vintage

Wordpress update! My dashboard is all fancy! I keep hitting the wrong buttons and messing things up — it’s fun.

Okay, here’s the rest of the good stuff from the Calgary Folk Music Festival, and some little treats for you too.

Best musical discoveries:

Luluc (Australia)
I bought their album on the strength of the first song I heard them play — not a bad first impression! Luluc are a beautifully folky duo with wispy harmonies and a really understated sound; their stage banter at the festival was adorable, slightly self-conscious, and full of that fabulous Aussie accent. Their album, Dear Hamlyn, is very sparse and true to their live sound, and I can’t think of a better piece of it to offer you than the song that first grabbed my attention: One Day Soon

Good Lovelies (Canada)
A more enthusiastic trio of ladies there never was, and the Good Lovelies clearly love performing and being on stage. The three women continue the tradition laid out by the Boswell and Andrews Sisters, harmonizing like you’ve never heard and adding sly winks all over the place; they make it seem like their job is the easiest thing in the world. If you don’t crack a smile within the first thirty seconds of a Good Lovelies concert, you’re probably not listening. Check out their version of the classic folk tune Clementine.

Bellowhead (United Kingdom)
The name “Bellowhead” must be synonymous with the word “party”, given their performances at this year’s festival. I guess I will talk more about them in the next list (sorry for the overlap, but I really couldn’t leave them out!) — but for now I will simply say that nobody has made English folk songs sound quite so appealing as this sprawling 11-piece band has. Just a word of warning, though: their studio albums sound terrific, but they don’t even begin to hint at the energy the band has live. Videos come closer: check out this one of London Town at the Royal Albert Hall.

The Deep Dark Woods (Canada)
I’ve been hearing this name thrown around for ages, and I wish I had been curious enough to check them out earlier. Saskatchewan’s Deep Dark Woods deliver a brand of country/folk that fits their name perfectly: slightly dark and brooding, but also a little gritty. I can’t think of proper adjectives that fit the “woods” part. Pine-scented? Anyway, they really feel like country done the way country should be — there’s a whole post there! Have a listen to All The Money I Had Is Gone (too topical? Sorry).

And of course, no folk festival list would be complete without a rundown of the best mainstage performances of the festival, so without further ado …

The Decemberists
They came out on stage without even an introduction and immediately played their entire new album, The Hazards of Love, with barely a stop. It was dramatic, swashbuckling, theatrical, and absolutely incredible. AND THEN they came out to do a soaring encore of the one song I had been crossing my fingers all night to hear — “Sons and Daughters,” the final track from The Crane Wife — and coaxed the entire audience of 12,000 to sing the chorus with them, until it pulsed in our chests all the way home. There’s not much more I could have asked for.

Mavis Staples
Even though her set list was pretty much the same as when she played Massey Hall, it was no less impressive. I am still flabbergasted that she is seventy years old — she can still outperform nearly anybody. Her version of “The Weight” is still one of the best covers ever, and “Wade in the Water” was delectable when complemented by her backup vocalists. The cherry on top of the whole affair was the last song, the Staple Singers’ famous “I’ll Take You There” — even though it was still the afternoon, people were up, dancing, and singing along like an old style revival. Now that’s a show.

Glen Campbell
Yeah, the Rhinestone Cowboy. That guy. I was shocked when I saw his name on the folk festival lineup, but let’s face it, the prospect of hearing him play “Wichita Lineman” was enough for me to miss the entire Akron/Family set over at the Twilight stage. And wow, was it worth it: Campbell clearly loves performing, and he’s quite obviously grateful to his audience for letting him go on doing it for so long. We were rewarded with the expected hits (“Galveston,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and the aforementioned “Wichita Lineman,” as well as a singalong finale of “Rhinestone Cowboy”), but we also heard some of the covers he did on his latest, including Tom Petty’s “Walls” and U2’s “All I Want Is You”. I have to say that a personal highlight was the blistering rendition of Rossini’s overture to William Tell — Campbell’s guitar work was blistering, and rightly so, for he was once one of the best session guitarists in the world. Live and learn. I’d go see him again in a flash.

Bellowhead
I’ve probably already said enough about these guys, but here I go again. First of all, there’s eleven of them. Second of all, their instruments range from fiddle and guitar to Sousaphone, oboe and accordion. Third, many of them are acclaimed, even award-winning, step dancers. And fourth, they play almost exclusively English folk songs (albeit with the odd disco beat). When you put all of this together and throw them on stage on a Saturday evening, you get what was undoubtedly the biggest party of the weekend. They could have played for three hours and nobody would have complained, except for potential exhaustion — it’s not often you get 12,000 people trying to imitate dancing like that. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’ll take it!

