Velvet

I got lucky calling Tom Petty for Bluesfest this year so I'll give it a try with jazzfest too:
I see King Crimson is in Montreal on July 3rd.  Could be they're booked for Ottawa Jazzfest on the 2nd?

Dear lord that is so remarkably fantastic.  I was raging it over here, fists in the air.  If they do it next year I might just go.

Wow, that took, like, forever.

That was the single greatest thing I read on the webs yesterday.  It really, really helped.

Dibs on couch space.

Twenty years ago today I fell in love with five guys from Kingston:
On August 15th, 1991 I saw The Tragically Hip for the first time.  It was a night that will forever stand out in my memories, and it marked the beginning of a long-term love affair between The Tragically Hip and I.
 
The Ottawa Congress Centre was packed, and I mean packed - there must have been 2,500 crammed in there.  Based on the success of New Orleans Is Sinking The Hip had made the jump from bars to concert halls, but when Road Apples dropped and exploded across the country the band found themselves seriously under-booked, honouring contracts in venues that were much too small for their burgeoning fame.  This was certainly one of those cases; I’m sure the band could have filled the 9,000 seat Civic Centre on this run.
 
(A cool fact: The Hip said in an interview that nobody in Canada would have to pay more than $20 to see them on this tour.  A fan in Toronto wrote to tell the band that with service charges the Toronto show cost $20.50 so The Tragically Hip hired people to stand inside the Toronto venue and hand fifty cents to everyone who walked through the doors.)
 
I grabbed a pair of beers and wedged myself into a spot about twenty feet from the stage.  Beyond that I didn’t move for the rest of the night, except as the tide would take me.  It was so packed in there we were jammed together like commuters on a Tokyo subway, and with the crowd raging to the band the whole room would drift one way or another as a single, amorphous beast.  One minute we would be standing straight up, then the crowd would shift and I’d be leaning to my left at a forty-five degree angle, another shift and my body would be pitched in the opposite direction, again standing at a perilous angle.  It was a weird feeling almost falling over again and again while knowing I could never actually fall down - there just wasn’t room.
 
At one point the kid in front of me craned his head around and said to me, “My feet aren’t touching the ground.”  Honestly.
 
Up on stage the band was absolutely on fire.  The newly-shorn Gord Downie commanded the stage with teeming confidence, fronting a band that was well-juiced from an obviously relentless touring and recording regimen.  And with just the EP, Up To Here and Road Apples to draw upon the material was utterly top-notch.
 
This was the end of the era of real rock and roll shows.  I’m talking balls-to-the-walls, screaming, fist-pumping, general admission, stage diving rock and roll.  Not the ticket-scanning, stay out of the aisles, two-beer limit, print at home, big screen, VIP section, two-song encore, “sit down I paid for these seats” concerts of today.  Back in the day a concert was an event, just as weight-lifting and javelin-throwing are events.  
 
Yes friends, back in the day a concert required sweat, stamina, and a good deal of training to get the full experience, and I think this may have been the last real rock and roll concert I ever attended.
 
Throughout the evening a couple of people had jumped on the stage only to turn and jump immediately back into the swarthy crowd.  But during New Orleans Is Sinking some moron leapt onto the stage and as he ran back towards the crowd with security giving chase the guy grabbed Gord Downie, pulling the singer down with him into the pit area between the crowd and the stage.
 
From my vantage point it looked like Gord went down pretty hard, and he wasn’t coming up.  The band played on, looking down into the pit and back and forth at each other quizzically, and still there was no Gord.  I was convinced he had gotten hurt and the show would soon be stopped.  It seemed like at least a minute or two before he finally dragged himself back on the stage, shirtless, sweaty, and clearly very, very angry.
 
Teeth and fists clenched Gord paced back and forth across the stage furiously as the band chugged along exchanging worried glances.  A few times he went up to the microphone as if to speak, only to turn away, utterly speechless with anger.  I was 100% sure it was just a matter of seconds before he stopped the show and stormed offstage - I can’t remember ever seeing someone that angry.  
 
It was like watching an animal that had just been caged for the first time, crazed with fear and indignation and just waiting for an opportunity to attack.
 
And then, finally, pumping with adrenaline Gord Downie went to the mic, and instead of lashing out, instead of cancelling the show, instead of screaming at people that love him and still try to pull him down, he sang:
 
“I had my hands in the river, my feet back up on the banks.  I looked up to the Lord above and said ‘hey man, thanks’.”
 
