Currente calamo: The ALL CAPS! Island Festival 2013 (Saturday)

The ALL CAPS! Island Festival 2013 — Artscape Gibraltar Point

Day 1 — feat. Unfinished Business / Most People / ev ree wuhn / beekeeper / Shotgun Jimmie / Bizzarh / Hooded Fang / The Blow

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

Over each of the past four years, Wavelength has thrown an Island festival that has gotten bigger and more ambitious in scope — and become for some folks a tentpole summer event. When word of the fifth iteration came with the adjective "final" in its title, there was certainly cause for consternation. And yet, that "final" also fit right into the Wavelength ethos: on the one hand, it served as a focusing device, a reminder to be alive to this moment, because this is it. It also served as a reminder of WL's playful self-rejuvenation, as if the organizers were saying, "All right, we've finally really figured out how to do this, so let's start something new from scratch and make some more mistakes again."

And indeed, at a logistical level, this went off without a hitch. It helped that that ever-mercurial weather co-operated beyond all expectations, with pleasantly warm days turning to gorgeously cool evenings, and no threat of rain. But beyond that, the festival went off like clockwork — having nearly all the music on the roomy outdoor stage meant that the next band up could be gathering their gear together and getting ready to set up even before the band ahead of them finished playing. In fact, for the diligent music-listener, the main stage operated so efficiently that there was hardly time to check out the rest of the festival, from the game zone with ping-pong table and a giant Jenga set, to the open art studios, to — ah! — the beautiful beach. That also meant that people could customize their experience: for some, the music was merely the background to the camping, hanging around, beach-going, etc, and that's cool too.

I was mostly sticking around by the stage, mind, and I made a point of being there early enough to see the lightning-fast set from festival openers Unfinished Business. I'd seen the teenaged trio a few times already, and they always play with refreshingly unjaded joy. The youngest band at the festival (now savvy veterans at thirteen and fourteen years old!), they also helped to reinforce ALL CAPS' all-ages ethos, playing songs they've written about superpowers and #epicfails. Their music also brought some of the crowd's younger members right up front, so hopefully the we can do it/you can do it message is being passed along. The confetti cannon blast at the end came after only about ten minutes of playing, but the band packed in a full set of quick songs. [By the way, if you act fast, you can still get in on the rewards of the band's crowd-funded vinyl release plans.]

Listen to a couple quick songs from this set here.

"Incubator" band Most People have played the anniversary festival and celebrated their album release with Wavelength, but outside on a sunny afternoon seemed like their ideal environment. Although the songs' electronic spines feel like they were laptop-crafted in the bedroom, they have an expansive languidness that opens up underneath the sky. The echo-y atmospheres recall Dusted at a few points, but without the glumness. Employing guitar and bass on top of backing tracks, Brandon Gibson-DeGroote and Paul McEachern also take care to craft a concert experience that feels "live", whether joining in on a dual-drum breakdown or in striking a winking rock-star pose during closing statement of purpose "Young and Wild".

Listen to a song from this set here.

Name-wise, ev ree wuhn [sic] might sound more expansively ambitious than "Most People", and indeed, there's more reach in their post-bedroom breakbeat-informed wooze. That's not always to their credit, as that widescreen ambition sometimes led to a blockbuster-esque generic-ness. For example "Turquoise", featuring an over-emoting Devin Wilson (of local "apocalypse pop" unit Bravestation), sounded like the band was imagining themselves playing an arena show and reaching for the cheap seats. Some of the more textured material, such as "Paper Tokyo" came off better, and closer "Colours" seemed like an appropriate soundtrack to lean back and watch the clouds drifting overhead.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Taking the stage to the pre-recorded voice of a "bad advice hotline" would be the first sign that Vancouver's beekeeper is leavening their pop-punk-y tunes with a fair bit of whimsy. To put it another way: it was not a shock when the drummer punctuated a song by pulling out a kazoo. Usually, a little of this goes a long way, but I was actually surprised that I enjoyed the band's goofiness more than the music. When they broke into a (gleep) Alanis Morissette cover, at least Devon Lougheed had the decency to run down to the ground in front of the stage to solo among the first row of spectators. But there were some hints (such as the power pop of "It's The Blood") that the band's music might yet become as inneresting as their antics.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Hopefully they stuck around, as they could have no better guide to integrating whimsy and strong songwriting than Jim Kilpatrick, who operates under the nom de guerre Shotgun Jimmie. Often (such as at his Wavelength-abetted album release show) playing as a one-man band, Kilpatrick was backed here by a rhythm section of Jay Baird and the Cannon Bros.' Cole Woods. Having musical support behind him gave Kilpatrick a chance to untether himself from the songs a bit, leading to some pleasingly goofy "jazz" excursions and lounge versions of some of the tunes. The pair rolled with the sudden shifts, laughing along, and could also provide a powerful new wave crunch when the band attacked the songs head-on, such as on Transistor Sister's "Suzy". And more than at that album-release show, Kilpatrick was tossing out songs from throughout his career.

