The Scope

No laptops attached

After a sold-out performance at the Rock House last night, the live electronic band Holy Fuck is gearing up for another performance tonight. Alex Pierson got a chance to talk with keyboardist, vocalist and synchronizer-wrangler Brian Borcherdt.

You guys don’t use laptops or anything? It seems like it’s a real point of pride for you guys for it all to be truly live. Everything that’s happening is being done by you guys.
Yeah, we don’t have any laptops. We’re doing a different thing, we’re making music with our hands, we’re in the moment, it’s fun. Really, it has nothing to do with the technology. It has to do with the spirit. The quicker and easier path to that spirit is always what we’re after.

That analogue tape machine that you always use… What do you call that? I’ve always kind of been amazed by that machine. What’s that machine all about?
It’s called the synchronizer. It used to be used in film, to bring the audio and the picture together. But it’s not used any more. It had tape heads built into it so you could record it on magnetic tape. I recorded my speech with magnetic tape and I got my hands on a synchronizer, and some friends helped modify the tape heads. It’s just a cool way to manipulate sound. It’s nothing like doing it on a record. Doing it with tape it’s weird and it’s not exactly melodic. I’m still figuring out how to best use it, but it’s fun.

Can you talk a bit about recording the album? I guess you guys went up in the sticks for a bit to do some of it, right?
Yeah. That’s an easy place to be creative when you don’t have a lot of other distractions. You wake up in the morning, or throughout the night when you’re trying to sleep you can hear squirrels and birds above your head running through the rafters. It’s awesome. We’d make some coffee and have the whole day ahead of you. No one’s cracking any whips and you can just hang out and make music. It’s sort of the way to go. It’s a lot of fun.

I would agree. It kind of comes across in the record. You’ve still got the real same energy but also a lot of the songs are a bit more – I hate to use the word ambient – but it’s kind of chill. It seems like there’s a bit more breathing room in the music.
Yeah, I think the most aggressive one was born out of a live set. Just nerves and nervousness from being in front of people. It’s faster and it’s more about hitting people over the head with the sound than leaving room to breathe. Then you step back from that and you’re like, “well, we can make a record that’s just that,” but our challenge is to make a record that’s dynamic, that hopefully people will actually listen to from beginning to end, which is saying a lot these days. So we make it, delivered it, and it was like, let’s give it some room, give it some space. It did help being in an environment where we could relax and feel a little bit. To take that sigh after a long touring schedule.

So I was watching one of your videos on YouTube, I guess it was the video “Red Light” at SXSW. And there was a comment… There’s something about those YouTube comments that I can’t resist reading them…
Oh man, Internet comments in general.

I think they’re a real barometer for what people are going on about. One of the comments was “They’ve grown up.” Do you guys feel like you’ve grown up?
Yeah, sure, a little bit. I feel like we’ll wait and see what happens the next time we go and record a record because I feel like we achieved our goal. We achieved our goal on the first record really, in terms of a concept. That’s all it really was so now we can go in any direction, we can do whatever we want, and it’s an exciting place to be.

Holy Fuck will perform at the Rock House tonight, Wednesday, July 28. Doors open at 8pm, with the Pathological Lovers and DJ Benjy opening. There will be 100 tickets released when the doors open, so if you missed getting an advance ticket, here’s your last chance.

Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Fest Blog: Day 6 – Blues!

Morgan Murray blogged about the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival for The Scope from July 13-18.

In May I was lucky enough to spend a week visiting an uncle in Florida and doubly lucky to get to go on a swamp walk in the Fakahatchee Strand (which you may recognize from the movie Adaptation). The swamp walk was an exclusive arrangement for botanists, biologists, and the local orchid appreciation society we were only able to join thanks to our well-connected-in-the-plant-world uncle and sheer accident. It ended up being not only the highlight of an amazing all-around trip, but a definite highlight of my entire life. Seriously.

The swamp walk was led by Ranger Mike, the keeper of the swamp, and hero of the real-life story behind Adapation and the book it is loosely based on The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. Sloshing crotch-deep through a gator infested swamp discovering rare orchids is great, but it was Ranger Mike who made the walk something truly special.

After returning home I wrote about the spectacular day in the swamp, and in particular Ranger Mike:

As the group reveled at a tiny, unspectacular orchid in full bloom, as if it were the holy grail, the feeling that this was something special we were apart of became undeniable. It felt like the squish of 6,000 year old dead leaves between our toes in our cheap, brightly coloured, canvas shoes. And it was all thanks to Ranger Mike. We were fascinated by what he showed us, by what he would extend his extendable walking/measuring stick to point out, measure, and note in his yellow notebook, because he was fascinated and fascinating and it was infectious. When you are in the swamp with Ranger Mike, you love the swamp as he does because he shows it to you as he sees it.

His gift to us was showing us the swamp as he sees it, as he loves it. But the connection between him and the swamp, and his ability to relay that to us, is so much more than one of enthusiasm, like I would have showing you my compete set of 1991 Pro Set hockey cards. There comes a point where Ranger Mike and the swamp overlap into this one wildly gesticulating, hyperactive, sublime nature preserve. Ranger Mike showing us the swamp as he sees it is Ranger Mike showing us his soul.

This is rare.

I’ve had a lot of teachers in the more than 20-years I’ve been in school (slow learner, I know), I’ve tried my own hand at teaching, I’ve been a terrible tour guide in both official languages in the Air Force, and Lord knows I’ve written enough wayward words that missed their mark. I understand first hand, from both sides, the difficulty of making that connection, the consequences if you don’t (nothing much moves), and the glory if you do (the world can change).

On the final day of the Wreckhouse Jazz and Blues Festival I had a close call with just such an experience. I took in the “History of Blues” workshop led by bluesman Morgan Davis (his show from the previous night was blogged about earlier in The Scope) Sunday afternoon at Dusk Ultra Lounge.

I had never been to any kind of workshop at any kind of festival before. They frighten me. I figure to attend a song writing workshop you should at least have a predilection to song writing, and I have none. But I thought I would be safe with a discussion about the history of the blues, and I might even learn something.

I got a lot more than I was expecting.

Davis’ workshop was something that approached the sort of connection like Ranger Mike had made between me and the swamp.

Davis has been playing the blues professionally for 40-some years, and has been a passionate student of it for a lot longer than that. His own music is straight-ahead blues, influenced heavily by the originators of country blues around the Mississippi Delta in the 1920s. The likes of Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, and Albert King. But he glowingly talks about all the sources of the blues and the meandering paths their offspring has taken.

The blues are Davis’ life. I don’t want to go so far as to say the blues are Davis and Davis the blues, because the blues is so much bigger and broader than 120 square miles of Florida swamp. But it is close. Showing us what the blues have been, are, and can be, Davis showed us parts of his soul.

With his tape deck and his guitar Davis toured us from the roots of the blues in the merger of African tribal music and Southern US slave work songs, through country blues in the deep South, classic blues further north, the boogie woogie (which led to rock n’ roll), gospel and points in-between. And throughout, thanks to his passion and enthusiasm, you are given the sense that this isn’t just someone showing off all the trivia they know about some obscure corner of humanity.

Davis is completely without pretence, which must come, in large part, from the touring North America for decades in a mini-van. And though he could have flaunted his blues knowledge and pedigree (he’s played with a lot of the greats), he didn’t. He was completely compelling and totally accessible.

I did end up learning a lot. But what I learned most of all is that for the blues to be worth a damn it must be, like Davis, unpretentious, compelling, and accessible. That is how they began, and that is why they persist, in all their moody, earthy, rugged, sparseness.

The only unfortunate thing about Davis’ talk is that the 90-minutes flew by much too fast for him to get through it all of his talk, ending up somewhere around the revival of Country Jazz in the 1960s. He joked that he’d have to comeback next year and give part two of his talk, and I sincerely hope he does.

The Wreckhouse Blues and Jazz Festival ran until Sunday, July 18. You can relive it on their website.

Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Fest Blog: Day 5 – H’Sao and Morgan Davis

Photo by Elling Lien

H’Sao at the Majestic

They were late getting on stage, which meant they had to deal with low energy in the room, but after just a three songs the whole Majestic Theatre exploded into a dance party as the group played their high energy mix of Chadian traditional music, beatboxing, and pop. Each band member took turns at centre stage, but dancer and singer Taroum–barefoot, wearing a blue sparkling onesie and shaking a red star tambourine–attracted the most attention for sure.

People left this show sweaty and happy…

Their website: www.hsao.ca

Photo by Elling Lien

Morgan Davis at the Fat Cat

He ambles up to the mic wearing a pair of coveralls, a crisp white shirt and carrying a guitar and a bottle of water. First thing he does is take a sip, nods at the audience, and says, “Well, do you usually start working as soon as you get there?” The crowd cracks up.

With obvious respect and huge knowledge of the music’s past, Davis plays straight ahead blues with a great voice. He has the audience entranced for hours.

His website: www.morgandavis.com

The Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Festival runs until Sunday, July 18. You can find out more information on their website.

Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Fest Blog: Day 4 – Killer!

Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival for The Scope from July 13-18.

Do you remember that episode of Freaks and Geeks when Nick’s dad takes away his 29-piece drum set because he’s flunking out of school, so he moves out, sleeps on his friends’ floors, wears out his welcome, and ends up being taken in by the Weirs?

Vaguely? No?

Do you remember that particular scene in this particular episode when the Weirs are settled in for Quiet Hour–doing homework, reading the paper and whatnot–only to be disturbed by Nick blasting Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”?

Barely?

Then do you remember when Mr. Weir asks Nick why he’s not doing his homework, and Nick tells him he’s a drummer so this is his homework, and Mr. Weir tells him that drumming is a drummer’s homework, and Nicks tells him his dad took away his drums, and Mr. Weir tells him that he should get two sticks and beat them on a rock?

Anything?

Then Mr. Weir tells Nick that the drummer in this song is terrible.

Nick: (disgusted) “That’s Neil Peart, he’s the greatest drummer alive!”

Mr. Weir: “Well Neil Peart couldn’t drum his way out of a paper bag. You wanna hear drumming? Come on, I’ll play you drumming.”

Cut to: Nick being blown away by a Buddy Rich record.

Exhibit A:

Is any of this ringing a bell?

It amused me when I re-watched it recently but, after seeing the Griffith Hiltz Trio last night at the Yellow Belly Brewery, it took on a whole new meaning: Rock n’ Roll is for children, jazz is for grown-ups.

Not in a rock-n’-roll-is-wild-and-crazy-and-will-have-too-much-fun-and-drink-too-much-pop-and-pee-the-bed versus jazz-is-old-and-boring-and-reads-books-and-goes-to-bed-at-ten sort of way. Not at all. Rock n’ roll might be loud and rambunctious, but it is just child’s play. While jazz, when done right, means business.

