Artist: Great Lake Swimmers
Song: Easy Come Easy Go
Recorded at Sonic Boom Records, April 2, 2012.
Great Lake Swimmers - Easy Come Easy GoFull review to follow. A generous in-store appearance from Tony Dekker & co., celebrating the release of New Wild Everywhere and treating the crowd to a live preview of the bulk of the album.
Sunday Playlist #18
Alex Lukashevsky - Downhill is Downtown
Sean Nicholas Savage - Grandson
Great Lake Swimmers - Moving Pictures, Silent Films
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
(weewerk) 8th Anniversary Showcase (feat. United Steel Workers of Montreal / Elliott Brood / Great Lake Swimmers / Canteen Knockout)
The Silver Dollar. Friday, December 3, 2010.
You don't need to be hitting one of the round numbers to order up a shindig, as local roots-ish label weewerk demonstrated on taking over the Silver Dollar for two nights of shows with current and past bands. I didn't make it out for the Thursday night opener (which featured a lineup including The Burning Hell, Fembots, Jenny Omnichord, Two Minute Miracles, Proof Of Ghosts and The Barmitzvah Brothers) but I was keen on the Friday night showcase. It being a Friday night, though, I managed to miss early acts Barzin and The Village Meat, due to joining K. for some pre-gig refreshments.
In fact, we staggered in to a fairly full room to find Canteen Knockout already on stage, belting out some proper roadhouse country music. My first impression was that if Gram Parsons' Live from Northern Quebec was an actual album, it might sound something like this — a notion that the band duly confirmed as they broke into "Cash on the Barrelhead". There were a fair few other covers in the setlist, including an impressive "Pretty Polly", but also some likeable originals, including "Navajo Steel" (the title cut of their first full-length from '06). Extra marks for pedal steel player Alex Maxymiw, whose tasty licks added some zing. I wasn't familiar with the band coming in, but this the sort of high-energy hoedown that I could get behind quickly.
Up next, Great Lake Swimmers took the stage with a pared-down lineup, perhaps befitting the notion of a stripped-down "showcase" set. There were also some different backing musicians in tow than I'd seen before, including Joel Schwartz (guit) and Bret Higgins (stand-up bass). They were joined by stand-bys Greg Milson (drums) and Julie Fader (backing vox). K. noted the absence of Erik Arnesen, meaning there was no banjo for the banjo-enthusiasts in the crowd, as well as some slightly sad faces among the contingent who consider him to be even more dreamy than frontman Tony Dekker. Dekker, amongst the most prominent of weewerk "graduates", was as humble as always, expressing pride at being here to help celebrate the label.
Though obviously beloved by many in the crowd, the band had to contend with being considerably less shitkicking than the acts surrounding them and there were tensions between those out for a hootin' good time and those trying to soak in Dekker's warm songs — at the start of "Moving Pictures Silent Films" a few women up at the front started shushing everyone, to little effect. So that's going to cut into the enjoyment of anyone looking for folky quietude. As such, when the band cranked it up for "She Comes to Me in Dreams" toward the end of the set, it worked better here.
And as shorter set, it wasn't as adventurously far-reaching song-wise, but it satisfied the cravings — and I was glad to have seen it as Dekker announced that this would be the band's last show "for a while".1 Giving thanks (as many others did on the night) to weewerk's founder Paul Klygo — "the hardest working man in indie rock," said Dekker — the band closed with "I Am Part of a Large Family".
The headlining timeslot was originally announced as a "special guest" but I doubt anyone with much knowledge of the label was too surprised that it turned out to be Elliott Brood, another band whose first release had come out on weewerk. Taking the stage looking much more casually dressed-down than usual, the trio jumped in with "Johnny Rooke" from Ambassador, their first full-length from '05, and the floor in front of the stage was quickly surging with excitement.