On the surface, these are simple songs presented in an uncomplicated way, but Kilpatrick's wit and presence elevates the material quite a lot. Maybe not so much that I'd want to join the trio of sing-all-the-words superfans who spent the show at the lip of the stage, but this was still pretty great stuff and one of the festival's highlights.

Listen to a couple songs from this set here.

Had I not seen Bizzarh just a couple weeks ago, I might have been dubious about the pair, as their hip-hop/R&B style is not the sort of music that I usually gravitate towards. But that Regent Park gig was a good reminder that talent trumps genre every time, and I left totally impressed with the duo.

Charli Champ and Dollar Paris play off each other with the ease of telepathic twins, spitting rhymes and singing hooks with a natural ease. That said, as they took the bigger festival stage, they looked a bit more nervous than at that last time 'round and it took a couple songs for them to really find their groove. But as they moved along, it seemed as if they realized the crowd was really into this, and they got back to their confident swagger. If we didn't get the front-porch a capella the pair threw off at Regent Park, we did get a string of rapid-fire hits, and there was so much packed into the quick songs that I was surprised that the set was done in twenty minutes.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Relative veterans, Hooded Fang showed how to keep the show moving forward even when there's some bumps in the road. After easing in with instrumental "Big Blue", the band leaped into their Gravez-garage-gloom, only to have both April Aliermo's bass and vocalist Daniel Lee's microphone come unplugged. The rest of the band plunged on, Lee gave a smile and a shrug and all at once they took off. As the band careened into "Ode to Subterrania", a small (and fairly gentle) moshpit formed up front as Lee and fellow guitarist Lane Halley threw in some fresh licks and noise-twists into the songs. Spreading the banter around also let the band's personalities shine, with the crowd getting to hear from an erudite hobo perfessor (drummer D. Alex Meeks) and sassy activist Aliermo. Even in the moments where things were falling apart a bit — or especially? — the set was a superb mix of technicolor slop and motorvatin' gusto.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Given that I had never heard of The Blow before, I simply had to trust in the curatorial skills of the Wavelength crew. But it didn't take long for Khaela Maricich to establish her headliner bona fides. All of the rock'n'roll gear stripped away, Maricich entered to a stage that was empty, save for her microphone stand, and proceeded to fill up the whole thing with her goofy/manic/sexy energy. Collaborator Melissa Dyne worked from a platform behind the audience, and as she'd start tracks and drop in skittering rhythmic complications, Maricich moved like one of the pied piper's rats, twitching and suddenly possessed by the music. (And if that makes it sound like a disagreeable experience for Maricich, do note that she'd frequently implore Dyne to never, ever let the rhythm stop.) It's a bit too bad that "Step Into My Wiggle Room", which would be an entirely apt album title, is already taken.

There was an element of performance art at play here, but it was never at the expense of the music or having fun. Debuting a set of almost entirely new material, there were some rough edges, but the anything-could-happen sensibility was a thousand times more fun than over-polished professionalism. Maricich got the crowd on side (demonstrations such as "Six Things My Butt Never Does" were a big winner) and even enlisted volunteers to operate the smoke machine at the edge of the stage. She also solicited ideas from the crowd, doing a cartwheel when one was called for and all-but-daring the crowd to command her to take off her pants. By the end of the set she spent most of one song singing while crowd surfing ("don't put me back! I don't want to stand!") — and eventually, the pants came off. That's always a satisfying way to end an evening.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Addendum: I have more photos from the weekend posted in an album over at the MFS Facebook page.

Recording: Unfinished Business

Artist: Unfinished Business

Songs: Haunted House + Superpowers

Recorded at Artscape Gibraltar Point ("The Final ALL CAPS! Island Festival"), August 10, 2013

Unfinished Business - Haunted House + Superpowers

My quick notes for this set can be found here.

