Sunday Playlist #41

Sunday Playlist #41: Milk The Milkers

At the start of this week, all my feeds practically blew up with the release of Milkin' It, a tribute to Nirvana's In Utero put together by Hand Drawn Dracula. The tracklisting elicited a cheer from me 'cause these are bands that I love to go see all the time. In fact, it occurred to me once I did some poking around that I have live recordings from everyone involved in the project. So in case you wanted to hear what these bands sound like on stage doing their own material, here's a track-for-track answer playlist.

Breeze - unknown

Recorded at The Drake Underground ("What's in the Box" – Night 5), December 30, 2012.

Greys - Rennie + Carjack

Recorded at 159 Manning ("Don't Trust Anyone Under 30 – Manning BBQ 2013"), June 14, 2013.

Beliefs - Catch My Breath

Recorded at Sonic Boom ("Record Store Day 2013"), April 20, 2013.

Ostrich Tuning - Keep You Through the Night

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room ("MINOR Fundraiser"), October 4, 2013.

Fresh Snow - Nautical Smoke

Recorded at The Shop under Parts & Labour ("Wavelength THIRTEEN – Night 1"), February 14, 2013.

Julie Fader - 723

Recorded at The Dakota Tavern ("Jason Collett's Basement Revue"), December 7, 2010.

Great Bloomers - Dark Horse

Recorded at Artscape Gibraltar Point (ALL CAPS! Island Show), October 17, 2009.

Teenanger - Psychic Sonya

Recorded at Parts + Labour ("Mattyfest Summerslam BBQ 2013"), August 18, 2013.

Absolutely Free - Clothed Woman Sitting

Recorded at Artscape Gibraltar Point (ALL CAPS! Festival), August 12, 2012.

The Weather Station - unknown

Recorded at Holy Oak Café, August 20, 2013.

Odonis Odonis - Wipeout Beat

Recorded at Polyhaus ("Feast in the East 20"), December 14, 2012.

Hooded Fang - Ode To Subterrania

Recorded at Lula Lounge, April 4, 2013.

The Wooden Sky - Baby It's No Secret

Recorded BLK BOX ("The Wooden Sky Travelling Adventure Show"), August 16, 2013.

Doom Squad - Born from the Marriage of the Moon and a Crocodile + Eternal Return

Recorded at The Music Gallery ("Exclaim! Magazine Destination Out Showcase"), November 17, 2012.

Milk Lines - unknown

Recorded at The Horseshoe Tavern, May 4, 2013.

Hussy [now known as HSY] - Ladies Nite

Recorded at Steam Whistle Brewery ("Steam Whistle UNSIGNED"), May 24, 2013.

Tess Parks - Life Is But A Dream

Recorded at Izakaya Sushi House, August 2, 2013.

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Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.

Currente calamo: CMW 2012 (Thursday)

CMW 2012 (Thursday)^*

While these shows are fresh in my mind I want to get some quick notes down. I'm a nerd for not wanting to throw my full reviews out of sequence, so there'll be a fuller accounting of the night by and by.

5 p.m.: Martha Wainwright @ Sonic Boom

Nice to run into some familiar faces as I settled into the stage area at Sonic Boom, starting off my festival with some afternoon action. It's been a few years since I last saw Martha Wainwright — since Canada Day 2008, in fact — and to be honest, my first impression was how much more she looked like a McGarrigle than I recalled. For this quick set, she was playing the stuff that was at the forefront of her mind: all-new material from a just-completed album. As I recalled from seeing her before, I was more drawn to her wonderful voice and on-stage physicality than her songwriting — though the last song with its recountings of "make-up sex" was engaging.

Listen to a track from this set here.

6 p.m.: Simone Felice @ Sonic Boom

With a four-piece band and backing vocals shared all around, Catskills singer-songwriter Simone Felice brought a rambunctiously fragile rootsy sound. Felice's countenance made every song seem like hard-won battle, and this was good stuff, though I can say it's not really a musical direction that's going to captivate me all too often.

7 p.m.: Great Bloomers @ Sonic Boom

This is the second time or so that I've heard the new songs from Lowell Sostomi's Great Bloomers that'll be coming out soon on the band's sophomore album. And while there doesn't seem to be anything as indelible as, say "The Young Ones Slept" (which the band included in this set), there's a couple tunes there that I'm keeping an eye on. Overall, I do like the more rockin' direction that the music is going in — a more muscular approach that was reflected with the set-closing cover of Television's "See No Evil".

