Currente calamo: NXNE 2014 (Thursday)

NXNE 2014 (Thursday, June 19, 2014)

While these shows are fresh in my mind I want to get some quick notes down. In the fullness of time there might be a more complete accounting of the night that'll include more details and additional recordings.

There's no limit to the ways that you could conceptualize and organize a music festival. But for the moment, let's look at two alternatives. On the one hand, you could look at all the wonderful bands in the world and try and gather some of them in to wherever you are — and then adorn that agglomeration of talent with some locals, who would then have a chance to bask in the visitors' glow. Another way would be to start from the richness that's abundant where you are, shine a spotlight on it, and ask a few fellow-travellers from other places to join in and share in that.

NXNE seems to be moving increasingly towards that first model, crafting some sort of rock'n'roll Luminato with big-tent events as the spectacle to pull in a broader public — all to create a one-off extravaganza of musical wonderment. But the folks closer to the grassroots in the local music community — bands, promoters, writers, fans — are suspicious of that approach, seeing it as something of a circus that shows up once a year and then leaves, instead preferring a festival that would act as a culmination of the multifaceted musical richness in our city, a way of showing people who are less focused on the music scenes that there's something special going on here, week in and week out.

I think it's the increasing tension between those two different worldviews that led to such open enmity this year between NXNE and its discontents. All the more so given that the festival's m.o. seemed to be shifting to a like-it-or-lump-it/y'all-are-mere-pawns approach toward a lot of people who work really hard during the other fifty-one weeks of the year to make this a "music city" in ways that no industry-approved panel would think of.

Wavelength, even in its current "professional" incarnation, has a track record of working in that bottom-up vein. Its annual anniversary festivals and summer ALL CAPS extravaganzas feel like they're a summation of a lot of grassroots effort instead of a top-down diktat on what next season's styles are going to be. But their ecumenical pragmatism has them willing to partner with all sorts of entities, so it's no surprise to see them hosting a NXNE showcase.

But in a serendipitous chance for comparison, it just happened that WL was simultaneously hosting another show on this same night, at Calgary's Sled Island festival. Now, I haven't been, but from artists and fans alike I've heard nothing but great things about the festival, a lot of it revolving around its community-spirited ethos. (In a marked departure from the NXNE model, I am told that "branding" opportunities are rigourously eschewed, and that no venues were temporarily renamed after American beer companies.)

For me, one of the biggest questions in the back of my mind is: why is SXSW such a tantalizing model for NXNE's organizers?¹ Does everything have to be an overstuffed corporate shitshow? There is an alternative.

8 p.m.: Juan Wauters @ The Garrison

Dropped into The Garrison for an appetizer before my musical main course. I was checking out Juan Wauters more out of schedule/geographical convenience than on his merits as a member of (the now possibly-defunct) The Beets, who I'd relegated to the fun-but-inessential bin. He certainly brought his visual flair along from his other project, carefully assembling an elaborate, multi-panelled collaged backdrop (American Flag, illuminated wrestler, etc.) behind him before playing. As the set started, i was worried that this was going to be straight-up anti-folk, overstuffed with contrived naivete.

As it turned out, Wauters did grow on me. It's such a fine line, but as the set proceeded the songs seemed less Moldy Peaches and more Jonathan Richman. The gimmick-y backdrops and so on might catch people's eyes, but they also mean it takes a little longer to get to the heart of things — but I think in the end there was something of merit there.

Listen to a track from this set here.

9 p.m.: ZONES @ The Great Hall

And then, back into The Great Hall for a second night in a row. After the previous night's awkward times things felt a bit more comfortable right off the bat. Perhaps just seeing General Chaos' swirling lights put me into Wavelength mode, but even if it was on the quiet side for the first half of the night, there was just a less alien/alienating atmosphere.

I was surprised to note that that the giant white spaceship-evoking PA's from the (now defunct?) BLK BOX in the basement had been brought up at some point since the end of the previous night's show. A bold move, and one that must have caused some headaches for the sound tech who had to figure out an entirely new sound system on the fly — one evidently capable of pushing out massive amounts of bass.

That rendered opening act ZONES into something of a soupy haze, but that's actually not too far off the mark from what Derek McKeon is aiming for with this project. Joined by Kat Murie, there was a pleasing drifting, loopy quality here — and a sense that musical textures at at least as important as any rhythmic or melodic elements, though these are, at heart warped psych-pop songs. McKeon already seems eager to move beyond the sound he developed on his rather tasty Real Time tape, so it'll be worth keeping an eye out to see where this project is heading. (possible answer: deep space via the heart of a tropical jungle.)

Listen to a track from this set here.

10 p.m.: Twist @ The Great Hall

Twist, another duo who performed next, actually employed a similar set of tools — guitars, yes, but also drum machines and rhythm tracks — but here they were employed in a much more straightforward direction in the service of pop tunes. Originating as a bedroom project by the BB Guns' Laura Hermiston, this trades her band's rock velocity for a cleaner sound. I don't think this is all the way there as a live entity yet — on stage it was sound a little too spare and mechanical and Hermiston doesn't bring the easy charm she exhibits on stage with the BB Guns — but there's some fabulous tunes here, and in the end, that helps to get this over. Recordings are on the way, and the best is yet to come from this project.

11 p.m.: White Poppy @ The Great Hall

Vancouver's White Poppy (they bandonym of solo performer Crystal Dorval) pulled things back away from the popsong structures found on her more-recent recorded material, presenting a set-long suite of nearly-ambient textures. Ocean waves peaked and fell behind the music, occasionally disappearing for awhile and then returning as Dorval mixed together treated guitar, ebow, and keys to complete her series of dreamscapes, eventually working up into a thrumming rhythm before the calming waves returned. I was not familiar with her stuff at all, so this counted as the festival's first big discovery for me.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Midnight: Fresh Snow @ The Great Hall

It was impressive that Dorval had held the room's attention, even as the crowd was quickly in the process of doubling and redoubling for the night's headliners. It would be a triumphant night for locals Fresh Snow, having just been named to the longlist for this year's Polaris Prize — no mean feat for an instrumental band that had first released their album on tape on the small (but rather well-curated) Reel Cod Records.

