The Ornette Report
Ornette Coleman and Tony Falanga, not this weekend at Massey Hall, but last year at Newport.
I've been searching for reviews of Saturday's show online or in the press, but aside from my colleague Mark Miller's piece in today's Globe, it's all chirping crickets out there. So in a few words: The Ornette concert was not quite as transporting as one might have hoped (as Mark says, the old dog had no new tricks), but it was no let-down, either. Ornette played clearly and with great resonance, so much so that he was actually too loud compared to the rest of the ensemble, diminishing the harmolodic effect of an interplay of equals. He stayed fairly 'inside' as a soloist, never pushing dissonances and seldom even straying from the home keys of his themes and melodies, creating a generally meditative, folklorish and quite bluesy effect. The mood was often elegaic, as is often the case with older musicians, but never nostalgic - especially thanks to the counterpoint from Tony Falanga's bowed bass, whose timbre was often easy to mistake for a second saxophone, as he played high up on his instrument and let lanky Greg Cohen (whose work I first encountered on Tom Waits' Small Change album) handle the stormier bottom end, as he did with gusto: Cohen's spotlit solo late in the set was a high point. Indeed, the twin-bass setup proved itself a perfect vehicle. I only wished Ornette had played his violin for more than the few minutes he did, and more melodically, so the string-trio potential of the group could be explored. (The shaky trumpet interlude, on the other hand, was quite long enough.) I can't speak quite so glowingly of Denardo Coleman's drumming, which was more laboured, less inspired, but it was never intrusive to my experience, and his feel for what the music was asking of him was touching, as an expression of filial duty.
I think everyone who was present would agree that the encore of Lonely Woman was a particular pleasure. Not only did the ensemble play it with assurance for its classic status, I think you could feel in it Ornette's own appreciation for an audience that had just given him a long standing ovation, which felt as much for his lifework in general as for anything that had transpired on stage that evening, and he stretched out a bit more on it than in the rest of the show. It was sad, as Mark notes in his review, that the hall wasn't full, but it's more important that the audience was so respectful and excited to see this pioneer in the flesh, so I think Toronto can hold its head up.
A final thought: One thing I didn't know before seeing him is how introverted and self-contained Ornette seems as a person and as a musician. There's very little testosterone in his persona, indeed an elusive but palpable kind of androgyny - yet with neither flamboyance (except in his flashy suit) nor self-effacingness. I felt that I gained an insight into his music from his physical presence. It made sense to me that this not-so-sociable seeming man would have created a new form of jazz in which the tussel and brawl of the players was downplayed and the individuality of each voice was central, none submitting or playing support to the others. If you ask what harmolodics is, it's a kind of music in which nobody has to shout or compete to get heard but each person's idiosyncrasies provide the form. It requires the listener to open up to the separation of the parts, which form a whole not by adding up but by being suspended in air, like streaks of paint on a canvas, suggesting many directions and never closing doors behind them. Ornette has been a great innovator, but watching him I felt like he had only done what he had to do, because of who he is, not because he meant to be king of the modernist mountain. There's a lot to mull over on the character of artistic advancement there. I don't know what anyone who's seen Ornette before would have made of this concert, but for these insights especially, I am very grateful to have seen it.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Monday, October 31 at 5:05 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (11)
Ace!ofspades!ace!ofspades!
ace!ofspades!ace!ofspades!
ace!ofspades!ace!ofspades!
ace!ofspades!ace!ofspades!
ace!ofspades!ace!of...
Zoilus' Toronto Gig Guide has been exhaustively & exhaustingly updated this evening, so if you're in the hereabouts, look into the link that will predict your future.
Among the additions is the November 9 Just Ace of Spades show at The Boat in Kensington Market, the perfect charity event for rockers too hungover to do a walkathon on a given weekend morning and too kool to sell raffle tickets: What you do is get people to pledge donations based on how many hours you can spend listening to Ace of Spades (yeah, the Motorhead song). The Boat will play Ace of Spades for six hours straight that night. Are you Lemmy enough to handle it? If so, go download a pledge form. (Yeah, it's a week-plus away, but you need time to get your doners signed up, right?)
But first, this weekend comes Sunday's annual Canzine festival of alt-culture, held where I lay my head each night, the Gladstone Hotel. I don't really buy the organizers' claims that zine culture is as hale as ever and hasn't been supplanted by blogville and environs. My informants tell me the gang at zine gatherings is creeping steadily up in age. To be a zine producer isn't quite yet like being a collector of 78s, but it's on its way. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a collector of 78s, or even of Edison cylinders!) But state-of-zines-debate aside, the great thing about Canzine is that somehow in recent years it has developed into its own genre - that is, if you have an art idea that doesn't seem to fit anywhere, or even be worth developing too far, for instance a bunch of people pretending to be pirates or a half-dozen bands recording CDs of songs they make up on the spot on the hour every hour, one of your options is to turn it into "A Room At Canzine." This year's Rooms include Jim Munroe's No Media Kings 5th Anniversary Party; Misha Glouberman's Game Emporium; Amy Lam and Zeesy Powers's Arcadia; Darren O'Donnell's Diplomatic Immunities; Project 3 Media's Digital Grassroots; The Best of Art Metropole's Multiples. I know what some of these things are (Misha's Game Emporium involves a score of people taking commands from a talking robotic stick), but I'm also eager to be surprised.
Plus, Zoilus and Mrs. Zoilus's romance sorta-began at a Canzine five years ago, so it will always occupy a pedestal in my poetic inventory.
ALSO I hope many of you are going tonight to the secret location.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Friday, October 28 at 6:06 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (1)
October, November, Novemberer
(Gig Guide!)
Left to right, top to bottom: Oct. 28, Nov. 8, Nov. 5, Nov. 11-12, Nov. 13-15.
The Halloween(ish)-to-American-Thanksgiving(ish) live Toronto show calendar is up now! Additions and corrections always welcome.
Corrections & additions welcome. Zoilus-approved shows are marked with a *star. Special picks are **double-starred. If it's not starred, it may mean I don't find it especially thrilling, or just that I don't know or am not sure enough to recommend it. Listings will be updated weekly. All info subject to change - this is a casual effort, please do call the venues. Sources include the Stillepost.ca Toronto board, Eye, Now, Greg Clow, ListMe.ca, Canoe.ca, Soundlist, The Whole Note, Toronto Life and, as the saying goes, you - email or post in the comments with show information and disinformation.
FRI NOV. 4
* Leftover Daylight w/ COLIN FISHER, ELLEN WATERMAN, EVAN SHAW, ERIC CHENAUX, GEORDIE HALEY, RONDA RINDONE, SCOTT THOMSON, MICHAEL KEITH, ROB CLUTTON, NILAN PERERA, KEN ALDCROFT, JOE SORBARA, various groupings, three sets => Arraymusic Studio, 60 Atlantic Ave., ste. 218, 9 pm, $6-$10
* WE ARE WOLVES, PEOPLE FOR AUDIO => Drake Hotel, $10
* That Crazy American Music w/ ART OF TIME ENSEMBLE => Harbourfront Centre Theatre (231 Queens Quay West), $25-$35 (Nov 4-5)
* HABANA SAX => Lula Lounge, $25-30 (NOV. 2-6)
DEE KAYE IBOMEKA => Hugh's Room, $20
THE ROYAL CROWNS, THE RIDE THEORY => Horseshoe, $10
SHELDON ROURKE & THE LOADED TOY GUN => The Vatican, $5
THE GARDENS FAITHFUL (farewell show), FIFTH BUSINESS, guests => Rancho Relaxo
THE MARK INSIDE, ACTION MAKES, 100% WoOL => The Boat, $5
PALETTE (live turntablist improv) w/ VISION, DJ STEPTONE, NV, THE VINYL KILLER, DJ VETERAN => Trane Studio, $10
MARK EISENMAN TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St. (Nov 3-4)
Mark de Clive-Lowe's Free Soul Sessions w/ BEMBÉ SEGUÉ => Supermarket, $10
SUE FOLEY => Healey's, $12/$15
CANARY MINE cd release, DJ SCOOTZ, VANESSA JOHN AND THE BACHELORS => Rivoli, $10
ROB CAMPBELL QUARTET => Rex Hotel
DRAGONLORD, ECLIPSE ETERNAL, TRITON, VALKERIES CRY => Reverb, $20
AVENGED SEVENFOLD, SAOSIN, DEATH BY STEREO, OPIATE FOR THE MASSES => Kool Haus, 5 pm, $22.50
AMICI CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, LESLIE KINTON => Glenn Gould Studio, 8 pm, $10-$40
Carmina Burana w/ TORONTO MENDELSSOHN CHOIR => Yorkminster Park Baptist Church (1585 Yonge), $35-$65
GENE DINOVI/DAVE YOUNG => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 3-5)
BELVEDERE, THE FULL BLAST, NIGHTS OF VIOLENCE => Kathedral, $12.50
SAT NOV. 5
** THE REVERIES (Rat Drifting improv trio) w/ JEAN MARTIN play the music of SADE (!) => Tranzac, 10 pm
** JENS LEKMAN, THE PHONEMES, STEVE SHIFFMAN & THE LAND OF NO, art by SHARY BOYLE => The Music Gallery, $8/$10
** QUINTRON & MISS PUSSY CAT, NO DYNAMICS => Silver Dollar, $10.50
* A Midautumn Night's Dream w/ RYAN BISHOPS, NATHAN LAWR, KATE MAKI, RUTH MINNIKIN, DALE MURRAY => Gladstone
* THE HOLMES BROTHERS => Horseshoe, $16.50
* That Crazy American Music w/ ART OF TIME ENSEMBLE => Harbourfront Centre Theatre (231 Queens Quay West), $25-$35 (Nov 4-5)
* HABANA SAX => Lula Lounge, $25-30 (NOV. 2-6)
* TAAFI's BONER party w/ PEACHES, MC TEXASS, BIG PRIMPIN', SCOTT McEWAN/JOHN CAFFREY => Drake, 10 pm, $25
DARK RAVE v.69 w/ DJs B7, PHINK & LAZARUS, FRACTURED, MARA'S TORMENT => Funhaus, $5 b4 11 pm, $10 after
WOODPIGEON (w/ SANDRO PERRI, AARON BOOTH), JAMES ANDERSON (of Singing Saws), more => 78 Crawford St., potluck 6 pm, show 8 pm, free
RICHARD UNDERHILL QUARTET => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
Bright Lights Festival w/ ELBOW, THE DUKE SPIRIT, ISLANDS (ex-Unicorns), THE CALL UP (members of Dears, Stills), THE MELIGROVE BAND, STIRLING, THE COAST, more => Stone Distillery Fermenting Cellar, Distillery District, 55 Mill Street, 3 pm- 1 am, $25
BROTHER'S PAST => El Mocambo, $10
BIF NAKED => Phoenix, 6 pm, $20
BLACK DAHLIA MURDER => Reverb, $16
LINDI ORTEGA, TANISHA TAITT, KELLY GOODLAD => Victory Café, $8
THE TREVOR FINLAY BAND => Healey's
Songs of Hope & Inspiration w/ TORONTO CHILDREN'S CHORUS => Metropolitan United Church (56 Queen East), 3 pm, $25-$40
LINDA ORTEGA, TANISHA TAITT, KELLY GOODLAD => Victory Café, $8
TORONTO SINFONIETTA FEAT. MATTHEW JASKIEWIÇZ => Calvin Presbyterian Church (26 Delisle), 7:30 pm, $30-$50
We Dance w/ DJ SNEAK's Birthday Beats, MARK FARINA, JUNIOR SANCHEZ, TEELOO'S KITCHEN, JASON HODGES, MISCHIEF AND FRANKIE, MARIO J & DOM G => 270 Spadina Ave., 10 pm-8 am, $30+
GENE DINOVI/DAVE YOUNG => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 3-5)
KUSH, NICK BROWNMAN ALI => Gypsy Co-op, $10
BIRDS OF WALES => Lee's Palace, $10
CATCH 22, SUICIDE MACHINES, FLATLINERS => Kathedral, $17
JANINE STOLL cd release w/ MR SOMETHING SOMETHING, LISA WINN, BRIAN MacMILLAN, ANGIE NUSSEY => NOW Lounge, 189 Church, $12-$20 (w/cd)
