Monday Roundup #219

Community notes:

• Word on the street is that the Dakota Tavern isn't re-opening, so add one more to the list of defunct Toronto music venues. I wasn't a regular, but I liked the room and saw some pretty cool shows there! (Check out down below for some of my memories.)

photo by Jen Haslett via David McPherson

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Concert announcements:

A Tiny Drop of Peace [Brian Abbott/Paul Newman] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-03-31 (Monday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Not Dead Yet presents (feat. Eiko Ishibashi / Sweet Lips) / The Garrison 2025-04-01 (Tuesday). $45.11, 19+. [more info/tickets]

Harry Bartlett's Mountain Air [Harry Bartlett/Aline Homzy/Andrew Downing] / Sellers and Newel 2025-04-02 (Wednesday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

stef.in [Icterus II LP Release!] (Animatist / Adversarial Networks) / Monarch Tavern 2025-04-03 (Thursday). $20, 19+. [FB event]

Corpusse / Sellers and Newel 2025-04-04 (Friday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

Ministry of Phonic Services presents (feat. Allison Cameron / Naomi McCarroll-Butler / Aida Khorsandi) / Allan Gardens 2025-04-04 (Friday). $15. [tickets/more info]

Audiopollination (feat. Zack Goldstein/Dave Nelson/Janel Jones / Jamie Eriksen/Mike Filippov/Saba Saneinejad / Bill Gilliam/Jonnie Bakan/Zoë Alexis-Abrams / Turtle Pleasure) / Array Space 2025-04-11 (Friday). $10 cash or card, livestream available. [FB event]

Stranger Still [Pete Johnston/Mim Adams/Randi Helmers/Rob Clutton] / 918 Bathurst (Sun Room) 2025-04-13 (Sunday – 3 p.m.). $20 or PWYC

More Noise Please! Presents: The Ecstasy Of Noise (feat. Ritual Purification / Fussing / Eric Baylies / Brian Ruryk & %%30%30 / Auto Feeder) / The No No Room at the Dock Ellis 2025-04-17 (Thursday) [more info]

Avalon Tassonyi (Westelaken / Jo Passed) / The Baby G 2025-04-17 (Thursday). $24.11, 19+. [FB event]

Elisa Thorn & Laura Swankey / Sellers and Newel 2025-04-19 (Saturday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

Sarah Greene with Paul Kolinski & Michael Herring (Shawn Durkin) / Sellers and Newel 2025-04-23 (Wednesday). $20 minimum donation. [FB event]

Mole Mountain and Isla Craig [Remembered In Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia release celebration!] [Mike Smith/Jake Oelrichs/Pete Johnston/Isla Craig/Andrew Killawee + guests] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-04-25 (Thursday – early). $pwyc.

Brittany Pitt & Evan Tighe / Sellers and Newel 2025-05-06 (Tuesday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

The Lina Allemano Four [Lina Allemano/Andrew Downing/Brodie West/Nick Fraser] / Sellers and Newel 2025-05-10 (Saturday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

Ladyfinger [Diane Roblin & Kayla Milmine] / Sellers and Newel 2025-05-14 (Wednesday). $20 minimum donation. [more info]

Is your show missing from this list? Submit it via this form!

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Shows this week:

Clue Note: Trivia Night and Creative Music [note: no trivia this time!] (feat. Rob Clutton/Bea Labikova/Mira Martin-Gray/Doug Tielli/Kevin Turcotte/Mark Zurawinski) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-03-25 (Tuesday – early) [more info]

Nick Fraser presents (feat. Nick Fraser's Special Topics [Nick Fraser/Kae Murphy/Max Stover/Josh Cole]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-03-25 (Tuesday) [more info]

Nosferatu: silent film with a live score! (feat. The Kupenta Singers/The Hybrid Ensemble/the DOG ensemble) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2025-03-26 (Wednesday). $pwyc. [more info]

Ronley Teper & the Lipliners / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-03-26 (Wednesday) [more info]

Ministry of Phonic Services presents BPM: the Big Percussion Meeting (feat. _53d8ZxP / Aidan McConnell / Jaz Tsui / Louis Pino / Mateos Labbé-Phelan / Raphael Roter) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-03-27 (Thursday). $pwyc. [more info]

Exit Points #58 (feat. Behnoosh Behnamnia/Doris Du/Kimia Farokhzad/Zack Goldstein/Brank Oh! / Kristine White/Joel Ong/Piers Oolvai/Aisha Sasha John/Michael Palumbo / Switchemups) / Array Space 2025-03-28 (Friday). $15 early bird / $20 adv / $25 door. [FB event]

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It happened this week...

• ...on December 16, 2009 at The Dakota Tavern (The Old Soul's 8th Anniversary Christmas Show).

The Old Soul - Let's Neck

• ...on April 5, 2011 at The Dakota Tavern.

Daniel Romano - Knowing That You're Mine

• ...on December 23, 2012 at The Dakota Tavern.

catl - 5 Miles

• ...on September 19, 2013 at The Dakota Tavern (September residency – Week 3),.

Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - Fortune Tellin' Chicken / Plastics For 500, Bob / Customized

• ...on October 10, 2019 at The Dakota Tavern.

Pernice Brothers - The Weakest Shade of Blue

[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]

Gig: Daniel Romano

Daniel Romano (The Weather Station)

The Dakota Tavern. Tuesday, April 5, 2011.

By some weird coincidence, it seems like every time I go to The Dakota, it's miserably cold out. This unseasonably frigid early-April night, cold wind cutting through me, was no exception. That was one more factor making it mildly surprising that I made it out at all for this, on a Tuesday night when I was feeling rather listless and ready to go to bed early.

