An Obit to Love–Louisa Jo Killen (1934-2013), Irish Folk Musician, Lived till Age 76 as Louis Killen

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A truly fascinating NYTimes obituary announces the end of an amazing life–Louisa Jo Killen, tenor, member of the Clancy Brothers, song collector, performer on the important UK label, Topic Records, and charter member of the crew that took Pete Seeger’s Clearwater sloop on her maiden voyage, from Maine to Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. Known as Louis, Killen joined the Clancys after Tommy Makem left the quartet, appearing on the 1968 album “Songs of the Sea.” Times reporter Paul Vitello adds, “Folk archivists still consider the dozen recordings made by…Killen in the late 1950s and early ’60s for the British folk label Topic Records to be the definitive versions of traditional English songs like ‘The Shoals of Herring,’ ‘Black Leg Miners,’ ‘Pleasant and Delightful,’ ‘The Flying Cloud’ and ‘The Ship in Distress.’” At age 76, Killen took the step of becoming Louisa; Vitello reports other details of this change: “In 2010…Mr. Killen surprised his fans and many of his friends by resolving to give voice to another sort of lost life. He began living openly as a woman, performing in women’s clothing and a wig. In 2012, he underwent a sex-change operation.”

Here are some shots of Topic Records LPs I own, the sort to which Killen contributed. Topic Songs of WorkingmenTopic Records Child BalladsTopic Songs of Field and Fowl

As alluded to in my first tweet, this scenario from a real life folksinger put me in mind of the musician character Harry Shearer plays in A Mighty Wind, the 2003 faux folk scene documentary directed by Christopher Guest. Shearer’s character, Mark Shubb, is dressed like a woman and speaks of his gender switch in one of the movie’s final scenes. The obit has a photo of Louis from sometime in the 1960s or ’70s (courtesy of Brian Sheul/Redferns, via Getty Images) and of Louisa from 2010 (courtesy of Debra Cowan), both posted below.Louisa Killen photo:Debra CowanLouis Killen Brian Sheul:Redferns/Getty Images

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“In Search of Blind Joe Death,” New Documentary on John Fahey

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After hearing filmmaker James Cullingham interviewed on WNYC last Friday I was glad I could make it to Cinema Village that night for the first Gotham screening of “In Search of Blind Joe Death,” Cullingham’s new film on John Fahey, the idiosyncratic instrumental musician, fabulist, record label founder, album hunter, turtle venerator, musicologist, and writer who pioneered a genre dubbed around 1960 as “American primitive guitar.” John Fahey docuAlong with the poster for the film, also shown here is a shot (courtesy of docnorthfestival.ca) showing Cullingham (r.) with Pete Townsend of The Who. Ever a literary-minded sort, Townsend, a former book editor, says in “Joe Death” that for him Fahey occupied a role like that played by William Burroughs or Charles Bukowski in modern American literature.jamesandpete

As suggested by Townsend’s reference to the Beats, Fahey drank and over-used prescription meds. Sadly, he also suffered with diabetes and other chronic ailments. His life journey was at times lugubrious and he was living quite squalidly when died at age 61, but the film does a very good job of spotlighting his considerable talents and singular accomplishments for which we should be grateful. He developed a prodigiously creative vernacular guitar and compositional style that reflected blues, folk, and traditional American sources while also drawing on Charles Ives, Bela Bartok, Gregorian chant, and world music, before that term had any currency. As a facilitator and label owner, he would do things like send a postcard cold to a black bluesmen c/o General Delivery at a Mississippi delta town post office where he hoped the man still lived, asking: “Would you like to record for the Takoma Records label?”; thus, did he bring to public awareness the music of Booker (later known as ‘Bukka’) White. He was also involved in rediscovering Charley Patton, Skip James and more guys with “Blind” as part of their name than I’d ever known of.

Before his death in 2001, Fahey would himself be rediscovered by grunge bands, including Sonic Youth and Cul de Sac. Along with Townsend, Cullingham also interviewed Chris Funk of The Decemberists and Joey Burns of Calexico, both of whom testify to Fahey’s influence on their music. I met the filmmaker briefly before the screening and I learned he worked for a time at the CBC. He lives in Toronto, and is associated with Seneca College there. In his interview on the Leonard Lopate Show  he said that he met Fahey three or four times when he performed in Toronto. Although the guitarist had a deserved reputation for making up stories about himself and his origins, with flights of fancy that were expressed in colorful titling of his compositions and prolific self-mythologizing, the director said he always found Fahey straightforward and direct. Blind Joe Death, borrowed by Cullingham for his title, was one of Fahey’s album names and one of the aliases he adopted as a creative alter-ego, mordantly observing that if a musician had “blind” and “death” in his name he would surely be successful.

