graydon james's show blog

The second day of the conference was, if anything, more surreal than the first day.  Amie (our manager) and I both had the same experience of telling people what band we were in and getting the reply: “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you guys.”  I kept thinking: really?  But no matter where I go it is a universal truth that no one wants to look like me, so I end up being the only person in a crowd that looks like me.  Usually that’s a bad thing, but as far as being recognizable it is something of a boon to have a swath of frightening blond hair, nerd glasses, and a doofus-like quality to my features.

In the night things got crazier still.  The unofficial showcases had an amped up energy since it was the last full day of the conference and it became more of a party that had taken over two floors of the Niagara Falls Marriott.  I was surprised by the number of people that came into good ol’ room 404 at 12:30am to hear me and Laura sing some songs and strum away and all that.  People took CDs.  That may not seem like much, but in an atmosphere where a lot of people are giving things away it becomes a case of what do I like enough to carry with me for the rest of the night?

We finished up and went wandering again and I kept jumping from room to room not really seeing much that grabbed me until I ended up in room 401 watching a fellow from Montreal named Jon Davis.  He was a fairly dramatic performer, and I’m not sure if it was the time of night or the mood I was in or what, but he was pretty captivating and a good songwriter.  The unofficial showcases started wrapping up and rooms became just full-on jam sessions.  I wound up in a room with Peter Katz handing off his guitar to anyone who wanted to step up and do a cover tune.  Normally I would have shied away from that sort of thing, but I decided what the hell, grabbed his guitar and played “The Weight” by The Band.  The group vocals were amazing, despite the complexity of the song and I left feeling light-headed.

At 4:30AM I saw a four-part brass band strike it up in the third floor hallway, the tuba blaring away as only a tuba can, and the trombone slipping and sliding through a dixieland-style riff.  The hallway was crammed with people, someone started dancing, and I felt that it would be hard to top that moment, so I slipped upstairs to my room and finally went to sleep about 5 in the morning.  I woke up at 7:30AM with my infant son, felt like I’d been beaten with a sack of hammers, and made the decision that I would definitely come again next year.

The Ontario Conference of Folk Festivals has an energy all its own.  Throughout the day there are talks, panels, and discussions about various industry-oriented things, and then at night there are these official showcases where you can wander between three or four hotel meeting rooms where folk groups are playing for industry and peers.  And then it really gets crazy.  Because there are the unofficial showcases after that, and the conference takes over two floors of the hotel and you can wander from room to room where every thirty minutes or so there is a new performer in each room.  That adds up to some raucous craziness, with something like 6 acts per room, for every room, on two floors of a hotel starting at about 11pm and winding up when the sun starts to climb over the horizon.

Because I made the decision to go to the conference, naturally Laura and I decided to join in on the unofficial showcases.  We wound up with a nice spot on Friday night in the Speak! Music room run by Bev Kreller at about midnight.  We weren’t sure what to expect when we came to room 404 at the Niagara Falls Marriott and stowed my guitar in the bathroom (next to a tub full of beer on ice), but we had some time to take in a few performances before we were set to play and so we wandered the halls.  There is no experience quite like walking along a hotel hallway, passing room after room of acoustic folk music (amplification was not allowed).  One room might have a brass section kicking away, the next a strumming singer-songwriter, the next a full-on Irish jig, the next some lush three-part harmonies.

We probably had a slightly befuddled look on our faces when we got back to room 404 in time to quickly set up and start playing some tunes, duo-style, for the group of people that piled up on the two beds in the room.  It was surprisingly easy to get into the swing of the conference vibe, though, because people really do want to see and hear a lot of music so they will stop by your room for a few minutes, maybe a song or two, and then move on to the next room they want to see.  We decided it would be best to just give away CDs for interested folks because you never knew if they were going to come back again or wander off into the night.  I do distinctly recall Bev’s partner Howard standing outside the door like a town cryer, cajoling people into the room.

Even though it was a completely novel experience, it was also satisfying in a way, just to get people to stick around for one extra song.  And then, of course, after we packed up our stuff we went back out into the hallway to see what other trouble we could get into.  The highlight for me was seeing a four-piece group that consisted of a fellow on djembe and three girls singing together and playing double bass and a couple of guitars.  They were called The Sweetness, and it was an accurate name.  I also got to see Peter Katz play, and ran into a mustachioed fellow named Phil Minissale who had made the trek from Philadelphia and had showcased some of his amazing tunes in a jam room the night before.