But as it turned out, I dragged myself down, getting to Dundas and Ossington in time to grab myself a table up front, hoping to myself that it'd be a considerate crowd in a mood to listen to The Weather Station — all the more so once I realized that on this night that would mean a solo performance from Tamara Lindeman. Formerly associated with Entire Cities and sharing members of that group for live performance, it would turn out that Lindeman was shedding both her old sound and her old songs, presenting an entire set of new material. In the midst of recording what would become All of It Was Mine, the set ultimately contained all ten songs that would appear on that album.¹

By starting with the full-on spareness of "Trying", Lindeman managed to pull the crowd in and quite quickly the room would be admirably quiet — and stay so for the whole set. After that, the banjo picking of "Everything I Saw" felt more expansive, but even that was still rather unadorned, with Lindeman daring to expose her voice and lyrics in the unfamiliar songs — but the audience was listening.

After that she picked up the guitar for the rest of the set, introducing the emotionally raw "Traveller" ("about a house where I happen to live, just down the street, 'round the corner."), exploring how emotional shock renders familiar things strange, turning one's own neighbourhood into a foreign landscape.

And after that the music became even more unadorned and spare. Apologizing for playing a "quiet song", "Running Around Asking", just had barely-strummed guitar and voice and the rattle of the ventilation fan in the background. And as if designed for a bit of catharsis, the set ended with "If I've Been Fooled", which projects resolve in the face of loss and confusion.

Truth be told, at the time I found Lindeman's songs to be lovely but nor highly affecting, though I think some of that could just be down to trying to absorb so much new material all at once. After a couple more doses of this, and spending some time with the songs in their recorded form, I've been won over a whole lot more.²

Listen to a song from this set here.

Though formally just billed as a solo show, this would in fact be the debut performance of Daniel Romano & the Trilliums, the kickdrum sporting a fresh-looking design with the band's name. Romano took to the stage in a yellow/gold suit decorated with trilliums (trillia?) in Nudie-esque glitter and and Misha Bower, his vocal foil, had a correspondingly trillium-ized dress.

That'd make for an appropriately Parsons-y vibe that was carried further with the hurtin' sounds of "Time Forgot (To Change My Heart)". I'd seen Romano playing in a couple different contexts before, but this was a welcome chance to hear him backed by a full, five-piece band, complete with matching jackets, celebrating the release of his second solo full-length Sleep Beneath the Willow (itself the follow-up to the very fine Workin' For the Music Man). I wouldn't have minded hearing some full-band versions of the older songs, but it would turn out that this set would start with basically presenting the new album, playing its first four songs in a row before the band (save for Bower) departed for a quieter acoustic portion.

The duo did take one look back with "She Was the World to Me", and chased that with a nice version of "Never a Forced Smile". The crowd's attention span for the quieter stuff started to wane a bit after a couple songs, and a cover ("Two Pillow Sleeper", was the title, though I couldn't catch who Romano said it was by) was a bit lost.

The crowd was similarly still a bit more chatty when the band returned to basically complete the run of the album, beginning with "Helen's Restaurant"³ and working up to "There Are Lines In My Face", which served as the big set-closer, stretched out to give a solo for everyone. The band was uniformly strong, but I'd single out Aaron Goldstein (Hamilton-based producer, and touring member with Cowboy Junkies and City and Colour), whose pedal steel work should be mentioned for bringing that old-fashioned tear-in-my-beer vibe. There were a couple rough spots that you'd expect from a band playing their first show, but the off-the-cuff quality generally served the material well.

After that, the crowd called for an encore. "We're out of material," Romano commented as the band returned, but they put their heads together to come up with what I presume was one more cover (called, perhaps, "When I Was Abroad"), dedicating it to Shotgun Jimmie who was taking in the proceedings from the side of the stage.

A fine set, and The Dakota was about the perfect environment for this sort of honky-tonkin' stuff. I've caught Romano again since this night, but not again with a band, so I'm glad that I didn't miss this one. Hopefully there'll be more chances in the future.

Listen to a song from this set here.

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¹ That album, like pretty much everything mentioned in this post, was issued by the fine folks at You've Changed Records, an imprint that you should very much be keeping your eyes on.

² Though still staying true to the spare beauty of these songs, Lindeman's arrangements have gotten a bit more elaborate lately — the last time I saw her she was backed by Marine Dreams' Ian Kehoe. Regardless of who she's playing with, you'll want to get down The Great Hall early when The Weather Station openings things up for Night 3 of Wavelength's TWELVE Festival on Saturday, February 18, 2011.

³ That song depends on that old country music trick of leaving the obvious rhyme at the end of a line unspoken, and turning it somewhere unexpected at the beginning of the next — "she grabbed her man by his side / and stared right deep in his... wallet to get her fair share" and so on.

Gig: Jason Collett's Basement Revue (week two)

Jason Collett's Basement Revue (feat. Matt Barber / David McGimpsey (poetry) / Jennifer Castle / Michael Helm (fiction) / Carl Wilson (music criticism) / Nathan Lawr / Doug Paisley)

The Dakota Tavern. Tuesday, December 14, 2010.

It's an indulgence to go to the Basement Revue two weeks in a row, but I didn't let that stop me. Given the amount of goodwill and good word-of-mouth these shows generate, who knows for how much longer it'll be relatively easy to get tickets at all? So, back down to the Dakota on a snowy night that didn't deter the crowd too much. Getting a little closer to xmas, the stage was now decked out with extra lights and festive cowboy hats.

