thoughts on hillside...

[DevO]

Fresh off the heels of Ottawa Bluesfest, Hillside was so refreshing in terms of organization. Things I admired:

- they have recycling

- they compost

- the food comes on plastic plates that get re-used

- they encourage you to bring your own plate and they have volunteers on hand to wash your dirty dishes immediately

- the food is outstanding and fairly priced. best samosa i've ever had!

- beers served in a reusable hillside mug

- the beer on tap is local and high quality (wellington, camerons, creemore)

- the main stage has a green roof, which they were promoting a lot

- the sunstage is completely run on solar power

- they actively discourage lawn chairs, and ask that those who do bring them, set them up at the back or at the sides.

- the artists camping area is with the volunteer camping area, which could make for a great party with great sounds. i didn't make it over there but i like that idea.

- no corporate sponsorships

i could go on forever! there was lots of art, decoration and eye candy galore. it was sensory overload from start to finish. the only workshop (non-musical) i checked out was anne's water issues one. i was there for the music but i kinda wish there was a day devoted solely to the workshops cuz there were so many that looked really interesting.

musical highlights and notes:

- the poutine & masala pie floaters (les batinses meets the dya singh band) - good start.

- workshop with luke doucet, kevin breit and kelly joe phelps!

- feelix -- this is a guy i went to highschool with who now lives in guelph and is an MC. i didn't even know he was a musicians so it was cool to suddenly see him onstage.

- geoff berner - saw him in various workshops and was always intrigued. he plays accordian and tells stories and songs. props to polkaroo for pointing him out last week!

- kelly joe phelps -- this guy rips on the slide guitar! he was all over the place. i regret missing his main show this weekend.

- the stars -- what tungsten said. they had some great moments, they had some songs that didn't do much for me. i think it was mainly the same set as ottawa. complete with the "now we will play the songs about fucking" commentary.

- arts & crafts people were all over the place, almost a little too much actually! i guess thats my own fault for seeking out all their shows. in hindsight, i would've gone with some of the other stuff instead at times. but it was cool to see them wandering around and checking out other bands.

- buck 65 and sarah slean -- this was another recording for the CBC Fuse radio show, which means that annoying host was onstage pestering the musicians between songs. haha, thats harsh. this one was less awkward than the arts & crafts one though, and i loved buck 65's commentary and weird stories. the one about the woman who ate the bike??!

- the most serene republic were pretty good for a first time seeing/listening. they had about 8 people in the band (?). they're really young, looking like they range from ages 16-19, then again who knows. some of the horns guys from BSS came out for songs.

thats it! oh and i wish i'd seen more of kevin breit, wish i'd seen kelly joe phelps' set (apparently breit sat in). i'd definitely go to hillside again, its a great festival. maybe the best!

[Calamity Jane]

Calamity was that you who said hi by the women's tent and then walked away leaving my drug-addled brain confused? Must've been.

so, not sooo drug-addled, then!

[Nitro Compression]

I had a great time hanging with the girls, Calamity Jane, Iliana, Timmouse and Niffer-mouse. Large Marge and Slippery as usual thanks for the blast.

I have only been to Hillside once before (two years ago). I still love this festival because it is so different from the others. But it has grown. I am thinking the whole thing is going to be attended by insiders who are in the (music scene) know from now on and be a little less diverse. That is too bad. This festival provides an opportunity for those who don’t often get out to see shows. This may change.

All in all I really had a good time and I am getting more refined taste in music, however I still don’t feel I have enough knowledge to critique the shows.

[Nitro Compression]

Did you all notice that the audience at hillside was full of really good looking people? In research terms I would say there was an unusually scued sample of hotties both male and female. I can't remember which performer commented on this but after the comment I could not help but agree.

[bouche]

I would like to find out more about the Kevin Breit workshop. How long, and what went down?

[DevO]

I only caught a bit of the first one, which included Breit, Luke Doucet (formerly of Veal) and Kelly Joe Phelps. That was at the start of the weekend and my memory is foggy.. All I can say is that it was musical brilliance of the sliding guitar kind. There might have been one more musician on stage. They all sat on stools beside each other. There were a few hundred people there. Thats all I really know!

[zero]

Never got around to writing down a few thoughts about Hillside. I only saw the Sunday so there's not too much to add. Unfortunately the day was supposed to start with what would have promised to be a highly engaging workshop featuring Buck 65 and Xavier Rudd- which was cancelled. I gather Buck showed up at the Island stage instead of the Lake stage wondering where he was supposed to be. No sight of Xavier either though which makes me think he didn't wake up. Alot of people were bummed about this cancellation.

I think after this we caught the Songs about Me/You workshop on the Sun stage with Luke Doucet, Reg Vermue, Amy Millan, Jason Collett and Andrew Whiteman. Luke sang a great breakup song (I'm sentimental to those) about how 'you've gotta have a heart to have a broken one' and 'you've gotta have a gun to have a smokin' one'. Reg did his typical albino shtick which wasn't as tired as it can be. Amy sang a nice song about Thoreau. Forget what Collett did. The tastiest was Whiteman doing a spanish song with a surf beat that was a transcribed poem by Garcia Lorca. He explained what the words meant which was nice.