Nuit Blanche is an all-night arts showcase that features art installations set up throughout Toronto’s downtown and west end…it’s also a bit of a zoo and contains its fair share of questionable, this-is-art? projects.  It’s also an excuse for people to put on their own, unofficial, Nuit Blanche art parties.  The folks who set up the Fire Escape Sessions (see “the marilyn monroe show” from July 27, 2011) did just that last night, and Laura & I were invited to play a set amidst about 10 other acts that would be playing throughout the night.  It was a nice excuse to get out of the house and see a little of the Nuit Blanche stuff as well as participate in something fun that has a great vibe, so of course we said yahoo! and bundled our way to the arts community housed at 263 Adelaide.

There were things a-happening all throughout the building…including a Ph.D party (that is, a party to celebrate someone getting their Ph.D…I think) at the loft next to the Fire Escape Sesssions loft.  We left our instruments in the loft and headed out to the fire escape because it was a damn chilly night.  We watched the fellow playing before us rock through a few acoustic covers, including a cover of a song by Zeus, which I knew only because (shameless plug alert) I used to play drums in a band with one of the guys from Zeus.  Some people write the sort of songs that only they could write…if you know what I mean.  Like if someone covers a song by, say, Joni Mitchell then you could probably guess it was a Joni Mitchell song.  She writes a pretty specific kind of way.

Anyway, we hauled out our gear, tuned up in the cold air, and played for a good number of people.  It is a fire escape…you can’t fit that many people on it, but I was mildly concerned that the whole ironworks was going to pop free from the building and crash into the alley below.  One good thing: the air wasn’t swirling up the building the way it was last time we played on the fire escape.  After the performance we joined our friend Christy and made our way through the throngs of people to City Hall so we could get some poutine.  The chip trucks there were doing a brisk, Nuit Blanche night of business, and there were revellers and yahoos up and down Queen Street because it was closed to traffic.

Whatever you say about Nuit Blanche being good or bad for the city or for art, I will say that there is no vibe like the vibe of a city-wide all-night party.  It felt like a night where *something* was going to happen.  Which is probably why we went home and went to sleep…although the heavy goodness of cheese & gravy may have had something to do with that.

We never meant to be liars.  We told folks that we wouldn’t be playing any shows until October, but we had good reason: our drummer (Mike) was going to be away for almost all of August, and our bass player (Shawn) would be away for all of September.  As it happens, we were offered a last-minute slot at Hugh’s Room opening for a band called The Little Stevies.  And by pure luck or pure awesomeness that show came down the pipe right smack dab in the middle of the only week between July and October that the whole band was going to be in town.  When serendipity occurs, you grab on and enjoy the ride.  Or so I’ve been told.  In any case, we said yes to the show even though it turned us into lying bastards.  Still…it’s Hugh’s Room!  One of the premiere folk-type venues in the city, with lush sound and hilarious Vegas-style seating.  It would almost be pure folly to turn down a show at such a fine venue.

What had happened, from what I gather, is that the original headliner had to bow out for reasons unspoken.  The Little Stevies were on tour from Australia, and were originally supposed to be opening.  When the headliner caved, they became the headliner, and through some connection that our friendly neighbourhood manager (Amie) has with them, we managed to latch ourselves onto the bill.  Mike came back from Thailand on Sunday, we rehearsed on Monday, and Wednesday we played the show.  We weren’t sure what the turn-out would be like, since we had less than a week to let people know that it was all happening.  So we showed up and met The Little Stevies and they were lovely folks who had been on tour in Canada for two months.  They shared a few stories, including a cautionary tale about a venue in Mississauga, and we all sound-checked and everything sounded loverly.  The Little Stevies just happen to be a fantastic folk-pop band with three-part harmonies and great songs.  It was a solid fit, at least in terms of the mucho harmonies we’d both be bringing to the stage.  The Little Stevies were, naturally, quite a bit more polished and professional than we were, but they are a legitimate touring band with bonafides and we are essentially a bunch of galoots.