But now there was a sense of celebration — if not inevitability — as the band took the stage in their expanded form, with Laura C. Bates on violin and a three-piece horn section.²

Showing a dramatic sense (as well as a commitment to noise/drone forms) the set began quite simply with the band taking their place one-by-one and building up the volume before crashing into a song. From there, the band was pretty much at the peak of their powers, with the audience up front jumping along. Although they tend to hide their faces behind masks on stage, they do have a dramatic sense of showmanship, with the set here ending with the horns and violin leaving the stage and continuing to play as they wound their way through the crowd to the exit at the back of the room. I've seen the band a fair number of times, so the power of their performance was no surprise to me, but it seemed to be a pointed announcement to anyone else that that longlist acknowledgement was no accident.

Listen to a track from this set here.

1 a.m.: Tim Hecker @ The Great Hall

After that visual feast, the switch was (literally!) flipped as Montréal's Tim Hecker took the stage in his customary total darkness. The room was pretty full now and it took the crowd a few minutes to settle into the idea of this, to just listen as his ambient dronescapes were lowered like a blanket over the room.

On realizing that there wasn't going to be anything to see here — and no point in trying to take any pictures — I also decided to just focus on the sounds. I was on on the balcony, and I'll confess that I simply found me a little empty space and lay down. As it happened, I was around nearly up at the front, and those giant stacks were almost underneath me — and now their low-range power was being harnessed. In fact, it felt like I was getting a lower-back massage courtesy of Hecker's low-end vibrating the balcony floor below me.

Given that his last couple times in town had been in some acoustically-lovely church spaces, I was worried that the sometimes-unforgiving confines of The Great Hall would be less compelling, but everything really came together here, and it sounded rather excellent. Mix in the darkness, and conditions were ripe to evoke a sort of hypnagogic drift that forestalled most analysis (my notes at one point simply say, "whoa.") Quite excellent.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Still to come: petitions, "WHY NXNE SUCKS", and backyard vibes.

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¹ One insider shared with me their theory that SXSW is such a powerful model for local industry types largely because the annual trip to Austin is essentially their Spring Break, and to attempt to replicate the experience here is an effort to recreate their happy place. In which case, they added, what we need is more of these folks heading to Sled Island, to Iceland Airwaves, etc, etc.

² I made out Karen Ng and Nick Bulligan, but perhaps the internet can fill me in on who the trombonist was?

Currente calamo: Wavelength THIRTEEN Festival (Part II)

THIRTEEN: The Wavelength 13th Anniversary Festival (Part II)

While it's all fresh in my mind, a few notes from this year's WL Fest. Notes from the first two nights of the festival can be found here. Longer, more comprehensive reviews will follow down the road a piece.

With four night of fairly diverse sounds on offer, it's good that Wavelength offers some integrating factors to pull the whole thing together. First and foremost of those is Doc Pickles, the series' long-running MC, who hosted all four nights. Although he would modestly claim, in his introductions, to be "setting the bar low" for the bands to follow him, there's a craft and a method to his discourse. Daring to fling associational logic into a cookie-cutter world, there's always a wry humour at play — and, more importantly, a sense of a shared existential awkwardness to be confronted and overcome. Step forward: you are part of this.

Another fundamental WL experience tying things together are the swirling General Chaos visuals, provided by Steve Lindsey. Hand-crafted and carefully selected to enhance the mood of each band, there's a warm analog feeling to the visuals — and if you watch Lindsey's customized projectors spin (and occasionally fail) you can get a sense of what an elaborate juggling act it is. When you come in and see that living painting twisting behind the stage, you know where you are.

Night 3 — Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Great Hall — feat. Bernice/ Doom Squad / Sarah Neufeld / Evening Hymns/ Do Make Say Think)

The Venue: Although it's increasingly becoming a go-to spot for midsize shows, The Great Hall is somewhat divisive among concert-goers. The large, open ceiling imparts a sense of space that you don't get at similarly-sized venues, but it does also affect the sonics. Which is to say, there's probably more variability here than in most venues — move a few steps away from a spot where everything sounds great and you can suddenly be in a murky dead zone. That said, the Great Hall is unfairly maligned in a few quarters — compared to a couple years ago, there's been a fair amount of effort put in to making bands sound good. It also has a rep for somewhat erratic rules — drink prices change from night to night (and from one bar to another!) and sometimes you're allowed to go lounge on the balcony and sometimes not — and when the place gets really packed, the floor can be uncomfortably jammed. Also: the bathrooms are inadequate (and frequently rather dodgy by night's end), one feature that really needs to be updated in this heritage landmark.

Wavelength's night at the Great Hall corresponded with a sudden (and somewhat surprising) snowfall, making surface travel almost impossible. (I ended up walking down from Ossington Station.) That meant the room was a little slow to fill, and for the first part of the evening, there were the powerfully-appealing smells from the pop-up dumpling stand wafting through the room. Balloon creatures — making an encore appearance from last summer's ALL CAPS show — bobbed and floated overhead.

The show: I was sad to have missed the start of Bernice — for me, this was one of the more-anticipated sets at the festival. A vehicle for Robin Dann's songwriting talents, shows were fairly thin on the ground as Dann decamped to England shortly after the 2011 release of what was that. It's an enchanting album, but to a neutral observer the most vivid element might be Thom Gill's smooth production — making it tempting to conclude that he's the man behind the curtain.

Now back on this side of the Atlantic, seeing Dann on stage put her personality front and centre and firmly established that she's the animating force here. Just like her songs, Dann presented a somewhat shy but playful presence — as well as a wonderful voice. She was supported in that department by Felicity Williams, local MVP trophy winner in the backing vocals category, and generally a guarantee that the band on stage is one you should pay attention to.¹ They were flanked by Colin Fisher (on mellow wah-wah guitar) and Thom Gill (on keybs and electronics). Gill was actually running a bit of interference here, adding some textured blips and gurgles that lifted the sound from retro softrock to something more subtly contemporary.

But it was the songs and voices that made this a winner. A lot of the set was new material, and it sounded like good stuff. That bodes well for the future of this project, and I'm definitely still eager to hear more from this unit.

Listen to a song from this set here.

