Recording: Kurt Marble

Artist: Kurt Marble

Songs: Domestic + Spirit in the Sky [Norman Greenbaum cover]

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks: Glitter Jesus), August 11, 2016.

Kurt Marble - Domestic

Kurt Marble - Spirit in the Sky

With his glam/grunge take on classic riff rock, Kurt Marble is not, perhaps, such an unlikely candidate to head down the concept album path. Like a lot of concept albums (including several that are considered stone classics) this one was a little daft as a coherent story, but it gave more than enough material for a jukebox musical that took us into the creator's mind-world. Starting with cult-y white robes and spiralling outward from there, it's salient to note of this production that it involved several costume changes and that Roxanne Ignatius' striking costume design was one of its most important elements. It also gave a chance to expand on the band's musical template with guests including Neil Rankin (in his Slime guise) and Maddy Wilde (of Moon King/Spiral Beach fame) who was also the show's co-writer.

Its central tale of the Glitter Jesus was never quite in focus and it was never clear if the whole thing was a sort of satire on hippie earth-mother peace-and-love vibes (or an ardent embrace of same) or a commentary on rockstar ego trips (or a backhanded embrace of same). In that sense, the presence of "Spirit in the Sky", an evangelical gospel song written as a sort of conceptual lark by a Jewish songwriter feels right at home with the piece's unfocused aw-sucks eschatology. But as our hero kept emerging in increasingly-fabulous outfits, eventually taking to the crowd to anoint his seekers with glitter, such concerns simply fell by the wayside. All hail Glitter Jesus!

Recording: Zoo Owl

Artist: Zoo Owl

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks: Goggles Must Be Worn at All Times), August 11, 2016.

Zoo Owl - unknown

Outside, the weather was as hot and muggy as a rainforest, which felt like an extra bit of stage dressing, as a coastal rainforest is the Zoo Owl's preferred environment. Inside, the theatre was dressed to suggest a scientist's hidden bunker, the setting of an unorthodox "product demo", including Zoo Owl's signature glowing goggles. Mixing his aw-shucks keenness with some slightly-menacing undertones (including maximal corporate surveillance) this felt like the origin story of a mad scientist, flashing back to his days as an idealistic youthful do-gooder before some Terrible Accident sent him down the Wrong Path.

A deeply cinematic thinker, one gets the impression that this is the show that is going on in Bryan Sutherland's head every time he takes the stage. Here, it was enhanced into a true production that included three assistants dashing about to do his bidding with leaf-blowing "crowd scanners" and later a giant, spinning illuminated wheel. There were protagonists as well, including a red-eyed Nemesis and the mysterious Moss Man. Like a summer blockbuster film, the whole thing was a bit narratively thin but its constant momentum meant that while it plowed ahead there was no time to worry whether the underlying story hung together. Taken as a situation with these characters in this particular bunker, it made a weird kind of sense. And like a summer blockbuster, one gets the impression that a sequel could bring twice the spectacle.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Bloodshot Bill

Artist: Bloodshot Bill

Song: two unknown songs^*

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room, August 10, 2016.

Bloodshot Bill - [encore track 1]

Bloodshot Bill - [encore track 2]

Back in town with a new album in tow, Montréal's Bloodshot Bill delivered a full dose of huffin', moanin' and snortin' his way through an hour of blues hollers and doo-wop ballads. Songs stop, start and sometimes just switch tracks — hop onto the mystery train and just let it carry you along a spell.

^* Does anyone know the titles to these ones? Please leave a comment!

Recording: catl

Artist: catl

Song: Hot Baked Cornbread and Spice

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room, August 10, 2016.

catl - Hot Baked Cornbread and Spice

It'd been far too long since I'd seen these local blues wranglers, but sometimes a bit of time away from your favourite bands gives you a chance to see 'em with fresh eyes. Which might explain why this hit me as one of the best sets I've ever seen from the band — just back from touring Germany, Jamie Fleming and Sarah Kirkpatrick's telepathic hoodoo delivery was in full force, Kirkpatrick's drums were thunderous joy-bursts and the sweaty raggedness of the whole thing felt just right. A buncha new stuff in the set, too, including this tasty side-dish.

Recording: Suitcase Sam

Artist: Suitcase Sam

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room, August 10, 2016.