Up next was the Sarah Slean/ Buck 65 workshop for CBC Fuse which meant it was hosted by Amanda Putz who I gather was really annoying during the Arts and Crafts session. She was incredibly lame asking really stupid questions between songs and generally taking up air time. Sarah and Buck went back and forth doing their own material and a cover each, Sarah did a Joan Baez song and Buck did an interesting version of Woody Guthrie's 'Talkin' Fishin' Blues' with a pumped up backing track. He had been explaining how the first song that really got him as a young person was the Devil Went Down To Georgia and that when he heard Grandmaster Flash a few years later he considered this just more truck driving songs of the same ilk. He was trying to explain how he saw himself as a talking blues man in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan citing Subterranean Homesick Blues and a few others. Having seen Buck play for almost a decade now having spent university in Nova Scotia I've had a lot of opportunities to see him and talk to him and I am finding his schtick a little bit played. I guess I find him doing a bit of a revisionist history or self-mythologizing, I think it's safe to say that he saw himself as hip hop pure and simple for the longest time and it's only more recently that he identified with the talking blues tradition. The way he tells it he's always been that way. Another clue is that even in the interview portion he affects his gruff voice which I also find a bit disingenous and self-mythologizing. I recall reading that Tom Waits affected the gruff voice in a similar way although I don't recall the context- basically that he started putting it on at some point although I suspect all his recordings sound that way. Speaking of which Sarah and Buck did a rendition of a rare Tom Waits song he mentioned as being off Alice called Table Top Joe, Sarah played a barely audible toy guitar and the whole thing was more than a little wincing. So it was a bit of a lame workshop despite Buck being rather engaging and telling a funny story about a woman eating a whole bicycle and confiding in him later over a plate of nachos that her secret was olive oil. Case in point to Buck's schtick falling flat is that he recycled the exact same joke on the mainstage later in the day and it fell completely flat. Two little girls walked by me at that exact moment and one says to the other 'he already told this joke today'.

Next thing we saw was Xavier Rudd who I've got to say I don't think even drugs would have helped my enjoyment of. Sure he's got an ambidextrous quality and gets into a few good pockets but it's all pretty cliched. The fact that his singing voice occilates between a bad Ben Harper cop and a bad Dave Matthews cop doesn't help. I also found his spiritual preaching incredibly hokey and just plain lame. He was going on at one point about how his didg instrument- the three headed one which goes by a different name- is made of some sacred wood and that it has powerful affects on local weather and that it was causing the rain to clear. Uh yeah. He had other schpiels about how white men are bad and natives are good, trees are for looking at and mother earth has a bun in the oven but you get the gist. Didn't really catch the name of his songs but the one I picked up on and I guess the highlight was Braless Wonder> Smugglin' Raisins> Braless Wonder. The whole Smugglin' jam and the Smugglin' reprise smoked!

Didn't see enough of Most Serene Republic to really comment but I thought they were quite good for their age and had a more distinct sound from BSS then I thought they might. They were joined as some mentioned by a few of the BSS horns at points including Evan Cranley and Liam O'Neil from the Stills who was guesting with BSS that night. They later crowded the side stage during BSS set and were onstage playing shakers and such adding to the spectacle. Funny thing too is they have a guy who stands stage right and looks just like a junior Kevin Drew.

Can't say too much about Buck's set except that it was highly palatable if a bit uneven. He had an old friend Joe (from the Halifax days) doing a sort of Vaudevillian schtick with him including juggling blocks, knives, physical humour etc. that kept things light. His fiance Claire, who I met up close and has the most icy blue eyes like a husky- just and exquisitely beautiful woman-, sang with him on more songs than I gather she has been as of late at for instance Calgary Folk. She wasn't nearly as annoying as I suspected she might be in fact quite the opposite, it worked with the material. He played some Talkin' Honky material and his new one Secret House Against The World (which I haven't listened to but Ahess mentioned that there's a lot of talk of hell). I wish he would dip further back into his ouvre and play some of the Language Arts material like off of Vertex or Man Overboard but those seem to be lost causes. A highlight was a mash up of Clarence Ashley's old time Coo Coo Bird over Wicked and Weird.

Then of course came the mighty mighty Broken Social Scene which deserves a whole diatribe of it's own which I'm working on for publication elsewhere in which case I'll reprint it here.

[AD]

Never got around to writing down a few thoughts about Hillside. I only saw the Sunday so there's not too much to add. Unfortunately the day was supposed to start with what would have promised to be a highly engaging workshop featuring Buck 65 and Xavier Rudd- which was cancelled. I gather Buck showed up at the Island stage instead of the Lake stage wondering where he was supposed to be. No sight of Xavier either though which makes me think he didn't wake up. Alot of people were bummed about this cancellation.

Great recap of the day, nothing much to add except that we heard from the sound guy at the proper stage that someone forgot to pick Xavier up at his hotel in town and that was the reason for the cancellation.

