Studio Theatre, Hamilton Place

The Studio Theatre in Hamilton Place is an intimate venue, just right for a singer-songwriter (Stephen Fearing), but also very suitable for some blues (Steve Strongman), or the music of The Rankin Sisters, or even the intricate keyboard noodlings of Garth Hudson. In the last week I've been there twice. A week ago Friday for Bruce Cockburn and last Wednesday for Billy Bragg. Both singer-songwriters, I suppose, but both with very political agendas. They were great!
I'm not a big Burce Cockburn fan. I don't know what it is. He plays the kind of music that I usually go for. Guitar based, folky, with a touch of blues, and I generally agree with his message...so what is it about him that I don't like? Maybe I only had room in my ears for Richard Thompson doing that stuff. Anyway, last Friday I went along with my good friend Frank (who is also not a Cockburn fan) and we sat in the front row, just to the right of centre. This is not a good place to sit, when seeing Bruce. Right of centre is definitely not the place to be! But that's where the seats Ann and Emmitt had saved for us happened to be.
Bruce came out dressed in a baggy outfit, dark pants and an oversized jacket, and picked up one of the two green-topped 6-string guitars and began to roll through his songbook. Tunes from the 70s, 80s, 90s and new songs. Not too many "old songs" mainly "middle-aged songs". And a couple of new ones. "Slow Down Fast," "This is Bagdad," mixed with "Wondering Where the Lions Are," "Waiting For a Miracle," and "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." It was good to have so many familiar songs, because some of the others sounded similar, like riffs just designed to carry the words. There's no doubt that Bruce is an extraordinary guitarist, but there was a sameness to much of what he played. The virtuosity lifted these moments. I was touched, personally, by the new song written after visiting his brother (an army doctor in Afghanistan). My own son is training to go there, and Bruce's lament brought me to tears. Cockburn answered three curtain calls and on his last encore claimed he "[didn't] know what to play." He satisfied the rabid fans, and he satisfied us hangers-on too. All in all a fine night.
Wednesday's show with Billy Bragg was also a dandy night of music, and politics. This time our seats (again, saved by Ann and Emmitt) were in the front row, but appropriately well left of centre! Where else would you want to be for the author of "Power in the Union," and "All You Fascists"!!
After an intriguing set by Toronto's Ron Hawkins (check that guy out!) Billy took the stage. He had played for 2 hours the night previous at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, and his tour manager wanted to keep this one to 90 minutes. But once Billy got rolling there was no stoppping him. Playing an electric guitar turned up loud, he rocked the joint with songs of love and justice! He sipped from a mug of tea (he called it Throat Coat) and sang in his London drawl, songs from his long career. He called Woody Guthrie "my boss" as he introduced the songs he had completed (with Wilco) for Woody's daughter Norah, for 2 albums. He sang a classic Guthrie children's song about wetting the bed, and Woody's "Ain't Got No Home". He spoke about oxyomorons like "military intelligence" and "american football". The English call it "runny, runny, catchy" since it has very little to do with the pure "footie" they play in the rest of the world. He expressed his displeasure over France "cheating their way to victory over Ireland" referring to Thierry Henry's handball the night before. He played a few tunes on an acoustic guitar, with STRUMMER emblazoned on the front. He went well beyond his 90 minutes, much to the chagrin of the manager. And then he came out for a meet and greet during which he spoke personally to each person who waited. He heard their stories, and answered their questions, signed their scarves, and LPs, CDs, tickets, and shirts. He gave everyone their money's worth. Long live Billy Bragg!

