Recording: Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: Holy Oak Family Singers feat. Ryan Driver / Alex Lukashevsky / Dorothea Paas / Luka Kuplowsky

Songs: Picture a World / Bein' Green / The First Time It Happens / Everybody Eats [all composed by Joe Raposo]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Tribute to Joe Raposo), July 3, 2024.

Holy Oak Family Singers feat. Ryan Driver - Picture a World

Holy Oak Family Singers feat. Alex Lukashevsky - Bein' Green

Holy Oak Family Singers feat. Dorothea Paas - The First Time It Happens

Holy Oak Family Singers feat. Luka Kuplowsky - Everybody Eats

The name Joe Raposo might not ring a bell, but chances are good you've got some of his songs lodged in your brain. One of the key writers in the classic Sesame Street/Muppets era, he not only composed the Sesame Street theme, but piles of instantly-familiar tunes, including "C is for Cookie", "Doin' the Pigeon", "Would You Like to Buy an O?", and "Sing" — as well as a fair few other TV themes. That meant there was plenty of material for the usual mix'n'match insta-ensembles at H.O.F.S.' regular night of musical tribute. The best results came when the singers mined the vein of bummed-out melancholy that's just below the surface of many of these songs — but the bursts of pure ebullience worked pretty swell too (Alex Lukashevsky tackling the Three's Company theme was everything you could hope for).

[Do note that H.O.F.S. are taking August off! You'll find them back in the Southern Cross on the first Wednesday in September.]

Recording: Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band

Artist: Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band

Songs: How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music + I Knew it Would Be You! [from a poem by Ryōkan Taigu]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), June 18, 2024.

Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band - How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music

Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band - I Knew it Would Be You!

Luke Kuplowsky has been developing his book of songs from and inspired by poets for a few years now, so it was a delight to see it come to a culmination with the release of the double album How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music. For the release celebration, the full band presented the album in order, accompanied by some gorgeous visuals, including on-screen footage of a dancer (Noriko Yamamato) who then appeared in the flesh onstage — a perfect encapsulation of these songs breathing life into centuries-old poems and making them viscerally present in the here-and-now.

Recording: Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: Justin Orok & Maggie Keogh / Holy Oak Family Singers

Songs: Summer's End [John Prine cover] + Ever New [Beverly Glenn-Copeland cover]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), August 2, 2023.

Justin Orok & Maggie Keogh - Summer's End

Holy Oak Family Singers - Ever New

Celebrating "The Songs of Summer", this evening with the rotating cast of H.O.F.S. guests and regulars essayed, as usual, a mix of hits and deep cuts, stripping things back to their essential songerwriterly cores. (And proving, once more, that no songs are too uncool to be reclaimed, as Ben Gunning showed on an astoundingly-refreshing take on Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer".) Nursing a broken arm and unable to play guitar, host Luke Kuplowsky played some one-handed piano in a spare setting of the McGarrigle's "Saratoga Summer Song", but also pulled together an impromptu ensemble for a couple set-closing pieces, including this Beverly Glenn-Copeland song with backing from Evan Cartwright, Justin Orok and Ted Crosby.

[Maggie Keogh and Justin Orok are half of Andrew Downing's Utopia Ontario, who will be playing The Rex next Monday (August 28th). The Holy Oak Family Singers will be back on at the Tranzac on Wednesday, September 6th.]

Recording: Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: Carlyn Bezic with Joseph Shabason + Danika Vandersteen & Aiya McNee + Madelyn Kirby & Luke Robinson + Luke Kuplowsky & co.

Songs: Stay Loose + Steel Rail Blues + Saturday Clothes + A Lesson in Love [Gordon Lightfoor covers]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Holy Oak Family Singers present), June 7, 2023.

Carlyn Bezic with Joseph Shabason - Stay Loose

Danika Vandersteen & Aiya McNee - Steel Rail Blues

Madelyn Kirby & Luke Robinson - Saturday Clothes

Luke Kuplowsky & Co. - A Lesson in Love

This gathering of the Holy Oak Family Singers was themed as a tribute to recently-passed icon Gordon Lightfoot, a songwriter with whom this loose collective has a longstanding connection. Once more "later Gord" (especially East of Midnight) was tackled with as much zeal as the more well-known early material, though for this show the more elaborate backing band was replaced by a stripped-down rotating crew of musicians.

[This month's HOFS timeslot — which is tonight (July 5th) — will instead see Luke Kuplowsky joined by Felicity Williams, Anh Phung, Josh Cole, and Alex Lukashevsky for two sets of his own songs + poetry interpretations.]

Recording: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Songs: I Believe [Loretta Lynn cover] + Wrecking Ball [Emmylou Harris cover]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), October 9, 2022.

The Holy Oak Family Singers - I Believe

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Wrecking Ball

This time out, the HOFS was essentially a songwiters' circle convened by Luke Kuplowsky, Thom Gill and Alex Lukashevsky — plus a few friends called up to sing some tunes, natch. The hosts completed the first round robin, where Kuplowsky paid tribute to the memory of Loretta Lynn with a rendition of a song that she covered. A bit later on Ivy Mairi also contributed a cover-of-a-cover, with a sweet rendition of Neil Young's "Wrecking Ball". Showing the back-porch spirit of the night, I left the full lead-in here, where you can feel their musicians feeling the way into it, and Mairi a bit unsure of the key at the start before falling right into place.

