Here is a picture filled resume of the last couple of weeks.
Usually the end of April brings a bit of a lull... a decompression following the eight months of two job overdrive. I'm sure it's akin to how Evel Knievel used to feel right after jumping about twenty schoolbuses full of dynamite... roughly. This year things seem to simply ratchet up as the month closed and reopened on May.
For one, we bid our friend and compatriot Joe Merrick farewell as he set out to offer his very body as food for black flies and bears on the left coast. Our forest filled future depends upon his success to some small percentage.
Next on May 11th the next installment of Surge! rocked the Charlotte St. Art Centre. One thing I learned this time around as a front-of-house/tech person instead of performing is that some people have very large balls. I didn't learn this by cupping groins in the dark, except my own of course. Instead it was revealed as I sat near the entrance, greeting the arriving audience... a full two thirds of which showed up after the show had begun (some up to 40 minutes after), and being informed that admission was "Pay as you will" i.e. based upon your means, a goodly number gave a cow-like gaze and proceeded to their seats. Large. Balls.
On May 14th I was fortunate enough to be invited by Matte and Kora of Vetch (via Andrew Titus) to read for the Governor General of Canada on her brief tour of New Brunswick. I bought fancy clothes... even fancier than my Warrant 3/4 sleeve and Jordache jeans... an actual suit jacket and fancy pants. The rest I had (sorta), and the purchases were mostly second hand. There was a brief moment where it looked like my fellow literary types and I might spend most of the evening at Tim Hortons on King since The Blue Door (where the shindig was held) hadn't saved seating for us... but something soon opened up and we were able to enjoy and spectacular view of... the stairwell going upstairs and a sideview of the stage where the musicians were performing. We could also kinda hear the music. Only when at the mic did I get my first glimpse of Her Excellency and Her Excellent Husband. The reading went quite well and we were treated to an audience with her and her entourage after the entertainment had wrapped. All cynical expectations of quick service of handshakes was dispelled when we had a good half hour of "actual conversation" time... who'd-a thunk?
A couple of days later it was off to the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. It's a music festival in Quebec (about halfway between Quebec City and Montreal) that I've covered for Exclaim! for the last 8-9 years. It's extremely well run and a pleasure to attend. This year I went up with M. who had initially planned a three-city multitasking sort've vacation but eventually pared down to just the festival.
We met Marc LeBlanc there... he has been my wingman in all previous years as well... at the residence of the Cegep in Victoriaville. I should say we actually got there about and hour before and went to the residence to find him... but he hadn't shown up yet. So while waiting I went to take a look at our room. Marc had specified in the reservation that he wanted a Suite... basically two small rooms linked by an antechamber that has it's own shower and washroom. When I asked the cardplaying student security in the lobby they looked on their flowchart and said, "No, no, no... we have him in a double bedroom." As is turns out a "double bedrooom" is a bedroom with a double bed... and no bathroom attached... and showers that are stalls out in the hallway. After being told there were three of us staying there the young lady said, "I'll go down and have them install a cot." I backed slowly away and said thanks and see you later and fled the building... bumping into Marc who'd just arrived. We quickly regrouped and headed over the a nearby hotel that thankfully had a room for all four nights of our stay. We bought a Hawaiian Pizza and some beer and briefly celebrated before heading over for the first show:
8pm Cinéma Laurier
Marilyn Crispell, a longtime festival friend performed with a quartet... her on piano, Lotte Anker on woodwinds, Mark Helias on double bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. It was a nice opener with a mix of free play and composed pieces, often alternating within performance. Cyrille's drums seemed to be a little staid, all similarly tuned and unfocused... but eventually he came around and actually had some of the brightest moments toward the end of the set.10:00pm Colisée
Corkestra. Led by Cor Fuhler on piano this group featured members of The Ex and ICP Orchestra. They billed themselves, jokingly, as "New Dutch Swing," a tag that wasn't without merit given their intricate and interlocking play of parts that included two drummer / percussionists, a three piece woodwind section, a "Cimbalom" player (seemingly a homemade, prepared xylophone of sorts) and a double bass player that looked like he was hired by central casting to be a "swingin' cat." Push-to-shove this was probably my favourite show of the festival... it featured just the right blend of melody and invention, from the small group excursions into improv that were eventually coralled and brought back to a central theme... it never lagged for a moment.Midnight Cégep
Not pictured is Jean-François Laporte who performed
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DAY 2
1:00pm Cinéma Laurier
Michael Snow, Alan Licht and Aki Onda. Not an immediately obvious trio. Snow is a Canadian trailblazer in all things avant garde in music, theatre and film... Licht is a NYC (primarily) guitarist who has played indie rock in groups like Run On, large ensemble jazz/noise in Mandarin Movie and released fairly delicate solo works, such as New York Minute on Phill Niblock's XI records... and Onda is a Japanese/Korean artist who's known for his improvisational work with cassettes. Their ability to listen and incoporate Snow's piano sounds and old school electronics with Licht's treated guitar and Onda's on-the-fly loops and washes of noise made for an engaging listen.5:00pm Cégep
Theresa Transistor. A quartet of Electroacoustic musicians improvising... not something that's usually within their scope of work. Electroacoustic composition usually involves meticulous placement of sounds recorded from "natural" sources (i.e. non-musical) along a manipulated timeline in a kind of narrative. Spontaneity isn't in that job description. Monique Jean, Christian Bouchard, Christian Calon and Mario Gauthier, all Quebec artists, did a commendable job of transporting sound within a multi-speaker, multi-source system... but trying to conjure a distinct memory of the experience seems to pose some problem for me at the moment. The closing moments featured a portable interchange between pocket radio and walkie talkie. I guess that would be a distinct memory
Midnight Cégep
Koenji Hyakkei. Japanese 5-piece led by Ruins drummer/vocalist Tatsuya Yoshida, they bridge the metal, jazz, prog, even opera genres with a heavy precise attack. It's generally the kind of thing that wears on me, but the instrumentation (drums, bass, sax, keyboards and voice) is a little offbeat and overt showmanship is downplayed in favour of fun and group dynamic. A high energy way to end the day.
