Recording: Ghostkeeper

Artist: Ghostkeeper

Song: Well Well Well

Recorded at Criminal Records, March 12, 2010.

Ghostkeeper - Well Well Well

My notes for this set can be found here.

Recording: The Balconies

Artist: The Balconies

Song: The Slo

Recorded at Criminal Records, March 12, 2010.

The Balconies - The Slo

My notes for this set can be found here.

In-store: The Balconies / Ghostkeeper

The Balconies / Ghostkeeper

Criminal Records. Friday, March 12, 2010.

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

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

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

Listen to a track from this set here.

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

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

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Celebrities! They travel just like we do!

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

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

Recording: Hey Marseilles

Artist: Hey Marseilles

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Clinton's, March 11, 2010. (CMW 2010)

Hey Marseilles - [title unknown]

My notes for this set can be found here.

^* Does anyone know the name of this song? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Broken Bricks

Artist: Broken Bricks

Song: Need You Here

Recorded at The Central, March 11, 2010. (CMW 2010)

Broken Bricks - Need You Here

My notes for this set can be found here.

Recording: The Treasures

Artist: The Treasures

Song: Natural Disasters

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room, March 11, 2010. (CMW 2010)

The Treasures - Natural Disasters

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: CMW 2010 (Thursday)

CMW 2010^* (Thursday) (feat. Elk, The Treasures, Leif Vollebekk, We Are The City, Broken Bricks, Hey Marseilles)

Thursday, March 11, 2010.

First full night of CMW, and this time, there would be no getting stuck in lineups — my agenda was to avoid the hot spots, and be prepared to adjust my plans on the fly. Although there were plenty bands that I really like playing in the festival, I was aiming to avoid them, and see as many bands that I'd never seen before — and, where possible, bands from out of town that might not be making their way back through these parts any time soon.

8 P.M.: Elk @ Comfort Zone

Figured I'd start things off at The Silver Dollar, but arriving outside, I noted that the sidewalk sign was listing everything starting on the half-hour. Which made a kind of sense, as the shows in Comfort Zone, right underneath were going on the hour. So, with slight trepidation, I headed down there to pass some time. "Trepidation", because, basically, Comfort Zone is one of those places your mother warned you about. Somewhat notorious as a semi-boozecan den of iniquity, CZ has only recently re-opened after a series of well-publicized busts from the vice squad. Early on, and pretty much empty, however, it didn't seem that bad — high on the dank-o-meter, but not so scary. A low-ceilinged basement space, it had a sort of sprawling layout, with plenty nooks and crannies to lurk in. The largest open area hosted the round-edged stage in front of a funky mural.

Not too much going on, I sat down and waited a few minutes, the rest of the patrons looking to be members of Elk and their friends. With dented metal tables and squat, sturdy chairs under blacklight fluorescents, the whole space had the vibe of a post-apocalyptic roadhouse — if the New York City of movies like The Warriors had a roller rink, this could have been the snack bar off to the side. By now is was about quarter after and with some seeming reluctance, the band took the stage. It's certainly rough for the bands that get stuck on the early fringes of the schedules for these nights, and one could see how they might want to wait a bit to see if a bit more of a crowd'd wander in before they played. As it was, when the St. Catharines four-piece got going, there were only a handful of people on hand to hear their slightly chug-y garage rock. There was an engaging muddiness to it, even if what I head was a bit undistinguished. I was taken with "Sometime Together", the last of the tracks I heard, and it sounded like the band was just getting properly warmed up. The rest of their set held promise, but I decided to stick to my schedule, and move upstairs for the 8:30 slot.

Listen to a track from this set here.

8:30 P.M.: The Treasures @ Silver Dollar

Moved up to The Dollar with enough time to settle in as The Treasures took the stage. Looking the part of the contemporary urban country band, the members were all in plaid — except for drummer Daniel Poskanzer, perhaps missing a memo or something, in a basketball jersey. Harmony vox from all members and Adrian Cook's pedal steel gave this band a classic Cosmic American Music sound to back Michael Poskanzer's songs. Decent songwriting included some nice local touches ("sitting on swings in Christie Pits") and I found this to be quite likable, bringing to mind, say, The Jayhawks at several points. The alt.country (or whatever name the rootsy stuff is going by these days) isn't quite my bag in the way it used to be, but in a musical ecosystem where The Wooden Sky and Great Bloomers are thriving, The Treasures could do well for themselves.

