Why Library Voices are louder in the valley...

 I’m sure we’ve all got albums that we always listen to in our car, or maybe only on the back deck, every day on the walk home, or when we’re stuck on the bus… Some albums just sound better in certain situations, just as some bands just put on a better show in particular cities. Usually there are places that just fit with certain groups (Cuff the Duke at Maverick’s in Ottawa, or Elliott Brood at La Sala Rosa in Montreal…) but there are a few magical venues where everyone puts on their best shows- where the crowds are consistently supportive, the mix is clear, and the beer is just the right price. It’s why bands are always better at hillside, always better at the Kee to Bala, and most of all, always better at the Black Sheep.

Now back in high school I often went to see the same band several days in a row, sometimes even several cities in a row. Now I’m not talking like Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, here- I refuse to get on a plane to achieve this goal- but Toronto, Barrie, Bala is totally do-able, and Ottawa, Montreal is downright simple. I’ve recently revived this tradition going to both the Ottawa and Montreal legs of the last Elliot Brood tour, and most recently Library Voices, back to back- Tuesday at Casa in Montreal, and Wednesday at the Black Sheep in Wakefield Quebec.

The Montreal show was… interesting. Casa is the first place I ever saw Library Voices (my sister’s favourite band), a show that has become one of my all time top five concerts, but this time it was almost a completely different beast. Of course it looked the same and the pints of cider were still $4.00, but the crowd was quiet and standoffish (since when should there be a four foot buffer between the closest person and the stage?) and the band was- allright I’m just gonna say it- they were a little off. Over the course of their set I’m pretty sure every instrument on stage broke at least once, the songs didn’t seem to want to come out quite right, and Mike actually tipped over his stand sending various pedals and dials flying across the stage. When Carl said “So this is our last song” and someone in the audience said “nahhhhhhh” he replied, quite solemnly: “Yes. Yes it is.” It was just... odd.

Talking to the band the next night they described it variously as “Awful.”  “Just completely off.”  and “The worst show of this tour- by far.”  Everyone had a different suggestion as to why, but Carl’s was especially pragmatic: “sometimes you just have a crappy night, but I mean that’s how you know when its good, how would you ever know that you’d had a good night when you don’t have crappy ones to compare it to?”

I took it all in stride- after all I was seeing them again the next night- no big deal if the Montreal show was a bust- but my sister wasn’t so lucky. She’s moving overseas at the end of the summer and, as she put it after the show “that might have been the last time I see Library Voices in a very long time…!” she was a little broken up about it, and I don’t blame her… If I wasn’t seeing Elliott Brood for three years and their last show was the one at Maverick’s a few months back, I think I might have cried.

Needless to say the Wakefeild show was about a million times better (and no, that’s not hyperbole. It was actually, literally, a million times better). I took along two friends who had never seen Library Voices before (and in fact had not really even heard of them) and no one was to be disappointed! Like my first time seeing them, my friend Madelaine leaned over part way through the second song to say “I love them!” just as I had done.

They were On Fire. Opting for two sets of eight songs (perhaps because they had no openers? Their reasoning being “Because, I mean, why not? We’ve never done this before, lets see how it goes!”) they steamrollered through the first group, playing a mix of new material and old favourites. After the third song Mike had mentioned how much respect they always had for the audiences at the black sheep, and Carl had pointed out that, even all seated, we were a pretty excellent audience (allusions to the previous night’s crowd perhaps…?)  At ‘intermission’ I ended up standing at the merch booth right beside Carl and couldn’t help mentioning that they seemed a lot happier tonight. “I was at the Montreal show yesterday…” I volunteered “Oh.” Carl replied, making a face like he'd smelled something awful "oh…..” We talked a bit about how much more fun they were having at the Black Sheep, and how some days are just off days, and I mentioned that the night before had been my sister’s last show before she moves to Holland. “Oh no!” he exclaimed (no seriously, he actually exclaimed!) “Alright, we’re gonna do something for her after the show, come find me after the show!” And it was time for the second set…

Again mixing old favourites in with new stuff, they continued to bring down the house, getting everyone up and bopping after only a few songs, and reviving the Carl’s-ridiculous-dancing and drums-in-the-audience that had been sorely lacking from the previous night’s performance. Kundera, Genration Handclap, my personal favourite Step off the Map and Float, and their ever-excellent cover of the Misfits “Where Eagles Dare.” Carl dedicated Neil Young’s “Unknown Ledgend” to my sister ("a very special fan who is unfortunately not here tonight”) and they closed out the set to deafening applause. The usual “But guys, that’s all the songs we have….!” Didn’t work on the exuberant crowd, so Amanda Belted out a flawless rendition of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long," followed by Geroge Harrison’s “Got my Mind Set on You” and, when we still wouldn’t let them off the hook, the best version of “Jump Around” I have ever heard/seen/jumped to. By then they actually had exhausted all of the songs they knew, and we enthusiastically clapped, cheered, hooted and hollered in honour of an astounding performance.

After the show I found Carl (”I’m just gonna change out of this sweaty sweaty shirt…”) and spend a while talking with my friends about how much they’d enjoyed the show. He came back freshly changed, got me to re-tell the story of my-sister-and-the-Montreal-last-show to Mike the drummer and the bassist Eoin, while he collected the rest of the band outside… then got me to tell it to them as well.  They make a sign that read “We promise to come visit you in the Netherlands!” and all took photos with it. 

"We all look like zombies!"

Of course band-love is about the music. For me its even more about the live performance, the enthusiasm and the love of what they’re doing, but its times like these that make it really hard to ignore the role played by such outright friendliness, generosity and excitement. Sure I already loved Library Voices, but taking the time to make my sister just a little bit less sad about how much she’ll miss them? Takes ‘em from Good Band, to Good Band and Good People. Gotta love Canadian indie music…

Gospel, Country and a little bit of Robots...

Day three of concert goodness actually didn't happen at the Dragonboat festival! Though there was a show happening there today, bands-I-already-love win out, so I was off to see the always entertaining Robots!EVERYWHERE!! at the fourth installment of the "4 in 1 acoustic sessions" , a series of acoustic concerts that happen in parks around Ottawa.

Due to a miscommunication about rain-change-of-venue (which led to our discovery of a previously unseen Canadian Navy monument, so that was interesting...) we missed the first band (André M. Bluteau) and arrived part way through the second.

J.M. Farr had a lovely deep voice. I feel like that sentence sounds odd, but I tried to figure out a different way of saying it and nothing else quite feels right. Seriously, his voice is lovely. And deep. But not that booming Graveyard Train kind of deep. The lovely kind. Alright, alright, I'm sure you get the idea...

photo credit: Ming Wu

As I said, we only got to hear a few of his songs, but the original material was beautiful, and the gospel numbers were perfectly pitched and wonderfully played. Each song was perfectly suited to the grey afternoon, cool and calm after this week's heat-wave. Its amazing how someone's voice can carry in such a wide open space, and yet still make you feel that kind of living-room-coziness usually associated with wooden rocking chairs and mugs of homemade beer...  J.M mentioned he was going to be in Ottawa for the summer, and I certainly intend to check out his full set sometime over the next couple of months.