8 p.m.: Chains of Love @ Sonic Boom

Suffering from a bout of post-SXSW rock'n'roll flu (an ailment that was known locally this week as "Grimes disease") Vancouver's Chains of Love took the stage in a fevered haze that had nothing to do with musical enrapturement. They still managed to crank out a solid set, building a miniature wall of sound behind a series of songs that were as solidly constructed as a pair of boots that were made for walkin'. Nathalia Pizarro and Rebecca Marie Law Gray bring a lot of brassy attitude (and maracas!) to the stage — enough that I expected some JD to drive a motorcycle through the front door and up to the stage and squeal off into the sunset with them at set's end.

9:30 p.m.: Cold Specks @ The Music Gallery

Former Etobicoke resident Al Spx seemed to suddenly burst out of nowhere when it was announced that her band Cold Specks was signing to Arts & Crafts. I hasn't looked into the project that much, but wanted to take this in to try and get a feel for it without too many preconceptions. She brought a four-piece backing band (presumably mostly from her current home base of London, England, though local hero Jay Anderson was in the drum chair) and while they did an admirable job in fleshing out the songs, this felt very much more like a solo project than a "band."

Fortunately Spx had no shortage of talent to carry a longer-than expected set (going nearly an hour) where everything served as a setting for her powerful voice. Not a belter by any means, her vocals packed a low wallop without ever getting too showy. She was a nimble guitar picker, too. Cutting in a few different directions, this had a singer-songwriter heart underneath it all. And for all the talk about "doom soul", Spx leavened the tumultuousness in some of the songs by not being afraid to be goofy — at one point filling in a tuning break with a rendition of the theme song from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

She certainly won the crowd over, garnering a standing ovation before closing out the night with an a cappella (and microphone free) rendition of "Old Stepstone" filling the Music Gallery's church sanctuary space. Ultimately, the connection to Arts & Crafts isn't so strange if you consider her to be more akin to fellow new signees Snowblink than, say, Trust or any of the electro-y dance-friendly bands they've just signed.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11 p.m.: John K. Samson @ The Great Hall

A long wait for a streetcar after that made me think that there was no way I'd be able to make the start of my next set — even assuming that the venue wasn't already at capacity. But through a stroke of good luck, I bounded up the stairs of The Great Hall to hear the roar of the crowd and the sound of "Highway 1 East", the miniature that serves as the opener to Samson's Provincial album. As I found myself a space above the crowded room the four-piece band was seguing into "Heart of the Continent", and for awhile, it looked like Samson might just be playing the album start to finish.

It took a couple more songs following the album's tracklisting before there was a curveball, with the backing band leaving the stage for Samson to tackle the Weakerthans' "One Great City!". From there, he'd throw in a few more Weakerthans tracks, with the members of the band coming onstage to join him as needed. A bassist moving from electric to double bass provided a wide sonic range to support the songs, and the dynamic lead-guitar chair was ably filled by Shotgun Jimmie, who'd opened the evening at The Great Hall with his own set. During "When I Write My Master's Thesis", Jimmie put more vigour into backing vocals about academic citations than I ever imagined I'd see, holding his arms in the air above him in triumph as he belted out the word "Sources!".

All told, this was a really strong set, from the arm-raised-in-a-toast recitation of "Elegy for Gump Worsley" to a performance of "Pamphleteer", my all-time-favourite Weakerthans song, which I'd never heard the band do in all the times I had seen them. For another curveball, as the band got back to the louder material they did a cover of Jawbreaker's "The Boat Dreams From the Hill" and after closing the set on the quiet domestic note of "Taps Reversed", Samson strapped on the bass in the encore to play "Anchorless" (sounding baffled on reminding the crowd that the song was twenty years old) before closing the set with an unplugged, unmiced singalong version of "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure". Completely satisfying.

Listen to a couple tracks — something old and something new — here.

midnight: The Autumn Portrait @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

That pretty much took care of the planned portion of my night, and I found myself wandering down Queen Street, ducking into The Gladstone more or less on a whim. Didn't know who was playing, but it turned out to be The Autumn Portrait, who had driven across the country to play for about twelve people. Although their melodic modern rock wasn't particularly my thing, I sorta felt for the trio, but they made lemonade by inviting up the most eager members of the crowd to join them onstage to dance.

But it was satisfying that I ran into some friends there — random social encounters being as much of a festival reward as "discovering" a band. That felt like enough for the night, and I decided on my first evening of CMW I wanted to get home in subway time. There'll be a couple long nights to follow.

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^* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of 2009, this was deemed to be too simple and straightforward, and the music portion was "rebranded" as Canadian Music Fest, under the aegis of the larger Canadian Music Week. I see no reason to put up with this and will simply refer to everything as CMW. This year, the name situation has been made more ludicrous with the addition of a top-level sponsor that has been smushed into the festival's name. I don't know what product they're selling, and frankly I don't care. I have no plans to acknowledge them by name and I suggest you do the same.

