Recording: Jason Collett

Artist: Jason Collett

Song: Song of the Silver-Haired Hippie

Recorded at Jason Collett's Basement Revue, The Dakota Tavern, December 14, 2010.

Jason Collett - Song of the Silver-Haired Hippie

My notes for this set can be found here.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

Recording: Jason Collett

Artist: Jason Collett

Song: Cassandra

Recorded December 7, 2010 at Jason Collett's Basement Revue (Week 1), The Dakota Tavern, Toronto, Canada.

Jason Collett - Cassandra

Full review to follow My notes for this set can be found here — but for now, on the occasion of Rob Ford's investiture (and a bizarre, instantly notorious speech by Don Cherry) I'll pass along this topical broadside from Jason Collett dedicated to "Doom and Doomer".

Afterthought: Now found in a studio version on the Arts & Crafts: 2003-2013 compilation, this song was not yet, at this performance, "false".

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.

---

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.

Recording: Jason Collett

Artist: Jason Collett

Song: My Daddy was a Rock'n'Roller

Recorded at The Dakota Tavern, Jason Collett's Basement Revue, December 1, 2009.

Jason Collett - My Daddy was a Rock'n'Roller

My notes for this show can be found here.

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.

---

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?

Gig: Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene / Rattlesnake Choir

Harbourfront Centre. July 11, 2009.

As I left the love vibe of Afrofest and climbed on the subway to get down to Harbourfront, I had this vague worry that I was leaving Woodstock to go to Altamont — to what would surely be an overcrowded, pushy cauldron of gatecrashers. Best to get there super early, then, and get a seat. Even if that meant standing for the length of the show, having a demarked bit of space would hopefully at least make things tolerable. Got to Union and walked down, and while I was making my way over on the boardwalk, I could hear that music playing. It was soundcheck, and there was a semi-full house already as I found a spot and settled in. J. found me a few minutes later as we listened to the band run through "Fire Eye'd Boy" and an couple more songs. Caught sight of Feist and Amy Millan amongst the whole crowd, the sense building that was going to be the full Broken Social Scene experience.

Then there was some time to kill. I talked about my Woodstock/Altamont theory and we discussed Lester bangs at Altamont while we watched the young crowd, seemingly fresh from the pages of Vice magazine, fill in the last remaining seats and begin to congregate in the aisles. In terms of time fillers, there was also an opening act, local crew Rattlesnake Choir, who played a competent set of perfectly fungible country-rock. "Didn't the Flying Burrito Brothers play first at Altamont?" asked J.¹ I wasn't terribly excited by the act — not so much that I was going to stand up to watch — so instead I figured this might be the last best opportunity to get to the bathroom. Made my way through the crowd, by now pretty thick outside the seating area, and blinked my eyes a couple times when I thought I saw the Angels brandishing their weighted pool cues. Made it there and back without incident, not feeling so eager to have to do that twice. Meanwhile, Rattlesnake Choir were still playing. By and large, there was nothing wrong with them, and they'd probably sound fine in their native environment down in the Dakota. But at this show, in front of this crowd, if didn't sit right, and I was sorta looking at my watch, thinking of that curfew and how every minute this lot played meant one less for BSS.

Oh — did I mention the cameras? There were at least three big camera rigs on site, including a pair on the stage and one at the back of the seating area, plus guys all over with movie cameras. Turns out the event was being filmed by Bruce McDonald, who came out to speak to the crowd briefly. My mind was immediately flashing on the scene with Drew and Canning with McDonald in the editing room, going through the footage frame-by-frame to find where you could first spot the guy pulling the gun.

Anyways, just before nine, the waiting was over, and Broken Social Scene took the stage. Leading off with an instrumental, everything suddenly felt okay. After "Fire Eye'd Boy", Kevin said, "we got all your hometown heroes here tonight!" As Feist came on stage and the crowd shrieked with girlish glee, the band broke into "Shoreline".² A couple solo numbers from Kevin and Brendan's solo/BSS albs followed.

Meanwhile, the non-annoying people that'd been sitting in front of us bailed, and the space was filled by a less-welcome crew of young dudes, sniggering at each other, lighting cigarettes, and yapping away between pouring shots from their concealed liquor bottle. They fell into that class of people who didn't give much consideration to those around them — if everyone in the place is standing up in the seats, does it really seem like a wise idea to sit on the back of a seat and lean back right up to the person standing there? This was the less fun part of the show, leaving J. muttering under his breath that he was going to unleash his inner Altamont on the young suburbanites.

But that notwithstanding, the show was getting on in cracking fashion. Divided into three acts, the middle segment was devoted to songs from members whose success has mostly led them away from the BSS circle. We got a new one from Amy Millan, which sounded nice, but was a little sedate for this situation, followed by a duet between Kevin and Feist, who mashed up the former's "Safety Bricks" with the latter's "Past In Present", plus some "I Feel It All" tacked on at the end. This was followed by Emily Haines fronting a slowed-down and BSS-ed up version of "Gimme Sympathy", which was very well done. Then, in a nice nod to the '04 Harbourfront show, Jason Collett did "I'll Bring the Sun", merging into a snippet of GBV's "Glad Girls" at the end.³ The middle part ended with Andrew Whiteman (joined by Apostle of Hustle's Dean Stone on drums) leading the band in a raucous take of "Soul Unwind" that used the horn section to good effect.

Listen to this version of "Gimme Sympathy" here.

The final act mixed old and new material, with "Almost Crimes" and an amazing "Anthems For a 17 Year Old Girl" bookending "New Country"⁴ and a new song known around the internet as "MTV Jam", presumably because of a video clip in circulation with them performing it on MTV — although I vividly recall the song from the BSS jam at Jason Collett's Dakota residency in December '07. Kevin seemed impressed with the speed at which the band had got through the setlist, and lapsed, for the only time during the show, into his new-age Primal Scream guru persona: "Everyone say 'I'm Sorry'!" He instructed the crowd. "Everyone say 'I Still Fuckin' Love You!'" For a brief second it seemed like the band was going to do the setlist and that's it, which confused me — I'd expected the band to fill every second up to that curfew. But normality soon re-asserted itself, and the band launched into a fiery version of "Pacific Theme", and seemingly everyone climbed up to stand on their seats. A couple more songs and that was it, again — except for an uptempo jaunt through "Major Label Debut".

Getting out wasn't terribly bad — people had started trickling away after 10:30 and after a small, dense knot of people in the standing area it was pretty navigable. Certainly one to remember, it felt like a summation of everything that's come so far. It'll be interesting to see when so many of the clan are assembled on one stage again, but at least it does seem like there's still some viable forward momentum in the old Scene yet. And while there were some moments where I was feeling less-than-charitable towards my fellow concert-goers, no-one ended up stabbed, so success on many levels.

Listen to another track from this gig here.

---

¹ So as to not besmirch his rep as a rock'n'roll historian, I must note that J. subsequently corrected himself by noting that Santana actually played first that day.

² Wherein she made one slight alteration to the lyrics — instead of saying "If you try to steal the beat / the beat will steal you", she said "If you try to steal the scene / the scene will steal you". Or you could capitalize that to The Scene for some interesting self-referential fun.

³ To complete the tribute to that '04 show, I was kinda hoping Canning would wear a towel on his head again, but no luck there.

⁴ A song that dates back to the You Forgot It In People era, but was never recorded, and has been recently revived — perhaps this has been tackled at the band's recent recording sessions?