Artist: Richard Laviolette & The Oil Spills
Song: Funeral Song
Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Out of This Spark 4th Anniversary Concert), January 7, 2011.
Richard Laviolette & The Oil Spills - Funeral SongMy notes for this set can be found here.
Artist: Evening Hymns
Song: Arrows
Recorded at Out of This Spark 4th Anniversary Concert, The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 7, 2011.
Evening Hymns - ArrowsReview to follow My notes for this set can now be found here. — best wishes to Evening Hymns as they disembark to record their second album. The new material played at this show was spare and affecting.
Artist: Ra Ra Riot
Song: Too Dramatic
Recorded at The Mod Club, August 30, 2010.
Ra Ra Riot - Too DramaticMy notes for this set can be found here.
Ra Ra Riot
The Mod Club. Monday, August 30, 2010.
Well, I have to say that this was one that I was coming into as more of a casual enthusiast than a fan. I'd liked The Rhumb Line, the debut from Syracuse, NY-based six-piece Ra Ra Riot some when it came out, but it had really been more than a year since the band had crossed my mind in any capacity. Now hooked up with Arts & Crafts to handle the Canadian release of their second album, The Orchard, I was here to get a feel for how things have progressed.
This was a free show open to "contest winners", though in this case, I think that was more "people who sent an email before the guestlist reached capacity". A savvy bit of word-of-mouth marketing, attracting the band's most ardent fans as well as an unusually large chunk of the local music blogger infrastructure.
One oughtn't complain too much at a free show, but with no opener, the late start after the advertised time was a bit of a drag. But it was to a pretty enthusiastic full house that the band emerged to lead off with "St. Peter's Day Festival", from The Rhumb Line. As I said, I hadn't thought about the band at all for quite awhile, so my utterly unoriginal first thought was (pace the hipster dinosaurs), "man, they do sound like Vampire Weekend." And showing how little the first album had stuck with me, I didn't recall a lot of the older stuff, being unsure at the time just how much the of new album we were getting. The answer, for a CD-release gig, was less than one would have thought, and the band, despite being in front of as supportive a crowd as they'd be likely to find, seemed reluctant to pull themselves away from the older material. In fact, it wouldn't be until a half-hour in that the band ventured to play back-to-back songs from the new album.
There also wasn't a radical re-think in the band's musical approach — this isn't a raw rock'n'roll attack. "Mannered" would be more like it. Everything the band does keeps vocalist Wes Miles at the centre. His clear voice was high in the mix, and there wasn't much in the way of backing vocals — only cellist Alexandra Lawn had a mic, and she was kept fairly low. Miles' vox were buoyed up by a lush bed of sound that included two string players on stage. It was also a controlled sound — drummer Gabriel Duquette playing to a click track for most of the show.
A lot of the new stuff had a similar-but-less-inspired vibe, such as "Foolish" with some 80's-styled keybs. But the music was unfailingly pleasant, and the band did manage to generate some nice momentum, with "Boy" ending on a quiet cello line that was a segue into "Each Year".
During the set, Miles was cheerful between songs but not too chatty, issuing a reeled-off list of thanks several times that sounded more like talking points than banter. Along with the music, that might be seen as evidence of a certain roteness from the band, though it could also just be down to the band getting used to playing these new songs and letting their own identities come out more strongly. But it's perhaps telling that the set-closing showstopper was still the first album hit "Dying Is Fine" — and the encore song was one from the old album too.
Say what you will about the band — I wasn't blown away or really moved to grab the new album — I do absolutely love Arts & Crafts' continuing commitment to integrating their music into the community with free album release shows and the like. A&C gets blowback in some quarters for being too big for their britches, but by and large they have an admirable track record with shows like this one.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Artist: Giant Hand
Song: unknown*
Recorded at The Imperial Pub's backroom, January 6, 2011.
Giant Hand - unknown"Don't look at me like that / I ain't sleepin' with the maggots yet!" —My notes for this set can be found here.
* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!
Artist: Procedure Club
Song: Feel Sorry for Me
Recorded at The Shop under Parts & Labour, August 28, 2010.
Procedure Club - Feel Sorry for MeMy notes for this set can be found here.
Artist: Little Girls
Song: Youth Tunes
Recorded at The Shop under Parts & Labour, August 28, 2010.
Little Girls - Youth TunesMy notes for this set can be found here.
Bishop Morocco (Procedure Club / Little Girls)
The Shop under Parts & Labour. Saturday, August 28, 2010.
"Due to the nature of lemon-flavoured rum," as my notes indicate, my memories of this night are a little fragmented. A delightful summer evening of backyard hanging out and barbeque had me sipping beverages since late afternoon, so I was pretty wobbly by the time I headed off to the gig. Which put me in a hyper-observant and obsessively documentary frame of mind. My notepad has page after page of observations from this night — a good chunk of them from before I even got to the gig, as I was apparently trying to tease out mystical signifiers on the Lansdowne bus ("this is the holy route into Parkdale") and considering the virtues of "fake mental text messages" (?!). Unsurprisingly, of course, even when my scribbles were legible, it was mostly drunken woo-hah.1
Though I was slow in getting down to Parts & Labour, I had the drunkard's serene egotistical belief that they wouldn't start without me, and as I stepped in I indeed had time to grab a drink — oops — as Little Girls finished setting up. It'd been awhile since I'd seen Josh McIntyre's combo — in fact, all the way back to their fourth show, just as the project was transforming from bedroom-based recording project to buzz band. As that bubble of hype was waxed and waned, there's been the full-length Concepts and a pretty regular slate of local shows. And, beyond the momentary flash of hype, some genuine forward movement.