Gomez
My dad confessed that he was expecting a Latin American band, judging by the name. This is the first clue that Gomez aren’t entirely what you expect them to be. They’re a bunch of white dudes from England, first of all — not quite what their moniker might suggest — and they fuse a surprisingly folky element into their songs, which are the perfect soundtrack for summer. They have a lot of pop sensibilities and some of the usual indie rock sounds, but they also just want to have a really good time on stage, and that translates into a fabulous time for the audience too. The general sentiment around was that we’d all have been singing along to every song if we’d just known the words. Next time they’ll have a few thousand more people to prompt them.

Honourable mentions to Alejandro Escovedo, Arrested Development, Iron & Wine, The Sojourners and Umalali. So, really, everybody.

I’d also like to mention that if anyone is in New York City this fall, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig are starring in a Broadway production of Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain. It’s not a musical (those scared off by The Boy From Oz can tiptoe back now), but rather a play — one which has already made a pretty good name for itself, selling out two different engagements in Chicago and garnering all sorts of critical attention. Although it’s Craig’s first time on Broadway, I’m sure it will be a blistering performance on the part of both men — the story is pretty fascinating and, you know, they’ve both had a bit of experience acting here and there. No big deal.

And, in other news, the Toronto garbage strike is over! YEAHHHHH

I’ve decided to change my review format for the rest of the folk fest stuff, because quite frankly, I like making lists and you probably like reading them. If not, tough luck: here’s the Folk Festival List of Lists, Part I!

For those of you who are unaware, the festival’s all-day portions (Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 until 5:30) are made up mostly of workshops, which throw together a few different artists and make them play together for an hour or so. They are by far the most interesting, intriguing, and often surprising parts of the festival, and all of them have a theme attached to them which the musicians can draw from as much or as little as they like. To convey the theme, the clever festival staff assign them really great names. I went through them all and picked my favourites.

Best workshop names

Some Country for Bold Men
Start Making Sense
All Rebel Rockers
The Harder They Strum
and the crowning glory: Strum und Twang!

In that vein, my list of best workshops (at least out of the ones I managed to take in: the schedule is a real feat of organization!):

Some Country for Bold Men
(Danny Barnes, The Deep Dark Woods, Luluc, The Good Lovelies)
As you might expect, a whole heck of a lot of country. Danny Barnes’ blazing bluegrass was a major highlight, as was the fact that all the musicians actually joined in everything — sometimes workshops turn into awkward “you play a tune, now I’ll play a tune” sessions, and then the whole point is lost. Thankfully, none of these musicians could keep themselves from playing along, and it turned into a pretty boot-stompin’ party, tempered by the occasional downtempo folky tune in exactly the right places. The final jam tune, “I Saw The Light,” not only had everyone on stage singing but everyone in the audience too. Not bad for a Sunday morning!
(I actually bought CDs by both Luluc and The Deep Dark Woods purely on the merit of this one workshop — I hadn’t seen either before, but their measly three songs each convinced me. It was that good. I’d have bought the Good Lovelies’ CD too, but my sister beat me to it!)

Cooking With Brass
(Tarhana, Bell Orchestre, Mirah, Bellowhead)
This stage contained everything from fiddles to Sousaphone to saxophones to accordions. It was like Broken Social Scene if they had gone through high school band together or something — I think I counted twenty musicians stuffed onto that little stage. Tarhana led everybody in raucous Turkish folk jams with a ridiculous amount of groove, and Bellowhead reviewed a few of the previous night’s mainstage favourites. It was loud, brassy, and a hell of a lot of fun. The “dancing section” along the side was hopping, which is a good a sign as any that you probably picked the right stage.

The Yonge & The Restless
(Sarah Harmer, Steven Page, The Good Lovelies, Justin Rutledge)
A Toronto-centric workshop in Alberta? Potentially risky, but it just seemed to justify everybody making jokes about the garbage strike and constant rainstorms. The musical combinations of all those voices was, however, totally fantastic. Steven Page was awkwardly on edge, although not as badly as he was during his later mainstage performance — he even broke out “Jane” later in the session! Justin Rutledge led everyone in a singalong of his adorable “Don’t Be So Mean, Jellybean”, which never gets old.