As usual, Jason Collett lead off with a short solo set, including "Long May You Love" (from his most recent long-player Rat A Tat Tat) and "Henry's Song" (from Here's To Being Here — the Henry in question is Henry Miller, for whose who hadn't dug too deeply into the lyrics). Further exploring the "in-between space between musicians and writers", Collett sprung a new song that he'd cribbed from Damian Rogers' poem "Song of the Silver-Haired Hippie". Sitting in the crowd, Rogers uttered a surprised "what?" to the room when Collett announced the song's existence. It turned out to be a nice bit of work, the words matched to a nimble little slide move — the song even garnered an appreciative "thank you" from the poet at the end. Collett finished off by reaching back to 2003's Motor Motel Love Songs for "Blue Sky".

Listen to a track from this set here.

The first musical guest of the night was Matthew Barber, engaging in another sort of musical cross-fertilization. Instead of playing anything from his own albums, he presented the audience with some songs that he was working on for a stage adaptation of Derek McCormack's The Haunted Hillbilly.¹ The book is an amped-up, ultra-heightened retelling of Hank Williams' story, with Satan — in the guise of Nudie Cohn — bestowing on Hank Williams the songwriters' gift while crippling him with drugs. It's a tall order — and a rather unenviable job — to have to come up with some new Hank Williams songs, but "Got That Lonesome Feeling on my Mind" had the flavour. It's even more difficult to do that while giving the songs a narrative thrust to fit in a story's arc, and the songs that Barber presented in that vein was a bit more wobbly when stripped of their context.

There was also a lot of pop culture to decode in the poems of David McGimpsey, who read "Invitation" (to a 39th birthday party) from his collection Sitcom. The poem's punchlines ("There'll be a piñata made up to look like an old college professor who said I'd go far... I can hardly wait to give that thing a whack.") were a delivery system for examining mixed feelings on getting older. He followed that with a song played on Collett's guitar (it managed to reference both Milli Vanilli and Penthouse Forum) before closing out with "Montreal", a tribute to his home town ("O the poutine! O the bagels! O bagels stuffed full of poutine!"). This worked for me — the poetry at the Basement Revue always seems to go down easier when it's couched in the low-brow jumble of everyday life.

In introducing Jennifer Castle, Collett had scant biographical details to relate, befitting an artist whose work is more in the realm of instinct and half-revealed mysteries. Playing solo, her jaunty Christmas sweater clashed with the pessimistic sentiments of "For My Friends". That'd be the first of several songs that segued freely from one to the next — a method I've seen her employ in the past. After "You Don't Have to Be" her set looked forward more to her new songs, now available on her excellent new Castlemusic album.

Listen to a track from this set here.

To round out the first half, novelist Michael Helm read from Cities of Refuge. Set in Toronto, this has been rather enthusiastically received, but in giving us a self-contained sketch of one of the characters, I didn't get too much of a feel for what the whole work might be like.

A different kind of reading after the break from music critic Carl Wilson, who instead of pulling out something from Let's Talk About Love (his examination of the construction of taste in the guise of an analysis of Céline Dion), read a piece that came from Back to the World — his shared blog that's an essential venue for thoughtful writing on culture — about seeing Mary Margaret O'Hara perform. An articulate musing on the problem of bodies having minds (or possibly vice-versa) and the relationship between music and bodies, it was interesting to watch Wilson reading, his right hand twitching a little while he held his sheets of paper with the other, trying to make out his words in the dim light.

After seeing the full-on Minotaurs groove machine several times over the past months, it felt a bit strange to see Nathan Lawr in this stripped-down format, playing acoustic and backed only by Ryan Levecque. Levecque's electric guitar had a dying pedal or loose connection somewhere, and "Runaway Lane" ended with an unexpected "static solo", but otherwise this was far more genteel that what Lawr's been up to lately. Of course, though, Lawr has been a singer-songwriter for longer than he's been an Afrobeat/folk bandleader, so this wasn't any sort of unique arrangement for him. Still, the mini-set didn't have the spark his band adds, even when attempting a slightly-sloppy cover of "Canary in a Coalmine", which was dedicated to Rob Ford.

After stepping up to sing one more song, Jason Collett invited David McGimpsey to recite a poem backed by Doug Paisley's band. McGimpsey read what appeared to be a string of several poems (including "Scrubland" and "The Streets of Laredo") amalgamated into what came across as a Texas-set prose-poem travelogue, a sun-scorched journey of regret filled with conversational asides. Given the disjointed origins, there wasn't a stong narrative throughline, and the band's music, with more drift than drive, fit well, though both felt like they were drifting a bit too much by the end. But that's okay in an improvised experiment like this.

That led right into Doug Paisley's set. Though I had brushed across his music a couple times, Paisley was mostly unknown to me until his Constant Companion album started to garner some serious accolades. This set turned out to be just the opportunity I'd been needing to really get a feel for his work.

Paisley accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and was backed by bass, drums (Matt Barber, sitting in) and piano. he turned out to be a fine entertainer, bantering and cracking jokes between songs. The set starting with a mini-medley of songs from John Wesley Harding ("is two songs a medley?" Paisley asked at the end) before moving into his own material, including the expertly crafted "What I Saw", one of the gems from the new album. After that, he focused on older stuff like "Digging in the Ground", and "Broken in Two". There was also "Make it a Double", introduced as a new song ("it's new, and I think it's country, so does that make it New Country?") and "Take Me" (a Leon Payne song, most famously played by George Jones) — and it was telling that the excellent "If I Wanted To" fit right in alongside it.