Suitcase Sam - unknown

The mysterious Suitcase Sam opened up this night of musical devolution, which went from his standard five-piece band, to blues-punk duo catl to solo rockabilly atavism Bloodshot Bill. Sam seems to comes from the same part of the South that The Band were from — in fact, there's so much of The Band's musical DNA grafted into his own work that covering them felt a little too on the nose. But just in case you were worried he weren't genuine, his suitcases were indeed alongside him on stage.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: d'bi. & The 333

Artist: d'bi. & The 333

Songs: Revolution Rising + Rest in Peace

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks), August 9, 2016.

d'bi. & The 333 - Revolution Rising

d'bi. & The 333 - Rest in Peace

Besides presenting the Audience Choice Award-winning "Afro-futurist dub-opera" Bleeders at the festival, d'bi.young anitafrika was also front and centre at this musical performance alongside a powerful backing band that featured some familiar faces such as Waleed Abdulhamid and Patrick O'Reilly. The space was left in its bare-bones black-box theatre configuration, which anitafrika used to her advantage, turning the zone between band and audience into a stage for some monologues between songs. But as a performer with immense presence, her focused eye-contact tended to create dialogical space rather than pulling all the attention onto herself diva-style.

This music pulled from her recent #CivilRightsMixtape EP and beyond, starting and ending with call-to-arms anthem "#BlackLivesMatter". The theme resonated throughout the set that racism and disempowerment must be faced with joy and heart-song to give the necessary energy for the rising-together. There were reflective and tender moments, such as the empathetic "Begging is a Ting" and "Rest in Peace" (which, besides its many spoken-word antecedants in dub poetry and talkover also nudged precisely into the same jangly-guitar sing-speak zone as The Blue Aeroplanes) and no shortage of massive energy-bursts like "Revolution Rising", which brought the audience out into that shared zone between stage and seats to sing together.

Concert Listings Roundup #162

You can read more about why I'm doing listings here. Long story short: This curated and decidedly non-comprehensive list contains nothin' but shows that I am going to/would go to if I had more time.

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Gig of the week:

Camp Wavelength (feat. Operators / Jef E. Barbara's Black Space / For Esmé / M.A BEAT! / MATROX / Wolf Saga / Latasha Alcindor a.k.a. L.A. / Brendan Philip) / Artscape Gibraltar Point 2016-08-19 (Friday) [FB event]

Camp Wavelength (feat. Cloud Nothings / Odonis Odonis / Moss Lime / LAL / Spek Won / Casper Skulls / Hex / Guerilla Toss / Petra Glynt / Scott Hardware / Nhapitapi Mbira) / Artscape Gibraltar Point 2016-08-20 (Saturday) [FB event]

Camp Wavelength (feat. Young Galaxy / Lydia Ainsworth / Bruce Peninsula / Bart / Michelle McAdorey / Castle If) / Artscape Gibraltar Point 2016-08-21 (Sunday) [FB event]

Like a weekend at the cottage for the city-bound, Camp Wavelength is a late-summer soul-salve and sonic banquet deluxe. Mixing big names and up-and-comers and tossing them together without undue regard to genre, this is the city's smallest big festival, and one that treats its participants as more than just cattle to be herded through a chute and into the maelstrom of the cultural-fattening pens. Mellow vibes, easy beach access and all sorts of MFS faves up on stage.

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This week's noteworthy shows:

Robert Diack Quartet / The Emmett Ray 2016-08-15 (Monday – early show! PWYC!) [more info]

Trios: August Residency (feat. Phil Dwyer/Dan Fortin/Ethan Ardelli) / The Emmet Ray 2016-08-15 (Monday) [FB event]

Mark Segger Sextet / Canterbury Music Company 2016-08-15 (Monday – two sets @ 7:30 and 9 p.m., same music played twice) [FB event]

Harley Alexander (Sunshine and the Blue Moon / Rogue Tenant) / Smiling Buddha 2016-08-15 (Monday) [FB event]

Aurochs (with special guest Andrew Zukerman) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2016-08-16 (Tuesday – early!) [FB event]

case/lang/veirs / The Danforth Music Hall 2016-08-16 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Astrid & Steven Foster + Friends / Holy Oak Café 2016-08-16 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Wolf's Nacho Wednesdays (feat. No Octopus Dances) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2016-08-17 (Wednesday – early!)