Lots of archival sequences of Fahey talking and playing are punctuated by the interview segments with a total of about eight music industry figures (including Townsend, et al). There’s also conspicuous use of animation in the film, with many of the graphics arriving on-screen in sequentially hand-lettered script. This was used to best effect when the filmmaker’s voiceover reads the contents of Fahey’s postcard to Booker White in Mississippi. The audience chuckled at that on-screen animation as it unfolded for all to read along with the voiceover. According to the wikipedia article on Fahey, the White album then released on Takoma became the label’s first non-Fahey release.

Takoma was far from a vanity enterprise. Among the artists and acts Fahey championed on the label were guitarist Mike Bloomfield and Canned Heat, both of whom I recently saw on-screen in the blues documentary “Born in Chicago“, and Leo Kottke, whose first album “6 and 12-String Guitar,” released in 1969, is still a treasured part of my record collection. It became Takoma’s single bestselling release. From the armadillo on the cover (not a turtle, but here you might say a hard-shelled repti-mammal stands in for the standard reptile), through Kottke’s liner notes and the song names on the back of the album below, you can see that he had fun borrowing Fahey’s grandiloquent style and self-mythologizing. (“All that is left to be said is that Kottke’s voice does not appear on this album. His guitar does.”)

Though Fahey’s life took downward turns in later decades, he nonetheless managed to start a second label, Revenant Records; in 2003 their Charley Patton CD collection won three Grammys. The name revenant could not have been accidentally chosen, suggesting an unkillable being who returns from beyond to seek revenge against his tormentors; perhaps Fahey saw himself in pitched battle against dumbing-down influences and the homogenization of indigenous cultures. There is no readily distilled or uplifting message in Fahey’s life, yet I recommend the film for showing how a determinedly idiosyncratic and protean artist may make a musical mark and leave behind a rich legacy of inspired experimentation and curation. To learn more about “In Search of Blind of Joe Death,” I suggest you listen to Leonard Lopate’s interview with James Cullingham from August 16 and visit the film’s website to learn about future opportunities to see it.

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Some New Music from Ewan Munro

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Ewan in parkMy 17-year old son Ewan has been writing and performing songs of his own the past year and he just posted a few on Soundcloud.com at this embedded link under ‘Ewan M Turner’. The first two are songs he wrote himself, “Faded Glory,” and “Out to Brooklyn.” The third is a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Sara.” Below is a screenshot of what the page for Ewan’s music looks like, again listenable via this link.Ewan's Soundcloud

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Local NYC Talent Making Great Old-Time Music

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One of my favorite musical groups playing around NYC these days is called The Down Hill Strugglers, a modern version of an old-time country string band. I first heard them last spring during the Brooklyn Folk Festival, an annual event that I'm already looking forward to attending again next year. They also play frequently at the Jalopy Theater, a great Brooklyn venue for acoustic music.

The Down Hill Strugglers are comprised of Eli Smith (who also happens to coordinate and MC the Brooklyn Folk Festival); Walker Shepard; and Jackson Lynch. They are all multi-instrumentalists, trading off on guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, and vocals and are often joined by John Cohen, longtime presence on the folk scene who in the 1960s played with the New Lost City Ramblers. Cohen is also an accomplished filmmaker and photographer. The combination of young musicians playing this music with veteran performer Cohen makes me feel good about the preservation of old-time music.

A few weeks ago Kyle, Ewan and I went out to Brooklyn to hear Jackson Lynch play an early evening set of tunes at the Jay Street Bar. The rest of the Strugglers were away that night, but Jackson more than held the room on his own.

During the Brooklyn Folk Festival an outfit called the 78 Project made live records of Lynch and Cohen playing together and then presented each of them with a vinyl LP recording of their session, performances viewable at this link. The Down Hill Strugglers have released an excellent self-titled album, available at this link. One of my favorite songs on it is called All Gone Now, a rousing number with a great vocal. They also played in Bristol, TN, for a concert that was recorded and broadcast on the NPR program, Mountain Stage. Eli Smith puts out an enjoyable podcast called Down Home Radio. I look forward to hearing the Strugglers again in coming months.