Currente calamo: 159 Manning BBQ 2012

"What We Do is Secret" – 159 Manning BBQ 2012 (feat. The Harp Twins / Julie Doiron / The Cola Heads / Unfinished Business / Marnie Herald / Choir! Choir! Choir! / Little Orton Hoggit and his Ten Cent Wings / Shellshag / Buck 65 / Cousins)

159 Manning. Friday, June 15, 2012.

While this is fresh in my mind I want to get some quick notes down. I'm a nerd for not wanting to throw my full reviews out of sequence, so this'll be elaborated upon a bit by and by when I have proper time to go through all my recordings.

One of the more positively remarked-upon developments at NXNE over the past couple years has been the uptick in unofficial events, especially those taking place in the daytime. Whereas a few years ago, bands had to keep it on the downlow if they were playing outside of their sanctioned showcase timeslots, suddenly there's piles of BBQ's, parking lot shows and taco bar extravaganzas. Which is a fabulous thing — it doesn't substantially subtract from the bands' draw in their "official" appearances, it gives out-of-town bands more exposure and it really ramps up the festival's sense of eventfulness.

Timothy McCready, the "Emperor-Wizard of 159 Manning" is contributing to this, with his summer backyard extravaganza now in its fourth year. But while this all-day affair took advantage of NXNE to bring a couple out-of-towners out to play, it also felt pleasingly tangential to the hype-driven nature of a lot of North-by events. Which is to say, this wasn't particularly the place to go to if you wanted to be seen taking in the buzziest bands in town. In fact, unlike your typical NXNE day party, this didn't even trade on the name value of the musical acts at all, given that the lineup was kept secret until the event was underway. Instead, by tapping into a genuine local community spirit, this felt more like a village fair than a festival schmoozathon.

The event took advantage of several spaces — the backyard was the town square, with a stage set up for the performers, and the fence to the neighbours taken down to create an overflow area given over for the food zone, where two entire roast pigs were being served up. Inside, under the glare of shag-carpet clown art, the living room played host to a few sets, the basement got jammed out, and a photographer took over a room upstairs, offering portraits to anyone wandering in. There was a lot of stuff going on all day, so while I'm focusing on the music here, don't think that was the extent of the fun.

In the afternoon quietude, as the earlybirds trickled in Camille and Kennerly Kitt were setting up between two walls of books in the living room. Friends of Tim McCready who were brought in especially to open and close the day, their professional moniker The Harp Twins tells you exactly what you're getting. Playing rock classics and contemporary hits arranged for two harps, there were a few people on hand as they got started, but soon enough the living room was full with seated folks, attentive during the music and laughing and chatting with the twins between songs.

In fact, the informal vibe meant that an impromptu Q+A went hand in hand with covers of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and Led Zeppelin. That didn't subtract from the ornate beauty of the playing, which just seemed to follow from the way that the full-size acoustic harps gave both a feeling of stately beauty and an aura of old-time durable sophistication.

The peak was a singalong presentation of "Don't Stop Believin'", which turned into a crowdsourced experiment on how many lyrics people could remember on the spur of the moment. The twins were suitably impressed with how well the audience did, though I don't know if they realized how many choir-members — who will be further heard from later — they were playing to.

Back outside, the afternoon's heat was at its peak, the sun still too high to allow the house to cast the shadows that would provide precious shade later on. No surprise, then, that Julie Doiron was resigned at first to needing sunglasses to play her set. With her usual idiosyncratic self-reflection, though, she'd later ponder over whether she should be wearing shades, worrying about how they make it harder to establish eye contact. Worrying about attaining and keeping that kind of emotional closeness is at the core of Doiron's work, which might be why this backyard setting will fold in well with some of the best-remembered times I have seen her play.