Jennifer Castle sings on several tracks on the new album, so Paisley took advantage of her presence to close the set with the three songs she'd appeared on, including the ace "No One But You" and the lullaby-like "Come Here My Love". The clock pushing one, the night wrapped up with the topically correct "End of the Day".²

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ In another connection, McCormack had read from his book at last year's Basement Revue, so this almost felt like a progress update on how this one piece of art was getting along out in the big wide world.

² I don't think Paisley has been playing a lot in town lately, so you should hasten down to Soundscapes next Tuesday (May 31, 2011) to catch him doing an in-store set.

Gig: Jason Collett's Basement Revue (week one)

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, Tuesday, December 7, 2010.

Jason Collett's Basement Revue, now in its fourth year, has become a bit of an institution, taking over the cozy basement space of the Dakota on Tuesdays throughout December. It's a pricey ticket, by my standards, but it's a full night's worth of entertainment — and I do like the intimate vibe and who-knows-what-you'll-get element of surprise.

On the year's first instalment, the place filled in pretty early, and though a sign on the door said the show would start at ten, 'round 9:30 without any announcement Collett took the stage and launched straight into "Not Over You" before chatting with the crowd about what the night would hold. Amongst the innovations on this night, "in the very far back corner... is a poetry vending machine," dispensing poetic snacks for a toonie.

And then paying tribute to the city's new mayor on the day of his surreal swearing-in, Collett debuted a new song called "Cassandra", dedicated to Rob Ford and Don Cherry, whom he passingly referred to as "Doom and Doomer". It was more of an attack generally on populists and demagogues, but there was no small force in the refrain of "go back to from where you came".

Listen to a song from this set here.

After that, Collett slipped into MC mode,¹ introducing "the first poet of the night" — and the word "first" might have caused a raised eyebrow or two, though on the whole, Collett's affection for that element of the Revue was pretty plain to see. And overall, the concept worked very well, with the audience keeping pretty quiet for Ottawa's David O'Meara, reading lyric poetry mostly about daily life. The best of the bunch might have been one reflecting on William Safire's dilemma in having to write a speech in case the Apollo mission went wrong.

The night's first musical guest was Guelph's Jessy Bell Smith, who looked a little nervous on taking the stage. She steadied herself by starting off with a cover of Nina Simone's "I Love My Baby" with a voice that wouldn't sound out of place on a crackly 78. That kind of soulful blues-y vibe carried forward into her own songs, which had a measured resonance that was odds with her stage persona. She came off a little antsy and playing a bit at being a rube, proclaiming "it's fun to play in the big city!" Still, her performance was enjoyable for the honest goodness of her complete earnestness.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Keeping up with the variety format, writer Pasha Malla took the stage to tell a friend's story about encountering Michael Jackson before reading a satirical piece about his sex tape — and why no one was downloading it from the internet.

And then, closing out the first half of the night was Julie Fader playing solo. She performed some songs from her top-notch Outside In album, including "Flights", and tried out a new one (maybe called "I'm An Island") before bringing up Jim Bryson to add some backing vocals on "723". Jason Collett, as is usually the case, stood by the bar to watch her play, giving the impression that he picks the guests based on what he'd like to hear more than anything else. Meanwhile, Fader invited the crowd to song along on the chorus while covering Yazoo's "Only You" to close things out. One measure of the demographic at these shows was that most on hand knew the song well enough to join in.

After the short grab a drink/smoke break, Ken Babstock did a slightly longer poetry set, starting off with "Tarentella" and a couple others from Airstream Land Yacht. There was also a taste of his then-forthcoming Methodist Hatchet collection. The short poems bristled with a flood of energy, with topics that were specific, but also specifically obscure, perhaps well-captured by the title-explains-it-all "As Effected By Klaus Berger's Haircut, Whose Brainwaves His Father Recorded Inventing the EEG". Babstock's work is widely acclaimed, but I must admit it all kinda slid past me.

Though I've tangentially come across Jim Bryson's work, I hadn't listened to much. His solo set here might not have entirely spoken to what his albums sound like, but I was won over by his engaging and slightly goofy presence. He was not beyond veering off into tangents — describing, during "Wild Folk", where the solo could go, where the horns should be and so on. And then, taking advantage of the other artists on hand for some collaborations, he brought up Julie Fader to add some vocals and flute to the delicate "Freeways in the Frontyard". Even more intriguing was "Fire Watch", a song he wrote based on a poem by Ken Babstock, which he'd changed around some. Reuniting "the shoplifter and the thief", Babstock came up to read the poem in the middle of the song, a collaboration that worked tremendously well, creating a real highlight and showing off the sort of cross-pollination that Collett is trying to encourage at these shows.

Listen to a song from this set here.

And then, in a regular Basement Revue treat, as Peter Elkas and his band got set up for the night's closing set, they were first joined by David O'Meara, creating improvised backing music as he read a couple more poems. "Background Noise" was interesting, but it really clicked on "Powerboat", the band catching the poem's increasing velocity and sudden crash. And showing how closely he was listening to the band listen to him, O'Meara was willing to lay back and let the band work up to the energy he was looking for.

Check out one of these poems here.

That led right into the set proper from Peter Elkas and band. Elkas, on guitar throughout, was backed by bass (Doug Friesen), drums (Gavin McGuire) and keyb (Jeff Haysall), plus Joseph Shabason on sax.² Following from his work in Local Rabbits, Elkas' solo work has burrowed even deeper down a retro, soul-inflected path. The pejorative here would be to label this as "dad rock", which is to say it's well-crafted stuff, the rough edges smoothed down a little. Well-suited for, say, people who appreciate Elkas' frequent tour-mate Joel Plaskett. I found it all a little too pleasant to really grab me, but as he led off with a couple from his '07 album Wall of Fire (including "Sweet Nancy" and the title track) it looked like this was right in the sweet spot of most people on hand.