Like any relatively large or important show, I managed to break a string in the first song and left Shawn and Laura alone and naked on-stage while I dove off to repair my guitar.  There was a long moment of awkwardness where Laura said, “I’m not sure what to talk about” and then the audience started providing banter suggestions.  When someone called out, “Tell us about your baby!” she replied: “Oh yeah, we have a baby.  He’s eight months old.  He’s in the van.”  Everyone enjoyed that, and when Laura realized what she’d said she added, “A friend of ours is out there, too!  Watching him!”  I ran back on-stage with a re-strung guitar, plugged in, tuned up, and we managed to hit most of our marks with the next song so then the audience was kind of on our side.  Because it really looked like things were going to go right off the rails, but we managed to pull the show back together, and people like to root for the underdog…so there you go.  It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there, but the audience was such a supportive group that they made the show far far better than it had any right to be.

When The Little Stevies went up, we all got a chance to sit back and just enjoy their great songs and great show.  They have a casual way of bantering with the audience that is engaging and lends a very chilled atmosphere to the set, and it was really quite nice to watch them sing and chat.  The two female singers are sisters, and their voices blend together so nicely that when they trade melodies and harmonies it is seamless and impressive.  The night ended with an encore for The Little Stevies, and then when we were loading out there was a massive thunderstorm happening.  Lightning hit the CN Tower for about 2 seconds straight and everything was lit up and eerie, but that didn’t damper anyone’s spirits nor did it outshine the show we had just seen.  Both were full-on amazing.

I had heard about something called “The Fire Escape Sessions” from our good friend (and previous housemate!) Lily Mills, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I contacted Bryan and asked about playing one of them.  I knew it wouldn’t be a full-band thing; it worked out best as a duo show with myself and Laura, as it turns out.  But when it was just us, out behind an Adelaide Street loft-style artist’s community, on their fire escape, with the breeze blowing straight up the building and making Laura’s skirt do that thing that Marilyn Monroe does over the subway vent in that movie…well, now I knew what “The Fire Escape Sessions” was all about.

Every Tuesday the group (Bryan, a photographer named Connie, and a well-bearded fellow with a seeing-eye dog in training) get their friends together and head out onto their fire escape with a local acoustic act.  Because the building itself houses an artistic community some people film things and some take photographs, but most just sit and listen.  A fire escape in the city on a warm summer night can be a thing of beauty.  We didn’t play many songs…we were there with Laura’s sister Michelle and 7-month-old Simon and so we were constrained by Simon’s bedtime.  But the small audience (how many people can you fit on a fire escape, really?) were very appreciative.  They hadn’t had many duos perform, and harmonies can do wonderful things to a person on a fire escape on a warm summer night.  They have Laura to thank for that.  And for the nearly risque skirt-blowing show.

Afterward we reconvened in one of the loft apartments overlooking Adelaide and chatted about everyone’s various artistic endeavors — it was nice to see how involved these kind folks were in building a community together.  Connie promised to send us some of the photos she had taken and, with a near-crying baby in tow, we left to get some shut-eye as a family.  The sun hadn’t set yet; it was just lowering itself to the horizon.

It was so hot out that the folks from Ghana who promised to come decided to stay home instead.  Indeed, the temperature broke a 60-year old record and so we were more than glad for the fact that Lee’s Palace is an air-conditioned venue.  The show itself was a benefit for a Ghanian music/recording school that allows youth to make and sell their own music — which is a pretty fantastic benefit, I think.  That also partially explains why Emily (the organizer) thought it was ironic that her Ghanian friends decided to stay inside instead of coming out to the show.  In the end I will say that the crowd was sparse, but that no one at Lee’s expected anyone to come out, so the fact that people did anyway is a testament to their combined awesomeness.

Our soundcheck was not everything we wanted it to be, but that’s how it goes sometimes.  It does leave you feeling a little rattled that the show is going to be bad news as well, but we had a nice chat with the sound guy and everything was smoothed over once explanations were made.  Rob Lamothe played the first set and he was such a solid performer, with great tunes and a great voice.  I haven’t played solo in a long time, so part of me can’t imagine trying to do that at this point, but Rob played solo and kept everyone captivated so massive kudos to him.  I wanted to chat with him after he had played but we went up and set our junk up and played in relatively quick succession so I didn’t get a chance to tell him how good he was.

The sound for our set was great, and despite sweating profusely all over my guitar I didn’t break a string.  I did possibly sweat onto one of the direct boxes and cause a short through part of one song, but that’s only because I was literally dripping onto the stage.  Even with the air conditioning it was a hot one.  I had a one-man wet t-shirt contest.  Since this was going to be our last show for a while, we kind of gave it our all and jumped around a bit on-stage.  Not too much, just enough to be respectable, and just enough to sweat like demons.  The only one who escaped the sweat was Alex, who was quite sick and had been sweating for the past few days lying abed with fever.  Fortunately he drank a metric tonne of water and made it to the show and played like a man possessed.