DJ Starting From Scratch's 15th Anniversary Gala w/ GLENN LEWIS, DIVINE BROWN, JACKSOUL, RAY ROBINSON, KARDINAL OFFISHALL, BLESSED => York Event Theatre (101 Eglinton East), $30
BUBBA & THE AGENTS OF GROOVE, MICHELINE CARONE => Dominion on Queen, $5
Dub & Beyond w/ UNDADOGG, NICK HOLDER, VERSION XCURSION => Andy Poolhall, free before 10 pm, $5 after
CAMERON FAMILY SINGERS => Cameron House
THE GUTTER DEMONS => Cadillac Lounge
SUN NOV. 6
* TAAFI panel on DEEJAYING URBAN INDUSTRIAL ROOTS FROM DETROIT TO DUSSELDORF => Drake, 4 pm, $6
* BROADCAST, GRAVENHURST => Lee's Palace, $15
* FEAR FACTORY, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, ARCANE => Opera House, 7 pm, $25
* PETULA CLARK => Hummingbird Centre, $39.50-$69.50
* HABANA SAX => Lula Lounge, $25-30 (NOV. 2-6)
* SISTERS OF SHEYNVILLE ("yiddish swing chick band"), SHAKSHUKA (Mediterranean groove fusion) => Gladstone, 7:30 pm, $10
* Wavelength 288: Ladyfest Ottawa Tour w/ COUGAR PARTY, THE MAYNARDS, LES ALUMETTES, DJ BANJORDIAN => Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
* COUNTRYPOLITANS, KEVIN QUAIN & THE MAD BASTARDS => Cameron House
ELLEN McILWAINE => Tranzac, 7:30
MODEY LEMON, THE APES => Horseshoe, $8
CONTINUUM presents "In The Asylum" => Music Gallery, 8 pm, $5-$20
Solo Piano Sundays w/ JOE SEALY => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
TORONTO ALL-STAR BIG BAND => Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront, 2-5 pm
AKADEMISKA SåNGFäRENINGEN => Hart House, 3 pm
BEN LEE => El Mocambo, $13.50
HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH => Phoenix, 7 pm, $30
BEVERLY TAFT QUARTET => the Rex, 3:30 pm, $5
Christos Hatzis's Sepulcher Of Life , Karl Jenkins's The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace w/ ORPHEUS CHOIR OF TORONTO => Metropolitan United Church (56 Queen E), 3 pm. $10-$30
MON NOV. 7
* OKKERVILL RIVER, MINUS STORY => Lee's Palace, $10
* THE SHOUT OUT LOUDS, ESSEX GREEN => Mod Club, $13.50
* HILARIO DURÁN LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA => Mod Club, $20
* The See-Saw Sing-Songer Showcase w/ JON RAE FLETCHER, STU STOUT, GEOFF OLSON, WOODY JAMES => Supermarket, $4
OK GO! => Horseshoe, $13.50
SING THAT YELL THAT SPELL, VOLTAGE => The Bagel
ELANA McMURTRY, DAN FOURIER, ADAM WARNER => Cameron House
SERENA RYDER, JEEN O'BRIEN, JACK BREAKFAST => Mitzi's Sister
RUBEN ESGUERRA, CHIVA => Trane Studio
BIG SMOKE BAND => Dominion on Queen
TUES NOV. 8
** THE NO-NECK BLUES BAND, CCMC, THE DISGUISES => Music Gallery, $10-$12
** ROB CLUTTON => Tranzac, 8 pm
** CHIP TAYLOR & CARRIE RODRIGUEZ => Hugh's Room, $20
** SHOOTER JENNINGS (Waylon's kid), THE HIGH DIALS => Horseshoe, free
* CHRIS COOLE & ERYNN MARSHALL => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
* ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL => Tranzac, 10 pm
TOM WILSON/BOB LANOIS => Drake, 8 pm, $15
RIVER CITY TANLINES (Memphis, ex-Lost Sounds), more => Silver Dollar
RUN WITH THE KITTENS, LICKPENNY LOAFER => Cameron
SECRET ARCADE Tuesdays => The Bagel, 9 pm
The Ambient Ping w/ DREAMsTATE, LYNN HARRIGAN => Hacienda, 9 pm, pwyc
JANN ARDEN => Massey Hall, $49.50 (NOV. 8-12)
STEVE SINGH & HIS HOT SHIT BAND, guests => Cadillac Lounge, 10 pm (every Tues. in November)
WED NOV. 9
** KANYE WEST, FANTASIA, COMMON, KEYSHIA COLE => Air Canada Centre, $45.50-$69.50
** "JUST ACE OF SPADES" Red Cross Benefit w/ six hours of Motorhead's Ace of Spades marathon => The Boat, 8 pm-2 am, minimum pledge $5, downloadable pledge form @ http://www.indiepolitic.org
** THE UNDERHOLDE (Mia Sheard/Leah Salomaa/Chris Gartner/Ryan Granville-Martin/Tania Gill) presents a night of obscure covers w/ JILL BARBER, TORY CASSIS, DAVE CLARK, LORI CULLEN, LILY FROST, JOEL GIBB (The Hidden Cameras), DAN GOLDMAN, KURT SWINGHAMMER, ROYAL WOOD => The Rivoli, 8:30 pm, $10
* THE DINNER IS RUINED, guests => Tranzac, 10 pm, pwyc
* COHEED & CAMBRIA, BLOOD BROTHERS, DREDG, ME WITHOUT YOU => The Docks, $23.50
* High Lonesome Wednesdays w/ CRAZY STRINGS (bluegrass) => Silver Dollar (every Wed.)
* COL. TOM'S SWINGING DOORS, FRIENDLY RICH, more => Cameron
HUNTER VALENTINE, FLIPSIDE COLLECTIVE, J'S BASEMENT, WREN CITY CHURCHES, FOREVER COMES CRASHING => Reverb
KIRK MacDONALD-LORNE LOFSKY DUET => Dominion on Queen
JUNIOR MANCE/ARCHIE ALLEYNE/DON THOMPSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 9-12)
NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALL-STARS => Lee's Palace, $17.50
JANN ARDEN => Massey Hall, $49.50 (NOV. 8-12)
EAST VILLAGE OPERA COMPANY => Mod Club, $13.50
CHRISTINE BOUGIE TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, HELLA, BETWEEN THE BURIED & ME, HORSE THE BAND => Opera House, $20
THURS NOV. 10
** FINAL FANTASY/ NINJA HIGH SCHOOL/ HENRI FABERGE AND THE ADORABLES/ LAURA BARRETT => The Boat, $8
** TIGER LILIES, THE LOLLIPOP PEOPLE => Innis Town Hall U of T, $12 (all ages)
** 416 Improv Festival w/ OPEN HOUSE, QUORUM, THE EVERYTIME BAND, I HAVE EATEN THE CITY, hosted by David Dacks (CIUT/Exclaim) => Tranzac, 8 pm, $5
* KATHLEEN EDWARDS, JOEL PLASKETT => Phoenix, $18.50
* TOM VEK=> Drake Hotel, $15
* New Orleans fundraiser w/ C'MON => Bovine Sex Club
* ARRAYMUSIC cd launch, incl. pieces by JAMES TENNEY, CHRISTIAN WOLFF, JO KONDO, more => Lula Lounge, 9:30 p.m., $5-$20
* DAVID BUCHBINDER cd release, Shurum Burum Jazz Circus => Rex Hotel, 9:30 pm, $12 (Nov 10-11)
* Trumpet Is Jazz w/ LINA ALLEMANO, ADREAN FARRUGIA => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
IMMACULATE MACHINE, SPITFIRES & MAYFLOWERS, THE GUEST BEDROOM => Speakeasy
NINE INCH NAILS, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 => Air Canada Centre (sold out)
Ciao Edie Roxx w/ CRACKPUPPY, DJ MARTA => Ciao Edie, 9 pm, band @ 11:45 pm, free
Open Door Music Festival w/ JILL BARBER, LADYBIRD SIDESHOW, D'BI YOUNG, KEVIN FOX, MIKE EVIN, AVRIL BENOIT => Mod Club, 7 pm, $15-$25
JUNIOR MANCE/ARCHIE ALLEYNE/DON THOMPSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 9-12)
HANSON => Kool Haus, $34.50
ADAM FRANKLIN of Swervedriver (solo) => The Old York,167 Niagara, $5
New Orleans Benefit w/ LES SIX, ARIEL, EDEN ANTS => El Mocambo, $5
JANN ARDEN => Massey Hall, $49.50 (NOV. 8-12)
BOHEMOTH, NECRONOMICOM, EXHUMED, WETWORK => Lee's Palace, $15
GRAND THEFT BUS => Rivoli, $10
THE CHARIOT, EVERGREEN TERRACE, STILL REMAINS, UNDERMINDED, TO CHERISH => Opera House, $12.50
THE KILLAZ, MINDBENDER => Supermarket, $5
FRI NOV. 11
** SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS => Horseshoe, $15
** 416 Improv Festival w/ WOODCHOPPERS ASSOCIATION, THE MIROBOLUS TRIO, ODRADEK, hosted by Mike Hansen (CKLN) => Tranzac, 10 pm, $5
* ANDREW BIRD => Revival, 783 College, $12.50
* DAVID BUCHBINDER cd release => Rex Hotel, 9:30 pm, $12 (Nov 10-11)
* Three-Hour Tour w/ DOC PICKLES, BEETHOVEN FRIEZE playing nautical songs => The Boat, $5
* MASTA ACE => Reverb, 9 pm
* LAILA BIALI TRIO => Royal Conservatory of Music, 273 Bloor St. W., $15
* Trumpet Is Jazz w/ KEVIN TURCOTTE TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
* BELL ORCHESTRE (cd release), KEPLER => Music Gallery
AGNOSTIC FRONT, BRASS KNUCKLE THERAPY, more => Kathedral, $13.50
Pitter Patter Nights w/ IMMACULATE MACHINE, The Postage Stamps => Cameron House
CHILDREN OF BODOM, TRIVIUM, AMON AMARTH => Opera House, $25.50
SOULIVE => El Mocambo, $16.50 (also Nov. 12)
ANDREA HENRY, THE CRYSTAL SOUL BAND => Trane Studio, $10/$15
JUNIOR MANCE/ARCHIE ALLEYNE/DON THOMPSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 9-12)
JANN ARDEN => Massey Hall, $49.50 (Nov. 8-12)
CHRIS DE BURGH => Roy Thomson Hall, $59-$75
We Dance w/ DAVID MORALES, NEVIO, CARLO LIO & VINYL JUNKIES => 270 Spadina Ave., 1 am, $30
MATINEE SLIM & THE ULTRALIGHT ORCHESTRA, PETER KATZ => Mod Club, 8 pm, $12
Orbit Room 11th anniversary w/ALEX LIFESON, JACK SEMPLE, DAVE MURPHY BAND, THE DEXTERS => Orbit Room, $15
BEAT SOCIETY w/ MR. ATTIC, MOSS, AGILE, MARCO POLO, SUPASTITION, KING REIGN, ZAKI => Reverb, 9 pm, $15-$20
THE LIVING THINGS, THE ROPES => Drake, 11 pm
SAT NOV. 12
** 416 Improv Festival w/ CCMC + SCOTT THOMSON, NICK FRASER AND JUSTIN HAYNES ARE FAKING IT, KEN ALDCROFT’S CONVERGENCE ENSEMBLE, RYAN DRIVER’S FAKE NEW AGE MUSIC BAND, hosted by ZOILUS => Tranzac, 9 pm, $5
** SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS => Horseshoe, $15
* THE CRIBS, LONGWAVE, GIANT DRAG => Lee's Palace, $13.50
* Milk party w/ LADYTRON => Gypsy Co-op
* STEPHEN PARKINSON, ALLISON CAMERON compositions performed by MARTIN ARNOLD, ALLISON CAMERON, ERIC CHENAUX, EMILY PARKINSON, STEPHEN PARKINSON, MARCUS QUIN => Arraymusic, 60 Atlantic, $5
* MICHAEL FRANTI => Bloor Cinema, $24.50
* Trumpet Is Jazz w/ DAVID BUCHBINDER QUARTET => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
* RON DAVIS QUARTET w/ THE SHIMMERING RHYTHM ENSEMBLE => Isabel Bader Theatre (91 Charles West), 7:30 pm
JANN ARDEN => Massey Hall, $49.50 (NOV. 8-12)
New Music Concerts: A Scelsi Centenary w/ LOUISE BESSETTE, piano => Music Gallery (197 John), $5-$25
CHILDREN OF BODOM, TRIVIUM, AMON AMARTH => Opera House
SOULIVE => El Mocambo, $16.50 (also Nov. 11)
JUNIOR MANCE/ARCHIE ALLEYNE/DON THOMPSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 9-12)
Celebration of Long John Baldry w/ DANNY BROOKS, PAPA JOHN KING, MR RICK & THE BISCUITS, ROY YOUNG, GREG GODOVITZ, JOHN DICKIE & THE MISSISSIPPI HIPPIES, more => Hugh's Room, 8:30 pm, $20-$25
MATT MAYS & EL TORPEDO, THE NOVAKS => Opera House, $15
FIRE HYDRANT => Lot 16 (1136 Queen St. West), free
SIANSPHERIC, TOSHACK HIGHWAY => Drake Hotel
BUTCH WALKER, DAMONE => Mod Club, doors 7 pm, $13.50
SALSA SATURDAY w/ DIEGO MARULANDA + PACANDE => Lula Lounge, $10
Embryon Just 1 Fixx w/ ANALOG PUSSY, LOU CYPHER PROJECT, DEZTRO, EXT, DHARMA LAB => Funhaus, $10-$15
SUN NOV. 13
** JOHN CALE, PRIYA THOMAS => Lula Lounge, 6:30 pm doors, $25 (Nov. 13-15)
** Wavelength 289 w/ BRIAN BORCHERDT, MINSK MENSK, OHBIJOU, DJ SELECTIVE SERGERY => Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
* ART BRUT, THE DIABLEROS => Lee's Palace $12
AMERICAN ANALOG SET => Horseshoe, $12
HIM, FINCH, SKINDRED => Kool Haus, $23.50
OAR, MICHAEL TOLCHER => Opera House, $22.50
BACKWOOD JUSTICE, BARN OWL, RICHARD LAVIOLETTE, MEN WOMEN KIDS & BUFFALO, CHRIS YANG, FIN => Rancho Relaxo, 8:30 pm, $7
Solo Piano Sundays w/ GARY WILLIAMSON => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
KEN PERLMAN & ALAN JABBOUR => Tranzac, 7:30 pm
MON NOV. 14
** JOHN CALE, PRIYA THOMAS => Lula Lounge, doors 6:30 pm, $25 (Nov. 13-15)
* Open Mic w/ ALEX LUKASHEVSKY => Tranzac, 9:30 pm
ARCTIC MONKEYS => Lee's Palace, $10
GOGOGOAIRHEART, THE JOGGERS, DDMMYYYY => Sneaky Dee's, $8
TUES NOV. 15
** JOHN CALE, PRIYA THOMAS => Lula Lounge, doors 6:30 pm, $25 (Nov. 13-15)
* VIDEO GAMES LIVE (Orchestral Arrangements of Game Music, inc. Halo, Frogger, Everquest, Mario, Zelda, Tomb Raider, more) => Massey Hall, doors 7 pm, $39.50-$59.50
* BAD RELIGION, ANTI-FLAG, PROTEST THE HERO => Kool Haus, doors 7 pm, $34.50
* ILLUMINATI, MARK INSIDE, PRIESTESS, more => Horseshoe
GEORDIE HALEY TRIO => Tranzac, 10 pm
RICHARD UNDERHILL cd release => Montreal Bistro
The Ambient Ping w/ SOFTWARE, TOASTYBIRD VISUALS => Hacienda, 9 pm, pwyc
PHILOSOPHER KINGS => Mod Club, 8 pm, $21.50
THE CHOIRGIRLZ => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St., 8:30 pm, $10
STEVE SINGH & HIS HOT SHIT BAND, guests => Cadillac Lounge, 10 pm (every Tues. in November)
WED NOV. 16
* LOLLIPOP PEOPLE, JOHN OSWALD/SCOTT THOMSON, JOHN KAMEEL FARRAH => Cameron House, $6
* BAUHAUS => Kool Haus, $42.50
* High Lonesome Wednesdays w/ CRAZY STRINGS (bluegrass) => Silver Dollar (every Wed.)
