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Day I of NXNE: A Musical Banquet

June 13, 2013 /3 Comments/in , /by

I heard terrific music last night at some excellent Toronto venues. All the artists I heard were new to me. Here's a rundown:

Right on time at 8 PM at the club Central, I sat at a front table and listened to Marta Pacek, an Aussie-born, Toronto-dwelling singer songwriter who led a terrific 4-piece band. Her accent was evident in her between-song banter, but not in her strong singing voice. After their set, I enjoyed meeting Pacek and her friend, writer Neil Murchison, who gave me a download card so I can later hear more of Pacek's music. Here's a pic I took during the show.

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Next up was a lively outfit with a rather dolorous name, The Maladies of Adam Stokes. They played a 9 PM set at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, the only club I know of that manages to squeeze an adjective like that in to its name! The venue has earned it, though, as they recently marked their 50th anniversary of presenting great live music. I'm sure I'll be back at the 'Shoe' several times this week. Here's a shot of their lead singer and keyboard player.

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Next, I took a Toronto street car then walked to reach a club called The Boat, near Kensington Market, where young punk band The Mouthbreathers were playing a 9:45 set. This 4-piece–two women guitarists & a two-man rhythm section on bass and drums–had all the energy associated with 80s punk–playing brief songs fast, loud, and hard. It was the lead singer's 23rd birthday, pictured below on the right. I stood on a riser near the merch table to get this shot, raising myself a bit above the boisterous crowd who stuck with the band all the way.

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From The Boat I walked with friend Amit Saha–known as @XCanuck on the CBC Radio 3 blog–to a club on Queen Street West called Czehoski. We wanted to check out The Almight Rhombus, from Sudbury, Ontario, who were playing at 11 PM. They turned out to be one of the highlights of my evening. This 5-piece, which includes 3 brothers, played hooky songs with great energy on the club's very narrow stage. The joy they took in playing their own material was infectious. I met one of the brothers after the show and introduced myself as the writer of this blog. He gave me a copy of their self-titled five song CD.

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I left Amit at the Czehoski bar where he was watching the first overtime of Game 1 in the Stanley Cup finals, for what turned out to be a triple overtime game. I walked down Queen Street to one of my most favorite venues, the Cameron House. I barely bothered to check who was even playing, because they always have good bands. The Cameron's front room usually features country and acoustic-oriented acts, while the back room has fuller bands. In the back room, I discovered the excellent Julian Taylor Band, fronted by the extravagantly dreadlocked and handsomely suited Taylor, who played funk and soul-inflected pop with a reggae touch. His keyboard player, shown below on the left, was terrific, too. They ended their set with a crowd-pleasing cover of I Shot the Sheriff.

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I moved on to the front room where a 5-piece country outfit called Dear Sister were showing post-midnight revelers a great time. Fronted by two talented women (not sisters, I learned), and featuring an excellent lead guitarist who didn't fit on the tiny stage, they played original material and got many in the crowd dancing and making graceful moves to their sweet harmonies.

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With that, I walked back to my hotel room happy and satisfied with all the great music I heard on just my first day at NXNE. Below is a shot of my NXNE badge that's getting me in to so many great shows. Can't wait for what's to come today and tonight.

 

To Toronto for North by Northeast (NXNE), June 12-17 + Exploring New Media Connections

June 11, 2013 /0 Comments/in , , /by

For the third consecutive year I’ll be attending Toronto’s North by Northeast festival (NXNE), which I’ll be covering as accredited press for this blog The Great Gray Bridge, which I began the day after Halloween in 2011. The festival, which stretches across the big city on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, takes place at 100s of venues, combining live music shows with artists from Canada and other countries; comedy shows; films; and panels and presentations on interactive and digital topics. I arrive tomorrow, June 12, and will be in town until next Monday night, June 17. I look forward to making new friends and meeting up with many of my old pals from the CBC Radio 3 blog and fan community, coordinated by the inspired work of our ringmaster, Grant Lawrence, radio host, author, and catalytic ambassador for Canadian indie rock n’ roll. Grant is also expected to arrive in Toronto tomorrow, as he completes the CBC Beetle Road Trip, a 5000KM music discovery journey that he began in Vancouver almost three weeks ago.