When I caught Doom Squad in a church a few months ago, it felt like a somewhat disjunctive spot for the band, given their pagan vibes. The band's music comes with a sense of ritual — the very old rituals of sex and death, where you can enjoy the dancing if you don't peek too closely at what's happening on the altar. It didn't feel like they were totally connecting with the crowd here, although I get the impression that anything less than deep in a forest on a moonlit night is a second-best way to see the band. Their own set of joy-dirges was supplemented by a reinvention of The Doors' "Riders on The Storm" that fit right into their aesthetic while revealing new affinities. It's quite possible that this is the band at the festival that will become most bragged about in a I-saw-them-when sort of way by the very people who were mostly busy ignoring them.

Listen to a song from this set here.

That semi-interested crowd would be a bit of a factor throughout the night. Any time a WL show is headlined by a band with its own non-overlapping fanbase, there's going to be a contingent who come out to treat it as a show by "their" band, with a bunch of other bands they have to suffer through. However, this is as much a feature as a bug on nights like this. Although Wavelength is a celebration of an established community, it's also a proselytizing front to ameliorate people's taste. Which is to say: when a horde of Rock Guys come to see their band, some small number are going to be illuminated about some kind of music they hadn't really cared about before — and they're maybe the most important people at the show.

The downside is a lot of them are going to be less-than-rapt for the music they know nothing about — a slightly awkward context for a solo violin set. That Sarah Neufeld held the crowd as much as she did is a testament to her on-stage presence. Her name value might help as well — "member of Arcade Fire" is a good way to get people to pay attention.² I'd not checked out her solo material, but I'd heard some mention of loop-based violin composition, so I had shades of, say, Final Fantasy in my mind going in. The first part of the set, however, turned out to be straight-up violin, with no technological props. With Neufeld stomping along on stage, there was a lot of energy in the songs, the music ranging from Celtic-y reels to hints of Bach-style elegance.

The most intriguing material, though, came at the close, when she was joined by unannounced special guests Colin Stetson (on bass sax) and The Magic's Geordie Gordon on keybs. Stetson's contribution here was reminiscent of his own solo work: basically a low droning soundfield to add gravity below Neufeld's ascendant figures. Gordon's synth basically fulfilled the same function — at times the two merged into one another — and that gave a thick fog as Neufeld also added some wordless vocalisations. This was definitely intriguing stuff.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Those same chatterers were mostly content to continue their conversations as Evening Hymns took the stage — problematic as at the start it was just Jonas Bonnetta and Sylvie Smith leading off with a hushed "Arrows". Behind them was a circular screen with an image that I took to be a full moon — though as the music began, there was slow movement on the screen and I realized it was a shot of trees. Jared Raab's projections would mostly stay in the forest, shifting along with the songs — and soon the duo on stage would expand into a full band.

Evening Hymns is always Bonnetta, usually Smith, and otherwise whichever friends are at hand. Here we had some members of The Wooden Sky as well as Shaun Brodie and Mika Posen. Bonnetta commented that they'd be "playing all the classics", and standing on the big stage with the arch rising over his head — and Gavin Gardiner tearing out guitar solos — this felt more like the Opera House in '09 than last summer's album release spectacular. By the end, as the group closed with "Mtn. Song", the visuals were rapidly spinning behind them.

That's all to say this was a retrospective moment for a band now at the cusp of transition and renewal. With Bonnetta publicly retiring some of his more emotionally weighty songs from last year's Spectral Dusk, there's going to be space in the setlist to fill. I'm actually hoping he follows through with hints of a step sideways into "ambient drone material" — that sort of stuff would be perfect at an intimate, sit-down Wavelength night.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Although it was getting late — it was now past one a.m. — there was still a full house waiting for Do Make Say Think. Coming back from a mini-hiatus, this band was also in the mood for a journey through their back catalogue. Just as when I had last seen 'em, the band were in their "original five" configuration, playing without the horns and strings and guests that expand their songs from widescreen to Imax. And though there were a few spots where I could hear the horn section in my head punching the songs into the stratosphere, this was still plenty big, even in this alignment.

With double drummers at the back and multi-tasking musicians up front, there was a lot going on. Ohad Benchetrit, Justin Small and Charles Spearin would each juggle guitars and bass with horns and keyboards, often with the latter at the beginnings of songs before cracking things up for the guitar-rockin' conclusions. Small (who, as always, was the main speaking voice of the band between songs) talked about the importance of the "rock'n'roll nap" before such a late set. He also apologized that none of the band's new material was ready to be played yet, but they made up for that with some deep cuts, including & Yet & Yet closer "Anything for Now" — which they had never done live before — and going all the way back to their debut for "If I Only…". Playing for nearly and hour and a half, I wasn't expecting a set nearly that long, but it was most welcome, even if it meant a late end to the night.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Night 4 — Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Garrison — feat. Cell Memory & Castle If / Legato Vipers / Henri Fabergé & the Adorables / The Magic / Cookie Duster / Dusted

The Venue: Back at the site of the final phase of Wavelength's weekly incarnation, The Garrison feels like home. All the more so, given how ever since its opening, it's been evolving and getting that "lived-in" vibe. Now as much a taco-totin' local hang-out as a place to see a show, the incremental changes to the room — the wall of seats, the new bar at the back — have re-shaped it into a more comfortable space.

The Show: With six bands on the bill, things got started only minutes after the doors opened, with Cell Memory & Castle If taking the stage as early-arrivers were showing up. Though remaining cloaked in mystery, I knew a bit about the band from when I saw them playing in December. Here, though, the duo that I had encountered there were rounded out by a drummer, and that definitely gave more propulsion to the music. Although that shouldn't be mistaken for an undue concern with forward drive — the mode here was sheer motorik drone, and the songs built tension from holding still as much as possible while racing along nowhere Faust. Insistent synth patterns burbled underneath floating clouds of guitar (there was some e-bow action here) — this is the sort of stuff I dig a lot. Jess Forrest's vocals were buried underneath it all, half-comprehensible phrases rendered more mysterious for being delivered in German. That was a propos for this highly expressionist music — I almost expected to see Mabuse lurking back in the shadows somewhere.

In twenty minutes, the band only tackled two long songs. I would have gladly heard more, as this was maybe my favourite set of the festival. Although the band doesn't seem to be eager to share too information about themselves, they are present online, so keep an eye out for future shows.

Listen to a song from this set here.