Next up, and on the almost complete opposite of the musical spectrum, the aforementioned Robots!EVERYWHERE!! Now if you've read any of my other reviews of this band, you'll already know that I find Phil infinitely entertaining... today's performance was no exception. Beginning with apologies for his lateness (though we weren't late so much as almost late... still: "I'm sorry, I was in Peterborough and so hungover that my mom wouldn't let us leave without making me pancakes first..." makes it worth mentioning) and quickly transitioning to apologies for his out of tune guitar, one would think it was gonna be a bust, but one couldn't be further from correct (like my use of 'one' there? classy eh?).  Phil has a great talent for ... well for something! maybe for a range of somethings? Actually I'm not sure exactly what it is, he's just always really fun to watch. His songs are catchy, he doesn't take anything too seriously, and even when he messes up, its still entertaining. And Phil is always full of surprises. This time, it was using the infallible Josh Pruner as a makeshift playlist ("Pruner! What song is next?"), which  gave the whole thing a kind of 'mystery tour' meets 'choose your own adventure' feel. Continuing the adventure theme, we finished off the set in the kiddie pool. yep. Photo evidence below. I thought it would be difficult to top last time's Enrique Igalsius sing-a-long-pantomime/dance, but clearly I had forgotten the obvious: Phil is awesome.

photo credit: Ming Wu

Getting back to the quieter folksy theme; Landon AR Coleman took the stage with his acoustic guitar and selection of harmonicas ("I can never remember which one is the non-broken one..."). Playing several tunes off his album, he spent the between-song moments of re-tuning regaling us with stories  ("So yesterday I was trying to read in my room, and there was this plate of chicken...." long story short he fainted and fell into the plate of chicken. I love banter. No seriously, that sounds like sarcasm, but I really do enjoy good banter, especially when its one person having to banter with themselves. Fainting in chicken? That's golden).

photo credit: Ming Wu

Another lovely voice, suiting the grey afternoon to a tee, Landon played a few Dylan covers, stole a few lines from a Georgian poet ("Georgian like the country, not like... the other Georgian...") and otherwise just ambled through at an incredibly pleasant pace, leaving nothing wanting. This is the kind of folk music acoustic sessions were made for, and a nice slice of folk-bread to the salami of Robots!EVERYWHERE!! (Too much of a stetch? yeah I thought so, I just really wanted to make a Robots!EVERYWHERE!! salami sandwich metaphor... my apologies!)  Again in Ottawa for the summer, I certainly intend on checking him out again.

After a somewhat confusing start to the afternoon, the show was a really nice end to a fantastic weekend. Summer concert season is officially in full swing. Bring it on.

"We'd love to keep playing but..."

Day two of the Dragonboat festival brought even more fantastic weather and even more fantastic music. Today's fare? Said the Whale.

With my first Said the Whale making my 'best concerts of the year' and the second not quite living up to the standard, I was interested to see what today's show would bring. Despite a somewhat disappointing sound mix (vocals were not nearly loud enough, at some points making it difficult to even hear the words at all) the band put on their regular, cheerily adorable, show. With Ben all covered in sunburn, and Tyler was in fine form, pulling his classic I-used-to-sing-in-a-punk-band faces, the front lines were as entertaining as ever. Looking around you could really tell that a lot of the crowd were there purely for the show, and hadn't watched or rowed in a single race all day.

Sometimes when you go to a festival, there is a small devoted band of fans right up at the front (present tonight, though a fairly large group), behind whom are dozens of festival-goers  who have never heard of the band. Sometimes it stays that way for the duration. Sometimes though the crowd grows, and the unsuspecting table-dwellers become fans themselves. As someone who is usually right up front, this is an especially fun experience as you don't see the crowd growing until it is suddenly huge. One song has a regular amount of singing along, a regular amount of clapping, then suddenly the audience volume in next song is much much louder. You look back and are faced with three or four times the number of people standing behind you, all dancing along... And its not just the strangers either!

Its always fun to introduce friends to a new band, and tonight it was also the first time for two of mine. One of them made it through only one or two songs before declaring "Erin, I think I officially have developed a crush" on the always "fedorable" (aka adorable and wearing a fedora) Ben, while the other found Tyler's resemblance to David Tennant infinitely amusing... They also loved the music, but that kind of goes without saying!

Mixing newer material like Lines and Big Sky, with old favourites like Camilo the Magician, False Creek Change, and Black Day in December, the show was well paced, and energetic. I'm always impressed with the way in which Said the Whale weave new songs into their mix. Beginning by asking the audience to indulge them, blasting through the new material, then quickly following it up with a well known ditty, means you don't get the normal slight frustration at not being able to sing along to a song you've never heard before. The first of these two new offerings is bound to become a staple, while the second seemed to need a bit more polishing (I wouldn't be surprised if it sounded a bit different my September's folkfest...), but every other song in the set? Fantastic.

By the end they definitely had the [ever expanding] audience hooked. After ending off with Camilo, they were faced with cheers of "One more song! One more song!" that were loud enough and persistent enough for Ben to come back out and tell us "We'd love to, we really would but we're not allowed! Thank you guys so much! Really, so much!" An encore would have been amazing, but I guess we'll just have to wait for their return in September.  Well done Said the Whale- yet another triumph of playing through a bad mix and coming out on top. Lets hope folkfest gives them the opportunity to shine without having to keep asking for their mics to be turned up...!

Spirited away

Ah summer, the season of outdoor festivals, warm breezy nights, and sweaty pits. Mosh pits I mean (though to be fair I suppose there are many types of sweaty summer pits... but I digress). Summer festivals have a way of turning the most unlikely of band-audiences into sweaty jumping masses - sometimes with crowd surfing and skanking, sometimes with linked-arm-twirling, but always with ample singing and excess enthusiasm. Tonight's offering? Paper Lions and Spirit of the West at night one of Ottawa's Dragon Boat Festival.

I had the chance to see Paper Lions at hillside last summer as was really impressed with their energy on stage and (let's face it, my absolute band-love-weakness) their adorableness- but I only got to watch about five minutes of their set because I had to leave to go to a wedding. It was an awesome wedding, but I was still a little bit sad that I couldn't have finished the set then gone to the wedding... Tonight I finally got to see a full Paper Lions show and, especially taking into consideration that everyone (EVERYONE) puts on a better (read THEIR BEST EVER) performance at hillside, they held up really well! They were bursting with energy (why stand at a keyboard when you can run on the spot while playing?), full of man-love (apparently my quote of the night "two grown men singing into the same mic gets me every time..."), and clearly enjoying playing on such a beautiful day.

Photo credit: Ming Wu

Mixing up a few old favourites (Travlin' and Lost the War) with a bunch of stuff off of their new EP they kept a quick pace and sounded great (if a little loud- and I swear I'm not just saying that!!! Children were covering their ears. for serious). With a bit of coaxing they even got the mostly seated-and-drinking-beer audience to sing along with not one or two, but three separate songs. Pretty good for an early-evening opening act! It was especially great seeing them again since this time I was familiar with a bunch of the songs- and as we all know, singing along makes every show better

Which brings me to Spirit of the West

Maybe you have to be of a Certain Age (maybe not?) but it definitely seemed like all my age-contemporaries in the audience were repeatedly having the same "Wow, I know every one of these songs"  reaction as we were. Now I've listened to Spirit of the West for a long time. Actually over fifteen years (ok, so not that long, but considering they date back to a time before I really listened to music that wasn't my parents', its a pretty long time)... but I strangely didn't really realize how much of their music I knew- and how well i knew it! I think there were only two songs during the whole set that I didn't know all the words to- and most people in the audience were in the same boat.

From the opening The Joneses to Venice is Sinking, our cue to say 'chuck it' to the relaxing seats and head into the developing (and aforementioned) pit, John Mann and the rest of the crew gave an unerring and unceasingly energetic performance that saw everyone (ages three to seventy something) dancing their feet off for over an hour and a half. One of the fantastic things about outdoor festival shows is the breadth of people you get to see loving the same show. From the wee redheaded boy jumping in a circle, to the two we-look-like-we-listen-to-hip-hop-but-are-inexplicably-completely-in-love-with-spirit-of-the-west gentlemen front row centre there were representatives from every possible group, and each one was having just as much fun as the next.

Photo credit: Ming Wu

This whole all-ages thing was carried right up onto the stage as the three year old son of the sound tech snuck up to the drum kit and started playing along with the band. Instead of whisking him off, they made sure he wasn't gonna fall off the stool and let him play through the whole song. then gave him a drum solo. Well, it was more like a cymbal solo, but for a three year old he kinda rocked it (and of course who is immune to that insane level of adorableness? yes, clearly I am not, but everyone else loved it too, I swear!)