And the room absolutely exploded.  This was pure rock; a true moment in the cosmos of three-chord emotion and certainly the most unbridled display of pure rock and roll ethos I’ve seen, and it made my soul explode with that feeling.  And it wasn’t over yet.
 
“Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream.  She said ‘Gordie, baby, I know exactly what you mean’.  She said.  
 
“I swear to God she said…”
 
When Gord screamed the scream that comes after that line he let all the anger out at once and we all felt it - the demon escaped and took over the room.  He screamed again, and people started throwing their beer cups.  
 
Downie came to the front of the stage, shirtless and without a mic, his arms at his sides with his fingers spread wide and his head raised to the ceiling, screaming for his life.  His eyes clenched and his head shaking from side to side, a thousand beer cups bounced off his body as the crowd pelted the angry beast.  I can see the beer cascading through the air, lit up by red and blue light cans, Gord taking it in like a Baptism of fire.  I can still hear Downie’s acoustic screams audible above the electrified band and the manic crowd.
 
Watching those beer cup bounce off of that man as he screamed primally at a rabid audience hypnotized by rock and roll is probably the single most enthralling moment of my entire concert-going history.  It’s not just a visual memory, it had nothing to do with the song, it was a magnified burst of that feeling that made me fall in love with live music in the first place, that intangible, indescribable orgasm of intense emotion that makes you go blind and senseless with bliss, makes you throw your hands in the air and scream like a madman on fire.
 
The kind of feeling that makes you throw a pair of $6 beers into the air at a rock and roll show.  
 
I haven’t felt that since. 

Twenty years ago today I fell in love with five guys from Kingston:
On August 15th, 1991 I saw The Tragically Hip for the first time.  It was a night that will forever stand out in my memories, and it marked the beginning of a long-term love affair between The Tragically Hip and I.
 
The Ottawa Congress Centre was packed, and I mean packed - there must have been 2,500 crammed in there.  Based on the success of New Orleans Is Sinking The Hip had made the jump from bars to concert halls, but when Road Apples dropped and exploded across the country the band found themselves seriously under-booked, honouring contracts in venues that were much too small for their burgeoning fame.  This was certainly one of those cases; I’m sure the band could have filled the 9,000 seat Civic Centre on this run.
 
(A cool fact: The Hip said in an interview that nobody in Canada would have to pay more than $20 to see them on this tour.  A fan in Toronto wrote to tell the band that with service charges the Toronto show cost $20.50 so The Tragically Hip hired people to stand inside the Toronto venue and hand fifty cents to everyone who walked through the doors.)
 
I grabbed a pair of beers and wedged myself into a spot about twenty feet from the stage.  Beyond that I didn’t move for the rest of the night, except as the tide would take me.  It was so packed in there we were jammed together like commuters on a Tokyo subway, and with the crowd raging to the band the whole room would drift one way or another as a single, amorphous beast.  One minute we would be standing straight up, then the crowd would shift and I’d be leaning to my left at a forty-five degree angle, another shift and my body would be pitched in the opposite direction, again standing at a perilous angle.  It was a weird feeling almost falling over again and again while knowing I could never actually fall down - there just wasn’t room.
 
At one point the kid in front of me craned his head around and said to me, “My feet aren’t touching the ground.”  Honestly.
 
Up on stage the band was absolutely on fire.  The newly-shorn Gord Downie commanded the stage with teeming confidence, fronting a band that was well-juiced from an obviously relentless touring and recording regimen.  And with just the EP, Up To Here and Road Apples to draw upon the material was utterly top-notch.
 
This was the end of the era of real rock and roll shows.  I’m talking balls-to-the-walls, screaming, fist-pumping, general admission, stage diving rock and roll.  Not the ticket-scanning, stay out of the aisles, two-beer limit, print at home, big screen, VIP section, two-song encore, “sit down I paid for these seats” concerts of today.  Back in the day a concert was an event, just as weight-lifting and javelin-throwing are events.  
 
Yes friends, back in the day a concert required sweat, stamina, and a good deal of training to get the full experience, and I think this may have been the last real rock and roll concert I ever attended.
 
Throughout the evening a couple of people had jumped on the stage only to turn and jump immediately back into the swarthy crowd.  But during New Orleans Is Sinking some moron leapt onto the stage and as he ran back towards the crowd with security giving chase the guy grabbed Gord Downie, pulling the singer down with him into the pit area between the crowd and the stage.
 
