SLCR #259: Prozzäk (September 22, 2016)

“What kind of people go to a Prozzäk show?” asked Mika. “Apart from you, I mean.”

Well, there goes my joke answer.

Judging from this show, I’d have to say 30-year-olds. And me. Which I guess makes sense. I can’t say it’s what I expected, but I didn’t really know what to expect, going to see a band that sort of doesn’t actually exist.

For the uninitiated, Prozzäk is made up of two guys, Simon and Milo, who I will surely call “Milo and Otis” at least twice in this thing. Simon is lovelorn and has no neck, while Milo is less expressive and kinda beefy. They’re also cartoon characters, so I wasn’t sure how this whole thing was going to work. Would this just be me watching cartoons for 90 minutes?

Answer: not JUST that.

Prozzäk was formed by two members of the Philosopher Kings in the late 90s. I remember being very surprised when I found this out. The two bands don’t sound anything alike, though I suppose the reason why you’d start a second band when you already had a reasonably successful first one would be to do something different.

The Americans among us may not have heard of Prozzäk but some of their songs that were released in the States as being by “Simon and Milo,” presumably to ward off any litigious pharmaceutical companies. They (the band, not Eli Lilly & Company) also had some sort of deal with the Disney Channel at one point, which seems like a questionable fit – they were cartoons, but not a kids’ band.

Prozzäk’s music is catchy electronic dancey pop that is not normally my thing, and yet here we are. I never bought any of their CDs – I could see that being too much of a good thing – but always found them to be kind of a guilty pleasure. So off I went to the casino, expecting a nostalgia trip and not sure what else.

I got there just before the show was scheduled to start. A DJ was on stage, playing music while standing between inflatable Simon and Milo heads. A local radio host came out to start the show, but we got 20 more minutes of who I learned was named “DJ Ageless” before abruptly shutting things down to make way for Prozzäk. He did not look particularly ageless to me, but to be fair, I was standing in the back.

There was a cartoon intro to the show that told the Prozzäk origin story, about how they were enemy warriors who were chosen by God (presumably) to travel through time to present day and search for true love. In looking things up for this review, there’s an element of truth to this – apparently, in the Philosopher Kings, “Milo” and “Simon” (they have real names but who cares) didn’t get along to the point where Milo hauled off and decked Simon. This led to them working out their issues, eventually forming Prozzäk (and a production company called Lefthook, named after the fateful blow).

After the cartoon intro, there were… more cartoons. Videos ran the full length of the show as a backdrop for the three actual humans on stage – Simon, Milo, and a girl who didn’t seem to be part of the Prozzäk mythology but added a much-appreciated energy to the proceedings all the same. When she wasn’t singing backing vocals, she was jumping up and down and running around, trying to get the crowd into things.

it is Prozzäk

Like I said, I only know the singles, and on this show, they were bunched together, so it was Strange Disease and Ombolasire, then a looooooooooooong stretch of songs I’d never heard, followed by Saturday People, Be As, their cover of Wild Thing, and http://www.nevergetoveryou, with Sucks to Be You as the encore. Looking at album tracklists, I know they also played Tsunami, Pretty Girls, Hot Show, and at least two new songs from their album coming out next year – Love Fools Anonymous and Baby I Need Your Love (Pussy Cat Pussy Cat).

They sounded exactly like you remember, though they’re playing live over backing tracks and have to keep things timed to the cartoons, so that doesn’t lend itself to experimentation. Not that this is a bad thing, it’s just one of those shows where it will be pretty much exactly the same from night to night. But if it works, why not? It was a fun show with a lot of energy. They played everything you’d want to hear in a tight 90 minutes and everyone seemed to have a good time.

They still sound very much of their time, back from when internet was still pretty new and pretty neat. Not only did they name a song after a URL, but they somehow ignored the .com part, choosing to focus instead on the www. – and it made liberal use of the ICQ “uh-oh!” chime (which I would like for my text message notification noise).

