Sunday, August 31, 2008

Here We Go




This summer I went to two weddings.

The first one occurred in June. My father married Susan Kent, a wonderful woman he had been involved with for the preceding five years. They both, I think, had kind of given up on finding someone so late in life. My father arrived in Nova Scotia with a suitcase and a guitar, having purged himself of all physical reminders of his earlier life, travelling light and, I believe, without a real destination in mind. Susan, alternately, kept everything she had ever owned in boxes that she never opened, and that surrounded her in her impossibly cluttered apartment. Having seen this apartment myself, it amazes me that there was room for my father within it, but he happily found his space. They balanced each other out, matching one another's quirks and personalities in a magical way. They are so obviously into one another, but rather than alienating the people around them by being too insular, their affection for one another manages to infect everyone in their vicinity. They glow, in the healthiest, most inviting way. I think that much of it comes from being so surprised to have found one another.

Most of my favourite love songs aren't really about being in love, and I don't want to extrapolate on that much further lest I ruin potential future entries. I'll just say that most of my favourites are about looking back on a relationship with a certain nostalgic fondness and self-awareness that is very much grounded in and by the speaker's present state of mind. Songs about being in love usually seem kind of sucky, all caught up in sentiment and flowers, with a very few notable exceptions like Fountains of Wayne's innocently joyful "Hey Julie," for example.

I like "Here We Go" so much because it's both hopeful and realistic, and also because it puts so much onus on the speaker himself, rather than being concerned with a love interest who is little more than a one-dimensional ideal, or/and, as in many love-lost songs, the cause of the speaker's downfall and misery. This is a getting-ready-for-love song, and I don't think there are too many of 'em.

"You've gotta hope that there's someone for you, as strange as you are / Who can cope with the things that you do without trying too hard." That's it, isn't it?

My friends Ian and Kate got married last week-end, and my favourite part of everything was watching Kate pronounce her vows with such earnestness and devotion, on the verge of tears the entire time. These are two remarkable people on their own, and people who are optimistic but realistic enough to, I think, know that they don't need one another, and would be okay anyway, and almost pleasantly surprised to have found one another. Amazed, even. Because, of course, love is amazing.

Dad and Susan got married at Susan's sister's house because there was no electricity in their own home, where they had planned to have their very small and modest ceremony, and many of their neighbours were in fact in danger of losing their lives and property to the forest fires that were raging through Porter's Lake. I couldn't believe it when Dad called to tell me that the ceremony was going to happen as planned, just at another venue.

Love is not all I'll-be-there-until-the-end-of-time. It is way more specific than that. It is forest fires and towering boxes that could fall on your head if just one thing is shifted the wrong way. It is amazing that any thinking person ever walks down that aisle. Good for them!
Here We Go - Jon Brion
You've gotta hope that there's someone for you
As strange as you are
Who can cope with the things that you do
Without trying too hard
Because you can bend the truth
Until it's suiting you
These things that you're wrapping all around you
You never know what they will amount to
And your life is just going on without you
It's the end of the things you know
Here we go
You've gotta know that there's more to this world
Than what you have seen
Because we all have a limited view
Of what we can be
As we move along with our blinders on
Each one of us feels a little stranded
And you can't explain or understand it
Each one of us on a different planet
And amidst all the to and fro
Someone can say hello
Here we go
The feeling that someone really gets you
It's something that no one should object to
It could happen today so I suggest you
Skip your habit of laying low
It's the end of the things you know
Here we go

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Annabel


When Tom Glenne hosted the open mic. at the Free Times Cafe on College st., in Toronto, he would often give this spiel that went something like [serious paraphrasing], "You could all be sitting at home watching the hockey game on television, but instead you came out here to listen to live music." And it would make me think about how amazing it was - this tiny gesture - this going outside, to experience music and community, whether I was performing or just taking it in. And of course I would have to suffer through some whiny or boring or even embarrassing performances, but these amazing things happened there, too. I think above and beyond the individual songs and songwriters I discovered was this sense of community that was created in this very organic way. People met future band mates and friends on these Monday nights, arriving as early as six o'clock in the evening to ensure themselves a spot on the list that was almost always filled by the time the evening started at eight. For several months I was in attendance almost every Monday, lugging my guitar home to Etobicoke at the end of the night in time to get barely enough sleep to face Tuesday. Showcases were also held there, one evening a month, featuring four open mic. performers in what was often their first real gig. It was something that the open mic. hosts organized. Musicians waited for their own turns attentively and quietly. It was such a welcoming environment for songwriters, like myself, who were fairly new at performing in front of an audience and even at playing their instruments. More experienced musicians often used Monday nights to try out new material in front of an attentive audience.