Amie, our friendly neighbourhood manager, had actually bought us towels during the day so we semi-toweled off (I think Mike used most of the towels himself) and doled out some sweaty hugs to folks and then most people had to cart off to escape the remaining heat.  I stuck it out and watched the last band which featured a drummer who played drums, bass, and harmonica all at the same time.  He was mesmerizing and extremely talented.  It was pretty much boss.  And at the end of the night I found out from Emily that the charity had actually done decently well, so everything worked out great for everyone, even us sweaty people.

We met The Elwins at our show in Barrie (the is this really a music festival? show) and, although I didn’t get a chance to see them play, we got to hang out with them and they are super-nice fellows.  So they were playing the first slot at Bread & Circus for NXNE last night — the same venue on the same night as us, crazily enough.  And so I got a chance to see their set, and I was quite blown away by their full-on awesomeness.  Especially considering that the oldest of them seems to be about 15 years old…and I don’t mean that as a dig because they all have the souls of 1960s soul-rockin’ fantasticos.  But their energy and talent was supremely good and they had the crowd in a wet lather by the end of their set.

Afterward I strolled to a few other venues, saw nothing impressive, slept in a park for a moment, and made it back to Bread & Circus in good time to get ready for our NXNE set.  One thing I highly appreciate about: it runs on time.  And the schedule lines up so that you know every band starts on the hour, which makes it at least theoretically possible to see a bunch of shows at different venues.  And it means that, even though we had the 1AM slot, we knew we wouldn’t be on any later than 1AM.  The change-over was quick, the band before us was Bent By Elephants and they had pretty much the same set-up as we did, almost like they were the bizarro version of us or vice-versa.  The stage was humid as a whorehouse in the jungle but that didn’t stop us from diving right in and preparing to rock.

As the last band of the night, there is a bit of pressure to gobsmack the audience.  I think they saved the best band for first last night, but I will say that we made a very sweaty stage a whole lot sweatier and whether or not that makes for good music I hope that it at least makes for a good show.  We almost didn’t start on time, though, because Laura had to drive in from the east end and there were zillions of people blocking a couple of major streets.  She strolled in at about five minutes to one, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Without Laura, the harmonies don’t really make sense, and without harmonies what the hell are we?  Just another group of jerks in plaid shirts with mighty beards mumbling some stage banter.  Maybe that’s harsh…I have been working on my enunciation, I’m sure our stage banter is only slightly muffled these days.

I had visions of us being swallowed by a mad rush of people going hither and yon, to and fro, like a picture where we are still and everything else is a blur of motion.  The reason I had this image in my head was because we were set to play at Union Station in the Great Hall during rush hour.  It was part of an outreach kind of thing that NXNE was trying, where musicians from the festival would play in parks, at the airport, and at Union Station to give people who might not normally hit the festival scene a chance to see some of the artists they would otherwise have missed.  I think it’s a great idea, but the employees at Union Station didn’t agree with me.  Apparently, as Mike discovered from talking to the sound people in the Great Hall, they’d been getting noise complaints all day, and not from passengers, from employees.  Everyone from the guy who was solo with his guitar all the way on up had gotten noise complaints, evidently.

As I’ve mentioned before (in my last post, actually) we always endeavor to fit our sound to the venue (volume-wise, at least).  And this was a giant, cavernous space that was teeming with people.  It seemed ridiculous to think we would be loud enough to even crowd out the sound of the commuters.  But Mike decided not to bring his drums, and that made our sound a lot quieter in one fell swoop.  Instead, Mike sat up on a low wall behind us and played shakers and tambourines.  Other than that we had the whole crazy cast of characters there, including Geoff Boyd who plays trumpet with us sometimes.  So with only a little bit of trepidation we launched into the first tune, not having any idea how people would react.

People stopped.  People listened.  People stayed through the whole show, in fact.  It was kind of magical in a way, to be playing in this very eclectic space for people in suits and business wear with their briefcases and smart phones.  I wasn’t prepared for how much everything would echo, and in the a capella moments (like “alyson, everything i know is wrong” and “older bros. never listen”) you could hear the long echo of the vocal parts race up and down the gigantic arched ceiling.  At the end of the day we did get a few noise complaints, but only from the employees at Union Station, not from the people around.  And I call that a moral victory.