By this point of the night, there was a more pronounced divide between the "rather sit quietly" and "drinkin' and dancin'" crowds, each of which were casting glares at each other for spoiling their fun. By about a half-past midnight, the people thinking ahead to Wednesday morning started trickling out as one lone live-in-the-moment enthusiast was shouting, "let's move the tables!". By the later part of the set, it was cleared out enough that he could move them out of his dancing way. Meanwhile, Elkas was trying out some newer material, working the kinks from some of the songs on his now-released "Repeat Offender", including "Blue of You", "Anticipation", and "Misery".³ "Cruel Thing to Do" was probably the best of the bunch here. After a string of new material, he snapped back to his 2003 solo debut Party of One for "Build a Harmony". All told, the band played an eleven-song set, closing with the thematically-appropriate "Turn Out The Lights", and it was about ten past one when the night ended.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Thanks to K. for letting me use her camera for some of the less blurry pictures here.

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¹ Being taller than everyone he introduced, the first thing every artist would do on taking the stage would invariably be to adjust the microphone down to their level.

² Interestingly, I had seen Shabason playing with Elkas' ex-bandmate Ben Gunning just a couple weeks previously.

³ Elkas made the ecologically laudable but tactically awkward mistake of putting his setlist on his phone, meaning he'd have to pull it out and fiddle with the screen a bit between songs. Sometimes the old ways just work best.

Gig: Jason Collett's Annual Basement Review (week four)

Jason Collett's Annual Basement Review (feat. Sina Queyras, Alex Lukashevsky, Sheila Heti, Laura Barrett, Grant Lawrence, Gentleman Reg, Taylor Knox and The Ishmaels)

The Dakota Tavern. Tuesday, December 22, 2009.

Back to the Dakota for another dose of Jason Collett's mystery train. Heading in, I can't pretend that I wasn't eager for some figures — oh, say, BSS related — that you'd normally never see in a room of this size. Or, for that matter, something as memorably offbeat as a Michael P. Clive cooking segment. It turned out, as I looked at the merch table and evaluated the artistes milling around the back of the room it looked more like we'd be seeing some of the people I tend to see in rooms like this on a more regular basis. But that's no problem — by luck I got to see a couple of my local faves. It was also more of a story-based kind of night, where there might have been almost as much talking on the stage as music. The format was slightly tweaked from my previous outing, with the musicians earlier on playing slightly longer sets (usually meaning four songs instead of three), with a shorter "long" set at the end balancing things out.

Kicking things off as usual with a stern reminder about cellphone usage and a short set, Jason Collett began by recounting a BSS touring story of a journey home above the Great Lakes, involving a police shakedown and a Sheryl Crow tape. This was the entry into "Lake Superior", which led into the same border crossing tune I'd heard at the previous visit, and then "Vanderpool Vanderpool", about the goings-on at a Chicago brothel at the turn of the last century — the banter stringing his songs into a loosely-connected suite. With Collett's Rat A Tat Tat scheduled for an early March release, I think I'd wager we'll have several chances to hear the new material over the spring and summer.

Up on stage while the audience was still quiet and attentive, the night's poet was Sina Queyras, who read from her "Expressway", with some subtly post-apocalyptic imagery, in a quiet, unforced voice. That stuck a bit more than a couple more domestic ones that followed, but enjoyable in a low-key kind of way.

Alex Lukashevsky was up next, with a solo set with his acoustic guitar. As always, his weirdly dazzling playing was filled with slightly off-kilter runs of notes, well-matched with his slightly skewed lyrics ("I'm too old to be a human / but could I be Canadian?", say, or "without grief there's no gravy"), played with his characteristic casualness, as if playing a gig were slightly less interesting than his previous night's karaoke. The set included a take of Deep Dark United's "Downhill is Downtown" and a couple of his other songs were familiar to me, but I can't place them as DDU songs or tracks from his solo Connexions. As with every time I hear Lukashevsky's music I was a bit delighted, a bit perplexed, and a bit wishful for a few more hooks, but it was, overall, a pleasing re-acquaintance with his tunes.¹

Listen to a track from this set here.

The story theme was picked up with novelist and Trampoline Hall founder Sheila Heti, reading with an appealingly bright voice that fit the tone of two short pieces from her collection The Middle Stories. "The Giant" was a little preciously allegorical, but was redeemed some by her explanation afterward, including a sweet sentiment about Toronto — despite the occasional desire to get away, "it's just an impossible place not to want to live in", she explained. She also read "The Poet and the Novelist as Roommates", which had a bit more bite and specificity to it ("one was so gruff and silent and thick – like a real man; and the other was disinterested and distracted and edgy – like a real man.") and spoke more to her talent.

Speaking of sweet preciousness (and, I suppose, of how the line between what what you find delightful and what you roll your eyes at is so precariously subjective) Laura Barrett emerged for the next set. Playing standing up, Barrett started solo with "Senior & the Blob" before bringing out Ajay Mehra and Dana Snell for a couple songs. Showing her characteristic total and earnest commitment to any idea, no matter how goofy, the trio covered Alvin & The Chipmunks' "Christmas Don't Be Late", chipmunk banter and all. The set closed out with "Robot Ponies", which was also, come to think of it, a seasonal choice. Always a thrill to hear Laura Barrett, all the more so when it was quite unexpected like this.

Listen to a track from this set here.