Now, this is a band I like, but don't go to see so much these days — not in the least owing to the frat-boy heavy crowd they've been adopted by. And indeed, it didn't take long for a cohort of well-refreshed dudes to start pushing their way up front, obliviously referring to each other as "bruhth" — as in the first syllable of brother. One guy, shoving past me with a pitcher in hand turned back to yell, "Bruhth! Get over here, bruhth!" To these guys — to whom two syllable words are a challenge, I guess — the band is simply The Brood, or, perhaps more of an all caps, exclamation-ed THE BROOD! And of course there was one of them shouting for "Oh, Alberta" after every song, even after vocalist Mark Sasso said they weren't playing it. What was that about it not being the band I hate?
For those not out to spill beer/stomp on people's toes, there was plenty good stuff on stage — the band did manage to preview some new material, including "Northern Air", which looks to be coming out soon on a single. And in weewerk tribute mode, they threw in the rockin' "Only at Home" from their debut Tin Type EP. It turned out to be a too-quick set, just six songs in a half hour. Half of those were new ones, which was cool for me (though not for the guy wanting "Oh, Alberta") but I could have stood for few more overall. Still, good to catch up with 'em.
Listen to a song from this set here.
After THE BROOD!, the place cleared out rather considerably. Those that were left on site maintained the aggregate level of rowdiness, though. Which is probably a befitting audience for United Steel Workers of Montreal, purveyors of a hard-driving roots sound — call it bluegrass/punk with traces of hot music. With a half-dozen members on stage and so much clatter and rhythm, it wasn't til I was I looked more closely that I realized the band has no drummer. But between the stompin' and clappin' and the band's rip-roaring style, it didn't seem like a lacking.
There was a rotating approach to lead vocals, though Gern f.'s gravelly rumble was the most grabbing, working well with Felicity Hamer's slightly-smoother tones. And besides a hell-raisin' ruckus, the band was also capable of a more heartfelt sound, whether in an aching ballad like "Emile Bertrand" or the politick-shit-kicking "Union Man". The small-town ballad "Number Four" — complete with an introduction from Gern that made it simultaneously more mythic, gothic and personal — was probably the best thing in this set. And otherwise, the songs bounced between relating the wages of sin ("Glen Jones") and the glory of redemption ("Jesus We Sweat") before closing with the lurching slow-dance of "My Cat Smells Like Place St. Henri".
I'd seen the band a few years back at a late-night music-festival timeslot, and they didn't do anything for me back then. I was willing to think that might be down to me having been drained and so on, so tried I came to this with a beginner's mind. But that said, my reaction was about the same. There's no doubt that USWM are spirited and entertaining enough that I mostly enjoyed the set, but I wouldn't imagine myself going out of my way to catch them again.
Listen to a track from this set here.
That made for a late ending to the night — an icy cold one that felt even moreso after emerging from the sweaty cauldron in the Dollar. It was also a memorable night because of [incident redacted], which would have worked well as the topic of either a rough-house holler or lamentin' ballad of the sort you might find on a weewerk release.
1 And, indeed, except for a trip to SXSE and a couple one-offs, it looks like things are still quiet in the GLS camp — hopefully a sign that a new album is in process.
Great Lake Swimmers (Sharon Van Etten)
Trinity-St. Paul's Church. Saturday, February 6, 2010.
Of all the bands that I've come to love through seeing them in live performance, Great Lake Swimmers stands out a bit. Maybe because although I've seen them in two or three clubs, by and large the most memorable shows have been in less-standard environments: Toronto Reference Library, say, or The Church of the Redeemer. So it felt utterly natural that they'd be joining a pretty select list of bands that I've seen perform in more than one church.1 It helps that Trinity-St. Paul's is a pretty nice place to see a show — big enough to feel expansive but still with a folded-in sense of togetherness in the big u-shaped round.
But there are still better and worse spots inside, and the venue's unreserved seating generally leads to a calculus of how long one would want to wait outside versus how close one wants to be to the stage, a calculation that gained an extra dimension on a bone-chillingly frigid evening. I actually made better time heading down than I was expecting and was much closer to the door than I'd been counting on. By the time K. — also a veteran of many GLS gigs and well-able to join in on hair-splitting show comparisons — joined me, we were busily plotting where we should make a beeline for when the doors opened. We were close enough that we could have snagged decent floor seats, but we reckoned instead to be front and centre in the balcony, with no-one in front of us and in what should be the acoustic sweet spot. Which we executed when the doors opened — and it was so cold out, people further back in line were actually cheering as the front of the line was moving in. And then some time to hang out as the church filled in.
Singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten was tapped as the opener for this one, and emerged looking small and alone on the big stage. With a lovely voice, she played a solo set of quietly yearning material. She had an engagingly upbeat-yet-bashful presence, befitting her self-depreciating lyrics ("I sigh and then I frown / I write this moment down / 'Cause I cannot paint pictures with my tongue.") and connected well with her banter: "There's nothing like applause in a church — it sounds so huge. It's the only way I want to hear clapping from now on."2 With her songs about simple, relatable things3, Van Etten had the vibe of someone you'd like to hang out with over a cup of coffee, and that presence plus her voice made the set a success, even though a couple of her compositions had my attention drifting a bit. Best of the bunch was a spare and gorgeous cover (the lyrics "see me again / she wants to see me again" wouldn't normally sound that spine-meltingly melancholy) that turned out to be "Oooh Love" by Blaze Foley.4 An intriguing introduction.
A decently quick break before Great Lake Swimmers took the stage. Showing how far they've come from merely providing perfunctory backdrops to Tony Dekker's lyrics, the band started by unleashing their inner Wilco, with an extended version of "Everything Is Moving So Fast" that stretched out into the instrumental break, building into a wall of echoing noise — well, restrained, mostly polite noise — generated by guitarist Erik Arnesen, bending over his pedals. Darcy Yates switched from double bass to his electric four-string mid-song, before the whole thing segued seamlessly into "Bodies and Minds". Julie Fader then joined the band on keybs and backing vox, and would in fact be on stage for the bulk of the set. A couple more Lost Channels cuts were followed by "Moving Pictures, Silent Films" and early highlight "I Could Be Nothing" (from 2005's Bodies and Minds and a bit of a catalogue dig.)
Then the band departed for a few songs, leaving just Dekker on stage, accompanied by Julie Fader's flute and vox for "New Light". And that whole thing where undifferentiated album cuts somehow take flight live? This would be an example of exactly that. After a couple more stripped-down numbers, everyone returned to the stage, and the second half was an opportunity to stretch out and wander a bit through the band's four albums — meaning that as extended as the previous night's in-store appearance was, now we got a chance to dig deeper and hear older favourites like "Changing Colours"5. Sharon Van Etten came out to add one more voice to the main set's final pair of songs, wrapping up with now-standard set-closer "I Am Part of a Large Family".
All well and good, and that all added up to a solidly enjoyable show. But then, unexpectedly, somehow the encore managed to lift the whole thing up to another realm entirely. Re-emerging after a couple minutes of applause, the band launched into a true rarity with a jaunty run through "See You On The Moon!", the cut that they provided to — and which gave the name to — the compilation of children's songs put out by Paper Bag Records in '05. It was filled with so much goofy exuberance that the song — which I hadn't really thought about for a couple years — had me grinning for days afterwards, muttering to myself, "Thank you, farmer!"6
And then, in a turnaround that shouldn't have worked, the band then switched effortlessly to "Various Stages", one of Dekker's darkest meditations ("I have seen you in various stages of undress / I have seen you through various states of madness") and it was equally thrilling. The band closed things out with "Concrete Heart" and departed the stage, leaving Dekker on his own to unplug and step out in front of the mic to sing the old Carter Family tune "Storms Are on the Ocean" — his voice carrying perfectly over the rapt crowd and the words ("I'm going away to leave you love / I'm going away for a while / But I'll return to see you sometime / If I go ten thousand miles") a perfect sendoff. From good to magical.
Thanks to K. for the proper looking photo at the top of the article.