Live, the quartet created a murky, underwater sort of vibe. After an opening instrumental, the remaining songs featured McIntyre's deeply buried vocals mired in layers of reverb, sometimes sounding like they might belong in a slower song entirely than the rest of the surrounding band. Generally speaking, the music was spiky two-guitar stuff. There were some points where the guitars got muddled like the vocals, but there was still room for the band to get catchy on songs like the jaunty "Youth Tunes". It all created a somewhat dissociating vibe ("this is happening," my notebook reads, as if I was trying to reassure myself) but there was a more consistent sound than I remember, and some moments where it all blurred together rather deliciously.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Slotted in the middle was the band that I had come down to see: Procedure Club, a two-piece out of New Haven, Connecticut with Adam Malec on guitar and Andrea Belair on keybs and vocals, with the drum machine sitting on a stool beside her. I'd rather enjoyed their Doomed Forever album2 on Slumberland — one of the best labels going right now. With their hazy bedroom pop offering flashes of Black Tambourine via the Jesus and Mary Chain, Procedure Club fit well on the Slumberland roster, and I definitely wanted to show my support on their first visit to these parts, even if I was vaguely worried about how the lo-fi duo were going to pull it off as a live unit.
As they got going, the potential frailties of their setup were evident, but more than overwhelmed by the pop sensibility behind it all. The songs were generally built up from a steady drum machine beat, rhythm guitar and fuzzy keyboards which sometimes sounded like there was a loose connection somewhere, with Belair's vocals tying it all together, even when they were the lowest thing in the mix.
It was a largely stripped-down sound — a bit too so much at times — though the economic virtues of not adding any extra hands to tour with are pretty clear. It did make it a little harder for the pair to break through to a non-rapt, semi-chatty room but I was taken with the uncluttered sound. Songs sometimes came off a bit more straightahead than on the album versions, as on "Feel Sorry for Me" with one less layer of haze to draw attention away from the popnugget underneath. That didn't always work as well — the ridiculously wonderful "Rather", slowed down from its album incarnation, didn't quite capture the magic.3
If there's a criticism to be made here it's that the songs are sometimes a little indistinguishable. But I really love the sound so that doesn't matter so much to me. And there is a bit of a limit to what two people and a drum machine can replicate live. But if you thought labelmates Pains of Being Pure at Heart were getting too commercial, this is a band worth checking out.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Having gotten what I came for, seeing the night's actual headliners was just gravy, although I was curious to see Bishop Morocco — mostly to see what kind of musical common ground had been negotiated between the band's two principles. A partnership between Jake Fairley (ex-Uncut, though also with some solo work to his name — most notably his big beat album Touch Not the Cat4) and Jim Sayce (ex-Deadly Snakes as well as co-founder of the late Tangiers), long-time friends whose music to date has not been particularly overlapping.
The upshot of their collaboration was something that initially sounded closer to what I would have expected from Fairley, inasmuch as there was a synth-y sensibility to the whole thing with beats a few steps closer to the dancefloor than the garage. Along those lines, the first song featured atmospheric synths over a metronome drum machine beat. The tempo picked up after that, but the material was still synth-heavy in a dark disco kind of mode — my overall first impression was that for them "Last Year's Disco Guitars" wasn't just a song title so much as a statement of purpose.
Starting as more of a studio project, the pair played everything themselves on the tracks that'd become their self-titled album, but live have grown into a four-piece. Even then, it wasn't until a half-dozen songs in that the drummer joined the fray, which added a bit more of a "rock" sound — though at a few places that was rock in the manner that, oh, New Order was rock. Sayce and Fairley traded off vocals from song to song, but there was a unified underlying vision.
Ultimately, the vibe was plastic permagrim, and it was okay to listen to, but nothing in the set really reached out and grabbed me. Mind you, I'm not sure if the muffled sound they were getting here helped. And, to be sure, I was sobering up by this point — my notes by this point are more focused on the vast number of pedals in the band's employ than in the deeper meaning of what they were doing — so that might have something to do with their music affecting me differently than the preceding bands.
They played an eleven song, forty-minute set which pretty much represented their entire output so far. I wasn't won over, but I wouldn't say I was turned off. If we manage to cross paths again, I'd give 'em another go.
1 Perhaps all-too-aptly, I made some breathless notes about being on the verge of aphasia, though in retrospect I'm really sure I meant synesthesia.
2 You can download two of the best songs from the album over at Slumberland's website.
3 I don't know whether to be sad or relieved that the band didn't attempt "Seventh Circle of Hell", another of my faves, which sounds like the work of someone attempting to write an ABBA song where their only point of reference was a slightly warped cassette copy of The 6ths' Wasps' Nests album.
4 I note that Fairley was a couple years ahead of the curve in the indie rock cat sweepstakes.
Artist: Bocce
Song: Bachelor
Recorded at The Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival), August 14, 2010.
Bocce - BachelorMy notes for this set can be found here.
Artist: RatTail
Song: I Simply
Recorded at The Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival), August 14, 2010.
RatTail - I SimplyMy notes for this set can be found here.
Bocce (RatTail)
The Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival). Saturday, August 14, 2010.
The last night of the SummerWorks concert series was not overrun with patrons. No doubt a lot of the potential draw was on the Island watching Arcade Fire, or just pulled away by other Saturday night options.