I just checked, and http://www.nevergetoveryou(.com) is available… as long as you want to spend $5,850 on it. Maybe leaving the .com part out of the song was genius. You can get http://www.nevergetoveryou.mom for only $44.99. Still too much? http://www.nevergetoveryou.republican is only $32.99. http://www.nevergetoveryou.click is a steal at $9.99. Right now, I am learning a lot about the vast selection of top-level domains, and I would like someone to edit the song so that it’s now http://www.nevergetoveryou.pizza

UPCOMING CONCERTS
• Fred Eaglesmith w/Tif Ginn (October 1)
• Basia Bulat w/Oh Pep! (October 5)
• I Mother Earth featuring Edwin w/The Standstills (October 8)
• BreakOutWest (October 14-16)
• Sarah Slean with the Regina Symphony (October 22)
• Bush w/The Dead Deads (October 27)
• Steve Earle & The Dukes (November 3)
• Bif Naked w/Jordan Alexander (November 8)
• Duotang (December 2)

SLCR #258: Dolly Parton (September 13, 2016)

Two down, one to go. Until Thursday. And I’m not feeling well. I threatened to get drunk and write the Billy Bob Thornton review late Saturday night, but neither of those things happened. I’m trying now, but with some very expired cherry NeoCitran instead of weird mango beer. Probably not as effective. And really, late Saturday night would have been the perfect time because I had been at a wedding and the DJ played Islands in the Stream and my cousin had the audacity to disparage the song. I threatened to fight him. That didn’t happen either but it should have put me in the right mindset.

So yes, Dolly Parton. I bought tickets the instant they went on sale. I was going to tell you that I delayed a trip out of town in order to do it, but thinking back on it now, I realize that I just delayed a trip to drop the car off for service. That is less of a story, perhaps. Still shows commitment if you ask me.

But not too much commitment. We wound up with tickets in the second row, which is pretty fantastic, but we didn’t get the super expensive front row tickets that came with a meet-and-greet. This was not due to any Weird Al-inspired life lesson (except insomuch as my every action is rooted in Al’s teachings); rather, those tickets were bonkers expensive. As in, I’m pretty sure they were over $1,000 apiece. There were lesser VIP experiences as well (SIP experiences?), but we just got normal seats. Expensive normal seats, to be sure, but they felt downright sensible by comparison. Which is probably why they’re there.

After work, we drove out to Moose Jaw for the show, listening to Brad Trost embarrass himself on an episode of Canadaland Commons. Two points for being upfront and honest about who he is; minus a million points for who he is. The other Conservative Party leadership candidate they interviewed, Michael Chong, came out looking like a million bucks by comparison. Chong should send Trost flowers. Or maybe some sort of Edible Arrangement; Trost would probably think flowers are too gay.

I gotta say, between this NeoCitran, my fuzzy robe, and 20-year-old Animaniacs fuzzy slippers, I’m feeling pretty good right now. Just opened up my new Jack White record. Got a Yahtzee dice duel going as I write this. Might evolve some Pokémon later. I’m earning more and more pity with each life-describing sentence. Things are okay. I mean, I used “fuzzy” twice in short order, so things could be better from a writing standpoint, but I’ll blame this cold I’m fighting. And I think the use was justified in both cases. But I digress. I’m supposed to be talking about Dolly Parton or something.

We found Mosaic Place with no problem, thanks to my ill-fated trip to see Meat Loaf a few months back. We got there close to the start time, so we wound up parking pretty far away. By which I mean “a few blocks” – nothing is that far from anything else in downtown Moose Jaw. Despite a bit of a convoluted path upon entering the arena, we got to our seats with time to spare.

So about these seats. Very close. Great. But. This was like sitting in the middle seat in an airplane, except without the generous legroom. I have no pictures from the first half of the concert because moving my arms in any way was too disruptive to those around me. The arena just announced that Parton set an attendance record and I believe it. And I’m pretty sure they were all in my row.

Look, I get it. You need to sell tickets to make money. And pulling one chair from a long row won’t make any difference in anyone’s comfort level; you’d have to remove enough seats to result in a noticeable hit to the bottom line. And I am bigger than your average dude (though even the skinniest folks we saw were sitting shoulder to shoulder and sidebutt to sidebutt). So there probably isn’t a good answer here. But after a great show (uh, spoiler, I guess), “man, those seats were uncomfortable” shouldn’t be my #1 takeaway.

There was no opener. Dolly and her band took the stage and we were off. It turns out I know more Parton songs than I had thought. It also turns out that she has ridiculous stamina. Seriously, I thought they were wrapping up the show but it was only the end of the first half. She went about three hours, including the intermission. I find it hard to sit for that long. Amazing.