From my vantage point it looked like Gord went down pretty hard, and he wasn’t coming up.  The band played on, looking down into the pit and back and forth at each other quizzically, and still there was no Gord.  I was convinced he had gotten hurt and the show would soon be stopped.  It seemed like at least a minute or two before he finally dragged himself back on the stage, shirtless, sweaty, and clearly very, very angry.
 
Teeth and fists clenched Gord paced back and forth across the stage furiously as the band chugged along exchanging worried glances.  A few times he went up to the microphone as if to speak, only to turn away, utterly speechless with anger.  I was 100% sure it was just a matter of seconds before he stopped the show and stormed offstage - I can’t remember ever seeing someone that angry.  
 
It was like watching an animal that had just been caged for the first time, crazed with fear and indignation and just waiting for an opportunity to attack.
 
And then, finally, pumping with adrenaline Gord Downie went to the mic, and instead of lashing out, instead of cancelling the show, instead of screaming at people that love him and still try to pull him down, he sang:
 
“I had my hands in the river, my feet back up on the banks.  I looked up to the Lord above and said ‘hey man, thanks’.”
 
And the room absolutely exploded.  This was pure rock; a true moment in the cosmos of three-chord emotion and certainly the most unbridled display of pure rock and roll ethos I’ve seen, and it made my soul explode with that feeling.  And it wasn’t over yet.
 
“Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream.  She said ‘Gordie, baby, I know exactly what you mean’.  She said.  
 
“I swear to God she said…”
 
When Gord screamed the scream that comes after that line he let all the anger out at once and we all felt it - the demon escaped and took over the room.  He screamed again, and people started throwing their beer cups.  
 
Downie came to the front of the stage, shirtless and without a mic, his arms at his sides with his fingers spread wide and his head raised to the ceiling, screaming for his life.  His eyes clenched and his head shaking from side to side, a thousand beer cups bounced off his body as the crowd pelted the angry beast.  I can see the beer cascading through the air, lit up by red and blue light cans, Gord taking it in like a Baptism of fire.  I can still hear Downie’s acoustic screams audible above the electrified band and the manic crowd.
 
Watching those beer cup bounce off of that man as he screamed primally at a rabid audience hypnotized by rock and roll is probably the single most enthralling moment of my entire concert-going history.  It’s not just a visual memory, it had nothing to do with the song, it was a magnified burst of that feeling that made me fall in love with live music in the first place, that intangible, indescribable orgasm of intense emotion that makes you go blind and senseless with bliss, makes you throw your hands in the air and scream like a madman on fire.
 
The kind of feeling that makes you throw a pair of $6 beers into the air at a rock and roll show.  
 
I haven’t felt that since. 

Big day in Ottawa 22 years ago:
 
On July 5th, 1994 I had a few drinks and strolled the handful of blocks between my house and the Ottawa Congress Centre to see a band I had been hearing a bit about called Phish.  I had missed them before in Montreal when a friend that I had seen the Grateful Dead with all but insisted I come with her to see Phish at Metropolis.  I remember bowing out with the excuse that I had been out several nights in the past week seeing local bands in Ottawa and could use a night off.
 
Ouch.
 
But a few days before Phish played their one and only show in Canada’s capital city another friend of mine played me a cut off of the Junta album, a catchy rock number with the unlikely title Golgi Apparatus.  “Pretty good,” I said, not entirely convinced.  He put on one more song that he thought would hook me, and he nailed it with Contact.  Quirky, weird, and clever; I’m in.
 
The room was sparse at best, maybe 200-250 people in a room that could hold 3,200 or so.  I grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and walked right up to the stage and stood audience-right in front of the drum kit.
 
That was odd, thought I, having the drum kit set up on stage left instead of in the middle.  
 
No matter, I had the whole area to myself and if I remember correctly I even used the stage as a table to set my drinks on.  Soon the band went on and changed me.
 
They opened with Rift and then Sample before The Curtain went into the first Letter to Jimmy Page in several years.  The second set had the first Cities played in half a decade but none of that meant anything to me - I had never heard any of this before.  Frankly, I had never heard anything like this before.
 
For me the show was a mind-bending display of musical and instrumental pyrotechnics that poured out of these four guys in a never-ending cavalcade of shock and surprise.  Nothing went the way I thought it would, the music was utterly unpredictable with sharp turns and right angles all over the place; time signatures overlapped each other in ways I had never heard before…vocal harmonies that shouldn’t have worked landed perfectly on top of jagged melodies that were unforgettable.
 