Spectacle: Elvis Costello with Elvis Costello

Last Friday I received an e-mail from the Elvis Costello fan site (which I hadn't even remembered joining). It said that the first 50 people to reply would receive 2 free passes to the taping of the final episode of Season Two of Spectacle with Elvis Costello. Well, who could resist an offer like that? Especially since it was going to take place in Toronto! I replied within 3 minutes, and waited. Later that night I received another message. It said !!CONGRATULATIONS!! You've won! and laid out the rules for picking up tickets. Monday my wife and I headed out early to find parking and a place to have dinner. Parking, no problem, right across the street and only $15. Dinner, two blocks down at le Pain Quotidien, zucchini soup, fresh bread, and smoked salmon salad. Good coffee too! It began to rain, a steady drizzle. We arrived at the Masonic Hall on Yonge Street at about 6:15, a lineup had begun. At 6:30 they checked our photo ID and gave us wristbands. Then they checked our coats, searched my wife's purse, and showed us to our seats. The theatre is beautiful, very art deco. The set featured chandeliers, a 1000 lightbulbs showing the Spectacle logo behind a drum kit, and amps and guitars. We sat in the front row. The front three rows were reserved for the Fan Club winners! Here's someone who knows how to treat his fans.
The place was alive with a buzz. "Who's the guest?" "I hear it's Paul McCartney!" "It's McCartney for sure! I got the word!" People from as far away as Rhode Island were there.
It was 8:00 before the show began, and the air conditioning was blowing on us all the time. "Oh, it'll get hot in here once the lights go on!" But it never got that hot, by the end we were frozen (more of that later).
Elvis came out, followed by The Imposters, did his usual Spectacle rap, picked up his Fender Jaguar and launched into "Accidents Will Happen". It was fantastic. After another tune ("Chelsea") he explained that Elton John was to have been the interviewer and he, Elvis, was the guest tonight. Elton was sick (as the newspapers had told us all weekend) so they looked for a "rock journalist" do perform the task of raking Elvis over the coals. Since they couldn't find a presentable rock journalist...they got Mary Louise Parker (she of Fried Green Tomatoes fame). She came out dressed in black. She looked very slim, and quite lovely, although her interviewing techniques were adequate at best. It was clear that she was a bigger fan, more in awe of her idol than most of the rest of us in attendance. When she closed her eyes and swayed to Elvis's crooning, I thought she might fall off the chair! Nevertheless Elvis was charming and forthcoming with information about how he wrote and recorded, and his life in general. Marriage and fatherhood has agreed with him, and not drinking!
For over 2 hours he shared stories, and songs, some solo on acoustic guitart, others backed by Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher. I saw Elvis on his first tour of North America. He played about 14 songs and was done in 35 minutes start to finish! Wow! He explained that the Attractions were using "speed up drugs" and that later when he listened to My Aim Is True to relearn it for a tour, he "couldn't believe how slow the songs were"!
He spoke about writing with McCartney, Bacharach and trying to co-write with Sammy Cahn (it didn't work out) and played songs from each era. "Almost Blue," "Brilliant Mistake," "So Like Candy," "I Still Have That Other Girl," "Bedlam," "I Hope You're Happy Now," all done beautifully whether accompanied by himself on the Gibson, or with the band.
After the show, he came out to re-take the first two songs. "Accidents..." and "...Chelsea". Then he sang a couple more, a couple after that, and more, giving us a 40 minute concert to end the night. At 11:00 he said "Goodnight" and bowed, and walked off. It was tremendous. The audience had been standing through the final few songs. It was rock'n'roll!
On the way out everyone received a copy of the new CD. It was a night to remember. And I can't wait to watch Season Two.

Stuff...

Went to Kingston earlier this week, on assignment from work. Learned how to "Lead Change". Basically...communicate! While there I picked up the new Leonard Cohen CD+DVD Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. The video portion is fascinating. Even if you're not a Cohen fan. The story is great. A bunch of middle-class English hippies tried to crash the Isle of Wight Festival because "music should be free, man!" So the promoters tried to build a wall around the area. Kris Kristofferson got booed off the stage. Jimi Hendrix played and somebody set fire to the stage. Cohen had to follow THAT! Hendrix and a fire! His piano and organ had been damaged in the fire and he told them he wasn't going on without a piano and an organ! The crowd of 500,000 waited! The promoter provided keyboards. Lenny wandered on-stage and sang his songs of loss and love to them and they listened! It's a beautiful film.
Also picked up a brief book about Pete Seeger called The Protest Singer. It's subtitled an intimate portrait and...that's what it is. Pete asked for a book that could be read in one sitting and Alec Wilkinson provided a sensitive and compelling look at this legend!
I read Dave Eggers' novelization of The Wild Things on the train. Not a bad way to spend the five hour (there and back) journey.
Downloaded my first music from iTunes while I was there. J.D.Souther's first live album was just issued (for download only) and while it took over a week for it to become available for the Canadian iTunes fan...it's definitely worth it. He's in good voice and supported (most of the time) by a crack band! A short album but it covers his whole career.
Have you heard Dylan's Christmas album? It's pretty much exactly what you might think...good or bad? Listen and decide for yourself. New Lyle Lovett, Natural Forces is excellent. Wilco the album is growing on me, as is the Avett Brothers I and Love and You.
David Byrne's book Bicycle Diaries has inspired me to buy myself a new bike next spring.
My brother and his wife are coming from Alberta for a visit next week. I'm looking forward to seeing them!