 

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Great New Documentary on the Blues, “Born in Chicago”

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I tweeted this message last evening with a link to a trailer for the NY premiere of a new documentary I was heading out to see at the Lincoln Society Film Center.

 

The screening was for “Born in Chicago,” a new 90-minute doc on the blues. It was a thrill for Kyle and me to be there. We had learned about the one-night showing from a NY Times article yesterday that began like this:

“Late in his career, Muddy Waters recorded a song called ‘The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll.’ That, in a nutshell, is the story told in the new documentary “Born in Chicago” — how he, Howlin’ Wolf and other black blues musicians working in Chicago in the 1960s schooled young white acolytes from that city who went on to play on some of the most influential pop recordings of the era.”

After reading the paper we quickly went online and ordered tickets for the lone screening, luckily for us because when we arrived it had clearly sold out. It is a joyous film with superb archival footage, moving interviews, and high-quality audio of many great blues performances. It also narrates a moving story about how aspiring teenage musicians like guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboard player Barry Goldberg, from affluent parts of Chicago, began frequenting the clubs and bars where black titans of the blues like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf were then in residence, well on to being the blues legends they ultimately would be known as. Despite their age–Bloomfield was only 17 at the outset in 1960–co-producer Goldberg chronicles the time the two boys borrowed Michael’s mother’s car, drove through the all-black neighborhoods on the South Side to the club, which was called Pepper’s, I believe. They found parking “four steps from the front door,” made their way to a front table, and began listening to the masters. Gratified by the respect shown them and their clear eagerness to learn the music, the musicians soon invited them to sit in with the bands and a fruitful and historic musical collaboration was born. The generosity of Muddy and Wolf, with their sidemen like Willie Dixon, Sam Lay, and others became a hallmark of the era. And, the youngsters really learned to play.

Goldberg recalled that soon when Otis Spann, who often played piano in Muddy Waters’ outfit, was invited to go on the road with another big bluesman of the time, say Little Walter, he was able to take the job because Barry could sit in and play keys for Muddy while Spann was out of town. The bench of blues performers in Chicago got a lot deeper.

Born_In_Chicago_Trailer_Screen_smAmong the musicians interviewed for the film are Bob Dylan, who later hired Bloomfield and Goldberg for his backing band; B.B. King, who remembered Bloomfield as one of the best guitarists he ever heard; Keith Richards, who with his Rolling Stone bandmates are shown here in hilarious footage with Muddy Waters and Mick Jagger (in a bright red track suit) swapping lead vocals; Buddy Guy, who we learn would stroll out the open door of a blues club playing his electric guitar on a “100-foot long chord” to make music right out in the streets; Hubert Sumlin, lead guitarist with Howlin’ Wolf, who’s shown here with the aid of medical oxygen, in what would be his last taped interview; Eric Burdon of the Animals, who remembers that growing up in Newcastle, England, new blues albums from Chess Records would arrive in local record stores, allowing him and his bandmates to hear and then play the blues; Charlie Musselwhite, a white southerner who migrated north to Chicago for factory work and soon found himself ensconced in a blues community; Elvin Bishop, who like Mike Bloomfield played in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and who tells such tales as wandering in to a Chicago pawnshop to buy a new guitar, and being waited on by young Bloomfield; Nick Gravenites, who wrote a signature song of the Butterfield Band, “Born in Chicago”; Harvey Mandel, who played in Canned Heat, with John Mayall and the Blues Breaker, and Bob Dylan; Sam Lay, drummer with many of the great blues bands; Jack White, who spoke about the influence of the blues on his music and the challenges young artists face today in gaining access to, say, senior players, in hip-hop or rappers, especially.