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[AdamH]

another clue is that even in the interview portion he affects his gruff voice which I also find a bit disingenous and self-mythologizing

Was mentioning this to Katie, seems like he's pulling a Waits. The gruff voice makes the girls swoon though, so she probably wasn't listening to me.

W.r.t the buck/sarah workshop I think we ought to be fair and write amanda putz a citation for sheer lameness. I'm sorry but I just don't need the question volley interrupting one song after another (and this sort of CBC takeover at Hillside workshops in unprecedented and hopefully not repeated next year)

Next thing we saw was Xavier Rudd who I've got to say I don't think even drugs would have helped my enjoyment of.

Yes, I agree with this statement.

As for Buck's main stage set I loved it immensely, his wife adds a nice vocal layer at certain points and keeps his action fresh and exciting - he's a pretty weak turntablist though.

[AD]

he's a pretty weak turntablist though.

Disagreed... He uses one table, one record, not a lot of fancy help like others... He teaches master-classes in turntablism when he's not touring too. At least he used to.

I've heard other turntablists speak highly of his skills too.

But, if you ask Buck himself, he'll agree with you Polkaroo, so maybe I'm full of shit.

AD

Edited July 28, 2005 by Guest

[guigsy]

i saw Buck 65 at Call The Office the other nite, and the only displays of turntabalism i got was him hitting play and scratching incessantly.

i was actually entirely bored with his performance, wanted to write something for the board but the only positive thing i could think of was that im sure his records are awesome (the music was good, it just wasnt what i go to see shows for... a dude hitting play and rapping? i want my 20 bones back....)

anyways, agree 100% with the Waits assessment... thats what i was thinking for the majority of the show... hiphop Waits with tons of weird genius potential.

[AD]

Did you make out any lyrics? That's why I love Buck 65 so much. And his beats are pretty cool too.

AD

[guigsy]

oh ya, i got the lyrics, and i dig on him... i think he's got good ideas, and like i said, i dug the music... but in a live venue, it just bored me to tears and certainly wasnt worth the price of admission, for me... i really shoulda picked up a disc, cuz im sure i'll love him on my stereo.

[AD]

Excellent.

It was really $20 at Call the Office?

That is a tad excessive.

I found a good 'bootleg' of his on Soulseek a while ago, called Climbing Up A Mountain With A Basket Full Of Fruit. I think it's just repackaged stuff from the language arts era, but there is some good new-ish stuff in there as well, and some remixes / alternate versions.

AD

[guigsy]

yeah, im definitely gonna look into more of his stuff... i think what kinda made me shake my head a bit was that the stuff he was rapping overtop of didnt sound like anything a live band couldnt pull off... he'd be awesome in front of a band! why not?? anyways, we didnt get any of his turntable magic... he had 2 hands on the mic most of the night... and his wife didnt get into the action too much, either... maybe 2 or 3 songs, tops? it was a tuesday, maybe they were tired, or bored, or both...

at any rate, yeah, 20 bucks at CTO... $17.50 if i had bought in advance... i wasnt even gonna go, i was already in bed to be honest, but i couldnt sleep so i changed my mind and went over to the office around 11:30, and he went on about 10 minutes later, so it was good timing, i guess...

[zero]

I didn't mean to suggest there was anything wrong with his set. I'd describe it as immensely enjoyable as well. It's just the observations about watching him participate in this revisionist history of himself. Dylan did tonnes of that sort of thing, talking about his upbringing in Dinkytown and all sorts of stories about him being a drifter and a hobo and whatnot. Just working the one table it's hard to tell, admittedly the press DAT track and talk routine can run thin, on two tables working the fader he's pretty strong though. He can juggle beats without headphones and that sort of thing. He does a few tricks that even Kid Koala admires. That said the younger guard like A Trak and Skratch Bastid have really schooled both Koala and Buck by this point. This is now four or even five years ago but I saw Skratch go against Buck in the DJ Olympics in Halifax- they got to the finals and it was tight then Skratch made a big display of taking two identical copies of Buck's current record- I want to say Man Overboard- then he cut them up so they sounded like Darth Vader's Imperial March. It must have taken for ever to come up with the spot in the records and that whole trick. It was just brilliant like pure guerrila warfare.

[SmoothedShredder]

We saw him with a band right AD... the dudes from the SuperFriends Nes Pas... where was that again? Either Babylon or Barrymores I think. It was really cool... back beats and pedal steel...

in that song 4-6-3 he rocks out pretty good at the end...

[AD]

NAC Fourth Stage, Buck 65 with full band, pedal steel, guitar, keys, guy doing beats, Buck on the tables. Charles Austin from the Superfriendz and members of the Guthries made up the band.

That was a great show.

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[AdamH]

I think that was the same lineup that played at Barrymore's around a year and a half ago. Which I should add was also a great show.

[zero]

The band is called the Savant Guard. It's Charles Austin and at least Dale Murray (Anne Murray's nephew) from the Guthries on lap steel.