Another World
(Pacifika, The Acorn, Tarhana)
Pacifika’s members come from Peru, Barbados and Canada. The Acorn is an Ottawa mainstay, and Tarhana base themselves in Amsterdam and play Balkan and Oriental folk music. The sheer number of different folk traditions included in this session is astounding, and I’m sure you can imagine the sounds that emanated from the stage once things got cooking. The afternoon was just full of infectious groove and danceability … is that even a word? To be honest, I think this session created it. That was a combination I would love to see happen again.

Guided By Voices
(Akron/Family, The Good Lovelies, Umalali, Dry Branch Fire Squad)
Again, as you might expect from the clever titling, this one was meant to be voice-guided. I don’t think they even needed to prompt them with that, though, because the voices in this combination of artists are so strong that it would have been the standout point anyway. The Good Lovelies are just, well, lovely — their Boswell Sisters cover was delightful — and Umalali are one gigantic party. Pair the latter with Akron/Family and you get something fairly out of this world. Since this one was in the festival’s final round of workshops, it was especially difficult to leave: I could have listened to that for days!

—

Coming tomorrow: List of Lists Part II, featuring the best mainstage performances and new musical discoveries of this year’s festival. Complete with tunes for your auditory enjoyment! See you tomorrow.

All done for another year!

I’m sorely lacking in sleep, so there won’t be a full review until tomorrow, but I do want to mention a few things while I’m here.

First things first: Bellowhead are your new favourite party band. If they are ever in your neighbourhood (if you live in the UK, the chances of this happening are far greater), see them. You will not be disappointed. They tore up the mainstage crowd on Saturday night and promptly sold out of CDs at the record tent before I got to it.

Australian duo Luluc are among my favourite discoveries of the festival; I believe they are playing in Toronto and Montreal shortly, although they haven’t posted the dates on their websites, so it might just be up to chance. If you live in either of these cities and see them on a poster, check it out. More about them soon.

Another favourite discovery is Toronto’s The Good Lovelies, who are exceptionally good and, yes, really lovely too. More about them soon too; they’re just such a fun trio that I will probably spend pages talking about how great they were this weekend.

I’d say everything added up pretty well today too. Overcast skies and a perfect temperature, no rain, and magnificent workshops. Justin Rutledge and Carolyn Mark rode gaily by me in a golf cart during the evening mainstage performance; Mavis Staples played her cover of “The Weight” and closed with the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”; Loreena McKennitt played “The Mummer’s Dance” and “The Lady of Shalott”, and Bellowhead’s John Spiers, Jon Boden, Gideon Juckes and Brendan Kelly treated us a second time to their version of “London Town”, the one that had turned Prince’s Island Park into a 12,000-strong dance party on Saturday night. Not bad for a lazy Sunday.

Full recaps, lists, and a handful of mp3s to follow! But first … to bed. Ahhhh.

(Addendum: I just had a look and my top search hit since this post is “michael franti appendix”. I’ll leave you to think about that one yourselves.)

I’ll keep this as short as possible. My bed awaits, and so does the 9:30 gates time for tomorrow’s workshops …

Highlights of the night:

- The Decemberists performing all of The Hazards of Love front to back, full of theatrics and soaring melodies and crescendos — AND THEN coming out for an encore to play “Sons & Daughters,” also known as the one song that I was absolutely dying to hear them perform. It ended with a beautiful singalong of the final refrain, all twelve thousand of us breaking the noise bylaw with great joy and gusto.

- Arrested Development making the entire park into a big dance party. Never mind that most of us can’t actually pull off the dance moves they encouraged us to imitate; it was still fun.

- The millions of adorable festival babies, including one who was propped up on his mommy’s shoulders “dancing”. Aw. Death by cute.

- Gomez, just in general. An excellent set by a group of guys who were obviously just having a great time onstage. And they played the one song I actually know, which was nice.

Bell Orchestre and Lee Harvey Osmond (not Oswald!) were also marvelous, including the trumpet player from the former playing into the bell of the French horn. Nice move.

Greatest number of toonies carried on my person at one moment: 8

Celebrities I thought I spotted in the crowd before I realised the heat was probably just making me hallucinate: Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, Emma Watson (what was in my dinner?)

Two more days to go!