We’ve never played in a park before, and there is something slightly awesome about looking out and seeing people sprawled across a bit of a hill surrounding you.  Not a big hill…this was Bellevue Park in the middle of Kensington Market, so it’s not big by any means, but there was a good crowd of folks just kind of scattered across the park and watching the music.  Very cool.  Kind of an extremely toned down version of Hillside or Mariposa or something.  And free!  I really enjoy playing free shows — I don’t know why, they seem more pure somehow.  Partway through the show I noticed Rob Szabo sitting up near the top of the rise and watching the show and that made me slightly nervous only because he is the first indie artist I ever really took a shine to.  Through him I found out there was a whole scene of bands I would never have otherwise discovered.  He’s a great musician and a great guy, so it was very kind of him to come by to check out the show.

When we first arrived at the park Shawna Caspi was playing, and her stuff is both pure folk and pure fantastic — kind of folk-tastic, if you will.  I had to park the van after we unloaded and as I was crossing the park a guy called out to me: “Hey…you need some weed?”  I said no, thanks, and he replied, “Why not?”  I thought it was a hilarious interaction.  Kind of like going to the grocery store and getting accosted by the manager because you didn’t buy the bananas that he had on sale.  I mean seriously, they’re right by the door and they’re *on sale*.  How can you resist?

We were all slightly concerned about following Shawna and not just because she’s good.  She was one person, we were a full band.  Would we be crazy stupid loud?  That’s one of the aesthetics of the Young Novelists, and I think it’s a good one: no one should have to wear earplugs to listen to us play, regardless of the venue.  We strive to match ourselves to the surroundings so that we fit in and aren’t annoying.  After a bit of a soundcheck we felt like we were sitting in the right spot, volume-wise.  And while it may not have been an amazing show, we all felt a certain kind of energy from just playing a full-on set in the middle of a park.  We had a good time, we cracked jokes, we made music, someone filmed us for a little while…it was all good.  By the end of it I realized why I didn’t need the weed I’d been offered.  Music is a much better drug.

We’ve never played a proper show in Barrie, so it was exciting to pull up to the grounds of Barrie’s EcoFest (down by the water!) and see the mass of tents and vendors and people and hooplah.  We quickly carted our gear to the large tent where the night’s events were all happening, from the dinner to a fashion show to the music stuff, and tried to find someone who knew what all was going on.  That proved to be semi-difficult, but not impossible.  The sound tech folks were slightly confused that music was happening, which was frightening for a moment, but it got sorted out quickly enough.  It was mainly a case of the music being only a small part of the action, which makes sense because it is after all an eco-festival and not Hillside or suchlike.

After we sorted things out we went and saw Jadea Kelly play some folk songs in a gazebo overlooking a nice stream.  Across the stream there was a booth that had a racecar…at an eco-festival.  Not sure what that was about, but it wasn’t a solar-powered racecar — it was just a regular ol’ racecar.  Cool, for sure, but not very eco-friendly.  We, however, were eco-friendly with everyone we met.  From Jadea (who played great with her producer/guitarist David Baxter) to the Barrie Folk Society to random folks we met wandering around to Shawn’s parents, who came out to see the show.  In the middle of the afternoon we played our first set and although we were relatively hasty about setting things up the sound coming from the monitors was great and a crowd of people came into the tent.  About mid-set some EcoFest folks had to come in to take out the tables and re-organize things, which meant that the crowd kind of had to leave, but no worries I’m sure we could be heard just fine outside the tent.

The Elwins, who were playing later that night, showed up during the fashion show and before our second set and we hung out and jawed with them because they are fantastically fine fellows and great musicians to boot.  They all knew a lot more about the music scene than I did, but that is not much of a surprise considering I know virtually nothing.  We ended up going for coffee as a group and chatted some more.  When we got back it was time for us to play again, and then unfortunately we had to skedaddle because we had Simon and he was itching to get to bed.  We were sorry to have to say goodbye to The Elwins without seeing them play, but as it turns out they are playing the opening spot at the same venue as us for NXNE, so I plan on seeing them there.  All in all a great eco-festival with a lot of different and cool things a-happening.  And since almost everything was free it is a green festival in multiple ways…hey-o!