Sunday Playlist #19

Sunday Playlist #19: City vs. Country

Great Bloomers - Dark Horse

The Wooden Sky - The Wooden Sky

Evening Hymns - Arrows

The Treasures - Natural Disasters

$100 - Hell's a Place

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Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.

Currente calamo: SummerWorks Festival 2011 (Music Series)

SummerWorks Festival 2011 — Music Series

While it's all fresh in my mind, a few notes from the SummerWorks Festival. Longer, more comprehensive reviews will follow down the road a piece.

I managed to make it to four of the six shows in the Music Series. Logistically, everything went very well — pretty much on time and with nice, quick changeovers. And good-sized crowds as well.

Hooded Fang / Steven McKay

Friday, August 5, 2011

A stripped-down lineup for Steven McKay compared to what I had seen before, with McKay backed only by Bram Gielen (stand-up bass) and Thomas Gill (guitar). The suit-wearing McKay (he'd dashed over to the show from a wedding reception) also mixed things up in his setlist, which focused less on his album. There was some older stuff (like the amusing "Immersion Jerks") and a couple brand new songs. An amusing presence as always, the crowd sat down for this one, laughed at McKay's banter and joined in for a couple crowd participation moments. Low-key but engaging stuff.

Like a lot of people, I was pretty eager to hear Hooded Fang attack some of the rocked-up material from their ace new Tosta Mista EP. But I was also curious to see how they'd integrate that with their older material. Unsurprisingly, in the end, it all meshed together pretty well. Leading off with a couple Album cuts, a frenzied version of "Promise Land" was the entry point to the newer stuff. Little details — like more glockenspiel on the new songs then you hear on the album — tied it all together. Ultimately it all found unity as a big dance explosion. And to cap it off, the band finished the night with a brand new song. Not the most polished performance I'd ever seen from the band, but one of the most fun.

Great Bloomers / House League

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

An interesting case. Given this grouping's pedigree, I was thinking we would be getting something along the lines of what we had seen from the versions of the OOTS Family band that had come together at various Out of This Spark-related events. This, however, turned out to be something more like a real band — even if this turns out to be their only gig. The brainchild of Matters/Forest City Lovers guitarist Tim Bruton, the band actually presented a handful of songs that he had written for the occasion. They were voiced by Evening Hymns' Jonas Bonnetta and the band was filled out with the rhythm section of Kyle Donnelly (Forest City Lovers) and Paul Weadick. The originals were solid guitar rockers, and they were joined by a couple covers, including an amped-up version of an Evening Hymns song and a lovingly-reverential take of The Flashing Lights' "Highschool".

Word is that Bruton is heading out of town to further his education. The enthusiasm he brings to the bands he plays with will be missed, but hopefully we'll still get a change to hear him play.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Taking the stage, three of the five members of Great Bloomers were wearing plaid, and "³⁄₅ plaid" is actually a pretty apt description of the band's sound. Lowell Sostomi's band has a pop feel welded to a rootsy frame, which creates a fairly wide terrain in which they can work. In the past, I've found Sostomi more convincing in more stripped-down formats than as a rocker, and though this was a generally agreeable set, it didn't cause me to alter my overall impression. Still, there were some pleasingly jaunty moments, like in closer "Speak of Trouble". Bolstering the band's poppier side, a few songs included a pair of female backing vocalists, and the band closed with a Fleetwood Mac cover. There was also some new material in the mix, looking ahead to the band's forthcoming album.

Bruce Peninsula / Jennifer Castle

Thursday, August 11, 2011

A different look in The Lower Ossington Theatre on this night, with the stage reduced to a small riser for the drumkit. That left a string of gear for the headliner stretching across the length of the room, with chalked-on flames licking out to the space where the audience was sitting on the floor for a quiet set from Jennifer Castle. Playing solo with guitar, Castle's set rambled around her songbook — while featuring a fair amount from this year's excellent Castlemusic album, there were some excursions beyond that. The set led off with "For My Friends" (from '08's You Can't Take Anyone) and there was also a gripping unaccompanied run through that album's "One Two Three", only Castle's voice and the hum of the a/c audible in the room. Castle still has a propensity to segue from song to song without pausing, but there are more breaks than there used to be for the crowd to take a breath. Castle's solo music is trance-inducing in the best way, though that might well mean that for some listeners there'd be a lack of dynamics over a half-hour. But an admirable set, as far as I'm concerned.

I hadn't seen Bruce Peninsula's return to live duty at NXNE¹, so I was glad to have a chance to see the band back in action. Vocalist Misha Bower, who had missed that show, was back in the fold and was the night's most enthusiastic banterer, spinning out a set-long metaphor comparing creating music to baking a cake. Stretched out across the length of the room, there was a considerable distance between guitarist Matt Cully at one end to the choir at the other.