Let’s hear it for the Calgary Folk Music Festival! Faced with an eleventh-hour cancellation by tonight’s headliner Michael Franti, who was suffering a ruptured appendix (and apparently was heading for surgery this evening), the festival went on remarkably smoothly. Iron & Wine, the second-to-last act of the evening, was bumped up to the prime slot and Toronto’s Woodchoppers Association, founded by original Rheostatics drummer Dave Clark, was brought in to fill the gap. It went off without a hitch, except for a few disgruntled Spearhead fans’ complaints, but nobody can really fault Franti for not being able to play.

I missed the first act, Los Misioneros del Norte, but I made sure I was back at home base for one of my most loved musicians these days, Justin Rutledge. He graced us with a bunch of gooders from Man Descending (including “St. Peter” and “Greenwich Time,” two of my favourites!) as well as “The Suffering of Pepe O’Malley, Pt III” and “Lay Me Down Sweet Jesus” from No Never Alone. It was curiously satisfying to see the latter at the folk festival, because although I’ve seen him perform it a few times, the first time I ever heard the song was when legendary Canadian blues guy Jim Byrnes covered it at the festival in 2007. Ah, the circle!

Greatly enjoyed the fusion stylings of Umalali as well — what a groove! — and the Woodchoppers really upped the ante with their genre-bending, joyful mayhem on stage. (Not bad for a last-minute mainstage addition.) And of course, Iron & Wine … I can only imagine how intimidating it must be to be on a stage that enormous by oneself, let alone perform with such a casual, familiar attitude. Perhaps it’s just the atmosphere of the festival itself. At one point, the crowd cheered and yelled after a particular song and he quipped “Is this a Canadian riot?” Oh, very funny. Welcome to the land north of the 49th.

I’ll keep this brief, but before I sign off I wanted to point out something awesome: Glen Campbell’s latest record, Meet Glen Campbell (released August 2008). He’s a mainstage act on Saturday night, and I’ve heard many an interesting tidbit about this record, so I investigated. Well, not only is it an album full of covers, but the list of artists whose songs he borrows is pretty incredible: Travis, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Foo Fighters, Jackson Browne, The Replacements, U2, Velvet Underground, Green Day, and John Lennon. Yeah — Glen Campbell covers “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, that song that’s been played at every high school grad since 1997. And I really want to hear him do Tom Petty and Jackson Browne. It could be awful, a product of an old star trying to connect with the whippersnappers, but I have a feeling that it’s probably awesome. I mean, “Wichita Lineman”. Do I have to continue?

I’ll try to check in daily to let you know how things are going, but it’ll be a quick turnaround between night and morning for the next two days, so updates might be scarce. You can always check out my Twitter, though — I’ll be updating “from the field” every day. And if that’s not enough, the Twitter hashtag #cfmf will provide you with posts from all folk festival Tweeters using the tag!

See you tomorrow — Bell Orchestre, Gomez, Akron/Family, Chad VanGaalen, and the Decemberists (!!!), and more besides. Whew!

I’m finally enjoying a somewhat stable internet connection … if it lasts a few minutes, you might even read this. TECHNOLOGY!

The marvelous Toronto Fringe Festival has been underway for the better part of a week now, and I am throwing myself headfirst into the fray. This year’s lineup features 150 performances of all stripes by both up-and-coming and established performing acts — comedy, drama, musical theatre, improv, kids’ theatre, you name it. Tickets are $10 maximum, and a jaw-dropping one hundred percent of the proceeds go directly to the performing artists. Now that’s a festival. Fringe, of course, is left with empty pockets, and instead runs on donations and grants. So if you see a play and like it, donate — it’s the only way to keep the festival coming back!

I’ve seen three Fringe performances so far (not bad for thirty bucks); in case you’re planning to head out into the madness, here’s how they turned out.

The List (directed by Becky Bridger), running at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse at the University of Toronto, is magnificent. Over 40 women were interviewed about their list of qualities they look for in a partner; these interviews were then turned into a play. Four actors — Sara Beck, Jennifer Kenneally, Amy Symington and Chloe Whitehorn — play all of these women, sometimes in monologues, sometimes interacting with one another. The result is a very powerful and very personal collection of snapshots. There’s a lot of humour involved, and a lot of moments where you look around and see various audience members nodding their heads in knowing agreement. Everyone at this show is able to relate to at least one of the characters, and that’s probably what makes it the most interesting to watch — sometimes it’s like looking in a mirror.