Despite my long and comfortable relationship with the Granite Brewery and Ginger's Tavern, in Halifax, I have only ever been a kinda sorta regular at their own Monday night open mic., "Stage Fright," mostly just because Monday has historically been the one evening I have wanted very much to just go home after work. I am not someone who goes home and comes back. I stick it out or I go to bed, and the hours between six and ten seem like a lot and Monday is usually my most sensible day for thinking that way.

But there is clearly a community of musicians who have come together and out of "Stage Fright."

Tonight, Bend the River released their first CD, Revolt of Angels, which they actually recorded in the venue over the winter. The songs on this album were all written by Ronok Sarkar, with the exception of one song co-written by Ronok and the band's drummer and "Stage Fright" host RJ Donovan. The band also includes Adam Fine, Jonathan Andrews, and Matt Myer, with assistance from Evan Kolvoord, Bill Travis, Erin Costelo, and Kevin Corbett. Opening for Bend the River were Erin Costello and former open mic. regular, Jon McKiel. It's unclear to me exactly how all of these musicians found one another, but it seems that Monday nights at Ginger's was indeed the springboard for these friendships and collaborations.

It was an amazing show, let me please state that for the record, even though that's not really what this blog entry is about. I can't wait until these guys are so fucking HUGE, and I can be all "I told you so," 'cause the world is just a terrible, unfair, stupid place if that doesn't happen.

I made some friends at the Free Times, I found some people to sing with, to share gigs with. I appreciated the camaraderie and the recognition. It is some thing to be known, to be "regular."

And the musicians themselves. There is something so intimate and lucky about being in that room, being so close to someone so earnestly, and of course in the best instances, so masterfully, playing their songs like that. Live! You never know what will get lost or altered on the recording. You never know that they'll even make a recording. An original song is a magical, unique piece of work that changes every time it gets played.

Kat Goldman, when she was Kathy Goldman, used to play at the Free Times. She was my favourite. Her lyrics aren't on the internet and thus not so easily paste-able, and so I promise to painstakingly type them all out when I get the chance. But not tonight.



Annabel - Kat Goldman

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Wes Anderson





I couldn't find the other best ones. Pretend I didn't just say that. I wanted this to be a silent blog.
Too much Tenenbaums I know, I know. Blame google image search.

Monday, August 11, 2008

The Wind / Don't Be Shy


Well, I just feel so fantastic this evening. After a rather not-fantastic day, I managed to take stock of and remember the things that I am proud to be doing and the things that I am grateful for. Walking home, feeling pretty serene as I watched the last light of day disappear, I thought it was pretty stupid of me to be trying so desperately to recover a favourite wallowing song of mine from the depths of my memory - this was my intended project - when, as it turned out, I no longer felt at all like wallowing.

It's hard to pick a favourite Cat Stevens song. (So I won't.) All of his songs feel like things that have always been there, comforting like pajamas fresh out of the dryer. My hippie friend Jill once said, "Cat Stevens is the best driving music" I couldn't agree more. Listening to Cat Stevens is like being reminded of the journey while you're in it. It's free and alert and absolutely - literally - wonderful.

We used to sing "Wild World,"  Liz & Steph & whoever else & I, sitting outside in Markland Woods by Liz's pool or at Centennial Park with guitars.

This is a short one - no more explanations and no more fucking brackets.
This song is just so good. And it is almost always so hard for me to relax.

I'm going to go watch Rushmore.


