zero

I haven't thought about Jojo Mayer and Nerve in ages.

Dan Mangan?

Missed the Zeus show for CMW. Did anyone catch it, the instore at Sonic Boom was cool, kind of figured Bahamas would be the guest and he'd slug it out with them a bit.

Gotta agree with a handful of people's calls. Sandro Perri's is probably my favourite of the year but I have to agree with Scottie about Fruit Bats Tripper being imminently re-listenable, likewise with that Gillian Welch album which is handily top 5. Likewise with Tune-Yards W H O K I L L -which is just stupid stupid good. The Weeknd House of Balloons needs to be in any top ten and I'd throw Frank Ocean, Nostalgia Ultra in there as well.

I took a second or third stab at the setlist of the first night. I think people's ears, including mine play tricks on them, and memory informed by other people's memory's ingrains those tricks. For instance I don't think Dove's Cry was part of the sampler set. I think he played that proper from the centre of the T. That's my recollection. How many teases or interpolations you can pick out or others picked out is interesting.

Prince and the NPG

Air Canada Centre

Toronto, Ontario

11.25.11

Intro#

We Live (2 Get Funky)#

DMSR#>

Pop Life*#>

Musicology**#>

A Million Days

Let's Go

Take Me With U > Thunderstruck***>

Raspberry Beret>

Cream

Cool****> Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

______

Yesterday

Nothing Compares 2 U

Let's Go Crazy>

Delirious> Controversy refrain> Let's Go Crazy>

1999

Little Red Corvette>

Slow Down

______

U Got The Look

______

Make You Feel My Love****

Purple Rain#

______

Kiss

______

When Dove's Cry

______

(grand piano sampler set)

Nasty Girl (instrumental)>

Sign O' The Times> Darling Nikki>

The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

Sign> Hot Thing>Sign

I Would Die 4 U> Housequake (horn riff)>

Darling Nikki (instrumental)>

Mr. Goodnight (instrumental)>

Shockadelica (instrumental)

If I Was Your Girlfriend#

_____

Sometimes It Snows In April

_____

The Bird****>

Jungle Love****

Play That Funky Music#

_____

Dance (Disco Heat)******>

Baby I'm A Star

_____

Adore

_____

Let's Work#

#w. Maceo Parker

*w. Scrapple In The Apple (Charlie Parker)

**w. Tighten Up (The Black Keys) and Mama Feelgood (Lyn Collins) interpolations

***ACDC cover (instrumental)

****The Time cover

*****Bob Dylan cover

******Sylvester cover

He definitely psyched out good chunks of the audience who streamed out after what seemed like the arc of the show- Purple Rain closer, Kiss encore. Then Dove's Cry and the whole sampler mini set onslaught. "1 Got Too Many Hits!!!"

I looked over that princevault setlist and the gaps in my squirrely notes make more sense. This is the compiled setlist the way we'd right it out. A lot of teases and interpolations need to be asterisked in. In Pop Life for instance I'd agree that Scrapple From The Apple was a brief interpolation - and uhm fucking Pop Life! Likewise in Musicology there was a tighten up tease or interpolation. I'd say though that they played Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough proper out of Cool - it was truncated but not embedded.

Prince and the NPG

Air Canada Centre

Toronto, Ontario

11.25.11

(partial setlist)

DMSR

Pop Life

Musicology (Maceo intro)

We Live (2 Get Funky)

A Million Days

Let's Go

Take Me With U > Thunderstruck>

Raspberry Beret>

Cream

Cool> Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

______

Yesterday

Nothing Compares 2 U

Let's Go Crazy

Delirious> Controversy refrain

1999

Little Red Corvette>

Slow Down

______

U Got The Look

______

Make You Feel My Love

______

Purple Rain

______

Kiss

______

When Dove's Cry

______

(grand piano sampler set)

I Would Die 4 U>

Darling Nikki>

Sign O' The Times >

The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

Sign> Hot Thing>Sign

I Would Die 4 U

_____

If I Was Your Girlfriend

_____

Sometimes It Snows In April

_____

The Bird>

Jungle Love

Play That Funky Music

_____

Dance (Disco Heat)>

Baby I'm A Star

_____

Adore

_____

Let's Work

This is my best stab at the setlist. I can't read my notes at a few points but I don't think I was certain of those titles. I'm sure there's a lot of blanks to fill in. The whole medley where he went to the baby grand but just used it as a synth and to trigger samples and sequences was just fucking redonculous.