Sara Hennessey Town (written by and starring Sara Hennessey), at the Theatre Passe Muraille backspace, was a little less magnificent. It starts off hilarious and sort of ends with a whimper. The whole show is a collection of stand-up routines, sketches, videos, and other little morsels to make up a one-hour show. Some of them are fantastic — Hennessey’s stand-up is by far the best part of the show — and some of them are a bit bewildering, like her ending sketch of a girl going to a job interview on the subway. Maybe I just don’t get her humour; more likely, maybe I should just see her do stand-up. Hennessey is a major player in the Toronto comedy scene and runs shows at the Ossington and the Rivoli (the popular Hour of Power at Laugh Sabbath). Sara Hennessey Town wasn’t the best show I’ve seen at Fringe so far, but I had a good time, and the sketches that were good were really good.

But even Hennessey’s best can’t compete with what might be the best thing at the Toronto Fringe Festival this year: Parker & Seville, otherwise known as Dave Barclay and Matt Kowall, supported by the curmudgeonly talents of Tim Gilbert. They’re playing every day in the illustrious venue of Honest Ed’s — the grocery area in the basement, to be exact — and it’s a perfect venue for the over-the-top vaudeville act they put on. The show is supposed to be a retrospective of the lives of the duo, narrated after their deaths by their grumpy old ex-manager, Mr McGudgeon: as the program says, the audiences watches as they “go from rags to rags and back again”. In between, there are as many politically incorrect, offensive, and/or ridiculous jokes as they can fit. Mothers in law, death, Randy Jackson, barfing, prostitutes, the Queen’s nether regions, ghosts, and just about every other subject imaginable are all treated with the same irreverence and occasionally ill-fated ad-libbing. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life (not even at The Hangover, and that movie literally almost broke me) … and I saw the show twice.

Maybe it’s due to their willingness to be sloppy and turn the preposterous factor up to 11. There are moments where Kowall laughs so hard that things have to stop for a second; other times, Barclay starts ad-libbing and momentarily loses his assumed accent. And Gilbert steals the show nearly every time he steps on stage — if there were awards for funniest people in Toronto, it would be a crime for him not to head the list. If you see one performance at Toronto Fringe, see the Parker & Seville Show; if you see two, see it twice.

Remaining performance times for all shows after the jump. Thanks for being patient with Vintage — we’ll be back to normal someday …

(Also, briefly in case I have no internet for another two weeks: the Zunior 5th anniversary bash at the Tranzac on June 27 was amazing, and Sonic Youth at Massey Hall on June 30 was also amazing. Reviews to follow eventually, whenever they make it onto the web.)

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I re-read my NXNE post (which did not get posted on time) and I discovered that I didn’t say much of note except for “This was really great!” and “That was terrific!” and so I decided to axe it. Here is the short version of the very, very, very small number of things that I attended.

The Burning Hell @ the Horseshoe Tavern: This band is amazing. They are coming off the release of their second full-length, Baby, and I think they get more energetic every time I see them. The bonus of this show is that they were almost all rip-roaring drunk, particularly Mathias (the frontman, brain, and master ukulele-man behind the project), which added about ten thousand energy points. “Grave Situation Pt. 1″ has never sounded so good, and I was amazed both at the number of people filling the ‘Shoe for their set and at how many of those people were raucously yelling along to most of the songs.

Six Shooter Records BBQ: For those unaware of the recent tradition, Six Shooter Records hosts a backlot BBQ on the Saturday of NXNE behind their store on Queen East. This year it poured fairly aggressively, but it was still packed full of umbrella-wielding, good-humoured folks; NQ Arbuckle, the afternoon’s host, definitely fits into the latter category. I believe the margaritas may have contributed to his good humour later in the day, but nonetheless, he did magnificently. There were great, and I mean great, performances by the likes of Justin Rutledge (including a rockin’ version of his “jellybean song”), The Beauties, Luke Doucet, Martin Tielli — yeah! — backed by Luke Doucet and Selina Martin, Rose Cousins, and a bunch of others too. Highlights included … well, the whole thing. I am sure you can imagine what the original post looked like.

And that’s about all I did. We played a show at Mitzi’s Sister on the Saturday night, though, and Chart magazine loved us. So that’s something! (I apologise for shameless self-promotion; in my defense, it has been quite some time since that happened around these parts.)

Much shorter than the last post, and hopefully you’ll actually get to read it this time! I hope things get interesting around here again so I have things to talk about. I am working my way through a couple of books (Claudia Dey’s Stunt and Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany), so when I finish them — which will be soon — perhaps you will see some musings.