**Photo is a screenshot from Harold & Maude, retrieved by google. How do I credit this? Am I being criminal? Um, I got it here: http://4thwall.de/uploads/maude.jpg

The Wind - Cat Stevens
I listen to the wind to the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up well I think, only God really knows
I've sat upon the setting sun
But never, never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never, never, never
I listen to my words but they fall far below
I let my music take me where my heart wants to go
I swam upon the devil's lake
But never, never never never
I'll never make the same mistake
No, never, never, never
Don't Be Shy - Cat Stevens
Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead
And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by
On by...
You know love is better than a song
Love is where all of us belong
So don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
You're there...
Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by
Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there
Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead
And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by
On by, on by, on by, on by...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Last Waltz at the El Strato


Speaking of rude awakenings, and the CBC's role therein, I really should have known something fishy was going on as soon as I was woken up to an Al Tuck song. On the radio!

The El Strato lounge and Al Tuck were and are Halifax fixtures that are forever tied to my earliest impressions of this city. They appropriately exemplify the romanticised relationship between creativity and authenticity that is expressed in this city in a myriad of ways, as in the often dilapidated buildings that are nevertheless painted brilliant reds and blues.

The radio played "Last Waltz at the El Strato" when it was too late for a last waltz, on the morning following a fire that burned the building to the ground.

I used to go there with roommates and new friends, to enjoy tiny $1.35 drafts and conversation and the experience of bearing witness to the cross-section of art school students and VLT addicts and alcoholics who made up the seedier side of the north end. The bartender showed me an old photo album that was kept behind the bar, and which declared the owners' earnest and optimistic intention of creating a western-themed venue on Gottingen street. The decor still included a western-themed mural on the back wall, and large wagon wheels affixed to wooden posts. Beside the entrance there was a display case that was always lit up and showcased a blank piece of paper that never, in my recollection, was removed or adjusted to advertise the events that actually did - rarely - occur within the venue. Blinking lights that proclaimed nothing at all.

My day job then was selling pocketbooks, cigarettes and pornography at United Bookstore on Barrington street, and my boss Dave turned me on to Al Tuck's music almost immediately after I began working there. I listened to Brave Last Days all the time, without ever recognising that Al Tuck was that cute, tall guy from Sam's who came in to buy cigarettes almost every day. I didn't make the connection until I went to see Al play a show at Oasis, during an East Coast Music Awards No-Case, or whatever they were called at the time; those supplementary events not supported by the music awards themselves, because the musicians were too weird or unpopular or interesting to be sold as being representative of the kind of "culture" the tourist bureau and its affiliates are intent on promoting to the rest of the country.

I'm still hard pressed to locate many other musicians with as much integrity as Al Tuck. This largely unsung hero of Atlantic Canadian music continues to (barely, I imagine) eke out a living by writing and performing songs at such venues as Gus' pub and Bearley's, and every time I see him perform I am so aware of the fact that it is only the good fortune of my geography that allows me the incredible opportunity.

When I think about Halifax, I think about music, and when I think about Halifax music, Al Tuck is one of the first musicians to come to mind. He so exemplifies the spirit of this place, and all of the contradictions and grittiness and beauty that keep me in this tourist town.

**Quintessentially Halifax blue house photographed by Andrew MacDonald. I wish it looked more dilapidated, but maybe it's in a sketchy neighbourhood!



Last Waltz at the El Strato - Al Tuck


(instrumental)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Apple Scruffs

I don't think there is another song in the world that makes me happier than George Harrison's "Apple Scruffs." It just begs to be danced around to, in that boppy, up & down way that I "dance" when so moved. I remember dancing to this song in the front room on Hunter street, in the apartment that I shared with Sean and a slew of other roommates when we first moved here, together, from Toronto. It offered some levity to the otherwise sad event of George Harrison's passing, the news of which Sean and I awoke to, courtesy of CBC Radio 1. It was an unfortunate way to start the day but it was a good day, if the best days are - and they are - the ones that are made significant for and by their honest interactions.


The sheer length of George Harrison's first solo release, "All Things Must Pass," is enough to indicate that he felt there were things he had to say that he couldn't or had not been permitted to say as one-fourth of The Beatles; and one far less considered and revered than the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team.


I would hate to suggest that that I felt I was in Sean's shadow throughout our relationship because this is simply not the case. I am in fact less comfortable with this parallel than I am with the comparison of our partnership to the relationship of the four people who comprised what is arguably the best band of all time. What I believe is apt is the acknowledgement that there are some things you can't take stock of properly when you're in the thick of it, and also that, despite the best of intentions, you necessarily lose a bit of your agency when you are involved in a relationship. That is the nature of compromise, and compromise, to some degree, is imperative for the success of a relationship.


