Gig: Four Corners II

Four Corners II (feat. Lullabye Arkestra / Quest for Fire / Sun Ra Ra Ra / Rituals)

Steelworkers Hall. Friday, January 14, 2011.

The initial Four Corners show was such a success that it seemed inevitable that there'd be sequel. In fact, the concept is so wonderful (and, ex post facto, so obvious) that it's a wonder that this hadn't happened sooner. Basically, instead of having one stage where four bands take turns playing their sets, these shows get rid of the stage and have four bands set up in each of the corners of the room, letting them take turns playing one or two songs. The outcome is a non-stop stream of music, with all of that deadtime for set breaks and changeovers suddenly eliminated as the bands power onwards.

There was also the chance to apply some lessons learned from the first incarnation — this time out in the Steelworkers Hall, there was one more section of the multipurpose room open, creating a slightly bigger space. And besides colour-coded spotlights, each corner was also decorated with a matching light sculpture. And just as importantly, the slow-pouring draft keg was replaced by bottles of beer this time, keeping the queue moving faster.

The advantage of the January version was the the room was less stiflingly hot — at least at first — but it also made hanging out in the patio area less enticing. Speaking to the sense of community these shows foster, I noted members of all four bands from the first Four Corners in attendance — including, of course, the guys from Ancestors, who once again set things up.

While the room filled, the DJ was spinning a variety of dancefloor-friendly stuff (from reggae to ELO) that'd be unlike anything forthcoming from the night's bands. In fact, the overall net vibe of these four bands would be "less punk, more metal" than the previous show. There's still a fair amount of musical terrain covered by the four bands, but definitely a shared love of volume — a fact I regretted as I realized that for the first time in ages I'd forgotten my earplugs.

The room was pretty full by the time things got started, with Rituals, in the red corner, leading off. Of the four, this was the only band I had no familiarity with¹, but they were speaking my language with a sort of gloomy, reverb-laden post-punk sound. I liked the ingredients, but at first I was somewhat unsure if I liked how they mixed them. There were shades of, say, Crystal Stilts, but Rituals brought something darker and harder-edged to it — like angry stoners on acid out to recreate half-remembered metal jams.

Listen to one of Rituals' songs from this show here.

Rituals played two songs, then over to the green corner, where Sun Ra Ra Ra sounded ragged right off the bat — like they'd been standing out in a parking lot screaming all night just to be ready for this. Raging garage punk sizzling in all directions, this is a band that takes "Psychotic Reaction" to heart as much as a manifesto as a sonic template — inspirational lyric: "you really can't control what's on the other side of your mind."

Check out of of Sun Ra Ra Ra's songs from this show here.

Quest for Fire were a literal change of pace, with their first song coming out at about a third of the speed of Sun Ra Ra Ra's frenzied spasms. The band was beefed up for the night with extra guitar from Holy Mount's Daniel Losic, and they were deliciously sludgy in a bliss/drone sort of way — "it's a very blue scene right now," quipped the guy standing behind me, correctly noting that their colour fit their vibe just fine. The only other time I'd seen the band, quite early on in their run, hadn't done a thing for me — but this was going down just right.

Listen to one of Quest for Fire's songs from this show here.

Unsurprisingly, Quest For Fire played one song in about the same time the other bands had played two, and then the action moved across the room to Lullabye Arkestra. For their own regular sets, the husband-and-wife duo of Kat Taylor and Justin Small have developed a theatrical build, with smoke machines and rising keyboard drones. But here, it was right into it, and as their musical fury burst out in frenzied bass and pummelled drums, the guy in front of me set to some honest-to-goodness headbanging. That's the sort of intensity that Lullabye Arkestra can bring, and when they're raging full-force, they're something to behold.

Listen to one of Lullabye Arkestra's songs from this show here.

And then it was back to Rituals as the second lap began. It's worth noting once again how effortlessly everything flowed, with no sound problems and bands striking it up as the last notes from the band before them were still fading. Quest For Fire hit their faster gear, which is still a much slower chug than anyone else on hand and Lullabye Arkestra broke out a pair of new songs — one of which, with Taylor's vox and a chorus of "set it on fire!" was pretty, um, inflammable.