1 Unique experiences notwithstanding, the real reason that the shows in all of these non-standard venues have created such an indelible stamp on me is probably that they are far better vehicles for Tony Dekker's voice than your standard bar. Wanting to get into the right physical space to hear Dekker sing is a sort of thing that veers into hard-to-speak-of areas of analysis, but Dekker's voice breaks a standard that is widely known but usually talked around: that women sing beautifully and men sing with character. It's a general rule of thumb that anyone who breaks this mold — think of the reaction to any female singer who sings with grain or mannered imperfections instead of light prettiness — is looked at with a bit of suspicion. Most probably because the very types who spend the most time putting thought into these kinds of things are men who feel uncomfortable — y'know — with the idea of finding a man's voice beautiful, twisting themselves into rhetorical knots to show how it's not — y'know — like, erotic. Guys are generally cultured to be uptight about this stuff, but I guess I'll dare to out myself as one who finds Tony Dekker's voice to be lovely.
2 Although she gave the impression that she wasn't totally used to resounding waves of applause, commenting later, "it's a relief when it's not quiet after a song".
3 "This next song is about moving into your parents' house when you're twenty and your trying to be all right with it," was offered as one introduction. General laughter, and the woman beside me woo-hooed sympathetically, to which a guy sitting a row behind commented, "try it at thirty."
4 This is actually so good that I insist that you watch this youtube video of Van Etten performing it.
5 Which may be the very song with which GLS "clicked" for me — I remember hanging out in the library system in November '06 and Dekker singing the then-unreleased track, the notes rising up among the tiers of the city's concrete literary heart.
6 "That song never stopped being fun to play", smiled Dekker at the end.
Artist: Great Lake Swimmers
Song: Moving Pictures, Silent Films
Recorded at Sonic Boom Records, February 5, 2010.
Great Lake Swimmers - Moving Pictures, Silent FilmsMy notes for this set can be found here.
Great Lake Swimmers
Sonic Boom Records. Friday, February 5, 2010.
Well situated en route to the gig I was headed to, stopped in at Sonic Boom for this in-store, feeling like it would be worth it to spend some time with Great Lake Swimmers, despite the fact that I'd be going to their proper show the next night. Got there just early enough to beat the crowd and picked a spot behind some young gentlemen who had a camera/laptop setup to stream the show on the internet. It quickly filled in behind me, a nicely robust crowd on hand by the time the five-piece band hit the stage. The band was in full-on 'great to be home' mode, playing to a very mixed crowd — with their relatively early start times and friendly atmosphere, the Sonic Boom in-stores seem to be an increasingly popular destination for parents who miss going to see bands, as there's been a steady increase in the number of small children in attendance at these shows.
Working mostly from the year-old Lost Channels, the set started with "Everything Is Moving So Fast" and included a nicely punchy version of "She Comes to Me in Dreams". There was a bit of older material mixed in after a few songs — I was particularly affected by the always-beautiful "Moving Pictures, Silent Films", with newest member Miranda Mulholland's understated violin and backing vox adding just the right sympathetic note. No talkers on hand, at least in my vicinity, making for a pleasing listening experience.1 Though attentive, the crowd did step up when called upon for a clap-along to "Your Rocky Spine", where the bulk of the audience stuck with it, quite unexpectedly, for the length of the song.
After a half-dozen songs, Tony Dekker stopped to introduce the band, and I thought that might signal things winding down. But the band kept rolling along, ultimately playing a generous twelve songs in fifty-five minutes.2 The second half mixed in a few more Ongiara tracks, closing with "I Am Part of a Large Family". Perhaps the crowd generally was impressed with the length of the set, as after the last song, there was warm applause, but not a sustained demand for an encore, as if the consensus was that this was a good place to stop.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Though if I were to make one slight complaint, the sound tech could have tweaked the trebles down a touch, as Dekker's guitar stings were ringing a bit too prominently in the mix. But hard to complain too much when the room was quiet enough, and the mix clear enough, to be able to hear such an imperfection.
2 It's always a bonus when the in-store isn't on the same night as a gig for the band, and they aren't otherwise rushing to move along. I would never complain when a freebie in-store set is short or stripped down, so it seems like an especially generous gesture on the band's part to play what is essentially a full set for a non-paying crowd.