Like a couple other shows in the run, this wasn't an immediately intuitive doubleheader, so I was curious to see if there was going to be non-overlapping crowds eager for each of the bands. Or maybe no crowd at all. Even with the start time pushed back there were still only about twentyish — maybe — people on hand as RatTail began. A slightly different lineup for the band, now featuring Tim Fagan (ex-Germans) on bass, who was keeping a close eye on drummer Jesse Matthews. I'm guessing both from being less familiar with the material as much as a matter of style, his bottom-end work was a bit more restrained and lower in the mix than I've seen with the band in the past.
A few songs in, the Bocce crowd started to arrive. Though they looked like they were ready for a night of dancing, while RatTail was on they sat down and ignored the band more or less. The set became a sort of case study on the whole notion of the artist feeding off the crowd's energy — or the lack of it in this case. Sometimes, a band will get into it when there's not a lot of attention being paid to them, to try and spark some energy on the room, or just, like, kick against the indifference. Here, instead of amping it up, guitarist/vocalist Jasmyn Burke closed in a bit — during "In Bloom", she sang with her eyes closed, as if she were drawing out a hazy memory of something.
With all of that, the overall vibe of the set was more contained than I've seen from the band in the past. Some of that might just be in the nature of the band's newer material, like "Green Guitar" (complete with harmonica) and the introspective "I Simply". As with the other times I've seen RatTail, I enjoyed it, but this time 'round the band felt a bit too tentative.
Listen to a track from this set here.
A lot of the time there's diminishing returns involved if you see a band more than once in a short period of time, so I was a little worried that I might not be viewing Bocce with fresh eyes, having caught them just a week before at the ALL CAPS Island show. As their set started, the room was fuller than it had been for RatTail, but it was still pretty sparse. Most of the crowd were right up on the floor, though there were a few people sitting a couple rows back in the seats, like they were expecting a play rather than a dance party.
Ben Ong, whose keyboard was set up below the stage, started things off by playing drumsticks on the dancefloor, quickly shattering one. That would be a sign of things to come. When I last saw them, I noted how they're very "live" for an electronic band. Here, there was a bit of gear failure, one of the Casios sorta falling over and getting unplugged, forcing some on-the-fly improvisation to keep things going. After that, the keyboard was on the fritz, forcing the band to decide what they could play that wasn't reliant on it. But none of that managed to block the band's momentum.
Once again demonstrating that no stage can contain him, singer Tony Salomone jogged off to grab a beer during one song's introduction and otherwise kept mobile. There were plenty of live-contingent moments throughout — someone would accidentally step on a tambourine, pick it up and bash it for a bit and then kick it away. Being forced to say, "We're making this up as we go along" might be an admission for some bands that they were over their heads, but here it felt like the band was plunged right into their element. Here's an example of a band that rolled with a small crowd and equipment problems and took it up a notch or several, pulling out a totally fun set.
Is it just random, the things we come to like? Who'd've thunk it that I'd come to enjoy Bocce this much? As things wrapped up, I grabbed a copy of their Disambigulation album1. In the end, it was a fascinating show on several levels, and a worthy close to the SummerWorks concert series, even if it didn't get the draw it deserved.2
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Although I suggest you should also head out to a show and grab a copy from the band, you can also download it here for free.
2 And once again, we should single out programmer Kevin Parnell, who put together a fine set of shows. We should also note that SummerWorks 2011 is slated to run August 5-15, so make a preliminary note in your calendar now.
Sunday Playlist #1: These are a few of my favourite things
[Note: Having passed five hundred recordings posted on this blog a little while back, I've been thinking about ways to exploit this nifty little archive I'm building up. I thought maybe a little grouping might be nice on a lazy Sunday — just press play on the first one and you have some background music while you work on that crossword puzzle or whatnot. Is this something you'd actually find useful? If you dig this concept, "like" it or leave a comment and encourage me to do more, or I might just let the idea die a quiet death.]
For this inaugural list I thought I'd throw together some of the ones that I've gone back and listened to the most.