* TERRY KING => Rex Hotel
* THE DINNER IS RUINED, more => Tranzac, 8:30 pm
SUNDAR VISWANATHAN/DAVID BRAID => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
THE IMMORTAL LEE COUNTY KILLERS => Horseshoe, doors 9 pm, $8
Secret Arcade Tuesdays => The Bagel, 9 pm
ROSANNE AGASEE QUARTET => Montreal Bistro
Orthopedic Foundation jazz benefit w/ NORM AMADIO, TOMMY AMBROSE => Lula Lounge, 7 pm, $20
THE SILENT => The Horseshoe Tavern
The Venatio de Spero Fall Tour w/ GREELEY ESTATES, MY AMERICAN HEART, A CHANGE OF PACE, AGENT SPARKS, THE CONFESSION => El Mocambo, all ages, doors 7 pm, $15
THE MARIGOLDS w/ GWEN SWICK, CAITLIN HANFORD, SUZIE VINNICK => Hugh's Room, $14-$16
THUR NOV. 17
** LYLE LOVETT, JOHN HIATT, JOE ELY, GUY CLARK => Massey Hall, $49.50-$69.50
** PHOSOPHORESCENT, CASTANETS => Sneaky Dee's
** SOUR KEYS, VERMICIOUS KNID, BURDOCKS, GERMANS => Rancho Relaxo, 9 pm, $6
* RAINER MARIA, FIVE BLANK PAGES => Lee's Palace, $10
* Club Filth w/ DJS ARE NOT ROCKSTARS (w/PRINCESS SUPERSTAR, ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE) (NYC), MISS B-HAVE & WANNABEASTAR (NL), JOOST VAN BELLEN (NL), FRITZ HELDER & THE PHANTOMS, more => State Theatre, 69 Bathurst, 9 pm, $12.50 adv.
* NICK 'BROWNMAN' ALI TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St. (Nov 17-18)
IVAN BANFORD & COLIN ANTHONY => Tranzac, 10 pm
BORODIN QUARTET => George Westin Recital Hall (5040 Yonge), $35-$65
DAN MCVEIGH cd release => Hugh's Room, $10-$12
AMANDA MARTINEZ & EVARISTO MACHADO => Lula Lounge, 9 pm
JULIE MICHELS QUARTET => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 17-19)
JIM HILLMAN’S MERLIN FACTOR w/ TUKU => Rex Hotel (Nov 17-18)
EUGENE RIPPER'S FAST FOLK UNDERGROUND => Drake Hotel, 9 pm, $10
FRI NOV. 18
** DRUMHELLER => Tranzac, 10 pm
* THE FLESHTONES => Opera House, $10
* SARAH HARMER, THE WEAKERTHANS => Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front W, $30
* Rendezvous with Madness film festival presents THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (documentary) => Workman Theatre, 1001 Queen St. W., $8
* LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, THE JUAN MACLEAN, ARTHUR BAKER, SHIT ROBOT, KENNY GLASGOW, WILL MUNRO, A.D/D => Kool Haus, $25
* NICK ALI TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St. (Nov 17-18)
FRONT 242, GRAY AREA => Guvernment, doors 7 pm, $25
Mini-Shoegazer Fest 3 w/ AIDAN BAKER, OFF THE INTERNATIONAL RADAR, DIAGRAM & THE SLEEPING KINGS OF IONA => Sneaky Dee's, $5
MEMBERS OF THE PRESS , BLUESCREEN => El Mocambo $5
ANDREA HENRY, THE CRYSTAL SOUL BAND => Trane Studio, $10/$15
THE RIZDALES, ATOMIC 7 => Cadillac Lounge
JIM HILLMAN’S MERLIN FACTOR w/ TUKU => Rex Hotel (Nov 17-18)
APRIL WINE => Club 279, $20-$25
DROPKICK MURPHYS => Docks, doors 7:30 pm, $20.50. 416-870-7000.
AEROSMITH, LENNY KRAVITZ Air Canada Centre, doors 6:30 pm, $59.50-$119.50
ALL AMERICAN REJECTS, ROONEY, ACADEMY IS => Phoenix, doors 5 pm, $21
FOZZY, REASON DISAPPEARS => Opera House, $20
JULIE MICHELS QUARTET => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 17-19)
Cuban Fridays w/ CAFE CUBANO => Lula Lounge, $10
DARLENE, SWEETWATER WOMEN => The Kitchen (983 Victoria Park Ave)
SAT NOV. 19
* Small World Music presents THE DHOAD GYPSIES OF RAJASTHAN => Jane Mallet Theatre, 27 Front Street, 8 pm, $30
* Acoustic Harvest Folk Club w/ THE FOGGY HOGTOWN BOYS => Birchcliff Bluffs United Church, 33 East Rd., 8 pm, $15
* RYAN DRIVER QUARTET => Tranzac, 10 pm
RIZDALES, ATOMIC 7 => Cadillac Lounge
BLACK KEYS => Opera House, $15
JENG YI (Korean drums) => Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles West), $15-$20
MASTA ACE, WORDSWORTH, DJ A VEE => Reverb, 9 pm, $22.50
KAMELOT, SEVEN WITCHES, PENETRATOR => Lee's Palace, $24.25
THE PLANET SMASHERS => Horseshoe, $10.50
Toronto Music Expo w/ JEFF HEALEY & THE JAZZ WIZARDS, KITTIE, ROSES IN THE SNOW => Metro Toronto Convention Centre (255 Front West), 11 am-6 pm, $10 (Nov 19-20)
JULIE MICHELS QUARTET => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 17-19)
VICTOR BATEMAN QUINTET => Rex Hotel
Salsa Saturday w/ CACHE => Lula Lounge, $10
DARREN SIGESMUND QUINTET => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
SUN NOV. 20
** COACH HOUSE BOOKS launches uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto w/ REPUBLIC OF SAFETY, FREE SCHOOL, more => Gladstone, 2-5 pm panels & activities, 8 pm-midnight music, $5
* Solo Piano Sundays w/ HILARIO DURAN => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
DR. DRAW => Hugh’s Room (Nov. 20-21)
Wavelength 290 w/ RAISE THEM & EAT THEM, THE VERTICAL STRUTS, DJ CHICKEN LEGS => Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
Toronto Music Expo w/ JEFF HEALEY & THE JAZZ WIZARDS, KITTIE, ROSES IN THE SNOW => Metro Toronto Convention Centre (255 Front West), 11 am-6 pm, $10 (Nov 19-20)
BOBBY WATT => Tranzac
BARRY ROMBERG cd release => Rex Hotel
REEL BIG FISH, THE TOSSERS => Phoenix, $19.50
MON NOV. 21
* Grand Festival of Autumnal Happiness w/ "N" (Rob Clutton/Ryan Driver/Lina Allemano); A PEOPLE'S FAME (John Millard/Tania Gill/Jay Burr), SHUFFLE DEMON DUO (Rich Underhill/Stitch Wynston) => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St., 9 pm, $6-$10 (see also Nov. 27)
THE EFFECTS (Tulsa) => Silver Dollar
DR. DRAW => Hugh’s Room (Nov. 20-21)
NICK CUDA => Lula Lounge
Open Mic w/ BEN SURES => Tranzac, 9:30 pm
TUES NOV. 22
** In The Boneyard w/ THE HIDDEN CAMERAS & TORONTO DANCE THEATRE => Harbourfront, $17-$38 (adv. purchase recommended) (Nov 22-26)
** SHALABI EFFECT (Mtl), FEUEURMUSIC => Drake, 10:30 pm, $10
* EDGAR BREAU (ex-Simply Saucer) & TIM BUTLER (ex-Tim McB, Garble Rays) => Cameron House, $6
* BILL MAYS/TERRY CLARKE/NEIL SWAINSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 22- 26)
The Ambient Ping w/ SYLKEN, URM, ANOMALOUS DISTURBANCES & GENERAL CHAOS VISUALS => Hacienda, 9 pm, pwyc
GREG HOBBS => Tranzac, 10 pm
KELLY PERRAS => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
STEVE SINGH & HIS HOT SHIT BAND, guests => Cadillac Lounge, 10 pm (every Tues. in November)
WED NOV. 23
** In The Boneyard w/ THE HIDDEN CAMERAS & TORONTO DANCE THEATRE => Harbourfront, $17-$38 (adv. purchase recommended) (Nov 22-26)
* LOLLIPOP PEOPLE, JAMIE WAYNE, SLY JUHAS DUO => Cameron House, $6
* High Lonesome Wednesdays w/ CRAZY STRINGS (bluegrass) => Silver Dollar (every Wed.)