The second half of the night opened with a tale from ex-Smuggler and current CBC3 host Grant Lawrence, who told the next closest thing to the proverbial big fish story, involving an unusual incident with a giant octopus while gathering prawns. "It held up the crescent wrench with one tentacle," was just the beginning of the incredible-but-true tale — soon it had a knife, too, and six more limbs to grab weapons with. Lawrence even had some CBC swag to pass out.

And then, also in the "always a delight" category, Gentleman Reg brought the most rockin' set of the night so far.² Replicating the opening moves of their recent Opera House show, the band opened with "For Trust", their lovely contribution to this year's Friends in Bellwoods 2 comp — a nice mellow groove that wore well in the room. And then built up from there. The band were joined by Lief Mosbaugh (who was once, alongside Reg, in The Hidden Cameras, apparently now with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra) for some extra vox on "Wild Heart". Obviously, I've seen Reg enough times this year that this wasn't essential, but it sounded fantastic. Hopefully someone in the audience — and my impression is that there were no few folks out for these shows with open ears but less likely to go to frequent gigs — was impressed by this and left wanting more.

While picking out musicians from the room to act as the night's poet-backing-band³, Jason Collett was inspired to tell a threat-of-nature story of his own, before Sina Queyras returned. This time reading from her Virginia Woolf deconstruction "The Waves, an unmaking". Interestingly, this one worked a bit in the opposite direction to the usual of the poet-plus-band experiments. Here, the band had already established a groove before she stepped on the stage, and Queyras fit her rhythms into that rather than the reverse. She eased back in her spoken tempo, filling more space with less syllables, sometimes even holding back her words to land on the beat. The slightly tense music from the band (including plucked piano wires and guitar strings scraped against a microphone) suited it well.

Listen to a part of this reading here.

The final act of the night was Taylor Knox and The Ishmaels. In a shorter long-set-to-end-the-night than last time I was around, the band played six songs in about twenty-five minutes. Fronted by Knox, drummer for The Golden Dogs, here playing 12-string electric guit. The band's album was composed of songs inspired by Moby Dick (thus contributing the band's name), and their sound takes some 12-string folk rock jangle, electrified by the power-pop chops that some of the members employ in their day jobs, notably the two-men-one-name rhythm section of bassist Andrew Scott (ex-Bicycles, recently spotted in Germans and Steamboat) and drummer Andrew Scott (Sloan).⁴ Muscular, slightly retro-minded power pop with, natch, a bit of literary flair. Given the subject matter, maybe they should have gotten Grant Lawrence up and backed him while telling another tale from the briney deep, but as it was, a satisfactory introduction.

Listen to a song from this set here.

And that was that for me at this year's Basement Ruvues. Having gone to my share of gigs, they might have been a bit less musically revelatory for me, and at twenty bones a night an expensive show by my standards. But it's becoming a great tradition, and Collett has put a lot of work into thoughtfully curating these nights, which is something that really sets them apart from just a bill of three of four bands taking turns on stage. Plus, the intimacy of the venue — with an audience that is generally willing to stay quiet and attentive — also help to make these special. It's nice to have some traditions and special events to look forward to in December.

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¹ During the break between sets, J. voiced his approval, commenting, "I liked that old alcoholic guy."

² Didactic Reg-trackers — and by this point you should be introducing yourselves to me if I don't already know you — should note that Dave Meslin was handling the bass this time round.

³ This time out including Mike O’Brien and Neil Quinn, though I didn't catch who the drummer was.

⁴ Or, at least, the rather scanty amount of info online implies that Scott is the regular drummer for this unit — I didn't mark him and can't positively say he was behind the kit for this set.

Gig: The Old Soul’s 8th Anniversary Christmas Party

The Old Soul’s 8th Anniversary Christmas Party

Dakota Tavern. Wednesday, December 16, 2009.

Ah, The Old Soul. The local group, with three discs under their belt, fit nicely into that category of local bands that have a sprawling, scalable membership (you might see them with five people on stage, or you might see them with twelve, depending on the night and the venue) as the means to explore one songwriter-leader's musical vision. The guy at the centre of this tasty maelstrom is Luca Maoloni, able on records to play all the parts of his elaborate songs, but usually behind a keyboard on stage. Influenced by the edgier kind of 70's soft-rock with a special penchant for Brian Wilson-esque arrangements ("Vege-Tables" may be the most revealing cover song in their repertoire), the band surrounds Maoloni's honeyed yelp with smooth layers of oscillating synths and throws whatever else is handy into the mix. Although keeping a low profile lately, they continued their tradition of playing an annual December "anniversary" gig that always portends a good time.

Fearful of a repeat of the disappointment of the '07 xmas party, where I arrived with a friend at what we thought was an outrageously early hour only to find the crowd at the cozy confines of The Dakota to be at capacity, this year I decided to get down there in good time — at the very least it's far better to be warm and snug inside than embittered and freezing out on the sidewalk.¹ As it turned out, there was an unbilled early show already on as I grabbed a seat at the bar, with Hopeful Monster, the pop project of Jason Ball, playing a PWYC show relaunching their Metatasking album. Ball played mostly at the piano and was accompanied by Jose Contreras (of By Divine Right) on a set of numbers ranging from Beatles-y pop to 70's piano soft rockers. There was also some nice sweetening by Randy Lee on violin for a few songs toward the end. It was pleasant, though one might well say, "sufficient, but not necessary".