Gentleman Reg - New Song (a.k.a. "It's True")
You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Julie Doiron
The Cobourg 2010-01-09 (Saturday)
The Dutchess and the Duke (Medication / Rat Tail)
Sneaky Dee's 2010-01-12 (Tuesday)
catl (Anagram / John Borra & Sam Ferarra)
The Silver Dollar 2010-01-15 (Friday)
Daps All-Ages Concert Vol. IV (feat. Ruzan Orkestar, Sean Nicholas Savage, The Miles, Santa Guerrilla, Casey Mecija)
Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture 2010-01-16 (Saturday)
The Wilderness of Manitoba (Ghost Bees / Casey Mecija)
The Garrison 2010-01-21 (Thursday)
Out of This Spark 3rd Anniversary Party (feat. The D’Urbervilles, Forest City Lovers, Evening Hymns)
The Garrison 2010-01-22 (Saturday)
The Necks
The Music Gallery 2010-01-23 (Saturday)
Otello — working rehearsal
F--- S------ Centre 2010-01-26 (Tuesday)
Everything All The Time (Lioness / Rich Aucoin)
The Horseshoe 2010-01-30 (Saturday)
"Heavy Head Residency", Week 1 (Gentleman Reg / Hooded Fang / Kite Hill)
Drake Underground 2010-02-03 (Wednesday)
Great Lake Swimmers
Sonic Boom Records 2010-02-05 (Friday)
Masaisai
Gladstone Hotel (Melody Bar) 2010-02-05 (Friday)
"Celebrating Africa’s First World Cup" (feat. Afrafranto, Njacko Backo and the Toumkak Drummers, Jacques Yams, CanAfric Theatre)
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom 2010-02-05 (Friday)
Great Lake Swimmers (Sharon Van Etten)
Trinity-St. Paul's Church 2010-02-06 (Saturday)
Those Darlins (Hacienda)
The Horseshoe Tavern 2010-02-09 (Tuesday)
Wavelength 500 – Night 1 (feat. Bruce Peninsula / Evening Hymns / Pony da Look / Deep Dark United / Canaille)
The Music Gallery 2010-02-10 (Wednesday)
Wavelength 500 – Night 2 (feat. Holy Fuck, The Russian Futurists, Diamond Rings, FemBots, Professor Fingers)
Steam Whistle Brewery 2010-02-11 (Thursday)
Wavelength 500 – Night 3 (feat. From Fiction, The Bicycles, Laura Barrett, Magic Cheezies, Young Mother)
Sneaky Dee's 2010-02-12 (Friday)
Wavelength 500 – Night 4 (feat. Constantines, Rockets Red Glare, Donné Roberts, Picastro, Danger Bay)
SPK Polish Combatants Hall 2010-02-13 (Saturday)
Wavelength 500 – Night 5 (feat. Kids on TV, The Barcelona Pavilion, Mean Red Spiders, Neck, Boars plus Thomas, Owen Pallett and The Hidden Cameras)
The Garrison 2010-02-14 (Sunday)
"Heavy Head Residency", Week 3 (Gentleman Reg / Sheezer / Dance Yourself to Death)
Drake Underground 2010-02-17 (Wednesday)
Whippoorwill (Luxury Pond / Canadian Wildlife)
The Garrison 2010-02-23 (Tuesday)
African Canadians for Haiti (feat. African Guitar Summit, Adam Solomon & Tikisa, Jacques Yams, Fojeba, Afrafranto, William Nkemagni, Masaisai)
Lula Lounge 2010-02-25 (Thursday)
Sun Ra Ra Ra (Magic Cheezies / Queen Licorice / Holy Mount / Ghost Trees)
The Silver Dollar Room 2010-02-27 (Saturday)
The Element Choir (William Parker / Lewis, Downing & Martin)
Christ Church Deer Park 2010-03-02 (Tuesday)
Tinariwen
Sonic Boom Records 2010-03-03 (Wednesday)
Madagascar Slim
Gladstone Hotel (Melody Bar) 2010-03-05 (Friday)
Language-Arts (The Pinecones / Allie Hughes)
The Garrison 2010-03-05 (Friday)
Canadian Music Week 2010:
Wednesday (2010-03-10)
Thursday (2010-03-11)
Friday (2010-03-12)
Saturday (2010-03-13)
The Balconies / Ghostkeeper
Criminal Records 2010-03-12 (Friday)
Dan Mangan
Criminal Records 2010-03-13 (Saturday)
Woods + Real Estate (Easyboy)
Horseshoe 2010-03-14 (Sunday)
Mariinsky Orchestra
Roy Thompson Hall 2010-03-16 (Tuesday)
The Clientele (Field Music)
The Horseshoe 2010-03-19 (Friday)
The Weakerthans
Sonic Boom 2010-03-24 (Wednesday)
The Wave Pictures (Maylee Todd & Pegwee Power / White Suede)
The Drake Underground 2010-03-18 (Thursday)
Shearwater (Wye Oak / Hospital Ships)
Lee's Palace 2010-04-01 (Thursday)
Serena-Maneesh (Depreciation Guild)
The Drake Underground 2010-04-02 (Friday)
Japandroids (Love is All / The Two Koreas)
The Horseshoe 2010-04-03 (Saturday)
Baaba Maal
Koerner Hall 2010-04-06 (Tuesday)
Final Fantasy Owen Pallett (Snowblink)
Queen Elizabeth Theatre 2010-04-08 (Thursday)
Soft Copy (Super Repeater / Hybrid Moments)
Teranga 2010-04-09 (Friday)
DAPS ALL-AGES V (feat. Grand Analog, $100, Maylee + Pegwee Power, Doldrums)
Kapisanan Philippine Centre 2010-04-10 (matinee) (Saturday)
Flowers Of Hell (The Hoa Hoas / Ostrich Tuning)
The Garrison 2010-04-10 (Saturday)
Baby Dee (Josephine Foster)
The Music Gallery 2010-04-13 (Tuesday)
Daniel, Fred & Julie (Baby Eagle / Jerry Leger)
The Horseshoe 2010-04-15 (Thursday)
Valery Gore
Sonic Boom Records 2010-04-17 (Saturday)
Quasi (Let's Wrestle)