In the audience last night were “Born in Chicago” director John Anderson; Chicago bluesman Corky Siegel, of the Siegel-Schwall Band; Marshall Chess of Chess Records, who narrates “Born in Chicago” (not his late father Leonard, as I had mistakenly tweeted); and co-producer of the film, Barry Goldberg. After the film they took seats in front of the audience and Siegel played a blistering harmonica solo, which got everyone pumped for the spirited conversation and Q&A session that followed. During the Q&A, Marshall Chess recalled how eager he was to make an outpost in Britain for Chess Records by forging a relationship with record distributors there. Chess also remembered that Howlin’ Wolf could be stern with a musician who played a wrong note, but was also a gentle giant. Corky Siegel remembered that between sets of music outside of clubs such as the Blue Flame he and Wolf would talk, sip whiskey, and walk the nearby alleys. Siegel said that Wolf’s generosity showed him the blues is not just about music, but a way of living one’s life, with love and freedom.

The film’s theatrical release is still being plotted by the producers. It clearly warrants widespread distribution and I expect it to have major exposure in the months to come. In the meantime, I suggest you ‘like’ their Facebook page, read this Chicago Blues Guide review of a recent reunion concert that brought together many blues musicians from the film, read Larry Rohter’s NY Times story from July 26 and view the accompanying slideshow of great B&W photos, share the above trailer widely with your friends. Here are photos I took after the screening and shots of some of my treasured blues LPs from Chess Records and one I’ve had for years by the Siegel-Schwall Band. Please click here to see photos.
Since you got all the way down here in this post, you must love the blues. So, I recommend my personal essay about Cleveland bluesman Mr. Stress, who I wrote about in the book Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology. Stress was a great local bluesman I followed all the drinking-age years I lived in my old hometown, from 1972 to 1985. A harmonica player, singer, and bandleader Stress was the Paul Butterfield of Cleveland. He still lives in Cleveland.

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Wintersleep Filling Up My Last Night of NXNE

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View from my hotel room windowReaders of this blog may recall I was in Toronto last month for the North by Northeast (NXNE) festival. It was the third year in a row I’d attended, and the second year I’ve gone officially as press, for which I thank festival organizers who granted me accreditation so I could provide my perspective as an NYC-based blogger, reporting on an extravaganza where upwards of 1000 bands play at more than 55 different venues over 4 nights stretching all over the city. NXNE just had its fourteenth year, and they really know their game. Without a doubt, this was the most fun, productive, and musically rewarding NXNE yet for me. By my personal count I heard 35+ live acts over the four days and nights. This shows how futile it is to comprehensively cover the festival; still, thousands of music fans, musicians, and music writers have a great time trying.

I tweeted hundreds of times and published three full posts while in Toronto from June 12-17, and have put up three more posts since returning to NYC, now including this write-up.* I’m glad to be able to continue my coverage with this report on the last day’s bunch of bands I heard and lots of pictures.

On Saturday morning I met friends Michael Martin and Margot Stokreef for breakfast at the popular Lakeside Diner, near Ossington and Dundas. Michael and Margot are longtime sales representatives for many fine independent publishers. We had a nice time catching up and then Michael offered to me drop me back near my hotel. After a quick pit stop there I headed out again to have a beverage at a cafe called the Tampered Press with Toronto friend Patti Henderson, whom I had met in 2012 at Book Camp, an ad hoc publishing conference.  Another publishing vet, Patti is also a marvelous photographer who assembles the excellent blog, Vagabond Photography. When Patti and I split up I walked over to nearby Trinity-Bellwoods Park where the unofficial CBC Radio 3 picnic hosted by Grant Lawrence was slated to begin around noon, an event I covered earlier with this post: Recorded Music I’ve Collected at NXNE + CBC Radio 3 Picnic.

After enjoying all the conviviality at the picnic, where nearly 100 Canadian indie music fans met up, I headed back downtown via streetcar and on foot so I could hear Sarah Harmer play a live outdoor show at David Pecaut Square as part of the Luminato Festival, a Toronto celebration of the arts taking in music, literature, and film that overlaps with NXNE. Harmer played such familiar songs of hers as “Captive” and “One Match” and I left the outdoor performance space very happy.  Taking advantage of the Alexandra Hotel’s central location, as I had been able to do all week, I went back to my room for a cup of tea and a refreshing nap before my final night of music at NXNE (the view I had from my comfortable room, through the window that slid open, is shown at the top of this post).

The first club I visited that evening was Czehoski on Queen Street West, to hear a Chicago solo artist who plays under the provocative name of Briar Rabbit. A tall African-American singer/songwriter, he writes and plays music that examines race and historical perceptions of color. At one point, he told the audience that he’d made a study of American minstrelsy and the tradition of actors singing in black face make-up, next playing a song, “I Feel Invisible,” and then one called “Coon.” Briar Rabbit will be in NYC soon, with a show August 10 at the Living Room and August 13 at Rockwood Music Hall and I plan to hear him again at one of those venues.

