Gig: Green Go / Shellshag / Fiasco / The Guest Bedroom

Green Go / Shellshag / Fiasco / The Guest Bedroom

Over the Top festival. Sneaky Dee's. Saturday May 23, 2009.

Celebrity encounter! Coming up the stairs to Sneaky Dee's, I was dying of thirst and made a beeline for the pitchers of water at the back of the bar. And by coincidence, the person that I almost pushed out of the way to get the water turned out to be local music blogger/ listings curator Historyjen. Instead of giving me a glare, she actually introduced herself and noted we'd been at several of the same Over the Top gigs. A class act!

Meanwhile, on stage, The Guest Bedroom were already playing, though I think I caught most of their set. After I composed myself, I moved to the back of the crowd to check them out. A nice sort of post-punk sound, a bit herky-jerky, and Sandi Falconer's vox brought to mind, say, Yeah Yeah Yeahs a bit. Some tunes were less hooky than others, but I found their set generally agreeable.

Brooklyn's Fiasco started their set with a hi-hat rocking selection that implied a dancey, post-punk sound, but that was a sly bit of misdirection — the band's true underpinnings turned out to be hardcore. They exhibited a kinetic physicality on stage, guitarist Jonathan Edelstein and bassist Lucian Buscemi lurching back and forth, doubled over their instruments. Edelstein's secret weapon was his rapid-fire fingertapping guitar style, which, to my admittedly limited knowledge, is a bit unique in the hardcore game. It brought a "technical" edge to their songs but never diminished their immediacy. Playing a number of instrumental songs from their new Native Canadians album, Jonathan commented, "we're playing everything really slow tonight for some reason," which makes one wonder what their pace would be like when they were really working at it. Those in the audience who were into this really seemed to dig it a lot.¹ I was reasonably entertained, and had a lot of respect for these guys' proficiency and energy. Plus, their final song bore the nobly-titled sentiment of "I Figure It's Better We Do Something Ridiculous Than Nothing At All".

The stage set-up for Shellshag says a lot about the band: Guitar (Shell) stage right, a stand-up, three-piece drum kit (Shag) stage left, and a double microphone in the middle, looking like the frame for a Valentine's Day heart if you squeezed your eyes tight together in the right way. The duo stood facing each other while playing, a sort of he said/she said rock war, fueled by by primitivist riffs and Mo Tucker beats.² The band careened from one tune to the next, nearly a dozen in a half-hour. A lovely DIY mess of domestic squabbles and everyday gestures, Shellshag looked a bit older and more world-worn then most bands at this festival, but exhibited an admirable amount of belly-fire. When the pace slowed for the lovely "Gary's Note" ("Everybody is a magnet some of the time") it seemed like a bit of well-earned, hard-won happiness. The set ended with the most "rock'n'roll" conclusion that I've seen in some time. After unclipping the mics from the drums, Shell passed them down onto the floor in front of the stage, while Shag stepped down to keep playing among the crowd. Soon, one drum was knocked over, and things went mildly chaotic as Shag mounted one of the drums and began stabbing the head with her stick, piercing it, while Shell was prying at his guitar strings, chanting "One! Two! Three!". Of course, the one time something like this happens immediately in front of me, my camera batteries were dead. My recording, however, ended satisfactorily with the sound of a drumstick clattering to the floor at my feet. This was sweet and rough in all the right ways.

Listen to a track from this set here.

And then Green Go.³ The night's headliners have been an act I've wanted to see, not only from general praise for their live show, but also for the fact that I've seen Jessica Tollefsen and Fez Stenton at the front of crowds at various gigs but not on stage at one of their own shows. Premised as dance music played all live, the five-piece delivered a satisfying experience. For music like this, a good live drummer makes such a huge difference, so give credit to Adam Scott for propelling the songs with the right mix of drum-machine constancy without going overboard. The songs were also constructed with a stripped-down, dance-floor chant sensibility, but again, mostly smart enough to not be too merely repetitive. Fully enjoyable. On the one hand, I'm still slightly worried about hearing this music on headphones as an album — speaking broadly, this kind of dance-y stuff doesn't always translate well.⁴ But I'm more than willing to go see 'em live again.

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¹ It was, overall, a kinda thin crowd for Sneaks on a Saturday night, but certainly a there-for-the-music-crowd, and not the unloved we're-here-to-be-seeen yappers.