Wolf's Nacho Wednesdays (feat. Body Help) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2016-08-17 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Renny Wilson (The Effens / The Sulks / Chimpanzilla) / The Silver Dollar Room 2016-08-17 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Cousins [solo!] (Lido Pimienta / Dorothea Paas) / Burdock Music Hall 2016-08-17 (Wednesday) [FB event]

The AMBiENT PiNG: 17th Anniversary Ping (feat. Repair / Jacob Watters / Scott Stanley) / Burdock Music Hall 2016-08-18 (Thursday) [FB event]

Omni (Fresh Snow / Tough Age) / Smiling Buddha 2016-08-18 (Thursday) [FB event]

Professor Andy Dolgin's Medicinal Show (feat. The Candy Apple Jazz Band) / The Local Pub 2016-08-18 (Thursday) [FB event]

Vomitface [record release!] (Alpha Strategy / Not Of / Luge) / Smiling Buddha 2016-08-19 (Friday) [FB event]

Burn Down The Capital presents (feat. Eucalyptus / Loose Scrunchie) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2016-08-19 (Friday) [FB event]

Century Palm (Feel Alright / Blonde Elvis) / Monarch Tavern 2016-08-19 (Friday) [FB event]

Soupcans (Plasmalab / Slow Dawn) / Rok N Rave 2016-08-19 (Friday) [FB event]

Perpetual Stress presents (feat. Surinam / Albatros / Humanities / 1971) / Handlebar 2016-08-20 (Saturday) [FB event]

Switches (Planet Creature / Gold Pony / Camp Girls) / The Silver Dollar Room 2016-08-20 (Saturday) [FB event]

An Evening of Otherworldly Chamber Music (feat. The Cluttertones / Sweet Session) / Burdock Music Hall 2016-08-20 (Saturday) [FB event]

Hooded Fang (Badlands / Bile Sister) / Double Double Land 2016-08-20 (Saturday) [FB event]

Somewhere There presents (feat. Tom Richards Quartet [Tom Richards/Karen Ng/Jim Sexton/Brandon Valdivia]) / The Emmet Ray 2016-08-21 (Sunday) [FB event]

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Add these to your calendar:

Reminder: This post only contains this week's updates — the full listings can always be found over on the right-hand sidebar!

Manticore (Within / Cares) / Array Space 2016-08-23 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Prince Nifty (Baby Cages [solo] / Egosystem / Fresh Flesh) / Holy Oak Café 2016-08-23 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Robin Buckley/Emily Denison/Karen Ng/Nilan Perera / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2016-08-23 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Ambient Apsylum 2016 ["ambient music/visuals/performance"] (feat. Snowday / Jakob Thiesen / naw / Treeotica / DreamSTATE / Leelee Mishi) / High Park Labyrinth 2016-08-27 (Saturday – free! all ages + family friendly! outside!) [FB event]

Audiopollination #45.3 (feat. Alex Cunningham/Branko Dzinovic / Alex Cunningham/Myk Freedman/Karen Ng / Alex Cunningham [solo violin]) / Array Space 2016-08-27 (Saturday) [FB event]

XHE & Healing Power present: WET TECH (feat. New Chance / SourPussy / Tax Haven / Charzar@hotmail.com / XHE Reservoirists) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2016-08-27 (Saturday) [FB event]

Holy Mount (If We Are Machines / Death Panels / Zener Cards) / Handlebar 2016-08-27 (Saturday) [FB event]

Near Distant Ensemble (Autobahn) / Burdock Music Hall 2016-09-12 (Monday) [FB event]

Burn Down The Capital presents (feat. Julianna Barwick / Blunt Chunks) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2016-09-17 (Saturday) [FB event]

Partner (Bueller / Cupcake Ductape / Thrifty Kids) / The Horseshoe Tavern 2016-09-21 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Solids (Slow Mass / Not Of) / The Baby G 2016-09-22 (Thursday) [FB event]

Buzz Records presents (feat. Wreckless Eric / Johnny De Courcy / Rogue Tenant) / Smiling Buddha 2016-09-22 (Thursday) [FB event]

ISIS SALAM (Thick Cobra / P0st3rb0y / Bobbypin) / The Baby G 2016-09-30 (Friday) [FB event]

Mild High Club (Alex Calder / Elsa) / The Baby G 2016-10-01 (Saturday) [FB event]

X Avant XI (feat. Egyptrixx / The Dun Dun Band / Deenzi) / The Music Gallery 2016-10-13 (Thursday) [FB event]

X Avant XI: Artist Talk (feat. Pauline Oliveros) / York University – Room TBD 2016-10-14 (Friday – free! 11 a.m. start time) [FB event]

X Avant XI (feat. Pauline Oliveros/Ione/Anne Bourne/Doug Van Nort / Merganzer) [multichannel improvisational performance!] / The Music Gallery 2016-10-14 (Friday) [FB event]