I was flabbergasted.
 
At the time I was just about finished my music degree and I was in a band that thought we played some pretty crazy, off-kilter rock and roll so I was simultaneously completely ready for this Phish concert and not at all ready for it.
 
The gorgeous instrumental beauty juxtaposed with the Dada-esque lyrics of Stash, the miraculously original melody of Bathtub Gin (how had nobody found that one yet?), the absolutely jaw-dropping YEM with an intro that pits Trey’s 11/8 guitar part over Mikes 5/8 bass line and Page’s 10/8 keyboard part while Fishman pounds 4/4 underneath and the vocal outro jam and oh yeah, the trampolines?  I mean c’mon now!  I was thoroughly humbled and awed.
 
Oh, and then the band plays Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky with the drummer playing the solo on a vacuum cleaner, then they performed two songs with no amplification whatsoever, melodica/standup bass/acoustic guitar with the crowd alternating between hushed applause and shhh-ing each other, then they did a couple of barbershop quartet classics and ended the set with that very first song my friend had played for me a few days before, Golgi Apparatus.  I was dancing like a fool laid out to dry, my t-shirt long wrenched from my body I flailed away banshee-like with the entire Fishman-side floor area to myself.
 
Capping the show as they did with a Good Times, Bad Times encore was perfect, proof that they could tear up a straight-ahead rock and roller without any gimmicks just fine, thank-you very much.  The show I had just seen had changed how I looked at rock music and to see them Zep out and nail it hard for my walkaway song felt like a kudos to the history of the genre…a reminder of what rock music used to sound like now that I had seen the future.
 
To date I have seen the band ninety-five times.  I’ve travelled all over North America and met friends from a thousand places following them, so yeah, this was a pretty big show for me.
 

Big day in Ottawa 22 years ago:
 
On July 5th, 1994 I had a few drinks and strolled the handful of blocks between my house and the Ottawa Congress Centre to see a band I had been hearing a bit about called Phish.  I had missed them before in Montreal when a friend that I had seen the Grateful Dead with all but insisted I come with her to see Phish at Metropolis.  I remember bowing out with the excuse that I had been out several nights in the past week seeing local bands in Ottawa and could use a night off.
 
Ouch.
 
But a few days before Phish played their one and only show in Canada’s capital city another friend of mine played me a cut off of the Junta album, a catchy rock number with the unlikely title Golgi Apparatus.  “Pretty good,” I said, not entirely convinced.  He put on one more song that he thought would hook me, and he nailed it with Contact.  Quirky, weird, and clever; I’m in.
 
The room was sparse at best, maybe 200-250 people in a room that could hold 3,200 or so.  I grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and walked right up to the stage and stood audience-right in front of the drum kit.
 
That was odd, thought I, having the drum kit set up on stage left instead of in the middle.  
 
No matter, I had the whole area to myself and if I remember correctly I even used the stage as a table to set my drinks on.  Soon the band went on and changed me.
 
They opened with Rift and then Sample before The Curtain went into the first Letter to Jimmy Page in several years.  The second set had the first Cities played in half a decade but none of that meant anything to me - I had never heard any of this before.  Frankly, I had never heard anything like this before.
 
For me the show was a mind-bending display of musical and instrumental pyrotechnics that poured out of these four guys in a never-ending cavalcade of shock and surprise.  Nothing went the way I thought it would, the music was utterly unpredictable with sharp turns and right angles all over the place; time signatures overlapped each other in ways I had never heard before…vocal harmonies that shouldn’t have worked landed perfectly on top of jagged melodies that were unforgettable.
 
I was flabbergasted.
 
At the time I was just about finished my music degree and I was in a band that thought we played some pretty crazy, off-kilter rock and roll so I was simultaneously completely ready for this Phish concert and not at all ready for it.
 
The gorgeous instrumental beauty juxtaposed with the Dada-esque lyrics of Stash, the miraculously original melody of Bathtub Gin (how had nobody found that one yet?), the absolutely jaw-dropping YEM with an intro that pits Trey’s 11/8 guitar part over Mikes 5/8 bass line and Page’s 10/8 keyboard part while Fishman pounds 4/4 underneath and the vocal outro jam and oh yeah, the trampolines?  I mean c’mon now!  I was thoroughly humbled and awed.
 