The Horseshoe 2010-04-18 (Sunday)
Heavy Trash
Sonic Boom Records 2010-04-24 (Saturday)
Daniel, Fred and Julie
Soundscapes 2010-04-26 (Monday)
Tomboyfriend
The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2010-05-04 (Wednesday)
Mantler (Sheesham and Lotus)
The Tranzac 2010-05-06 (Thursday)
Broken Social Scene
Soundscapes / Sonic Boom Records 2010-05-09 (Sunday)
The Blue Fog Revue (Feat. Rick White, Eiyn Sof, Wyrd Visions, Andre Ethier, Nordic Nomadic, Castlemusic, $100)
Lee's Palace 2010-05-14 (Saturday)
Svarte Greiner (The Sight Below / Wyrd Visions vs. Nif-D / Gardenia and Nick Storring)
Teranga 2010-05-16 (Sunday)
Shad
Sonic Boom Records 2010-05-24 (Monday)
The Rent
Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2010-05-25 (Tuesday)
The Weakerthans (Jetset Motel)
The Horseshoe 2010-05-25 (Tuesday)
The Hoa Hoa's (The City Streets, Epigram)
The Horseshoe Tavern (Pitter Patter Music Festival) 2010-05-27 (Thursday)
Fucked Up ($100)
Toronto Reference Library 2010-05-28 (Friday)
Terror Lake (The Famines, Pkew Pkew Pkew)
The Horseshoe Tavern (Pitter Patter Music Festival) 2010-05-28 (Friday)
P.S. Kensington (feat. Rat Tail and Tripping Hazard @ Wavelength Stage; Speaking Tongues, Planet Creature and The Diableros @ Pitter Patter Stage; Mr. Something Something)
Kensington Market 2010-05-30 (Sunday)
Lisa Bozikovic (Gabe Levine / The Silt)
Music Gallery 2010-06-03 (Thursday)
Ethio Stars Band
Gladstone Hotel (Melody Bar) 2010-06-04 (Friday)
Golden Triangle (White Wires / Useless Eaters / Zebrassieres)
The Shop @ Parts & Labour 2010-06-05 (Saturday)
Pocahaunted (Doldrums / The Deeep / Wet Nurse)
Music Gallery Courtyard 2010-06-10 (Thursday)
Robyn Hitchcock (Sunbear)
Drake Underground 2010-06-11 (Friday)
Deloro (Tropics)
The Shop @ Parts & Labour 2010-06-11 (Friday)
Rock The Casbah (feat Rachid Taha / Karim Saada / Maryem Tollar Ensemble) & An African Prom (feat. Tony Allen, Béla Fleck and Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba)
Luminato–Queen's Park 2010-06-12 (Saturday)
Tune-Yards (Katie Stelmanis / Bonjay)
The Horseshoe 2010-06-13 (Sunday)
NXNE 2010
2010-06-17 Thursday (Part 1|Part 2)
2010-06-18 Friday (Part 1|Part 2)
2010-06-19 Saturday (Part 1|Part 2)
Fanshaw
Criminal Records 2010-06-18 (Friday)
Disappears (Lovers Love Haters)
Sneaky Dee's 2010-06-22 (Tuesday)
Jim Guthrie (Minotaurs / Tusks / Steven McKay)
The Horseshoe 2010-06-25 (Friday)
Art Metronome Party (feat. Times Neue Roman / Kids on TV)
Parts & Labour 2010-06-30 (Wednesday)
The Sadies (Sarah Slean)
Harbourfront Centre 2010-07-01 (Thursday)
Pride Toronto 2010
Saturday 2010-07-03 (feat. Woodhands / Cyndi Lauper)
Sunday 2010-07-04 (feat. FITNESS / Señor Kasio / Heavy Filth / People You Know / Diamond Rings)
Against Life II (feat. Anagram / Young Mother / Toddler Body / Bill Bill)
under a bridge 2010-07-03 (Saturday)
Afrofest 2010 (Queen's Park)
Saturday 2010-07-10 (feat. Mohamed Diaby & Manding Foli Kan Don / Waleed "Kush" Abdulhamid / Doody Le Tigre / Dramane Kone / JP Buse)
Sunday 2010-07-11 (feat. Kae Sun / Nati Haile / Occidental Brothers Dance Band International with Samba Mapangala / Muna Mingole / Chiwoniso)
Optical Sounds' 2-Year Birthday Party (feat. Your 33 Black Angels / The Hoa Hoa's / Postcards)
The House of Everlasting Super Joy 2010-07-10 (Saturday)
Titus Andronicus (Hallelujah The Hills / YellowFever)
The Horseshoe 2010-07-14 (Wednesday)
The Hold Steady
The Phoenix 2010-07-16 (Friday)
Poor Pilgrim Island Show 4: The Legend of Snake Island
Toronto Island 2010-07-18 (Sunday)
Part I (feat. Picastro, Eucalyptus, Not the Wind Not The Flag, Snowblink)
Part II (feat. Tasseomancy, THOMAS, Daniel Romano, Alex Lukashevsky Trio, Drumheller)
Kurt Vile (Real Estate / Castlemusic)
The Great Hall 2010-07-20 (Tuesday)
Fool's Gold (The Tony Castles / Young Empires)
El Mocambo 2010-07-21 (Wednesday)
FOUR CORNERS (feat. Anagram / No No Zero / Teenanger / Ancestors)
Steelworkers Hall 2010-07-23 (Friday)
Bana Y'Afrique Festival
Metro Hall Square 2010-07-25 (Sunday)
Library Voices
Harbourfront Centre 2010-07-25 (Sunday)
Hercules & Love Affair (Trust)
The Mod Club 2010-07-26 (Monday)
Cultura Festival (feat. Maylee Todd / Times Neue Roman)
Mel Lastman Square 2010-07-30 (Friday)
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (catl)
The Horseshoe 2010-07-31 (Saturday)
Powerhouse Sound
The Drake Underground 2010-08-05 (Thursday)
The Hidden Cameras
Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival) 2010-08-06 (Friday)
The ALL CAPS! Island Show
Artscape Gibraltar Point