Prince Toronto Setlist

It was stubhub, we had to be pretty tenacious and had a few private sellers interested in sections we liked but they fell through and that was exactly the seats I would have wanted to pull through ticketmaster so we jumped obviously.

I like the sound of the Hamilton rehearsals....

Grabbed a couple of tics with great sitelines (322, row 13, aisle) for ten bucks under face withhout service charges. Beyond psyched.

Seriously I love this guy. What was the Joni cover?

Word of mouth and 'acclaim' work in such funny ways. A friends yoga instructor and a bunch of students are all excited about this show. You know you're in when yogis are flocking to you.

Which part of Roses is 'emo-y'

His words not mine, I'm going to say it's like post second verse and the mode or style of the song sort of shifts in the composition itself. Notably Brad's take on Nathan's song (?) which amplifies my point a bit about their creative process, in SMMD you have Brad being able to bounce proper song and lyrical ideas off Nathan in a fuller- or just different- way say than with his brother and Marc.

To your second point I don't think there's either the interest or economics for Marc to be a 'Barr Brother'. He seems genuinely to be engaged in his engineering work, what gigs and sessions he does work, and I guess life in New Bedford, Mass.

Just further on the Marc's a monster tip- it's his role in the creative process that's engaging to see having not seen him influence say the Barr Bros. An interesting thing in general about the Slip in soundcheck and night to night, with the more songwriter oriented later work, is that they constantly revise and tweak versions and renditions. The night of the Toronto show after soundcheck and in the band room Brad jumped into a dialogue with Nathan about Roses (In Bottles) to the effect that he liked it up until this one part (you'll hear it now that I mention it) where it changes and gets 'all emo-y' and that maybe that whole bit should get scrapped or rewritten. Nathan starts to play it, the brothers and he sing it a capella. Marc's kind of making light of the whole thing and doing some rap breakdown.

Then he sort of seriously ventures:

"We could play it better."

but I saw Marc look at him and shake his head no

I've seen that look many times. Marc was in fine top snarky sardonic form before the show, spent most of the show eyes closed deep in the pocket- in short Marc was all over it in the way only he can.

Thank god one Luke's on the case.

No idea on the Toronto setlist except that it was mind boggling.

I'm trying to come down from Cloud 10. Just an unparalleled display of musicianship, dynamics, songwriting and solidarity. Don't know the repertoire all that well, trying to piece together the setlist.

I think they wrote the first half of a setlist and went off the script from there.

The opener was something like Tombstone (sic.?), maybe Grey Thing is the next title, one they were working on the harmonies for right before they went on Knave (or I Am A Knave), maybe Everything Must Go was after that, Sissyfuss with the epic jam, Summer of My Fall, a monstrous Poor Boy (which Guigsy and I both admitted to not liking as a song but this version just demolished)... I lose the plot about there.

"But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fuÇked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, sh!t all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of."

Immediately thought of this, I'm pretty sure it was a NorthernHeads.com v 1 story at the time, Abe and I thought it was fucking hilarious. I would have pulled that exact same quote. I quite enjoy the early bit too though where he describes seeing Kenny early on and his capacity for thrilling the audience with runs of harmonic clams.

Had the fortune to have a couple of pints with Julie Doiron at Ronnie's last night. She was definitely most psyched about Ladyhawk. She didn't know a lot of the artists on this year's lineup and was forthcoming about it. We talked about Dan Romano, how she didn't know what to expect from Attack In Black when she first saw/met them, how she quite likes their new album. Chad Van Gaalen and The Sadies were top of mind as well. She said also that (as usual) there were some surprises she couldn't talk about.

Looking over the lineup in retrospect it's really well curated this year. In particular a real name from my own Maritime popped up: Jerry Granelli. Jerry's probably thought of as to the Maritimes and drums as Kevin Breit is to the guitar and Ontario. Which is to say both being members of a broader incomprehsibly vast Jazz World that invariably players only really get.

JERRY GRANELLI (Halifax)

Jazz times magazine calls Granelli, “one of those uncategorizable veteran percussionists who’s done it all.†His live performances encapsulate new energy as well as the history of his chosen path–improvisation and experimentation.

I fucking love Apollo Sunshine - those two albums are phenomenal pop (I know they have more I'm thinking of the first two). Just a ridiculously good band that never got their due (kind of like The Slip).

Folks 'round here will really like One Hundred Dollars- Simone the vocalist has a real Janis thing without being too derivative and strong lyrics. The band is super tight particularly the album proudcer/ lap steel player.

Still pro-Marcus and Czech but made the mistake of listening to Xavier Dudnik and Rahzel he ain't.

Makes sense.