Somewhat unexpectedly a few weeks back, I found a message in my inbox from Matthew — in charge over at the always well-informed i(heart)music — soliciting my opinions for his annual "Hottest Bands in Canada" poll. I spent some time thinking over the loose rules1 and resolved to let it percolate a bit, so I could articulate a thoughtful list. Then, of course, I pretty much forgot about it until right before it was due and threw something together with as much haste as possible. I plagiarized myself pretty ruthlessly in coming up with some blurbs and sent out my list.
That list (or the top-ranking bands, anyways) are now posted, and of course, I immediately started combing through to see how the big list looks compared to mine. It's interesting, of course, to feel the push/pull of groupthink at work — that tension between not wanting to be the odd kid out, looking like I'm not in touch with what's, y'know, hot. But then there's that countervailing force of taste as distinction, where you want to be cooler than all the other list-makers — "oh, I see you still think so-and-so is hot. How quaint."
As it turns out, almost totally unsurprisingly, I'm not the avant-garde ahead-of-the-pack genius I might think I am, nor the the deluded outcast that I fear I am even more often. Six of my ten bands were in the top-ranking group, putting me firmly in the hive mind consensus — although only one of my bands was in the top five, proving, maybe, my deft hand at picking fellow misunderstood geniuses.2
Just a note on method: I basically went totally subjective with my list. I didn't construe "hotness" as the bands that have generated the most buzz or popularity. In that regard, I'm sure Arcade Fire could twitterize about what they had for breakfast and garner more attention in a morning that some of the bands I care about in a whole year. Instead, I had two key qualifications for my list: a live show that moved me and a 2009 release of consequence. Thus, bands that have been bringing it live and to ever-growing crowds but are still working older material (Rural Alberta Advantage, Kemer Yousef); bands collecting awards and plaudits (Fucked Up – 2009 Polaris Prize, catl – Toronto Blues Society Talent Search Award); or bands that brought it live but still have new releases in the pipeline (The D'Urbervilles or The Disraelis) ranked lower in my consideration. I guess I was thinking about bands that felt, to me, to be really in their moment, which is why their live presence was probably the most clinching factor. As it turns out, I have seen all of the bands on my list live in 2009 — nine of them more than once. So that was the highly unscientific ordering principle I was using.3
So anyway, without further ado, my list as sent to Matthew. Out of kindness, I suppose, I managed not to include any footnotes in my list. #1 is the top and working down from there:
1. Ohbijou
Releasing an album as good as Beacons — a compendium of all the warm hugs you've been missing compressed into musical form — would be enough to place Ohbijou highly on this list. But add to that stellar achievement their formidable live presence where they can bring it solemn-like or party-like as the situation dictates. And then add to that their principled community-building, putting out the Friends in Bellwoods 2 compilation with a little help from their friends as a fundraiser for the Daily Bread food bank and you get the full picture of this band as a fully-engaged force.
Check out my live recordings of Ohbijou here and here.
2. Gentleman Reg
Reg Vermue is having the sort of year that his fans have been wishing on him for awhile now. It's been a long gap and a lot of water under the bridge since '04's Darby and Joan so it's no surprise that Reg hit the ground running once he had a solid new album (Jet Black) to promote. Playing plenty shows and working some choice opening slots, the fabulous thing is that his crack band quickly surpassed the songs' recorded versions. Between all that, Reg has also had some time for collaboration, debuting a new dancefloor project with Woodhands' Dan Werb.
Check out my live recordings of Gentleman Reg here, here, and, urm, here. (So much Reg!)
3. Japandroids
Youth and energy are great rock'n'roll currency, and these lads have it in spades. This Vancouver duo (guit/vox/drums) are garage rock maximalists, filling up their songs with a young man's frenzy that owes as much to "Working For The Weekend" as to any punk antecedents. Their album (Post-Nothing) is filled with shaggy, buzzing charm, but live they really won me over, finding a sweet spot between sounding rough and sounding tight, and rolling somewhere between swagger and modesty. By the end of the set's end, first time I saw 'em, I was a convert, and the deal was sealed on the last song when guitarist Brian King lurched behind the drum kit, and then, while attempting to step out, tripped backwards over the monitor, and ended up sprawled out, still playing. As the song ended, he shouted, "we're going up the CN Tower, and you guys should come with us!"