Of course they closed out their set with the always popular Home for a Rest, which resulted in some of the loudest singing along I have heard ever (EVER- like not just loud for the size of the crowd, loud for any size of crowd...) the guys on stage started laughing they were so startled by the volume. It was fan-freakin-tastic. And the enthusiasm didn't end there, the dancing and jumping about were insane, again with a full-out mix of teenagers, little kids, adults and seniors, each person haveing more fun than the next.

On CD (or "on ipod I guess I should say?) Spirit of the West have always sounded like they would be good live, but I gotta say they surpassed all of my expectations. Fantastic show, and a fantastic start to the summer festival season.

One day down, two more to go (whats a weekend without three days of concerts?!?)

On Being Un-Ironically Enthusiastic...

SO if you know me in Real Life, or have pretty much ever read this blog , you'll already know that when I love something, I LOVE it. My face becomes all smile, I start talking very quickly, I go over the moon, I almost hit bystanders with wooden spoons... ;o)  This happens with art, with music (particularly concerts... and bagpipes), with tv shows, with gardening, with bicycling... Some of my co-workers have even taken to texting me "BAGPIPES!!!" whenever they hear them somewhere- and even just that makes me incredibly happy (the idea that your enthusiasm has influenced someone even just enough for them to think of you when they hear an instrument they hate... its a pretty nice feeling)!

The odd side effect to all of this is that people often think I am a lot younger than I am- like somehow growing up means you are no longer supposed to find life entertaining (quick sidebar- a friend of mine recently remarked that from me 'entertaining' is the highest possible compliment. I'm not sure how I feel about the implications of that statement, but I cannot deny its accuracy). What rule is there that says that once you get to a certain age you shouldn't go on a midnight park-adventure? Or enjoy a concert? Or love riding your foot-brake bicycle? I refuse to admit that the un-enthusiastic people out there are unenthusiastic because they have nothing to be enthusiastic about. That would just be too sad. I prefer to think that they have things they love as much as I love bombing down the highway with Library Voices blaring (half in the back so I can turn it up louder), but that they are simply- for whatever reason- uncomfortable with other people knowing about it. Which I clearly do not understand.

But then I read this quote by Simon Pegg:

"Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. Being a geek is extremely liberating" 

And this one by John Green

"Nerds are allowed to be un-ironically enthusiastic about stuff... nerds are allowed to LOVE stuff, like jump up and down in the chair, can't control yourself, love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is 'You like stuff' which is just not a good insult at all... like you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness..."

And it all started to make sense... I am just a huge dork. Which is totally fine with me.

So this is my advice for a happy life: don't 'grow up', just become comfortable with being a nerd, and everything else will sort itself out.

Cowboys and Wheelers

Moving to Ottawa seems to have had the pleasant side effect of making me like numerous Francophone bands... First Coeur de Pirate, then Karkwa and Marie Pierre Arthur, and now the newest addition to the list- Les Cowboys Fringantes, introduction courtesy of my friend Madelaine, and solidification of love via their Francofest performance this past Thursday.

I am a huge supporter of cultivating informed music exchanges- always an incredibly satisfying and effective experience, well worth the time and effort. By this I mean, of course, really paying attention to why your friends like the music they like, and being really specific about why you like the music you like, then making thoughtful recommendations to one another! Sounds pretty straight forward, but you would be surprised at how many people recommend music based on what they like, not what they think you'll like (regardless of the number of times you have had conversations about why you don't like INSERT BAND NAME HERE). If, however, you are lucky enough to have friends who actually remember past conversations, the exchange goes a little more like this:

Madelaine: "I think you'll like this band because they play lots of fun instruments, they have energetic music, they are really funny, and they're political in an anti-conservative kind of way... all things you enjoy!"
Me: "yes. that seems like a very accurate assesment Madelaine, I will certainly attend this spectacle avec toi!" (Alright, so I didn't sound quite so formal or quite so vaguely multi-lingual, but you get the idea.)

They do play lots of fun and random instruments (even melodica, my favourite!)
They are remarkable energetic- I almost had difficulty keeping up with them, and after an hour of psudo-french-folk-dancing/jumping up and down, it was all I could do to drag myself to McDs for an ice cream sundae...
They were really funny, and in that excellent goofy way which involves running around like overgrown children, playing jump rope with the mic cords and dancing like idiots...
And anti-conservative (specifically anti conservative-arts-cutback) they most certainly were. That was an interesting experience, surrounded by francophones, a stones throw away from parliament, yelling things at Stephen Harper... one of those moments you feel like you're slightly removed from whats going on around you, but easily get caught up in it anyways...

Anyways, long story short (yeah right, me? I'll try) I greatly enjoyed singing along to songs that felt familiar even though I'd never heard them, dancing my feet off for over an hour, and cheering in the midst of a sea of glowsticks and plastic beer cups. Highly recommended.

Unfortunately I didn't get any good pics of the show, but I thought I might still share a photo I took of the absolutely completely terrifying pre-show entertainment (if running away screaming is entertainment...)

They were like a combination of the Weeping Angels from Dr Who, and the Wheelers from Return to OZ, two of the most traumatically nightmarish fictional monsters of all time- and no, just because I am all growed up does not mean I am not still disproportionately terrified by simple-special-effects-monsters... or lemurs (though that's another story for another day...). And I wasn't the only one! So many screams of fright and running-away-incidents (from other grown adults, might I add) that they actually used different costumes the next day... Just glad I escaped their evil grasp...*shudder*

At any rate, the evening was a rousing success, thanks to the energetic entertainment and despite the nightmare monsters. I think I see more Francophone concerts in my future...!

To Enthuse or Not Enthuse...

... that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to only write posts on things I adore(d) or to make myself also write posts about musics that just didn't make that much of an impression on me...

You may or may not have noticed its been a while since I wrote anything- In reality my last post was about hillside excitement, but at some point it will likely appear that my last post was about the Joel Plaskett show... that would technically be untrue, but I have a bit of a habit of pre-dating posts to match when the concert actually happened.

I won't talk too much about the actual show here, not with specifics anyhow, but I did want to mention some... difficulties I had with it. Well, not with the show itself, but with my reaction to it- I enjoyed myself, sure, but just a regular amount. There were bits I liked and bits I wasn't so fond of. I didn't feel the need to rush out at intermission and buy the albums, but I didn't feel disappointed either. The show was good, it was fine. But how do you write about that?

With difficulty, thats how.

With weeks and weeks of putting it off, and putting it off again, then putting it off some more... I'll get to it (or may have gotten to it by the time you're reading this) but it was a bit of a slog. When there isn't an insane excitement or a major disapointment driving the writing, its sooo much more difficult to assemble your thoughts...

But who am I to complain? Summer is upon us and the warm weather concert season is swiftly approaching. The upcoming weeks will bring not only hillside, Wolfe Island, Bluesfest and Folkfest, but One-offs by Library Voices, Robots!Everywhere!, Said the Whale, and many many more...Who knows, I might even get to be a follow spot op for a show or two! So expect the next couple of months to be full or reviews (good, bad, and yes, even so so) rants, raves and ramblings.

Summer concert season, here I come!

Robots! at the Manx

Its nice having friends who like bands. Its nice going to shows with other people who know all the words and sing along at the top of their lungs (I'm lookin' at you Pruner). Its also nice having friends in bands. Its especially nice when you actually really like the band of friends, AND get to go see those bands with the aforementioned other enthusiastic friends! (did you follow all that? Cuz I'm not sure I did...)

Anyways...

Robots!EVERYWHERE!! at the Manx. Take deux.

