fan. Now, with Sasha Van Bon Bon and Jesi the Elder on board, there will be even more to be digested. Possibly even the audience. Don't try to explain, don't try to understand. Just see this. [Friday, August 14th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Still Boys - [popsong]

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Meanwhile, outside the Music Series, there's a lot more for music fans to investigate. Counting Sheep, the festival's "production-in-residence" deploys Balkan party-rockers Lemon Bucket Orkestra into the Maidan for an investigation of Ukraine's social revolution. Also, local music sensation (and visual artist) Lido Pimienta moves to the stage in Ayelen, a magical-realist tale of resistance to the exploitation of international mining companies.

There's also lots going on in the festival's wide-ranging Live Art stream. A lot of it's out of my field, but I can recommend the Listening Choir's Listening Songs, put together by Adam Kinner and the always-intriguing Christopher Willes. The practice of these dérivé-based jaunts is to "propose listening as an endangered practice worth reconsidering". Best of all, this little experiment is free (as long as you book a ticket in advance).

I also don't know a lot about the dance world, but the festival has ramped up their offerings on that side of things this year. The good news is that the Dance Series is curated by Amelia Ehrhardt (who chatted with me about dance before her SummerWorks offering last year), whose DIY spirit and enthusiasm for joyful experimentation parallels what I look for in exploring unfamiliar music. In that regard, the curious could have a go at any of the offerings in the Dance Series, but I would especially point people to Aimée Dawn Robinson's Ramble, which blends improvised and choreographed dance to music and live-mixed video. Currently based in Whitehorse, Robinson was a frequent collaborator with the city's creative musicians in her time in Toronto, and this one comes hotly-tipped from friends who know about these things.

The fine print: single-performance tickets are $15, and there are various pass options available. You can find all the ticket information here. Remember (especially for those music events!) that the festival runs on theatre time, so do not be fashionably late!

Recording: Germaphobes

Artist: Germaphobes

Song: Everybody Else

Recorded at Handlebar, March 14, 2015.

Germaphobes - Everybody Else

This post-Gay project fronted by Neil Rankin and Paul Erlichman strips away some of that band's party-on-stage chaos vibe in favour of a more streamlined New Wave sound, but the no-time-for-tuning urgency is still joyfully intact.