When things don't work out, one understandable response is to consider how this loss of someone else can be a sort of stand-in for the things you have lost of yourself. What was it for? I could have gone to Europe! I'd be living in Whitehorse! I could have been with so-and-so! All of these possible lives are considered with a bitterness to match the lost, could-have-been enthusiasm that would have greeted these adventures.


If you get a best friend out of that mess, you are so far ahead of the game you're on, like, the super-all-stars best team in the universe or something. If you get a sweet, nostalgic song like "Apple Scruffs," it was definitely worth it, that sticking it out.


When Sean and I danced to slower, sadder Harrison songs in that front room, we cried and held each other not because this death was tragic or unexpected, but just because it was a really, really sad inevitability, and we weren't quite ready to say good-bye.

I miss my best friend Sean very much, but not because he isn't. It's only geography.



Apple Scruffs - George Harrison

Now I've watched you sitting there
Seen the passers-by all stare
Like you have no place to go
But theres so much they dont know
about apple scruffs
You've been stood around for years
Seen my smiles and touched my tears
How it's been a long, long time
And how you've been on my mind,
my apple scruffs
Apple scruffs, apple scruffs
How I love you, how I love you
In the fog and in the rain
Through the pleasures and the pain
On the step outside you stand
With your flowers in your hand,
my apple scruffs
While the years they come and go
Now, your love must surely show me
That beyond all time and space
Were together face to face,
my apple scruffs
Apple scruffs, apple scruffs
How I love you, how I love you

Sunday, August 3, 2008

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

I can't remember ever being unfamiliar with The Beatles' self-titled double album, popularly referred to as The White Album. In a small way, it's a shame, because I'd love to have a recollection of that moment of discovery.

By the time we moved into our home on Edgevalley Drive, when I was nine years old, the album was already well known to me, but it is that basement I am always taken back to when I listen to The White Album. The bar that took up a significant portion of our rec. room, instead of being stocked with various bottles of spirits was stocked with the records that my parents had collected when they were children, teenagers, and young adults. There were stacks and stacks of these records piled on the shelves behind the bar out of sight from where we were usually positioned in the room. It was an effort to dig through these, and to finally select what I wanted to hear, and place the chosen album on the turntable that sat on top of the bar. It's weird that my brothers never did this. I have asked them which albums or songs remind them of their childhood, and they always recall what was popular at the time, completely disinterested in or unaware of this musical history our parents brought with them, before there was us, in boxes they packed and unpacked in a series of moves that coincided with the landmark events in their lives. I wonder about my father listening to this music in his residence room when he was going to the University of Toronto; in the first apartment he shared with my mother as a newlywed; and finally, how he felt hearing his nine-year-old daughter belt out the words to "Happiness is a Warm Gun" with such unrestrained enthusiasm.

It was easy to distinguish my father's records from the ones that had belonged to my mother because he had signed his name to the cover of his, something my collector-brain, after years of working in second-hand bookstores, is fairly appalled by, but which I otherwise find endearing. For some reason, or for several reasons, my father had been concerned about losing his claim to these, and this signature in bold blue ink was evidence of their importance to him. I don't know where these records have ended up, and I'm inclined to doubt that my father does, either; I think it's true that stuff begins to lose its importance as we get older, and particularly as the not-stuff, like relationships with people and geography, is revealed to be inconstant and even fleeting. What you ultimately get to keep is your own picture in your own head. The Beatles didn't write these songs for me or my dad.

One of the records was scratched. In one chorus of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," George Harrison sings, "While my g-weeps." My mom always thought the lyric,"I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping" was ridiculous; that it was only included because it rhymed. And maybe she's right, but I have looked at floors and spaces and felt immobilized by the amount of dust and dirt and clutter I am confronted by. It is too much, sometimes. But eventually, you pick up the broom, because you want to put something new over that mess, or you at least want your damage deposit back.