There was a full one-eighty after that, with the night switching over to full-on party mode. You might not know the members of Legato Vipers by name, but this is a crew of some of the best players in the Guelph/Toronto axis. You might recognize 'em if you've seen, say, Del Bel, Bry Webb, Skeletones Four or Biblical lately. Or, in this case, you might not have noticed them at all, as for this set they were accompanied by The Harlettes, who performed live burlesque routines to the band's surf-rock originals. Using the power of a smile (as well as leaving something to the imagination) the performers each brought their winning personalities (and, um, spinning pasty tassels) for an empowered, sexy spin on the old-fashioned sleaze. This was enormously fun. Oh, right: there was music, too. It was pretty good.

Listen to a song from this set here.

No band could ever contain Henry Fletcher (or, shall we say, his alter ego Henri Fabergé). Even when The Adorables were in full force, there was never really a sense that was going to proceed in the usual manner. There was an album, but after the collective burst that that emerged from dissipated, there were only murmurs. A lot of the players on that went to to renown in their own projects, while Henri Fabergé would emerge in multimedia spectacles dedicated to profiling the details of his fake autobiography.

And here he was, putting the band back together. For most of those assembled on stage, this looked like a gleeful opportunity to have a fun time — in particular, it looked like Laura Barrett and Maylee Todd were having their own private sock hop — but it was a more world-weary Fabergé that came out in his leiderhosen, Mardi Gras chain around his neck and trumpet and canteen near at hand. He sang his songs of unrequited love (and suggested onanistic solutions to same) as the group sing-along spectacle exploded behind him. Eventually, of course, he'd rip off his shirt and dive into the crowd as the band called out, "fuck you, Henri!" — this is just how these things go.

The crazy-quilt of contributors was not a purist representation of the 2006 Adorables line-up (if such a thing could exist anyway). Besides older hands like Dana Snell and Andy Scott I spotted Robin Hatch on keybs and The Wuar Wuars (who are often seen dancing at Maloo shows). The music was a similar hodgepodge, with songs from the Adorables album mixed with more recent pageant pieces. But the sum total was quite exhilarating and rather a success. Word is that there's a new transmedia spectacle in process, so keep an eye out.

Listen to a song from this set here.

That's exactly the sort of spontaneous party that one would expect to break out when The Magic play — but this time out, they couldn't quite match that level of anarchic glee. Although this is a band that can generate a get-your-dance-on spectacle when they want to (such as this summer's album release party that arrived as a full-on Midnight Special tribute) there are signs that the band may be taking tentative steps towards "maturing". There's certainly a deeper appreciation of songcraft from frontman Geordie Gordon, and hints that he wants to produce something a bit more resonant than disco-fied anthems. The band itself has also been in flux — co-vocalist Sylvie Smith, for one, though back in the fold for this show has been busy touring with Evening Hymns and away from the band for awhile. Hitting on both those themes, Andrew Collins (of Skeletones Four) was playing keybs, and injecting some darker tones.

That's not to say that the band is suddenly dour or anything — Geordie Gordon emerged in a cape, after all, over his western shirt. And the songs still have an ebullient spirit. So even if this wasn't the band at their ragged-gold-standard best, it was a fun time, and they remain a band I'd go see pretty much any time.³

Listen to a song from this set here.

The night's star power would come from Cookie Duster's headlining set. Though billed as their live debut, my understanding is that the new/old project from Brendan Canning did actually play a handful of gigs in its original incarnation, before his attention was sidetracked by the success of Broken Social Scene. Rebooting itself with last summer's When Flying Was Easy, they were a six-piece here, with supplemental star power in the form of Change of Heart's Rob Higgins on bass and Matt Murphy on guitar.

Perhaps befitting that old/new dynamic, the band did feel a little out-of-time, as if they were drawing from a set of influences completely out of step with anything else out there right now. There were some hints of early 90's funk rock in there — not, like, at Bootsauce levels or anything — though Big Audio Dynamite came to mind a bit. That was leavened with a spiky power-pop sensibility, and some of the songs wouldn't have sounded completely out-of-place on his Something for All of Us... solo-via-BSS effort. Cutting against that, the best curveballs came with Jeen O'Brien's vocal contributions.

Given that everyone at hand is an old pro, this went pretty smoothly for a first gig. My sensibility, mind you, lies a bit in the other direction — so I wouldn't mind at all if, once this has gelled as a live thing, the band set to scuffing up these songs a little bit more. In any case, one gets the impression that having these musicians bouncing ideas off each other could push this from feeling old/new into something new/new.

Listen to a song from this set here.

The night closed out with a set from "secret guests" Dusted, who had (in a bit of almost-perfect symmetry) played at the pre-festival in-store show a few nights before. Although the band is based on a solid idea — gussying up some of Brian Borcherdt's solo songs into something more sonically adventurous than the regular singer-songwriter fare — I must confess that I didn't particularly "get" the project the first time I saw it live. Backed by Leon Taheny on drums and keybs, Borcherdt's laments (and guitar tone) are swathed in layers of reverb — and if that's pushed too far it can consign everything to pool of sonic mush.

Subsequent samplings — including this set — have kept the ratios correct, and now I see why a lot of folks got excited last year for their Total Dust album. With a fragile smile (but looking like he could be knocked over with a feather), Borcherdt evinces the same weary vulnerability that he essays in his songs, while Taheny adds more subtle textures than could be expected from someone playing two instruments at once. Even after ducking into the backstage area to find a replacement guitar, this was a fine sounding set, its echoing weariness a proper sort of nightcap for the festival.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Overall, a really great festival — you should start planning your next Family Day around FOURTEEN. And Wavelength isn't just a once-a-year thing — besides the upcoming ALL CAPS excursion, the next few WL nights (March 21, March 29, April 16) are already listed.

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¹ Williams can be seen on stage with Hobson's Choice, THOMAS and Bahamas, and probably umpteen more bands.

² Though for my money, it's far more interesting to think of her as a member of Bell Orchestre and, more recently, The Luyas.

³ I'll certainly be there when they'll be appearing beside Hooded Fang at The Bicycles' album release party, coming up on April 4, 2013 at Lula Lounge.

Gig: The Big Sound

The Big Sound

The Great Hall. Friday, July 8, 2011.

Allow me to list some things that I'm not particularly fond of:

• dance nights
• crowded places
• cover bands

It was quite possible, I thought to myself as I entered The Great Hall, that I had headed to the wrong show.