* THE DINNER IS RUINED, more => Tranzac, 9 pm
* BILL MAYS/TERRY CLARKE/NEIL SWAINSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 22- 26)
* ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN => Carlu, $27.50-$30
* ERIC BOGLE => Hugh's Room, $25-$27.50 (Nov 23-24)
* MATT BRUBECK/DAVID MOTT => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
OTTMAR LIEBERT, LUNA NEGRA => Winter Garden Theatre, $49.50-$57.50
THE SMASH UP, YOUTHINASIA, WHEELS ON THE BUS => Drake, $10
JAMES BLUNT => Mod Club, 8 pm, $16.50
THUR NOV. 24
** In The Boneyard w/ THE HIDDEN CAMERAS & TORONTO DANCE THEATRE => Harbourfront, $17-$38 (adv. purchase recommended) (Nov 22-26)
* ERIC BOGLE => Hugh's Room, $25-$27.50 (Nov 23-24)
* BILL MAYS/TERRY CLARKE/NEIL SWAINSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 22-26)
* MARILYN LERNER'S MAD SATIE TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St. (Nov 24-25)
* THE MIGHTY GILL => Tranzac, 10 pm
* EAGLE & HAW, JAY BURNSTICK, NADJIWAN, WOLF PACK, TAGAQ => Silver Dollar, 9 pm
THE SHOW BIZ INDIANS, MARC NADJIWAN, host LORNE CARDINAL => Tranzac main hall, 8 pm
LES SIX => Reverb
BARENAKED LADIES, BUCK 65 => Massey Hall, doors 7:30 pm, $42.50-$69.50 (Nov 24-25)
DOXAS BROTHERS QUARTET => Rex Hotel (Nov 24-25)
FRI NOV. 25
** In The Boneyard w/ THE HIDDEN CAMERAS & TORONTO DANCE THEATRE => Harbourfront, $17-$38 (adv. purchase recommended) (Nov 22-26)
* BILL MAYS/TERRY CLARKE/NEIL SWAINSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 22-26)
* MARILYN LERNER'S MAD SATIE TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St. (Nov 24-25)
* DEEP DARK UNITED => Tranzac, 10 pm
DIONNE TAYLOR, PAT LaBARBRA => Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts, 5040 Yonge, $40
The Bass Game w/ IDUBNEWYORK feat. RAS KUSH, DUB STYLIST, GNOSTIC ROCKET => Club Trinport, 249 Ossington, $10
FELIX DA HOUSECAT, KENNY GLASGOW => Mod Club
CONTROLLER.CONTROLLER => Spin Gallery, $10
LOWEST OF THE LOW => Horseshoe, $10.50 (Nov 25-26)
LES SIX => The Edge, free
RUSSELL WATSON => Roy Thomson Hall, 8 pm (doors 7 pm), $49.50-$69.50
TOBAGO SIGNAL HILL ALUMNI CHOIR => St Andrews Presbyterian Church (73 Simcoe), 7:30 pm, $30-$40 (Nov 25-26)
DOXAS BROTHERS QUARTET => Rex Hotel (Nov 24-25)
Salsa Friday w/ CACHE => Lula Lounge, $10
BARENAKED LADIES, BUCK 65 => Massey Hall, doors 7:30 pm, $42.50-$69.50 (Nov 24-25)
SAT NOV. 26
** In The Boneyard w/ THE HIDDEN CAMERAS & TORONTO DANCE THEATRE => Harbourfront, $17-$38 (adv. purchase recommended) (Nov 22-26)
** CONTINUOUS DICK (aka POLMO POLPO), TINKERTOY, ADAM MARSHALL => The Boat
** MARTIN ARNOLD & ERIC CHENAUX => Tranzac, 10 pm
** TORNGAT, HYLOZOISTS => The Boat
* ASHLEY MACISAAC cd release => Hugh's Room, $28-$30
* STYROFOAM, ALIAS, ESTHER DRANG => Rivoli
* BILL MAYS/TERRY CLARKE/NEIL SWAINSON => Montreal Bistro (Nov. 22-26)
Edge Electric Xmas w/ THEORY OF A DEADMAN, HURST => Opera House, $18.50
WOMEN’S BLUES REVUE w/ SUZIE McNEIL, LEE AARON, SALOME BEY, ROXANNE POTVIN, SHAKURA S'AIDA, DIONE TAYLOR, host SHELAGH ROGERS => Massey Hall, 8 p.m., $35–$45
ECCODEK, DJ MEDICINEMAN => Drake, 9 pm, $15
HOUSE OF DOC => The Speakeasy, 120 Church St., 9 pm
TOBAGO SIGNAL HILL ALUMNI CHOIR => St Andrews Presbyterian Church (73 Simcoe), 7:30 pm, $30-$40 (Nov 25-26)
The Box Salon (readings/film/music/etc) w/ JASON CAMLOT, LINDA GRIFFITHS, KAREN HINES, IZABELLA PRUSKA, DAVID HYDE, DAVID MCGIMPSEY, MICHAEL TURNER, “mystery rock band” => Rivoli
Salsa Saturday w/ CAFE CUBANO => Lula Lounge, $10
THE LAWS => The Kitchen (983 Victoria Park Ave)
JAMES COTTON => Healey's, $20
MOST SERENE REPUBLIC, DEBASER => Lee's Palace, $10A Baroque Christmas w/ THE MUSICIANS IN ORDINARY =>Heliconian Hall (35 Hazelton), $15-$20
JOSH RAGER SEXTET => Rex Hotel
LOWEST OF THE LOW => Horseshoe, $10.50 (Nov 25-26)
SCOTT MARSHALL TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
THE WEBER BROTHERS => Stone's Place, $10
THE DIABLEROS, UNCUT, LIPSTICK MACHINE => Sneaky Dee's, $10 (incl. CD)
ANDREW MACPHERSON, DJ MEDICINEMAN => Drake, $15
Toronto Wildlife Centre benefit w/ CARBONAS, DIABOLLOCKS, PANTYCHRIST, PSYCHOPATHOS, THE FALLOUT => Vatikan, 9 pm, $5
SUN NOV. 27
* Grand Festival of Autumnal Happiness w/ SELINA MARTIN, BOB FENTON, DON FRANCKS & THE TIM POSGATE HORNBAND => St. Andrew by-the-Lake, Toronto Island Church, 2 pm, $6-$10
* ROGUE WAVE => Lee's Palace, 9 pm, $10
* Solo Piano Sundays w/ DAVID BRAID => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
KONOVETS QUARTET (Russian male a capella ensemble) => Eglinton St. George's United Church (35 Lytton), 2:30 pm, $18
Wavelength 291 w/ LUNCHMEAT, FIVE BLANK PAGES, THE ACORN, DJ RYAN => Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
JOHN LEGEND => Massey Hall, $38.50-$57.50
LYNN MILES => Hugh's Room, $17-$19
BOB SEELEY/BOB BALDORI => Rex Hotel
MON NOV. 28
** BETTYE LAVETTE => Lee’s Palace, 8 pm, $15
* DAMIAN MARLEY => Guvernment, $32
RUNCIBLE SPOON cd release => Montreal Bistro, 9 pm, $10
SERAFIN w/ THE ROYAL JELLY ORCHESTRA, guests => Mod Club
Open Mic w/MIKE OVERTON => Tranzac, 9:30 pm
TUE NOV. 29
* DOUG TIELLI => Tranzac, 10 pm
The Ambient Ping w/ INSIDEAMIND, PHOLDE => Hacienda, 9 pm, pwyc
Fado Blues w/ CATARINA CARDEAL, MIKE SIRACUSA => Lula Lounge, 8:30 pm, $15
PIRATE JENNY => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
STEVE SINGH & HIS HOT SHIT BAND, guests => Cadillac Lounge, 10 pm (every Tues. in November)
WED NOV. 30
** LOLLIPOP PEOPLE, BOB WISEMAN, HANK COLLECTIVE => Cameron House, $6
* High Lonesome Wednesdays w/ CRAZY STRINGS (bluegrass) => Silver Dollar (every Wed.)
* SARAH HARMER => Harbourfront, $31 (also Dec 1)
* THE DINNER IS RUINED, more => Tranzac, 10 pm
HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS, SILVERSTEIN, BAYSIDE, AIDEN => Phoenix, $21.50
GARY BENSON/DUNCAN HOPKINS => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St.
Read More | Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Wednesday, October 26 at 7:41 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (1)
Republic of Melody
RoS: From left, Jonny Dovercourt (gtr-vox), Maggie MacDonald (vox), Kate McGee (bass), Katarina Gligorijevic-Collins (bass), Evan Davies (drums-mayhem). Photo by whom-else-but Aperture Enzyme.
Caught the Republic of Safety set at kool teen-feminist mag Shameless's party at the Gladstone yesterday afternoon. (Not a difficult catch, since I currently live at the Gladstone.) Besides Evan's ever-expanding capacities as between-song raconteur (his Hallowe'en "scary stories" about Olestra, tinted contact lenses and chicken fingers were fantastic), the great development is that frontlady Maggie has begun to sing actual tunes through entire songs, rather than just doing her riot-grrrl-rap-yelling (which is beloved but risks a queasy combination of sexiness and monotony over a whole set). And it turns out she can carry them. It's a great leap in self-assurance from her musical start with the Hidden Cameras to her Barcelona Pavilion days to now. (See the Shameless interview w/her this month, or my profile from the spring.) You're Only Lonely is a superb new song, with its stop-yer-sobbin' sentiments arrestingly conveyed.
Weekend Review Column
OVERTONES
Our first indie-rock prime minister?
CARL WILSON
1,104 words
19 March 2005
The Globe and Mail, R9
‘You know who's having the best sex? The people who pay the highest taxes!”
In some looser-hipped Canadian future, it might become a campaign slogan. For now it's rock 'n' roll stage patter, part of a stream of shouted provocations from the lips of Maggie MacDonald, lead vocalist of the Republic of Safety, a woman who never needs to resort to “How ya doin', Toronto?” to command attention.
Republic of Safety, which launches its debut Passport EP tonight, is a kind of political punk band the world hasn't heard before — one that agitates not for revolutionary utopias, but for a very Canadian moderation.
Then again, the typical punk singer isn't a former NDP candidate for the provincial legislature, as MacDonald was in 1999 in her hometown of Cornwall, Ont. She was just out of her teens, in a Fugazi T-shirt and Doc Martens, and ran respectably against an Ontario Conservative cabinet minister. She's worked as a party organizer through subsequent campaigns.
Being a musician was one of the few goals the young writer and activist “never dared dream about,” but she gained confidence after being recruited by friends to play crowd animator in successful Toronto indie bands The Hidden Cameras and Barcelona Pavilion. And she knew what she would sing about: “All I ever think about is politics and sex,” she laughs.
That suited Jonathan Bunce, better known locally as Wavelength music-series organizer Jonny Dovercourt, who was happy to give his high-school pen pal free reign as long as he could underscore her thoughts with scuzzy pinball guitar riffs. Add twin basses, drums and the conceit of a fantasy nation that both parodies and celebrates the Canadian identity, and you've got the Republic of Safety.
MacDonald continues to tour with the Cameras, and has also formed an all-female trio called the Dating Service. She is surprised by the music scene's embrace, but shouldn't be. Gregarious but self-effacing socially (I've known her casually for several years), she's a fury in the floodlights — howling, dancing, stage-diving and generally exhorting audiences to drop all cool pretenses and join her in the dizziness of the moment.
What's odd is hearing this rock 'n' roll energy channelled into not-so-rock 'n' roll subjects such as jobs, resources, trade and social democracy. One can only imagine what foreigners would make of it. But in the afterlife of the several deaths of rock, perhaps it's Canada's turn to scream, not for riots in the street but for a renewal of communal values. Laying waste to society's structures? Neo-conservative politicians are on top of it, thanks.
So, unlike past rock rabble-rousers such as DOA or the Clash, this group has for a logo not an anarchy symbol, but a safety belt. Which is both funnier and, frankly, more challenging.
“You can get up on stage and say ‘Smash the state!',” says MacDonald, “but the people in the audience aren't going to go smash the state. What's the state? It's an abstract concept. But if you talk about methods of demanding a more representative government, or concrete problems like keeping Canada out of missile defence — these are possible goals, but urgent possible goals.”
MacDonald comes by her homespun radicalism naturally, having grown up in a U.S. border town as the daughter of a feminist, union-activist school teacher and a soft-spoken bartender father with a bent for Bob Dylan. She saw Cornwall's factories and jobs move south and leave behind PCB-contaminated brownfields and a suspicious cancer cluster. While she studied her share of political theory at the University of Toronto, the stakes for her are gut-level.
And it's the immediacy that makes it rock. “It's important to turn our eyes to the world as it is and as it ought to be tomorrow, and I don't mean 10 years from now. I mean when you wake up in 24 hours.”