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot here from the band's forthcoming sophomore album Open Flames (being released on the Hand Drawn Dracula imprint on October 4, 2011). Some of the songs have been around for long enough to be familiar, but there was still a lot to discover in them, like the nimble guitar tripping along during "In Your Light". And any worries that vocalist Neil Haverty would be performing with less vigour after returning from some health issues were largely put to rest during "Crabapples", where, although he didn't run through the crowd while belting out the lyrics, he did dive into it a bit before dashing backstage to grab a bundle of streamers to brandish as the song finished. It all sounded pretty good — the band should be in fine form right off the bat when they hit the road to support the new album.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Miracle Fortress / Ruby Coast

Friday, August 12, 2011

Friday night, and a slightly different crowd on hand, skewing a little younger. It looked like openers Ruby Coast have a bit of drawing power, as there were a fair number of people trying to get up close to the band. I'd seen the band before, and though I recognize they're pretty good at their version of contemporary yelp-pop (shades of Tokyo Police Club/Born Ruffians), that's not particularly my thing. That said, as the band stretched out on their first number and dared to get a little groovy, I was finding it enjoyable enough. There were a few brand-new songs in the set, and the fact that I found a couple of them to be the best things they played augers well.

I had seen Miracle Fortress back in March, when the songs (and sound) of Was I the Wave? were an unfamiliar surprise. This time around, mainman Graham Van Pelt brought a pretty similar show, but it came off quite differently in front of a more knowledgeable audience. One thing that remains a constant is Van Pelt's apparent dislike for traditional stage lighting — working in near darkness, he had just a single spot below him (creating some dramatic shadows on the wall behind him), his bank of coloured lights and his laser projector, zapping red and green shapes on the back of the room.

Van Pelt plays to backing tracks, adding keyb and guit parts as necessary and backed by a live drummer. The drummer feels musically superfluous at times, merely doubling up on the programmed beats, but it does add an appealing visual element to the show. Regardless of the means of production, however, Van Pelt is creating something pretty compelling on stage. In fact, I was pulled into the sound enough that when he returned for an encore to play "Next Train" (from 2007's Five Roses), it actually sounded a little spare.

All in all, a pretty good time. Once again, a massive amount of appreciation has to be extended towards series programmer Lauren Schreiber, whose work continually enriches this city. And kudos to the festival for again bringing together different branches of "indie" culture.

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¹ That show was, however, recorded by CBC radio, and can be listened to here.

Preview: SummerWorks Festival 2011

The SummerWorks Theatre Festival — Music Series

All shows are at The Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington). All opener/headliner sets are at 10:30 p.m. / 11:45 p.m.

Now a summer tradition in its fourth year, the musical component of the SummerWorks Festival continues to shine a light on cool, mostly local bands. This year, the Music Series has been curated by the awesome Lauren Schreiber, who puts on concerts under the No Shame banner. That should be enough to let you guess that there will be plenty of intelligent pop with a high probability of dancing — and looking over the bands she's lined up, that looks to be about exactly right.¹ The shows are a reasonable ten bucks and take place in the comfortable space at The Lower Ossington Theatre, a venue where both those-who-want-to-sit and those-who-prefer-to-stand can be accommodated. You'd do well to check out any of these shows, but if you're wanting to learn more about the bands, I've reached back to some of my past live reviews to give you a hint of what to expect — and some live samples, too.

Hooded Fang / Steven McKay

Friday, August 5, 2011

Hooded Fang have been delighting local crowds with their catchy, sunny pop for a couple years now, so some were taken by surprise when they torqued their approach on their recent Tosta Mista EP to foreground a tougher, scrappy beat group-inspired sound. It's still good to dance to, and the band will almost certainly be excited to show off more of their new tunes in a live setting.

Listen! Hooded Fang - Almost Done

Steven McKay, backed by a rotating cast of friends, is becoming known on his own merits, and not just as the drummer for Bruce Peninsula. His unassuming manner goes well with his songs, which are earnest little creations. Handled wrongly, they could have a fatal lack of pretense — songs about the quotidian pleasures of doing the dishes can easily be as dull as, well, doing the dishes — but the arrangements and musical collaboration are what makes this memorable. It might sound underwhelming, but if slow and steady wins the race, he'd surely take first place.

Listen! Steven McKay - Emma Comes Home

Bonjay / Lioness

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Gathering together different crowds is a by-product of the fact that Bonjay singer Alanna Stuart and sound provider Pho aren't interested in limiting themselves too much. This was proven on their EP Broughtupsy, which manages to straddle several divides. Founded in a fusion of dancefloor and dancehall, Bonjay have moved it to the next level with their ability to craft songs fortified by a lot of other pop influences that work just as well on headphones as sound systems. Their live energy has been boosted lately with the addition of a drummer, and the whole package is tied together by Stuart's glorious vox. Be prepared to sweat.