This was then a brand-new venture, launched by Chris Sandes and Aaron Knight and combining an idea from each of one of their projects. Sandes' "Loving In The Name Of" is a large-scale covers night, featuring an all-star band of local musicians playing "the greatest hits of all time". Knight's Shake A Tail DJ night has been filling dancefloors with hits of the '60's for over half a decade. The Big Sound was conceived as a tribute to Motown's "sound of young America" with a night filled with classic sides as well as a big-band live experience.

As is usually the case, The Great Hall was plenty hot when I arrived, and that was just as the place was starting to get well-filled in. Soon, the non-stop cavalcade of hits from Knight had the floor packed in with dancing bodies, and as I was boiling I was beginning to feel claustrophobic and mildly regretful.

Looking around, I was struck by how damn young the crowd was. In my own youthful era of Boomer/Big Chill backlash, Motown was by no means considered all that cool, and I could never have even conceived of going to a night like this. I think it's easier for this generation to get right into it without all that baggage. Which is good, because the music is wonderful.

My disposition improved somewhat when the musicians started quite literally filling up the stage, and I saw a cavalcade of familiar faces. Boasting "seventeen of Toronto's finest musicians" — and that's not counting the vocalists — this was a lineup to deliver a no-shortcut wall of sound. Alongside Sandes, there were several members of the Steamboat axis, including Jay Anderson, Andrew Scott, Mike Smith and Matt McLaren. There were horns (including Jeremy Strachan and Jay Hay, a couple of the city's finest improvisers), a full string section, and Eric Woolston on vibes.

And in front of all of that, the rotating cast of vocalists, each of whom would sing lead on a couple songs and provide backups on the others. Looking for singers with soul, there was a mix of folks from different scenes, with some who were quite familiar to me (Drew Smith, Alex Lukashevsky, Maylee Todd) with some that I didn't know (Tanika Charles, Todd Simmons, Saidah Tali Baba). Charles started the set with "Dancing in the Street", and she was the first revelation of the night — the sort of pure, powerful voice that makes one ask, "how did I not know about this?"

Even familiar faces brought something new to these songs: I knew that Alex Lukashevsky was a nimble vocalist, but I would never have considered him in this context. It turns out that he was perfectly cast here, nailing The Contours' "Just a Little Misunderstanding". Todd Simmons (who also, it appears, performs as Rodd Skimmons) did an ace David Ruffin turn on "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".

Looking over everyone across the stage, I was dumbfounded to think that groups used to do this before proper stage monitors existed. Here, it looked like everyone could hear each other, though it surely helped that the band seemed pretty well rehearsed. I can only imagine that a show like this must have been a real challenge back at the mixing desk. It certainly sounded decent in the hall — at the start, Sandes' keyboards were on top of everything a little bit, but once it was all balanced out it was quite impressive.

The high point was surely seeing Maylee Todd absolutely tearing into "I Want You Back", nailing the youthful Michael Jackson's high notes and bringing down the house. Tanika Charles had another star turn on "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" before an Alex Lukashevsky/Maylee Todd duet on "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" to close the superbly-executed forty-minute set.

In the end, the accumulation of things I liked was mostly enough to overcome all the things I didn't. And, at any rate, while it's well-befitting to be generally suspicious about cover bands, that doesn't mean you can't, y'know, make the occasional exception. Hell, I even made it back for another instalment. A roaring success, The Big Sound has become a regular event. the next edition (which will be Volume IX) will be going down at Great Hall on January 25, 2013.

I'd posted a song at the time of the event here, and now there's another one to go with it here.

Gig: One Hundred Dollars

One Hundred Dollars (Nordic Nomadic)

The Great Hall. Friday, May 13, 2011.

"If you're going to tape a step backwards turn around first," read the fine print on the ticket. A typical sort of sentiment from the night's headliners, even if on this night they'd made a big step forward, debuting their new album in the Great Hall. A big step up from the sort of dank beer dens that might be considered the band's natural environment, but they put the space to good use with some simple but dramatic flourishes.

Up first, though, Nordic Nomadic looked a bit less monumental in these surroundings — two guys on the big stage playing to a spare early crowd. Chad Ross (ex-Deadly Snakes, now also of Quest For Fire) presented some tunes that tucked themselves right into the environment. Backed by Paul Vernon on drums, "unrushed" would be an apt descriptor here — the first song was five minutes, about three of that slowly-unfurling instrumental buildup, and it's no surprise that one of the project's calling cards is a song called "The World's Slowest Man".

The best element is how Ross can pull off the music's creeping cadences without falling into either lethargy or noodling — spaciousness takes a certain skill level. Musically, this wasn't unlike the sort of thing he's doing in Quest for Fire, but here it's without the band's sludgy velocity. That said, the live incarnation of Nordic Nomadic seemed less acoustic-leaning than his two albums of recorded output. There were a half-dozen songs in the set's half-hour, and I found it pleasingly tuneful and admirably understated, but I could imagine that for some people there might not be enough there there.

Listen to a song from this set here.

It didn't take long during the between-set break for it to get rather packed-in down on the floor. It was a hootin', hollerin', good-time sort of crowd that greeted the five-piece backing band that took the stage to start a long intro to "Black Gold", playing on their own for a couple minutes. It'd been a while since I'd seen a full-band performance from One Hundred Dollars and I quickly remembered the punch that the band can muster on stage.

Putting the focus on the Simone Schmidt's words, the band often plays as a duo (alongside guitarist Ian Russell) or trio (with pedal steel guitarist Stew Crookes added to the mix). But add lead guitarist Paul Mortimer and the rhythm section of Dave Clarke and Kyle Porter and this band can bring it roadhouse tough. But still not so flashy as to upstage Schmidt, who garnered her own burst of applause as she took the stage.

That slick entrance was just one smart idea in what would turn out to be a very well-constructed show, with a lot of elements to enhance the songs. There were some nice visuals adding to the vivid lyrical imagery, like a single spotlight on the curtain behind the band, representing the full moon during "Where The Sparrows Drop". There were also some new instrumental flourishes, such as Schmidt pulling out a harmonica on "Brother", and Russell switching over to electric guitar for "Waiting on Another". That one evinced the band's more "mature" sound that's hinted at on the Songs of Man album, which still has a country feel, but also crosscuts it with as much of a soft rock/West Coast vibe — it wouldn't take much to reconfigure this as a Fleetwood Mac tune.