Listen to a track from this set here.

9 P.M.: Leif Vollebekk @ El Mocambo

Walked across the street and over to the El Mo to catch Montréal singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk. With a well-reviewed album out on the reliable Nevado Records, this is the sort of thing I have some interest in, but not enough to have gone out of my way to have seen under regular circumstances, making it an ideal festival showcase pick. Vollebekk played mostly in the classic singer-songwriter troubadour mode, with acoustic guitar and harmonica, plus a voice capable of rising to an emotive trill. As I'd heard mentioned, there was a strong Dylan-ish influence at play in some of his lyrics ("every story has two sides, it seems like you have ten"). Certainly Vollebekk was not afraid to show devotion to the past — whether in lifting a melody from Lou Reed, or in a couple covers.

"Don't Go to Klaksvik" might be the best example of his straightforward singer-songwriter material, and after that he complicated things a bit by switching to electric guitar and violin — both at the same time, thanks to a looping pedal. It was in this configuration that he did an excellent slowed-down, melancholy take on Neil Young's "Barstool Blues".¹ Winning stuff overall, and it's apparent why Vollebekk has already gained notice over the field of singer-songwriters.

Listen to a track from this set here.

10 P.M.: We Are The City @ El Mocambo

Stuck around to catch We Are The City², a young trio out of Kelowna. With guit, drums and keybs, the band aimed for a fusion of yelpy indie rock and pop-prog bombast. This slightly uneasy marriage, if nothing else, made them sound like they were aspiring to be a spikier version of Queen rather than trotting out dull Coldplay-isms. Or, at least, mostly — a couple songs listed towards a less-engaging ponderousness and too-tricky stop-start groovelessness. I'm willing to write off the less-engaging moments as partially being just not my thing, and partially that these youngsters still show a lot of room to develop their sound.

11 P.M.: Broken Bricks @ The Central

After a bunch of sets clustered close together, moved a bit further afield, heading over to The Central, on Markham Street behind Honest Ed's. To the extent that this was on my radar as a live music venue, I'd thought it was more of a solo acoustic kind of place, and when I made my way into the narrow back room it was apparent that that would be the best use of the space. With a small stage, it was a tight squeeze for four as Broken Bricks were getting ready to play. At the moment listed as a three-piece, it looks as if drummer Steve Foster (of The Miles) was just sitting in with the band, but did a solid job. The band features a pair of lead vocalists in Marlon Chaplin (also guit) and Luke Kuplowsky (also keybs) bringing relatively more snarling and soulful approaches to music borrowing from British R&B combos like The Kinks and The Who, infused with a bit of a punkish edge. Though young, they appeared to have learned that the distance between the two isn't that great — The Sex Pistols didn't cover "Substitute" for nothing — though I wouldn't want to overplay the punk-ish elements here. In any case, the band has a nice sound, some decent songs, and a musical approach that mixes the rough and the sweet in proportions that I dig. The room and sound system didn't do them any great favours, with the guitar sounding a bit on top of everything else. Regardless, this was a solid set and a band worth seeing again.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Midnight: Hey Marseilles @ Clinton's

Made one more westward hop, to the back room of Clinton's. Home to many a dance night and low-key show, I'd never actually been in to this space before, but it seemed to have an agreeably comfortable vibe. There were a fair number of people standing over by the bar, but I made my way past them and found a spot to sit right up at the front.

"We're going to rock you as much as possible with the implements at hand," said Matt Bishop of Seattle's Hey Marseilles on taking the stage. Given that those implements included accordion, violin, cello, trumpet and a marching band drum, that might actually amount to not a lot of rocking. Which is absolutely fine, as HM's stock in trade was more like lively orchestral folk. With that instrumentation and Bishop's somewhat Colin Meloy-ish vox, the obvious point of comparison here is The Decemberists (albeit back when they were more folksy and, um, good). So long as that's something you can waltz to, Hey Marseilles should be a good time.