X Avant XI: Deep Listening workshop (feat. Anne Bourne) / The Music Gallery Courtyard 2016-10-15 (Saturday – free! 4 to 6 p.m.!) [FB event]

X Avant XI: Reverberations (feat. Noah Mintz [psychoacoustics talk]) / The Music Gallery 2016-10-15 (Saturday – free! 6 p.m. start) [FB event]

X Avant XI (feat. Sarah Neufeld / Dialectica) / The Music Gallery 2016-10-15 (Saturday) [FB event]

X Avant XI: Music Gallery History Series (feat. Motion) / OCADU – Lambert Lounge 2016-10-16 (Sunday – free! 6 p.m. start!) [FB event]

X Avant XI (feat. Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal–Toronto Art Orchestra) / The Music Gallery 2016-10-16 (Sunday) [FB event]

Recording: Sandy Ewen + co.

Artist: Sandy Ewen/Andrew Furlong/Olya Glotka / Sandy Ewen/William Davison/Alan Bloor/Michael Lynn / Sandy Ewen [solo]

Songs: [excerpts from several improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #45.1), August 7, 2016.

Sandy Ewen/Andrew Furlong/Olya Glotka - [second piece]

Sandy Ewen + William Davison + Alan Bloor + Michael Lynn - [excerpt from first piece]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 1]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 2]

Toronto-born/Austin-based guitarist Sandy Ewen is an architect and visual artist whose musical practice has seen her work alongside Tom Carter, Damon Smith & Weasel Walter, Jaap Blonk and Weird Weeds. This trip to Toronto saw her play a couple shows alongside local improvisers as well as showing off her solo styles. Guitar laid across her lap, her implements included street chalk, steel wool, a mangled pet brush and some other tools to achieve skritchy-scratchy stereophonic sawing, a volume pedal ping-ponging her sound to a pair of amps behind her. The first set with Andrew Furlong's double bass work left some sonic space for dancer Olya Glotka to bend and twist in, while a noise-off with William Davison (contact mic'ed devices) Alan Bloor (amplified sawblade) and Michael Lynn (bass) filled up the room with whitenoise swells and buzz-sproing-rattle. Her closing solo set showed the range of sounds she can generate from her toolbox, ranging from coughing grinds to a pleasing drone that sounded like something generated by an e-bow and loop pedal, but required only her practical effects.

[Al always, you can checkout a full recording of the night over on Audiopollination's bandcamp. The series returns with another vising player — St. Louis-based violinist Alex Cunningham — on Saturday, August 27th.]

Recording: CHOBO

Artist: CHOBO

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Tiger Bar (Arachnids at the Tiger Bar), August 6, 2016.

CHOBO - [excerpt]

A summertime showcase for some "music by and for weirdos" on the Arachnidiscs label, this night brought some ambient noise and noisy ambiance to College Street's Tiger Bar (a cool destination for small-scale indie shows about six-seven years ago and now reactivated). Closing things out with a different sort of sonic flavour was this project from Jessica Cho and Benjamin Boles, applying improvisatory techniques to techno-styled electronic music. Keyb riffs and rhythmic twists would get tossed back and forth between the pair, sometimes being discarded and sometimes woven into the ongoing development of the piece, making it approachable as "head" music (to watch and consider for the realtime decision-making) or just as booty-shaking stream-of-consciousness. [Their Arachnidiscs tape dropped a few months ago.]

Recording: Beard Closet

Artist: Beard Closet

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Tiger Bar (Arachnids at the Tiger Bar), August 6, 2016.

Beard Closet - [excerpt]

A summertime showcase for some "music by and for weirdos" on the Arachnidiscs label, this night brought some ambient noise and noisy ambiance to College Street's Tiger Bar (a cool destination for small-scale indie shows about six-seven years ago and now reactivated). Arguably the biggest star of the night, Beard Closet's Phil Hamilton was celebrating the release of a new tape on Arachnidiscs and provided some sonic extremes in a set that began with come delicate deliberations before steering into the noisier territory heard here, with howling momentum resolving into a two-note looped riff behind the shredding.

Recording: Heraclitus Akimbo

Artist: Heraclitus Akimbo

Song: ♐TIGER [excerpt]

Recorded at Tiger Bar (Arachnids at the Tiger Bar), August 6, 2016.

Heraclitus Akimbo - ♐TIGER [excerpt]

A summertime showcase for some "music by and for weirdos" on the Arachnidiscs label, this night brought some ambient noise and noisy ambiance to College Street's Tiger Bar (a cool destination for small-scale indie shows about six-seven years ago and now reactivated). A second-ever live set from this blog's author saw the same floating keyb-loop drift as previously essayed, but this time mixed together with some ambiguously-discomfiting samples from the unexplained phenomenon known as Unfavorable Semicircle.