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DAY 3
1:00pm Cinéma Laurier
Signal Quintet. Being convened by Cut label boss Jason Kahn this group of European improvisers hypnotized with a minimalist flow of sizzling electronics, stringed drones and occasionals storms of noise. Kahn and For4Ears capo Günter Müller have released a trio of live albums on Müller's label and the sound from those was well represented here. Kahn and Müller have similar approaches in turning organic and percussive sounds into synthetic pulses (Kahn spent a large portion of the show finger tapping a floor tom and loose cymbals).Tomas Körber follows in the line of European tabletop guitarists who seldom actually touch their guitar, instead manipulating the feedback gently and evocatively through a network of effects. Christian Weber played bowed standup bass for extra drone texture, but also refreshingly did not shy away from occasional musicality... giving the rest of the sound something to hang up from time to time. Shrouded in darkness was Norber Möslang, formerly of Voice Crack, with a table full of homemade electronic toys, some of them light-activated, necessitating his shadowy countenance.
3:00pm Colisée
Victoriaville Matiere Sonore. Sound art seldom makes it's way into the biggest of the venues... but when it does the room's massive sound system makes for an enveloping atmosphere. Curated by Spanish artist Francisco Lopéz (who lives part of the time in Montreal), the source material for this programme was recorded in various public and private spaces in Victoriaville by several of the participants during the previous winter. This sound bank was then used by eight artists to craft their electroacoustic portrait of the town... performed one after another in the large hall. Predictably some pieces were more accomplished than others, but while the artists were introduced by name their unclear order (other than Lopez as the closer) rendered them a little mysterious identitywise. Of those "known" artists Tomas Phillips, Lopez and Chantal Dumas' pieces stood out. Each began with quiet birdsong and went into varied terrain, such as an ambient wash built from the sounds of a hockey game punctuated by referee whistles; layered conversations in malls and living rooms with snatches of interchange made more obviously audible; others, including Lopez, preferred to obfuscate the sources, melding them instead in layers of frequency and complexity to tickle and overload the soundscape.5:00pm Cégep
Larry Peacock. A difficult bird to name... this "artist" is actually a trio of German women who, for the purposes of performance, take on male personas and multiple roles. Andrea Neumann and Sabine Ercklentz are well respected minimalist improvisers on piano soundboard frame and electronics-enhanced trumpet respectively. In this trio they primarily function as backing band for Antonia Behr's frontman character, Henri Fleur. Through a pastiche of tongue-in-cheek electropop tracks (some featuring pre-recorded music, lip-synching, dance routines, spoken word introductions) they explode issues of gender, nationality and audience expectations in modern music.8:00pm Cinéma Laurier
Carla Bozulich. Having had a career that dates back a couple decades and crawled out of punk and jazz/metal subgenres through bands like Ethyl Meatplow, Carla became more visible in the early 90s with the high energy alt. country band Geraldine Fibbers. In recent days she's performed in a left of center duo with Nels Cline and solo... gaining notice for her song-by-song cover of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger and last year's Evangelista on Constellation Records. It was primarily from the latter that the show was drawn... assisted by ladies of the Montreal scene and her right hand bassist Tara. By far the loosest, sloppiest and warmest show of the festival, it was a wonderful counterpoint: the heart taking over for the brain if only for a while.10:00pm Colisée
Acid Mothers Gong. Did I say the Bozulich show was the loosest and sloppiest? Well this one upped the ante... but given the more jammed-out nature of the set it fit. A melding of Japan's premiere heavy psychedelic collective, augmented here by Tatsuya Yoshida on drums and
Midnight Cégep
Magik Markers. Stripped down to a two piece, the best way to explain MM is to suggest a White Stripes where Meg played guitar, Jack Drummed and they listened to Sonic Youth's "Shaking Hell" for inspiration. Pete Nolan keeps things nailed down for Elisa Ambrogio who dresses and approaches the guitar like an angry eleven year old... that is until she opens her mouth and this soulful blues lady voice comes out. But the crux of the show is the tension that builds and explodes into a crush of feedback and wailing... seemingly to be just barely under any control.---------------