In addition to covering NXNE, I’ll be working in the area of my publishing consultancy. I’ll be seeing people at Speakerfile.com–a Toronto company whose brand is visible at the upper right corner of this website–one of my chief consulting clients. I also have meetings and meals set up with Canadian publishing, book industry, and media friends and am still seeking out confabs with new contacts. Because Canadian politics is being keenly followed by readers in the States these days–over issues that really matter to my avid audience, such as transnational oil politics and trade issues; the hard sell by the Harper gov’t of the Keystone pipeline and PBO’s looming decision on what to do about Alberta’s tar sands; the always eventful mayoralty of Toronto’s Rob Ford; and many, many US and Canadian shared musical and literary touchpoints.  My goal in Toronto will be to explore with media contacts how the coverage I do here of Canadian culture, books, publishing, and politics–all composed from the personal viewpoint of a longtime bookseller of Canadian titles, publisher of Canadian authors, visitor to Canada, and observer of its ways.  Stephen Harper’s inevitable electoral bid for another majority will come no later than 2015, a time that I believe I will find more outlets for my writing.

If any Canadian friends, old or new, read this post, and want to get together or talk while I’m in town, please be in touch. You may use this link at my contact page, or find me at Twitter, @philipsturner

Finally, if you’re curious what the home page of the NXNE website looks like, here it is. My favorite bit is in the upper right corner: 1000 Bands * 30 Films  * 150 Comedians  * 65 NXNEi Sessions *  60 Artists


 

Remembering Maurice Sendak on his 85th Birthday

June 10, 2013 /0 Comments/in , , /by

The animated doodle on Google’s main search page today is really inspired. If you haven’t already seen this tribute to Maurice Sendak, there’s a screen shot below. You can view it via this link, and make sure you click on the arrow to start the animation.
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Last May, soon after Sendak’s passing, I published a recollection on this blog called, Warding Off a Zealous Censor of Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. Via this link, I invite you to read about this episode from my bookselling days, when a prudish religious conservative woman demanded we stop selling Sendak’s work.

Update: I also just found this animated video on the Daily Beast narrated by Sendak himself.

#FridayReads, June 7–Eric Lundgren’s “The Facades” & Suzanne Corkin’s “Permanent Present Tense”

June 7, 2013 /0 Comments/in , /by

#FridayReads, June 7–The Facades by Eric Lundgren–a witty and heart-filled novel about a man in a post-apocalyptic world who’s searching for his family. I’m also reading Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M. by Suzanne Corkin–a scientific biography of a historic medical subject, a man who after undergoing brain surgery suffered a permanent loss of his capacity to make and retain long-term memory. In 2008, when I was Editorial Director of Union Square Press, I heard an NPR segment about Prof. Corkin’s work with H.M. and contacted her to ask if she was writing a book. Indeed, she said she was working on a manuscript, though she added it was a long way from completion and she suggested I should stay in touch with her agent. When I left the job in 2009, I wondered what would become of the project. At BEA last week I was pleased to see it had ended up on the list of Basic Books. Please click through to see full post and all pictures

A Special Treat–Weekday Baseball at Yankee Stadium

June 6, 2013 /0 Comments/in , /by

IMG_0194 Had a great time yesterday watching the Yankees vs. the Indians play ball on a bright and gorgeous day at Yankee Stadium. Longtime friend and publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin got tickets and had invited me to join with him two other friends of his–Dick and Mike–with whom he’s in a rotisserie baseball league. The game ended up as a 6-4 win for the Yanks. As a Tribe fan, I would have been happier to see my old hometown team prevail but the Bombers were much the better team, with Yankee starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia, the former Indian, throwing a complete game.

As Mike put it at one juncture, “What’s the point of having your own business if you can’t take time off to go to a day game?” I agreed wholeheartedly, and really enjoyed the wide-ranging conversation the four of us carried on for all nine innings, ranging over photography, New York City, New Hampshire, the economy, the early days of the Internet, publishing, and of course, baseball. My camera happened to have enough battery power for one photo and I’m glad I got this good shot and could include it here. What a great way to spend a late spring afternoon!