[The full recording of this set can be found alongside some other home recordings in this vein on a new Unfavorable Semicircle-inspired Heraclitus Akimbo album over on bandcamp.]

[photo by J.P.]

Recording: BABEL

Artist: BABEL

Song: Augustus [excerpt]

Recorded at Tiger Bar (Arachnids at the Tiger Bar), August 6, 2016.

BABEL - Augustus [excerpt]

A summertime showcase for some "music by and for weirdos" on the Arachnidiscs label, this night brought some ambient noise and noisy ambiance to College Street's Tiger Bar (a cool destination for small-scale indie shows about six-seven years ago and now reactivated). BABEL's Jakob Rehlinger (also Arachnidiscs' proprietor) was celebrating the release of four volumes of sacred fire music, and playing this piece for manipulated voice, keyb, xaphoon and sundry small percussion implements. [You can also check out a "studio" version of it over on BABEL's soundcloud.]

Recording: Summer Drift Ensemble

Artist: Summer Drift Ensemble

Songs: Drift [four excerpts]

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks: Summer Drift), August 6, 2015.

Summer Drift Ensemble - Drift [excerpt 1]

Summer Drift Ensemble - Drift [excerpt 2]

Summer Drift Ensemble - Drift [excerpt 3]

Summer Drift Ensemble - Drift [excerpt 4]

An inversion of the "spectacle" of most of SummerWorks music shows, this afternoon drone installation moved the performers to the edge of the room and let the audience wander (to create their own personal "mix") or relax on the lily pad-like astroturf "islands" in the centre of the room. Conceived by Brandon Hocura, the event's score consisted of more than a dozen short instructions, including "play when you feel like it"/"take a break when you feel like it", "take 10 minutes to play what you would normally play in 1 minute", "repeat slowly" and "fall asleep". That meant that out of the collective ensemble (Victoria Cheong, Craig Dunsmuir, Sandro Perri, Matthew Shaw, Randy Gagne, Kevin Hainey, Andrew Zukerman, Jaclyn Blumas, Trevor Blumas, Brandon Hocura) maybe half would be playing at any given time. I hung out for not quite three hours in the first half of the event, which is where these samples are drawn from.

Recording: Kapali Carsi

Artist: Kapali Carsi

Song: [third piece]

Recorded at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #17), August 2, 2016.

Kapali Carsi - [third piece]

After retiring his Inyrdisk label earlier this year, Kevin Hainey had more time to devote to other affairs, such as the long-awaited debut of his solo Kapali Carsi project. Hopefully this second show is a sign this will be more of a regular thing, though this was for now an exciting enough novelty to get some of the city's noted noise-heads out to grok Hainey's bass-induced rumbulations.

[Track Could Bend will be back at Dundas Video on September 6th, with Isla Craig, Mark Hundevad & Mike Gennaro and Jesse James Laderoute's Catholic Wilt.]

Recording: Professor Andy Dolgin and the Cereal Killers

Artist: Professor Andy Dolgin and the Cereal Killers

Songs: Socker Boppers/cereal montage + Jenga/I'm Just a TV

Recorded at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #17), August 2, 2016.

Professor Andy Dolgin and the Cereal Killers - Socker Boppers/cereal montage

Professor Andy Dolgin and the Cereal Killers - Jenga/I'm Just a TV

One of the more delightfully zany concepts to land at Track Could Bend, this ad hoc band (with FASTER's Brian Abbot and Kayla Milmine plus Mike Lynn and Gord Fynes) was deployed to exploit one of Andy Dolgin's stranger talents: a perfect recall of the toy commercials, cereal ads and YTV PSA's from his youth. Over a rampaging improvised punkrock soundtrack (which is not particularly well-served by these recordings, I must apologize) Dolgin, cereal box armour and all, bounced through a whole heap of super-short jingle-sized tunes with hyperactive vigour. This was billed as a one-off, but there's no way this isn't happening again. I want it! I want it now! Buy meeee one!

[Track Could Bend will be back at Dundas Video on September 6th, with Isla Craig, Mark Hundevad & Mike Gennaro and Jesse James Laderoute's Catholic Wilt. Meanwhile, Professor Andy Dolgin will be extolling the virtues of his medicinal tonic at a night with the Candy Apple Jazz Band at The Local Pub on August 18th.]