DAY 4
1:00pm Cinéma Laurier
Quasar/Alexandre Burton/Julien Roy. A saxophone quartet and a couple of laptop loopers... Burton and Roy set up digital cameras in the mic stands of the players and grabbed brief moments of their live playing, then would loop both video and audio, projected in tetris blocks on three screens at the stage's rear. The novelty of the process was engaging, but as with most novelty it's capacity was soon met and exhausted. The music, perhaps overshadowed by the technology at the beginning, was competent... but not very memorable.3:00 pm Colisée
Anthony BraxtonDiamond Curtain Wall Trio. Returning to Victo with two shows after only a year away, Braxton's DCWT project is unveiled, revealing a new interest in technology... here in the form of laptop Supercollider software. The electronics acted as a kind of untreated granular feedback that would normally be manipulated and shaped by a perfomer, but here was left to provide a kind of backdrop the three players bounced off of (hence the name, I suppose). Given this lattitude the trio, Braxton with trumpet player Taylor Ho Bynum and guitarist Mary Halvorson, was able to patiently explore the smaller spaces of sound that existed between them.
5:00pm Cégep
Fine Kwiatkowski/Hans Tammen. Dance isn't usually featured at the festival, but this duo make an argument for its inclusion. Kwiatkowski apparently trained as an acrobat and mime and her dance improvisations reflect this blend of flexibility and expressiveness. Stark and minimal lighting enhanced a gray shaded performance that mixed extremities of force and fragility. Tammen's laptop-channelled guitar similarly went from whisper to scream as the two fed off each other's energy.
8:00pm Cinéma Laurier
Wishart/Kurzmann/Dafeldecker. Originally slated as a quartet with pianist and elder statesman John Tilbury, this was trimmed back to a trio when Tilbury's doctor advised against travel due to health concerns. Perhaps it was his absence that muted the resulting set. Christof Kurzmann's laptop burbling was fairly evocative and Stevie Wishart explored the noise and drone of her hurdy gurdy with skill, but ultimately failed to really connect with a listless Werner Dafeldecker on bowed bass and electronics. Dafeldecker seemed to be attempting a much more restrained and microscopic sound while the other two pulled upwards into a more crowded soundspace. Moments of transcendence aside neither camp succeeded in convincing the other.------
DAY 5
The drive back... we left Victoriaville around 9:30-10am and headed for the U.S. border at Jackman (we saw no Wolverines... in case you wondered.
Along the way we passed through a few smaller Quebec towns including Thetford Mines (I think) that featured an omninous and towering pile of some mined material dominating it's landscape. I snapped a few pictures on the way by, but it wasn't until I looked at them on the computer that I noticed the word LIBERTÉ had been scratched near the top of the mound. If you click and enlarge it you can see it a little better.
There were a few overlooks that had no real foreground reference points to indicate scale... trust me though... pretty. Why would we have stopped otherwise?
As the day wore on hunger took over so we stopped in Skowhegan at the Empire Grill. Small towns in Maine are reminders that Fredericton turns it's back on it's own small town-ness. In Maine (as in outlying areas in N.B.) places seem more lived in, worn down. Most restaurants in Fredericton look like they might've just opened the week before. Exceptions exist, like The Cabin or Joe's... but they are out of the downtown core. If there was an Empire Grill in Fredericton I'd like eat there 3 times a week.
We stopped in Bangor for a few hours. M. went off clothes shopping and I got dropped off at Bull Moose Records to peruse their surprisingly stocked shelves. Used Cd-wise they more or less follow most new/used store templates with a few hidden gems (I picked up an Early Day Miners disc and passed on a Coachwhips I wasn't sure about and the Animal Collective 2 disc set, Spirit They've Gone/Danse Manatee, because I have the original version of the first disc), but it's their DVD selection that impresses. A lot of cult horror and Asian cinema titles both new and used. I ended up getting a copy of Takehashi Miike's Audition and the Spanish version of Vanilla Sky, Alejandro Amenabar's Abre los oyos. I reconoitered with M. over at Borders. Because Maine doesn't seem to believe in crosswalks I had to dart over highways and even had to startle a woodchuck as I hopped over a stream bed between a strip mall and the Borders building. After a little browsing we headed over to Target to grab a snack, some Italian Soda and then hit the road again.
The tales of what came next will follow... I'm tired and my wrists hurt.
Cheers.