The Griffith Hiltz Trio, they mean business. Beginning with the drummer with the Ogie Ogilthorpe hair–Sly Juhas (who also played drums for Elvis Bossa Nova the previous night).

Even though his name isn’t on the marquee, Sly stole the show. He is like one of them super-cool top-secret spy-assassins from the movies. He’s dressed to kill and cooly, effortlessly, creates a sound that I could only create in a one in a million chance if I threw a 29-piece drum kit down a really long and steep flight of stairs. He’s not beating the drums, or even playing them. This is his craft, his trade, his profession. It’s his life’s work–something that only a grown-up can have–being lived out.

A grown-up drum assassin doesn’t smash things to hear them go bang. He’s not interested in playing games. He’s not interested in fireworks. He’s interested in dynamite and earthquakes. He doesn’t want you all shook up. He want’s you dead.

And Sly kills.

With him are two equally talented musicians: Nathan Hiltz on guitar and Johnny Griffith on two types of sax. (Sometimes, get this, he plays both at the same time! I’m not kidding you. God gave us two lungs, two hands, and a mouth big enough for two reeds, I suppose it only makes sense that someone would eventually think to play two saxophones at the same time. I never thought such a thing was possible until Johnny Griffith showed me how.)

In their respective solos all three take you places and show you things you never imagined possible. But their best bits are the bits when they all tear into a song together. Sly killing you with his assassin drums, Nathan throwing daggers with his guitar, and Johnny blowing you away with double sax.

This isn’t a kind of jazz that washes over you like some simpler, safer, softer, over-the-hill–as in goes-to-bed-at-ten–jazz sound. This isn’t background dinner music. This throws a bag over your head, throws you in the back of an unmarked van, and you’re never seen again. Because these grown-ups mean business.

The Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Festival runs until Sunday, July 18. You can find out more information on their website.

Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Fest Blog: Day 2 – Tanya Tagaq

From an original image by Wikipedia user Martica1974.

Bryhanna Greenough struggles for words to describe a performance by Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq.

I hadn’t been planning on going, never knew it was tonight. He said we’ve got to hurry and eat our dinner if we’re going to make it.

What a surprise. I didn’t know what we were getting into.

Arrived at the Masonic, doors open. It was very quiet in the main room. I thought they were just setting up, but later learned the first half hour had been pretty much a warm up for throat singer Tanya Tagaq. Quiet, subtle, and like the rest of the show extremely bodily, according to my friend.

Within the first minute or two, I was digging through my wallet for paper, backs of receipts to write and observe and record on. This probably hasn’t happened since I scribbled in books of poetry back in university. I was giddy, not from the two Sleemans at dinner, but from the raw passion coming out of what was happening on stage.

I felt like calling all my friends to come down that instant, but knew it was going to be too late. There are at least six people I can name I’d insist to go. I want them to see it so bad I’d buy their tickets.

But this moment was happening.

Tanya on stage, the world around me changed. Between the inhaled screams, the primal language of breath, it felt altogether different, but familiar. On stage she’s a fighter in the ring, ready to breathe out a round. When she’s up there, she’s touching a beauty that’s different and scary and liminal. She’s on the edge of what I can know and experience.

Yeah, she uses her voice, it’s an instrument, but it’s not a voice detached, a voice as part of body. Her voice is a product of her body.

Backed up on stage by violin drones and screeches, focusing on sound rather than music. There is drum and a windy hollow instrument I do not recognise. Loops. Natural rhythm. Waves crashing. It’s hard to differentiate the three soundmakers, but they’re definitely conjuring something.

Tanya’s body backs it all up. Screaming, yelping. Is she crying? No. Laughing? It’s ghostly… guttural… unmistakably raw.

My god, I wish I could decipher all what was scribbled out on the back of those receipts.

…Sensuous, dangerous…

Whispering, ghostly raindrops, things forgotten whispered, crying…

Quiet, loud, then moaning. Hiccups, popping, giggling…

It was a surprise to arrive.

I met her afterwards. Told her how I really connected with what she was doing up there, like a crazy person might. Open, exposed, yes, and crazy. Like her, I think I might have scared her away, or at least interrupted the conversation.

Had to let her know before I came home to type.

Tanya Tagaq performed on Wednesday, July 14th at the Masonic Temple as part of the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival. Her website is http://www.isuma.tv/tagaq

Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Fest Blog: Day 3 – Oooh! Shiny

Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival for The Scope from July 13-18.

Last week I had the joy of blogging the Sound Symposium, another sort of music festival, to say the least.

Sound Symposium is outstanding, and weird. It held its shows at the LSPU, a converted Longshoremen’s Protection Union Hall, in MUN recital halls, in pubs, in hip art galleries, in the harbour, and out at Cape Spear.

It featured music and sounds made with instruments without names, with a radio, four old shoes and one old steering wheel, with kitchen utensils, with ship horns, and pigeons with whistles tied to their ass ends.

Meanwhile, Wreckhouse is held in posh clubs with some of the best blues and jazz bands from across Canada and beyond, usually dressed in their Sunday best, playing instruments they’ve bought, not built, with proper instrument-sounding names.

Just compare the list of partners and sponsors of the two events. Sound Symposium’s list reads like a who’s who of art supporting government agencies (federal, provincial, municipal, République Française!), foundations, institutions, galleries, and public broadcasters. Wreckhouse’s sponsor list is rife with corporate muscle — media giants, fancy hotels, car companies, booze companies, oil companies, and banks.

Don’t get me wrong: Neither of these are knocks against either of these great festivals. It just makes for quite a bout of culture shock to go from one to the other. This blogging stuff ain’t no walk in the park! No siree!

So here goes nothing…

Elvis Bossa Nova are quite good. But you wouldn’t usually make the trip out from Toronto if you aren’t. They won’t blow your mind, or wreck your house, but they are a lot of fun, and quite entertaining. They are a five piecer — guitar, vibraphone, stand-up bass, drums, and more drums — that is dominated by the guitar, as my Wikipedia education in Bossa Nova tells me it should be, but orbits, more-or-less, around the vibraphone (not to be confused with its wimpy, puny cousin the xylophone).

Elvis Bossa Nova manages to create a very cohesive, very enjoyable, and at times very rip-roaring sound all while revolving around something that risks sounding like either elevator music (or the sounds that doors at the Gap will make in the future when you walk through them — Minority Report anyone?)

The sum of this band is more than its parts. The rhythm section, as any good rhythm section does, drives the tempo which fluctuates wildly, delightfully. And the guitar, the guitar adds a crucial layer of danger.

Yes, danger.

Together, the vibraphone and the rhythm section shift to some funky cat burglar soundtrack. Which is fun, but only slightly dangerous, but when the guitar is added it becomes something far more dangerous, like a James Bond theme that would give Paul McCartney nightmares, or like the soundtrack of a film starring Paul Newman wearing leather pants.

I suppose that none of this is actually that dangerous. Paul McCartney, Paul Newman, and James Bond, like Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, are all pretty harmless creations of various corporate sponsors. But they sure can be entertaining.

–

The Wreckhouse International Jazz & Blues Festival runs until Sunday, July 18. You can find out more information on their website.

Interview with a throat singer: Tanya Tagaq on the whisky and bacon cleanse.

Tanya Tagaq has been called the Jimi Hendrix of Inuit throat singing… She has toured and collaborated with Bjork… She makes music that is weird and passionate and affecting…

Jeez! What else do you need from me??

Well, anyway, I phoned her up one Friday afternoon to talk about her music, about being the It-Girl for Inuit throat singing, and some other stuff. Here’s the transcript.

Hello! How are you?
Great, how are you?

I’m good. Do you have some time to talk?
You don’t mind if I do dishes?

[Laughs] No, I don’t mind if you do dishes.
Okay.

What dishes are you doing?
From last night’s amazing curry.

What was in the curry? I’m being totally nosy now.
Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?

Yeah, I guess… Anyway. You’re coming to Newfoundland!
Yes! I’ve never been to Newfoundland before.

Never?
No, it’s the only province in Canada I haven’t been yet. I’m excited.

Where are you living now?
I’m in Yellowknife right now.

How often do you actually spend time at home? I know you’re hopping all over the planet this summer.
It’s hard to say. I don’t really keep track of those kinds of things; when you’re on the go all the time it’s just really moment to moment.

Right. So how has it been being the kind of It-Girl for Inuit throat singing?
It’s really, really great. But there’s ups and downs in every job. Right now it’s so funny because I’m at the point now where I travel so much that when I see my friends they’re like, “Tell me the places you’ve been and what you’ve done!” and I’m so “Really? I’m tired, why don’t you just give me some good hometown gossip.” You know what I mean? It’s great, it’s fantastic meeting the people. All the music, and getting to build a network of friends that exist all over the place and also being able to explore new countries and new languages and new everything. But it’s also a trade-off with not really having that much stability.

I know it’s been going on for quite a while – since 2000, right?
Yes.

That’s ten years!
I know, I’ve been doing this a decade, it’s so weird.

Here in Newfoundland there’s a strong, traditional musical culture. When people started first messing around with traditional music, I think a lot of people didn’t know what to think, at first. Do you have that same kind of reaction with the throat singing you do, seeing as your playing around with traditional Inuit culture? What’s the response been at home?
I have a lot of support. I’m also like, I don’t know, I’m not the type of person to worry about that kind of thing. In particular because everything’s always progressed, and whatever people are trying to hold on to was created out of something as well. And that had to be created by someone out of something that was a different thing. So I think that there’s always been conservatives and there’s always been artists and it’s almost a non-issue, you know what I mean? The world would still be flat if scientists weren’t brave and willing to go against the system. It’s a good combination. We also need conservatives to hold stuff together for us, so it’s a balance of humanity I guess. Basically the answer is that I just don’t give a shit. What’s going to happen? Is the world exploding because someone’s singing? No, there are bigger issues to deal with. You know what I mean?

Do you get sick of people asking about the history of it or about basic things like that?
I get sick of the same questions over and over, but that’s part of the job. I’m sure you get sick of talking to people when they’ve just rolled out of bed or when they’re grumpy and you’re trying to pull teeth getting them to answer questions. It’s kind of the same thing. If someone asks me one more time “So Tanya, what is throat singing?” I’ve started giving really shithole answers and my manager gets really mad at me and says “Tanya, that makes you look bad.” Well, do your freakin’ homework before you talk to me. You know what I mean?

You should just have a projector with you that plays a National Film Board film or something.
Yeah, exactly. But we try to put all the stuff in the bio. I know people need to know what’s going on, so I understand that.

Well, for people who have never been exposed to it, it’s a pretty dramatic shift in thinking about music, really. I think it’s so passionate and elemental and affecting. I really enjoy it.
Throat singing, traditional throat singing, and non-traditional throat singing – for me, throat singing in itself is just an amazing thing. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, right? I have full 100% respect for the traditionalism of it. It’s so fantastic. I love the way you have to be strong to do it. It’s lung capacity. When I find that I’ve been really pushing and singing it’s a lot harder. Or if I sneak a ciggy here and there, throat singing doesn’t work as well.