This time around I rushed over after class, thinking I had missed Phil's set all together but was pleasantly surprised to find that everything was running late and I was just in time. Excellent. Got a pint, even more excellent. Sat down on the comfy Manx benches. Excellent again. Robots!EVERYWHERE!! ? Excellent, as always.

I'm getting to the point where I'm not even sure what to write about Phil's shows... He is so consistently entertaining that I feel I could almost copy-paste the first half of my review: "The songs are catchy and clever, the crowd heckles hilariously, Phil takes his shirt off, something wacky happens, the show was awesome, then we all went home. Oh Robots!EVERWHERE!! I enjoy you so" ... hmmmmm... lets give that a try this time. Except, of course, with an expansion on the "something wacky happens" part. Which was this:

Phil: "Alright so I want everyone to stand up. No seriously guys, stand up!" (everyone stands up) "Alright now you all need to get into pairs and come up front here. Guys, c'mon. seriously, It'll be good I promise! Get up here!" (starts calling out pairs of people) "Pruner! Erin! get up here! Ok, Ok now stand in your pairs. Now, we're all going to slow dance."

And then he starts playing Enrique Ilarius' Hero. It was epic. But wait, there's more.

Phil: "Ok, now guys, get down on one knee. Girls stick your hand out. Guys grab her hand. Ok now sing along with me!!!" which we all did.

Then more slow dancing again.

Seriously, how does he pull this shit off? With class, that's how. Class and a whole lot of sweatiness.

"The show was awesome, then we all went home. Oh Robots!EVERYWHERE!!, I enjoy you so"

I am so excited that its making my stomach hurt...

...and I still have 94 sleeps until Hillside!

Hillside Festival that is. I always feel like there shouldn't be a capital letter... so hillside. yep.

Though I attended once before, last summer was the first year I volunteered at Guelph's hillside festival and had the whole full-weekend/camping-in-volunteer-village/seeing-a-bajillion-shows/doin'-it-the-hillside-way experience. I loved it. Seriously super-loved it. It only took me about fifteen minutes before I declared "I am doing this again next year and every year forever!" or something to that effect...

I adored every minute of the weekend despite only having pre-hillside heard of about six of the bands (and missing two of them cuz we had to leave to go to a wedding!). We discovered countless new bands to swoon over (including the incredible Graveyard Train) and spent hours sitting on the lawn, tent-hopping, swimming and wandering the food and merch tents... it was fab.

So this year, when the hillside lineup for 2012 got announced and three separate people sent me "Holy crap have you seen the hillside line-up!?!" messages I was understandably anxious to check out the list of performers.

Holy Crap is right.

ALX, Arkells, Rich Aucoin, BADBADNOTGOOD, Bahamas, The Be Good Tanyas, Belle Starr, Geoff Berner, Birds of Chicago, Bidiniband, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Bright Light Social Hour, Bry Webb And The Providers, Chic Gamine, Adam Cohen, Cold Specks, The Crooked Brothers, Current Swell, The Deep Dark Woods, Doldrums, Dirty Mags, The Durants, Kathleen Edwards, Elephant Revival, Elliott BROOD, Esther Grey, Christine Fellows, Great Lake Swimmers, Alanna Gurr, Imaginary Cities, The Jezabels, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Keys N Krates, The Magnificent 7s, Maylee Todd, Memoryhouse, Mickey Hart Band, Minor Empire, New Country Rehab, Ohbijou, Open Hearts Society, Sandro Perri, (POP Montreal Presents: Canailles, Jennifer Castle, Mike O'Brien + Michelle Tompkins), Joe Pug, Rival Boys, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Selina Martin Triplets, Sagapool, The Slackadeliqs, StereoKid, The Strumbellas, Tālavya, Sidi Touré, Chad VanGaalen, Valdy, Walk Off The Earth, The Wooden Sky, Young Empires, Zeus.

yeah... Excited.

I am excited about Zeus (first time I will have seen them not as an opening band) 
I am excited about Ohbijou (so beautiful!)
I am excited about The Wooden Sky (perfect hillside fare!)
I am excited about Great Lake Swimmers and Current Swell and the Arkells


But more than all that put together I am excited about Elliott BROOD. 


Since moving back to Ontario a little over a year ago, I've seen them four times (more than in the previous four years all put together!) and its done nothing but make my love of them even more acute. Seriously, if I could only listen to one band for the rest of my life, I would be sad, but I would at least be mostly okay with it as long as that band were Elliot Brood. And EB live? even better.


Obviously I am excited to see them perform. And I am particularly excited to see them perform at hillside (because hillside performances are always magically even better than the best non-hillside performances). But more than that I am super excited to possibly see them two or three times in as many days (workshops! tents! mainstage!). That last realisation just hit me today, telling my roomate about it while doing dishes. And I had a weird experience, a tv/book/imaginary-world type experience: I suddenly got so excited that I felt momentarily nauseous. Seriously. It was weird. but also awesome. 


I realize I have just irrevocably confirmed my status as an absolutely huge live-music dork, but honestly, if you haven't figured that out by now.... just wait until my hillside posts start rolling in...!


Only 94 sleeps until hillside!

Dear Library Voices... OR An Excersise in Sweatiness, Part Deux

I'll just start by saying this:

I have only seen Library Voices perform twice. The first time made it into not only my top five concerts of the year, but my top five of all time. The second time (this time)... well, let's just say the title of this post doesn't even mention the headlining band...

 

Its happened to me a few times before, but when the headliners are the ever-impeccable Yukon Blonde, its really saying something to be more excited about the openers... but what can I say? LV are just that good!

 

The show kicked off with Great Bloomers. Hailing from Toronto, Great Bloomers are a straight up rock act who really seem to have their shit together despite looking so young. Their sound was solid, their performance energetic and infectious. They had Stage Presence, that's for sure. From the mop-top lead singer, to the dashing guitarist and keyboard player, Mr Luxurious Hair (I promised my friend Heather I would call him that), not to mention the impeccable bassist and drummer, these gents know how to put on a show. On some songs they reminded me of Harlan Pepper- young looking but old-sounding in the best possible way, on others they were reminiscent of early Rolling Stones...

Great Bloomers

I was especially impressed by their performance as a complete picture- their songs were catchy and appropriately rock-oriented, their enthusiasm and dedication to the performance was clearly evident, and they sounded great. Plus they were entertaining. Perhaps most impressively in my books they managed to distract me from my looking-forward-to-LV-ness on several occasions! A great opening act I look forward to seeing again in the future.

Mr Luxurious Hair himself

Then.
Library Voices.

I'm not sure I can properly express my super excitedness as they set up their gear (gotta love when bands don't have roadies) though I'll make an attempt. Like when you're at the top of a roller coaster, about to go over the first crest. You're looking forward to it, but you're also strangely nervous, like maybe it won't be as fun as you remember or maybe something will go wrong and everyone will die... except more like maybe a crappy sound mix or something will make it suck. Either way, a mix of excitement and nervousness that was shortly rewarded with yet another excellent performance.

They opened up with two numbers off of their latest album (Summer of Lust) and plowed through four or five numbers without saying so much as a word beyond "We're Library Voices!" --The lack of early-set banter was strangely a bit of a relief, as I was hoping they would cram in as many songs as possible into their non-headlining set. And cram 'em in they did. From Generation Hand Clap to Kundera on the Dance Floor, they played virtually non-stop for forty-five too-short minutes.

One of the (many) things I love about Library Voices is the enthusiasm they bring to the stage. Forget that they're fitting seven people into the same space most bands stuff only three or four, they would easily fill a concert-hall with their unerring energy. Their lyrics (though more impressively riddled with literary references, metaphor, and beauty than most novels) don't always paint the most cheerful of pictures, but you would never guess it from the looks of sheer joy on their faces as they perform. And that's not all. When lyricist Mike steps to the front of the stage to tell us about being embarrassed by his first Billy Joel album and how Kundera on the Dance Floor is their peanut butter sandwich, you can hear his love for the songs in every breath, every syllable. Each performance is like one long love-letter to music. And its infectious.

