Recording: The Allison Cameron Band

Artist: The Allison Cameron Band

Song: Maggie Dargai [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), April 5, 2023.

The Allison Cameron Band - Maggie Dargai [excerpt]

A too-rare chance to see the "new" AC Band, with Allison Cameron (mostly on banjo here) joined by Thom Gill (guit/keyb) and Kurt Newman (guit/effects). There were some improvisations from the trio but it was especially excting to see some compositions being essayed, including this piece (carrying over some Martin Arnold deconstructed folk vibes) from the essential self-titled album.

You can catch the full piece, as well as an improvisation, over on youtube:

Monday Roundup #83

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Concert announcements:

Kurt Newman/Karen Ng/Andrew Furlong / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-08-24 (Wednesday). $10/PWYC. [FB event]

The Ryan Driver Sextet / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-08-26 (Friday) [FB event]

Happy Sundays (feat. Aidan Baker / Picastro / Man Meets Bear) / The Baby G 2022-08-28 (Sunday) [FB event]

Reverberations & Resonances [works for "solo alto saxophone and electronics" by James Tenney and Paolo Griffin] (feat. David Zucchi) / Array Space 2022-09-09 (Friday). General admission: $15, Students/Seniors/Arts Workers: $10. [FB event]

Eliza Niemi [album release!] (Dorothea Paas / Le Ren / Jeremy Ray) / The Baby G 2022-09-17 (Saturday). $16.52, 19+. [FB event]

Heaven For Real [LP release!] (Sook-Yin Lee / Poolblood) / Monarch Tavern 2022-10-01 (Saturday). $15 advance, 19+. [FB event]

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Shows this week:

Karen Ng's Wenona Series (feat. Michael Davidson [solo vibraphone] / Allison Cameron/Mira Martin Gray/Karen Ng) / Wenona Lodge 2022-08-16 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Josh Cole presents (feat. Dun-Dun Band) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-08-17 (Wednesday). $PWYC. [FB event]

Amber [Lori Freedman & Scott Thomson] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-08-18 (Thursday). $PWYW.

Jane Inc. (Huxlii / Koza) / Monarch Tavern 2022-08-19 (Friday). $13.50 advance, 19+. [FB event]

catl. / The Upper Deck Bar, Toronto Island Marina 2022-08-20 (Saturday). $free. [more info]

Family Ravine / Lostworldsounds / Ecotone / Bar Orwell 2022-08-21 (Sunday – 6 p.m. show). $10/PWYC.

Kelly McMichael (Claire Maeve) / The Dakota Tavern 2022-08-21 (Sunday – early show @ 6:30 p.m.). $19.13 advance, 19+. [FB event]

TONE presents (feat. Ashley Paul / Andre Ethier / Nick Storring) / Array Space 2022-08-21 (Sunday). $17.52 advance, all ages/licensed. [FB event]

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It happened this week...

• ...on August 16, 2017 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).

The Allison Cameron Band - [set 1, first piece excerpt]

• ...on August 17, 2017 at the Gardiner Museum.

Public Recordings - To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation [excerpt 1]

[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.]

Recording: The Allison Cameron Band

Artist: The Allison Cameron Band

Song: [excerpt from 2nd piece]

Recorded at Array Space (MFS 10th Anniversary Celebration: A Night of Improvised Music), February 10, 2019.

The Allison Cameron Band - [excerpt from 2nd piece]

Every year around Valentine's Day, I tend to remember that it's this blog's anniversary. Then I check back to that first entry, see I'm already a day late, and go on with life. This year, I was thinking about it well ahead of time, and seeing that big, round (and mightily unexpected) tenth anniversary approaching, it seemed befitting to do something a little special. That ended up being a pair of shows, conceptually split into "improvised" and "rock" nights.

For the former, Somewhere There helped out by lending me their regular second Sunday of the month slot at Array, and from there, it was just a matter of winnowing it down from the dozens of people that I wanted to ask to play. It was a no-brainer to ask Allison Cameron to play, as her work as an improviser has inspired and taught me so much. By sheer good luck, three busy schedules aligned and I managed to wrangle a rare show from the "new" Allison Cameron Band (and, as far as I know, their first away from the Tranzac) where Cameron's banjo, keyboard, toy hedgehog squeezebox and tableful of Honeytone mini-amps are augmented by Kurt Newman's guitar and Thom Gill's guitar and synth. There's been talk of working out some pieces for this group to play, but for now, it's just improvisations finding intriguing meeting points in loud and quiet places.

[Allison Cameron will be debuting a new trio named Agar Agar (with Germaine Liu and Andrew Zukerman) at a very cool/noisy Burn Down The Capital show at The Burdock on Tuesday, April 23rd, and will be bringing some Two Ted Country Blues to The Tranzac next Wednesday (April 17th) alongside Nick Storring and Kurt Newman. Newman will also be playing a trio with Mark Zurawinski and Allison Cameron that night, and you'll also be able to find him at The Tranzac tomorrow afternoon (April 14th), doing some pickin' at Ayal Senior's monthly.]

Recording: The Allison Cameron Band

Artist: The Allison Cameron Band

Songs: [three improvisations]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), July 18, 2018.

The Allison Cameron Band - [excerpt from 1st set, 2nd piece]

The Allison Cameron Band - [1st set, 4th piece]

The Allison Cameron Band - [2nd set, 1st piece]

A too-rare outing from this no-longer-new incarnation of the AC Band actually started off as a duo, with Allison Cameron and Kurt Newman exploring the soundworlds of helicopter simulator software before Thom Gill manifested and joined the fray, adding keyboard and guitar options to enrich the proceedings. Ballads with foundsound noisebursts/metal doodlebugging and country licks stretching out into toffee were just some of the zones that got scratched at — there's a lot of fertile ground for this unit to explore, and that's even without the benefit of regular performances to really burrow into those spaces.

Recording: The Allison Cameron Band

Artist: The Allison Cameron Band

Songs: [excerpts from two pieces]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), August 16, 2017.

The Allison Cameron Band - [set 1, first piece excerpt]

The Allison Cameron Band - [set 2, first piece excerpt]

In its original incarnation with Stephen Parkinson and Eric Chenaux, The Allison Cameron Band released an underappreciated stone classic album on Rat-Drifting back in 2010. After various plans to leave the country had been enacted, Cameron has decided to reconvene the band with a couple new guitar-slingers, namely Kurt Newman and Thom Gill (who also brought his keyboard along). The former is from these parts but has been based until recently in Texas and California; the latter seems to be slipping some more improvised driftways once more into his always-busy schedule. An indication of what sort of band this is can be gleaned from the fact those two formally introduced themselves to each other shortly before the set started. Sometimes sounding in these first forays like a conference of thoughtful crickets chirruping at each other, there's no particular reason to assume that future meetings will resemble that at all.