Oh no! Cigarettes and throat singing!
So yeah, you’re forced to be the best you can be if you want to do something, so it’s interesting that physical capability is part of my job too.

What do you do to condition your voice?
It’s all about whisky and running.

Ha! Whisky and running?
Yeah, whisky, bacon and running. The three-week strict bacon and whisky cleanse, there you go.

This is kind of a deep question, but why do you think people are so affected by the sound of breathing?
Well, that’s kind of a stupid question. Sorry to say that.

No, not at all. I ask lots of stupid questions.
It’s because we all do it. I like to sing about common denominators within humanity and think about what we all do. We all breathe, we all shit, we all pee, we all fuck. We all hate, we all love, we all get jealous. Everybody has all these feelings, but we’re taught in this society to shut them off and pretend things are normal. I think that people get sick of that. We’re all fucked, we’re all fucked up. We’re all full of love and it’s great, but we’re all inside and we’re all full of everything. For some reason we’re not supposed to express it. I guess I’m just not embarrassed to do that. Okay world, here’s me and this is how I feel about things. Hopefully you can understand and, best case scenario, maybe you take something away that helps you in life a little. That’s kind of my goal. Hopefully I’ll take something that helps me. It should be reciprocal but it not always is. It’s so funny how people think that when you’re a performer, you’re just giving. Who’s in the audience and how they react makes such a huge difference as far as performance goes. If the audience is really supportive and if the audience is open, then…

You’re improvising a lot when you perform. Is that right?
Yeah.

So that must play into that as well.
Yeah.

So we’re all messed up no matter how much bacon or whisky we have, or how much running we do.
Well, no matter what. You know when you’re a kid and you think oh goodness, when I turn whatever everything’s going to be so much better. No one tells kids that oh by the way there’s no Santa, no Tooth Fairy and it just gets harder. You know? You know, why? Why don’t we set people up so they know what’s going on, and oh, by the way you’re going to die? You’re going to die and dying’s okay and it’s going to hurt but it’s okay to die, everyone. Nobody talks about that kind of stuff and it’s too bad because we should be prepared for death in this culture, we should have more ritual and celebration around it. We should make ourselves healthier when it comes to ideas of certain things. I mean, I’ve got a lot of weird opinions.

Well, I think you’re not afraid to be human.
Well, or not human. I kind of wish I wasn’t. We’re kind of an embarrassing species ruining the world.

You went to NSCAD [the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax] and did Visual Art there. Right?
Yes.

Is the way you make music kind of like painting, in a way?
Kind of what?

Like painting.
Oh, I thought you said painful. What? Is this the critic/interviewer?

Ha! Yeah, your music: Do you consider your music so bad?
Ha ha! Sometimes it is.

No, no, like paint! Painting. Do you have a similar kind of approach to painting as you do to your music? Or is that another thing entirely?
Painting’s a totally different thing. Painting’s more internal. It has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s more intimate because if it ends up on someone’s wall that’s a direct correlation between me and them. It’s calmer, more meditative. Yeah. I generally say that they’re quite separate other than the creative process itself.

In the Kronos Quartet video, the part where the colors were laid out in a sequence to help guide the music, even though you were improvising. That’s what made me think that…
Oh, well I suppose sometimes when you’re deep in that realm and you put a color next to another color, maybe as you do with reality, I think painting’s interesting because you have to remove yourself from logic. Logic means orange is orange, right? But then if you go into it and you start looking – or snow, snow is white. Snow can be any color. So you have to just remove yourself from what the idea of what everything are to treat them properly.

And do you think music is more social? So when you’re performing do you think you’re singing like in the traditional way when you’re facing another person but the other person is the audience, in a way?
No. The other person is my backup band. The audience is the universe.

Well, I’m excited to see you and I hope you have a good time in between there. Do you have anything else that you’d like to say?
Just that I know the East Coast is my favorite place in Canada by far, other than my home of course, right? Other than the North, there’s the East Coast, which is cool and everyone’s really warm and friendly and open and no pretention. I don’t know, I just really, I’m so excited mostly because I know I’m coming to good people. I know I’m going to go there and leave so happy with a whole bunch of new friends and will have drank my face off and had a million laughs and hugged strangers and I know it’s coming. I can tell you’re good down there. So just hi and I’m really excited.

Come out to the show. It’ll be weird but I think you can handle it.

Well, thanks a lot Tanya. It’s been fun.
You’re welcome. Take care.

Tanya Tagaq will perform on Wednesday, July 14th at the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival at the Masonic Temple at 7pm. Ticket info here.

Sound Symposium XV Blog: Day Nine – Heartbreak

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-10.

Dear Sound Symposium,

We need to have a talk.

We’ve spent a lot of time with one another over the past nine days. You’ve shared with me a lot of sounds I never even knew were possible. You’ve expanded my horizons. You’ve made me, of all people, want to dance to the radio, of all things. You’ve moved me with trumpets. You’ve made me crane my neck towards the harbour at 12:30, no matter where I might be, to hear the Harbour Symphony–I don’t know what will fill the void when 12:30 rolls around today and there is no honking. You’ve made me listen to whales, instead of of just watching them. Hell, you’ve made me listen to everything instead of just watching them. And, perhaps most surprisingly of all, when a cat got one of the pigeons who shits on my car and awakens me with the sound of its humping on my window sill, I wasn’t glad, I was sad. I was sad because of all the beautiful sounds that have been lost (not the humping sounds, mind you).

This is because of you.

I was ready to proclaim my unabashed love for you. I was ready to give you my class pin and my varsity jacket. I was ready to go steady. I was ready to shack up. I was ready to pop the question. I was composing traffic jam symphonies in my mind while stuck in traffic and scheming of the best ways to get the other drivers to play along so that a little piece of you could always be with me while you’re in hibernation for two more years.

But, Sound Symposium, last night, on your last night, at Cape Spear you showed me a side of yourself I had never seen before. A side I never thought I would ever see. And frankly, I think we should see other people.

Sound Symposium, you’ve broken my heart.

Your Cape Spear Project seemed, on paper, sure to be the highlight of the festival. Details were scant, but from what I could gather some hip German composer had composed music to wash over the Cape while thousands of ears clung to the cliffs and soaked it all in. I was prepared to be completely and utterly blown away.

These expectations were hardly unrealistic. Sound Symposium, without fail, you had blown me away time and time again since we first met nine days ago. Add Cape Spear into the mix… damn! I could hardly contain my excitement.

You see, Sound Symposium, Cape Spear is a special place.

Like you know, I’m a CFA (Come From Alberta), and have only been here a couple of years, which is why I missed you last time. But I’ve seen a lot of amazing things in my time here. I’ve travelled across the island. I’ve seen mountains and rocks, icebergs and moose, puffins and whales. I’ve seen the Dungeon. And I’ve seen nothing because the fog is so thick. I’ve heard stories, and jokes, and songs. I’ve met all sorts of wonderful people. And I met you, Sound Symposium, in all your glory. But, amidst all of this, two of the most staggering things I’ve experienced on this island have been at Cape Spear.

Do you remember that hellacious winter storm we had this past February? The snow, the wind, the whole bit. Hellacious! Probably the most intense storm I’ve seen in my two years here. And there have been quite a few, it storms here a lot.

Anyway, the next day, for reasons that don’t need explaining, I found myself out a Cape Spear. The place was deserted. Barren. Isolated. Though you can see it, St. John’s seemed a million miles away. But that wasn’t the impressive part. The impressive part, the most impressive part of Newfoundland I’ve seen so far, was the sea.

The storm had whipped the sea into a frothy, raging frenzy. Standing way up on the hill near the lighthouses you could not only hear, but feel, the waves crashing on the cliffs below. The raging sea crashing on land was unspeakably awesome and powerful, and me? I was nothing, nothing at all. The sea is so much more than any of our little lighthouses, towns, or cities could ever be. I stood in the freezing cold in stunned silence, my mouth agape. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

The other staggering Cape Spear experience was less epic, but nonetheless impressive. Once again it was at the tail-end of a storm. This time Hurricane Bill. Do you remember Hurricane Bill from last summer? Everyone filled their bathtubs with water and stocked up on cans of cream corn, only to have the day the storm hit to be the mildest, nicest, sunniest days of the year. So I went to Cape Spear for the first time.

It was a lovely day until I made my way down the path for the compulsory photos in front of the “Furthest Eastern Point in North America” sign, and then things took a turn.

You see, Sound Symposium, they don’t tell you in any of the tourist brochures about the World War II bunkers built into the cliff-face at Cape Spear. I had no idea they existed. But there they are.

Military remains aren’t anything new. I’ve seen a lot of them in a lot of places. They are all cordoned off and lousy with plaques and interpretative signs telling you what it used to be like when the Red Coats were fighting the French a few hundred years ago (Placentia, for instance, has just such a bit of military remains I saw around the same time). But this bit of military remains at Cape Spear was different.

The bunkers and guns built into the cliff-face to ward off potential invading Germans sixty-five years ago isn’t cordoned off. They haven’t been partially rebuilt for educational or memorial purposes. The whole site is in disrepair. It’s falling apart. It is leaky, and rusty. The various darker-than-the-inside-of-a-cow rooms and tunnels and chambers are filled with trash, empty beer bottles, and “Fuck You!” graffiti that you can only see with a flashlight or a camera flash.

The particularly unsafe parts have been blocked off with rotting lumber or orange snow-fence. But I am shocked that something so unsafe–the entire site is one long string of ankle sprains and infected cuts on rusty door jambs just waiting to happen–is allowed to exist so unmarked (I think there is one faded sign that says something about the guns being surplus from some operation in the 1890s) and unpolished in a national historic site. Especially considering how many signs there are everywhere else at the Cape telling you to stay away from this cliff, stay on that path, where the lighthouse family had to go for fresh water, when this building was build, to pick up after your dog, etc., etc., etc.

It’s like a wound that everyone is trying to ignore. Not quite sure what to make of it. Not quite sure what it meant for there to be men burrowed in the cliff-face with loaded guns pointed out to sea. Not quite sure what it means now.

Walking through the tunnels, looking at the giant guns, listening to the echo of trash and empties bouncing off the concrete and tin-can walls as you shuffle through the darkness, you can’t be quite sure what it means. This was war. This was real. This was here. And while, thankfully, there wasn’t much action that went on here there were still men burrowed in the cliff-face with loaded guns pointed out to sea.

The Cape weighs on you: the power of the sea and the wind, the haunting of its history and the war. All that ambiguity. Without signs and interpretative guides telling you what to think and how to feel your mind wanders, imagines, strains to make all of it fit, somehow, into your head. It all crashes down on you like those waves that winter storm stirred up this past February.