Ho hum, summertime, etc.

Toronto favourite Dave Bidini just doesn’t quit. Best known as a Rheostatic for 27 years (their final show was in March 2007 at Massey Hall, and it still tops the list of shows I regret missing — I was at a rehearsal literally around the corner), Bidini has also written a handful of books and adapted one into a play, and now he’s just released his first solo album with his co-conspirators under the name Bidiniband. It’s called The Land Is Wild, and also features Paul Linklater, Doug Friesen and Don Kerr, as well as a healthy list of guests.

To celebrate the album’s release, Bidini not only put on a show at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern last weekend, but also organized a “Hoser March”, beginning at Soundscapes with a Bidiniband in-store performance and working its way through Kensington Market to end at the Shoe. Stops on the way included She Said Boom!, with a fabulous reading by Claudia Dey; This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, including performances by Justin Rutledge and Gregory Samsung; Graffiti’s, with more Bidiniband (and a hilarious version of Joan Osbourne’s “If God Was One Of Us”!); and The Cameron House, with the Billie Hollies and Aurora Brown.

I must say that the march itself was a little anticlimactic — I was expecting to hoot and holler and stomp our way through the streets of Toronto, but it was more like a scraggly walk between venues. Some of the performances more than made up for that, though, including Gregory Samsung’s hilarious “The Book of Hosers”: reworked lyrics to “The Book of Love,” which we all sang on the street in front of This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, much to the amusement of the surrounding bars. Here’s a selection:

The book of Hosers is long and interesting
But everyone’s too drunk to lift the damn thing
It’s full of toques and literature and hockey
And instructions for rolling joints

But I love it when you give me things
You ought to give me wedding rings
I want to be like Geddy Lee
You have a dog with lotsa fleas
I dream of drinking from the Cup
You can you lend me 20 bucks

Blatant copyright infringement notwithstanding, it was an excellent singalong.

The Bidiniband release party at the ‘Shoe was kick-started by a performance from the excellently-named Tres Bien Ensemble, followed by Laura Barrett (avec magnificent band). I missed most of the former, but Laura’s set sounded terrific, and Randy Lee’s strings sounded better than most things I’ve heard at the Horseshoe. By the time Bidini and friends hit the stage, the place was still deplorably empty, considering the Rheos are mainstays there. Too bad. They sure didn’t let us down, though, playing most of the tracks from the new record and a large handful of other things besides (including a triumphant ending at 2:00 in the morning with “Horses” from the legendary Melville).

I’m unable to upload tracks since I still don’t have a stable internet connection — Tunesday is still on hold — but you can check out Dave’s official website … or watch the video of “The Land Is Wild” as Hockey Night in Canada theme song for Game 4 of Pittsburgh/Carolina here (!). There are few people more Canadian than Bidini.

Also happening in Toronto is the giant Luminato festival, co-presented by L’Oréal and billed as a celebration of arts and creativity. The ten-day culture explosion includes everything: music, dance, opera, theatre, film, photography, painting, etc. Part of their musical component is a bunch of programming centred around the guitar, and on Sunday, Yonge/Dundas Square hosted an all-day free music series with some pretty remarkable artists: I managed to make it there in time to see Jerry Douglas, bluegrass dobro player extraordinaire; Sonny Landreth, ridiculously soulful Louisiana guitarist (you might remember hearing about him before); The Campbell Brothers, who probably groove more than any other human beings on this Earth, maybe even Stevie Wonder; and Canadian producer and guitarist Daniel Lanois (solo). All for free! You don’t get much better than that, and it was pretty amazing. I think I’d like to hug the person responsible for programming that day. Do yourself a favour and see the Campbell Brothers and Jerry Douglas when you get the chance — I was blown away.

Kicking off the Luminato guitar festival was a show at Massey Hall on June 5 called “Three Girls and Their Buddy”: Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller. I probably don’t even need to talk about the show at all, since that lineup absolutely speaks for itself — it was, of course, terrific. Exceptional highlights included Miller’s solo cover of The Left Banke’s “Walk Away, Renée” and the three women singing “Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby” a cappella for the encore (if you’ve seen O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you’ll remember it sung by Emmylou, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch). Whew.

Summer in Toronto! It’s a good one. Stay tuned for more Luminato and other stuff.