Making their first foray out East, Bishop tried to engage the crowd, including asking if there was a big rivalry between Toronto and Vancouver, but wasn't getting a lot of response back. There was general appreciation after each song, though — at least from those who were paying attention to the band. Over on the left side of the room, more people were continuing to just stand around and talk.³ For me, it was good stuff, quite lovely to listen to without being too lush. And bonus points to the band for a delightful cover of Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in The End" — a song that never fails to bring a tear to my eye, old damp towel that I am. Plus the band had a couple top-drawer originals in the mix as well. An enjoyable enough set to end the night on.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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^* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of 2009, this was deemed to be too simple and straightforward, and the music portion was "rebranded" as Canadian Music Fest, under the aegis of the larger Canadian Music Week. I see no reason to put up with this and will simply refer to everything as CMW — although there was a part of me that also considered using the slightly cumbersome "Canadian Music Fest presented by Canadian Music Week" throughout.

¹ Pulling a couple different influences together, there was also a cover of Dylan's "Mama, You've Been On My Mind" that perhaps owed a bit to Jeff Buckley's arrangement.

² Not to be confused with the similarly-monikered We Are The Take, who were playing CMW on the same night.

³ Mike from For the 'records', who got to this show a couple minutes behind me was taking photos from that side of the room and seemed to have found the chatter to be much more invasive where he was.

Gig: CMW 2010 (Wednesday)

CMW 2010^* (Wednesday) (feat. Lee's Palace line-up, Ace Kinkaid, Pick a Piper)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

CMW is weird. Ostensibly "the single longest running and premier conference focusing on the business of Music", it is, at its heart, an industry event. And as such, its self-image is that of the remaining vestiges of the failing Music Industry, trying to find new widgets to replicate the bottom-line padding of past widgets. This is how CMW sees itself — if you haven't watched this already, you really need to do so to really absorb its particular manner of awesomeness:

This video is pretty far from my experience. From my perspective, it's just a chance to see a large number of bands, crammed together in close proximity of space and time, and I mostly get to ignore that weird mersh side of things.

8 P.M.: "Bonfire Ball" line-up @ Lee's Palace

Anyways, for Wednesday night, I kinda wanted to ease into things. Though there was a fairly full slate of showcases going on, I knew I'd be doing a whole lot of venue-hopping over the next nights, so at the outset I figured I'd be fine sticking to one thing. There were a couple appealing shows going down, but I was most interested in checking out the Bonfire Ball, with Jason Collett, Bahamas and Zeus (who I'd just seen rockin' out at Soundscapes) sharing the stage revue-style and backing each other. Given that it wasn't listed as a "limited wristbands" event, I figured if I got there early there should be no problem getting in.

Whoops. Rolled up minutes before the eight o'clock doors to find a line stretching several storefronts down from Lee's with folks vying to get into what was evidently quite a hot ticket. It turned out to be a rather poorly-planned event, with the doors not opening anywhere near when they were supposed to, followed by a slowly-crawling line as people were being let in. Or, rather, two lines, blocking the whole of the sidewalk to passers-by, with organizers separating out ticket-holders to get them inside first, before dealing with wristbands. This created an anxious mood amongst the wristbands, especially those who were near the front, watching ticketholders who had joined the line long after them getting in while we were still being assured we'd be getting in soon. This isn't rocket science — the organizers know the venue's capacity, and should know pretty much exactly how many tickets had been sold. Basic mathematics should indicate how many wristband-holders they'll be able to accommodate, and if there's significantly more people than than in the line, it's pretty simple to let people know, so they can get a head start on using their wristbands elsewhere and not waste time waiting to get into a full venue.

At least folks in the line were in that we're-in-the-same-boat kind of spirit, and there was some chatting to pass the time. But more than an hour after I'd joined the queue it started to rain a bit. I took that as a sign and decided to cut my losses and bail.¹ Even if I did get in, I was wondering how much fun I'd have as one of the last few people shoehorned into a packed room, where I'd either have to suffer among the yappy people at the back or be mildly rude and force my way up front.