Unvarnished, unedited human emotion is Doiron's stock-in-trade, and the same unfiltered rawness sometimes emerges as occasional lapses of over-sharing while chatting on stage. But amongst the usual songs about heartbreak and pain, it was a simple celebration of trees and grass that registered the most in this sun-drenched backyard: "by the lake, there's a rock, and it lets me lie on top / warmed by the sun and cooled by wind / and the water, it sings to me."¹

Away from the sun, a smaller subset of the crowd carefully made their way inside and down to the basement. That rehearsal-y backdrop felt just right for a quick'n'loud set from The Cola Heads. There was a fun and nostalgic vibe at hand, as this was a reunion of sorts for this first-ever teenaged band² for Julian Swift (who would later play with The Labour Of, Electricutie and Queen City Distributors). Original drummer Liam Jaeger (now of The Balconies) was joined by Swift's brother Nick Sewell (of Biblical/The Illuminati) on bass.³

"Sounds like: band practice" could be the operative element here, with the punkish bursts flying by like adolescent spasms, guitar roaring and vocals mostly an unintelligible mumble underneath. This'd be the loudest set of the day, but it was quite fun — if only someone had brought a rum-laced slurpee from the 7-11 up the street to go with the sweaty basement echoes and amiable brotherly ribbing it would have felt like a perfect slice of displaced teenaged fun.

That look back would be a good lead-in for the full-on youth rock of Unfinished Business, consisting of three girls between eleven and thirteen years of age who write all their own songs. Armed with one bad-assed guitar, Sita Gribben launched into the totally-awesome call for empathy "Try Not To Laugh" ("people falling off a pogo stick / try not to laugh"). Other songs were about rock stars, BFF's and haunted houses. Their set was a real joy to witness — they've already got the bravery and skills to rock out that put most of us to shame.

That short set left a few minutes to wander around — time to chat, have a beer, and grab some of the tasty, tasty pork. Wandered back inside and found a spot on the floor as Marnie Herald was getting ready to play. A comfy living room felt like the right sort of space for her folksy songs, delivered in a sterling voice. "It's a Pity Party" stuck with me, and had some nice understated keyboard touches from Catherine Stockhausen, who was sitting in. The songs they played together had an unfussy, informal feeling, as if the pair were working out their collaboration as we watched. The set ended with them tackling Stevie Nicks' "Wild Heart", which they admitted they'd first played together only the day before. It was a little ramshackle, but given how the whole thing felt more like hanging out than a performance that was just fine.

Back outside, the crowd had really swelled up. Some of that was from folks coming out after their workday had ended, but the bigger reason was that about half the crowd was about to perform. By the time they were assembled and ready to go, I couldn't even manage to get a headcount on the semicircle of people now taking up half the yard. Under the leadership of Nobu Aah and Daveed Goldman, Choir! Choir! Choir! has grown from a small meet-up to an informal force of hundreds. Obviously the concept taps into something pretty deep in people, where the joys of singing along is just one element of an inherently communal experience.

That works on audiences as well, and given their repertoire⁴, it's hard to not want to just sing along. That's helped by the unfussy arrangements, which don't try too hard to be fancy, leaving the songs and voices to showcase themselves. In this first set, "Mad World" worked very well and closer "La Isla Bonita" managed to end things with a big stomping, clap-along finale.

Sloan's Chris Murphy, who had been adjusting the drumkit on the stage while the choir had been singing, even got into the act, adding a kickdrum beat to the end of "La Isla Bonita". When I saw him on stage, my curiosity was piqued, and I figured that just maybe Little Orton Hoggit and his Ten Cent Wings might, in fact, be another name for someone I had seen before. In fact, it would turn out, Matt Murphy has been using this moniker for awhile while playing some good-time country music. Here, he stayed in character throughout the set, in shades and a cowboy hat, telling the story of his unfortunate career — where he had worked with all the greats, only for various misfortunes to intervene and consign him to perpetual obscurity. Murphy would act as his interlocutor throughout, prying details out and throwing in plenty of zingers in a cornpone routine that was sort of halfway between Hee Haw and Nashville.

The set was heavy on covers — although the original omni-key "Honky-Tonk Modulation" was trotted out as an example of Hogget's own ahead-of-his-time impulses. Most of it, like a jaunty run through "Whiskey River" was good to git down to.

Listen to a track from this set here.

When I first got wind of the full lineup for this show, I was totally stoked that Shellshag was on the bill. Not every set that I saw three years ago sticks with me, but the spirit that the Brooklyn duo play with really did. Eschewing the stage (and the PA), they set up right on the lawn and plugged into their "pyramid of sound", mics angled in a Y so that Shell (guitar) and Shag (drums) could stand and face each other while they played. Shell's long hair masked his face as he leaned in to sing, cranking out non-stop riffs on his clear plastic guitar. Shag smiled ear to ear, shaking her bell-adorned limbs for extra jangling percussion as she pointed a drumstick at the sky, looking elated to be playing rock'n'roll.