Besides the material from the new album came "If Not For the Carnations" (which I guess didn't fit the album's concept¹) as well as "Ashes By Now", a Rodney Crowell cover.

And then suddenly, Schmidt appeared up on the balcony, bathed in a spotlight for a solo turn, playing the affecting "Aaron's Song", a moving biographical sketch of one of the clients that Schmidt met while working as as a speech facilitator: "she lent me words / I lent her soul". The room was totally quiet during this, as if she were holding the crowd in her hands.²

That was followed by an instrumental from the band as Schmidt made her way back down to the stage — and meanwhile photocopied American one hundred dollar bills were scattered from the balcony to the crowd below. And in one final flourish, at the end of "Ties that Bind", sparklers were passed up to the stage to dramatically flare away before fizzling out in a cloud of smoke.

And then the main set ended somewhat unceremoniously, the band just walking off sans announcement after "Fires of Regret", but they quickly returned for a full encore with a mix of the relatively obscure (b-side "The Digger"), some covers (including "Mama Tried") and even one brand-new one (about children being apprehended by social services, the chorus began "Calm and Collected").

That might have seemed like the end, but they were called back for a two-song second encore — and after covering Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings earlier on, they showed (as they have in the past) that they're not afraid to play the kind of country music that hasn't been embraced by, well, hipsters as they closed out the night with Garth Brooks' "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)". All told, the set went past ninety minutes taking in a full two dozen songs for a worthy celebration of the band's accomplishments.

Listen to a song from this set here.

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Additional media: Colin Medly has posted some lovely-looking videos from this show.

¹ The title of Songs of Man can be taken quite literally, as all of them are written by Schmidt as told from a man's point of view. And though there's a lot of range to explore within that, the most prominent secondary trait in the songs is Schmidt's appreciation for old-fashioned bottom-line materialism, a constant nagging worry in songs like "Everybody Wins" and "Work" about "who gets by and who gets broke".

² It's worth noting that Schmidt — a non-musician when the band began — accompanied herself quite ably on guitar. I wasn't as surprised by this as some might have been having seen her progress a few months previously.

Currente calamo: The Wavelength TWELVE! Festival (Part II)

TWELVE: The Wavelength 12th Anniversary Festival

While it's all fresh in my mind, a few notes from this year's WL Fest. Longer, more comprehensive reviews will follow down the road a piece.

Last year's Wavelength festival had a transitional feel, just as WL itself did in shedding its old skin as a weekly series and trying on new formats like so many hats. But throughout 2011, Wavelength really gained strength, with new blood on the programming team and a willingness to try some new and interesting things. It's befitting, then, that this year's festival was more streamlined (down to four nights) and bold in its lineups, reaching out to some bigger names for the headliners while still mixing in a lot of newer, less-well-known acts. My recap of the first two nights can be found here.

Night 3 @ The Great Hall

Saturday, February 18, 2012. The Weather Station / Off The International Radar / Nat Baldwin / Sandro Perri / No Joy

Not too many bodies in the stately (if somewhat echo-y) Great Hall as Tamara Lindeman took the stage. Her Weather Station project might be best suited for listening to 'round a campfire under a starry sky, but it was a fine table-setter here. It was easier to fill the space now that she's being joined by friends to fill out the songs from All of It Was Mine. Ian Kehoe (of Marine Dreams) and Andrew Barker (her bandmate in Bruce Peninsula) added instrumental textures, while fellow BP'ers Misha Bower and Matt Cully came on for some backing vocals. You don't want to wish a small crowd on any artist, but I'm super-glad it was quiet enough in the hall to lean back and listen to this without interruption.

It's perhaps a little bit surprising that the longest-tenured band at the festival was arguably the one that I knew the least about, but I had never crossed paths before with Off The International Radar. Kudos to the WL crew for putting 'em on the bill though, as this was one of my favourite sets of the festival. Employing electronics and keyboards and filled out with bass and guitar, the first word to come to mind as a descriptive would be "planetarium". The slowburning textures might come off as anticlimactic to anyone waiting for the band to kick into a higher gear, but once I caught the rhythm I felt all my limbs getting heavy and a pleasant, zoned-out sensation come over me. And quite perfectly accompanied by General Chaos' swirling lights slowly shifting away behind the band.

Listen to a couple tracks from this set here.

I've never particularly cottoned to Dirty Projector's brand of decentred contemporary haze-pop, which might explain why I never checked out any of the solo material from DP bassist Nat Baldwin. But here, as he set up for a solo set accompanied only by double bass, I was a little intrigued — if only to see if he'd be able to hold the growing crowd's attention. Limiting himself almost entirely to short-stroke bow work, Baldwin still managed to create enough musical range to accompany his pure-pitched vocals. There were a few mildly aharmonic runs here and there, but his approach hewed closer to popcraft than avant garde-isms. But still not too surprising that the chatter from the back of the room started to pick up as the set moved along. Enjoyable regardless, and a nice little challenge to the audience to pay attention.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Since his album release shows back in November, there's been a little bit of buzz for Sandro Perri, and from the crowd's reaction, you might have guessed that he was the night's headliner. Which is kind of awesome to see for an experimental singer-songwriter backed by a band of all-star improvisers. Balancing woozy keyboard workouts with polyrhythmic accents, I liked it most when the band stretched things out and let it cook. Perri is taking this material on the road soon with some of these musicians who can really do it justice — there's gonna be a lot of acclaim echoed wherever he takes this stuff, but somehow I'm glad to see that this really is getting some hometown love before all that happens.

After that came the shoegazing treatment that Montréal's No Joy excel at. But whether it was their intense volume or the late hour, the full crowd was steadily melting away as they played. No matter, this probably sounded the best of any of the times I've seen 'em — and we were treated to a bunch of new material, building on the strengths of their Ghost Blonde album. As always, the band were rigourously uncommunicative while on stage, but I was glad to see 'em chatting and laughing at the merch table afterwards.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Night 4 @ The Garrison

Sunday, February 19, 2012. Most People / Motëm / Army Girls / Burning Love / PS I Love You

Capping it all off was a night back at WL's Dundas West spiritual homebase. There was a surprisingly vigourous crowd on hand soon after doors, and it just kept getting more and more packed. Certainly more on hand than I would have expected for bedroom popsters Most People. The bearded duo had a laptop on stage for backing tracks, but managed to keep things feeling live with guit, bass and a sundry assortment of drums laid out before them. That gave the songs enough momentum to keep things interesting, even if the overall vibe was more laid-back. Is "post-chillwave" a genre yet?