Listen! Bonjay - Frawdulent

Lioness is fronted by Vanessa Fischer (ex-No Dynamics) along with the ex-controller.controller rhythm section of Jeff Scheven and Ronnie Morris. The band's sound is an aggressively soulful death disco laced with bass-heavy maximalist reverberations that work like subliminal dancefloor invocations.

Listen! Lioness - You're My Heart

Great Bloomers / House League

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Great Bloomers, fronted by talented craftsman Lowell Sostomi have slowly been winning me over. Working at the poppier end of the roots-rock spectrum, the band is reving up after a period of lying low — expect some new material in their set.

Listen! Great Bloomers - Dark Horse

What we'll be hearing from House League, meanwhile, is mostly unknown right now, but the mystery comes with the sweet tang of anticipation. Listed as a supergroup "featuring members of Evening Hymns, Forest City Lovers, Matters, and The Magic", we can conclude that this is a new name for the "family band" that has played a few times at celebrations put on by local label Out of This Spark. In the past this has involved both reinterpretations of the members' own songs as well as some goofy-fun cover band action. Whatever we get from this set should be a pretty cool time.

Bruce Peninsula / Jennifer Castle

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Bruce Peninsula should be in a celebratory mood for their show. After taking off the first half of the year while vocalist/guitarist Neil Haverty was treated for leukemia, the band is finally gearing up to release their second album Open Flames. There should be a lot of good vibes as the band raises their voices on their new folk-inspired tunes. This will be one of the most-anticipated sets in the music series, so grab your ticket ASAP.

Listen! Bruce Peninsula - Open Flame

Meanwhile, the excitement for that shouldn't be allowed to eclipse opener Jennifer Castle's set. Following on the excellent Castlemusic album (released earlier this year), Castle is on a creative tear right now, her haunting, hazy songs animated by her blues-y guitar styles and expressive vocals.

Listen! Jennifer Castle - Poor as Him

Miracle Fortress / Ruby Coast

Friday, August 12, 2011

When Graham Van Pelt returned with his Miracle Fortress earlier this year, some were surprised with his new sound, sporting a strong Talking Heads vibe and an 80's DOR undercarriage. But it was actually something that had been foreshadowed when he played SummerWorks back in aught-and-nine. I'm expecting a rabid crowd out for his return to the festival.

Listen! Miracle Fortress - Everything Works

Meanwhile, the scrappy Ruby Coast, purveyors of Tokyo Police Club-esque pop, will be making themselves heard as well.

Green Go / Powers

Saturday, August 13, 2011

It's been awhile since we've heard much from Green Go, but word is that a new album (following up 2009's Borders) is in the works. So expect some new songs constructed with a stripped-down, dance-floor chant sensibility. Bring your dancing shoes.

Listen! Green Go - Brains for Breakfast

Powers were formed out of the ashes of The Ghost is Dancing, and admittedly haven't yet impressed me any more in their new incarnation than they did in their previous one. This unit is at least admirably stripped-down and focused, providing a blacklight dance party, though they have something of a propensity for overreaching for epic grandeur. But with two keyboard players, they're a rhythmically intensive crew who can get a crowd dancing.

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Besides all of this, don't forget the Festival's Opening Party, taking place today (Thursday, August 4, 2011) in the MOCCA/Edward Day Gallery Courtyard. It's free and there'll be performances by The Elwins, Modern Superstitions, Light Fires and others. And also also, don't forget that besides all of this, there's the main theatre component, with a lot of shows worth investigating. (Me, I think I'll check out the one about Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger.) And don't forget to support the festival, which seems to be the victim of some fairly craven political interference with arts funding.

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¹ You can check out more info on all the bands from Lauren if you dig through the SummerWorks blog — look for the posts called "I Love This Band, and You Should Too".

Recording: Great Bloomers

Artist: Great Bloomers

Song: Dark Horse

Recorded at Artscape Gibraltar Point (ALL CAPS! Island Show), October 17, 2009.

Great Bloomers - Dark Horse

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: The ALL CAPS! Island Show (part II)

The ALL CAPS! Island Show (feat. Brian Borcherdt, Great Bloomers, Times Neue Roman, Sun Ra Ra Ra)

Artscape Gibraltar Point. Saturday, October 17, 2009.

This is part two of this day's events. For introduction and the day's earlier bands, see here.