In the anti-free-trade Get Your Horses Back, the band proclaims: “North of the nation of fear/ We have a responsibility/ To build a republic of safety.” This corny Canadian image of order and security sounds peculiar rattled around by thorny guitar and drum lines.
“I've always wanted,” says MacDonald, “to communicate these ideas in a way that doesn't just take away mental energy [as politics can], but gives people an excitement.”
Where politics produces platitudes, rock demands sex appeal, and Republic of Safety cries out as brazenly for better orgasms as for the welfare state.
“One thing I like to say is, there can be no lust for a better world without lust! So we need to promote lust.
“People are repressing their feelings and afraid of their desires, so afraid that they don't know what they are. But when they're invited to feel sexual, they're invited to express desire, and then you can say, well, what else do you desire? You also desire, for everyone, something better.”
Toronto music fans like to joke that MacDonald will end up as the first indie-rock prime minister. She doesn't rule out an eventual return to the electoral fray, though she knows her saucy stage history could raise criticism.
“I write lyrics that have swear words in them. And I make jokes at rock shows that I wouldn't say to a general audience of families and voters. . . . But I don't sing vacuous words. Even if I'm sometimes saying things that are contradictory and complicated, I can explain and stand behind what I'm saying. And I think that's something that is lacking in politics. People's mouths are open, but what's coming out?
“When you poll Canadians, the most memorable, most popular prime minister that we've had — and I'm not saying that he was perfect or that he was right — but the one people care about most was Trudeau. He swore, he was weird, people thought he was gay, he had a funny flower, he did pirouettes, he took risks and he was wild. And people liked him for that.
“So if someone that has a rock 'n' roll background comes into politics, having serious concerns, that's a good thing. I would vote for me — and I'm pretty skeptical.”
To which I can only add: Me too.
For outtakes from this interview, see The Maggie Tapes.
Read More | Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Monday, October 24 at 2:46 PM | Linking Posts
Goats Move Mountains (Live)
John Darnielle and friend.
Last night's Mountain Goats show was a bit more satisfying if not quite as energetic as their visit in May. The set list seemed more thoughtful, or perhaps it was me, no longer just so excited to be seeing tMG after all these years and so more able to notice details. With the absurd amount of competition in the clubs - from Son Volt, Feist and Wolf Parade - the crowd was smaller, so there was more intimacy between us and John Darnielle (and Peter Hughes, whose use of bass as a lead instrument to JD's rhythm guitar continues to amaze), but also between the devotees, who drew two encores from a visibly weary John. The crowd seemed to be familiar mainly with the 4AD material - I think I was the only one who shouted in approval when songs such as Tollund Man, Twin Human Highway Flares or even Color in Your Cheeks surfaced. The high point, however, came when he was joined on-stage by opening band The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (Darnielle made pointed remarks about the band name - he'd have called it just The Prayers, he said, but the band's Christian humility is satisfied by having people mock and insult their name; I call them PaToADS for short). Lousy name or no, they rawked out, leading JD to do something I couldn't have imagined - he set down his guitar, took the mic in both hands and acted like he was actually the lead singer of a rock band. This happened in the song Against Pollution, which ends with a kind of apocalyptic vision, and John put one foot on the monitor, leaned out over the crowd, extended his arm and howled it out like a preacher. Indelible.
Of equal note, though, on more conventional tMG grounds: It occurred to me during a beautifully hushed rendition of Love Love Love (one of several songs he sang very very quietly last night, which was spine-tingling) that while there are many songs out there referring to Kurt Cobain's suicide, that's the only one I know that mentions him by name. It seems of a piece with Gus Van Sant's Last Days in marking the point at which Cobain's become a historic pop-cultural icon - a James Dean, albeit with a somewhat more complex significance; a reference point. Some critics found the Cobain verse awkward but I think they were actually just projecting their own self-consciousness; it's as fluid as the lines about King Saul or Sonny Liston. (I love the emphasis on his vulnerability and humanity in Darnielle calling him "young Kurt Cobain.") I think Darnielle was pointedly claiming the touchstone, saying that it's as valid as American Pie's reference to James Dean - that you don't have to be clever or sociological or allusive or territorial about it, you can just tell it straight-on. It's bolder than it first sounds, I think: Quietly setting its teeth to assert, "There's nothing cheap about this" - especially in the context of an album about Darnielle's own drug-addicted youth. (It would also be an apt song to sing at any Elliott Smith memorial concert, on this weekend's second anniversary of his death.)
Another small exquisite touch, almost unnoticeable, was in Color In Your Cheeks, a song (in my reading) about the treatment of refugees. The final verse normally goes, They came in by the dozens, walking or crawling/ Some were bright-eyed/ Some were dead on their feet/ And they came from Zimbabwe or from Soviet Georgia,/ East Saint Louis, or from Paris/ Or they lived across the street/ But they came, and when they'd finally made it here/ It was the least that we could do to make our welcome clear:/ Come on in... Without making a point of it or even leaning on the altered words, Darnielle has changed the Paris line to or New Orleans.
Chatting afterwards with the friend who came with me, who'd never seen tMG before. She was shocked at his energy and humour, expecting a more sombre person. That contrast is one of my favourite things about Darnielle. We spoke about sad songs sung in upbeat ways, as in klezmer or the blues. She made a comparison I'd never thought of before, between tMG and the Wedding Present - both Darnielle and David Gedge often singing dark stories (both strongly narrative and usually fairly realistic, excepting Darnielle's myth songs) in fast rock rhythms and major chords, using sophisticated language. Of course, Gedge is English and thus hangdog and sarcastic, and also much more concerned with playing with classic elements of songwriting form - with his rhymes and cadences and pop references. While Darnielle is American, and thus less guarded, but more literary and prosodic, trying to do things songs don't normally attempt but poems and novels do, which gives him a wider subject range, and his songs feature more epiphanies - and more violence.
I also thought: If you picture Darnielle as a skinny 17-year-old Californian with long stringy hair, wearing a band t-shirt and being the jumpy, bookish smartass in a small clique of goth/metal depressives, his personality doesn't seem so incongruous after all.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Tuesday, October 18 at 6:40 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (2)
I Buried Paul
No, no, not quite. My review of last night's Macca show in today's Globe and Mail is pretty moderate, actually. The most pleasant surprise was that he's still pretty funny, in that early-Beatles-taking-the-piss-at-press-conferences kind of way. But considering this is the first and probably only time I've been in the presence of a live Beatle, I wished that I could have felt my enormous childhood love of their music called forth, but the tunes rolled out in the canned way they must. Not that there was no humanity to the show - I was impressed that he's touring with such a compact band, just two guitarists, keyboards, drums and himself (on guitar, piano and, of course, "my Hoehner Hofner bass"). And bizarrely, the press got fourth-row seats - the only time I've even been on the floor in that stadium, much less right up front. So it was, you know, nice. But his devotion to his own tepidness is kind of extraordinary, and you never felt that all the strange and sad and joyful things that have made up his very unusual life were ever manifest, ever mattered very much to the convivial ritual we were sitting through. The emotional and chronological distance from the nucleus of his significance had about the same effect as physical distance, as if I weren't seeing Paul McCartney at all, but a simulacrum by the goodnatured keeper of his legacy. (In a way a horrible Wings performance would have felt meatier.) The showbiz trappings, effects and overblown stage set, etc., only seemed to foul up that goodnaturedness. Of course, everyone around me was screaming and jumping up and down, which made me feel a way I almost never do - like a jaded journalist. Compared to a lot of rock nostalgia acts, McCartney has to be commended for bringing his full energy (despite occasional stiffness) to a two-and-a-half hour, genuinely live concert.
Hey, maybe it really was the stand-in! ... The "Paul is dead" rumour always had a funny poetic aptness to go along with its factive absurdity. [... on to the review ...]
The affable, unassuming McCartney
By CARL WILSON
The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
At 63 years old, he's indisputably still the cute one. Over a few hours at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto last night, Paul McCartney waggled his head when he hit the high "aaaahs," tugged his forelock when he thanked the audience, and warbled about the delights of English Tea and, "peradventure," a spot of morning cricket croquet.
It's down to the perversity of today's rock-nostalgia concert business that such modest charm had to be buttressed by a 12-metre-high movie screen showing literal video illustrations of his song lyrics, and at one point retracting to reveal a tightly disciplined shower of indoor fireworks -- possibly the most unwarranted pyrotechnics in rock history, coming during the distinctly sparkless new song Follow Me.
The excesses began with a pre-show soundtrack of crescendoing strings that made it seem Mr. McCartney was about to descend from the heavens in a chariot of fire. Next came a brief set by DJ Freelance Hellraiser, who mashed up bits of Mr. McCartney's discography into dance tracks as he does on their recent collaboration Twin Freaks, to decent effect -- though for many of the greying boomers in the 16,000-strong sold-out crowd, this element must have seemed like a ploy to make them appreciate Mr. McCartney's eventual appearance all the more, as a respite from music they can't bear. Perhaps it was for their kids, who were also out in force mouthing along with every word of the Beatles tunes and looking a little lost during the Wings ones.
But the most egregious part of the prelude was a lengthy home movie in which Mr. McCartney narrated the story of his life. Does one of the world's most adored pop personalities (an expletive-deleted Beatle!) really require such self-aggrandizement?
In the video, Mr. McCartney said he always thought of the Beatles as nothing more or less than "a great little band," which bespeaks at once his unassuming nature and the disappointing blandness of his ambition. This combination was what he brought to the stage. Nothing in the show would lead one to reflect, except on the passing of time, but you couldn't complain about his affable showmanship and the solid performance of his four-piece backing band.
The set list was calculated only to please, and incidentally to introduce the crowd to Mr. McCartney's latest album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. True to reviews that are calling it his strongest effort in decades, its songs fit well into the evening's hit parade, which otherwise ranged from opener Magical Mystery Tour all the way back to pre-Beatles tune In Spite of All the Danger, as well as Drive My Car, Jet, Long and Winding Road, I Will, For No One, Fixing a Hole, Eleanor Rigby, and so on.
The songs were bridged by chat and storytelling, including a mini-songwriting workshop showing how he developed Blackbird out of a passage of Bach, and the story of how earlier in the tour he fell into the hole in the stage from which his piano is raised and lowered through the set. (Fans have begun holding up signs reading "Mind the gap.")
A moment of recognition for "departed loved ones -- John, George and Linda" brought an ovation. The Liverpudlian wit was still quick for bits of banter with the audience, though age and wealth have certainly smoothed and rounded the edge.
Audience sing-alongs were always encouraged. "Twenty thousand backing singers," Mr. McCartney commented. "What more can you ask for?"
For him, the answer is nothing: In the end, he knows that fans come sentimentally, to celebrate what his life has brought to theirs. And he precisely shares the feeling.
Read More | Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Tuesday, October 11 at 12:24 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (4)
The Passion of Alejandro
Today in The Globe & Mail, I have a profile of Alejandro Escovedo, on the mend from Hepatitis C thanks to an extraordinary series of tribute concerts and albums put together in his aid by other musicians, after he had a brush with death without benefit of health insurance. The U.S. health-care situation is madness to me, the main reason I would find it forbidding ever to live there, but the jeopardy in which it places artists really arrests me, since you can be a reputable and quite successful artist like Escovedo and still be royally fucked when it comes to health care - with a large family, he says, he couldn't even afford the reduced-cost health packages offered by the Musicians' Union. The fact that the Democrats haven't addressed this problem effectively is disgraceful (and yes, I remember what happened in the first year of the Clinton admin., but why was that able to happen except a failure of political will/strategy?). I think Americans in some ways don't even know what they're missing. A U.S. visitor came to a party in Toronto with me a couple of years ago and was shocked by the fact that almost everyone there was some kind of freelancer. That couldn't happen in Chicago, she said - most people hold onto a job for the health insurance. The foreshortening of options that represents is severe.
All that said, what Alejandro's been able to make of his plight is inspiring. His work deals so bravely and lyrically with hardship in general that it's not wholly a surprise that he is able to illuminate his own suffering in his art. But it's a real model, somebody who doesn't find easy epiphanies in pain but something much flintier, an earned transcendence.
If you've never seen him, you owe it to yourself to catch him on this tour (he's in Toronto at the El Mo on Oct. 4, as listed in the updated Zoilus gig guide) or whenever possible.
If you have seen him, you already know that. [ ... here's the piece ... ]
The body is weaker, the soul is stronger
By CARL WILSON
The Globe & Mail
Fri., Sept. 30/05 Page R25
In his urgent, Springsteen-style anthem Five Hearts Breaking, Texan musician Alejandro Escovedo discovers his lost-lover characters under a sky gone black and pleads, "Believe, believe, and everything will be fine."