My very first apartment, which I shared with Kim and Andrea during my second year of university, that first time around, was at the corner of Bloor and College streets in Sudbury, Ontario. I thought it was funny, living at the corner of these two side-streets that shared their names with major streets in Toronto that ran parallel to one another, and which would never, ever, meet. I had copied onto cassettes a number of albums from home, and of course one of these was The White Album. I anticipated the skip, appreciated the scratched record sounds that had been transferred to this cassette and this city, and on those nights where I was feeling lonely and homesick, it made me feel a little less so.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles (Harrison)
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
No one alerted you.
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all...
Still my guitar gently weeps.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Closer to Fine





I saw a wonderful show on Thursday evening. The Three Handsome Devils - Evan Kolvoord, Ronok Sarkar & Bill Travis - were reunited for the first time in at least a year, as Evan's been living in his home town of Austin, Texas of late. I met his girlfriend Nicole that evening, and I was surprised to hear her express how exciting it was for her to be able to see him perform these shows the way that he has over the past month or so, during their Nova Scotia vacation. I guess he doesn't do much of this in Austin. She offered a vague explanation about him having done all of that there so many years ago, also alluding to how his creativity might be kind of stifled in the presence of all of these people he's known his whole life. I kind of get that. What she also said, though, and I think more significantly, was that Evan seemed to feel more inspired in Halifax. She recognized a very creative and collaborative community in this little city. It's so interesting how the spirit of a place can affect the way a person relates to even the things that are the most important to him- or herself. I think she's right about Halifax.

When I moved back to Toronto for a little while at the very, very end of the 1990's, I became acutely aware of the fact that no one ever danced at rock shows. They stood there maybe swaying, almost imperceptibly. It was notable because everyone danced at rock shows, in Halifax.

The show - The Handsome Devils show - was intentionally but earnestly like a lazy Sunday afternoon in a friend's kitchen. The three songwriters played one another's songs around a checkered tablecloth atop of a bar table that sat in the centre of the stage and held a fruit bowl from which audience members were invited to - and indeed did - help themselves.

It looked, for a bit, like the show might not happen. The small audience that finally arrived did so late. I guess these lazy late arrivals - a natural fit for this city after all - must be accommodated despite all of the tomorrow mornings that follow these evenings in much too rapid succession. Evan took to the street with his ukulele and improvised songs about his surroundings in an attempt to lure people into the venue. It was mostly unsuccessful that way, but people stopped and listened or at least offered warm smiles as they continued on to their own engagements or homes.

I remembered how when I was younger I used to find these spaces and people and moments even in great big, grey Toronto, and how songs on streets made the pavement and the commute something almost magical. Individuals connected by voices and music and being outside, in it with the world, which is really a very joyful place.

For two summers, my friend Justin and I used to busk outside of Futures Bakery at Bloor & Brunswick sts. I would play guitar while he did tricks with his devil sticks. There was a woman who worked at Futures who would give us free coffee everyday, which was my favourite thing about playing there - knowing how she appreciated hearing this through the open window enough to encourage our extended engagement by offering caffeinated beverages as incentive. Otherwise, we made a little bit of money - enough to share a package of Drum tobacco and get wasted at the Bistro every Wednesday night before heading down the street to watch One Step Beyond play their acid jazz to a roomful of hippies who did, indeed, dance freely.

At some point during every day we were out there, Justin would insist, "Play the mountain song!" And I would never ever tire of appeasing him by playing "Closer to Fine."

I imagine that "Closer to Fine" remains a song that is sung around campfires and in basements and on street corners like that one, though I don't think I've heard anyone play it in years. It's one of the first songs I ever learned how to play on guitar, courtesy of John Duncan IV (who also taught me how to play The Lemonheads' "Confetti" which is the second song I learned to play on guitar). Everyone I was friends with seemed to know and love this song, and because hardly anyone else knew how to actually play guitar, they all thought I was pretty awesome at it.

I've taken issue with the word "fine," rallied against its connotations even, sort of equating it with the settling sentiment. But I think I've reclaimed it of late. There is nothing wrong with fine. She's so Fine, "I'm in love with her and I feel fine." Fine I thought, was like an excellent meal, an ironed suit; Intentional, precise. Really, though, I don't think "fine" is that considered, and certainly not the way it's expressed in this song. Perhaps it's like happiness is this imagined higher level that hasn't been attained and maybe doesn't even exist. If fine and content are the best you can get, so what? I feel way better, fine and inexplicably easy than I do during most of the minutes of my life that are spent looking for what it is that I lack.



"Closer To Fine" - Indigo Girls
I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it,
I'm crawling on your shore.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine