graydon james's show blog

Sometimes a show is completely counter-intuitive.  For example, yesterday’s matinee at The Spill, where 70% of the crowd came to see Thrash Kelly, who hail from B.C., and about 35% came to see us, and we’re from Toronto.  And the two local folks playing didn’t really bring many people to the show.  Which isn’t a big deal, it happens sometimes.  The important thing is that there was a really good-sized crowd for a Saturday afternoon and they were all raring to hear some full-on band-style music.  We didn’t even know that Thrash Kelly was on the bill, so it was a surprise but one of those very welcome surprises that mean good things are a-happening.

Grainne played first, a solo set that whet the appetite of the crowd.  I’d seen her play at OCFF in October but I didn’t realize at the time just how big her guitar was compared to her body.  They were basically the same size.  And they both produced a big sound, which was impressive.  Then Thrash Kelly hit the stage and really tore things up.  They have a very energetic bluegrass-folk-pop kind of sound, and they dig in and play up a storm on-stage.  It was a great show, and therefore pretty intimidating to have to go on after that.  Also the crowd really loved them.  They had everyone bopping along to their high-octane good-timery.

Before we went on-stage I had separate conversations with almost every member of the band, and each of them said basically the same thing to me: “how do we go on after this?”  The only thing you can do is play to your strengths.  We are not a barnstorming kind of band, and really our only strength is basically to be the opposite of that kind of energy.  It also is a bad idea to follow like with like…you want to change things up for the audience.  Anyway, we went on and started with “what kind of man” and let our set build up to the sing-along number: “in your defense”.  It was, I think, the smartest way to play things, because it was a stark contrast to Thrash Kelly’s sound.  I’m not saying we are necessarily that strong, truly, but being markedly different and at least decent was enough to get the crowd on our side.  By the time we got to the sing-along they were there with us and it went marvelously well.

It was good enough that afterward we talked with the members of Thrash Kelly about coming out to B.C. to tour with them, which would be highly rad if we could pull it off.  Each of the bands loaded our gear out to our respective vans and the crowd slowly ebbed off to make way for the evening entertainment.  We finished our tea and commented that the show, though it initially seemed like it was not going to go well, turned out to be a really solid matinee.  Intuition be damned.

Not every show is a sold-out rip-roaring stage-destroying kind of show.  But this one was!  No, I’m kidding, but it was still a fun show and I’ve realized more recently that I am a terrible judge of whether or not we play a “good” show.  Really, the audience is the judge…or perhaps the jury.  Either way, if the audience isn’t enjoying the show they will execute you — just to complete the trifecta I was setting up there.  If someone comes up to me after the show and says “good job!” I don’t reply with “really? But we missed that stop and that one harmony was off and that one song was too fast and…”  I just thank them and tell them how much I appreciate that they were even listening.  I learned that lesson a while ago, but the ramification of it is only slowly dawning on me: it doesn’t matter what I think.  I do my level best to perform well and the audience makes their decision about whether I was successful or not.

By that account, last night’s show was quite successful, despite the fact that there were really only a few audience members in the room.  We were playing at London Music Club and, because we don’t really know anyone in London, we asked local muso Handsome Dan to open and got former Londonite Shawn Clarke on the bill.  And while that didn’t really bolster our crowd much, I don’t blame those guys, it’s just the nature of the beast.  The room, however, was quite stellar.  It’s the front room of London Music Club, and it is bisected by an archway halfway down the room.  They’ve designed the speaker system so that there are speakers by the stage and then another set of speakers on the opposite side of the archway.  That means the sound is very even throughout the room, but never loud.  Which is perfect for our style of music.

It also suited both Handsome Dan and Shawn Clarke’s tunes, because they both sounded really strong throughout their sets.  I’d seen Handsome Dan & His Gallimaufry open for Shawn Clarke before, but it was nice to hear his stuff solo.  He also had a few duets with a female singer who had a beauty of a voice on her.  Shawn’s set was nicely understated, which is his strength.  He never needs to blast anything out — his arrangements are nuanced in a way that lends itself to quiet sets.  After they had played I stepped out to the bathroom, and on my way back I heard “Black Water” blasting from the other room of the Music Club.  Turns out the Woody Allens were playing in that room…and we’ll be playing with them in January at The Spoke in London!  Wild coincidence.

We played, and for me it was just another relatively consistent set.  The audience, sparse though they were, gave us some solid applause and afterward we sold a handful of CDs, which means almost everyone that came bought a CD.  That’s a good sign, at least in terms of playing a crowd-pleasing show, which is really the point of any show.  Next time we’ll just have to focus on pleasing an even bigger crowd.  Like maybe seven people.  Or nine!

Restaurants and live music don’t always go hand in hand.  I will say this though: I don’t mind being paid in steak and fries.  It’s not as good for Alex and John — they’re both vegetarian — but, as I’ve found in life, every good steak joint is balanced by a solid falafel place just down the way.  It is also universally true that most small towns appreciate live music to a degree unsurpassed by all but the most fervent big city fans.  So when we were bringing all our gear into the Bruce Steakhouse (in Kincardine) and setting up there was already a good-sized (and hungry) crowd in the place.  By the time we had it all going the crowd was even bigger, although they were less hungry.

Travis Reid played first and was obviously a crowd favourite.  He lives in Kincardine, but his appeal came from his combination of fun covers (an acoustic version of “Crazy”, for example) and solid originals, and it made his set enjoyable from start to finish.  While he was playing we all noticed that the covers were having a definite impact on the crowd, so we decided to do that most rare of things and play a cover ourselves.  Our immediate thought was “Up On Cripple Creek” by The Band — it fulfills all the requirements of a last-minute cover in that more than 50% of us knew more than 50% of the song.

When we started playing I was pleasantly surprised that the audience was into us playing original music.  They really were very supportive of us playing our own tunes.  Not to say that “Up On Cripple Creek” didn’t go over well — if you’re a carbon-based lifeform you probably love that song — but people definitely applauded most for the originals.  Afterward Travis explained to me that virtually all of the bands in the area are strictly cover bands, so the notion of a band that played almost all originals was kind of exciting to people.  They certainly were generous in taking home some CDs, and we met some of Travis’s friends and stayed up into the night talking about every frivolous topic that seems deep when the clock creeps past 2AM.

The next morning I got up early with Simon, because we’re that crazy kind of band that brings a baby on tour, and we went to the Tim Horton’s and then down to Lake Huron.  I had him in a carrier, snuggled up next to my chest, which was good because the wind was up by the lake.  We strolled along the shoreline and eventually Simon fell asleep.  Something in that combination — the wild wind-lashed lake and the calm sleeping baby — brought a deep comfort onto me.  Kincardine may seem like a sleepy town, but it has an energy all its own.

It’s hard to say what the best thing about a Thursday night in Guelph is, because we had a wonderful vegan dinner before the show and some solid poutine after the show, with a side of upskirt action from a drunk girl at the poutine place.  But those paled in comparison to meeting all of John Law’s friends and family.  John is the new lead guitarist for the band (his first show was about two weeks ago) and the Jimmy Jazz seemed to be crammed full of people he knew.  His sister, Danielle, introduced herself by asking me who was older: her or John.  I said John, which was my first mistake.  How was I supposed to know he was the little brother?  He is balding and has an old man’s cantankerousness.

The show started with a solo performance by the front man of Consumer Goods who, unfortunately for me, had to leave right after he played to grab the last bus back to Toronto.  I never got his name.  He played great though, and for a solo guy he had the crowd listening which is impressive.  Afterward we took the stage and played…okay.  I feel like the “working man’s tour” we’ve been on (which involves playing most weekends because we all gotta work during the week) is helping us get more consistent.  And perhaps slowly better, although I’m going to keep my opinion on that in abeyance for a little while.  One thing that is slowly getting tighter is introducing the singalong portion of “in your defense”, which was better last night than it has been up to this point.

Among Millions closed out the night and I’m very glad that we were in the middle, because they cranked up the rock well above anything we could ever output.  I remember being highly distracted from their show, though, by two girls sitting on the edge of the pool table near the merch area, where I lit after our performance.  That was about the moment that I noticed Guelph has a high proportion of very attractive women.  And Thursday night seems to bring out the short skirts, even in November.  When we left the Jimmy Jazz the street seemed to be filled with university students just wandering from place to place.  We wove our way through the plethora of short skirts on drunk girls and got some delicious poutine.  But literally, I saw some cheek from an upturned corner of a skirt and did nothing to correct it.  She was with some friends; eventually they would rectify (ahem) her skirt malfeasance.  Until then, I was going to enjoy my poutine.

Who expects anything to happen on a Tuesday night?  I had no real idea if anyone would come out to the Garrison to see the show, even though the Maladies of Adam Stokes and The Elwins are both pretty popular bands.  So it was a surprise to see the group of people that were crowding the floor even when Darren Eedens was on-stage, fingers flying through his bluegrassy style tunes.  He played some mean banjo and some mean guitar, and strolled around the stage quite a bit while he was playing because either his songs didn’t have lyrics or he didn’t care to sing ‘em.  I will say, the crowd was a bit too rambunctious for a one-man show.

The Maladies took care of that, because there are about 20 of them.  Well, okay, seven but that’s still one hell of a full band to rock the stage.  The crowd grew a bit through the course of their set — which I can enjoy more fully, knowing a few of the songs.  I kind of like being able to sing along when I see a show.  The one problem was the sound in the room, but the Garrison is a concrete box and I’ve never seen a show there with good sound.  When we got on that stage the crowd was pretty freakin’ full and three songs in (on “alyson, everything i know is wrong”) people started dancing.  I’ve heard, and experienced, that Toronto crowds are tough to get moving but maybe Tuesday night is the unofficial dance night for Toronto folks?  I think what was additionally surprising about it is that I don’t think we were playing all that well, really.  It took forever for us to get the singalong part of “in your defense” going, for example.  I was talking with a friend recently about the disappointing feeling of playing shows that you never think really go that well.  I ventured the notion that at least it pushes you to try to get better.  We have played shows that I felt went okay…so we’re not a total loss.

The Elwins hit the stage to round out the night and they are a super-fun, massively enjoyable group of guys to watch.  And their songs are tight and catchy.  I thought they sounded great; it seemed like the sound guy had gotten more control of the room then he had before.  People danced, but it was still a Tuesday night, so things thinned out early.  Still, someday I’m hoping to achieve as tight a show as The Elwins can pull off, seemingly while having the greatest fun of their lives.

It’s been a while since I last played drums for a band.  I got to sit behind the kit last night as the house drummer at the Neil Young birthday show, which is a bit of a laugh, since I was a last-minute addition, I hadn’t rehearsed with anyone, and I didn’t even know the majority of the songs I was playing.  I had heard them once or maybe twice by watching YouTube videos based on people’s set lists.  Then when I got to the Piston and started setting up my kit and meeting the various people who would be playing I discovered that each of them were doing their own slightly different take on the Neil Young songs they were performing.  Nothing like running across a high-wire without a safety net…

But the thing that I’ve always found about playing the drums is that if you pay close attention to someone in the band who knows what they are doing, you can pretty much pick up the starts and stops.  That’s all any drummer needs, because you should be able to pick up the feel of the song from a few seconds of music.  Add to that the fact that the rest of the house band mostly hadn’t rehearsed the songs and I didn’t stick out as being the most egregiously wrong musician, most of the time.  In fact, things came together fairly decently, all things considered.  It meant I was peeling my eyeballs staring at everyone on-stage all at once so I could catch the slightest cue, but it was also fun.

I would like to get to a point where I can be called upon by various singer-songwriter types to play drums for their bigger shows.  Playing last night with Andrea Ramolo, Sarah Burton, Mike Martyre, Myke Mazzei, Tiger Lil, and a few other folks I felt like I was making some good connections with people.  Maybe nothing will ever come of those fast-formed on-stage friendships but it is always nice to connect with someone via a musical cue you both hit and you share a look like “hey, we got one!” and the song suddenly starts to gel.

That’s what I’ve always enjoyed about making music.

Even though I generally stand in front of the band, it’s easy to hide behind them.  So when I was asked to play a songwriter’s circle, my initial reaction was to balk at the idea of being alone on stage.  Then I asked if Laura could join me, and that was okay, so all of a sudden it became a possibility to pull it off.  Maybe what this really means is I should sometimes play solo, since I’m becoming a real 10-gallon wimp.  The other thing is, the whole songwriter’s circle was set up by Shauna from Six Shooter Records, which is a pretty boss label and it’s a bad idea to say no to people who are boss.