There have been times the past few years that it was difficult to take his own advice. But he has caught up with the story now.
Hailing from a large musical family, Escovedo began in early California punk band the Nuns, which staked a place in rock legend by opening for the Sex Pistols' notorious final concert. He went on to help invent cowpunk with Rank and File as well as the True Believers, and as a soulful solo artist found his niche in the alt-country boom of the 1990s.
That movement's periodical of record, No Depression magazine, named him Artist of the Decade against stiff competition from the likes of Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle.
Like those cult figures, Escovedo, now in his mid-50s, has been through trials. There was divorce and the subsequent suicide of his first wife; months on the road away from his seven children; and his diagnosis in 1996 with hepatitis C. That condition eventually brought on his biggest crisis: He collapsed, vomiting blood, after a show in Phoenix, Ariz., in April of 2003.
He survived, but had to begin a punishing treatment regimen he could ill afford -- because, like many mid-level U.S. musicians, Escovedo had no health insurance. It's a plight Canadians can scarcely imagine. "Universal health care seems to be a dirty word in this country," Escovedo says.
His salvation was the respect of his fellow musicians, beginning in Austin, Tex., where Escovedo is part of the musical pantheon of saints. Benefit concerts were organized across the continent, and two tribute albums were released: Por Vida, with the likes of Earle, Williams, Jennifer Warnes and the Cowboy Junkies doing his songs; and a Canadian equivalent, Escovedo 101, featuring members of the Sadies and Blue Rodeo, among others.
"The benefits were incredible," he says now. "Community is kind of a lost art, so it was really impressive how the musical community came together and showed themselves a force to contend with when it comes to dealing with tragedy, whether it's the hurricane victims [the keyboard player in Escovedo's band is a displaced New Orleans resident] or individuals. I'm forever grateful."
Yet he had to humble himself to accept that help, Escovedo says. "It was hard to take the money. I always felt like I was the guy who did benefits for other people. Eventually my wife convinced me that not only was it helping me, it was helping other people also, just by bringing attention to the disease.
"We need to take care of each other. That's really the core of it."
Some of the artists who pitched in were Escovedo's youthful idols, such as John Cale of the Velvet Underground and Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople. "When I began playing, I tried to emulate what they were doing, knowing it was unattainable to tap into that kind of magic. And then these people play my songs, making them sound like I always tried to but never could."
They found fresh nuances in his writing, and made him feel promoted from student to peer. Now Cale is producing Escovedo's next album, including new songs he believes are his best ever.
But returning to the stage was still an intimidating proposition, with his own appearance and stamina so altered. His jet-black hair had fallen out, his muscles weakened. "I'd always been the one who wanted the band to look sharp and present a real presence," he says, as anyone who ever witnessed his marathon performances knows.
The shows and tours will be briefer now, but he has found another kind of intensity. "I think I've been thrust deeper into the music than I ever was, with a certain determination I didn't have before."
It's an energy at odds with the death-wishing rock romanticism that claimed the likes of the Sex Pistols. "It's like Keith Richards says - if he'd done all the things he's accused of, he'd be dead. Rock 'n' roll does require abandon, but I'm not sure the lifestyle is where you should focus. It's in the music, and the mind . . . to find new ways to say things about society and life.
"To have that near-death experience has given me a perspective I probably never would have had. . . . It has been a blessing, really."
Alejandro Escovedo appears with Jon Dee Graham, Oct. 4 at the El Mocambo, 464 Spadina Ave.
Read More | In Depth | Posted by zoilus on Friday, September 30 at 12:08 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (1)
'What I Really Need Now Is Ideas'
The October concert schedule in this city is so insane - seriously, there's barely a night in the next month that there aren't battles for your love goin' on - that compiling the calendar has taken up all my spare time the past couple of days. Leavin' zis heah blawg bohh-rinnng, je sais je sais. Enjoy the above picture of Dan Destroyer Bejar singing in Vancouver meanwhile and jot over to Artblot for more of the same from the New Pornographers' show out there (they're due in Hogtown - does anyone still call this city that? - a week from Sunday). (Thanks to For The Records for the link.)
With the avalanche of (mostly) third albums this week from various highly hyped Toronto-based bands - Broken Social Scene, Constantines, Metric, Deadly Snakes, Tangiers - as well as the disbanding of Three Gut Records, it seems like a good moment for taking stock, and I hope to give the matter some consideration in the next couple of days. I'd be interested to hear your own theories.
Meanwhile I'm writing up an interview with the gentle and thoughtful Alejandro Escovedo for this Friday's 7 - the weekly entertainment tabloid in the Globe. I'm going to be doing mid-length show previews for them most weeks from here in, a less-stressful substitute for ye olde columnal duties. Links, comme d'habitude, will be posted here. (Sorry for the franglais introjections - i just finished that Godard biography at long last ... far from a definitive book, I'm afraid - worthwhile for fans, but not enough of either new information or new insight, just dribs and drabs of each, and certainly its treatments of the various films seem fitful.)
Last evening I attended night 2 of the fall Interface series with Achim Kauffman, Michael Moore, Dylan van der Schyff, and Wolter Wierbos at Arraymusic. (I believe my colleague Mark Miller will have a review of night 1 in Wednesday's Globe.) The Monday program featured a generous evening of five sets - three planned improvs followed by unannounced sets by the trio and the trio with Wierbos - happily, since I thought I wasn't going to get to see those combos this week. In fact I was too Monday-night bleary to give it proper attention, but Wierbos's solo trombone set certainly woke me up for awhile, a tremendously energetic and varied performance in which he often vamped a little to set up a pulse and then solo'd "over" himself - quite a trick for a single brass instrument. Not profound, but with great robust humanity. The first and third sets didn't really 'get' me. The drumming in each case was too busy/overbearing (Joe Sorbara's impulses were solid, but the dynamics evaded him) and I didn't find myself in love with Michael Moore as an improvisor - I enjoy his work in compositional form (especially his Bob Dylan cover albums) but didn't feel much spark from him on this particular Monday evening. On the other hand, Achim Kauffman was a beautifully liquid and assured pianist previously unfamiliar to me, reminding me how I am missing my piano while we are in our temporary digs. (Not that I can play remotely like that - he just spread the 88-fingered love.) Eric Chenaux was the ingenious burdock as always. I was pleased to see Matt Brubeck for the first time since witnessing his Oranj Symphonette in the nineties, though he seemed a bit out-of-water in that set. And Vancouver's Dylan van der Schiff is just a stupendous drummer, who had the volume issue totally under control and whose blows always fell gracefully (almost too gracefully?) on the ear. So there was plenty to enjoy, and no doubt I could have taken in more if my own spirit had been more willing - but the "interface" between locals and guests this particular night wasn't at its strongest. There's plenty of promise in the climax of the series tonight, so if you are in town and free, treat yourself.
Via Toronto | Posted by zoilus on Tuesday, September 27 at 4:06 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (2)
Falling Into Place (Sept-Oct Gig Guide)
Left to right, top to bottom: Oct. 29, Oct. 22, Oct 9;
Oct. 18-21, Oct. 4, Oct. 16, Oct. 27;
Oct. 10, Oct. 17.
[... to continue, click ...]
Corrections & additions welcome. Zoilus-approved shows are marked with a *star. Special picks are **double-starred. If it's not starred, it may mean I don't find it especially thrilling, or just that I don't know or am not sure enough to recommend it. Listings will be updated weekly. All info subject to change - this is a casual effort, please do call the venues. Sources include the Stillepost.ca Toronto board, Eye, Now, Greg Clow, ListMe.ca, Canoe.ca, Soundlist, The Whole Note, Toronto Life and, as the saying goes, you - email or post in the comments with show information and disinformation.
FRI OCT 21
** THE SUN RA ARKESTRA => Lula Lounge, $30 (Oct 18-21)
** ENGLISH BEAT => Horseshoe. $25.50
* MIKE WEBSTER NONET (w/Kevin Turcotte, William Carn, Kelly Jefferson, Alex Dean, David Occhipinti)=> Rex Hotel (Oct 21-22)
* MISS KITTIN = > System Soundbar
* HOLY FUCK => Mod Club, $10
DJ FREDDY FRESH => Supermarket
THEE MORE SHALLOWS => Silver Dollar
BONNIE BRETT & MARK EISENMAN TRIO => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 18-22)
DYNASTY, THE WORLD PROVIDER => Sneaky Dee's
FUNK SERVICE INTERNATIONAL => Gypsy Co-op
THE HEILLIG MANOEUVRE => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
THE BLUE RAINCOATS => Rivoli
DEBASER cd release, THE EARLY MORNING, EVIL DOERS, PUT THE RIFLE DOWN => El Mocambo, $5
SONGS IN THE KEY OF TOM (A musical portrait of Tom Thomson) w/ DAVID SEREDA and friends => University of Toronto Art Centre, 15 King's College Circle, 7:30 pm, $12-$15
SAT OCT 22
** FREAKWATER, CHRISTOPHER REES => El Mocambo, $12.50
* Exclaim! presents Four for Fall w/ SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT, LUKE DOUCET, THE FEMBOTS, WHITEY HOUSTON => Lee's Palace, $12-$14
* MIKE WEBSTER NONET (w/Kevin Turcotte, William Carn, Kelly Jefferson, Alex Dean, David Occhipinti)=> Rex Hotel (Oct 21-22)
Five Weeks For Coltrane 4 w/ THE DOUG RICHARDSON QUARTET, guests => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $15-$20
NEIL SWAINSON QUARTET => Rex Hotel
BONNIE BRETT & MARK EISENMAN TRIO => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 18-22)
MELISSA STYLIANOU TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
Salsa Saturday W/ CACHE => Lula Lounge, $10
THE JIM YOSHII PILE-UP => Sneaky Dee's
I AN EYE, LO & THE MAGNETICS => Horseshoe, $6
JAKALOPE => Phoenix, 6 pm, $17.50
The Yellow Umbrella Tour w/ DUNCAN SHEIK, SARAH BETTENS, DAVID POE, CHRISTINE BAZE => Mod Club, $20
Acoustic Harvest Folk Club w/ BILL GARRETT & SUE LOTHROP => Birchcliff Bluffs United Church, 33 East Rd., 8 pm, $15
SUN OCT 23
* Shameless Magazine launch & Halloween party w/ REPUBLIC OF SAFETY, COUGAR PARTY, horror-movie makeovers, more => Gladstone Hotel, noon-4 pm, $10 ($7 w/ costume)
* THE CLIENTELE, ANNIE HAYDEN => Lee's Palace, $10
* LIZ PHAIR, MATT POND PA => Phoenix, $20
* Wavelength 286: THE VERMICIOUS KNID, BEEF TERMINAL cd release, THOMAS & THE EVIL COMPUTER, DJ SEPARATE BILL => Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
* Pitter Patter presents THE POSTAGE STAMPS, OHBIJOU, NOW YR TAKEN => The Music Gallery, 6 pm, $10
HENRY ROLLINS => Convocation Hall, U of T
Solo Piano Sundays w/ JOHN ROBY (9 pm), BILL KING (10:15 pm) => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
16th ANNUAL MASSED MILITARY BAND SPECTACULAR => Roy Thomson Hall, 2 p.m., $29-$63
MON OCT 24
* CSARDAS: THE TANGO OF THE EAST => Roy Thomson Hall, $35-$75
KAREN PLATO QUARTET => Montreal Bistro
RUBEN ESGUERRA & CHIVA => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, pwyc (every Monday)
TUES OCT 25
* THE COUP, LIFESAVAS => Reverb, $15
DRESDEN DOLLS, DEVOTCHKA, FAUN FABLES => Mod Club Theatre, 9 pm (doors 8 pm), $16.50
The Ambient Ping w/MARA'S TORMENT and AKUMU => Hacienda Lounge, 9 pm, pwyc
SLIPKNOT, AS I LAY DYING, UNEARTH => Air Canada Centre, $31-$49
VIENNA TENG => Drake, $15
STATUES, MALCOLM BAULD, TERROR LAKE => Sneaky Dee's
BRIAN BARLOW QUARTET w/ GUIDO BASSO => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 25-26)
Secret Arcade Tuesdays => The Bagel, 9 pm
Anything But Jazz Tuesdays w/ CEDAR AND SPRUCE => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
Acoustic Soul Tuesdays => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $5 (every Tues.)
WED OCT 26
* HILARIO DURAN TRIO, BETO CALETTI => Lula Lounge, $20
* High Lonesome Wednesdays w/ CRAZY STRINGS (bluegrass) => Silver Dollar (every Wed.)