Amongst the changes in Motëm's stage setup was replacing the candles he had last time with battery-powered versions of same. Whether that was some sort of nod to the meta-artifice of his persona — or even if whether or not what he was doing was meant as ironic artifice — I cannot say. Otherwise, the Hamilton-based swkeee-hopper brought a totally different musical set to backdrop his enthusiastic stage routine. I thought the music was a little tastier, but on the whole, I'm unsure on the persona, and I really can't say that I "get" what the whole routine is about.

After that came the shift from the "pop" to the "loud" part of the night, making Army Girls the perfect transitional agent. Drummer Andy Smith and singer/guitarist Carmen Elle just celebrated two years of playing together, so it's no surprise that they're tinkering and finding new ways to keep the older material interesting. Even better, though, was a bunch of new tunes bound for the band's first full-length that showed no dropoff in quality. All of it was warmly received, and this was the closest I've felt to an audience demanding an encore from a mid-bill band in a while.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I sort of sidled a little further away from the centre of the room after that, as I was expecting some moshing action for local hardcore group Burning Love. And while a big pocket opened up in front of the stage as the band got started, the pit never really took off, just creating a large open area for two or three preening guys to shove and posture at each other while everyone else had to squeeze into a smaller space. Not my idea of fun. But I did like the roar coming from the stage, delivered with wide-legged rock stances from the guitarists and bass player. Chris Colohan, meanwhile, delivered the lyrics with a crouch and a growl, occasionally springing down to prowl around that open area on the floor in front of the stage. Because of the preferred vibe differential, I pretty much never go out of my way to see hardcore shows. But I do like seeing it done well, so this is one more case where I'm glad WL was throwing something like this into the mix.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Up to this point, WL stage manager Adham Ghanem had once again kept things running admirably on time. It was only a balky microphone connection before the last act that kept the festival from having a perfect record top to bottom. Still, this set's slightly delayed start was still more efficient than most any other rock show you could think of, and once PS I Love You got going, no one was kvetching about the wait. It was really satisfying to see the fruits of Paul Saulnier's successful labours in the form of a spiffy double-necked guitar that he played for most of the set. There was also the chance to broaden the group's sound by having old friend Tim Bruton (Matters/Forest City Lovers) on stage, playing keyboards and second guitar. The set was based upon some of the new songs coming out on the forthcoming Death Dreams album, though there were a few older audience-pleasers mixed in there as well. Firery soloing from Saulnier abounded, so there's no doubt that the new album is going to be filled with shreddy goodness. The night — and the festival — were capped off with John O'Regan (a.k.a Diamond Rings) coming out to sing on "Leftovers" and "Facelove" during the encore.

Listen to a track from this set here.

All told, an excellently curated and executed festival. The initially-announced "workshop & speaker series" didn't come together, but even without that it felt like an action-packed long weekend. Many thanks are due to Jonny, Ryan, Kevin, Duncan, Dorice, Adam and Adham — plus General Chaos and all the volunteers who kept things going smoothly. Details about the next few events are already starting to come out, and it looks like there's more exciting things afoot. Thirteen might be luckiest year of them all.

Festival: Wavelength 515 (Night 4)

ELEVEN! Festival (Wavelength 515 – night 4) (feat. Grimes / Eric Chenaux Electric Trio / Little Girls / Maylee Todd / Hooded Fang)

The Great Hall. Saturday, February 19, 2011.

The Friday-night action for the Wavelength Festival moved to the expansive semi-grandeur of The Great Hall, with its high ceiling and the unoccupied horseshoe-shaped balcony above the floor, as well as the large stage made all the more theatrical by the large arch above it. It's a decent room when the vibe is right, but it's also a space that can feel extra-desolate with a small crowd and extra-packed with a full house. It also has perhaps the worst bathrooms for a venue of its size in the city.

As the early crowd for a five-band bill filtered in, host Doc Pickles took the stage to greet them. Someone must have mentioned to him beforehand to push the merch, as his monologues were peppered with the slightly awkward pitches of a self-hating consumerist. He was more in his natural habitat in relating a fable about a lazy bear and an industrious beaver.

Once all the gear was ready to go, the stage was given over to Grimes, bandonym of Montréal-based Claire Boucher. Although she started with a slightly ominous warning ("I'm very sick, so I can't sing. And I'm going to try some new stuff that's maybe risky right now.") she actually sounded to be in good voice, but was looking a little rough. Creating slightly-unorthodox one-woman dancescapes, Boucher has moved quickly from the more found-sound bricolage of her debut full-length (the Dune-Referencing Geidi Primes¹) and follow-up Halfaxa to Darkbloom (a split album with d'Eon), which has more of a beat-driven vibe. That was palpable on opener "Crystal Ball" with dancey beats underneath a synth set on harp-like sounds and gauzey layers of vocals.

Boucher sometimes used her vocals as a textural tool, though in some songs they were unsmooshed enough to regain comprehensibility. All of which is to say that though she had built her musical style from the ground up, it does sound like she's heading for a sort of convergence with the tradition she's working in on stuff like the dancefloor-ready "Vanessa". The songs had a propensity to stretch out, so there were only five in her half-hour set, which ended with a new one — Boucher didn't express a lot of confidence in her ability to play it, and indeed it did falter a bit.

Keeping her hands busy with keyboard and electronics, Boucher didn't have much of a stage presentation. And perhaps it had something to do with her feeling unwell, but some of the songs felt a bit de-energized. There were encouraging signs throughout the set, but I didn't find it completely compelling. But given the speed of her musical development, Boucher is well worth watching, and as what was originally a prototypical bedroom recording project spends more time on the road I'm sure she'll project herself more forcefully on stage.

Listen to a track from this set here.