2010-08-07 (Saturday) (feat. The Soupcans / Huelepega Sound System/ Krista L.L. Muir / Rick White / Dog Day / Bocce)
2010-08-08 (Sunday) (feat. Mathemagic / The Magical Bunch / Buke and Gass / Romo Roto / Pants and Tie / catl)
Diamond Rings (PS I Love You)
Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival) 2010-08-11 (Wednesday)
Forest City Lovers (Gentleman Reg / Carmen Elle)
The Great Hall 2010-08-12 (Thursday)
Picastro
Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival) 2010-08-13 (Friday)
METZ (Anagram / Induced Labour)
The Shop @ Parts and Labour 2010-08-13 (Friday)
Bocce (Rat Tail)
Lower Ossington Theatre (SummerWorks Festival) 2010-08-14 (Saturday)
Bishop Morocco (Procedure Club / Little Girls)
The Shop @ Parts and Labour 2010-08-28 (Saturday)
Ra Ra Riot
The Mod Club 2010-08-30 (Monday)
Chicago Underground Duo
The Music Gallery 2010-09-10 (Friday)
Against Life III (feat. Fresh Flesh / Tonka & Puma / Doldrums)
"Dream in High Park" Stage, 2010-09-10 (Friday)
Land of Talk (Suuns)
Lee's Palace 2010-09-16 (Thursday)
Planet Creature (The Two Koreas / Terror Lake / Persian Rugs)
The Piston 2010-09-17 (Friday)
Golden Dogs
Soundscapes 2010-09-23 (Thursday)
Not The Wind, Not The Flag (Vagina Bison / The Deeep / Jonathan Adjemian)
Korova Milkbar 2010-09-23 (Thursday)
Wavelength 507 (feat. Minotaurs / Fond of Tigers / Eucalyptus / Secretary City)
The Garrison 2010-09-24 (Friday)
Toronto New Music Marathon
Yonge-Dundas Square 2010-09-25 (Saturday)
Best Coast (Male Bonding)
Lee's Palace 2010-09-25 (Saturday)
Gabe Levine (Mantler)
The Music Gallery 2010-10-01 (Friday)
The Hoa Hoa's (Bad Cop / Sandman Viper Command)
The Silver Dollar 2010-10-01 (Friday)
Nuit Blanche (Part I / Part II)
various locations 2010-10-02 (Saturday)
Bonjay (New Look)
The Garrison 2010-10-07 (Thursday)
Diamond Rings
Parkdale Public Library 2010-10-08 (Friday)
Dan Deacon (Lightning Bolt / John Milner You're So Boss)
The Great Hall 2010-10-12 (Tuesday)
MFA Party (feat. Sheila Heti / Margaux Williamson / Tomboyfriend)
Stone's Place 2010-10-14 (Thursday)
The Drums
Soundscapes 2010-10-16 (Saturday)
Betty Burke (Phonemes)
Imperial Pub Backroom 2010-10-21 (Thursday)
Anagram (Deloro / Bruised Knees)
The Shop under Parts & Labour 2010-10-22 (Friday)
Mission of Burma (METZ / Hybrid Moments)
The Garrison 2010-10-24 (Sunday)
PS I Love You
Soundscapes 2010-10-26 (Tuesday)
Diamond Rings (PS I Love You / Rat Tail)
The Garrison 2010-10-26 (Tuesday)
Bruce Peninsula (Siskiyou / Minotaurs)
The Horseshoe 2010-10-28 (Thursday)
Sheezer (Sister)
The Garrison 2010-10-29 (Friday)
Forest City Lovers (Hooded Fang / Golden Ghost / Allie Hughes)
The Horseshoe 2010-11-05 (Friday)
The Wooden Sky (Yukon Blonde / These United States)
Lee's Palace 2010-11-06 (Saturday)
Clinic (The Fresh & Onlys)
Lee's Palace 2010-11-10 (Wednesday)
Hooded Fang
Sonic Boom 2010-11-13 (Saturday)
Flowers Of Hell (The Hoa Hoa's / Pete Carmicheal)
St. Stephen-In-The-Fields Church 2010-11-13 (Saturday)
No Age (Lucky Dragon / John Milner You're So Boss / Henri Fabergé and his Naval Academy Marching Band)
The Great Hall 2010-11-18 (Thursday)
Woodhands (Bonjay)
Lee's Palace 2010-11-19 (Friday)
Ohbijou (Lisa Bozikovic)
Tranzac 2010-11-20 (Saturday)
Redwirearchangel
Tranzac 2010-11-20 (Saturday)
Steven McKay / Dr. Ew
Soundscapes 2010-11-23 (Tuesday)
Sean Nicholas Savage (Wax Mannequin / Hut / Ah La Lettre)
Korova Milkbar 2010-11-24 (Wednesday)
The Wilderness of Manitoba (Leif Vollebekk / Olenka & The Autumn Lovers)
The Horseshoe 2010-11-25 (Thursday)
Revolvers
Sonic Boom Records 2010-11-26 (Friday)
Wavelength 511 (Mean Red Spiders / Ben Gunning / Vanessa's Entire Heart / Willow Rutherford)
The Garrison 2010-12-02 (Thursday)
(weewerk) 8th Anniversary Showcase (feat. United Steel Workers of Montreal / Elliott Brood / Great Lake Swimmers / Canteen Knockout / The Village Meat)
Silver Dollar 2010-12-03 (Friday)
The Perfect Transcription (Live Spacemen 3 & Spiritualized tribute)
Part I / Part II
The Piston 2010-12-04 (Saturday)
Jason Collett's Basement Revue (feat. Jason Collett / David O’Meara (poetry) / Jessy Bell Smith / Pasha Malla (story) / Julie Fader / Ken Babstock (poetry) / Jim Bryson / Peter Elkas)
The Dakota Tavern 2010-12-07 (Tuesday)
Hooded Fang (Santa Guerrilla / Doldrums)
Drake Underground 2010-12-09 (Thursday)
Action Makes
Sonic Boom Records / The Silver Dollar 2010-12-10 (Friday)
$100 (trio) (Kathleen Phillips / The Pining)
The Tranzac 2010-12-10 (Friday)
Brides (METZ / Tropics / Actual Water / Young Mother)