My next show was quite a ways across town at Danforth Hall on the east side of Toronto, to hear Dinosaur Bones and the headliner, Wintersleep. Using streetcar and subway, I reached the converted movie theater just as Dinosaur Bones hit the stage. A 5-piece, their set built up a heavy melange of crashing guitars, keys, and drums that always stayed on the bright side of tuneful, with my fave song of theirs being a memorable one called “Ice Hotels,” which you can listen to along with other songs by them at their CBC Radio 3 artist page.  Montreal’s Hour magazine describes their music as “packed with feeling. . .whose delicate darkness almost belies its pop sensibility.”

Next up, Wintersleep, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who played a terrific show. The sound in the hall was outstanding, full and rich, not too loud, with every instrument of their five pieces clear and distinctly audible. Lead singer Paul Murphy was in good form, as the set list ranged across their ample catalog of great songs. The band has been around ten years, releasing five albums since 2003. From the latest, “Hello Hum,” they played “In Came the Flood,” and “Resuscitate.” From earlier albums they played many of my favorites, including “Black Camera,” “New Inheritors,” “Weighty Ghost,” and “Preservation.” Their artist page at CBC Radio 3 has all these songs and more, if you want to hear them for yourself. I was standing at center front near the stage for Wintersleep, and happily hung through it with some great folks I enjoyed meeting. There was Toronto musician Courtney Lynn, who had come to this show with her brother and sister, all of them fun company. Also nearby was  Clayton Drake, keyboard player from The Almighty Rhombus, the Sudbury, Ontario, band I had enjoyed so much on Wednesday night, whose show I had written up on Thursday. In fact, on Sunday, Clayton and I exchanged a droll series of tweets that concluded with quite an amusing line from him:

 

In the middle of Wintersleep’s second encore, I reluctantly left the hall so I could get back to Toronto’s West Side, where the punk band Fucked Up were playing a set at the Horseshoe Tavern. True to form, they played a wild and crazy show with moshing and hijinks from lead singer Damian Abraham.  When they finished it was after 2:00 AM and I happily headed back to my room for a few hours of sleep before waking Sunday to meet Marcy and Abe Fish, cousins of mine who live in Toronto, a day I covered with this post.

For readers who’d like to know, over the next couple weeks I’ll be publishing two more posts related to my NXNE 2013: 1) A large grab bag of photos that I haven’t so far shared in any of the six previously published posts. 2) A tourist guide to Toronto, with additional info on the well-situated Alexandra Hotel; ranking of the music venues; sightseeing tips, and photos of buildings and city scenes. For now, here are pictures from all the Saturday shows I attended. (Please click here to see all photos.)

* For the record, I invite you to read the earlier posts I published from my Toronto trip. They were 1) Day I of NXNE: A Musical Banquet; 2) NXNE Day II–Another Musical Bounty; 3) Recorded Music I’ve Collected at NXNE + CBC Radio 3 Picnic; 4) NXNE Day III–Six More Great Bands w/a “Best Live Show” as the Topper; and 5) Families that Make Art Together, a post not directly related to NXNE, but involving members of the Toronto chamber pop group, Ohbijou.

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NXNE Day III–Six More Great Bands w/a “Best Live Show” as the Topper

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Counting up the acts I heard and the venues I visited last week NXNE in Toronto I see that over the four days of live music, I heard thirty acts at sixteen different venues, including outdoor events in Trinity-Bellwoods Park; in-store shows; and nightclubs. Even so, there were at least a dozen or two more acts I really wanted to hear, but whose shows I just couldn’t get to. I’ll be making an effort to listen to their recorded music over the coming weeks and months, and before I’m done covering this year’s NXNE I’ll mention the bands I couldn’t get to hear. Much as I’d like to say I found time this year for a film or a comedy club, I limited my recreation to live music. Even at that, I missed lots of acts I would like to have heard. I  hope one of these years to catch a documentary or some comedians. While still in Toronto I posted about Day I (Wednesday) and Day II (Thursday) and about the CBC Radio 3 picnic, on the Saturday afternoon. Now that I’m back in NYC, caught up on other work, and with all my pictures downloaded and cropped, I’ll write here about the the live shows I heard on the Friday of NXNE.
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The Urban Outfitters store on Queen Street West has a second level that is actually not a bad performance space. Late Friday afternoon I went to hear the duo Dusted, with exciting electric guitarist Brian Borcherdt, formerly of the band Holy Fuck. During NXNE 2011 I heard Borcherdt play solo, so it was nice to hear him working with a drummer, who also had a keyboard nearby. Dusted plays a raw, basic sound that was easy to like, and quite melodic. In Spin magazine, the single from their album “Total Dust,” got this praise:  “'(Into The) Atmosphere,’ is ‘a dewy lo-fi pop ramble, with sweetly multi-tracked vocals, cavernous layers of melancholy guitar strums, and galloping, off-kilter percussion.’”28 Brian Borcherdt

