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.