So. Into. It.

Watching a mic-less drummer or a bassist sing along at the top of their lungs never fails to make me smile. And dancing around until their shirts are soaked through? Come on! I realize I may be in the minority here, but I think sweatiness is a vital part of any successful live performance, and no one can sweat it up like Carl from Library Voices (well, no one but my friend Josh, but that's a whole 'nother story...).

Sweatiness is a measure of how into it they are, how invested, how much they are way more interested in having fun and making amazing music than playing it cool (all the things that make a great band a great LIVE band).  (I feel a 'sweatiness' post coming on... so I guess you can look forward to that...!) But regardless of whether you think its hot or gross, Carl's sweatiness is an outward expression of the extent of his energetic and enthusiastic singing. Which is a lot. A lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of sweat.

This is how/why is gets so sweaty...  The price of Awesome

There are a few bands (three to be precise) who I would gladly see live every single night of my life and Library Voices are one of them. Once might have been a fluke- twice is all the proof I need. I could go on and on about every one of my favourite moments, but instead I'll just leave you with the photographic evidence of two of them, and move on from there:

The part when Carl stood on the front bit & danced like a school boy

and

The obligatory jump-on-kick-drum finale

So after Library Voices we decided to move back a bit... y'know to not necessarily be two feet from the stage, and it was clearly evident that we were not alone. Like at the summer festivals of my youth, you could literally watch the change-over from LV to YB fans, with a steady stream of t-shirts moving back, and a steady stream of plaid moving forward. Its always struck me as odd when two bands touring together have such distinct fan bases, despite not actually belonging to different genres. Sure Library Voices is indie and Yukon Blonde is seventies rock, but I enjoy both bands as do many of my friends... the thing is, though, that everyone there, while clearly enjoying both bands, also clearly enjoyed one much more than the other.

Though it sounds disparaging, I would argue that it isn't--> I would also focus on the first part of that statement- "Everyone there clearly enjoyed both bands' (though I should really say all three bands, as Great Bloomers, in addition to being fantastic, also got a rousing round of applause at the close of their set...) Yukon Blonde is an incredibly solid live band. They capture the crowd. They inspire excessive amounts of man-love. They rock hard, and they sound clean (even at Mavericks, notorious for bad mixes).

They. Are. Smooth.

Its actually quite difficult to give a more accurate review than that! Seriously I just re wrote that paragraph like seven times and nothing suited as well as the above. So, strangely, I think I'll leave it there: Smooth, Rockin', Solid. Also Man-love. Good.

So great Bloomers were a great new discovery, Yukon Blonde put on a great show as always and, Library Voices has officially made it into my top three of Bands I Love Seeing Live... all in all quite a satisfactory evening!

Whales and Horses and Chains

Three-band shows can be odd.

You've got the openers, then you've got the middle band, then you've got the headliners- the first band and the last band stick out, but the middle band is just... well, the middle band. At least at a festival there are lots of middle bands, so they can all be middle bands together, but at a three-band show there's only one middle band. And its weird.

Case in Point:
Said the Whale (headliners), Boxer the Horse (openers) and Chains of Love (the middle band), April 11 2012.

So my sister had seen this tour two days earlier in Montreal, and had texted me during Boxer the Horse to say "You HAVE to make sure you get there for the openers- Boxer the Horse is really good!" Since our musical tastes overlap almost entirely, I took her at her word and got there just after doors. And she wasn't wrong- Boxer the Horse are adooooorable. They're geeky and bouncy and early Beatles meets 90s high-school; not too boppy but just boppy enough. Though it took them a few songs to get really into it, by the third or fourth one in the crowd was well warmed up, dancing and nodding in time with the music.  And just when I was starting to think the 90s influence was just in my head, they played a cover of the 'Better than Ezra' song from Empire Records. I'm not sure if they just look a lot younger than they are, or if they are just youngins who love 90s teen flicks, but if I wasn't already hooked, that certainly would have convinced me. They fit perfectly as an opener to Said the Whale and you could really tell why that were on the bill.

Next up was Chains of Love, a slightly ska-influenced (or maybe just because the singer's voice reminded me of early Gwen Steffani?) kind of rock-ish gal band complete with tambourine and castinettes playing lead singer. Actually they totally reminded me of Josie and the Pussycats (and yes I mean the band from the vastly underrated early 2000s movie of the same name. What? This whole show reminded me of that era!), except less psudo-punk... OK, to be fair here, I think I should pause and mention something; I am not a fan of girl singers. There is the odd exception to this rule -mostly super-London-y gals like Kate Nash, Lily Allen and Eliza Dolittle, with a bit of weirdness (a la Joanna Newsom) and some francaphones (Coeur de Pirate, Marie-Pierre Arthur) thrown in for good measure- but on the whole, they just don't do it for me. Maybe its the tone of their voices (NB all the above singers are altos...), or some left over, misguided teenage-sentiment "Girl bands are wussy" (lame and un-true, but alas the opinion of many high school aged punks/rockers...), I don't know... I just know I am not a fan.

This makes it kind of difficult to fairly review bands with female vocalists. I am aware of this stumbling block, and I try to compensate for it, but I'm not really sure how... I was quite impressed at the use of tambourine (now I know that sounds like a slight, but it is mean in earnest- very rarely do you hear tambourine used as its own instrument, not just backup, and I enjoyed that it seemed to be a pretty integral part of their sound). And the singer was pretty enthusiastic and used her long hair as long hair should be used (flipping it, but not excessively)... but she is honestly the only one I remember anything about, and there just weren't any songs that caught my fancy.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum: Said the Whale.

Now this wasn't the best STW show I've ever been to (that distinction would go to their performance last year at The Live Lounge...) but it was mostly because the levels were just way too high. It was loud. And I mean LOUD. This is coming from the person who drives around with music so blaring that people two lanes over on the highway give me dirty looks. I like loud music. I LOVE loud music. But this concert was Too Loud.

Having said that, Said the Whale were in fine form, playing not only new material, but numerous songs from their original EP (Howe Sounds) and first LP (Islands Disappear- my favourite of their albums). Early-set monitors issues left Tyler and Ben unable to hear themselves, but also led to an amazing sing-along version of Emerald Lake AB, which emphasized the absolute dedication of the audience. This was an all ages (well 16+) show and it was clear this was the first real concert for many of the excited attendees. They may not have been jumping and dancing as much as some older crowds, and they may have been a little overly-squealy (As Tyler Bancroft said from onstage "I think I am going to wake up tomorrow morning with high pitched screams ringing in my ears... seriously you are going to lose the ability to sound like that as you get older!"). But I have to say; I have heard audiences sing louder, I have heard audiences sing more enthusiastically, but never before have I heard an audience sing along with Every Single Song. Seriously. Every word of every song. It was amazing.

"The Reason" was a real stand-out, with Ben pleading with the audience (as a stand-in for the intended subject of the song), and "Oh Alexandra" spawned a spontaneous whole-crowd hands-up-swaying (a la lighters, except with cellphones instead), while the ever-danceable "The Light is You" got everyone moving (man I love that song...). Pulling out the ukulele, they signed off with an adorable rendition of "Goodnight Moon" and left the stage to raucous applause.

This was a show of competing elements, pulling my reactions in opposite directions. Boxer the Horse and Said the Whale had great performances, though the sound left something to be desired. Chains of Love combined a bunch of nostalgic 90s elements, but failed to pull it all together. The audience was dedicated, but a overly high-pitched and under-dancing... Overall the show was alright, but I would certainly recommend catching Said the Whale or Boxer the Horse next time they're in town...