Back in from the lighthouse, Georgia Webber told the re-assembling crowd some of its ghost stories — some true, some more spurious. By now, it was fully dark outside, giving a different atmosphere to the room as Brian Borcherdt took the stage. The darkness suited his solo acoustic material, with songs about ghosts and drowning delivered in his high, clear voice. Although Borcherdt has probably gotten the most gravy for his work with the storming dance marauders Holy Fuck, he actually was an established folky singer-songwriter before that unit took off and he has since been pursing parallel music tracks. The material at hand here, mostly deriving from '08's Coyotes, I believe, was well-assembled and well-delivered, melodic but not hooky. His music would fit well on a mixtape with say, Sandro Perri, whose solo acoustic material works in similar ways. Truth be told, this stuff didn't register with me strongly. There were one or two songs that had something going for them, but nothing really stuck — not a strong argument against their author by any means, just an indication that this style doesn't do much for me. He closed his set with a cover of Kim Mitchell's "Easy to Tame", which we will forgive as a lack of judgment arising from over-exuberance.

"You might notice half of us are missing", noted vocalist Lowell Sostomi as Great Bloomers began their set. Pulling double duty with an opening slot for Cuff the Duke at the 'Shoe later in the evening, the band elected to play in a stripped-down format. Kudos to them for playing a benefit on the night they had a paying gig to go to. The band is certainly reaching ever-growing numbers of people — the days' crowd was at its thickest at this point, with maybe sixty bodies in the room, responding heartily to the band's rootsy pop-rock. Myself, despite a couple previous exposures, I haven't particularly cottoned to their stuff. There's certainly something there — "Dark Horse" has a nice gallop to it, for example, but their songs to date largely haven't convinced me. Trying on some different material with the trio alignment, Sostomi played one he introduced as "an old love song" that predated the band as well as a new one. It's not out of the question that this band might impress me at some point down the road, but for the time being, they'll remain merely pleasant in my book.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Presumably looking to catch a ferry back to the mainland to attend to various evening plans, the crowd suddenly shrunk by about half, but it left a looser vibe among those sticking it out. Times Neue Roman were the day's first band to command the mostly-sitting crowd to stand up and move closer, handing out chocolates as an incentive. The crowd was soon into their high-energy hip-hop, though not quite responding to the band with the same vigour they were putting out: "to those not participating, you'll have to excuse the awkwardness of the call-and-response — we all just met, so we're still getting the hang of it," Arowbe commented. All things considered, TNR put on the best show of the night, with a dancer trying to get the crowd moving, plus a giant illuminated skull overlooking proceedings. Plus, the band pulled off the night's deftest bit of impromptu songwriting, presenting a tune called "Winston, Where are You?", based on the the story told in their introduction about Winston — the probably-mythical student at this school who, as a punishment, had to sit in a chair in the hatch under the library floor, and was forgotten there. The duo mixed in a couple songs with Alexander The on acoustic guitar — a break from their usual driving beats. As with the previous time I'd seen 'em, I was rather impressed by TNR's showmanship as well as their tunes. A couple days after this show, I had a song relentlessly trapped in my head, and I struggled for a while to figure out it was before I realized it was a Times Neue Roman joint — so take that as a good sign.

Listen to a track from this set here.

"Is that loud enough? I know it's been a real quiet day," asked Sun Ra Ra Ra, ending the night with a cobweb-clearing set of blistering rock anthems. The rock'n'roll equivalent of an overdriven flamethrower, the rapid-fire songs flew by with incomprehensibly shout-y vox, shards of feedback and a sock-full-of-nickels beat. Oh, plus a strutting costumed samurai marching around the room. Apparently playing sans their organ player, their sound managed to be pretty saturated regardless. A lightning fast version of "Surfin' Bird" made The Ramones sound like The Melvins — until it hit that lurch, the "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" before the song launches back into the "ooh mau mau", where the song stopped dead, the vocalist (Daniel? Emmot? their myspace leaves the matter unclear who the singer is) sputtering for a full weird minute before the band jumped back into the song. A guitar amp blew out on the penultimate song, but a quick switch got things back for the finale. Perhaps, like Ghostlight earlier on, this might have sounded all the more vital for standing in stark contrast to most of the other acts, but in the moment this felt pretty damned fine. Rousing, sweaty fun.

Listen to a track from this set here.

After that, there was a chunk of time to kill, as the next ferry was about forty-five minutes away, and this time, I was going to rely on the shuttle to get me back. So there was some shuffling around, and time to chat with some of the fellow stragglers and poking around a few more corners of the facility. Dale Morningstar, whose famous Gas Station studio was nearby, had lent out some PA equipment for the event and dropped by to check on it, chatting with the shuttle driver and a few other Islanders, keeping their wary eyes on us auslanders. Outside, there was heavy quiet, and a weird sense of time-confusion — after the full afternoon's concert, it felt really late, and standing outside, it could have been three in the morning as easily as ten at night.

