In-store: Fanshaw

Fanshaw

Criminal Records. Friday, June 18, 2010.

In-store performances at Criminal Records seem to go to extremes of attendance: the ones I've been to have either been tightly packed or rather thinly attended.¹ This early evening with Fanshaw — an early-evening solo spot before a full NXNE set with her backing group later that night — was one of the latter. Olivia Fetherstonhaugh, who formed the band to deliver her voice and words, was alone on the stage at the back of the store, her snazzy red Jaguar plugged right into the board, playing her songs to a crowd in the single digits. Though sporting a lovely voice and some well-crafted songs that had gained Dark Eyes, her debut album, a release from Mint Records², Fetherstonhaugh was still a bit tentative and self-deprecating on stage, leading off by commenting, "I'm going to play an easy one first — I guess they're all easy."

The songs might be melodically straightforward, but Fetherstonhaugh had some well-hewn lyrics, including a penchant for daydreamy observations, such as on "O Sailor". And even moreso on lucid dream-ramble "Paperboy", which did a nice job of sliding in and out of different realities. I was enjoying it all, but that one sold me on the whole enterprise. The set, six quick songs, ended with one non-album selection — a precursor to "Strong Hips" that was raw and quite directly introspective, examining her self-doubts — "I'm not even a real musician / Well, I play guitar, but it's my drummer who tunes it / Did I drop out for this?" It was emotionally affecting but less sharply-crafted than the newer stuff from her album — a sign of how far she has advanced.

There were only a handful of people listening, but if you believe in the old saw about making fans one-at-a-time, it was a success.³ I left with a copy of her album — and more notably, at the end of the set a trio of teenaged girls came up to talk to her, moved by it despite having come across the performance by chance while they were browsing in the store.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Either way, the folks at Criminal deserve big praise for hosting these events on a regular basis. Especially during NXNE, when its nice to have extra chances to catch bands in the overloaded crush of stuff going on.

² Fetherstonhaugh is also a member of Vancouver's The Choir Practice, which has also released an album on Mint.

³ You're also welcome, I suppose, to view that as untenably romantic, considering the economic realities involved in having a band come out from Vancouver. Hopefully they made some more fans at their formal NXNE set, too.

In-store: Dan Mangan

Dan Mangan

Criminal Records. Saturday, March 13, 2010.

Now this is what buzz looks like. A day previous, I'd thought the crowd was a bit incommensurate with the level of hype around the bands playing at Criminal Records. This time, however, there was a rather healthy crowd on hand, filling up the store quite nicely. I arrived not long after the end of the opening in-store set by Aidan Knight, and in the brownian motion of people moving out and moving up I managed to snag a nice spot. Despite worse weather — blech — than the previous day, there was an obvious charge in the air with folks excited to see Dan Mangan. The changeover was fairly quick, as there was some personnel overlap, including Knight joining Mangan on guitar.

"On a personal level and on a musical level, I love Aidan Knight so much that I forced him to play with us."

"The joke's on you — I don't know any of the songs," Knight replied.

That deadpan exchange was typical of the low-key looseness at hand for this show and Mangan's stage presence was one of his foremost charms. Apparently not one to take himself too seriously, he killed time trying to think of a joke while everyone else finished their preparations. Once everything was ready to go, the four-piece launched into "Road Regrets", followed by "Sold" — and in the middle of the latter Mangan paused the song to tell the joke he'd been thinking of during the soundcheck. That was followed by a new song that Knight and drummer Kenton Loewen hadn't previously heard, but they pulled it off well. Musically, it was a straightforward sound, with Mangan on acoustic, Knight throwing in some unshowly fills on electric guitar, and Michael Owen-Liston adding backing vox while playing stand-up bass.

Coming in without really having checked out his stuff previously, I found it generally enjoyable. In this sort of situation I probably paid less attention to Mangan's lyrics than I would have if I were listening to his album. I liked "Tina’s Glorious Comeback" and his closer, an insidiously catchy one about Robots, which I'm guessing is the "hit". With Hannah Georgas stepping up to add some vox, it turned into a delightful singalong with Mangan holding the mic out over the audience. That's one that can get stuck in your head for a week or two.