Check out my live recording of Japandroids here.
4. Great Lake Swimmers
From one coldly analytical perspective, GLS have moved from being a nearly solo folk project to a fleshed-out rootsy, MOR band — the sort of stuff that Canadian A.M. playlists were filled up with a couple decades ago. But that overlooks the fact that main swimmer Tony Dekker continues to write incredible songs, each a little roadmap of closely-held desire that seems so recognizable. And when those songs delivered in his aching croon, he even makes the boys a little bit weak in the knees.
5. Julie Doiron
Her new album I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day follows on the heels of '07's Polaris shortlisted Woke Myself Up, but exchanges that album's dark explorations for musings on domesticity and gladness. It's considered, in some quarters, to be Higher Art to write about misery as opposed to happiness, which might account for this one getting a few less accolades, but it's not a lesser album. And add to that an enchanting stage presence — a ramshackle, figure-it-out-as-we-go-along spirit combined with her uncalculating, plainspoken sincerity, and you might float out of one of her gigs instead of walking.
Check out my live recordings of Julie Doiron here and here.
6. Kids on TV
A couple short years ago, Toronto's Kids on TV were a little easier to put in a box — something like hardcore rap meets General Idea. After some quiet time, they re-emerged this summer as something the same but different, suddenly re-establishing themselves as a dancefloor-ready pop unit. With a passel of new songs (some of which have now come out on the Shape Shifting Mutants digital EP) including two bona fide smashes in "Poison" and "Dazzler", KoTV have re-positioned themselves to catch some new ears while staying true to their art-queer roots. Out of the bathhouse and into your ears!
Check out my live recordings of KoTV here and here.
7. The Hoa Hoa's
The winner of this year's "let's take a trip" citation, garage-psych explorers The Hoa Hoa's have focused their sound and songwriting on a batch of new songs that figures to anchor one of the fall's most-anticipated releases (the perfectly named Pop/Drone/Pedals, forthcoming on Optical Sounds). Live, the band brings a rewarding mix of immediacy in their hooks and psychedelic drift in their layered extended excursions.
Check out my live recordings of The Hoa Hoa's here and here. Update: Also here!
8. Spiral Beach
This band's presence on my list would have surprised me a year ago. Perhaps a case of too much, too soon, I wrote this crew off when they started turning heads back in '06, finding their songs unfocused and undercooked behind an overexcited veneer. Catching them this year at NXNE it turns out that they've grown up some, found their sound and come up with solid songs, playing with a far darker, more psychedelic edge than I remembered. With songs that sound like Piper at the Gates of Dawn hooked up to a primitive drum machine, they've got something that suggests, "even if I'm dancing the Rock Lobster, I'm still in the middle of a bad trip".
Check out my live recording of Spiral Beach here.
9. Diamond Rings
How far can eyeliner, a fabulous video, a split single and a pocket full of songs take you? Surpisingly, giddily far, it turns out. It probably helps that Diamond Rings (aka John O'Regan of The D'Urbervilles) was something of a known quality — but managed to turn his persona on its head as his glammy rainbow-and-unicorn bearing alter ego. With a growing setlist of hummable, remember-the-eighties dance-pop confections, that rumoured album is looking to be stacked. And in the meantime, check him out live for an antidote to the dreary gloom in your heart.
Check out my live recordings of Diamond Rings here and here.
10. The Diableros
Don't call it a comeback etc. etc. The current lineup (containing only Pete Carmichael and guitarist Ian Jackson as long-time holdovers) has apparently stabilized this band and has led to a fine EP (Old Story, Fresh Road), five songs that are a logical extension of their signature sound — like all of us, growing less fuzzed-out and sound-saturated with age, but still powerful nonetheless. And still a knock-'em-dead live band. Maybe this will herald a productive next act for The Diableros. Whatever, we'll still have rock 'n roll.