² Besides her kit, Shag also had bells on her belt, for some extra jangling as she shook.

³ No matter what I do, some wayward perceptual apparatus in my brain always catches this as "Green Goo".

⁴ Although who am I kidding? It's pretty certain I'll end up buying the album regardless. That's just, like, what I do.

Gig: Tiny Masters of Today / The Superstitions / Windom Earle / The Paint Movement

Tiny Masters of Today / The Superstitions / Windom Earle / The Paint Movement

Over the Top Festival. Whippersnapper Gallery. May 23, 2009.

Decided to take in the early show at the Whippersnapper, and walked in just as The Paint Movement were preparing to unleash. A six-piece with most vox from five-stringed bassist Jason Haberman, there were also a couple vocals from guitarist Kevin Kralik, who looked meaner but sang softer. The whole thing was tied together by Jason Loftman's sax work. I had a vision of long tracking shot over the credits of a movie from 1983 — palm trees lining a highway under a pastel sunset, the camera moving along with the traffic, until suddenly lifting up and away. Which is to say there is a certain lush, cocaine elegance to this music. Perhaps a more literal point of comparison/departure would be to imagine outtakes from Chicago V as filtered through, say, BSS' "Pacific Theme" or through the sunnier pop side of The Sea and Cake and you're on the right track. Live, the half-dozen tunes had a nice widescreen feel and the band arguably deserved a bigger crowd than were out for the first act up at an early gig.

A track from this set is posted here.

The stage seemed roomier once Windom Earle (from Halifax) were set up as they took down the drum kit to give an unobstructed space to project their vidoes behind them. Dual synths, guit, bass and some sax. The band had obviously put a great deal of work into their visuals, which were well synced with their rhythm tracks — one song used footage of a dude air drumming in his living room tightly edited to match the song's beats. Musically, a little bit of Devo in their lineage, maybe some Six Finger Satellite, but also something of the "aerobics rock" of Go Team! — perhaps also recalling them in the way that many of these songs sounded like they could be the soundtracks to the car crashin' b-movies they were sampling images from. As I was mulling all of this over a couple songs in, and wondering if the band would be as interesting without their projector, a couple women arriving in the venue threw down their jackets, leapt in front of the stage, and started to shang-a-lang like they were at a sock hop. I thought to myself, "maybe I'm enjoying this on the wrong level." The (mostly instrumental) songs had enough going on to keep them interesting, and they did have a danceable vibe, so although this didn't totally win me over, I have no complaints. After all, you can never totally dismiss a band willing to take their pants off onstage.

After the previous night's festival of guitar pedals, it was a refreshing change to see a band with a more pared-down set up and less patch chords between guitar and amp. The Superstitions, looking like three lads who'd met up at the soda fountain, played an — um — leggy brand of garage pop, fronted by the magnetic Nyssa Rosaleen. Filled with youthful energy, the band tore through a set of short sharp rockers filled with clear tones and good songwriting. Bonus points to guitarist Matthew Aldred, who responded to all of Nyssa's banter with a slightly wearied "yeah", as if he were anguished for the talking to end and the song to start. An unexpected treat and very much worth seeing.

A track from this set is posted here.

Having thought that The Superstitions looked a little youthful, I was given a burst of perspective seeing Tiny Masters of Today. Fronted by brother and sister duo Ivan (guitar, vox; age 15) and Ada (vox, bass; age 13), the band are already vets, now on their second album and with plenty of press. While the idea of raucous teen siblings forming a band isn't unprecedented, their success so far is pretty substantial. A band like this comes with a bit of trouble separating the angle ("aren't they adorable?"¹) from the music. Truth be told, if I were taking in the gig in a blindfold test, I would think I'd've found it generally agreeable. With Ada on the mic and Ivan's skilfully sloppy riffs, the first thing that would pop in my mind would be that sort of sub-sub-genre of mid-90's female-fronted bands that sounded like Kim Deal's wayward daughters — think that dog or Veruca Salt. Their sound had a decent level of wobbly uncertainty, which the songs delivered in short, chunky bursts — though things threatened to go off the rails a couple times. But there's no lack of talent here, and their set was enjoyable fun. Made me feel older than my Great Aunt Martha mind you, especially when, for their last song they blasted a cover of Sonic Youth's "Youth Against Fascism", a song that came out, like, subjectively last week or so to me, but is, in fact, older than those performing it on stage. I rolled up the bottom of my trousers and moved along to the next gig.