Even more Pearl Company...

It was a quiet Thursday, and my wife was having some friends over. I had received an e-mail about a last minute concert at The Pearl Company, but with such short notice I couldn't find anyone to go with me. Rich couldn't make it, Ralph wasn't home, Jesse was away, and so on. I had to go out to allow the ladies space, but did I want to go to a concert alone? I could just go to Chapters, have a coffee, browse for a couple of hours. Ah, what the heck, it's five bucks, and maybe it'll be good, after all the review on-line compared this guy to Robert Fripp.

I managed to find a parking spot right in front of the building. Wow! That's a first. Up the stairs, to the second floor where the performance space is, and there's Gary Santucci and Barbara Milne, the owners and hosts, and a young guy, tall, slim, short hair, long sideburns, glasses. Gary introduces us, and he happens to be Jean-Paul De Roover...the star of the show. We have a long chat about his gear, the relative merits of looping, his familiarity with Fripp, and other loopers. He doesn't know Jacob Moon, but the name Bill Frisell rings a bell. At this point you'd expect the audience to be drifting in. After all, it's almost 8:00. A woman arrives, she's a friend of Barbara's, and she drops her $5 on the table. That makes two of us. We introduce ourselves. Garbielle and I sit in the front row of chairs and couches that make up the comfy seating of The Pearl Company. Gary sits behind me. He says something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Pearl Co., tonight our guest is Jean-Paul De Roover." And from then on it's J-P's show.

I sympathize. I did a reading of my unpublished novel one night, and it snowed like crazy, three people came into the shop out of the storm. I read to them. They drank the free coffee and ate the free buttertarts, then they left. I know the feeling. Nevertheless J-P takes off. He's playing a Fender acoustic guitar that he says he borrowed from his sister. His web site shows him with a couple different axes, not this one, but by the end of the night you know why he took his sister's guitar on tour. He beats the crap out of it! Not fretting and picking, but beating it...like a drum. J-P plays loops, which means he creates a full band sound all by himself. Whether he begins with a riff, a beat, a bassline, even a vocal he then adds the missing pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle until finally the whole is revealed.

He works behind a red framework built from plastic pipe. His gear is on shelves, or on the floor, a plethora of pedals laid out before him. He knows where everything is. And he has done this enough to move smoothly between each piece of equipment and maintain the music, and the connection with the audience. He plays the songs from his recently released CD, Windows and Doors. The CD comes with a DVD which contains a brief documentary on the making of the album, a series of live performances and a couple of videos suitable for MTV (or Much Music here in Canada). He is a sensitive singer with a flexible voice, he lays down harmonies and background sounds (including percussive noises) with an ease and facility that is amazing to watch/hear. He reminds me at various times of Brian Wilson, or Lindsey Buckingham. His guitar playing is not really like Robert Fripp except perhaps on the experimental "Catharsis" which builds to a thrilling climax as loop after loop is layered onto the mix.

Because of the intimacy of the evening we feel free to take part, to clap, to sing along, to ask questions. J-P is happy for this, and answers honestly. He talks about the songwriting process and how he is less interested in lyrics than melody. He begins with melodic ideas, even when constructing the abstract experimental pieces. He add words as an afterthought, and yet the words he adds are filled with ideas, he is a thinker, having just completed his Master's in Sociology. Sociology? That's right, and it's a perfect fit for his songs about life, death, love, loss and all that.

Partway through the night, early on I think, two other people arrive. They are as overcome by the music as Gabrielle, Gary and I. And after the show we hang around for a while, talking to J-P, looking at the original artwork for his CD. It's a beautiful package, Windows and Doors is available from his Web site. We are all familiar with going through doors, but some of us take the less obvious route, through the window. Jean-Paul is inside that window, breaking through. Even his CD package breaks through! It folds out to become a little house. Buy one and see for yourself. Keep your eyes out for De Roover appearing near you. He's definitely making a return appearance at The Pearl Co. and I'm getting the word out early!