Or, more appropriately, “sitting on my ass for 84 days” — because that’s how long we were out of school during the mammoth CUPE 3903 strike at York University. The Ontario government passed back-to-work legislation on January 29, ending the strike at twelve weeks; since that day was a Thursday, classes didn’t resume until today, making the total time without class 87 days.

To put it in perspective: the last time I had class, Stéphane Dion was still the leader of the federal Liberals, Barack Obama had been president-elect for a grand total of one day, nobody had heard of the word “prorogue”, and Freddie Hubbard and John Updike were still alive. Your Halloween candy was only a week old, and 2008 still had almost two months to go.

And now here we are.

As a result of the mammoth “academic disruption,” some changes have been made to the calendar; fall semester will end February 19 and winter semester will begin March 4, with the days in between allotted for fall exams (no buffer days). Classes will end May 21 and exams on June 2 (also no buffer days). Considering the year usually ends the first week of April and exams are done before May, this is a serious inconvenience to most, especially those graduating. I’m going to try not to complain too loudly, though — school is back, so the worst is over.

In other news, most of the lineup for Canadian Music Week has been announced. Here are some highlights.

First, the CHART showcases at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern — and believe me, it’s pretty legendary. Thursday night is probably the best lineup, featuring $100, Women, Chad VanGaalen, Gentleman Reg and The Lovely Feathers. Saturday’s is nothing to sneeze at either, with the bill including the Golden Dogs, Hexes and Ohs and Two Hours Traffic. Check out the full showcase details here.

Equally delicious, and arguably the most hard-hitting showcase lineup of the festival, is Saturday night at the also legendary Lee’s Palace. Start to finish, it boasts Jon-Rae Fletcher, Herman Dune, Basia Bulat, Elliott Brood and Cuff the Duke. I know where I’ll be that night!

Other highlights include Friday night’s Eye Weekly showcase at the Gladstone Hotel (Castlemusic, Angela Desveaux & The Mighty Ship, The Week That Was, Slim Twig and the Rural Alberta Advantage); Priestess at Sneaky Dee’s (Friday); Sloan at the Mod Club (Thursday); Malajube at the El Mocambo (Thursday) and, for those who make connections, Laura Borealis at the Central (Saturday).

I’ve applied for a press pass with this blog, but won’t know for another three weeks whether it was deemed worthy or not. Either way, you’ll be seeing some CMW content — there’s no way I can pass up lineups like this! And finally, a chance to see Elliott Brood and Cuff the Duke.

If any of you are headed for the festival as well, let me know what you’re looking forward to and where you’ll be! For the curious, check out the CMW site here.

I am not getting any real work done, so I might as well write a post. Here is the second half of my folk festival ramblings!

Saturday & Sunday: Workshops

The awesome thing about the weekends at the Calgary Folk Music Festival is that the daytimes – 10:30 in the morning until 5:30 when the mainstage starts – are all workshops and smaller concerts, and the workshops are where so much of the magic of this festival lies. They throw together two or three groups, who have probably never even seen each other before, let alone played together, and let them go for an hour. The stuff that comes out of these stages … man, you have no idea. Here’s what I took in on Saturday:

Machinations & Palindromes
Andrew Bird, Master Musicians of Jajouka, A Hawk & A Hacksaw

Wicked and Weird
The Weakerthans, Calexico, Handsome Family, Torngat

Shout, Sisters, Shout!
Woodpigeon, Basia Bulat, The Consonant C, Julie Doiron

Sweetly Undone
Calexico, Bill Callahan, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Andrew Bird

A Brief History of Rhyme
Wendy McNeill, Josh Ritter, Woodpigeon, Trish Klein (Be Good Tanyas)

as well as a concert by the Handsome Family.

Things I learned: Andrew Bird is a great collaborator with anyone, and so are Calexico (that horn section! that lap steel!); John K. Samson (Weakerthans) and Joey Burns (Calexico) should always sing together; Basia Bulat covering “Thirty Days” is one of the best things to happen to workshops, especially with a backing band of about fifteen people; Bill Callahan sings about blood a lot; and the Handsome Family write really sad songs about milk.

The workshops, in short, were awesome.