The Shop under Parts & Labour 2010-12-11 (Saturday)
Jason Collett's Basement Revue (feat. Matt Barber / David McGimpsey (poetry) / Castlemusic / Michael Helm (fiction) / Carl Wilson (music criticism) / Nathan Lawr / Doug Paisley)
Dakota Tavern 2010-12-14 (Tuesday)
The Rural Alberta Advantage (Rebekah Higgs / Gravity Wave)
Lee's Palace 2010-12-16 (Thursday)
No Shame & The Singing Lamb Present A Warm & Fuzzy Non-Denominational Holiday Party (Night Two) (feat. The Magic / Everything All The Time / THOMAS / The Winks)
The El Mocambo 2010-12-17 (Friday)
Wavelength 512 (feat. Modernboys Moderngirls / HUT / John Kameel Farah / Bryan W. Bray & Chris Worden / Taylor Patterson)
The Garrison 2010-12-26 (Sunday)
Persian Rugs (Random Order / Proof of Ghosts / Dr. Ew / Sing Leaf)
The Garrison 2010-12-28 (Tuesday)
Tranzac New Year's Eve (feat. Hooded Fang / Light Fires / Sandro Perri / The Wilderness of Manitoba / The Rural Alberta Advantage / Octoberman / Sister / I Am Robot And Proud)
The Tranzac 2010-12-31 (Friday)
[Note: A few months ago, I was thinking about things I could do to bust out of the loop of churning out concert review after concert review. I had this ambitious notion of taking a step back and looking at all the different ways that I enjoyed music — from the perspective of playing, of the joy of accumulating albums, of the act of listening, etc. etc. As with lots of if-I-had-more-time ideas, it never really went anywhere, but I did start an essay on what is perhaps the most elemental way of reacting to music. And then, every couple months, after one incident or another, something caused me to dust it off. Whether this is worthy or not, for some reason this stuck with me, and I have the notion that if I don't just post the damn thing I'll keep rewriting it ad infinitum. I could assert, on putting this up on January first, that this has nothing to do with any sort of resolution on my part, but you could probably call bullshit on that.]
On Dancing
Alternate title: Come in From The Cold
I
"Back in 1957 we had to dance a foot apart," Joni Mitchell once sang, looking back to her teenaged prairie years. "And they hawk-eyed us from the sidelines, holding their rulers, without a heart." In Manitoba in the middle eighties, at a four-room rural elementary school it wasn't quite that strict, but it was still sort of the same.
Sixth grade. A dance, held in our classroom, desks pulled over and hugging the walls, DJ'ed by someone switching cassettes in and out of a ghetto blaster.1
Dancing was in my blood. I remember dancing — back then, before adolescence and all the confusions that brought on, I danced instinctually, without worry. To "Let's Go Crazy" and to Bryan Adams and to Duran Duran. Even to all the slow-dance songs, mostly with D——.
And then, at one song's close, a hand on my shoulder. Mr. F——, the principal, pulling me aside, suggesting, without saying anything outright, that that was probably enough.
I didn't dance the rest of that night. In my youthful obedience to any kind of authority I was a Good Boy, and if it was suggested that I shouldn't dance too closely with a girl like that, well, so be it. At the time, I didn't really understand what was going on at all. I vaguely knew, of course, that D——'s sister wasn't a "good girl", though I had no real clue what that meant. And I knew that their family was poor, and vaguely suspicious for not being gainfully-employed, virtuous types, coming to school in clothing that was somehow dirty just by its hand-me-down nature. The whole family was trash, in one sense — and D——'s sister was trash, too, but in a different sense. I guess it seemed reasonable to keep a naive, bright nerd like me away from that.
A couple years later, when adolescence came, and dancing was suddenly far more meaningful, I never danced, unless forced to. And I never really thought about why. In fact, the whole incident — the small-town classroom, the swirling, multicoloured light decorating the walls and probably "One Night in Bangkok" playing on the ghetto blaster — was something that I didn't really remember for many years, until as an adult it came back to me in a burst — maybe when I first heard Joni's song.
And maybe now it occupies a slightly-outsized place in my mind, because it so strongly evokes a lot of things that I never really thought about for so long. Most strongly the shame — that a teacher would "correct" my behaviour like that must have meant that I was wrong, that I had failed at some lesson that I hadn't been aware was being taught.