A deliciously Wavelength-esque left turn after that with the Eric Chenaux Electric Trio taking the stage next. It was, in fact, a quartet on this night with Chenaux's amazingly nimble guitar work backed by Nick Fraser (drums) and Rob Clutton (bass), as well as percussionist Blake Howard. Although these might not be household names to those with a strict rock'n'roll mindset, this is very much an all-star combo of artists working at the intersection of folk-inspired singer-songwriter composition and free-ranging improvisation — the sort of fusion fostered in places like The Tranzac.

Putting all those elements into play right from the start, the set led off with "Put In Music This Ballad For Me", a re-assembly of fourteenth century ballad "Notes pour moi". If I had to describe Chenaux's style I might label it "avant wah", given his propensity for creating complicated guitar lines sent down a snaky path by his pedals, but generally staying in sight of a clear melodic line. That mindful waywardness made Clutton a good musical counterpoint — he was high and clear in the mix, but playing clean, uncluttered basslines. That was followed by "Amazing Backgrounds", another song which had originally appeared on Love Don't Change, his collaborative album with Michelle McAdorey. Eschewing any selections from the recent Warm Weather album, the set hewed closer to Dull Lights, his album from '06, with the inclusion of the title track and "Worm and Gear".

It was interesting to watch the division of labour between Fraser and Howard — they actually had about one drumkit between them. Howard was doing more of the accents and "percussion" work, with shakers and congas, but he also had the bass drum. Both of them played a lot with eyes closed, feeling out the groove — and it's the groove here that really got the songs over. When the band eased off for "Dull Lights", which was more quiet and abstract, the audience was less into it — and me as well, a little. But while it was cooking, it was great stuff.

Even when it was really cookin', there was still a mellow undercurrent to the music — appropriate, perhaps, to an all-seated ensemble. The songs were played in a manner allowing them to gently unfurl, giving the musicians time explore the ways they could weave their lines together. That peaked in the nine minutes given over to closer "Love Don't Change".² Quite fabulous stuff.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Then another extended intro from Doc Pickles, this time singing a jaunty improvised tune while Little Girls dealt with a recalcitrant laptop. Once it was up and running, it provided ever-melding visual effects on the screen behind them. The background images turned out to be geometric vector-y graphics interspersed with stock footage. The images flowed into each other just like the band's songs, which ebbed and segued with looped guitar noise and occasional muttered greetings from guitarist/vocalist Josh McIntyre.

Given that the previous couple times I had seen Little Girls had been in the lo-fi confines of The Shop, I was curious to see what a bigger sound system would do for what I had found to be a muddled sound. As it would turn out, though this was the most-nuanced I'd ever heard the band, they're still pretty murky by design, with McIntyre's vocals usually reverbed to incomprehensibility. But the sound was also beefed up, with the band now sporting a synth-ier edge, mostly as simmering texture, another ingredient in their simmering Joy Division-y brew. Many of the songs came and went in two-minute-ish bursts, and though there's been some evolution, there's a lot of continuity between older stuff like "Youth Tunes" and newer songs like "White Night" and "Ex". Those would subsequently make their way onto the new Cults EP (on Hand Drawn Dracula), which similarly continues and torques their earlier sound.

Maylee Todd can perform in explosive funk mode as well as being a harp-weiding balladeer, but she always beings a sense of adventure to the stage. That dramatic flair was in evidence as she took the stage wearing something that resembled kimono pajamas, leading a five-piece backing band sporting plenty facepaint all around. The set started off in quieter mode, playing a slow song that still managed to swing, Todd's harp complemented by Andrew Scott's gurgling analog keyb sounds. That gave the first part of the set a cast that, while undoubtedly beautiful, had less Saturday night oomph than one might have expected. Mixing songs from the fine Choose Your Own Adventure with some newer stuff, things started to ramp up with "Hooked", featuring Hooded Fang's Lane Halley and Julia Barnes stepping on stage to dance along as well as add a burst of horns.

Todd's greatest strength (besides a powerful voice) is her fearless gregariousness on stage, never afraid to get a little goofy. Or, in the case of an extended percussion groove preceding "Summer Sounds", to get a little physical, throwing down like she used to in her aerobic sock-hop events. A mini-segment at the centre of the set substituted soulful intensity for pure groove, with excellent results, including a new slowburner called "I Tried", plus another with a chorus of "everybody needs a mouth to mouth".³

Any worries of a groove shortage were put to bed in the final part of the set, with a cooking "Aerobics in Space" (including an appearance by band's namesake Pegwee, a creature of indeterminate origin that looks somewhat like a giant oven mitt) and "Haven't You Heard", a Patrice Rushen cover where Todd jumped down to the floor to sing, creating a giant circle in the middle of the dancefloor around her as she invited people to step out for a Soul Train-style dancing breakout.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Closing out the night, Hooded Fang stretched out seven wide across the stage. Starting off, there were nimble versions of "Highway Steam" and "Green River", staples from their debut Album. There was also a slightly haphazard run through "Promise Land", but perhaps the band was just gearing up for the sonic approach of the new songs.

Although it wasn't entirely clear at the time, this was essentially the pivot point closing the Album era and inaugurating Tosta Mista, as the band gave the crowd a first shot at hearing some of the new songs, starting with the new wave frenzy of "Jubb". That sound would come as a shocker for many in the audience, but for anyone who had witnessed singer/guitarist Daniel Lee's other work in Hut, this would seem of a piece. For me, the most surprising element would be how much of that he brought to Hooded Fang. "Brahma" cut the difference between old and new a bit more, with room for the horns before the slow-dance awesomeness of "Den of Love".

Tom McCammon boosted the horn section for "Laughing" and the band closed out the main set with "Love Song". They returned for a couple more, closing the night out back at the beginning of their oeuvre with "Land of Giants" from their initial EP.

There are other options than, say, Wavelength. But I admit I'm partial to an event where you can see someone like Maylee Todd rock an incredible set up on stage, and then look over beside you when the next band is playing and see her dancing and snapping pictures like everyone else in the crowd. "Probably the best thing ever to happen to Toronto," said Daniel Lee.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ This one is still available as a free download from Arbutus Records, which is doing some fine work out in Montréal.

² Like several songs in his discography, this is one that Chenaux has recorded twice, revisiting it on 2008's Sloppy Ground after first essaying it on the album that bears its name.

³ Update: We now know that this song is Maylee's new single "Hieroglyphics", which you can grab as a free download here.