Eventually, everyone shuffled onto the minibus for the surreal ride back to Ward's. The interior lights were on as we zipped through the sward, meaning only occasional shadows were visible as we passed through all the hollows I'd knocked about on my way in. The driver was blasting Q107 as the dudes behind me were confessing to each other that as they grew older, they were increasingly able to appreciate metal unironically. A strange little trip.

And then to the dock as the ferry was pulling in. A quick, chattery trip back across the water and then walk up to Union. It was not, in reality, all that late, and a more-eager type could have still gotten somewhere for a musical nightcap. But the day felt complete to me. Well-organized, well-executed, this was a fine bit of work by all involved, and a most worthy event.

Gig: Ohbijou

Ohbijou / Great Bloomers / Evening Hymns

The Opera House. Thursday, June 25, 2009.

The local CD release party for Ohbijou's excellent new Beacons album was much-anticipated. Even had it gone off on its original late April date, it would have felt rather a long time in coming, with several of the new songs having already had a fairly lengthy tenure in the setlist. But: good things/thems that wait/etc.

I was a tad apprehensive at the fact the gig was at The Opera House — not one of favourite venues to see one of my favourite bands. Though I've seen some great shows there, I've also had some negative experiences including sweaty, claustrophobic overcrowding and muddy sound. While I has hopeful that Ohbijou wasn't going to draw as much from the pushy, angry demographic of concert-goers, I was mildly worried that the room might muffle the beautifully detailed interplay of their sound. At the very least, I thought to myself on arriving, the band was able to use the big stage at The Opera House to their advantage, having taken some extra effort to dress it up with dramatically-hung sheets overhead and so forth.

First up was Evening Hymns, a local-via-Peterborough act, playing a set of Hayden-meets-Counting Crows-eque pop. Frontman Jonas Bonnetta has a plaintive voice and some vaguely pretty tunes that were at their best when delivered with a a six-piece backing band, adding flourishes on keyb, trumpet, and Sylvie Smith's backing vox. It was a spirited set with a nice energy level, but most of it didn't particularly connect with me. There were some good moments, and one winner in a new "Mountain Song" carried by James Bunton's (guesting from Ohbijou) rollicking beat, but overall, count me amongst the unconverted at this point.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'd seen Great Bloomers in a much smaller room this spring and was left with no strong impression. A bigger room with an enthusiastic crowd did not cause much change. The band is mildly MOR, but not unforgivably so, and actually led off with some fairly strong stuff, but I soon found it sagging a bit. Perhaps the well-executed cover of the Muscle Shoals classic "The Dark End of the Street" revealed the answer — the band's own material (as of yet) just hasn't reached that next level. It did pick up again towards the end — "Dark Horse" and "Speak of Trouble" both demonstrate some emergent popcraft, the former also showing that the band shouldn't be afraid to flex its country-rock muscles.

But in any case, all was prelude to Ohbijou's taking the stage. Boasting an enhanced lineup with extra strings and Kiely Russell's trumpet in addition to the core seven-piece, the band played an hour-long main set, very heavily leaning on the new album — only "St. Francis" from Swift Feet made it into the main set.¹ This garners to complaints from this corner — it's highly exciting to hear the band playing the newer stuff with full confidence and in lush sound. The band seemed rather happy to be playing for the hometown crowd, forging one more connection between band and place to add to the ones they celebrate in their songs.²

There was a good crowd on hand, but down on the floor it wasn't packed in and felt fairly comfortable.³ And the sound, in the end, was pretty good, with all the players audible in the mix and nothing too overpowering. In terms of sheer performance quality, this might have been the best I've even seen from Ohbijou — this band is performing at a remarkably high level right now. There was also a pleasing visual aspect to the show, with the sheets above the band's heads acting as a screen for some live projections of colourful Brownian motion. A three-song encore began with the ineffable sweetness of "Thunderlove" and ended with the all-hands-on-stage percussion spectacle of "The Woods". Quite a time. Ohbijou are one of our best bands, and hopefully this album does them well.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ I can't put a title to the last song of the main set, tho I'm sure I've heard it played before. The lyrics start with "I'll lay it down". Can anyone help here?

² Like the empty hole in Queen Street that always puts an echo of "Memoriam" in my mind when I walk by.

³ Though I have no love for the guy who started loudly yelling "encore!" with two songs left in the main set.

Gig: No Shame matinée @ Trash Palace

 

No Shame & The MuseBox present Rural Alberta Advantage / Dinosaur Bones / Great Bloomers / Peachcake

Trash Palace. Saturday, March 14, 2009.