Or at least it weighs on me.

Sound Symposium, I think we should see other people because it seems like none of this weighs on you.

Your Cape Spear Project began just after dark with a car-horn symphony followed by one of the several men in World War I trench warfare regalia–trench coat, boots, helmet, gas mask, and all–blew on a vuvuzela–yes, a vuvuzela–to officially kick off the performance.

Then one of the several men in gas masks, maybe the one carrying the Republic of Newfoundland flag, squeezed a rubber ducky–yes, a rubber ducky–and led the throng of excited humanity down a the dark, unlit, path to another station of musicians. After their short piece and polite applause the gas masked rubber ducky republican tooted his rubber ducky once more and led the crowd on to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing.

Once we were down at the guns and the tunnels we were free to roam from dimly lit tin-can concrete corridor to corridor, chamber to chamber, to experience whatever it was we were supposed to be experiencing. But I am not sure what it was supposed to be. Not because so much power and history and all of that was crashing down upon me, but because it was senseless and silly and border-line offensive, like a man in a gas mask tooting a rubber ducky in a WWII gun battery.

I’m not talking about the sounds of the night, Sound Symposium, those weren’t silly. They were what they were and they were fine. But they were overshadowed by the spectacle you had created. By the gas masked men with rubber duckies and vuvuzelas, and the rooms you filled with silly things. Particularly the “Room of Memories,” I think you called it on the hand-drawn map you passed out, which was a collection of creepy looking dolls, and telephones, and random junk strewn about the old, wet, cement floor beneath the “Fuck You!” graffiti.

What was that Sound Symposium? I expected more out of you. You may have thought it was clever, or edgy, or who knows what. But it wasn’t. It was disappointing.

Why take the potential of your sounds and the Cape’s weight and turn it into a circus?

If you want to turn this weird and creepy gun battery into a site of some sort of avant garde sound extravaganza, go for it, but don’t forget where it is you are.

We aren’t just ears. We are eyes, and noses, mouths, and hands too. And memories and emotions. Things can mean something on their own, in a vaccuum, or played on a tape in your car. But they mean something else when you put them somewhere else, when the sea is roaring, the wind is howling, and the water is dripping down your neck from a crack in the ceiling of the falling down WWII gun battery you’re standing in.

And, my dear Sound Symposium, when your final act of the night was a crescendo of percussion and brass played behind one of the rusty guns that is still pointed out to sea, to a crowd huddled around with their backs to the sea, punctuated by a gas masked man’s final three blasts of his vuvuzela, it became clear that your Cape Spear Project wasn’t about making sound art at Cape Spear. It had nothing to do with Cape Spear. It ignored the most powerful things about the Cape–the sea and the wind–and the most haunting–the history–and instead was a self-indulgent party at a “cool” place. Which is what punk kids do.

It could have been so much more, Sound Symposium. But I am disappointed. I am heartbroken. Maybe in a couple of years I will have gotten over it and when you come back around we can go for a coffee. Maybe one day we can be friends. But for now, it’s over.

Best wishes,
Morgan

Sound Symposium XV: Day Seven – Pigeons!

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-12.

The Eastern Edge Gallery has to be one of my favourite art galleries of all time. And, full disclosure, it’s not because they host a monthly event I help to organize (Words In Edgewise, on the 14th), but because they constantly show artists whose work both makes me think and makes me smile. Which is why I like art in the first place. So when I saw that they were showing a Sound Symposium-related exhibition, and with me being The Scope’s Sound Symposium-related blogger, I hustled right down to Harbour Drive to investigate.

The Sound Symposium-related exhibit is Annie Dunning’s “Air Time.” Which, in her blurb she calls “a collaboration with pigeons.”

Pigeons?

Who in their right mind would want to collaborate with pigeons?

What? Were all the rats too busy spreading disease that day?

Pigeons?

Come to think about it, pigeons are way worse than rats. Rats have the decency to be disgusting in the privacy of their own little underworlds. Pigeons, on the other hand, strut and coo like their some kind of cool out in plain sight.

I’m from Alberta where there aren’t any rats (people never believe me when I tell them this, but it’s true, there is a Rat Patrol and everything) so I didn’t see my first wild rat until a few weeks ago. It scurried across the street down by the harbour while I was gawking at the big law office fire. Other than that my life has been mostly rat-free.

Pigeons, on the other hand…

There are many days that I am awakened to the sounds of pigeons humping on our window sill (they make loud, rambunctious love on our window sill, but have decided, for whatever reason, to build a nest and lay eggs on our downstairs neighbour’s window sill), and on a couple of unlucky occasions we’ve left the kitchen window open a bit too much and had to shoo one of the feathered vermin away. And that is just my personal displeasure with a few of them. In general there are flocks of them forever strutting, cooing, and pooing all over public property all over the world. It seems that their general rule of thumb (or talon) is the more ageless and wondrous the landmark, the thicker the pigeons. I hear you can’t see Venice anymore for all the pigeon poo.

Luckily Mary from the gallery was there to talk some sense into me. She reminded me that back before there was the internet, and fax machines, and cell phones with GPS and built in cameras and apps for this and that there were carrier pigeons. They even helped the good guys win The Great War by delivering messages to and from the trenches (I’m not about to go high-fiving any them quite yet, for all I know there could have been a Taube squadron flying intel for the other-side too, pigeons don’t strike me as particularly choosey about who they work for).

And now it turns out that they can make music too.

Dunning’s work features a set of handmade Chinese whistles being tied to the tail feathers of pigeons, producing a whistling sound as they fly.

I am sure there is some connection between how much sex that pigeon is having on my window sill and his joining the pigeon band. The correlation between the two has long been proven.

But I still can’t quite get my head around pigeons making music.

I wouldn’t call it great music. Dunning’s blurb, written by Sally McKay, calls it “haunting.” But that might be a bit generous to the pigeons, they are pigeons after all. However, the droning whistles aren’t entirely without their brainwormy charm. And, as Mary and the blurb explain further, apparently the pigeons don’t see having a wooden whistle tied to their behinds as punishment for their cousins and ancestors defiling sacred statues with their feces, but rather as a fun treat. “Some birds more than others are excited to make their whistles heard above the rest, and engage in dives, rolls, and mock evasive manoeuvres to make their whistles play loudly and dramatically,” says the birds’ handler Mr. Hume.

Great! Not only do these wretched creatures have a much more exciting love life than I do. They also are much more musically inclined than I am.

The absurdity of pigeons making music aside–which shouldn’t be shunted aside completely, I think that is part of the appeal of Dunning’s piece, it is the piece that makes me smile, at least after my blood stops boiling from horrible pigeon nookie sights and sounds burned into my memory–there is something thought provoking here as well. It might be the darned environmental ethics graduate course I am currently trying to get over, but Dunning’s collaboration with pigeons raises all sorts of questions about nature, wild animals, domestic animals, our relationship to them all, and their access to our arts and technology.

While bloggers with their inadequate press passes marvel at whales and campaign for whale symphonies being added to the Sound Symposium program for next time, Dunning goes one further and gives instruments to the birds and allows them to participate in the creation of art themselves (there was even one little pigeon, whose likeness is pictured above, who had a camera strapped to him to document the event with photographs, which are included in the exhibit). And perhaps in the apparent absurdity of pigeons making music with gusts of wind and whistles tied to their behinds we can see a similar absurdity in our making music with gusts of wind and knots of brass pipes attached to our mouths. And maybe when we see our own absurdity it won’t make those pigeons quite so absurd after all.

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Dunning is not the only artist who has work on display at Eastern Edge. Saskatchewan artist Bruce Montcombroux has fascinating drawings and sculptures as part of his “Palaquin Park” show.

And then there is Toronto artist Jon Sasaki’s delightful “On Purpose.” Sasaki’s videos, installations, and sculptures simultaneously poke fun of the absurdity and often hopeless futility of everyday life–the bike ride that goes nowhere, the highway interchange without escape, the Y2K mascot sitting dejectedly in 2008, the unfilled dance card–and, as his bio states, “asserts a fervent, unabashed optimism lying just below” the surface–maybe the biker does go somewhere, maybe the road straightens out, maybe the world ends (?), maybe the card gets filled out.

This mixed bag of great artworks, pigeons and all, is definitely worth seeing. Check them out at Eastern Edge until August 7.

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Sound Symposium XV, an international festival of new music and performing arts, continues from July 2-12 in St. John’s. You can find more information at their website.

Sound Symposium XV: Day Five – Whales!

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-12.

I had planned to go see and hear the Pat Boyle Quintet (with John Nugent, Jim Vivian, Mike Billard and Bill Brennan) and Yael Acher-Modiano perform at the LPSU Hall last night.

I got all gussied up, showed up to the hall with moments to spare, flashed my shiny press pass, and was told politely that for this particular show a press pass was no good. I am assuming that it was because of the high demand for tickets to see these local jazz heroes perform and not for the same reason that Adam Sandler doesn’t let the critics preview his movies. So I am not bitter.

But I am sure it would have been a great show.

There may have been a the few remaining tickets that I could have bought with real money, but I didn’t spend all of my parents’ hard-earned money on blogger school to have to spend my own hard-earned money when my press pass doesn’t work. So, rather than jazzing out at the LPSU I got myself a Townie Taco Salad from The Sprout and drove up to Signal Hill to watch the whales feasting on caplin and blow their own horns as the fog rolled in.

Yesterday I raved about how awesome ships are as far as humanmade things go and how badass the Harbour Symphony is. I stand behind all of that. But when you see a whale surface, and see and hear it spray, even from high atop Signal Hill, it blows any silly ship we might make out of the water (pun only somewhat intended).

So, while I sit this one jazz concert out, might I make a recommendation to the organizers of the Sound Symposium for making future Sound Symposia even more amazing: whale music. And not the strange Canadian Film Whale Music (you know? The one with Paul Gross), but take the idea behind the Harbour Symphony and make a whale symphony. Based on the stories I’ve heard about the two, it can’t be much more difficult to get whales to toot their horns in harmony than it is to get sailors to.

Sound Symposium XV, an international festival of new music and performing arts, continues from July 2-12 in St. John’s. You can find more information at their website.

Sound Symposium XV Blog: Day 3 – Ships!

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-12.

Over the first few days of the Sound Symposium I have seen and heard some crazy and wonderful things. But perhaps the craziest and most wonderful has been the Harbour Symphony (everyday at 12:30 during the festival). THEY ARE MAKING MUSIC WITH FREAKING SHIP HORNS!

And not just any music, but surprisingly catchy music. Saturday’s piece composed by Frank Pahl (who also has a variety of other things going on at Sound Symposium), for instance, is still stuck in my head. Yes, a song made by ships blowing their horns in a harbour is stuck in my head (BWAAAAHHHH-bohmp-bohmp).