By the third time around, the bands were really hitting their stride, especially Rituals, who, all at once "clicked" with me. The crowd that had been surging from corner to corner as bands switched off were starting to list now, some people fading back to grab a beer or marshal their strength while Sun Ra Ra Ra were playing like Thirteenth Floor Elevators on meth. Meanwhile, as Quest For Fire played, I was half-drunkenly convinced for a minute they were pulling out an Alice in Chains cover, or something vaguely familiar that I couldn't pin down. It was only after the fact that I realized it was, in fact, Pink Floyd's "Fearless" — a non-classic that went down well with some ragged extra heaviousity.

At the start of the fourth and final lap around the room, it's called out that the bar is closing in a half-hour. By now, the floor was slick with spilled beer, and the room had indeed heated up, the windows now fogged over. As Rituals completed their last pair of songs, there were lots of people staggering around with two or three beers. Sun Ra Ra Ra launched into a bad-vibe version of Spacemen 3's "Rollercoaster" that seemed to be more to call for damaged schizophrenia than liberating mind expansion.

That would give a peek ahead to the grand finale, when all the bands combined for a four-cornered version of "Losing Touch With My Mind", another Spacemen 3 cover, with all four bands simultaneously raising as much cacophony as they could muster while trying to stay in sync. Quest For Fire were the loudest, and hence the best to use as a guide. But once they all got going, it was like a sonic apocalypse — or at least some kind of Dionysian mindmelt, and the room broke out into clumps of people dancing, with groups of friends wandering around high-fiving each other, and people making out along the scarce available wall space. The "song" lasted about six minutes, the bands shifting in and out from each other, and then ended as each of them fell into a long squall of feedback for another couple minutes.

Listen to the intense madness of the finale here.

Quite exhausting, but also a helluva ride. Slightly more than an hour-and-a-half, all told. After that, the outside cold felt rather bracing, although the conditions were less conducive to people simply collapsing outside on the lawn to recover.²

Once again, if you noticed that the pictures here are way better-looking than they normally are in these parts, that's because I've borrowed a few shots with the kind permission of Ivy Leah. Ivy captures the passion of bands because she's passionate about them as well — and can be found right up in the thick of it at many of the city's finer no-bullshit rock'n'roll shows. Check out her stuff here.

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¹ With the crowd rushing from corner to corner while I held my spot at the centre of the room, I didn't realize during the set that it was the multitasking Leon Taheny (a member of Germans, and seen on stage recently with Bruce Peninsula — as well as a producer of many fine records) behind the drumkit.

² And just to catch up with the bands involved, it should be noted that Rituals have a gig at Parts & Labour on Saturday, July 23, 2011, and Quest For Fire is playing at The Silver Dollar this Friday (July 15, 2011). And, most excitingly, Four Corners III (featuring Dentata, Tropics, Boars and The Soupcans) goes down at the Steelworkers Hall on Friday July 22, 2011.

Gig: FOUR CORNERS

FOUR CORNERS (feat. Anagram / No No Zero / Teenanger / Ancestors)

Steelworkers Hall. Friday, July 23, 2010.

Some ideas make so much sense, you wonder why they haven't already happened. What if instead of four bands playing one full set after another, the bands took turns each playing a song or two. Setup would be an issue — a stage wouldn't work for the turnovers. But what if you had all four bands set up at once in four corners of a room? Aha.

And so it was, down at the temple of labour on Cecil Street. A union hall isn't too different from a legion in its setup — plaques and trophies adorn the walls, giving a sense or organizational regimentation. Just substitute a different set of kitschy-cool photos and posters reflecting past glories and you're most of the way there. Both are places for organizing of different sorts, including the kind of organizing that means you need to have a bar on site. Here, we had a keg being tapped, selling gassy, foamy cheap beer.

This would, in fact, be the money-maker for the night as this was, quite incredibly, a free show. There was also a barbeque in action outside, dispensing hamburgers. A pretty sweet setup, and a nice little space outside to hang out in as the crowd gathered.

As the eleven o'clock starting time rolled around, I roused myself and headed into the multipurpose room set up for the gig. Not a big space, maybe ten yards by fifteen, and lots of gear occupying the fringes. The band setups were as blue-collar as the surroundings, guit/bass/drums all around and no fancy frills.¹ There was still a big lineup at the beer station for the slow-pumping keg, so it was a little while longer before bandmembers started filtering in, turning on amps and getting ready to go. If one hadn't figured it out already, it could now be observed that the people putting on guitars and so forth were the same ones who had been doing everything else out front — straight-up DIY and no division from the masses here, as you could buy a drink ticket and get your beer poured by the same guys who'd soon be cranking out the tunes.