The other songwriters playing were also highly talented: the Pigott Bros, Kayla Howran, and Josh Cockerill.  It was interesting, though, to get on stage with them and none of us really knew exactly how things were going to work.  There was no one of us that was the MC, really, and so we were all moderately confused.  Turns out it’s not that hard to do a songwriter’s circle — you sit on stage and each one of you plays a song, around and around the circle, until the soundguy tells you to stop.  I knew I would have to talk a bit about the songs, which I’m also not used to doing, so I got myself a little extra nervous because of that.

The event was at Lula Lounge, which is a very large room.  I was glad we were part of the first of the songwriter’s circle series; it gave the show that much more cachet.  Alex (keyboard player in the band) came out with a date.  John (lead guitarist) was there as well.  And we had a random grouping of friends at a table, meeting each other for the first time.  The show itself was more fun than I expected.  I liked taking a break between songs to listen to the other three performers play their tunes (the Pigott Bros. was actually just Oliver Pigott, because his brother had a last-minute acting gig).  My song descriptions were essentially self-deprecating.  I described “alyson, everything i know is wrong” as being flawed because it only has one verse and three choruses.  And I said “for the record” doesn’t really have any chorus at all.  When I got to “scarecrow” I said “So, the problem with this song is…” and got a chuckle from the crowd.

I did feel like we were the least prepared, perhaps because Laura and I had only rehearsed a few times as a duo.  It’s funny…we went on tour once as a duo!  How did we get so rusty?  It didn’t help to be up against Oliver (who had an amazing voice), Kayla (who’s songs were pure old-school country goodness), and Josh (who was both very charming and a great songwriter).  We did have the harmony edge, though.  Without that, I don’t think I could have played this show.

A restaurant in a strip mall does little to inspire confidence.  Someone made a joke about the tanning salon and the nail place next door — at least we were going to look good!  But really the only concern I had was whether the food would be edible.  A venue is a venue, and regardless of accoutrements, you’d better be happy to be playing otherwise you should not be involved in this business of show, as they say.  It’s not hard to be truly grateful for a place and a space to get in front of a crowd and play some songs.

We had a couple of local folks helping us bring people out.  Mollie Fisher is a friend of our drummer, Mike, and we have wanted to play a show with her for a while.  It was serendipitous that she is from Newmarket and we were looking for a spot to play in Newmarket, so we could finally share a stage with her.  The other group was called The Black Lung and we only knew two things about them: they were a folksy-bluegrass group from the Newmarket area and they weren’t going to be there until shortly before they would be going on-stage.  Fair enough, we all have our schedules to deal with.  It behooves me to mention that as we loaded in I spotted John Oates (Hall & Oates anyone?) working behind the bar and the evening suddenly became awesome.  It wasn’t *actually* him, but a very near look-alike.  And he turned out to be a nice guy to boot.

The room filled up pretty quickly.  A table of Mollie’s friends at the back was rowdy from the get-go, which is generally a good sign.  Mollie played and she definitely has a kick-ass voice.  She warmed up the crowd with about sixty times the charisma that I display on-stage.  The table at the back of the room had no qualms about telling me or Shawn how to better mix the sound.  That actually can be helpful, since we don’t always know what it sounds like in various points around the room.  Note that it *can* be helpful; it’s not always helpful.  This time it was borderline, but I appreciated the sentiment.  We got up to play and, as with the past two shows, it was just a decently consistent set from where I stood.  The sing-along at the end was a little more organized, and got a great response.  People were singing right away, like they had been waiting for the chance.  That was nice.

Afterward I enjoyed some quite tasty bar grub, courtesy of Mr. John Oates, so that answered my only concern, and the Black Lungs played some great stomping-along style tunes.  It was a little hard to get a good mix — none of their instruments plugged in and two of the threesome sang, and we only had three mics in total.  In that situation the person playing has to basically stand stock still for the whole set so their instrument is picked up by the same mic that is trying to pick up their voice.  It didn’t work so well.  But they were fun to watch and you could hear them decently because the room wasn’t huge.

And in case you were wondering: yes, my tan and my nails looked fabulous.

It is always a little nerve-wracking to play someplace you’ve never been before.  And when it’s in a town you’ve never played in before, that adds an extra frisson of nervousness.  Add to it the fact that we had played in Kingston the night before and we were all pretty tired from the late-night drive and working during the day, and you have the equation for a good old fashioned hootenanny.