A party for the end of the CBC Beetle Road Trip was the next item on the Friday afternoon/early evening schedule, the culmination of the 7000KM drive taken in a Fender guitar-branded VW. CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence helmed the drive, with CBC staffers Brian Cauley and Brent Hodge producing audio and video content for CBC Music. The caravan (they actually had two cars) stopped in different cities along the way and taped live sessions with more than a half-dozen Canadian indie groups. The arrival party was a blast, with The Darcys playing. They gave Grant a Blue Jays cap. I’m going to write about it separate from this post. Meantime, here’s a picture of Grant’s arrival:28b Beetle

From CBC HQs I walked north and east to the Cameron House on Queen St. West where ManitobaMusic.com was holding a showcase, with country singer Kayla Luky and her band up first. I had not heard her before, and was pleasantly taken with her clear voice, original songs, and her excellent lead guitarist, who looked like he just got down off a hot tractor, in overalls and sleeveless flannel shirt. 31 Kayla Luky

I’m a big fan of Winnipeg band Imaginary Cities, and though I’ve seen them several times before, I made a point of catching their set this night at the Mod Club. This was a much larger venue than I’d ever heard them play before, and their power pop sound, with Marti Sarbit’s intensely likable voice, was well up to the task of filling the big space and capturing the interest and attention of a couple hundred listeners, many of whom it seemed hadn’t known this great band or their songs at all. Their second album, “The Fall of Romance,” has been about a month, and by now, I like all the songs from it as well as their great debut, “Temporary Resident.”32a Imaginary Cities

After leaving the Mod Club I remembered I hadn’t had dinner, so I stopped at a vendor’s stand on College Street, where a street festival was in full swing. I bought a pulled pork sandwich and munching away, walked down Ossington Street to the Dakota Tavern to hear Paul Langlois, a veteran member of one of Canada’s long-lived and most popular bands, The Tragically Hip. The Dakota is a great venue with a relaxed vibe where acoustic players and pickers are often showcased–on weekend mornings they even serve a bluegrass bunch. But the band Langlois assembled for this show–a high-revving 4-piece–was no stripped-down outfit, including as it did the Hip’s shredding lead guitarist Rob Baker. This was meant to be a showcase for Langois’ own material, and though I’d never heard these dark excursions in minor keys, my ear took right to them.34 Paul Langois

Another act soon took the stage at the Dakota, a band called Tin Star Orphans. I had time to listen to only two of their country rock songs, but I liked what I heard.  34a Tin Star Orphans

I now had about twenty minutes to get to my next show with The Matinee, a great live band from Vancouver, British Columbia, who were scheduled to play a 1:00 AM show at the Supermarket, near my hotel in the Kensington Market neighborhood, where Shred Kelly had killed it the night before. I didn’t want to be late so took a cab down Dundas Street and walked the rest of the way up Augusta Street to the club. When I arrived I saw lots of friends from the CBC Radio 3 fan community. The Matinee had played on 2012’s Track on Tracks rock n’ roll extravaganza which traveled with ten bands and lots of fans from Vancouver to Toronto, a railroad excursion that made The Matinee fan favorites of many folks. I had heard and enjoyed them last year, but the set they played this night was leaps beyond anything I’d heard from them before. The songs on their one album, “We Swore We’d See the Sunrise,” are bright and country-tinged with sweet harmonies (listen to “Sweetwater” for latter-day Everly Brothers harmonies). They also blessed to have as their lead guitarist Matt Rose, a true guitar god sort of player. He’s tall and athletic in his movements, with long arms and legs, long black hair, and just a stunning riff-ripper. He clearly relished and fed richly off of the audience’s boisterous enjoyment of his cutting lines. During their encore he jumped down from the stage in to the audience, playing right among us. At the end, he heaved his acoustic back on the stage as a kind of declamation of satisfaction, not worrying about the instrument. Here are a couple pictures from The Matinee’s great show, one of the very best shows of my NXNE. In the first pic, that’s Matt Rose on the right, playing a Fender Telecaster and moving so quickly I couldn’t capture him in focus, flanked by lead singer Matt Layzell. The second picture shows Matt Rose and bandmate Geoff Petrie amid the crowd during that wild encore.