II
I never really thought of it in those terms at the time, but as a teenager I was obsessed with mind-body dualism. As in keeping the two as widely separated as possible.2 Feeling unable to deal with a lot of things, especially all those awkward things involving bodies, I mostly opted out, now learning about shame of a different kind from a body that I never really liked. Reading as many paperback sci-fi novels as I could get from the bookmobile when it came through town, it never seemed completely implausible that we could all really just be brains in jars in some laboratory somewhere, all this physical stuff just fed to us as simulated sensation. The very idea was vaguely comforting to me, and seemed to appeal to the idea of a higher plane, something that I could understand, but that my peers, sneaking off to smoke or make out, were missing out on.
I don't even want to talk about the grim cavalcade of high-school dances, spent mostly leaning against a wall, waiting for that one moment where the rules bent and everyone could swear in the gym, shouting heymotherfuckergetlaidgetfucked together. And occasionally joining in a large circle of dancing teenagers, all the while feeling apprehensive about the slow dances, when you could put a hand on so-and-so's body and maybe make eye contact. And if you were really lucky, it would be at the end, during "Stairway to Heaven" — a song completely lousy for dancing to, its only virtue being the eight minutes of closeness it provided.
Eventually I found a part-time job that regularly kept me busy on those nights — although at the time I hated the work and thought it was a drag that I was missing out on socializing, I never really realized I was deliberately structuring my time so as to be kept away from all that stuff.
III
Did I mention that dancing was in my blood? My family always danced. My mum, all my aunts, they're dancing fools. At any sort of family event it never took long for all of the sisters to get up and start dancing.
I remember my sister's wedding, a top-floor hotel reception room, overlooking downtown Vancouver on a foggy November night. My new in-laws, sitting around with rigourous politeness while our side took over the dancefloor. My Auntie M——, bad hip and all, was still nimble enough to be cutting a rug to the jazz-y trio playing at the reception — and still light-footed enough to be able to sneak around and goose the trumpet player, thirty years her junior. "Oh, Joseph," she said afterwards, "I sure could cuddle up with him!" Even always-serious Auntie J—— was out there on her with two bad knees. Me, I drank what I could from the open bar, danced as little as obligation and appearances required, stared out the window over the foggy city below and at the end of the night was blitzed enough to be supremely confident that I could navigate the late-night transit system in an unfamiliar city, leading to an interesting journey that involved a long walk in the rain in my new suit after failing to distinguish between buses heading from downtown over the Granville and Berrard bridges.
IV
A few years later and a year ago, at my cousin J——'s wedding, there was a different cast of earnest, sober guests on the groom's side and the same steal-the-wine-bottle-and-get-on-the-dancefloor collection of my relatives. In the clubhouse overlooking a golf course at the edge of one of Manitoba's lesser metropolises, as "family" we were handed an envelope of drink tickets, and I got a good start over dinner, which seemed like the best way to enjoy the evening — although I soon realized that if I kept that up, I was headed for a sloppy end to the night and an even worse morning after. After the bride and groom's dance, when the traditional parents' dance followed, the groom's mom and dad took the floor with stately gravitas while my Auntie M——, long widowed, was sitting at her table. No one had planned in advance for this. My mum shot me a look over the rims of her glasses and nodded her head, enough of a hint for me to go over and do the gallant thing of taking my aunt out to the dancefloor — which everyone afterwards said was a very nice gesture that I unhesitatingly took the undeserved full credit for.
And after that, as the DJ began his night's work (and, by gawd, I'm pretty sure he played "Let's Go Crazy" and Bryan Adams and Duran Duran) I just ended up staying on the dancefloor for most of the night. Maybe it was just enough drinks in me to be relaxed, or the smooth-soled dress shoes that I wore that slid around the dancefloor in a way that my normal concrete-gripping shoes do not. Or maybe it was that there was a crowd of my cousin's friends for whom I had no rep to live up to — or maybe, even, the normalizing desire to vaguely demonstrate to a gaggle of revered aunties that this still-unmarried bachelor in his mid-thirties does, indeed, dance with girls. Whatever it was, I spent pretty much the whole of the night up there, actually having a fairly fun time, and saving myself the fate of my cousin D—— who had gone the drink-the-night-away route, showing up the next morning painfully hung-over during the family breakfast before we all drove back down the Trans-Canada.
V
Although there's more of a chance these days that I might be spotted actually dancing of my own volition, there's no arc to this, really — no next incident where I could brag that I have gotten over myself, that I don't feel about all of this more or less the same way that I did at all those high school dances. Although I am now, by small increments, younger and more sociable and less grim than I was a decade or two ago, I still lug this same body around, and I still lug all of the same, um, discomfitures as I have for years. I suppose I like to think that with age I have more perspective and more licence to accept myself — and I do, kinda. But at some level it's not really anything you control.
I think about how, a few years back, I realized I wasn't just a brain in a jar and began to consider how to deal with the ramifications of that. I think about how I would like more closeness in my life instead of the proximities that I settled for, even if I never really got a handle on dealing with the notion that other people probably feel like this from time to time as well. I think about how I could reach back to that kid at that sock hop in a sixth-grade classroom.
All we ever wanted was just to come in from the cold.
1 In that time and place, about as far as you could get from "urban" desolation, that was the only name I ever remember being used for portable cassette players. The more polite "boom box" was not in common circulation. This didn't seem weird or vaguely racist at the time.
2 All of this might have had something to do with the fact that I ended up, years later, with a philosophy degree. Which, in retrospect, was not particularly helpful in dealing with any of this.
Artist: I Am Robot and Proud
Song: Making a Case for Magic
Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 31, 2010.
I Am Robot and Proud - Making a Case for MagicHappy new year! Review to follow. My notes for this set can be now found here.
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