The Simcoe Jazz & Blues is, apparently, an increasingly misnamed venue in Oshawa because they don’t really have jazz or blues, it’s mostly folk and rock.  It’s also conveniently located next to a Long & McQuade, so the fact that I forgot to bring the bass amp wasn’t a big deal because we could rent one for the evening…and in fact they had the exact same bass amp as me(!!).  We were relatively early so we commandeered a table near the stage and met the folks from one of the other bands, The Doozies.  They were a charming group: Josh was the singer/songwriter and guitarist, Kym sang lead and sometimes harmony vocals, and Seann was the multi-instrumentalist who mainly played violin.  They obviously had played at the Simcoe before — they knew where the microphones were hidden.

The opening act was a girl called Darling Meadow who used a looping pedal and simple guitar arrangements to sing some twee folk that was grounded by her musicianship and multi-part vocals so it never came across as annoying, which some twee music can do.  The Doozies were also really solid, with Josh and Kym trading off lead vocals on different songs and Seann really wailing on violin.  The only real problem I had with their set was that they played a number of cover songs.  I might be too used to Toronto shows, where the expectation is that you play your own songs.  I used to play drums for a band that played a lot of out-of-town shows and mostly we played covers…there’s nothing wrong with it, but I guess I just wanted to hear more of their original material.  Kym in particular had a fantastic voice, although she sort of overestimated her own power because when she sang loudly she would pull the mic very far away and then all of a sudden you couldn’t hear her anymore.

It was a nice surprise, when we got up to play, that the crowd was pretty into the music.  The sing-along section of In Your Defense was tough to get across, but that was more due to our own inexperience in getting that to work.  After we had finished I did the thing I usually do at the end of shows where I yank all my cords and I’m off-stage in less than three seconds while the band is still ringing out the final note of the last song.  There was one drunken fellow who really wanted more music…to the point of yelling at me a bit.  It was relatively genial drunken yelling, and complimentary in its way, so we all just joked around with him about it.  More drunken revelry can only make the shows better.

There’s nothing more practical and sensible than taking a sensitive, somewhat nervous new guitarist and throwing them up in front of an audience three days in a row.  Last night in Kingston was the first show of a fall tour that we’re doing, and it was our first show with John Law.  And yes, that’s his real name.  It’s a bit of a working man’s tour, meaning we are playing a lot of Thursday/Friday/Saturday out-of-town gigs, so we can all be back to work as tired as possible on Friday morning and hopefully have Sunday to get our junk back together and haul it into work on Monday.  And although John was nervous for his three-show debut it looked more like boredom (or perhaps ennui) because he’s just about as laid back a cat as Alex Dodd, who helms our keys just in case you don’t know.  In fact both of them, despite being the youngest members of the band, do battle royal for the title of laziest curmudgeon.  Alex usually wins.

Clark Hall Pub is part of Queen’s University and so there was a built-in crowd who were looking to escape their end-of-term drudgery and just get really really drunk.  So when my family showed up (because I’m from the Kingston area) they fit right in, excepting that they were slightly older but also slightly less haggard looking.  The band before us was, as I discovered after their set, a cover band that had been together for all of two weeks.  They had, in fact, come together just to play the show, after their lead singer was asked to play by the booker, who thought the singer still had a band together.  They did a pretty amazing job for being together two weeks; their version of Sweater Song was just as raucous as Weezer’s ever was.

Since the pressure of the working man’s tour is not enough for us, we also decided to play a bunch of songs we’d never played in front of an audience before.  Oh, and we finalized the artwork for the live album that we were actually supposed to be selling at this particular show…  We are perenially challenged by scheduling conflicts.  Amazingly things came off decently, and we hung around the bar afterward chatting with new friends and old friends.  Mike met some girls from Ottawa and chatted them up as only Mike can.  Even John seemed relatively satisfied with his first show with us.  The toughest moment was trying to get the sing-along going in a new tune called In Your Defense.  It’s a three-part harmony section that we have to teach the audience as we go, and it just took us a little long to get it done.  We worked out some of the kinks on the late drive home, so we’ll see how it works in future shows.  Speaking of which, we have two more in the next two days…who plans these things?