Mangan has the gift of coming off as totally, unimpeachably genuine. Plus a great look — slightly cuddly like he could cook you a nice pasta dish, but rugged enough with that beard to indicate that he could chop some logs for the fireplace — someone you could take home to mom and dad, in other words. And though that makes it tempting to damn him with the faint praise of his breakthrough album title — Nice, Nice, Very Nice — even in a short set like this, one could see why Mangan is winning a larger audience. Is it the worst thing in the world to consider the possibility that nice sells?

Listen to a track from this set here.

Were I a slightly more diligent sort, I migth have stuck around for the last of the in-store sets, to see how Hollerado have come along in the year since I saw them in these exact circumstances. But there was a thick, younger crowd jockeying for position, and I figured I'd leave my spot to someone who'd appreciate it more, and headed back out into the rain.

In-store: The Balconies / Ghostkeeper

The Balconies / Ghostkeeper

Criminal Records. Friday, March 12, 2010.

One of the side benefits of something like CMW is getting extra chances to catch bands play. The cool people at Criminal Records are definitely into the spirit of it, putting on early in-store shows on a couple nights that served as a good way to ease into an evening of venue-hopping.

On a cold, rainy Friday, I was thinking I was going to get to Queen Street just in time to catch the start of the show — but any worries I was going to be late evaporated when I noticed that Balconies' singer/guitarist Jacquie Neville was on the same streetcar as me.¹ So indeed I had a couple minutes to settle in as the band got ready to play. Perhaps it was bleh-inducing rain outside, but the crowd on hand was a bit thin given the amount of buzz around the bands on hand.

The Balconies, for example, have turned a lot of heads with their high-energy live sets. I know I was sold when I saw 'em playing late last year and listening to their poptastic, self-titled debut album absolutely sealed the deal. More familiar with them now, I was able to spend more time just enjoying the band and less trying to think on how to describe them.² The Neville siblings traded off leads to start, with Jacquie on "Ghost Fever" followed by Stephen on "Lulu" and from there the trio continued for over half an hour — almost a full-length set for a band with a single-album repertoire. The band threw themselves into it with break-a-sweat gusto, too, clearly not scaling back their energy because this was "just" an in-store show. I was glad to have the chance to see them again and confirm that the one show I saw was no fluke — you can mark The Balconies down as a reliable source of rockin' fun.³

Listen to a track from this set here.

After a break for the bands to switch over, an even smaller crowd stuck around for out-of-towners Ghostkeeper. Not just a cool band name, they are in fact named after singer/guitarist Shane Ghostkeeper, rockin' with his Métis heritage on display in his beaded guitar strap and feather dangling from his guitar. Hailing from Alberta, the band is apparently usually a five-piece, but was stripped down to a trio for in-store purposes. The group are aligned with Chad VanGaalen's Flemish Eye label, but take that as a commitment to a certain skewed approach to music-making more than sharing a sound with any of their label-mates.

The band played a sort of abstracted, experimental take on blues-rock, an interesting mix that had their songs sounding as if they might be as likely to veer into a Pavement cover as into, say, The Georgia Satellites' "Keep Your Hands to Yourself". The songs' structures weren't off-the-shelf rote, but the excursions did sometimes lose focus. Meanwhile, in the store's PA, drummer Sarah Houle's vox sorta disappeared into the mix. But there was something interesting going on here — I wouldn't say the band is all the way there yet, but given the half-hour ended strongly with "Well Well Well" and "Turn Up the Heat", there's signs that Ghostkeeper are on to something.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Celebrities! They travel just like we do!

² I'll stick with my earlier assessment of Laura Branigan meets the The dB's, even if that hasn't seemed to have caught on anywhere else yet.

³ And if you haven't seen The Balconies yet, I note they're playing a Steam Whistle "Unsigned" show on May 28th.