Check out my live recordings of The Diableros here and here.
1 The guiding principles were:
The only criteria you need to follow in making your list are:
1) the bands must be Canadian (however you want to define that); and
2) they had a good 2009 (again, however you want to define that).
2 And, in another measure of how in/out of touch I am, I was mostly conversant with the names that other people had put on their list — there were only three artists that I'd cold not heard of yet, and a bunch in that vague category of 'know the name, haven't heard anything'.
3 And, lest anyone should happen to think I am immune from the selection bias of a short attention span, I should point out that I had seen, like, two of the bottom three bands that I filled out my list with in the previous week or so before I threw it all together, which was probably the tiebreaker that put them there instead of several other nearly equally worthy potentials.
Great Lake Swimmers / Art Bergmann
Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Saturday, April 25, 2009.
A lovely warm day that turned menacingly grey as I was getting ready to go out, but still met with R. for cake before grabbing the Bathurst streetcar and heading to the end of the line to find the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Despite knowing more or less where we were going, still ended up ambling the long way around before finding our way in — certainly the wayfinding on site leaves something to be desired.1
It's probably an unfair assumption on my part, but I always tend to assume anything at the CNE is a bit Miss Havisham-y, so it was pleasantly surprising to see that the recently refurbished Queen Liz was actually fairly nice digs. Decent sightlines to the stage,2 comfy seats, good sound. In terms of size and typical sort of show, this venue is probably most directly comparable to the Danforth Music Hall, and I would say the Queen Liz is probably the better of the two.3
When Art Bergmann was announced as the opener for the show, I was a little excited. Here is, after all, a genuine Canadian punk-rock hero and something of an institution. In our eat-our-own (or politely ignore-own-own) cultural tradition, though, his absence has not made people's hearts grow fonder. I was a bit worried at the possibility of it being some sort of a trainwreck, a recent news story not stinting on the grim toll rock'n'roll has taken on him, stating that he can't sing and play guitar at the same time. ("It's fucking horrible, because I just love playing guitar, I love kind of rocking out, and I can't now. My hands stiffen up, and I just can't play. So I'm just going to be singing – in a wheelchair or something.") Billed as "a special acoustic performance", this didn't sound promising.
Perhaps for the best, then, that Bergmann came out backed by a well-rehearsed four-piece band. Rumours of his decline seemed somewhat exaggerated, as, while he wasn't tearing it up, he played his guit parts competently. Bergmann is certainly looking a bit older and frailer — put him in a sweater and he could pass as an endearingly distracted, slightly dotty classics professor.
It was pretty clear that, except for some dedicated fans up front, a lot of people had no idea who he was, and the suburban louts behind me simply thought he was some random old jakey. Although it seemed, between songs, that he was a bit befuddled, and at a few points like things could fall apart, the band was very solid and lifted him up. If anything, the band was a little too-smooth, and the sound a bit rooted in 1987, with that 80's keyb sound and boxy drums. Fortunately, Bergmann's gloriously wrecked voice gave things some chaotic edge. Not everything worked: A couple ballad-y songs didn't fare so well, and "Our Little Secret" is a little heavy-handed, but it was nice chance to remember that the man wrote some good songs, and we got good renditions of "Buried Alive", "Remember Her Name" (with its "She feels like / Marianne Faithfull" hook)4, and "Hospital Song". The set ended with Tony Dekker coming out to contribute backing vox to a take on Gram Parson's "Sin City", a fitting end to the proceedings.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Between sets, ran into K., who'd been a bit late, having guessed wrong on whether the 8PM on the ticket meant "doors" or "show"5. She joined us as the stage was changed over for GLS. The place was full but not totally sold out, as there were easily a couple hundred empty seats in the back. But still, a good-sized crowd for a local band made good.