Oh, and then the band plays Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky with the drummer playing the solo on a vacuum cleaner, then they performed two songs with no amplification whatsoever, melodica/standup bass/acoustic guitar with the crowd alternating between hushed applause and shhh-ing each other, then they did a couple of barbershop quartet classics and ended the set with that very first song my friend had played for me a few days before, Golgi Apparatus.  I was dancing like a fool laid out to dry, my t-shirt long wrenched from my body I flailed away banshee-like with the entire Fishman-side floor area to myself.
 
Capping the show as they did with a Good Times, Bad Times encore was perfect, proof that they could tear up a straight-ahead rock and roller without any gimmicks just fine, thank-you very much.  The show I had just seen had changed how I looked at rock music and to see them Zep out and nail it hard for my walkaway song felt like a kudos to the history of the genre…a reminder of what rock music used to sound like now that I had seen the future.
 
To date I have seen the band ninety-five times.  I’ve travelled all over North America and met friends from a thousand places following them, so yeah, this was a pretty big show for me.
 

Awesome!  From the clip above it kinda looked like Dylan was standing around while his band played Free Bird but that's good enough for me.  Cool stuff.

It's a travelogue doc-style program called Earth Beat.  The idea is that in each episode I travel to a different city or country and look at the music indigenous to that particular area.   I shot the pilot episode in Zambia and spent the last long time figuring out software and editing it together.  The next trick is to sell it to a network, and the first step in that direction is to see if anyone likes it.  
So if you have forty-nine or so minutes to kill I urge you to give it a spin.  I am very open to comments and criticisms.  If you have any thoughts that can make this thing better please, by all means let me know.  
 

Again.
http://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2016/06/indoor_fishing_returns_to_toronto_this_weekend/
 

It's a travelogue doc-style program called Earth Beat.  The idea is that in each episode I travel to a different city or country and look at the music indigenous to that particular area.   I shot the pilot episode in Zambia and spent the last long time figuring out software and editing it together.  The next trick is to sell it to a network, and the first step in that direction is to see if anyone likes it.  
So if you have forty-nine or so minutes to kill I urge you to give it a spin.  I am very open to comments and criticisms.  If you have any thoughts that can make this thing better please, by all means let me know.  
 

And finally: skating skating skating.
 

Start this one at about 1:10 - it's oddly hypnotic.
 

http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2013/6/How-to-dance-like-Gord-Downie
 

https://player.vimeo.com/video/166684241
 

In that it doesn't cost anything.  It's not like we're trying to get Lanois out of the Don jail or anything.
http://www.blogto.com/music/2016/05/theres_a_big_rooftop_concert_in_toronto_this_weekend/
http://www.torontowoofest.ca
 

Wouldn't this be great?
 
Talking Heads to reform?
The classic new wave band who emerged out of the CBGBs scene are rumoured to be regrouping. At the moment it’s hints and loose internet talk but also some curious omens..
DJ Joe Rock of the classic hits station WMMO posted today (3/25) on the station’s Facebook page: “Rumor has it Talking Heads are in the studio working on a new album and planning a tour for 2017.”
The website mediamass.net also has a more detailed post(which, oddly, says it was updated tomorrow, 3/26). It says: “There have been strong rumors that the rock band is finally returning to the recording studio working on a what might be a back-to-roots album. [A]s many as eight songs having been put to tape. ‘It’s still in the early stages,’ ‘They got security on the doors to ensure no-one hears a whisper,’ a source said…. Talking Heads are rumoured to be planning a worldwide tour at the end of 2017.”
 Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz for a comment, and he cryptically if encouragingly said, “It should be true.” He said in 2012 following the release of the band’s Chronology DVD, “I’m not holding my breath but I still have my hopes that maybe someday David will call and say, ‘You know, I should give Chris and Tina and Jerry a call and do something with them.’ And why not, you know? We make a pretty good team.”

I don't know what it is, but I just love Dylan shows.  Especially when I don't recognize any of the songs.
 
There's just something about his live shows I like.  I basically never listen to Dylan otherwise.

Aren't most people at a Dylan show on "the grass"?

Fitting that they kept asking me to select pictures with lawns in them.

They've taken down one of the Gorge dates.  They are playing two nights instead of three.

Lots of fun last night.  Believe it or don't, dude behind me asked me to sit down halfway through the first song.  
 
I did not comply, and within a few songs my whole section was standing up.
 
I was behind the stage in the 300's, about eight rows back.  Great seats.