Sunday

OK, by Sunday I was exhausted. Saturday ends at 11:30 and you are back at the park at something like 8:30 to get a spot, so everyone is a bit sluggish in the morning. However, the workshops got people on their feet pretty quickly. Here’s what I got to see:

Indie 500
Basia Bulat, Great Lake Swimmers, Julie Doiron, Sam Parton (Be Good Tanyas)

3 Altered Chords & The Truth
The Duhks, Joël Fafard, John Wort Hannam, Diana Jones

That Ain’t No A Flat Major!
Maryem Tollar & The Toronto Cairo Collective, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Düvö

Blue Blue Grass of Home
Tim O’Brien, The Duhks, Sparrow Quartet, Craig Korth (Widow Maker)

as well as concerts by Julie Doiron and Basia Bulat.

I think “That Ain’t No A Flat Major” takes the cake for one of the best workshops I’ve seen at the folk festival. To give you a bit of background, Düvö is from Hungary, and they play Hungarian folk music (complete with fiddles, hammer dulcimer, etc). A Hawk & A Hacksaw, interestingly, is from Alberquerque but based in Hungary – when they said “We’re going to play a Hungarian czardas for you,” all the members of Düvö cheered and roared and joined in. CLASSIC. Maryem Tollar is the one behind the theme song to Little Mosque on the Prairie, for all you Canadians, and she and her band are originally from Egypt. You can imagine how awesome that sounded. It was terrific, and there was this tiny two- or three-year-old girl running around and dancing the whole time, which just made it better.

MAINSTAGE

To be quite honest I don’t want to spend an hour talking about all these acts because it is going to sound repetitive, so here is the short version!

Josh Ritter – I knew his stuff already from The Animal Years, and I was thrilled he played so many songs from that record; he was incredibly joyful AND he stopped a rainstorm (only to have it start again after he left the stage, unfortunately).

The Duhks – Amazing. They fuse Celtic-type stuff with folk and rock and all kinds of things, and out comes a really energetic live show. Their vocalist can really belt it out! Well worth checking out, and definitely one of my favourite festival discoveries.

A Hawk & A Hacksaw – I mentioned them already, of course, but they were great. I think some of the crowd were surprised to see an instrumental band, because there were a few bewildered faces in the audience, but they were really incredible, and once they started playing some blistering fiddle tunes everyone was dancing anyway. Bonus points for the indie kids as Jeremy Barnes used to be the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel.

James Blood Ulmer – Serious, gritty blues, backed by soul vocalist and bass player Meshell Ndegeocello. He was good and fun and really grooved well, but I guess I just wasn’t totally into his set. He plays his guitar in a pretty interesting way! Great voice though, holy. Very dirty-blues.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Hands down one of my favourite acts of the festival. Slightly aging folk-punk musicians from across the pond, rousing everybody with rather Pogues-like tunes, these guys were a total blast. It also didn’t hurt that everything was delivered in heavy Scottish or English accents, only adding to the fun. They sold out of their records in a flash – I didn’t get to pick one up, but if I do find one, I will post something here for your enjoyment!

Blue Rodeo – Can I just say, I love Jim Cuddy. And the rest of Blue Rodeo, too, but I just think Cuddy is like a really cool uncle who would play your favourite songs on his guitar and let you sit on his knee and take you out for ice cream when your parents weren’t around. I like that guy. Anyway, I am so glad we didn’t succumb to the rain and miss Blue Rodeo – they were amazing. Hit after hit! “Til I Am Myself Again,” “Five Days in May,” “C’mon” etc. One of my favourite live acts and one that I would love to see again and again.

Sonny Landreth – Another really great blues player, but one that I was more into. I loved this guy. Serious chops and serious feel. He reminded me a bit of Jack Semple, but I think I liked Landreth’s playing a lot more. He got a bunch of people dancing, always testament to how well you are doing at a festival.

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet – Featuring Bela Fleck of the Flecktones, who were Festival performers last year. These guys were amazing. Washburn, a beautiful Southern belle, has spent some time living in China, and consequently is fluent in Mandarin. She sang some Mandarin tunes for us and it is so mind-boggling to see this very fair, red-haired, Tennessee lady singing Chinese folk songs. I was thoroughly impressed. Not to mention her and Bela Fleck’s blistering banjo over everything – Fleck performed a tune by himself, as well, and it sounded like there were two or three banjos playing at once. What a guy. Add this to my favourites list.

It was starting to rain again after their set, so we took off and missed Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band and Ani DiFranco, although to tell you the truth I don’t think any of us were too disappointed.

And of course, Festival Mini-Sampler Pt. 2:

Basia Bulat – In the Night
Josh Ritter – Wolves
Blue Rodeo – C’mon
Julie Doiron – Swan Pond