10 P.M.: Ace Kinkaid @ Rancho Relaxo

Going with a hastily-assembled Plan B, I headed down to Rancho Relaxo. Which from a comfort level, at least, turned out to be the right move. Coming up to the fullish room, I certainly felt more relaxed than I would have been at Lee's, where there certainly isn't a coat rack to hang up one's jacket. The fuzzy old TV at the bar, with its supply of videotaped films, was showing The Lost Boys, a timely tribute to the just-deceased Corey Haim.

And up front on the stage was Ace Kinkaid, a largely-instrumental four-piece out of Ottawa. The guit-bass-drums were complemented by Ryan Kimmich's squelchy keybs, which would stand as the band's most distinctive element. At the outset, the music fell pretty squarely into what I think of as "Mike Post rock" — punchy, upbeat stuff that would work over the credits of a syndicated action series, or as background to a car chase. As the set went on, a wider palette would push them beyond anything quite so narrow, with a touch of psych here and a math-y moment there. Nothing that blew me away, but there was a pleasing blurpy-ness to some of it.

11 P.M.: Pick a Piper @ Rancho Relaxo

The last time I saw Pick a Piper, I'd concluded they were a "powerful band, but not necessarily with a strong power over me". Given the amount of praise I'd seen for 'em, I figured I should check 'em out again, just to see if maybe I had missed something the first time around. And this would seemingly be an auspicious occasion to do so, with the band billing this as something of an event with extra drummers joining the band's already-heavy percussion line. Indeed, as the band was getting ready on stage, a couple drummers were setting up their floor toms amongst the crowd, and right from the set's start with a booming instrumental, there was a powerful thunderousness afoot. Most of the same associations and tensions that I'd felt the first time came back to me, starting with the patchouli whiff of hippie drum circle-ism, which is something that just instinctively puts me on edge. And, I must admit, I still find the mixture of hyper-live (all the percussion) and canned (the synth tracks from a laptop) to be vaguely off-putting somehow. The singing, often with offsetting dual lead parts, was more mood-setting than word-relevant.

After "Rooms", the band opened a sack of dollar-store tambourines and started tossing them out into the crowd, making everyone a part of the band for the all-percussion finale, with drums being carried from the stage to the back of the room. Here was that hippie drum circle I'd been leery of — but to be in the middle of it (or, well, more at the fringes of it) was exciting and definitely the highlight of the set. Pick a Piper has some relatively catchy songs, there's all that rhythm making it something you can groove to a bit — no shortage of likable elements. And yet, for me, there's something about it that's less than the sum of its parts.

There were more bands to come, but I was most definitely pacing myself, with three more nights to go. The show didn't wow me, but it was a good-enough time — certainly better than being stuck in line-up purgatory.

Thanks to Historyjen for pointing out that CMW promo video.

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^* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of 2009, this was deemed to be too simple and straightforward, and the music portion was "rebranded" as Canadian Music Fest, under the aegis of the larger Canadian Music Week. I see no reason to put up with this and will simply refer to everything as CMW — although there was a part of me that also considered using the slightly cumbersome "Canadian Music Fest presented by Canadian Music Week" throughout.

¹ Which, as it turns out, was the right move. A couple nights later waiting for the streetcar I ran into a couple that I'd recognized from ahead of me in the queue and asked if they made it in. They told me that in end no wristbands were admitted to the show. I didn't experience anything like this otherwise, but there were reports of this happening at other popular showcases, where few to no wristbands were let in. It seems that the organizers upped the proportion of advance tickets sold this year, which is a slap in the face to people who put down a not-insubstantial sum to buy a wristband. If a particular showcase is going to have very few wristbands getting in, then at least advertise it as such.

Recording: Zeus

Artist: Zeus

Song: The Renegade

Recorded at Soundscapes, March 6, 2010.

Zeus - The Renegade

My notes for this set can be found here.

In-store: Zeus

Zeus

Soundscapes. Saturday, March 6, 2010.