A blurb describing Peachcake as "Kids on TV for kids" was enough to get A. (fighting a cold) out to join me for this matinée. We headed down, knowing vaguely where we were going, and knew we'd found the gig when we saw a small crowd scuffling in an alley. Headed inside and took in the digs. I'd been to a flick at the Trash Palace before they'd moved to this spot, and this looked like a good fit for "the 11th best place to watch a film in Toronto". Given that this was an all-ages afternoon show/unofficial CMW event, there was a pretty good mix of types in the crowd: hung-over concert-goers, spectacularly cool teenagers¹, parents, kids.

 

With no stage and the bands just occupying the floor at one end of the room, it was a fairly basic set up, almost more like a practice space, albeit one with a movie screen behind the band adding some visual flair to the proceedings.² An ideal venue, really, for Peachcake, who were absolutely dedicated to blurring the lines between performer and audience. They were also right in that fuzzy zone between "band" and "art project" with a guitarist and keytarist supplementing a laptop with backing tracks, but putting the focus squarely on frontman Stefan Pruett, busting out like a Furry with a breakdancing jones, who wanted nothing more than spread the gospel of Awesomeness and make people move. Thus a great deal of dancing and leaping about, including an ill-advised monkey bar routine on the distinctively not-load-bearing overhead water pipes³. Liberal use was made of a pile of props, including a rainbow umbrella and a giant sheet made into a tent for everyone to dance under. Great fun for those willing to get into the participatory spirit of it and dance away, and totally amusing for the rest of us stick-in-the-muds. Musically, I don't know if they were all that great — I hardly remember the music — but they were entertaining as hell. Or as A. said, with his typical understatement afterwards: "You know what the problem with that was? It was just like every other show I've been to."

 

Things got more conventionally rock'n'roll after that, with Great Bloomers taking the floor, changing the vibe from queer exuberance to heartland earnest. Great Bloomers' style is probably closest to 80's roots-rock: a bit of country road dust, but without explicit twang.⁴ They were counterpointed by an old Slayer concert video playing on the screen behind them ("I got this from my uncle when I was in grade seven," said singer Lowell Sostomi), leading to some amusing banter between songs. The band was engaging, but not especially so — I have no gripes with them but their music didn't particularly hook me in.

 

Dinosaur Bones, somewhat to my surprise, did grab me more. What I might have merely dismissed as melodic modern rock (descended from British club bands playing as if they were British stadium bands) had some sort of slowly swirling undertow that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it was the fact the band could have made the songs anthemic, but went down a more interesting and textured path. I'm not quite sure, but I enjoyed them and would see them again to try and nail it down more.

 

Last up was the one known quantity in the show to me: The Rural Alberta Advantage. For a band that I dismissed sneeringly on first hearing them ("like Hayden with a distortion pedal," I'd sniffed) and had left halfway through their set the second time I saw them, it's rather surprising that something clicked when I gave them one more shot, taking them in last fall opening a gig for Ohbijou and The Acorn. That time, I liked them enough to leave the show with a copy of their Hometowns disc, and listening to the slightly more subtle touch on the album really sealed the deal. So although I'd seen them before, this was my first time going in expecting to, like, feel it. And indeed I did. The combination of melancholy lyrics, subtly propulsive rhythms and lovely movie-star calibre cheekbones mesmerised me for their half-hour.⁵ Wrapping up their setlist with a couple minutes left on the clock, the band stepped out in front of the microphones and closed with a hushed version of an (unreleased?) song called "Goodbye" that brought a tear to these crusty old eyes. Garnering tonnes of accolades, this band seems on the way up, so who knows if I'll see them in such close quarters again?

 

Overall, a really good show, and fantastic value for money. It's always nice to get out of the clubs to see a gig, so kudos are due to everyone who put this together. There should be more shows like this.

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¹ While on the one hand, I realize how awesome it is that there are shows like this to get the young generation up to speed, culturally speaking, at an early age, there's also the cranky part of me that feels it's completely unfair that the kids get to discover the good stuff without having to suffer through listening to Genesis and Toto and Men at Work first, like we had to back in my day.

² Another excellent addition was a giant digital countdown timer behind the band, showing that the claim of "strict 30 minute sets" was no idle boast.

³ This led to some intervention from proprietor Stacey Case, who, overall, was very cool with the fact that a crowd of people were basically hanging out in his workspace. To me, what Mr. Case is doing at the Trash Palace is the absolute essence of "support for the arts", a genuine labour of love that will hopefully not go unrewarded.

⁴ Revealing cover song: The Band's "Look Out Cleveland".

⁵ Plus, given the nature video that was playing on the screen behind them, from now on whenever I see a closeup of a praying mantis eating the head of another bug, I'll always think of the RAA.