The net effect, I must confess, was completely intoxicating — maybe not even for the shaggy songs they were playing so much as the sense of elation it brought about. As they rumbled through a cacophonous cover of When In Rome's baldly romantic one-hit-wonder "The Promise" ("I'm just thinking of the right words to say / I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be / and if I had to walk the world, I'd make you fall for me / I promise you, I promise you I will"), grinning at each other throughout, I leaned to a friend and commented, "if I ever get married, this is what I want it to be like."

No doubt that the heat-haze and the backyard beers had something to do with it, but this was the most satisfying set that I'd seen in months. So much so that the big finale — when the anthemic "Fuck Society" ended with Shell carefully stacking all of the drums on top of each other in a precariously tottering tower — seemed like icing on the cake. A spectacularly joyful time.

Listen to a track from this set here.

After that, I was mildly fatigued as Buck 65 took the stage, but I was almost certainly in the right frame of mind. Richard Terfry might have been the day's biggest name, but he also acted if he was just here to hang out at a friend's house, talking about being neighbours with McCready and coming over to watch movies here. For this set he was in solo mode, rapping to backing tracks, but his little shuffles and between-song banter kept it feeling fresh.

Marnie Herald has worked with Terfry before, so it was no surprise when she joined him to serve as a hook-singer for "Gee Whiz" and stuck around for several more, including the Bronski Beat-sampling "Small Town Boy". It was a surprisingly comprehensive set, going past fifty minutes, and reaching back to some older material like "Wicked and Weird".

Listen to a track from this set here.

By now, night was falling, the pork was all gone and the backyard was pretty crowded as Choir! Choir! Choir! began assembling for their second set. In a rare mis-step for the day, I bailed on them a little too early — I wish I was standing there and paying full attention for their rendition of Big Star's "Thirteen", but by then I was already headed inside. After this long, I needed to rest up a bit, plus I was eager to stake out some turf in the living room.

Given that half of the crowd was actively singing in the Choir, I probably didn't need to have rushed in quite so soon, but I was eager to be close up to check out Cousins, whose recent The Palm at the End of the Mind album had gotten a fair bit of attention. Filled out with piano and other keyboard flourishes, it boasts a classic-rock informed sound that's intriguingly at odds with their live rep as a stripped-down duo,⁵ where guitarist/vocalist Aaron Mangle plays sitting down, his foot at a kickdrum to enhance Leigh Dotey's percussion.

Even with the minimalist lineup, the band seems to know a thing or two about rock'n'roll dramatics: "this is the last time we'll play this song," begins "Singing". Added to an ability to come up with songs that you can sing along with (despite never having heard them before), Mangle really seems to be on to something here. By the time the set closed out with the Velvets-y roll of "Die", I was sold on the band. Interestingly, all my worries about needing to stake out a space early on in the living room were unfounded — although it was filled up by the time the band began it wasn't crammed — and by the end they were playing to about a dozen bodies.

Listen to a track from this set here.

That made it all the more surprising when I headed outside to find the back yard fuller than ever. The Harp Twins, now with their more portable electric models, were playing to a buzzing party crowd. Some people were singing along, some just drinking and chatting and treating it as background noise. Sometimes when you're in a situation like this, you have to step back and consider how unusual and awesome it is — y'know, ho hum, just another evening in a backyard with a stage, musicians playing harps while a couple hundred people hang out.

With my night of "proper" NXNE-ing yet to start, I didn't stick around to the end, so I'm not sure how long the party went, but it was a helluva day. Everything was well-planed and well-executed — a real taste of the good life.

N.B. In addition to the individual songs I've posted from this day, I've also put together a compilation that features something from everyone who played, which you can grab here.

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¹ Meanwhile, Doiron talked about being nearly done with her new album, recorded by Rick White, meaning that there's some hope that the long wait since '09's I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day is nearly done. As far as I know, this is separate from her work with her Cancer Bats-driven "power quartet", which is said to have done some live-off-the-floor recording at 6 Nassau.

² You can check out some sweetly charming circa '97 footage of the band on youtube.

³ It was apparently Sewell's insistence and technical support that got the band back together to record some of those Anthems for a Fourteen Year-Old Boy, the fruits of which are now available as a free download on their bandcamp.

⁴ There's plenty of C!C!C! to sample on their soundcloud.

⁵ Perhaps acknowledging that divide in their sound, the band has also just issued a very-tasty live tape, which offers a nice capture of their rawer live incarnation.