A warm Saturday afternoon giving an early promise of spring made for a fine time to stroll down to Little Italy to visit beloved local music shop Soundscapes. Just as I was about to turn onto College from Grace, a guy leaning out one restaurant's kitchen door waved to his counterpart across the street, who shouted back: "it's too nice to work, eh?" For a moment, everything seems possible, suspended in warm-air delightfulness.

There was some similar excitement inside the store, where I wasn't the only one arriving early to do some browsing prior to snagging a spot as the band set up towards the back of the store. Being timely worked out well as by showtime, the store was well-packed, all the way back to the doors.

This would serve as the end of a big week for Zeus, celebrating the release of their debut full length Say Us, landing on the cover of one of the weeklies and generally making quite a respectable media splash. Although in theory a relatively new band, the rock classicists of Zeus have been on many a local stage, emerging from predecessor bands Paso Mino and the 6ixty8ights and best known in their evolving role as Jason Collett's backing band. Playing for the Soundscapes crowd, the band was in good spirits, presenting their songs in a longer-than-expected set stretching out for about forty-five minutes. The three songwriters — Mike O'Brien, Carlin Nicholson and Neil Quin — shared lead duties and rotated between bass, guitar and some dangerously-ungrounded keyboards while Rob Drake stayed in place behind the kit. They were all in a relaxed mood, freely bantering with the crowd between songs, keeping their frequent instrument swaps from becoming mere dead time. Carlin Nicholson was perhaps the most gregarious, pausing to ask what music people in the crowd had been buying and investigating the Parlovr disc that had accidentally been knocked from the shelf.

The band is obviously very comfortable in their influences and not too worried about being "cool" — this is, after all, a band that covered Phil Collins-era Genesis on their Sounds Like EP. Their vintage equipment helped to give them a classic, sweet sound that could have leave the listener with the impression they're hearing a lost nugget from Badfinger or some such band. All told, the band played nine of Say Us' twelve songs, throwing in the non-album "Permanent Scar" (about which I cannot dig up any information). Well enough to leave a fab feeling in the crowd dispersing back out into the cooling early evening.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Recording: Language-Arts

Artist: Language-Arts

Song: Coughdrop

Recorded at The Garrison, March 5, 2010.

Language-Arts - Coughdrop

My notes for this set can be found here.

Recording: The Pinecones

Artist: The Pinecones

Song: For in the Shadow of a Moonbeam + Ardmore Jenny

Recorded at The Garrison, March 5, 2010.

The Pinecones - For in the Shadow of a Moonbeam + Ardmore Jenny

My notes for this set can be found here.

Recording: Allie Hughes

Artist: Allie Hughes

Song: Headmaster^*

Recorded at The Garrison, March 5, 2010.

Allie Hughes - Headmaster

My notes for this set can be found here.

^* Thanks to Allie for passing along the title to this one.

Gig: Language-Arts

No Shame presents Language-Arts / The Pinecones / Allie Hughes

The Garrison. Friday, March 5, 2010.

Walking up to Dundas from my earlier gig, arrived at The Garrison pretty much just in time to catch the start of this Friday night No Shame showcase. First up on the evening was Allie Hughes. As the band finished setting up, I was pretty sure that this was going to be worth watching, as the Randy Lee rule was in effect.¹ Besides his violin, the band featured keybs, bass, guit and drums — a group capable of playing the carefully-arranged material, lending a sort of mellow mafia-like sophistication to the proceedings. Apparently this was only the unit's fourth gig together, but they were well-rehearsed. As for the leader, I came in knowing nothing about her but it was quickly apparent: here's someone who could really sing. Like, advanced technical proficiency. Stylistically, imagine, maybe, if Kate Bush had emerged from Laurel Canyon in the 70's with Broadway aspirations.² It's not quite unprecedented to present theatrical-styled tunes in an indie rock context, but it is a bit unusual — not to mention, I think, mildly brave. There's no doubt some folks would write off music like this for being mawkish or precious³ but in Hughes' hands, it was generally pulled off with aplomb. There were some top-shelf songs here, too, which certainly helped — as did her upbeat stage presence, keeping things nicely grounded.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Providing the rock'n'roll edge to the bill were The Pinecones, a retro-minded four-piece with flare for things Beatles-y.⁴ Leading off with "Sage", the title track of their recently-released album, the songs succeeded by nosing up against the familiar tropes of British invasion pop without quite getting too familiar — evidenced by how the band's own "Tea Tonight" slid into a cover of The Kinks' "The Village Green Preservation Society".