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Before going to bed that night I tweeted this:

After I got back to NYC from Toronto, CBC Radio 3 Fan of the Year Christine McAvoy, a professional photographer, shared many of her NXNE pictures, including this one (on the right). In it I am surrounded by R3 friends, listening to The Matinee at a quieter moment of their show, holding my IPad, and tweeting about it in real time. Since I started writing this blog it’s the first “action shot” of me, so to speak, at work. I thank Christine for quickly giving permission for me use it here.
PT at The MatineeTo return the favor, the next photo (on the left) shows Christine (holding her camera high, in straw hat) at The Matinee show during the encore. 38 Matinee

My friends were moving on to a 2:00 AM show with We Are the City, but I declined to join them, feeling satisfied to end the night with The Matinee’s show. I headed back to my room so I could get some sleep before a Saturday morning breakfast with book business friends Michael Martin and Margot Stokreef.

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Families that Make Art Together

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1 BannerOn my final day in Toronto last Sunday–after the NXNE festival had waned to a grateful, glorious end after 4 days of good times and memorable music–I spent the morning with my dear relatives Marcy and Abe Fish (pictured below with me, in a picture taken June 2012), eating brunch at their house, and then in the evening going to a gallery opening put on by some friends in the local music and art community.1 Marcy & Abe Fish

For the latter, before I’d left NYC I wrote to Jenny Mecija, to let her know I would be in town. With her sister Casey, Jenny forms part of the chamber pop group, Ohbijou. Jenny replied and invited me to an opening on the Sunday night for an exhibit, My Father, Francis, the culmination of Casey’s Masters degree work at the University of Toronto, her subject being their father. I was eager to join Jenny and her family for the occasion, even before I learned that the gallery, in Toronto’s enviably authentic and still-bohemian Kensington Market neighborhood, was only a 10-minute walk from my hotel.

When I arrived I found a bright gallery space filled with warm evening light, a friendly crowd, and many useful steel and plastic objects and implements presented for viewing, all designed and fabricated by Mr. Mecija. I greeted Jenny and after a hug she explained that their father had over the years often worked odd shifts at the brewery where he was employed. With some free time, and access to found or discarded materials, he could freely repurpose them for projects of his own. The result is a fascinating collection of handsome and useful objects that concretize the elder Mecija’s affection for his family, and his desire that they have access to useful objects that will improve the quality of their daily lives.

Speaking of quality of life, the whole evening was put on in special fashion, with delicious food being served at the Filippino social hall Kapisaanan, a few doors down Augusta Street from the gallery, Videofag. During the evening I had enjoyable conversations with many people: Jenny, Casey, and guests: James Bunton, also a member of Ohbijou, and a record producer who did Loon Choir’s latest album; Heather Kirby, bassist in Ohbjou; Hannah Dyer, Casey’s companion, and the author of a perceptive essay (below) about being a daughter; Hannah’s sister, Monica, who works for the UN from Toronto, and is often in NYC; her companion, Drew, who works in alternative energy; Dina, Casey’s thesis advisor at University ot Toronto, who shared with me her impatience with people who actively disdain social media, refusing to see that for many people trying to forge ahead nowadays, creating and maintaining a socially networked presence is for them an imperative. In addition, a third Mecija sister was at the gallery with her childen, making this a proper three-generation affair.

I also met Francis, Casey’s father, and conmplimented him on his creative handiness. Mr. Mecija was cheerful the entire evening, and his wife, Casey and Jenny’s mom, was hospitable to everyone. Seeing my own relatives and then hanging at the gallery with the Mecija family was a great way to spend Father’s Day. Please click here to see all pictures.

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