* COLONEL TOM'S SWINGIN' DOORS => Cameron House, 7-9 pm, pwyc (every Wed)
SERENA RYDER, JUSTIN RUTLEDGE, MICHAEL JOHNSTON => Hugh's Room, $18-$20
THE HEMINGWAY SOLUTION => Lee's Palace
DAVID CLAYTON-THOMAS => Opera House. $32.50 (Oct 26-27)
THRICE, THE BLED, VEDA => The Docks. $23
PETER TURNER QUARTET => Rex Hotel
BRIAN BARLOW QUARTET w/ GUIDO BASSO => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 25-26)
NATE RENNER & LAUREN FALLS => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
NICK "BROWNMAN" ALI & THE ELECTRYC TRIO => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, pwyc (every Wed.)
KYE MARSHALL (cello), DANIEL IONESCO (guitar) => Mezzetta, 681 St Clair Ave W, 9 and 10 pm, $7
THURS OCT 27
* MATISYAHU (Hasidic reggae) => Lee's Palace, 8 pm, $20
* JASON KAHN/AKI ONDA, SANDRO PERRI/NILAN PERERA, STEVE BATES/JASON TAIT (Weakerthans/Fembots) => Tranzac, pwyc
* 2nd Annual Chet Baker Tribute w/ PAUL BAKER, DANNY DEPOE'S ALL STAR QUINTET, HAROLD DANKO => Lula Lounge, 7 pm, $20
DULCE PONTES (Portugal) => Roy Thomson Hall, 8 pm, $30-$90
MIN RAGER QUARTET => Rex Hotel (Oct 27-28)
ESPRIT ORCHESTRA (playing R. Murray Schafer, Harry Freedman, Marc-André Dalbavie, José Evangelista) => Jane Mallett Theatre, 27 Front East, $10-$32
Trane In Session w/ WALEED ABDULHAMID, KWANZA MZINGA, BRUCE CASSIDY & THE AFRICAN JAZZ ENSEMBLE => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $10 (also Oct 13)
RASPUTINA => Mod Club, 7 pm, $16.50
DAVID CLAYTON-THOMAS => Opera House. $32.50 (Oct 26-27)
BRIAN BARLOW QUINTET => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 27-29)
FRED DULIGAL TRIO => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
HOSTILE TAKEOVER => Sneaky Dee's
FRI OCT 28
** Pop Avant series w/ JON-RAE & THE RIVER (w/ 17-piece choir!), THE SILT, CASTLEMUSIC => Music Gallery, 8 pm, $8-$10
** OPETH => Opera House, $32
* Carnival of Curiosities w/ LENNI JABOUR, DIANA OBSCURA, ALLISON RICE & AIDAN ORANGE, HEEBEE GEEBEES, THE HAUNTED BURLESQUE DANCERS, guest DJ RUSSELL SMITH, DJ AKUMU => Great Hall (1087 Queen West), 8 pm to 1 am, $15
* TRICKY WOO, STARVIN HUNGRY => Horseshoe, $8
* CLUB V w/ guests tba => Lee's Palace
* Darker Rave w/ UNITUS (dtrash/dross:tik) vs. CRUSHKILL (hmcr) live, VINYL VANDAL (hmcruk) [uk], SKEETER (hmcr/smerk), C64 (dross:tik), ORBZ (32 division) => Gladstone, 9 pm, $5 (prizes for costumes)
MIN RAGER QUARTET => Rex Hotel (Oct 27-28)
BASSNECTAR, WASABI COLLECTIVE, DJ ROLLIN CASH => El Mocambo, $17
JAMIROQUAI => Kool Haus, $41.25
BRIAN BARLOW QUINTET => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 27-29)
SHANNON GUNN & BRIAN DICKINSON => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
MARK PATTERSON ALTERNATIVE JAZZ QUARTET => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $8
Cuban Fridays w/ CAFE CUBANO => Lula Lounge, $10
SAT OCT 29
** ORNETTE COLEMAN => Massey Hall, $89.50–$39.50
* Pornoween w/ THE CHINESE STARS, MAHI MAHI, guests => Metro Adult Cinema, $10
* QUEER JEWISH WEDDINGS w/ MARILYN LERNER, ADRIENNE COOPER, FRANK LONDON, LORIN SKLAMBERG, SARA FELDER => Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Ave., $10
THE SILVER HEARTS => Rivoli
SUFFOCATION, CRYPTOPSY, DESPISED ICON, ABORTED => Opera House, $25
Vague Terrain presents KERO, NAW, DES CAILLOUX ET DU CARBONE => Art Bar at the Gladstone Hotel, 9 pm, $5
BLACK HALOS, ILLUMINATI => Horseshoe
JAZZ FOR HERBIE fourth annual benefit for Sick Kids' Hospital => Rex Hotel, noon-6 pm, $20 min. donation
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS => Lee's Palace, $10
SAVES THE DAY, SENSES FAIL, EARLY NOVEMBER, SAY ANYTHING => The Docks, $23.50
TESLA => Phoenix, $29.50
THE GROUP SOUNDS (NYC), UNCUT, DJ NNY + Guests => The Social, $10
Five Weeks For Coltrane 5 w/ THE DOUG RICHARDSON QUARTET, guests => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $15-$20
CHRIS GALE QUINTET => Rex Hotel
BRIAN BARLOW QUINTET => Montreal Bistro (Oct. 27-29)
BOB BROUGH QUARTET => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
DAVID CALZADO Y SU CHARANGA HABANERA => Lula Lounge, $35
JOHNNY RAWLS => Silver Dollar, 10 pm, $18
VAUX => El Mocambo, $10
SUN OCT 30
** STEVE REICH & FRIENDS => MacMillan Theatre, 80 Queen's Park Crescent, $25-$40
* Wavelength 287: evil halloween costume party w/ ROBOCOPP, RIGOR MORTIS GOT ME DOWN (five-part zombie musical!), DJ WEST EYES
=> Sneaky Dee's, pwyc
* THE GO! TEAM, THE GRATES => The Phoenix, $18.50
* The Composer Now w/ JOSEPH PETRIC (accordion), PENDERECKI STRING QUARTET => Music Gallery, 8 pm, $5-$15
Solo Piano Sundays w/ TANIA GILL (9 pm), BILL WESTCOTT (10:15 pm) => The Red Guitar, 603 Markham St
AFRICAN SPIRIT DRUMMING => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, $10
CHRIS MCKHOOL cd release => Hugh's Room, 2 pm, $10-$12
Ghosts, Goblins And Things That Go Bump In The Night! w/ TORONTO CHILDREN'S CHORUS => Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, 230 St. Clair West, 4 pm, $25-$40
GENITORTURES => Lee's Palace
STAIND, DEFAULT => Kool Haus, $33.75
MON OCT 31
* KARDINAL OFFISHAL => Mod Club, 8 pm, $15
YORK JAZZ ENSEMBLE (big band) => Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst, doors 8, show 9 pm, pwyc
Read More | Via Toronto | Posted by zoilus on Sunday, September 25 at 6:36 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (7)
Jandek Live in Torontopia?
Rumour of the day: Jandek live show in Toronto in the works???? (See Zoiluses past on Jandek - just the tail-end of that column, actually.)
And here's a bit cut for space from my Essential Tracks list coming out tomorrow in The Globe and Mail:
The White Box
The Mountain Goats, from Down in a Mirror: A Second Tribute to Jandek (http://www.summerstepsrecords.com)
This menacing Pandora’s-box parable fittingly introduces the weird world of Houston recluse Jandek, who has self-released 42 harrowing albums since 1978 and recently shocked followers by making live appearances. Singer John Darnielle has reinvented his vocal style markedly for his contribution to this second anthology of indie-rockers’ Jandek covers, which also includes Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
Via Toronto | Posted by zoilus on Thursday, September 22 at 6:56 PM | Linking Posts
Trampoline Hall Chopped'n'Screwed
Highlight moment from last night's Trampoline Hall: After lecturer Otino Corsano's entertainingly meandering talk on the Statue of Liberty, someone in the audience asked what one would build as the Canadian equivalent. Otino rambled a bit and came around to this answer: The Canadian Statue of the Liberty would also be the Statue of Liberty, except that it would be so small you could hold it in your hand, and everybody would have one. (I love the idea that the Canadian symbol would just be an American symbol put through a kind of scale/attitude warp - it sums up reality in this country nicely.) ... And maybe she'd be black (as is falsely rumoured to have been the original French intent, a rumour the lecturer seemed to have swallowed - although it's possible there was an abolitionist subtext to the image, the model seems to have been caucasian.) (Mind you, the statue's original colour was a dark copper-brown.)
Second highlight: Steve Kado arguing with a classical musician in the audience during the Q&A for the "Slowness" lecture about which form of music was slower - classical or Dirty South hip-hop: "Emerson Quintet? That shit is fast! Glenn Gould playing Bach is punishingly fast," Steve says. "But crunk is so slow!" (The lecturer, an elementary school French teacher who plays rap en français for her students, asked, "Does the Dirty South do anything in French?" which was endearing. Steve answers, "Uh, no, they're a region of the United States.") Even before this came up I had scribbled on a piece of paper the question, "Is 'screwed' cough-syrup-drinking-style hip-hop a musical parallel to the 'slow food' and 'bonjour paresse' movements?" Of course, it's lazy-like-a-fox music, the slow homicidal threat, Bre'er Rabbit acting slow but actually thinking fast. But it could be read as an economically disenfranchised community's protest against the maddeningly impossible cultural pressure to hurry-up-and-succeed, hold three jobs, etc etc. ("Idleness is not a vice but a sign of intelligence.") I might write more about this one. However, in defense of the poor beleaguered classical musician, who just wasn't as funny or, um, quick as Steve, he was talking about duration rather than tempo - it takes more slowness to sit through and absorb 45-minute piece, he was saying, than a four-minute single. (Okay, but what about an album?)
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Tuesday, September 20 at 12:30 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (8)
Guelph Jazzblog 3.i
Hamid Drake
The Supersilent set only got better, locking on a horizon of fixed intensities and heading towards it not so much by forward motion but by stretching and spreading laterally, becoming large enough to envelop all it surveyed. I spent much of it leaning on the stage, both to observe more closely and to get away from the jabbering further back in the room. At one point singer/trumpeter/drummer Arve Henrikson was provoked into singing (in his high choirboy tones) a song that began, "Why are all these people talking? Why did they come if what they wanted was to talk?" and proceeded to speculate, "Perhaps they are very lonely/ So they desperately need to socialize/ Why are these people so sad and lonely?" while keyboardist Ståle Storløkken played funereal chords, a good performance lesson in making lemons into lemon daiquiris. In any case, a really involving set of ambient-style improv; I'm looking forward to investigating their recordings.
Now, to return to the earlier AACM concert: Both parts had their strengths, but without question I got more out of the first set, by Douglas Ewart, Wadada Leo Smith, Hamid Drake and Jeff Parker. [... more after the jump ...]
Parker, on electric guitar, was the weakest link - he was fine, but I've never found him an inspired improvisor. But the rest of the quartet was superb, and not (generally) by undertaking heroic-style soloing, but by creating a series of passages from one sonic space to another in a way that left me with that transfigured feeling that is the highest mark of creative improvisation. Drake is never less than stunning, of course - a great exemplar of a musician who defies the mind-body split, seeming at once athletic and intellectual in his every gesture. Smith fulfilled expectations, restrained but canny in his awareness of where his trumpet lines would have maximum effect. And Ewart, whom I don't think I've seen before, was a revelation, confidently leading and evolving the improvisation from strength to strength, wittily deploying the instruments of his own creation - most memorably a slide didgeridu, a brilliant solution to the monotony of most didgeridu playing that allows a player to really dig in and explore its amazing harmonic potentials. His bassoon work was also incredible - a difficult jazz instrument that he made agile and sardonic. I also particuarly remember a section when all four players were playing handheld chiming tubes, sounding like a rainstorm of bells, with Drake somehow finding a way to solo by rolling the ballbearings (if that's what they were) around inside the canister, tapping its sides, sustaining the rhythm in a superconscious way.