And then The Old Soul got set up as the room filled in some. Not feeling quite so packed (though even when at capacity, it generally still feels like there's room to breathe at The Dakota), with the band's low profile and the hardly-advertised nature of the show this was largely a crowd of friends and those who knew to keep their eyes out for it. Starting things off, the group demonstrated that haven't been totally idle, starting off the set with a few new songs and works-in-progress. Titles include "Family Ties" and "Growing Pains"², which imply that Maoloni is taking a whimsical view of fatherhood. Or watching a lot of syndicated 80's TV. The early contender out of the pack might be one called "Reading Rainbow Rider". The band's lineup at the outset had three of six players behind keyboards, causing Maoloni to quip, as an introduction, "we're called Synthesizor! Welcome to our eighth anniversary show."

The non-keyb-playing half of the band, meanwhile, might be dubbed the "Steamboat Rhythm Kings", as Nick Taylor (guit), Jay Anderson (drums) and Matt McLaren (bass) got focused on their own soul-rock unit while Maoloni eased back on The Old Soul for parental duty. These guys generally kept things grounded enough to put the lie to the band's banter of ill-preparation. Despite the rust, only on a cover of Harry Nilsson's "Bath" — that Maoloni claimed to have foisted on the band, who had not rehearsed it — did things sound a bit rough. After the new material and the covers, the first set (going about forty-five minutes) ended with a mini-suite of vintage Old Soul that found the band hitting their stride.³

Now fully warmed up, the second set started with a slow build to "The Old Soul", and soon enough the dance floor in front of the stage was full with moving people, and there was a different vibe in the air, and as the music segued into "You Are Gold", it was suddenly a lot less like a listening party and more like a dancing one. Maoloni switched over to guitar — which, given the space constraints, left him standing on the floor beside the stage — for a couple more new songs.⁴ And, once again, the band rewarded the audience's indulgence for the new stuff with a couple more covers, including The Rutles' "Cheese and Onions" and Loretta Lynn's "You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly"⁵, with Tara-Lynn White guesting on vox, treading barbs with #2 vocalist and utility player Andrew Innanen⁶. Most of the music was fabulous but the pacing, from a band that's not been spending so much time together, was a little ragged, with breaks for tuning and gear switches taking things down a bit. And even when they were a bit ragged, it suited their songs well, such as on the second set closer, a galloping run through calypso makeout anthem "Let's Neck". There were isolated efforts at starting a conga line that never quite meshed up, while meanwhile Michael Louis Johnson wandered the dancefloor, adding some trumpet licks. Fun times.

And then, making good on the promise of three sets, the band returned for a generous encore, mixing three more songs from their first album (leading off with the catchy "River of Daughters") with a couple more covers — the Beatles' "I Got a Feeling"⁷, and then as the showstopper to close it all out, a satisfyingly funky run through ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down", the sort of song that this band was built to play. So, over two hours on stage for the band — not bad for a bunch of guys just throwing something together — and the grins on the members' faces at the end showed they were having a fine time. The Old Soul are pretty good stuff, but people tend to forget that when you slip away from the scene for a year. If the band actually manages to get some of this new stuff out there, and maybe play more than annually, next year's anniversary show might be back into the "hot ticket" realm. But for this year, it was five bucks very well spent.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ On that night, two years ago, the band were pretty fresh off their historically fabulous Gold album release party at Lee's Palace. In the end that night, we ended up knocking around the neighbourhood for a few rounds, before slipping in to catch the last half-hour or so of the show.

² I note that there's a demo for this one up at the band's myspace.

³ Maoloni credited drummer Jay Anderson — whose work on the night ranged from the Ringo-y fills on "Baby, I'm Amazed" to some Sabbath-worthy thunderous rolls on "E is for Estrogen" — for working out the deft arrangements stitching three or so songs together.

⁴ One of which, at this point in its evolution, appeared to have the title "F# Mofo" on the setlist, although that might just be a reminder of the key and the mood for the song.

⁵ Which isn't as completely out of place as it might seem. Although it's not the strongest flavour in the stew, the band does have a country side, as can be witnessed on their first album's "Nectar of the Nitwit". So there's a reason they play these shows at the Dakota and cover songs like Junior Brown's "Too Many Nights in a Roadhouse".

⁶ Innanen would later take some jabs for wearing a Jesus Lizard t-shirt on stage, with Maoloni suggesting that he'd have to wear a Yanni shirt next year to even things out.

⁷ Making it, weirdly, back-to-back trips to the Dakota where I've seen bands pull that one out.

Gig: Jason Collett's Annual Basement Review (week one)

Jason Collett's Annual Basement Review (feat. Jason Collett, Susan Holbrook, Neil Quin, Derek McCormack, Bahamas, Fraser Young, Danielle Duval, Beatlejuice)

Dakota Tavern. Tuesday, December 1, 2009.

For the third year running, local man-about-the-Scene Jason Collett has taken over the Dakota Tavern for December's Tuesday nights. Dubbed his "Basement Revue", each show features a different (and generally unannounced) line up, with poets and authors rubbing up against singer-songwriters and rockers, all playing short sets in a live variety show format. Tickets usually go fast for the cozy confines of The Dakota, the pleasant little country bar in a basement just off Dundas and Ossington. It's actually a venue I rather enjoy going to, which makes it strange that I hadn't, in fact, been there since this time last year. This night, showed up with K. at about quarter to ten. The tables spread out on the dance floor were filled up, be we managed to find a nice place to stand a bit further back. Just time to settle in, grab a beer and soon enough Jason Collett was taking the stage.

"How does it feel, not knowing who's gonna play tonight?"

Scattered, muted applause. One woman lets out a "woo!".

"Sounds like Toronto out there."

Picking up his guitar, he launched into "Airport", followed by "Fire", the sound system occasionally overcome by that that perbety-perbety-perb blipping noise of cellphone interference. It returned, more persistently, during a performance of one his new songs ("Cross the border down in Detroit/ workin' hard on my sangfroid"), forcing Collett to lengthen an instrumental break to wait out the ringtone.