More Pearl Company

A week later and we were back at the Pearl Company to see, and hear, The Marigolds. As you'll see (and hear) by following that link, The Marigolds is a trio comprised of Suzie Vinnick, Caitlin Hanford and Gwen Swick, but after but after seeing them on Saturday night, I assure you...they're a band!
With the addition of percussionist Randall Coryell, Gwen playing bass, Caitlin on rhythm guitar and Suzie adding some hot lead guitar...they can flat out rock! But they don't rock all the time. Sometimes it's Sons of the Pioneersy old-time country like on "A Little Bit of Heaven" and sometimes there's a touch of jazz as on the title track of their new CD That's the State I'm In.
They came to play, and the small but very appreciative crowd came to listen. The night began with a little tuning up, and then Suzie kicked things off with the first track of the new CD. This song lists the things she might do "For Your Love" and it boils down to "anything I can think of..." Suzie's voice is a bluesy and potent instrument, Caitlin brings a clear Appalachian soprano, and Gwen provides the rich alto, but together they create something dreamlike, other-worldly. Harmony singing is one of my weaknesses, and I was completely smitten Saturday night!
The songs have inherent strength in their writing. These are well constructed, melodic tunes, and the lyrics are memorable too. Swick's "Anyone Can Dream" reminds us that "there's a statue that longs to be a national treasure...a sapling that looks high into the trees...a pebble that would die to lie in the Rockies...and anyone can dream." Caitlin's "When I'm Walking With You" is a song she wrote (with Gwen) about the joys of walking with a friend. They share writing duties, Suzie providing songs like "Sometimes I Think I Can Fly" (written with Dan Kershaw) and assisting with all the Marigolds on "Why Baby" or "For Your Love".
These are songs from the new CD, but as I listen to the carefully produced (by Steve Dawson) album, I think I liked the rawness of the live versions better. There was just something about the group interaction, and their obvious affection for each other, and the fire in Suzie's guitar solos, that when added to the bliss of the vocal blend created a separate entity of Marigold-mania, or something. Whatever you want to call it, we were transported to a land of harmony and melody. Aaah!
And of course, thanks to Gary and Barbara our hosts at the Pearl Company, which is quickly becoming my favourite venue anywhere!

The Pearl Company...

Friday night we went to see Joe Clark and Randal Hill perform a mandolin extravaganza at The Pearl Company. Now the Pearl Co. is an old warehouse, at one time home to the Evel Casket Co., then the space was occupied by the Canadian Pearl Co. who made, as you might expect, pearls. Plastic pearls, remnants of which can be found ground into the wooden floor. Parking is at a premium in this neighbourhood, and although they have an arragnement with a local pharmacist, if you don't put the handy little note on your dashboard you might be in for an expensive surprise after the show.
Barbara Milne and her partner Gary Santucci are the hosts, and they live on the third floor in a beautiful open concept space, which they graciously showed off to us during the intermission.
A bunch of Hamilton musicians were there, all to see Joe Clark and Randal Hill play their mandolins. Although the crowd was small, Randal and Joe gave it their all. These guys are amazing. Fingers flew on the little fretboards, and yet it wasn't all flash. There was a wonderful musicality to it all, whether playing bluegrass classics from Bill Monroe, or Duke Ellington's "Caravan," or even the theme from "Never On Sunday" the melodies were strong, and the improvisations always led back to the main themes. Both Joe and Randal doubled on guitar, and sang. They sang those high, lonesome harmonies that mark bluegrass music. Clark grew up in the same area as The Stanley Brothers. His stories are peppered with tales of meeting Dr. Ralph, or Bill Monroe, John Hartford, and other legendary characters. Hill has stories about others, his career reaches back to the Humber River Valley Boys.
The Pearl Co. offers coffee, tea and some baked goods, and comfortable seating in an intimate room. The sound is warm, perfect for this acoustic music. There's an art gallery downstairs, with crafts and jewelry for sale. But the main event Friday night was the music...and it was extraordinary.

Me & the Devil Blues

Just picked up this giant manga 500 page graphic novel called Me & the Devil Blues. Now, since I wrote a novella with the same title, I was immediately drawn to the 1 1/4" brick on a high shelf in the back room of a local bookstore. I haven't read it yet, but it looks beautifully done. All black and white illustrations, plenty of representations of Robert Johnson and the denizens of 1920s Mississippi. Have a look for it. Only problem is reading from back to front, but for a southpaw it shouldn't be too big an issue!