The Art Ensemble part of the evening was a more ambivalent experience. I found new trumpeter Corey Wilkes an unfortunately tepid presence - he seemed timid, as though he were perpetually waiting for permission to have an idea; his part of the sound always seemed a drag on the interstellar energies of the group during the open improvisations, and his solos fell into well-carved paths, with an almost painful feeling of blockage. Maybe he was just having an off night for some reason? That was definitively not the case for Roscoe Mitchell - my first time seeing him, and I certainly regret that. He left me breathless with the empathic and assertive quality of his saxophone lines, never predictable but always keyed in to some overlooked essence of the music that was happening at the moment. Joseph Jarman was his usual eccentric but graceful self, a bit prey to his own cliches but a pleasure to hear. (He was originally supposed to play the first set rather than Parker, which would probably have made that set even better, but understandably he preferred not to do double duty.) New bassist Jaribu Shahid is no Malachi Favors, but he held his own handsomely, and Famadou Don Moyes provided a rhythmic foundation that likely would have been easier to appreciate if he hadn't had to follow Hamid Drake. For whatever reason the ensemble feeling last night was lacking - there was little cohesion of intent in the improvised sections, and as a result they often seemed to get stuck in neutral, locked into a textural or rhythmic idea (or anti-idea) for too long, except when Roscoe took the lead. But mostly I just felt grateful to have a chance to hear the Art Ensemble in person at last, as the AACM marks its 40th anniversary - it still retains its charisma, and sadly I can only imagine what it must have been like when Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors were in the band.
It's funny how the positive-thinking vibe of the Guelph festival affects things. As David Dacks and I were discussing during my CIUT interview, the 'niceness' of this festival can be a bit oppressive - it makes it difficult to feel entitled to more polarized emotional responses. To be even mildly critical, as in this entry or as I was about the Fujii quartet yesterday, feels a bit like you're going to find the village turn upon and shun you - as compared to Victoriaville, with its much more professional-listener audience base and its Montreal edge (because a far smaller proportion of the audience there is from the town), where it's almost like a competition to find fault with the music and I very much feel the contrary impulse to champion what was valuable about each concert. But I do keep returning to something Eric Lewis said during Friday's panel discussion (more about that in the final wrapup entry later today) - that he feels a responsibility as a listener to improvised music always to interrogate his own reactions, particularly when he doesn't like something - to wonder if he is being reactionary or misunderstanding the intents of the musicians, missing what is being said. For instance, "If Archie Shepp gets up and plays standards, and you're disappointed because he didn't play 'fire music,' you want to think about why he might have done that." It's a good encapsulation of one of the challenges of this art form, and I think it will stick with me - it's left grains of doubt within my assessments of the music I've heard this weekend, and right now I'm savouring the quiet friction of that sceptical grit against my instinctive (?) reactions. More later. Thanks for reading, if you've been reading, so far.
Read More | Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Sunday, September 11 at 11:57 AM | Linking Posts | Comments (4)
Guelph Jazzblog 2.ii
I write you from the Old Quebec Street mall, where a stage has been set up for the midnight Supersilent show. I’ve just bid Mrs. Zoilus and her brother a safe trip back to Toronto after the three-hour AACM/Art Ensemble gig. Winston Smith of CKUT made an affable host. The evening began with an execrable tribute video that was little more than a slide show of AACM photos with a recorded soundtrack; the transitions from shot to shot used every cheesy effect in the amateur-video arsenal: Look! Now the picture is stretching! Now it’s pixillating and filling up with holes! Now it’s flipping around and around and flying out of frame! Now it’s rotating sideways till it’s as thin as the rationale for showing this crapfest before the concert! The photographs themselves were fine, but as a video... really, it was an insult to the performers to screen work so substandard as a prelude to their gig, and did nothing to provide the audience with context - the live interview at intermission with Douglas Ewart on the 40-year history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians was a far, far better idea.
More on the AACM show in a bit; Norway’s Supersilent is starting its set. The big pre-show mystery was what the member billed as playing “audio virus” would actually be doing. [... more, on the flipside... ]
The rest of the band consists of drums, trumpet, and keyboards - the “virus” looks to be a mixing board, with open inputs but also perhaps (I can’t tell from here) connected to synth, or maybe just for looping and altering the on-stage sound (as, for instance, Mission of Burma used to do). The tone is meditative and droney. The festival program compares them to Sigur Ros, and that doesn’t seem totally out of place (it also compares them to Godspeed, but I can tell you that within 30 seconds they’ve proven more dynamic than that). It sounds like good makeout music - pity we’re all standing around on the tile floor of a mall. Ah, now it’s getting much more viral: Overdriven feedback loops and all. The area isn’t packed; no doubt much of the crowd was worn out by the Chicago marathon. But this was the hipster pick of the week - I certainly heard it come up in conversation (“are you staying for the Supersilent show?”) more times than I could count. The virus has now mutated into a drum circle a la latterday Boredoms. Noiseish, light on structure but high on energy/force.
I just saw the kid wearing my favourite t-shirt of the weekend again - on the back it says THIS IS MY HAPPENING AND I’M FREAKING OUT!!!
The problem with the mall setting: Very rarely for a Guelph Jazz show, people won’t shut up. It’s the environment, but it’s also a symptom of disrespect for the relatively youth of the performers - and for electronic music as such - I can’t help but think. I like the progginess of the keyboard buzzed-out melody going on right now (sometimes trends are our friend) accompanied by very Sigur Ros-esque falsetto vocals that I suspect will amount to more when they’ve been infected with the virus. Ah yes, there we go - now they’ve become a rainbow choir of harmonic overlays.
Nearby a pretty girl in a black trenchcoat has just brought a bottle of water to her nearly-passing-out friend.... ah, it is the mall. I’m going to log out to save power (I can’t post directly here anyway - there are five different WiFi networks, but all password-protected) and let myself soak into the groove. A final entry from Guelph in the morning.
Read More | Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Sunday, September 11 at 2:44 AM | Linking Posts
Guelph Jazzblog 2.i
Natsuki Tamura. (Font color selected by David Heti.)
Pardon the gap between posts - I suppose I started enjoying the festival too much to report on it, and just finally got to a wireless spot. I’ve missed a lot of the music as well: I’m writing from the lobby at the afternoon concert today (Saturday), where I arrived just a moment too late for the set by Sticks and Stones from Chicago - judging by the crowd response, which was nothing less than ecstatic, it must have been a great set. I saw them take their bow, & Mantana Roberts was done up in some sparkling green face paint, lending an otherworldly mystique to her strong stage presence. Likewise I missed the 8 pm show last night - I heard unenthusiastic reports about the Roscoe Mitchell/Pauline Oliveros set and positive things about the Nicole Mitchell ensemble - I should have gone in but was having too good a time chatting with Toronto trombonist Scott Thompson, Guelph bookstore owner Doug Minette and others. Have I seen any music, you ask? I did attend the midnight show by Rene Lussier and Eugene Chadbourne on guitar and banjo, and that was a wonderful, laidback and fluid set. The two had real musical chemistry - they should record together.
The set by the Satoko Fujii Four, with Fujii on piano and Mark Dresser on bass, Natsuki Tamura trumpet and Jim Black drums, was a mixed success. The general level of musicianship was extraordinary - Dresser is always astounding, Black (whom I don't think I've seen before) was creative and ebullient, and Tamura's voice on horn is distinct and powerful. But Fujii's compositions are kind of lousy, full of new-agey sweep and flourish and contrived melodism - so the improvised solos and such were excellent, but the overall journey was kind of tedious to me. But since the audience was on its feet at the end, calling the band back for an encore, obviously I was in a minority.
I want to address some of what went on yesterday afternoon, as well, but I'll save it for a wrap-up entry tomorrow. Coming up next: The AACM/Art Ensemble show. I'm particularly chuffed to see Wadada Leo Smith, a longtime favourite jazz musician of mine - with a trumpet tone like silken fire - and one who rarely seems to tour, at least in this country. But it will also be interesting to see how the Art Ensemble fares with its new members, Jaribu Shahid and Corey Wilkes, taking on the formidable challenge of filling the spots of the late Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors.
And now my fingers are getting sticky with Bookshelf roasted garlic and caesar salad, so I'll stop for the time being.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Saturday, September 10 at 5:38 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (1)
Guelph Jazzblog, 1.ii
My wireless access right now requires going outdoors to quest for the hot spot, so I can't easily post in media res. The Lori Freedman solo-reeds concert that just ended was passionate and ultra-expressive, which in some ways was its drawback - its entry points were all head-on, and I still had my mind in the somewhat frustrating panel that preceded it and needed a side door to synthesize the lines of thought... Anyway, more in a little while. I'm about to go on CIUT to discuss, well, whatever we end up discussing - at about 4:10 if you're in a listening mood.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Friday, September 09 at 3:04 PM | Linking Posts
Guelph Jazzblog, 1.i
Eugene Chadbourne, one of the guests at this year's Guelph Jazz Festival. (Sorry for the generic image - I haven't a digital camera. This on-the-spot blogging is new to me.)
Well, here I am sprawled on the grass outside the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, having just arrived for Day 3 of the annual Guelph Jazz Festival, a small but exuberantly innovative little event now in its 12th year. As long as I can pirate a wireless signal (I've got a wavering one now), I'll be live-blogging from the event today and tomorrow. The expected climax is tomorrow night's appearance by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but there's a lot more on the bill, including Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra playing in about half an hour with a trio of Ontario musicians (see the schedule by clicking through the link above). I arrived toward the end of the 10:30 a.m. workshop "Of Other Spaces: Improvised Geographies," which seemed to involve stationing various musicians around the MSAC's two floors and letting the audience wander between performances - there seemed to be less circulation by the musicians, which would have been more exciting, spontaneously generating ensembles, but since I was only there for about 15 minutes, there may have been more wandering minstrelsy than I got to see. Still it was a pleasure to wander up to the 2nd floor and discover Matana Roberts (from Chicago group Sticks & Stones) playing resonant solo sax in the midst of Gordon Monahon's amplifier-cabinet installation, then move further back through the galleries and happen upon Rob Clutton and Eugene Chadbourne playing a jaunty bass and banjo duet - in the middle of a laid-out vegetarian buffet luncheon provided by the festival (roasted peppers and onions and potatoes, etc). Shortly after I wandered in, the rest of the audience did as well, while Rob & Eugene kicked out a climactic jig - a nice illustration of the community feeling of the Guelph fest at its best.
As for Guelph at its not-so-best: I'm looking forward to the afternoon discussion, "Roundtable on Listening: The Audience Speaks Out," which seems to be part of a general response to last year's memorable fiasco during the Sainkho Namtchylak appearance here, the theme in the academic component of this year's event, "Improvising Matters: Rights, Risks, Responsibilities." The festival's whole reaction to the fallout from last year has been in the a passive mode, sidelong rather than an open accounting for the issues raised there, but at least they are giving it thought. (If you're interested in the background, check out my posts after last year's festival.) I wish I could have attended more of the colloquium, which began Wednesday morning - every year Guelph makes me wish I had taken the whole week off to spend here, but the expense of getting a hotel room all week restrains me.
Anyway, hope this festival diary will interest jazz-inclined Zoilus readers, and that the rest of you bear with us till normal programming resumes Monday.
Live Notes | Posted by zoilus on Friday, September 09 at 11:43 AM | Linking Posts | Comments (3)
September Songs (Toronto Gig Guide)
At last, at last the official September Toronto show guide is here (on the flip). It's a packed month: Action gets active as soon as 15 minutes ago (Fembots in-store at Soundscapes) and tomorrow night with K Recs indie-grrrl dreamboat The Blow (Khaela and friends, pictured above in their new video) at, fittingly, the Boat [Update: Correction! Not till Oct. 7! Geez!], followed by Xiu Xiu with Frog Eyes at the Gladstone on Thursday, the AACM-toasting Guelph Jazz Festival all weekend (with live Zoilus coverage Friday and Saturday), the Tranzac open house festival all day Saturday (with the creme de la weird of Torontopian improv'ers and others), the Fifth Column tribute show that same night, Portastatic (ex-Superchunk) with Tenement Halls (ex-Rock*a*Teens) on Monday, Blackalicious on Tuesday, 13 and God (Notwist-meets-Themselves) on Sept. 15, etc.
If it goes forward, the Ear to the Ground festival will be the month's indie highlight, featuring sets by everybody from K'Naan to the Hidden Cameras to Joel Plaskett to Polmo Polpo to Sleater-Kinney, Sept. 16-18. Unfortunately, the CNE venue is known for keeping festivals in precarious positions. I'll try to keep you updated. Sept. 17 also brings the daunting noise-vortices of Acid Mothers Temple with Wolf Eyes. On Sept. 20, blogland's equivalent of Marianne, Annie, is in town with Royksopp; blogland's equivalent of Jake the Snake Roberts (that'd be Warren Kinsella) takes the stage at Sneaky Dee's; and Numbers returns alongside the collective