By about 11:30 all the bandmembers have filtered into their corners, and the room is feeling pretty full and warming up already from body heat. I grabbed myself a spot more or less in the dead centre of the room, trying to find the sweet spot in a pretty unusual audio setup, PA's set up on all sides. Teenanger, bathed in red light in the room's south-east corner are up first, and the crowd sort of gravitates towards them as vocalist Riley Wild greets them with, "welcome to The Last Waltz!" before the band tore into it. The sound in the room was loud and snarl-y — just right for the music, in other words — though there was some extra feedback shrieks to start with. Playing straight-up garage-y rock'n'roll with scuzzy undertones, Teenanger blasted out a quick pair of songs, and then the lights went down in their corner.

Listen to a Teenanger song from this show here.

Before their last echoing guitar squeal died out, the yellow spotlights in the opposite corner came up and Ancestors flexed their heads playing faster, leaner, hardcore-informed songs. Their two tunes lasted only about three minutes flat, and then the baton was passed to No No Zero in the green corner. Their music had a gothabilly sort of humminahummina swagger, but with a punkrock thrust.² Shades of The Cramps, or, just perhaps, Deja Voodoo in their vaguely malicious bursts.

Listen to a couple of Ancestors' songs from this set here.

And then, speaking of malicious bursts, Anagram — with whom I was the most familiar of all these bands — doing "Evil" and the crowd-pleasing Cleavers cover "Fish". Though no less roiling than the other bands, Anagram's music was the least inclined to quick blasts of aggression — well-known for settling in on a groove in live performance, they could hold a chord and churn away for a stretch longer than some of the entire songs of the bands around them.

And then back around for the second lap. Teenanger's sound was a bit cleaner this time, the stray feedback howls now tamed. Ancestors sounded angrier, like they were just now getting properly worked up, and No No Zero worked in some more back-and-forth vocals from Sian Llewelyn.

Listen to a couple No No Zero songs from this show here.

Once things were really going, it was about a million degrees in the room — the cement walls were clammy and dripping with precipitation. The floor was slick with spilled beer, sloshed around as the crowd surged from corner to corner. Maybe these bands weren't predisposed to banter anyways, but the format here cut down on that even more. With one band starting up right on the heels of the last one finishing, it cut out that between-song time when the band might chat with the crowd.

There were four cycles through the bands, and like a bottle being passed around, things got more staggery-wayward as things went on. And a helluva lot of songs, even if they were mostly quick. By the time Anagram's last turn trough came around with "What a Mess", I was feeling pretty punchy — and I'd mostly just been holding down my spot in the centre of the room. Some of the people weaving around me were looking downright exhausted.

Listen to an Anagram song from this show here.

And thus the show lurched to the grand finale, with all four corners joining together for a bashed-out rendition of The Stooges' "Ann". The drummers were just out-of-sync enough across the room to lend it a queasy feeling. It was exhaustedly ragged and desperate, which is probably the most befitting way to end. After the noisy crescendo of that, people started staggering out of the room as the DJ started back up, the PA telling us that after laughter comes tears. Outside in the nightcool air, people were sprawling out, collapsing like they'd just finished a 10K run.

Listen to the monumental grand finale here.

It's a brilliant show concept — live without dead time, and all of that — though its sheer unusualness probably added to the excitement of it. I imagine it also took some extra technical work (and extra gear) to pull off four band setups.³ But it worked out pretty well. Kudos to the bands for putting on a show like this for free — it felt less like a regular gig and more like an event to be remembered.

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¹ There's probably an inneresting investigation to be made by someone cleverer than me into why, in the context of this show, guit/bass/drums are instinctively blue collar while, say, laptops and woodwind sections would be effete and/or elitist.

² In fact, thrusting would be an apt description for No No Zero's lyrical direction as well, as their album Rough Stuff is thoroughly concerned with all manners of below-the-belt activities.

³ I didn't make a note of who was doing sound at this show, but kudos are deserved there as well — given the unorthodox setup, it was exceptional work.