With that warm-up, he introduced poet Susan Holbrook, who said this was the coolest gig she's even done ("the fact that I can call it a gig makes it more cool"). Filled with comedic wit, she read to an admirably quiet room, her poems employing found text and wordplay, deliberate use of cliché and pop culture ("The Disney Princesses had oatmeal and quail eggs for breakfast — Barbie had a diet pill and a grape pop tart.") Her reading occupied the rhythm of the words rather well — enjoyable stuff.

Then, a set from a slightly nervous Neil Quin of Zeus, playing solo electric guitar. Working a similar terrain to Afie Jurvanen (and even with a similar kind of bantering vibe), he did three generally agreeable songs, though they sounded a bit undercooked without accompaniment. More entertaining was Derek McCormack, reading from his novel The Haunted Hillbilly. Narrated from the perspective of Nudie Cohn — here a gay vampire trying to seduce Hank Williams — and written in a stylized minimalist-yet-flamboyantly-dramatic avant-comic-book style, McCormack gave very good reading that made me eager to check out his stuff — even ending his excerpt on a cliffhanger: "'Why does my ass hurt?' Hank thinks."

Listen to a part of this reading here.

Collett introduced Bahamas by unspooling a free-association family tree of all the night's musicians before bringing up the pair. Accompanied by Jason Tait on drums, Afie Jurvanen promised a set of all-new songs, playing three that all turned out to be instrumentals.¹ That was pleasantly rockin', and after Collett directed him to stay on stage to sing one, Jurvanen obliged with a cover of Dylan's xian era "In the Summertime" (from Shot of Love, Jurvanen here sounding a lot like Warren Zevon) to round out the first set and head, after a pretty solid hour, for a short break.

The second half started with a new wrinkle for the basement review — stand-up comedy from Fraser Young, delivering a slightly goofy observational take on contemporary issues such as classified ads, the internet and sexual mores. Good stuff. K., who was a fan of his work, reported that the ten-minute set was mostly older material, which made me think briefly about the different sort of standard an audience tends to hold comedy to than, say, music, where we wouldn't raise an eyebrow at the prospect of a set of stuff we've heard before.

The next mini-set was from singer-songwriter Danielle Duval. Unfamiliar to me, she fit well into the schema of the night, with her forthcoming album being produced by the Zeus tag team of Carlin Nicholson and Michael O'Brien. Taking a hands-on role, Nicholson even jumped onstage to whip a wayward amp back into shape during Duval's first song. With a pleasingly yearning voice, she played both on guit and piano, and sounds worthy of further investigation. All the more so since this was the one point of the evening where the crowd — or at least a small clot of oblivious, yapniks to my left — threatened to overwhelm the music. Her last song, "Imposter", was notably catchy.

Collette then brought back Susan Holbrook to read another poem, this time backed by an impromptu band featuring Mike O'Brien, Afie Jurvanen, Jason Tait and Carlin Nicholson. She read "Good Egg Bad Seed", a longer poem dealing with life's little dualities, with a suitably smoky groove from the band. One of the highlights of the night.

Listen to Holbrook and the band doing this piece here.

"I really like this band, so I'm going to hit them with a brand new song. We'll see what happens — we like the trainwrecks around here." Collett said, taking the stage following the poem. He picked up his guitar and showed the band the changes and they started into it once, abortively, before Collett stopped them, admonishing himself for misleading them about where the song was going by spending too much time talking. They started again and made it through a verse before Collett stopped to give further instructions, and then again — this time going all the way through. The song, maybe called "My Daddy was a Rock'n'Roller", was a sweetly nostalgic sort of remembrance, still with a few lyrical odd thumbs sticking out — but that went perfectly well with the figure-it-out-as-we-go along vibe from the musicians. A bit of a treat to see that raw live magic.

Listen to the band figuring it out on the fly here.

And then, the final set from "wedding party band" Beatlejuice, basically an amalgam of members from Zeus and The Golden Dogs. Playing, natch, all Beatles covers. Within those confines, the group managed to avoid some of the more obvious parts of the catalogue, ranging from early stuff ("You Can't Do That") and covers ("Please Mr. Postman") to late era material ("I've Got a Feeling").² The band found its sweetest spot in the second-tier '63-'65-ish stuff ("What You're Doing", "All I've Got to Do") which is punchy and more amenable to live performance. Keeping up a fast pace of quick songs, the band managed to squeeze out fourteen titles in just over forty-five minutes. A bit of a goofy lark ("this was all Jason's idea, for the record," the band explained) it made for a fun dance-the-night-away end to the evening. Not breaking new ground, but it took the overarching idea of the show's intimacy in a new direction — one could easily imagine these same musicians' teenaged selves jamming out these same songs in another basement somewhere, fusing these changes into their musical DNA.

During the set-up, a good chunk of the crowd decided to head home, and more trickled out as the hour grew later, leaving more elbow room as the band brought a cellar full of noise. Between songs, I kept waiting for someone to shout "Mach schau, Beatlejuice!", to the point where I was wondering if I'd have to do it myself. But seeing as none of the players on stage could be bothered to wear a toilet seat around their neck, I held back.

Perhaps lacking a bit in star power, this was still a solid night's entertainment — two-and-a-half-hours of show. To be in such an intimate space with the winning off-the-cuff vibe always makes these shows into a memorable event.

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¹ Jurvanen even left nearly all of his characteristic banter at the door, making for a wordless set all around.

² The set included "The Word", making it, strangely enough, the second time I'd seen a band cover that one in less than a week. What are the odds?