My girlfriend and I listened to the Pahl’s Saturday Harbour Symphony from Harbourside Park, which might be why it stands out so much. I could actually hear it clearly.

One of my projects for the this week is to listen to the Harbour Symphony from a variety of different places to try and find the best seats in the house. So far, Harbourside Park is better for pure acoustics than sticking my head out my apartment window on King’s Bridge Road because of all the car traffic. But the car traffic did add something to the experience. A sort of reminder that we aren’t listening to a concert in a concert hall, but ships in a harbour in a city. Not that you really need much of a reminder of that, sitting in Harbourside park, but it drives the point home that hearing ships making music in the harbour at all is just as important as hearing it well.

Which is why, if I had a say in the matter, there would Harbour Symphony happen everyday of the summer in St. John’s, not just for a week every two years during Sound Symposium. The city and the province do all sorts of things to make St. John’s the province’s tourist hub. There are the TV commercials that look like ads for some new eye-popping paint, there is the [HERE]SAY project (featured in The Scope last summer) where you call special numbers at special spots along Water Street and you’ll hear a special story about the special spot where you’re standing (like this one about a guy getting crabs from trying on sexy undies in the old Piper’s), there are the signs that go up in shopkeeper’s windows welcoming whatever cruise ship or conference might be in town this week (this week you might notice signs welcoming the Sound Symposium), and any number of other things. These are all fine. They all add to the richness of experiencing St. John’s.

But the Harbour Symphony is so much more badass than any other existing or potential tourist quirk I can think of.

Let me sell it to you, like the CFA that I am…

I’m from the prairies, and as far as impressive giant humanmade things we’ve got to look at, there are a few remaining grain elevators and tractors. The grain elevators used to be cool, but they are quickly disappearing. And while the blowing up of a grain elevator might be a spectacular sight, it leaves little more than bald prairie to stare at afterwards. The grain elevators are being replaced with behemoth concrete things that look like the behemoth things we’ll all be living in when we finally colonize Mars. It is like knocking down an beautiful old stone building and replacing it with a shiny shopping mall.

Then there are tractors. Which are cool until you either turn five or have to drive one, whichever comes first. Then they become slow moving hazards on the shoulders of roads or something you hardly ever think about because they aren’t really that giant or impressive after all.

I suppose a case could be made by city dwellers in any city anywhere that skyscrapers are something to be hold. Even the odd tower, like the Calgary Tower with its revolving restaurant at the top can be something pretty neat. But the problem with skyscrapers in any city anywhere is that they all look the same–glass, metal, concrete, yawn. And the problem with the Calgary Tower is that it has been surrounded by skyscrapers that are taller than it is. Now, when you are in the revolving restaurant you don’t look out over the city, instead you get to look out at the people on the 33rd floor in a board meeting across the street in any old anonymous skyscraper that looks like all the other ones.

I come from a part of the world with a dearth of anything humanmade that is awesome to look at (the prairie sky, on the other-hand, or the Rockies in the West, they are pretty damned impressive).

Then you get to St. John’s and see the ships.

The ships are some impressive for someone who has never seen them this close before. In spite of the never-ending construction, I purposely make a detour down to Harbour Drive whenever I am downtown just so I can check out the ships. Sometimes you even get lucky enough to get to go aboard, as was the case several weeks ago when there was a handful of NATO ships in the harbour.

My sister and her family recently came for a visit from back home, our first stop was to get her boys, two and four years-old, some pancakes after a marathon red-eye flight from Calgary. We went to Smitty’s in the Courtyard Marriot on Duckworth Street which overlooks the harbour, and tot that she’s particularly adverse to causing a scene in public, God love her, but when my sister saw the ships she yelled “HOLY COW! LOOK AT THE SHIPS!” Our pancakes went cold that morning while we watched the ships sit motionless in the harbour.

The harbour, raw sewage aside, is a magical place. Far more intimate than most other harbours, it’s a rare place where landlubbers like myself can go and get up close with these massive marvels that take people out to sea. It lets us get closer to the sea, without actually going to sea. Which is important because we aren’t all cut out for the sea. When I took my prairie family on a whale/puffin watching tour most of the scenery was missed while we held our progressively-getting-greening heads in our hands trying to keep from tossing our Ches’s overboard. And getting to know the sea and our relationship to it is something that needs to be done if you want to even so much as begin to understand Newfoundland.

So celebrate the hell out of the harbour. Fill it with amazing ships. With giant ships. With tiny ships. With red ships, blue ships, white ships, brown ships. And then make them make music!

I look forward to trekking up Signal Hill and listening from behind Dead Man’s Pond, as well as on top of the parking garage on Water Street, two of the best places to listen to it according to the Sound Symposium organizer who spoke prior to the opening night performance. I’ll see you there!

BWAAAAHHHH-bohmp-bohmp!

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Thanks again to One With Knowledge for letting us know that Radio Wonderland will be performing another show, this time with a dance floor, on Wednesday night at CBTG’s on George Street.

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Sound Symposium XV, an international festival of new music and performing arts, continues from July 2-12 in St. John’s. You can find more information at their website.

Sound Symposium XV Blog: Day Two – Trumpets!

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-12.

The Reveille Trumpet Collective’s show last night was dubbed “a concert devoted to pushing the boundaries of the trumpet” on the Sound Symposium website, which is why I went. On day one I was blown away by a guy with a steering wheel, some old shoes, and gizmos pushing the boundaries of FM radio, and earlier on in day two I was thoroughly impressed by the Harbour Symphony composed by Frank Pahl (who has an installation showing at the A1C Gallery throughout Sound Symposium) pushing the boundaries of ship horns in a harbour. After a day-and-a-half of Sound Symposium-ing I am beginning to realize that much of the point is pushing the boundaries of sounds and things that make them.

But the trumpet?

I thought that Miles Davis had already pushed that sucker as far as it could go. And if not him, then 70,000 soccer fans blowing on those damned vuvuzelas at the World Cup over this past month must have.

Or maybe I just hadn’t heard boundary-pushing trumpet yet. Maybe I still haven’t.

If it was boundaries that were being pushed by the Reveille Trumpet Collective’s show last night (featuring two of five members–Aaron Hodgson from St. John’s and Adam Zinatelli from Calgary–accompanied in part by pianist Kristina Szutor) I am having trouble deciding whether it was the trumpet’s boundaries, or mine.

My first problem is that I am no trumpet expert. I’ve never so much as held one. And musically, the spoons are about all I can play, with anything else I couldn’t carry a tune if my life depended on it. Don’t get me wrong. I love music. All sorts of it. And Miles Davis is one of my favourites of all time, and he plays the trumpet, or played the trumpet until he died nearly 20 years ago. But that’s as far as my connection with the trumpet goes. Going into last night’s show I wasn’t really sure what the current boundaries of trumpet were. So I couldn’t decide whether the “Fanfare for New Theatre” by Igor Stravinsky Hodgson and Zinatelli which opened the show was cutting-edge stuff, or an introduction to the trumpet’s boundaries.

The next three pieces sounded quite similar to things I’d heard before. They were all quite good. But either my uninitiated trumpet ears couldn’t pick up the nuances that made them boundary-pushing pieces, or they were merely just good performances of good pieces of music. In his video introduction to his piece (the composers who couldn’t make it in person introduced their pieces with videos) “Vanajakshiro Variations, for two trumpets,” composer Gabriel Dharmoo explained it was composed in, and inspired by, the din of auto rickshaws in India. At one point in the second movement it did sound like a traffic jam, which was a nice “a-ha” moment, but all three of the middle pieces lacked anything else that really grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and let me know that what I was hearing was something that pushed boundaries.

Perhaps those pieces were also introductions to the boundaries of the trumpet. Perhaps I was getting a trumpet-boundary education without realizing it, because the final two pieces diverged significantly from the path that was set by everything that came before. Up to this point, I wasn’t sure if what I was hearing was boundaries being pushed, boundaries being established, or some sort of esoteric nibbling around the edges that flew over my head.

The fifth piece, Clark Ross’s “Also sprach Sanford & Son, Alice Cooper, etc.” was a sort of trumpet mash-up featuring references to Richard Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra,” which you would recognize as the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the 1972 hit song by Brazilian jazz musician Eumir Deodato, the theme from the 1972 TV show Stanford & Son, Deep Purple’s 1972 song “Smoke on the Water,” Alice Cooper’s 1972 song “School’s Out,” and, breaking away from 1972 momentarily, the theme from the 1976 TV show Barney Miller. A sort of homage to some of the finer bits of trumpet played in 1972 (Barney Miller notwithstanding), in his introduction to the piece Ross answered what was so special about 1972 by claiming that “these pieces were what’s special about 1972.” The recognizable tidbits remixed into something new was, well, something new. Sort of like a mirror of the night so far, as in “here is what can be done with the trumpet, particularly in 1972,” taken a step further with a “and here is what can be done with it.”

If nothing else it pointed to the possibility of hearing something that even a trumpet-bumpkin like me could recognize as something unique.

Which brought us to the final piece, and highlight of the night, Eric Nathan’s “Four Sculptures, for two trumpets,” inspired by four sculptures by artist Derek Parker. Aided by a fairly thorough description of what he was after and photos of the sculptures the pieces were based on, Nathan’s video introduction provided a guide for the uninitiated trumpet enthusiast to follow what they were hearing and seeing. When, in the second movement, based on the sculpture “Submarine Eggs” the trumpeters removed some spit-catching widget from their trumpets to allow sound to escape from two places, it created a sort of submarine sonar pinging sound. No longer were we in the elegant Petro Canada Hall at the MUN School of Music dressed in our Sunday best, we were on the hunt for Red October. We were no longer sitting and listening to trumpet being played, trumpet being played was making us experience something so much more.

Things were taken up another notch when, for the third movement called “In Memoriam” based on the sculpture “Precipice,” Hodgson took a seat on a chair and Zinatelli bolted for the exit. The lingering, contemplative piece was played by both trumpeters, one on in the hall and the other standing outside. If you had a hard time getting onto the bridge of the submarine with the previous piece there was no question now that we were experiencing something more than mere music. We were experiencing performance art. We were experiencing boundaries being pushed, but not the boundaries of the trumpet. The trumpet is a several-thousand year-old instrument, its wind and metal tubes twisted in knots to come out sounding nice. Instead the trumpet was used as an instrument for pushing the boundaries of what listening to music can be–a meaningful experience.

Sound Symposium is partially a crazy music festival for the public, but it is also a symposium for artists. Artists are partly technicians, so pushing the boundaries of the trumpet matters to trumpeters, like pushing the boundaries of fast cars matters to mechanics. It matters because it challenges what you can do with your instrument, and it allows you do do new things with it. But they are also performers, performing for the public, many of whom, such as myself, aren’t anywhere close to being trumpet technicians, and so the pushing the boundaries of the instruments doesn’t matter to me. I don’t really care what adjusting the carburettor does to the intake manifold to give the car an extra few miles-per-hour, but I do appreciate the speed it creates. I don’t really care what removing this spit-catching widget does to the knot of wind coming through the metal tubes that makes it sound like submarine sonar pings, but I do appreciate the experience it creates.