Recording: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Songs: That's What Makes You Strong [Jesse Winchester cover; Thom Gill vox] + Dear Darling [Mary Margaret O'Hara cover; Ivy Mairi vox] + I Don't Know [Kate and Anna McGarrigle cover; Alex Samaras vox] + Thirty [The Weather Station cover; Thom Gill vox] + Runs in the Family [The Roches cover; Robin Dann, Felicity Williams, Alex Samaras vox]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), February 20, 2020.

The Holy Oak Family Singers - That's What Makes You Strong

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Dear Darling

The Holy Oak Family Singers - I Don't Know

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Thirty

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Runs in the Family

A really wonderful night, once more bringing together this loose aggregation of immensely-talented musicians that once congregated at the much-missed Holy Oak. The special occasion this time was a milestone birthday for Luke Kuplowsky, who got to pick the setlist, populating it with some of his mournful/joyful favourites. As always, the crew ranged through the songbooks of the artists they'd paid tribute to in the past (Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Arthur Russell in addition to the ones posted above) and a few special one-offs, like the especially-relevant Weather Station tune. And as always, there were a series of friends rotating in and out of the backing band and vocalists' chairs. Truly a really special time, and worth remembering these days as to why we used to gather together (and hope to someday again).

Recording: Ryōkan Blues Band

Artist: Ryōkan Blues Band

Songs: To Pi Ssu Yao [from a poem by Du Fu] + If Your Heart Remains Unchanged + Formal Meditation + I Found a Coin in My Bag [from poems by Ryōkan]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 22, 2020.

Ryōkan Blues Band - To Pi Ssu Yao

Ryōkan Blues Band - If Your Heart Remains Unchanged

Ryōkan Blues Band - Formal Meditation

Ryōkan Blues Band - I Found a Coin in My Bag

It's quite exciting to see that this endeavour, started as a side project to Luke "Luka" Kuplowsky's "name band", has branched off to claim its own identity. Essentially a vehicle for the musical setting of poetry, the heart of the thing remains in the Ryōkan and Rumi texts that the project started off with — but things are growing (enough that the band could play two short sets at this show!) to include a wider range of poets as well. Regardless of the source, there's an admirable dedication to serving the text here — if a poem is four terse lines, it doesn't need to be given a bridge and a second verse and what have you, it can just occupy the space of those original distilled thoughts.

[There probably won't be any be any Ryōkan, but Luke Kuplowsky will be celebrating a birthday at a special Holy Oak Family Singers Revue in the Southern Cross on Thursday (February 27th).]

Recording: LUKA

Artist: LUKA

Songs: Me for Real [Arthur Russell cover] + O, My Heart is Full

Recorded at a house party, November 2, 2019.

LUKA - Me for Real

LUKA - O, My Heart is Full

Are house shows the Next Big Thing? Wooed by the glitz of app-enabled venture capital companies, there've been some thinkpieces on this topic lately, as if people gathering together with their friends and making music was an unconsidered possibility before there was a profiteering digital middleman on the scene. Still, as affordable spaces for intimate performances dwindle in our city, more folks do seem to be open to sharing their spaces for small-scale shows — which, on the one hand, creates wonderful opportunities to see great artists up close (and pay them money directly for their art!) but could also reinforce our music scenes as siloed, gated communities, where you have to "know someone" to even know that a cool show is happening.

A house show like this is also a chance to play for a very on-side crowd, so Luke Kuplowsky and company (which was, on this night, Josh Cole on bass, Thom Gill on guit and Evan Cartwright on drums) were able not only to "rehearse" some new covers before taking them into the studio, but also to bring out some old faves for a hearty singalong. (Karen Ng, after playing a solo set to open up the night, is sitting in for the latter.)

Recording: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Artist: The Holy Oak Family Singers

Songs: Stay Loose [vox by Ben Gunning] + Only Love Would Know [vox by Felicity Williams + Thom Gill] + If You Could Read My Mind [vox by Tamara Lindeman] + I'll Tag Along [vox by Luke Kuplowsky] [all songs composed by Gordon Lightfoot]

Recorded at The Burdock Music Hall, August 13, 2018.

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Stay Loose

The Holy Oak Family Singers - Only Love Would Know

The Holy Oak Family Singers - If You Could Read My Mind

The Holy Oak Family Singers - I'll Tag Along

You never know what you have 'til it's gone. When the beloved Holy Oak was in full swing, "family" events like this were a regular occurrence, with some of the locals who used it as their hub banding together to cover musicians ranging from Prince to Mary Margaret O'Hara. The bonds of comradeship have transcended the loss of the venue, but events like this are a bit rarer on the ground these days. It has to be said that this was entirely too good a show for a Monday night, but it just might be impossible to gather these busy pros together on any other night of the week.