A Hot & Sunny Day in Manhattan, 1939

June 4, 2013 /0 Comments/in , /by

On Facebook longtime friend Martha Moran has shared this timeless film of a Manhattan tour from 1939, remastered in bright, vibrant color by the excellent Romano-Archives. You can view the 3-minute film below, or via this link posted by Eric Larson at mashable.com, @_ericlarson on Twitter. For this post I’ve made two screenshots of favorite images from it. One shows a theater marquee in Harlem where they were evidently screening W.C. Fields’ “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man,” my favorite movie comic. Oddly, it anticipates the compressed spellings mandated by today’s social media, as the narrow marquee reads, “U Can’t Cheat a Honest Man.” It reads like a tweet. The second screenshot is of the #5 bus, a route I still use regularly in Manhattan. I consider it my personal “scenic drive” as for part of its route it cruises along Riverside Drive, affording splendid views of the Hudson River. It must have been glorious in 1939, when it was a double-decker bus with an elegant curving stairway that conveyed passengers to the upper deck!I suggest that at the very end you notice all the big ships docked at piers on the west side of Manhattan. This reminds me of a line in one of my favorite S.J. Perelman humor sketches, where a woman tells the narrator she’s waiting to pay him a debt “until my ship comes in,” whereupon he retorts with, “I’ll be watching the shipping news,” a reference to the ubiquitous maritime tables that newspapers used to print every day. Thanks for this to Martha Moran.
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One More BEA In the Books

June 1, 2013 /1 Comment/in , /by

It was not the most energetic Book Expo America (BEA) I’ve ever attended, but it was still a good show for me. Wednesday–when the Buzz panel was held, before the Exhibit Hall officially opened–was a good day. And then the next 3 days (Thursday-Saturday) were a roller coaster with busy, agitated activity to slow times when one could imagine the proverbial bowling balls rolling down the carpeted aisles. On Friday afternoon, there were so many publishing executives off the main part of the floor–I surmised many of them were in meetings, closeted behind the black curtains I saw that shrouded makeshift conference rooms at a distance from the publishers’ stands–that there was a palpable deflation of activity out on the floor. And yet, over all, I picked up many galleys and download cards of important forthcoming books. It took three jumbo zippered red totes that I’d kept picking up at the McGraw-Hill stand to drag it all home, which I did by myself. 

On Saturday, BEA for the first time ever opened itself to members of the reading public, not just book industry professionals. I saw many well-organized groups of fans and other readers powering around the floor, often under the concierge-like care of publicists who brought them en masse to signings with authors like Sylvia Day (at Harlequin), and Jami Attenberg and Jeffrey Deaver (at Hachette). There must have been at least 20 lines I saw like that today. I also saw smaller groups of two or three Power Readers, as the BEA dubbed them, eagerly snapping up galleys and stuff. I know there were some book industry people who, when the announcement of this innovation was made, were skeptical it would be a good thing, but I’d say that this not so daring–and to me, welcome–experiment went very well, indeed.

I took a pic of the jacket of David Folkenflik’s forthcoming Murdoch’s World: The Last of Old Media Empires, a book I’m very eager to read, having in 2008 edited and published a book on Roger Ailes, Dark Genius: The Influential Career of Legendary Political Operative and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes by Kerwin Swint.Murdoch book

I’ll have more to write and share about the book convention over the next few days and weeks, with photos and reporting. Meantime, glad to get a post up today, even though I’m exhausted from the four days of the show.

Book Expo America–Off to a Quick Start on Day I

May 29, 2013 /4 Comments/in , /by


Buzz panelAlthough the exhibit floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, there was lots of activity at the Javits Center today. My wife and I stopped in the hall just before 10:00 AM and got our badges as certified press, covering BEA for this blog. In the late afternoon, was the annual Editors’ Buzz panel, where a select panel of editors get to pitch their favorite titles of the coming fall season. By far the most exciting presentation was made by Liese Mayer [spelling corrected here from above tweet], of Overlook Press who touted the novel she acquired just after joining the company, The Facades, a first novel by Eric Lundgren. She said the novel combined elements of Kafka’s forbidding city and Batman’s modern Gotham. I grabbed one of the galleys and, after her compelling presentation, am eager to start reading the book. I also was interested in the presentation by  Picador editor Anna deVries of The Affairs of Others, a novel by Amy Grace Loyd and so took a galley of it. Now, running off to evening activities!