You Can Never Sit Far Enough Away to Feel Left Out at B.A. OR An Exercise in Sweatiness

A: "Oh B.A. ..."
Q: What was the phrase most uttered at Irene's Pub and Restaurant on Good Friday?

Its difficult to adequately describe the ridiculous excellentness (and the excellent ridiculousness) of a B.A. Johnson show.  I have tried on many occasions and done a reasonable job, but there is nothing like seeing it for yourself. This is gonna be an exceptionally photo-heavy post for just that reason- also because my friend Josh just got a new camera phone. (And not like Jemaine's either, one that takes honest to goodness photos...) Shall we begin?

We started off the evening with the musical stylings of the energetic and the ever-sweaty Phil Castiglione, aka Robots!EVERYWHERE!! As always, the hometown crowd sang and heckled with great enthusiasm as Phil sped through such gems as "Zombie Smooth" and "Red Hair Blond Hair" all the while battling with the magical exploding guitar (tenuously taped together for a super fast encore of 'Drunk at Work').

Robots!EVERYWHERE!! this time with magical exploding guitar!

I've seen Robots!EVERYWHERE!! three times in as many months and am consistently impressed by Phil's ability to get a crowd going. His speedy and clever punk tunes combined with his opposite-of-serious attitude are a sure-fire hit every time, and tonight was no exception.

Next up was Remi Royale, the king of awkwardly-shirtless kareoke. Energetic and entertaining, Remi never even graced the stage, instead spending the entire performance roaming the crowd, serenading unsuspecting audience members and gettin' us going with covers of everything from 'Sweet Caroline' to 'Don't Stop Believing.' Remi's set may have more in common with Vegas-inspired performance art than the acts one normals sees at a 'pub and restaurant'  but it fit perfectly at Irene's.

Remi Royale (courtesy of J. Pruner)

Time for B.A.!

For serious, B.A. is one of the most entertaining, funniest, and most inexplicably charismatic performers you will ever see. His songs are catchy and hilarious, he sweats up a storm, and he doesn't take himself seriously in the slightest. As always he was accompanied by a selection of Casio keyboards and an 'JPEG player' (aka discman) as well as the enthusiastic singing/shouting along of the excited crowd.  He started numerous songs by dancing on his chair, swinging the mic by the cord, then doing jump-splits onto the stage. At one point- while dancing around, just after playing the keyboard with his nose- B.A. shouted to a non-participatory guy in the front row (who was trying his darnedest to not make eye contact) "You can't ignore me! I'm right fucking here in a dolphin tank top."

Oh B.A. ...

It is about the music (it's always at least partially about the music!) but a B.A. Johnson show is also about the show: In addition to his standard captain's hat and neck kerchief, we were also treated to a seemingly endless parade of printed sweatshirts (I believe there were three, followed by one with the sleeves cut of, before hitting the tank top and t shirt) which B.A. stripped off as they (all) got too sweaty. That guy really knows how to get the ladies hearts pumping...!

B.A up close and personal (courtesy of J. Pruner)

But forget the ladies, it's the dudes who reeeeally love B.A... You can easily pick out the hard-core fans (including Phil- in the words of my sister "Watching B.A. is super entertaining, but watching Phil watch B.A. is almost even better!") not only from the enthusiasm of their reactions, but from the way B.A. so sweetly picks on them throughout the show... regardless, by the end of every song practically every person is singing along. With choruses like "I always knew that Jesus was from Hamilton" (appropriately appropriate for Easter weekend...) and "I hate squirrels, I hate you squirrels, everybody, go kick a squirrel, man I hate squirrels" its practically impossible to not join in.

B.A. does gymnastics (courtesy of J. Pruner)

Like Remi Royale, B.A. also spent a good chunk of his set roaming (or should I say running) around the audience, sitting in chairs, standing on tables and jumping off benches. At one point he even had someone hold his mic while he did an elaborate air-traffic-controller style cheer-leading routine while beltin' it out... Just a small pinch of the commitment and zeal he pours into every second of every show.

The traditional bathroom encore (courtesy of L. Carson)

Last, but certainly not least, we were all treated to the traditional encore-in-the-bathroom this time with three songs, capped off with the ever-entertaining 'Have Fun on Warped Tour.' B.A. perched on the toilet while the rest of us crammed in the [oddly smelly] girls' bathroom. It was a great view from the counter, and looking out over the cramped but enthusiastically singing crowd I couldn't help but think to myself "Who else could get twenty people to cram into a smelly bathroom and listen to a sweaty guy standing on a toilet, playing a guitar?"

Oh B.A. ...

Seasonal Mix-Tapes

I love making mix-tapes.

ok, so technically they're mix-playlists which I make into mix CDs (because I refuse to get an ipod adapter for my car- there is just something about having to change the actual object making the music... I would have a tape deck if I could, but apparently they don't put those in cars anymore...) but the sentiment is the same. I still spend days (or weeks) gathering the songs and then hours putting them in the 'right' order, checking transitions from song to song then whittling them down to fit within the required 1.3 hours (another reason cds/tapes are superior to playlists- having to make them fit a specific time limit forces you to cut the fat!)

I enjoy making mixes for the car in general, but I've developed a habit over the past few years of making seasonal mixes that bring together all the random stuff I've been listening to. As I get songs stuck in my head I pop them onto an ipod playlist entitled "Spring 2012" or "March-May 2012" or just "Now!" I love listening to the mixes the day after I make them (and usually on and off for several weeks after that...) but theres nothing like finding "spring 2008" at the bottom of a pile and popping it in the player. Its like my own personal time machine, with every song bringing me back to a particular moment in my past.

With that said, I just finished up just one such random mix for the car ride home for easter. As promised it is a fairly random mix of songs I've had in my head over the past few months, some old, some new, but all attached to something I'm going to have fun remembering in a few years when I find it in my glove compartment :o)

Perhaps unsurprisingly (what with the pervasiveness of the internets now-a-days) I actually managed to find links to every song (with the exception of my friend Phil's 'Zombie Smooth' but hey there's a link to download the album, and its free, so go for it!). Play the whole list or select one at random!

Enjoy!

Easter Mix 2012

• Hollerado - Hollearado Land
• Noah and the Whale - Rocks and Daggers
• Coeur de Pirate - Printemps
• Writer's Strike - Stay Down
• Lake of Stew - Hey Bully
• Robots!EVERYWHERE!! - Zombie Smooth
• Elliott BROOD - Without Again
• The Record Holder - Dear Medea
• Bobbie Gentry - Ode to Billie Joe
• Graveyard Train - A Tall Shadow
• Library Voices - Drinking Games
• The Monkees - D.W. Washburn
• Sam Roberts - Detroit '67
• The Daredevil Christopher Wright - A Conversation About Cancer
• Simon and Garfunkel - Cecelia
• Punch Brothers - Rye Whiskey
• Dan Mangan - Road Regrets
• Joanna Newsom - Three Little Babes
• Marie-Pierre Arthur - Emmene-Moi
• Northcote - The Beat
• Of Monsters and Men - Dirty Paws
• Paper Lions - Traveling

The great concert conundrum of March 30, 2012...

I know, I know, it is super lame of me to get all in a kerfuffle about a problem so small as having to choose between two concerts on at the same time, but when those two concerts arre Library Voices (at Casa Del Popolo no less!) and Northcote (at Raw Sugar and on their last tour for a while...) its a dilemma for the ages- or at least one to make me have a major John-Green-style hands-in-hair-frustration session...

To be fair, I AM seeing Library Voices in two weeks when they come through town with Yukon Blonde, but I was really looking  forward to seeing them twice in a month (yes, they are THAT GOOD live), but when I heard Northcote was going to be playing the same night, I knew the choice I had to make... and it was definitely the right one.