Recording: Deep Dark United

Artist: Deep Dark United

Song: Sex and Death

Recorded at Wavelength 500 (night 1), The Music Gallery, February 10, 2010.

Deep Dark United - Sex and Death

My notes for this set can be found here.

In-store: Noah and the Whale

Noah and the Whale

Criminal Records. Saturday, October 31, 2009.

Turned onto Queen Street just a few minutes before the noon start time for this one to find a small queue outside Criminal Records, the doors still closed and the tour bus looming parallel along the curb. So wait for a few minutes, listening to the young women behind me in the line arguing back and forth whether or not the one of them had said last summer that the first Noah and the Whale album was one of her favourites, of, like, ever. Not a dilemma for myself — truth be told, I'd not heard any of their music, and was here on spec. Well, that, plus it was more or less a side-stop on the way to an early matinée, otherwise I'd probably not have bothered.

A bit past the top of the hour, the door opened and the crowd filed in — a good sized showing, filling the space up pretty well. Once the five players had filed in from their bus, we were all urged to sit down to allow everyone a view — which was quite fine by me and ultimately fit the vibe. The band looked a little groggy, but that seemed to fit, too, with leader Charlie Fink singing, "this is a song for anyone who can't get out of bed," on their opener "Blue Skies"¹ — and making it feel immediately autobiographical. Gentle, goes-down-easy folk-pop with a heaping side order of mope seemed to be their m.o., and it was all pleasant enough. Don't know how much louder and rougher they bring it when rocking out, but for this appearance they came across like a band that the girls could take home to mother.

Four songs in twenty minutes, and they did manage to build up a bit of a head of steam by "Love of an Orchestra", the final selection. "Are any of you guys coming to the show tonight?" Fink asked, and a few clapped, though certainly a goodly proportion of this crowd wouldn't be of age for it. Myself, I didn't depart feeling like I'd be missing something be being elsewhere on the evening, but it was a pleasant-enough early afternoon diversion.

Listen to a track from this performance here.

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¹ Um, an original — not related to the Irving Berlin number.

In-store: Jon-Rae Fletcher / Hollerado @ Criminal Records

Jon-Rae Fletcher / Hollerado

Criminal Records. Saturday, March 14, 2009.

After the Trash Palace gig ended, had time to stretch my legs with the walk up to Queen Street, caffeinate myself, and wander leisurely over to Criminal Records. Any worries I had about having to fight through the crowds were dissolved by the rather meager turnout to see Jon-Rae Fletcher's solo set, which was about a dozen people, bandmembers included. Sporting a new, pomade-enabled quiff¹, Jon-Rae treated us to a half-dozen songs, leading off with the excellent "Fire" (from '07's Knows What You Need) but otherwise sticking with songs from the new Oh, Maria disc. It was a highly pleasing intimate performance, and a good reminder of the strength of his compositions, making me realize that I'd be a fool to skip his evening set in favour of something else.

With no pressing engagements, I figured I'd check out the evening's other in-store, despite never having heard of the band. With a half-hour to kill, I walked over to Pages for a quick browse, and when I got back at just after seven, Hollerado was already playing. To my surprise, there was a respectable crowd in front of the band, bopping merrily away. The band's key demographic appeared to be about sixteen years old, which is perhaps why they were not on my radar. They played spiky, catchy rock-pop — nothing groundbreaking, but at least managing to avoid some of the contemporary mersh clichés and remaining upbeat throughout. They were fully proficient but managed to be fairly self-deprecating, and despite being a known quantity (they clearly had a "hit" that the kids were anticipating and cheering for) they didn't put themselves above their fans, inviting people up to whistle a hook on one song and sing background vox on another. Nothing I'd go out of my way for, but it was pleasant, and the kids are alright² and could do worse than listen to this kind of stuff, I guess.

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¹ Could a Brylcreem endorsement be in the offing?

² Except possibly the one young lad dressed in a Sgt Pepper marching band jacket. A red one, no less, making him George, which is questionable in the "cool" department. Or possibly the epitome of cool these days, I suppose. What do I know?