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¹ As pronounced by someone standing behind me while the band were setting up and Ivan was adjusting his amp. "Excuse me, Mr. Soundman?" asked Ada politely into her mic, "is the volume okay?"

Gig: MV & EE / Woods / $100

MV & EE / Woods / $100

Over the Top Festival. Whippersnapper Gallery. Friday, May 22, 2009.

For night two of Over the Top, decided to take in this show at the Whippersnapper, which meant breaking my self-imposed limitation of seeing only bands new to me. But for $100, I'm willing to make an exception. Billed as a duo show with Ian and Simone, we were instead treated to a hybrid, with four acoustic numbers, including some singalong action on "Not For Me" before the band joined in for the rest of the set. A new bass player (Jeff Pierce?) in tow, he handled himself quite admirably, getting thrown a little bit only on "Blaze of Glory". All told, this was a tidy and tasty set — ten songs in thirty-five minutes — with especially fine readings of "14th Floor"¹ and the always hurtingly lovely "Nothing's Alright".

Knowing nothing about Brooklyn’s Woods, I quickly became interested as they set up. Not only was the drummer setting a beat up old bass with two strings across his kit, but out of a flight case emerged a particularly lovely effects rack with a row of pedals across the top, and on the bottom two cassette decks with a crossfader between them:

During the set, G. Lucas Crane sat on the floor in front of it and played it in a manner not unlike a DJ, but with cassettes instead of turntables. The tape players had no covers, so finger pressure on the heads acted to warp the sounds. He also added backing vox, sung through an old pair of headphones slung over his face. The tapes were just one further destabilizing element to Woods' sound, which could be be broadly described as "queasy psychedelia", little trails of sound squiggling off behind them like jetstreams. After getting their sound correct, the band launched into a number that sounded like a surf record deconstructed by Brian Eno with high falsetto vox. And so it went from there, the band using all of these elements fairly creatively, playing a half dozen songs over their set, a couple of which contained extended instrumental freaks-outs. Definitely exciting to be exposed to this live first, just to see how the sound was being manipulated. When the set closed, I grabbed a copy of their newest alb from the merch table. A highlight.

A track from this set is posted here.

A fair number of the crowd left after Woods' set, leaving lots of elbow room for MV & EE. Thems in the know started to sit down and settle in as the band set up, the stage suddenly filled with a plethora of effects pedals. The relaxed posture was certainly the way to take in opening selection "I Got Caves in There", which ambled its way along for about ten minutes, a relaxed groove. The band rolled with Matt Valentine's and Willie Lane's dual guitars plus Erica Elder on lap steel and what I'm seeing listed online as "cocola firebird", which looked like a styleized four-string mandolin. The rhythm section had a local connection, with Doc Dunn on drums and Mike Smith on bass.²

After the first track, the tempo picked up some, and began to rock out a little more. By "Hammer", the band had had hit a good groove, playing like a drowsy, narcotised Crazy Horse. Very good stuff. The slack-paced jams were apparently not everyone's idea of fun, as after about a half hour, the crowd, thin to start with, had withered in half, to maybe fifteen people or so. Whether it was because of the sparse group in front of them, or just that they were into their thing, the band seemed to play more for themselves, segueing from one song straight into the next. There were some excellent moments, and some less so — at times, the bandmembers seemed to get caught up in their own excursions and wandered a bit out of sync with each other, and in a few places, the guits wandered into widdly-widdly jamminess of the G------- D--- type. But the less appealing sections were generally redeemed by something more interesting. The band gave the impression that they could keep this up all night, given the chance, and by set's end the sound guy was starting to look agitated, heading up to the side of the stage to indicate to Erica that maybe five minutes more or so would be enough. It might be better suited to listening while collapsed in a beanbag chair in the basement, or, say, by a campfire, looking up at a starry sky and getting, y'know, cosmic, but I enjoyed this, generally speaking.

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¹ With that and "14th Floor" already written, $100 should come up with one more and have a 14 Trilogy. Or, possibly, a dozen more and — presto! — instant concept album.

² Who I'd seen playing last weekend with Steamboat.

Recording: Baby Dee

Artist: Baby Dee

Song: The Song of Self Acceptance

Recorded at 6 Nassau St. (Over the Top Festival), May 21, 2009.