I am learning something here: art for art’s sake helps artists create new forms of boundary-pushing art that can resonate deeply with the audience. It’s just a matter of sitting patiently through the parts in-between.

—

Yesterday I told you I would tell you the other show that Radio Wonderland is playing as part of Sound Symposium as soon as I knew, thanks to One With Knowledge’s comment on my post, I now know, and so do you! (It’s also in the schedule online and in The Scope, I just didn’t notice it):

19:30 COOK RECITAL HALL, MUN School of Music, with
Joshua Fried’s RADIO WONDERLAND
Complaints Choir
Mark Fewer & Aiyun Huang (violin & percussion)
Kurai Mubaiwa & Curtis Andrews

Sound Symposium XV, an international festival of new music and performing arts, continues from July 2-12 in St. John’s. You can find more information at their website.

Sound Symposium XV Blog: Day One

Prepare your ears! Morgan Murray will be blogging about the Sound Symposium XV for The Scope from July 2-12.

I’m going to be completely honest with you. I didn’t know what the Sound Symposium was, or that it was for that matter, until a week or so ago. This is only my second proper summer in St. John’s, so I missed the last Sound Symposium in 2008 by a few months (If there are any more biennial festivals here that are this good, can someone please tell me?) Nevertheless, I know all about it now.

Correction, I know of it now. I wouldn’t say I know all about it. I still haven’t quite figured it out, but I don’t think you are supposed to. Case in point: the opening night show at the LSPU Hall.

It began with “Cross-Current” a video/sound piece by Reinhard Reizenstein, Gayle Young and Delf Hohmann (this piece was a last-minute replacement for dancer Louise Moyes who had fallen ill). It was video of a flowing stream by Reizenstein, a visual installation artist, accompanied by Young playing some crazy nine-stringed monochord (nine-strings on nine separate pieces of pipe) that, the program tells me, was “being played here for the second time,” and “is still looking for a decent name,” and Hohmann playing banjo stand-up with a bow, like it were a cello. To top it off both the still-looking-for-a-decent-name-achord and the banjo were tuned in the Bohlen-Pierce scale. I told you I was going to be completely honest with you, so I will be, I don’t know who or what a Bohlen-Pierce scale is. I also am not completely sure what it was I saw and heard either. The stand-up banjo was enough of a jolt to my hillbilly roots (you pick it, not play it!), let alone the still-looking-for-a-decent-name-achord being played for only the second time ever, all in Bohlen-Pierce scale (whatever that is), that the piece ended before my poor ears and limited musical vocabulary could catch up.

Mind you, if we were waiting for that, it would still be have to be going on, and I doubt there is that much music written for the still-looking-for-a-decent-name-achord.

Then came the one-man electro-funk FM radio band, Radio Wonderland . Which, in the words of Joshua Fried, the man behind the magic, “turns commercial radio into recombinant funk [...] using a real steering wheel, old shoes and some gizmos. [...] Radio Wonderland interrogates the media so you can feel the truth: that deep in the crass sexuality of commercial pop is a frequency we can really move to.”

Why would anyone do this, you may ask? Because, he answers, “we’ve got to get down.”

Yes, you read that correctly, the guy takes live FM radio playing on a real live boom box (last night it was a smattering of French talk radio, classic rock, some blues rock, and a commercial for a Honda Civic) and using a steering wheel, a couple of pairs of old shoes and some gizmos (by gizmos he means a laptop and some shiny mystery box, and the steering wheel and the shoes are all wired up and on stands, and well… take a look at the picture) remixes it into funky dance music. The idea of it alone should be enough to make you want to get down, but it is as incredible in action as it seems on paper.

In the spirit of being completely honest with you, you should also know I am not really a fan of dance music, because I am not really a fan of dancing. I know, I know, that makes me a horribly lame person. My mom told me that if I wanted to ever find a woman I’d have to learn to dance, but I’d squirm away from any potential family wedding dance and go play in the dirt, and when it came time to learn to two-step and country line dance in my hillbilly elementary school gym class there weren’t enough girls in the class so I had to dance with my friend Cory, turning me completely off dancing entirely. In spite of these emotional scares, I did manage to find a wonderful woman without having to woo her with dance moves at all (I think it was the beard I was sporting at the time.) Take that mom!

Besides all of this, I have the grace and style of a baby moose sinking into quicksand. But as Radio Wonderland turned French talk radio into a funkadelic dance party, my toes started tapping and I couldn’t stop. The only downside was we were sitting in the comfy theatre seats of the LSPU Hall. Radio Wonderland needs a dance floor. He may have even got a creaky rusty barn door dancer like me out there, who knows. I overheard on my way out of the hall that Radio Wonderland may be performing again on the 9th. I know not where or when, but when I do, you will too, because we should all go, because “we’ve got to get down!”

After an intermission spent asking strangers in the lobby “wasn’t that awesome?” the Maryem Tollar Ensemble took the stage, along with belly-dancer Roula Said. Following a guy remixing talk radio into awesome dance music is tough, but Maryem and her group did an admirable job, with their eclectic mix of stellar Egyptian-Arabic-Canadian folk music, highlighted by a several-minute long song to which Roula spun in a circle the entire time. I could barely watch towards the end for fear that she was going to spin out of control and take out the rhythm section, but she managed to keep it under control and finished the set off with a fantastic belly dance with the last song that was an exclamation point on a fantastic first night of the Sound Symposium.

So, if you ask me to sum up the Sound Symposium in five words or less after the first night, I would be at a loss. The best I can come up with is “The Sound Symposium is crazy!–in the best possible way” but that’s ten words. How do you sum up a babbling brook and Bohlen-Pierce banjo/still-looking-for-a-decent-name-achord, Radio Free Funk, and Egyptian-Arabic-Canadian folk spinning belly dancing? You can’t, and I don’t think you’re supposed to.

You’re just supposed to sit back, tap your toe, grin like an idiot when the guy cranks on the steering wheel and beats on the shoe and turns some annoying commercial for some annoying compact car funkalicious. And enjoy it.

What craziness will day two bring? I’m not sure, but any day that starts with a boat symphony in the harbour (12:30 everyday) is bound to be a good one.

Sound Symposium XV, an international festival of new music and performing arts, continues from July 2-12 in St. John’s. You can find more information at their website.

Who was Fred Gamberg?

The Fred Gamberg mural on the corner of Duckworth and Prescott Street has fallen into disrepair. The elements have chipped away at the paint; graffiti has blacked out his face. The City of St. John’s is now undertaking a full restoration. Photo by Mark Bennett

Words by Paul Ryan.
Interview by Mike Heffernan.

Fifteen years ago this year, on July 10, 1995, Fred Gamberg died tragically while swimming in Flatrock. He was twenty-three. A fixture of the local underground music scene, he was an aspiring musician (Noon Day Gun, Giver) and a tireless show promoter, offering young people opportunities they may not have had otherwise. Danger: Falling Rock, a compilation album he produced with Geoff Younghusband and Jonathon Swyers, was, for many bands, their first experience recording original music.

For fifteen years, visual artist Peter Evans’ mural of Fred on the corner of Duckworth and Prescott Street has meant a lot of things to a lot of people: punk rock, friendship, and the enthusiasm of the early-90s in St. John’s. It was at the LSPU Hall where Fred organized and promoted many shows, and for over a decade, his wry smile reminded us that music is transcendent, and for many it represented hope and community.

Among Fred’s closest friends, there are still plenty of thoughts of what could have been, and for many of them it was still too difficult to be interviewed. For Paul Ryan, admittedly shy and reserved, talking about Fred Gamberg, who he had met in high school, was a painful process…

I remember dreaming of Fred. I don’t remember the details, but I remember dreaming of him. It was kind of nice because it was almost like he was still around, but then I would wake up.

I don’t dream of him anymore, but I remember thinking, only a few years ago, that I’ll never speak to him again—he’s gone. Anything good that happens in my life I can’t tell him. I can’t go to him when I’m feeling down. If I broke up with a girlfriend, I used to call him and we’d just talk, and he would listen for hours. I guess when you’re younger those things can affect you more. Everyone will tell you, Fred was a talker. But he was also a listener. I remember him at a party standing up with a beer and just listening, enjoying the conversation. I don’t know if many people know that.

That’s probably what I miss most, that I don’t have his ear.

The first time I spoke to Fred was at a Halloween show in 1986. It was at the 301 Club at the top of Hamilton Avenue. They used to have shows down in the basement for all the punk rock kids, and upstairs was where the hard cases hung out. Dog Meat BBQ played. Tough Justice and Schizoid played. Fred was being Fred. He had on a trench coat and his hair was all messy. He wore the same Sid Vicious t-shirt as me. We started talking because we recognized one another from school, and we were there, at that show.

We clicked pretty quickly. We were fifteen and in a school with a bunch of jocks. We kind of banded together.

Music was his thing. Music, music, music. That’s why we were drawn to him. We were listening to whatever was on the radio and trying to figure this stuff out and Fred already had records and was listening to Brave New Waves, a late-night CBC Radio show. Have you ever heard of Touch and Go Records? Fred sent them an order for a Butthole Surfers’ tape, Rembrandt ¬Pussyhorse. For them to figure out what it was he wanted, they had to read this long letter he had written them, a full page letter. He showed it to me. He talked about how he loved this band and that band, and he put in his two cents worth on where they took the wrong direction. That’s classic Fred Gamberg for you.

He always wanted to play music and be in a band. He loved music so much that he wanted to make it…

Fred was in the background of the local punk rock scene all the time, even when he was a teenager. There used to be Ploughshares of Youth, a downtown social action group, where young people got together and put off benefits for OXFAM. But it wasn’t until he was twenty that he started to get more involved.

Noon Day Gun was Fred’s first real band. When they broke up he formed Giver with Renee Ruba and Frank Paul Nolan. Fred played drums. I think he started playing drums by just having a snare at home and practicing on that. I don’t know how good he was, but he wholeheartedly adopted a philosophy of do-it-yourself punk rock. He didn’t care if he couldn’t sing—he got up and sang. He didn’t care if he wasn’t the best drummer—he got up and played. That’s how a lot of local bands got started, kids who couldn’t play a note but didn’t care either way.

There was a benefit concert, and Fred was one of the organizers. They needed an extra band to fill a time slot, and he called me up and said, “Paul, do you want to play at this show?”

I had my cousin’s guitar; I never had an amp. I said, “Sure.”