The instrumental core — Evan Cartwright (drums), Ben Whiteley (bass), Christine Bougie (lap steel), Ben Gunning (electric guitar), Luke Kuplowsky (acoustic guitar) and Thom Gill (keyb) — served as session aces for an all-star team of vocalists, including the latter three instrumentalists plus Tamara Lindeman, Felicity Williams, Robin Dann and Alex Lukashevsky. There were plenty of hits essayed, from "Every Highway" to "Rainy Day People", but the group here dug deeper as well, showing a special affection for the less-popular 80's Gord, including his '86 East of Midnight album, and demonstrating that the craft and wisdom in those compositions is on par with the better-known stuff.

Recording: Chan/Mazinani/Kuplowsky

Artist: Heidi Chan/Mani Mazinani/Luke Kuplowsky

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Array Space (Track Could Bend #37), April 3, 2018.

Heidi Chan/Mani Mazinani/Luke Kuplowsky - [excerpt]

Continuing a series tradition, Track Could Bend marked its third anniversary by inviting back all of the previous year's performers for a celebration. That's enough of a crowd to warrant a larger stage, so for one rainy night, the action shifted over to Array Space. There ended up being sixteen players, all of whom put their names in a hat to be drawn to create spontaneous ensembles for a series of quick sets. A trio that might never be attempted through logical means of organization, this alchemical combination of acoustic guitar, modular synth, harmonica and cracklebox unexpectedly melded into a beautifully-genteel sort of electroacoustic folk. In an alternate universe where Eric Chenaux and Martin Arnold are co-headlining arena shows, this could be the opening act.

[TCB will be having a special extra-early show at The Baby G on Tuesday, June 5th, with sets from Barry Prophet, Nicole Rampersaud and Lisbon's Sal Grosso.]

Recording: LUKA

Artist: LUKA

Songs: For My Visitor [from a poem by Ryōkan] + Fugitive Song (a response to Rainer Maria Rilke)

Recorded at Belljar Café (Track Could Bend #34), January 2, 2018.

LUKA - For My Visitor

LUKA - Fugitive Song (a response to Rainer Maria Rilke)

Setting aside his own observations, Luke Kuplowsky took a different songwriting tack in presenting a beautiful set of songs with the words mostly drawn from the poetic fragments left behind by the 18th century hermit-monk Ryōkan. He was backed by an incredible band that included Alex Lukashevsky, Evan Cartwright, Josh Cole and Felicity Williams (who has followed up this appearance with some more prestigious gigs). The songs ranged from quiet meditations like the first song here to more rambunctious takes like the second, which had me staring at the Belljar's front door as I had this strange sense that a horn section could have burst in from the street at any second to join in. These songs had only been aired in public once before, and it's inconceivable that they won't be heard again.

[LUKA will be playing the Burdock with Trace Mountains and Rachael Cardiello on Wednesday, April 11th. Track Could Bend returns to the Belljar Café on Tuesday (February 6th) with sets from Bim Prongs & {AN} EeL, N A V I and Love Children of the Apocalypse.]

Recording: LUKA

Artist: LUKA

Songs: Why Don't You Go to Her + You Must Be Open

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall, July 27, 2016 (late show).

LUKA - Why Don't You Go to Her

LUKA - You Must Be Open

Luke Kuplowsky celebrated the release of Summon Up a Monkey King with a double-bill of a release show, playing to early and later houses at Burdock and traipsing through the album's meditations on love's manifold variations with a sympathetic gaze. His backing band might be one of the quietest going, but their colouring in of his sketches (especially Ada Dahli and Julie Arsenault's backing vox) added the right amount of subtle lushness to Kuplowsky's ongoing dialogues with his heart.

Recording: LUKA

Artist: LUKA

Song: Quick Reflex

Recorded at The Great Hall (Long Winter 4.2), December 12, 2015.

LUKA - Quick Reflex

With an unusual Saturday night edition and winter nowhere yet to be found, it felt a little different heading down for this one. As with the first of this year's series, the best spot for music was down in the basement, while dance and art crept closer to the night's centre from all directions. In the Main Hall, especially at the start of the night, the music seemed to be just one element competing for the patrons' attention, which lead to Luke Kuplowsky's quietly observational songs sounding like one more murmured conversation in the room. Rather than trying to compete or overpower the chatter, the band seemed content to stay in their comfort zone, forcing those who wanted to hear to lean in a little closer.

[The next Long Winter will be on January 16th, 2016 — note that's on a Saturday again — with sets from Vallens, LOOM, Mystic Triangle, Michelle McAdorey, JOOJ, STÜKA, Pantayo, Khôra, Strands, Overnight and more.]

Recording: LUKA

Artist: LUKA

Song: Summon up a Monkey King

Recorded at Burdock Music Club, August 11, 2015.

LUKA - Summon up a Monkey King

Now a heart-on-sleeve balladeer, I first encountered Luke Kuplowsky as part of the agreeably moddish rockers Broken Bricks, but hadn't yet checked out this new incarnation that's been percolating along for a couple years now. Dropping a new slab of wax, Kuplowsky has turned down the volume, even when backed by electric guitar and drums. Some of the material leans a little heavily on Jens Lekman-isms, but his discovery of the value of quality backing vocals sells the unabashedly-earnest openness.