Baby Dee - The Song of Self Acceptance

My notes for this gig are here.

Recording: Timber Timbre

Artist: Timber Timbre

Song: Trouble Comes Knockin'

Recorded live at 6 Nassau St. (Over the Top Festival), May 21, 2009.

Timber Timbre - Trouble Comes Knockin'

My notes for this gig are here.

Gig: Baby Dee / Timber Timbre / Ghost Bees

Baby Dee / Timber Timbre / Ghost Bees

Over the Top Festival. 6 Nassau St. Thursday, May 21, 2009.

I'd gone to a film last year, but had never attended a gig at the Over the Top festival. This year I was interested, but scanning through the list of gigs, it was pretty much all stuff I was unfamiliar with. Unsure of what to see, I took the plunge and bought a wristband and resolved to try and take in as many previously-unseen bands as I could. Decided to start off with this Baby Dee show, not only from some vaguely-remembered plaudit for her unique stagecraft, but also to check out Timber Timbre, recently in the news for having signed with Arts & Crafts.

So headed off to the mysterious 6 Nassau Street. The venue had a bit of the feel of a speakeasy, largely because of its hidden, look-in-the-alley entrance. A largely unfurnished room, maybe a dozen yards square, with the bands set up in one corner. And not a lot of air movement on what turned out to be the year's first hot day. This meant that once it began to fill up, it got a little stifling in the room. Fortunately it was a sit-on-the-floor and soak it in kind of show, so perhaps smoggy lassitude was contemplative observation's midwife.

First up and establishing this vibe well were Ghost Bees (now T.O-based, but via Halifax) a duo of twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman (guitar and mandolin) backed by Maya Postepski (percussion — also of Katie Stelmanis' band). Ghost Bees' music is wide-eyed folk, two gorgeous voices intertwining in eerie mysterious-twin synchronicity. Throughout the performance, the sisters watched each other carefully as they unfurled stories about witches and tea-leaf readers, giving a sort of private world folie à deux vibe. In the wrong context, I think this could all come off as too precious, but live, in this room, it was quite lovely. For their last two songs, the musicians pushed away their microphones and unplugged their guitars, singing unamplified to the rapt crowd. A good start to the night.

During Ghost Bees' last song, someone from the venue opened the side door to let in some air, and once the set ended, much of the crowd staggered outside to cool off, a living diorama of hipster types in the alley watched over by the staff in a Spadina restaurant's back door with some wry curiosity. Soon it was back in and a fairly full house settled down to hear Timber Timbre.¹ The band began with a rising ambient wall sounding like bird calls before guitarist/vocalist Taylor Kirk began to weave tales of haunted dark places. The band — lap steel, saxophone, violin — was well-constructed to add colour and texture more than rhythm. The songs were like a gothic mansion, all stately and roomy enough to explore around in. And possibly occupied by ghosts. A sharp set was capped by "Trouble Comes Knockin'", the excellent final selection, which felt like it was built from a pile of bones dug up at that crossroads where Robert Johnson did some business. Not recommended for use while operating heavy equipment or while trying to inspire the hopes of a young generation, but surely worth hearing.

A recording from this set can be found here.

And then, after another cooling break in the alley, a fair amount of turnover in the crowd — the numbers were reduced a bit, and now it looked like several of the cohort from the previous night's Katie Stelmanis had come along. Meanwhile, the harp and organ were being pulled into place for Baby Dee. I'm staggered in attempting to reduce this force of nature to mere descriptions. Imagine circus-ground organ and a quivering croon but also soft, melodious fingers on harp strings — two sets of tunes that were a little far apart, yet totally synthesized somehow in a way that made sense. I tended to enjoy the organ songs more — they put me in mind of British Music Hall tunes, like a bawdy George Formby, and were filled with viciously witty lines.² The harp songs were less immediate, though lovely in their own way — and it's a relatively unusual experience to see a harp in action, especially in the hands of a singer. This was a totally singular experience and a great set. Overall, a very good night, making me feel good for having taken the plunge.

A recording from this set can be found here.

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¹ Pronounced timber TAMber.

² Most amusing moment of the evening: one of those cooks from across the alley stepped into the room to see what all the fuss was about and looked around slightly suspiciously, like he thought the crowd were all putting him on by sitting around and listening to Baby Dee. He departed and, a few minutes later, brought a co-worker in with him, as if to prove his point about how crazy we were.