The show was a part of the Junofest weekend here in Ottawa, and the first two performers were local fellas of the guy-with-guitar persuasion. The first performer (The Coastline aka the drummer from Sparrows) is just barely seventeen and a clear fan of Dashboard Confessional. That's not really a good or a bad thing, but its an inescapable comparison that just has to be made. In fact when a friend of mine asked him after the show "Hey did anyone ever tell you you sound just like Dashboard?" his face lit up and he gleefully responded "Really? They're like my favourite band! Thanks!"

Sometimes you get the odd experience of seeing someone in the midst of their creative development- that was exactly what it was like watching The Coastline perform. What do I mean by that? His songs are well written but all super short. His lyrics are perfectly 'that age' (When a friend becomes too cool to be friends with you anymore, when that girl moves away, when you're trying to decide what to do with your life...). And while his banter started off promisingly, it was clear he is used to being behind the drum kit, and not the main focus. Though embarrassing earnest, it was also increasingly entertaining- case in point: "So I asked her out, y'know just for coffee or whatever, but she didn't respond to my facebook message... oh man I am such a seventeen year old!" Definitely one of those acts I'd be really interested in seeing again in three or four years and remembering when I saw him play 'back in the day'

Next up was Cory Leveque, a bit older than seventeen, but also from Ottawa. Besides the excessive swearing (not offensive, just at odds with the rest of the evening- "Sorry 'bout all the swearing guys- I'm a construction worker, I can't help it!" he quipped) it felt like sitting around in someone's living room listening to the friend of a friend strummin' on his guitar and singin' about gals he'd lost and stuff he had to get off his chest. I'm sure this was helped along by our comfortable seats on the ancient corner-couch (Raw Sugar offers nothing if not eclectic and conformable seating!) but it was a nice relaxing sort of set, a good middle-of-the show, and chance to lean back and drink a pint before the always-energetic Northcote.

There was some discussion about whether we would maintain our comfy-couch seats for the entire evening, but all that went out the window when Matt, JJ and John took the stage. Yeah, we pretty much leapt over the table to stand in front with the rest of the small but very excited crowd.

Actually this one is from last time Northcote was in town (by blurasis)

Seeing Northcote perform live is an incomparable experience. The energy, the pervasive happiness, the raspy voice, enthusiastic drumming, and entertaining bass playing (I beat my previous record at Raw Sugar, this time getting hit with the bass guitar a total of three times) are tough to top.  The last time I saw Northcote perform, I had never heard of them, didn't know any of the songs, and still had an amazing time (one of my top five concerts of the year). We sat right up front. I got to play the tambourine. We bought both cds because we couldn't decide on one... This time was just as enjoyable, only we looked forward to it for weeks, we already knew all the lyrics, and we chatted with Matt afterward about bands from Regina, life in Victoria and Library Voices playing in Montreal. I love Elliott Brood live, I really do. They're my favourite band, they're incredibly talented, and they are some of the nicest guys I've ever met, but I'm not sure that any performer can ever remotely hope to compare to the combination of talent and friendliness that is Matt Goud.

Overall the show was fine, but Northcote's performance alone was well worth the admission price. the only bad part was that they were only able to play for an hour. I look forward to their next tour, whenever that may be, and if you happen to be lucky enough to catch them at one of their next stops or live in Victoria, you should definitely check them out. Definitely.

Parking-Lot Encores and Stunning Production...

When I was a kid we used to drive up to the cottage late at Friday nights, and after we had brought everything up from the boat and scarfed down a few hot dogs, my dad would put on the French radio station and fall asleep on the couch while we played cards on the carpet. This was a looooong time ago, but I recently rediscovered a love of French-language music, and have been slowly building my French-concert-going repertoire. I started with a Karkwa marathon at hillside last summer, and last night added Marie-Pierre Arthur to the growing list.

I first heard Arthur on CBC radio a few years ago with her single 'Pourquoi' off of her self-titled debut. I lived in Halifax at the time and despite searching several record stores was unable to locate a copy of the album. After a while I kind of forgot about her until a friend mentioned that she was coming to town. I really only knew that one song, but I had loved it so much that I jumped at the chance to see her live. Good. Call.

Not only does Marie-Pierre have an amazing voice- throaty and deep but crisp, she could make singing the alphabet beautiful- but her band members were equally talented- and entertaining! Each of them were super into their playing, but not so much that they weren't able to interact with the others and with the audience. Quite the opposite in fact. Playful banter and a post intermission (yes there was an intermission, weird but it worked, and made for an excellently long concert!) sing-off between the drummer, guitarist, keyboardist and guitar/banjo player during a rousing cover of "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Now I don't usually write about concert production unless its really really bad- I mean if the band has to stop part way through their set to help the sound-guy re-mix (Cuff the Duke at Maverick's.... yeesh!) it kind of needs to be at least touched on- but the production side of this concert completely blew me away. We walked in to the very small university-type auditorium space- not usually the ideal venue for a rock show- but the thin layer of smoke hovering in the air and the old-school speaker-cabinet-style lighting made it work. The sound quality was crazy good- clear vocals, perfect balance, enough bass to feel but not too much, crisp keys, guitar and drums, and plucky banjo- everything sounded like the way it was most ideally meant to sound. And the lighting... perfect. Rock'n'Roll but with all these little touches that just brought it all to life.... fantastic!

Despite the lecture-hall setting, the crowd was clearly in a head-bopping mood and lost no time in getting into the music. By the time the band broke out the banjo for a few folkified re-imaginings of some of their older stuff people were all but dancing in their seats (ok, ok, there were a number of us actually dancing in our seats...). Throw in a couple of audience sing-a-longs and she had us in the palm of her hand.

The second half started off with an incredibly sad ballad to a friend departed then segued into upbeat and boppy tunes like 'Emmene-moi' and 'Pourquoi' before finishing off with a powerhouse of four quick ones culminating in a huge standing ovation. Capping it all off, a grinning Marie-Pierre shouted 'meet us out in the parking lot!" before running off stage... a slightly confused audience looked at one another before quickly deciding she was serious and filing out into the parking lot. We were then treated to several acoustic sing-a-longs in the surprisingly beautiful acoustics of the concrete and pavement on an unseasonably warm March evening.

Before the show, while eating at a Thai restaurant down the street, I had a sneaking suspicion that the small brunette and overly bearded dudes at the next table might possible be the band we were about to see... It seems odd now to have been unsure of what they looked like mere hours before having them emblazoned on my brain at one of the most memorable concerts I've ever been to...

Sometimes I take mixes a liiiiiiitle too seriously...

I may or may not have spent about six hours over the past three days assembling an epic mix for my friend's thirtieth birthday. It came about in something of the following fashion:

"So I'm gonna make the cake, and pick up the beer, and turn on the Christmas lights [our 'grown-up' version of balloons tied to the front porch]... anything else you'd like me to take care of" 

"... Oh yeah, you could throw some music together, maybe a playlist or something...?"

Throw together a playlist, pshaw, who do you think I am? Someone who... just... throws together a playlist?!? I mean really....

Making a mix is a delicate and time consuming thing. Making a mix for someone else is doubly so, but making a mix for someone else's party, and a Big Birthday at that... well apparently that takes a very. Long. Time.

Step 1) Alphabetically go through my entire itunes library looking for songs my friend would like.

Step 2) Secretly rip several of her favourite CDs onto my computer and added some of those songs.

Step 3) Cull the list, removing any excessively represented bands (max of three songs per group)

Step 4)  Begrudgingly remove songs I knew were on there more for me than for her.

Step 5) "Randomize"

I don't perhaps give computers the respect they're due... manually randomizing things is near fracking impossible! Clicking on songs, scrolling down the list and dropping them wherever they happen to land, then repeating over and over and over again... yeah that was a good two hours right there.

Step 6) Song-to-song transitions

... the most important part of any mix-making venture. Sure the songs you pick are important, but having them flow properly, having the chords blend seamlessly or jar your ears in just the right way, having the right balance of boppy, slow, old, new, clear, grungy... that takes time. Three. Hours.