We called ourselves The Shitz. There was Richie Perez, Darryl Grace, Matt Clark, Dave Andrews, me and Fred. We never rehearsed. We got together twenty minutes before we went on. “We kind of know some Ramones. We might be able to play some Dead Kennedys.” I came up with a riff, and Fred wrote some lyrics.

People loved it. They were like, “when are you playing again?”

I think Liz Pickard liked it, too. [laugh] But I don’t think she thought it was good music, just the feeling it gave her.

Fred never thought he was some visionary who was going to change the world. It was nothing like that. He did it for pure enjoyment. Let’s get up on stage and play a few songs. Let’s have a laugh, man—lets jam! Let’s go for it! F**k it!

We started to drift apart when we were in our early-twenties. He was involved in what he was doing, playing music and organizing shows, and I wasn’t. I was going to college and hanging out with a completely different crowd. Fred would meet kids who were in bands, put off a show and make sure they played.

You can ask anyone who was around then, when Fred passed away there was a huge void left downtown. Nobody had the same kind of energy as he did. He wanted to go a step further and get some money together and bring bands here. It would’ve been only indie stuff. Maybe he would have, at some point. Who knows?

A lot of people who were in bands, people who are still playing in bands, respected Fred, and I could see that in the way they spoke to him. I remember going to this restaurant on Duckworth Street, Duckworth Lunch, and Fred sat down with Liz Pickard and Barry Newhook. It was just the way they spoke to him that I could tell they didn’t think of him as some little jackass. I used to judge people by how they treated him.

No one really mentions this anymore, but there used to be people downtown who were snotty and snarky to Fred. Some of them were part of the scene, but they’re not worth mentioning. They’re not around anymore. They didn’t make the scene. They were trying to be cool and punk and, I guess, for them, Fred didn’t suit the image.

But he did, very much.

Back in the early 90s, a lot more bands were playing, more than ever before. Fred, Geoff Younghusband and Jonathon Swyers wanted to document that. That’s when the Danger: Falling Rock compilation was released by Best Dressed Records. The Grunge thing was going on and a lot of people figured that if a little band on an indie label could take off, then so could ours. Fred was the production manager, I think. I went down and he was there making sure the equipment was ready and people were showing up when they were supposed to. They recorded at 333 Duckworth Street, a little place they used to call “Halfway to Hell.” It’s probably a law office now, but back then, it was just a jam space. For a lot of those bands, that was their first experiences recording. It was Fred who encouraged them and got them to get the $100 together to help pay for the whole thing.

That was the only thing they ever released. They printed some shirts with Fred’s face on them, which people now hold onto dearly. Those guys maybe had hopes of putting out more things, but it didn’t work out because Fred passed away.

•••

Photo courtesy Eugene Leger.

We were sat at the War Memorial talking and Fred came by. I asked him what he was doing.

He said, “I’m going swimming with a few friends.”

Later that evening, his cousin, Dave, called. “Were you talking to Fred today?” His friends were looking for him. His clothes were found by the edge of the swimming hole, but they couldn’t find him. I gave him some names, people I knew Fred was with.

It was a rainy kind of night—misty. I remember looking out my bedroom window and thinking, Jesus, Fred, what are you after doing? Where are you after going?

Seven o’clock the next morning, I got the phone call. Fred had drowned.

I don’t think his parents truly knew what he was doing downtown. I don’t think they thought much of it. They had no idea so many people cared about their son. I mean, the church was full at the funeral. I went outside and people were gathered out there, too.

At the funeral, his father asked me, “Do you know what he was going to do with himself? Did he plan on leaving Newfoundland?”

As far as I knew, he was going to keep doing what he was doing. That’s what I told him.

A lot of bands got together and put off a show at The Loft trying to raise money for a headstone. They started by playing some of his tapes, a recording of his CHMR show, Over the Edge. Everyone just sat around, listening. People were crying, laughing.

Karmella Perez said to me, “You should say something.”

I really didn’t want to—I was just too shy. But I did.

“Everyone knows Fred liked to talk. In his kindergarten picture, he’s on the end, his head is turned and his hand is up covering his mouth, and he’s talking to the kid next to him.” By that time, all of our older friends had moved to the mainland. I was just about the only one left, and I wanted to say something about Fred from when he was younger, and that picture was him.

I think Fred’s parents would have liked to have seen me. They often asked my mother how I was doing. I regret not visiting them. But it was just too difficult for me. I miss Fred very much. A lot of people miss him. I think that’s what I would have said to them. Maybe someone else visited them. I don’t know.

Amelia Curran makes the Polaris Prize long list

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Just months after winning the Juno for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Solo with her record Hunter, Hunter, singer-songwriter Amelia Curran is in the running for another prestigious music award: The Polaris Music Prize.

While the Junos are for outstanding achievements in the record industry, the Polaris is a critic’s choice prize, and the jury consists of critics and folks from media outlets across the country. This year the two Newfoundlanders on the more than 200-member jury are CBCR2’s Tom Power and The Newfoundland Herald’s Kevin Kelly.

The short list of 10 albums in the running will be announced on July 6th.

Last year, Hey Rosetta’s Into Your Lungs… made the top ten short list, but lost out to Fucked Up’s The Chemistry of Common Life.

See the whole long list for 2010 at http://www.polarismusicprize.ca/2010longlist/

(Also of note: Holy Fuck’s Latin is also on the list. They’re playing a show here in St. John’s on July 27.)

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Gramercy Riffs – It’s Heartbreak comic strip review

Gramercy Riffs return with a new disc

Mara Pellerin and Adrian Collins of the Gramercy Riffs. Photo by Kerri Breen.

It takes a village to make a record in St. John’s, and all hands were on deck for this band’s first full-length release.

Sisters, friends from music school, friends from other bands, sound guy friends, and of course, the album’s producer Mark Bragg.

“You’d do it for them as well, so, that’s what’s nice about it,” guitarist Adrian Collins says of the help the band received.

It’s Heartbreak was recorded in several sessions, the largest chunk last August.

Collins and Mara Pellerin, vocalist and keyboardist, praise Bragg’s musical intuition and expertise, and credit him with keeping the band energized throughout the process. At one point, as they were exhausted while recording the drums and bass on “Call Me” on a sweltering day in St. Philip’s, Bragg had just the cure.

“It was really hot and we were wilting,” Pellerin says. “And he was like ‘all right that’s it, stop everything, c’mon.’ We went out of the house, went down to the rocks and jumped into the ocean.”

“It made everyone loose again,” says Collins.

Gentle reverb, rolling horns, and subtle touches like glockenspiel heighten the drama of these heartfelt, warm pop songs, with singer-guitarist Lee Hanlon and Pellerin trading vocals throughout the album.

“We spent a lot of time working out every little detail in every single one of the songs,” says Collins.

The influence of classic pop and the best of Canadian indie rock, such as Joel Plaskett, pervade the 11-song album, which includes material from the band’s two previously released EPs.

“It’s a culmination of the last two years. It puts it all into a nice, neat package,” says Pellerin.

It’s an appropriate sentiment about an album resulting from a set up that’s anything but tidy. Though they’re all from the St. John’s area, Collins is the only band member still living here. Bass player Daniel Banoub and Hanlon live in Toronto, with drummer Jamie March on the way, and Pellerin lives in Montreal.

The band started as a songwriting project for her and Hanlon, and some of their other friends came on board to form the band in 2008.

They write by trading tracks online, and jam whenever they’re home, which seems to correspond with university schedules and holidays. There are perks, however, of this type of set up — “aside from its obvious, terrible obstacles,” Pellerin says, laughing.

For one, Collins explains, they don’t get stuck in the trap of playing shows every weekend.

In fact, the last time they played was in February in Ottawa. They are playing a showcase at NXNE in June and will be applying to play other festivals on the mainland.

“Getting to make this record, it’s the start of something,” Pellerin says.

Gramercy Riffs’ album It’s Heartbreak will be released Friday, May 21 at The Rock House with Matt Hornell and the Diamond Minds and Mark Bragg (solo).

Holy f&#*! Holy Fuck are coming!

Don’t tell anybody, but Holy Fuck — the Juno and Polaris nominated-band with the unprintable name — are coming to St. John’s on July 27th, and tickets are on sale at Fred’s Records right now.

To get you right pumped, here’s a new video from their freshly released album, Latin America.

Emile’s Dream at 30,000 Feet

Emile Benoit was one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s best known and loved fiddlers. Last month, local theatre company Artistic Fraud toured across the province with a show on his life and music, called Emile’s Dream. On a plane on the way to a show in Labrador City, cast members Kelly Russell, Phil Churchill and Daniel Payne brought out their fiddles and played a couple-a tunes.

I asked Daniel Payne (the one in the toque) a few questions about spontaneous performance.

Why did you do it?
It’s just such a part of Emile’s legend, his love of entertaining people anywhere, including on airplanes. In Emile’s Dream, the show we were touring, we actually have a scene where the three of us are in our seats on the plane and we are playing and telling that part of Emile’s story. And now here we are living that scene – in the air with our violins in the overhead compartments an arm’s length away. It would just have been a tragic waste of an opportunity to have not done it.

What was the reaction? It seems like people really warmed up to it…
If you watch the video you get a sense of it, I think. You can certainly see in our faces that the vibe is very good. It took a couple of tunes for people to realize “wow, something’s actually happening here.” By the time we played at the front of the plane, through the PA system, and actually had a chance to say to people what we were doing, people had really taken to it, and you can hear that when we finish playing. It was a very special moment, and I think that everyone on the plane appreciated that and participated in that.

How’d it feel to play Emile’s “Flying Reel” at 30,000 feet?
It was so excellent! Emile actually says in the play (which is all his own words; transcribed from interviews with him) that it was the sound of the wings that inspired the “Flying Reel”. So it was so crazy to be hearing what he would have heard when this tune came into his mind! It was also hilarious because we had so little room to play — while we were playing in the seats, I could basically only move my arm below the elbow, so it was kind of good practice too. I’m proud of the three of us for helping make a little memory that all of us who were on that plane will carry with us for a long time I think.

The Novaks Give Big

Still smoking from their Rock Recording of the Year win at the ECMAS, The Novaks are set to release their next EP, Big World, on April 20th. And they’ll be giving it away for free.

In the meantime, you can download the title track here and stream the EP from their website.

Circle unbroken

Six of Canada’s super-talented songwriters will hit the stage at the Arts and Culture Centre on Sunday, April 18th for the Juno Songwriters’ Circle to share songs, stories, and inspirations.

We got a hold of most of the participants to ask a few questions and give you a quick preview.

•••

Jarvis Church

No stranger to the Junos, Toronto’s Jarvis Church, a.k.a. Gerald Eaton, is also the lead singer of the Philosopher Kings, and was a co-producer of Nelly Furtado’s award-winning album Woa Nelly. His Jamaican roots were the inspiration for his dance hall- and raggae-flavoured album The Long Way Home, which is nominated for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year.