GLS is a band I've seen a fair number of times, and in a lot of different settings — in libraries and churches, on lake shores and record stores — so any performance I see has a lot of context to be weighed against, and a lot to live up to. On this occasion, the band was five deep behind Tony (six, including the part-time cello), graced by Bob Egan's presence on mandolin and pedal steel, and Julie Fader's sympathetic keybs and backing vox. The band was quite spread out on the wide stage, which might explain why there were a few moments where they seemed a bit out of sync. Overall it seemed like they were trying to make their sound fit the big room, when, with their talent they could have chosen to shrink the room down to fit the songs.6 The drums, in particular, were sometimes a little heavy-handed.
Still, there were no shortage of highlights, including "Various Stages", "Moving Pictures Silent Films", "There Is A Light" and an entirely lovely "Song for the Angels". From the new album "Everything Is Moving So Fast", "Pulling on a Line" and "Still" were given especially pleasing treatments. Basia Bulat came out to add her voice to the main set closing "I Am Part Of A Large Family". The band now has such a deep catalogue that some stone classics can no longer break the setlist, despite playing seventy minutes plus encore.
Walking back through the light rain to the streetcar loop, we agreed that this wasn't the best GLS show we'd seen, but given the fondly-remembered shows we were comparing it to, still a good one overall.
1 And in one of those contemporary things that we take for granted until they don't work, the Google Map for the CNE is less than entirely useful, not showing the large football pitch beside the place we were going.
2 My only complaint is that whoever put the seats in didn't offset the rows, so each seat was directly behind the one in front of it. We were sitting dead centre, and I had a great view of the stage — until a guy sat down in front of me. And being dead centre, my view of the edges of the stage was fine, but my glimpses of Tony Dekker would be fleeting.
3 In terms of ease of getting to the venue, it's no worse than, say Kool Haus — a bit of a walk from the streetcar loop, albeit with the likelihood of a bit of a crammed ride back home after the show.
4 Admittedly, this one has a lot of 80's sound for a song released in 1991 and played in 2009, but it still works.
5 In this day and age, venues and/or promoters have no excuse for not posting clear door and set times online for everyone to find. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the good work that Lee's and the 'Shoe do on their sites, but this just seems like a reasonable thing to expect.
6 Perhaps this is why the quiet mid-set pairing of "Concrete Heart" and "Merge, A Vessel, A Harbour" (the latter solo, the former accompanied only by cello) were so rewarding.
Artist: Great Lake Swimmers
Title: Lost Channels
The fourth album under the GLS name goes the furthest in the steady progression from bandonym to band, with a fuller, more rocking sound. This doesn't mean that the arrangements overwhelm Tony Dekker's words so much as the fact that this no longer merely feels like the work of a singer/songwriter being fleshed out by the instruments around him. This also helps close the gap between album and performance, one spot where past GLS efforts have always felt a little frustrating. Dekker's voice is still best appreciated in a rewarding acoustic setting, but this is getting closer to the mark.
Meanwhile, we are rewarded here with some more top-shelf songs from one our premiere balladeers. "Still", whose title might call up images of inertness instead pulls from Tony's bag of metaphors to invoke a yearning sense of potentiality. Closer "Unison Falling Into Harmony" is simply one of Dekker's loveliest songs, a river waltz with wind and gravity and the forces behind the aching desire to break through the unknowability and beauty of another.1
Also noteworthy is "Concrete Heart"2 which uses Toronto's brutalist architecture as landmarks of love won and lost:
This is the place where I felt
like the world's tallest self-supporting tower
at least for a little while, anyway
The lyric slides a bit in the second verse, to something that should be deserving of a grant or Cultural Award for a perfect summation of the Torontonian and Canadian mindset:
This is the place where I felt
like the world's tallest self-supporting tower
(or maybe number two)
at least for a little while, anyway
A very lovely album that felt warm and yielding from the outset while still hinting that there remain depths yet to discover — a most welcome and sought-after companion.
Track Picks: 4 - "Concrete Heart", 9 - "Still", 12 - "Unison Falling Into Harmony"
1 This song's deployment in public spaces may lead to dangerous outbreaks of hand-holding.
2 A song I shall probably always carry an irrationally fond affection for from having been lucky enough to witness its debut.
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