It may be fifteen point three hours long (in the words of my sister: "Sweet Jesus, when is she even going to have time to listen to all that!?!") , but I take my mix-making responsibilities seriously, especially when the fate of a thirtieth birthday hangs in the balance (or so I like to think)!

The Epic Detour that is making car-mixes

So I recently read Amy and Roger's Epic Detour- yes I know its YA fiction, but I am kind of on a huge YA fiction kick right now and have stopped trying to justify it because YA FICTION IS AWESOME. Seriously. Why are so many amazing authors writing for teenagers and pre-teens? Nevermind, I don't care why, I will read their books anyway and enjoy every last one of them. Ok, so maybe not every last one. maybe just the really good ones. but there are lots of them! LOTS!

Back on track here- I'm not going to tell you too much about the book, not because it wasn't excellent, but because that's not really the point of this. All you do need to know that the book is about an epic road trip which, like all good road trips, involves a lot of listening to music.and there are lists. Tracklists of the playlists. Lists of the lists. Also lots of other random ephemera that I completely fell in love with, but the lists, the tracklists!

In situations like these, the Garden State Sondtrack  situations, the High Fidelity situations, the times when you read something or watch something and its soundtrack just resonates with you you are presented with this amazing opportunity to discover a craptonn of new music, music that you not only enjoy as individual songs, but music that you enjoy as a collection, whose particular bands get to become a part of the type of music you like, not just the albums you have on our ipod. What I don't normally expect, is to see lists of music in a book populated by groups and songs I already know and love. Sure there wasn't any Elliot BROOD, but there was plenty of The Decemberists, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Sufjan Stevens, Frightened Rabbit, Pedro the Lion, Carla Bruni... not your normal run-of-the-mill bands, but also not your normal-indie-darlings either. Sure there was some The National in there, but the randomness of everything else just made me want to listen to every song in the book right then and there. Author Morgan Matson not only hit upon a musical recipe that happened to resonate with me, she was also right on in the important relationships between roadtrips and music. Music Mixes, Road Trip Mixes to be precise.

Music puts quotes on your life. Not for everyone, sure, but for a lot of people, myself included, there is something about the right song at the right moment that can make you cry, make you smile, make everything make sense in a way that few other things can. On top of that there is something about listening to music in the car, about taking the music with you, about how the relationship between the lyrics and the tune and the landscape become reciprocal... (Like how I cannot hear Graveyard Train without being transported to a five hour drive through Algonquin park having left all of my other cds securely sitting on my dresser... You wouldn't think that Australian Horror-country would make me think of the Canadian shield and fields full of cows, but now it does. Just like Snow Patrol is a tire graveyard in Cape Breton, and Eve6 means three am in the middle of the summer driving down the 404 ).

There's the pre-existing album relationships sure, but those created by the mix tape are even stronger. Because each song had to have some sort of significance to you to end up on the tape to begin with, some reason for being. And then you get to experience the changing of that relationship, the slow shift from "I loved that song Amy played at that party" to "This song is a place, is a road, is a specific time and a specific place during a drive I'll never forget."

As an aside here I'm just going to mention that I AM aware that no one makes mixtapes anymore. I realise that now its a mix CD or more often a mixed playlist on your ipod, but I am always going to call it a mixtape because thats what they are to me and thats how I approach them- carefully crafting the song-to-song transitions, the lengths of the album, balancing how many you've got of each band, each type of music, making one for keeping you awake, one for sunny days, one for the rain, one for snowstorms... I've got nothing against youngins, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I instantly have a certain level of respect for someone if I find out they grew up making actual mixTAPES.... Because its both the act of creating the mix and the process of its transformations that makes it so special.

Amy and Roger... made me want to take an epic road trip, sure, but what it really made me want to do was sit down and spend hours and hours creating new car mixes and then take them out for a stroll, listening as they shift and change and become places in my memory. What more could you ask of a song?

I tried to come up with a clever title...

...but really I just wanted to write "Man I love the Avett Brothers!!!"

Have you ever discovered a band only to somehow completely and utterly forget about them? It happens to me more often than I would like to admit (I rediscovered Paper Lions on my ipod only last week!) and it happened with The Avett Brothers just this afternoon.

I remember the first time I heard this song; I was going through a pretty crappy time. I hated living in the city,  I and I was really really missing my family and the line "Always remember there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name" made me cry like a baby.

Likewise I felt like I was always trying to pretend that everything was fine, and it completely freaked me out that everyone seemed to think I was totally alright while I was falling apart inside. The line in Head Full of Doubt... "There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light... and I'm frightened by those who don't see it" seemed to describe exactly how I was feeling in a way that somehow didn't make it feel worse. Also the video is absolutely beautiful.

Looking back on those two songs now seems strange, they bring back those memories, but also somehow mean something completely different to me now. "Decide what to be and go be it." Apparently I was listening more closely than I thought...

Robots!Everywhere!! Everywhere.

I've always been interested in the impact a venue/an audience/a setting has on a performance. The Kee To Bala is one of my all time favourite venues, though the Black Sheep in Wakefield is quickly catching up, and Ottawa's Raw Sugar makes every show feel like its in someone's living room... I could literally go on for pages and pages about the highs and lows of various concert-houses across the country, but today I have for you an interesting story, a case study if you will of one band, two venues. Robots!EVERYWHERE!!, everywhere.

On Family Day, instead of visiting with my actual family, I headed over to Ottawa's Gem of a pub, The Manx, to see Phil perform an acoustic set with Larissa on Glockenspiel, and my good friend Tall Josh Pruner on guitar. Phil's usual gig involves a lot of drum machine, wonderfully messy guitar, and homage to B.A. Johnson- there was of course the presence of B.A.'s ghost in the form of a brilliant cover of 'My Heart is a Blinking Nintendo' but overall in the cozy basement pub, was more of a low key affair. It was great to hear Phil's always-entertaining lyrics, and watch the three friends just have fun Playing Songs.  I have always been a fan of loud punk music, but as I've gotten older I've also developed a taste for checking out the acoustic versions of the songs, taking a moment to really hear the lyrics in their entirely before hearing their quicker and messier cousins. I'm a lyrics gal, and understanding the words the singer is singing always makes me like the song more. With such gems as "I like talking to strippers like I'm a hockey player" Robots!EVERYWHERE!! is certainly no exception.

Last night, however, I caught Robots!EVERYWHERE!! in his natural habitat, as it were: Maverick's. You may remember me mentioning Maverick's as the worst venue in Ottawa (an exaggeration, I'm sure, but not a very far stretch) but I will admit that some bands just belong there. Not belong in that they are horrible, and so belong in a horrible venue- rather the opposite! They seem to fit there in a way that makes the venue itself better, that they make Maverick's somehow make sense. Cuff the Duke does that in a way that baffles and amazes me every time, and Robots!EVERYWHERE!! did a fantastic job of the same type.

I enjoyed the acoustic show, but this is clearly where you should experience Robots!EVERYWHERE!! In his full B.A. Johnson-style glory Phil sped through song after hilarious song (accompanied by enthusiastic audience sing-a-longs), performed numerous costume changes (continuously egged on by the self-same audience to "take it off!!!"), and played several super-speed encores.

Sometimes when you see a band do an acoustic set its like a while different group, it sounds nothing like them and you come away either disappointed, or wishing they always played acoustic. Other times you just wonder who the hell this is, and how they are even remotely related to their normal incarnation. With Robots!EVERYWHERE!! it was neither of these- Phil fit the music to the venue and to the audience without sacrificing anything of the Robots!EVERYWHERE!! experience.


Excellent job Sir, keep up the fine work.


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If you are a fan of entertainingly hilarious pop-indie-punk you should definitely check out Robots!EVERYWHERE!! for free!