What makes a song well-written?
In my opinion, a well-writen song is one that stirs up some emotion in the listener.

How has your approach to songwriting changed since you first began?
When I first started writing songs, it was most important for them to be original. Now it’s most important for them to be familiar.

What are your top 3 all-time favorite Canadian songs?
My top 3 favorite canadian songs are: “Ahead By A Century” by the Tragically Hip, “Sunglasses At Night” by Corey Hart, and “These Eyes” by The Guess Who.

•••

Amelia Curran

She’s the hometown hero of the pack, and really needs no introduction in these parts. Her 2006 album, War Brides, was good enough to land her on Six Shooter Records and now her latest, Hunter Hunter, has landed her a Juno nod for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year.

What makes a song well-written?
I believe a good song relies on nothing else. That the music and lyrics and instrumentation – and the moment – ought to be indistinguishable from one another, and the simplest complete work of art is allowed to breathe.

How has your approach to songwriting changed since you first began?
I’ve become a terrible editor. In the sense that the cutting room floor of my life as a writer is starting to resemble quite a mountain. Most of my songwriting is concentrated on lyricism – the constant search for the right and true phrase. It’s always been a solitary thing for me, though, and that hasn’t changed.

What are your top 3 all-time favorite Canadian songs?
I think my favorite songs change all the time, and there’s all always most songs by Cohen and most songs by Neil Young that I plainly adore. Here’s three I’ve loved for many many years, from artists I am honored to know: “Little Stream of Whiskey” by Old Man Luedecke, “Flikker” by Tim Crabtree via Paper Beat Scissors, and “Face Down on the Page” by Al Tuck.

•••

Michael Kaeshammer

Kaeshammer is a German-born, Canada-based boogie-woogie pianist. He’s been playing since he was six years old, and recorded his first album when he was just nineteen. Lovelight, nominated for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, finds him dabbling in jazz and blues and, according to critics, truly finding himself as a songwriter and vocalist.

What makes a song well-written?
A well-written song happens when the lyric expresses emotion, whatever that emotion is, interpreted differently by the individual listener, and the music going with it brings the lyric out even more. But all of this is really meaningless if the song doesn’t convey the artist’s personality and sincerity as a person. In the end a song is a vehicle for an artist to express him/herself and be honest.

How has your approach to songwriting changed since you first began?
I used to write only instrumentals when I first started my career. I started writing lyrics out of necessity to get things off my chest on a daily basis. Now I can’t stop writing even if it doesn’t end up on an album. It’s the most liberating thing I can imagine.

What are your top 3 all-time favorite Canadian songs?
These songs I’m listing just happen to be written by Canadians but they are in my top 3 songs of all time by anybody: “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, “Hymn To Freedom” by Oscar Peterson, and “Old Man” by Neil Young.

•••

Bahamas

Bahamas is Toronto’s Afie Jurvanen, a one-man island who is used to the big seas. He’s been playing alongside folks like Feist, Jason Collett and Amy Milan for years while quietly honing his own brand of alt-folk, man-with-a-mean-guitar songwritership. His debut album, Pink Strat, is nominated for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year.

What makes a song well-written?
Al Tuck.

How has your approach to songwriting changed since you first began?
It’s about simplicity for me. I want to tell the story quickly and clearly. And sometimes that means some strange song structures. Like no chorus…

What are your top 3 all-time favorite Canadian songs?
“Harvest Moon” by Neil Young, “What About Us?” by Doug Paisley, and “On To You” by the Constantines.

•••

Lights

Last year, Toronto-based synthpopstress Lights took the Juno for New Artist of the Year for her dreamy float-pop. This year, The Listening, her first studio album, is up for Pop Album of the Year.

What makes a song well-written, in your opinion?
I’m drawn to a song that has an anthemic, singable chorus summing up the dilemma or plot that is laid out in the verses. I like to get closure in the last few lines of the chorus lyric, the summation of the song. I love to hear a change in the sentiment of the song for the bridge, a temporary departure, before diving back into that familiar chorus once again at the end. A good song is one that you can sing along with by the end of your first listen.

How has your approach to songwriting changed since you first began?
I’ve learned how to lay out the idea I am trying to convey more coherently as my ability to place words and lyrics develops. I work harder to match and bind the melody and lyric to benefit each other symbiotically, as opposed to just finding a melody and placing lyrics on top of it when I first started writing.

What are your top 3 all-time favorite Canadian songs?
“Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell, “Tower of Song” by Leonard Cohen, and “Indian Wars” by Bruce Cockburn.

The Songwriter’s Circle, hosted by Dallas Green of City & Colour and Alexisonfire, takes place on Sunday, April 18th at the Arts and Culture Centre. For tickets, call 709-729-3900.

Juno what to do

Or maybe you don’t, and are awash in the tidal wave of Canadian music that is Juno Week.

Totally understandable! This may just be the busiest week of music for the city since, well, the last time the Junos were in town in 2002. Never fear. Whether you’ve just pulled into town, you’re already sick of it, or are simply looking to snap a selfie with Michael Bublé, we’ve got suggestions for places to be.

By Sarah Smellie • Illustrations by Ricky King

You know ‘em, you love ‘em, and you might want to touch ‘em. The city is sure to piled high with Canadian celebrity, and you want autographs, dammit! Or at least an opportunity point and gawk. Here are the best shows and events to do some serious star spotting.

Friday, April 16

Keep your stick on the ice at the Jack Byrne Arena for the Juno Cup hockey game, which pits Canadian hockey legends against Canadian music legends for a fundraising hockey game in support of MusiCounts. The first face-off goes down at 7:30pm. Allan Hawco versus Paul Coffey? We’re there.

Next, head on over to the Delta Ballroom to catch the all-ages, sold out Metric show, which starts at 9:15. They will be letting 100 lucky folks with JunoFest wristbands, so hope is not lost.

Then wrap up the evening at Trapper John’s, where Rex Goudie hits the stage at midnight.

Saturday, April 17

From 12am until 3pm, Juno Fan Fare is your chance to schmooze with all your favorite Candian music stars, including Alexisonfire, Carly Rae Jepsen, Classified, Danny Fernandes, Faber Drive, George Canyon, Johnny Reid, Shiloh, Stereos, Terri Clark, and The Road Hammers. You’ll barely notice the chains around their ankles securing them to their autograph stations! (Just kidding, we think!) This is an all-ages event. Venue is the Village Shopping Centre, and admission is free.

Alexisonfire starts rocking the second big Delta Ballroom show at 9:15. This show is all-ages, and, like the Metric show, is sold out, but they have 100 first-come-first-served spaces for JunoFest wristband holders.

Sunday, April 18

This is it! The red carpet! The Ben Mulroney sightings! Blue Rodeo! Teen sensation Justin Bieber! Bublé! Bublé! Bublé! The Juno Awards Broadcast gets rolling at Mile One Centre at 7:45pm, but you might want to show up early for a chance at some hobnobbing. Grab your tickets at admission.com or at the Mile One Centre box office.

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No matter where you’re from, if it’s not the island of Newfoundland, it’s Away. If you’d like to get better acquainted, and see who’s really filling the bars in St. John’s, check out these shows.

April 15th-20th

From April 15th to April 20th, CBTG’s is hosting The No-Case In Your Face Festival, “No-casing a multi-genre sampling of the best of St. John’s.” Highlights include the Mudflowers, Colonel Craze and the Hunch, AE Bridger and Local Tough. Check out the event at www.bit.ly/d3xtxV for the full line-up.

Friday, April 16

Let the Pathological Lovers kick start your weekend at 10pm at The Ship. Then check out the carnival-esque Mark Bragg, the wide-eyed ringmaster of a twisted, Nick Cave-like circus. He’ll be taming the animals at The Well, beginning at midnight.

Saturday, April 17

Catch a set by the wildly popular newcomers Matthew Hornell and the Diamond Minds at 10pm at the Greensleeves Pub. Then go check out more phenomenal musicianship of a different sort—the hippest-trad-band-on-the-go sort—at the Greensleeves when the Dardanelles take the stage at midnight. Saucy, electro-pop locals Mercy, the Sexton are slated to open up for Amy Millan and Land of Talk at The Ship, starting at 10pm.

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It’s actually totally cool to be a bit stoked about the whole thing, which is weird because it’s like this big-name, corporate awards show thing. But seriously, a lot of sick bands are playing.

I know, right?

Friday, April 16

The crowd at the Handsome Furs show, 10pm at Club One, will be dancing their asses off to the Furs’ signature drum-machine beat battalion and face-shredding guitar riffs. Wolf Parade yadda yadda… This is the band Dan Boeckner was made for. Then, one small, serene step away from the mighty Broken Social Scene, The Most Serene Republic bring their dense instrumentation and winding, open-heart pop epics, to The Ship at 11pm.

Saturday, April 17

Today is pretty much a hipster death match between The Ship and The Well. You might have to use Pitchfork ratings as your guide.

First up at The Well, Postdata, comprised of Wintersleep’s Paul Murphy and his brother, will break a few hearts as they strum their way through their warm and hushed collection of songs from their self-titled album, apparently recorded as a gift for their mother. Then at 11pm, Bahamas, aka Afie Jurvanen, busts out his pink Strat for a few rolling, heart-in-your-mouth-and-hands-in-your-pocket little ditties. To finish off the night, the ever-engaging Julie Doiron graces us with her fiercely delicate vocals and kickass guitar.

Over at The Ship, 11pm brings Amy Milan to the stage. Oh, she’s in Stars. She’s in Broken Social Scene. And now she’s in St. John’s, playing her low-slung and heartbroken, pedal-steel-and-Emmylou-Harris-style solo material. Next up at midnight is another Broken Social Scener’s project, Land of Talk. Elizabeth Powell fronts this one.

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If it’s a high energy show with lots of dancing you’re after, there’s plenty to choose from, but here are a handful of sure-things…

Friday, April 16

Gypsophilia, a seven-piece Django-funk-klezmer outfit from Halifax are set to burn holes in the bottoms of your shoes at Dusk (10pm). On the same night, The Novaks hit the stage at The Ship (midnight.) The kids will be out to pump their fists for St. John’s own gritty little rock outfit that could.

Meanwhile, the Idlers also play a midnight show a few blocks away at The Levee. Someone’s going to try and pack the 11-piece reggae band and their rabid entourage into this little bar. We suggest you tag along. This will be the party show.

Saturday, April 17

The Good Lovelies will be sure to charm show-goers with upbeat folk tendencies… Western swing and sugar-sweet three-part harmonies at Green Sleeves (11pm).

Meanwhile, Carolyn Mark and alt-country group N.Q. Arbuckle are all set for midnight at Trapper John’s. You cannot, not ever, beat Carolyn Mark for show-womanship. She could get up and sing Bon Iver covers all night and it’d still be a raucous, kick-up-your-heels kind of night. Have fun.