A broken guitar string led to some impromptu setlist shuffling as a friend in the audience pitched in to replace it while Brent Randall slid over to the keys. The band — now Toronto-based but formed in Halifax — had previously been known as Brent Randall & His Pinecones, but the contraction acknowledges an evolved democratic approach, with the band now sporting songs and vocals more spread around. They're certainly emerging at the right moment, as there seems to be an increased appetite for bands working in this tradition. The knock against 'em might be that they aren't at this point inventing anything new. But nuts to that — it's good fun to hear 'em live, and that counts for a lot. Plus, they give the impression of being serious students who could yet leap into something of a more innovative approach to new wine in old bottles.

Listen to the a couple songs from their set here.

The out-and-out rockin' of that set was the exception on the night, but it made for an effective contrast to Language-Arts. With their bookish name, it's no surprise that the band looked as if they might have met at band camp or Reach For The Top practice — in fact, I was initially worried that roving gangs of jocks might be out on the prowl for them. Their most distinctive feature is Kristen Cudmore's insistently chirpy vox, delivered in a bright-eyed sing-speak.⁵ She was backed by an equally eclectic instrumental palette: her own nylon-stringed, classically-played guitar⁶ plus keyb, double bass and co-founder Gregor Phillips' jazz-inflected drums — all of which came together in a unique sort of avant-MOR sound. While the band is technically a duo of Cudmore and Phillips — both from Nova Scotia, but based in Vancouver — they are boosted to a quartet for touring purposes. In their live configuration, the arrangements were robust and the band was clearly comfortable in treating the music as more than mere decoration to the words.

Perhaps the most immediately appealing of the batch was the "Where Were You in the Wild?", the title track of their recent album, but the other songs in the set were generally cut from the same cloth. "Benson" and "Coughdrop", to name a couple, had a nice groove going. The band got a good response from the fairly robust crowd, and Cudmore seemed genuinely pleased — if not slightly taken aback — by the positive vibes.⁷ The band played eight titles in just under forty minutes and it was good stuff, fun to listen to and certainly no cookie-cutter pop.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ The Randy Lee Rule: "Any band with Randy Lee on violin is worth paying attention to."

² Or, to give a more current point of orientation, Hughes closed with a cover of Regina Spektor's "Us".

³ And that's a finger pointed, somewhat, at myself, as I know I've been disdainful at the sort of broad emotionality associated with show tunes. But ultimately, it's arguably just a different kind of "faking it" than rock and roll delivery — which, ultimately, isn't really any "realer" anyways.

⁴ The band were pretty self-aware in that regard, and not above poking a bit of fun at themselves, introducing some of the songs in a cod-Liverpudlian accent.

⁵ The quick shorthand here would be to describe Cudmore's vox and delivery as "quirky" — and so googling provides quite a few hits. But though that certainly popped into my mind in quick order, a bit of reflection on it gives me pause, as there's a certain negative undertone to the word, especially in the manner it's applied to women to imply they are weird or somehow flawed by virtue of exhibiting intelligence. (Some of us, of course, feel the opposite way about that matter.) So let's set that descriptor aside for now.

⁶ Played with one of those around-the-neck classical straps like a saxophone player might use. Willie Nelson plays with a strap like this, so it's arguably pretty cool.

⁷ Full credit, of course, to Lauren Schreiber for getting the crowd out. Though she tends to play down the diverse skills she shows in putting shows like this together, her efforts deserve our ongoing thanks and praise.

Recording: Owen Pallett

Artist: Owen Pallett

Song: Independence Is No Solution (Sylvester Boy cover)

Recorded at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, April 8, 2010.

Owen Pallett - Independence Is No Solution

My notes for this set can be found here.