The show itself felt like what I imagine a Vegas show to be (the only Vegas show I’ve ever seen was hosted by a drag queen and involved topless underwater acrobats) (it was a pretty good show). You know what I mean – very professional but very rehearsed. Same set every night, same jokes every night. I lost count of the number of times Dolly said “But seriously…” Some of the lines were old enough that I knew them despite having never seen her perform live before – they’ve just been around forever. “It costs a lot to look this cheap,” indeed.

None of this took away from the show. She knew what she was doing and the crowd ate it up. The woman sitting directly in front of us was a particular delight. I was pretty afraid she was going to rush the stage. At one point, security came over and had a little chat with her in what I assume was a preemptive measure.

I didn’t save a setlist, but I found one from Toronto that looks to be identical. It’s ridiculous how many great songs were on here. Hot take: Dolly Parton is real good, you guys. I mean, Jolene is a stone-cold classic that I assumed would close the show and it came five songs in. It was shortly after Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That which it turns out I know super well? I can only assume my dad had this tape at some point. That song was stuck in my head for several days after the show and now it’s back – good job, me – and I might have to go watch some Filet O’Fish ads on YouTube to dislodge it.

The first half also featured My Tennessee Mountain Home, Coat of Many Colours, I’ll Fly Away, a curious medley of old hits like American Pie that had nothing to do with Dolly Parton, and Parton playing Yakety Sax on a wee tiny saxophone. The awe-inspiring nature of this visual encourages me to set aside my suspicion that maybe your fingers need to move sometimes when you’re playing the saxophone.

Current Mood: feelin’ saxy! ??#pureandsimpletour

A photo posted by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton) on Jul 23, 2016 at 12:42pm PDT

Between sets, everyone around me complained about the tight seats. Then they all left to pee. Then the show started up again. For a few brief, glorious seconds, I enjoyed Parton’s singing AND some shoulder room. I even got to snap a few pictures while she was singing what I believe to be Alicia Keys’ Girl on Fire.

Dolly Parton in Moose Jaw

A photo posted by J. Underscore Kalyn (@j_kalyn) on Sep 13, 2016 at 10:42pm PDT

 

The second half was a little shorter than the first, which is to say it would still have been a reasonable length concert all by itself. She saved a number of hits to close out the show, playing Here You Come Again, Islands in the Stream, 9 to 5, and I Will Always Love You back to back (to back to back). People went ape for all these.

I often leave shows by… “more experienced” artists thinking “I wish I’d seen them back in the day.” Not this time. Despite a not-very-noticeable case of the sniffles, at no point did I think the show would have been better 10 or 20 years ago. Her voice is solid as ever and she went for hours, alternating between belting out hits and telling stories and cracking corny one-liners. It’s also worth noting that she plays a ton of instruments (I am not including the saxophone) and her band was great too.

If I could compare this to past shows I’ve seen, it would be like some ungodly hybrid of Loretta Lynn, Leonard Cohen, and Wayne Newton. And that analogy doesn’t work at all and yet I think it does? Lady country singer, ridiculously ageless, kinda schmaltzy in a good way. You know what I mean. If not, blame the cold medicine.

Immediately after the show, the booming voice of some unseen announcer thanked us for coming – or at least, that’s what I was expecting. Instead, he let us know that there’d been a big car accident and a bunch of people (presumably attending this show) had their cars towed away. I do not know how so many parked cars got quite so damaged in one accident. I would kind of like to know but I am also appreciative that I didn’t have to find out the hard way so I shall just leave well enough alone.

And then I wanted to get a drink and some Doritos for the drive back but we didn’t pass a gas station on the way out of town THE END

Here’s that Toronto setlist I mentioned:

Hello, Dolly
Train, Train
Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That
Pure & Simple
Jolene
Precious Memories
My Tennessee Mountain Home
Coat Of Many Colors
Smokey Mountain Memories
Applejack
Rocky Top/Yakety Sax
Banks Of The Ohio
Medley: American Pie/If I Had A Hammer/Blowin’ In The Wind/Dust In The Wind/The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The Seeker
I’ll Fly Away

(Intermission)

Baby I’m Burning/Girl On Fire
Better Get To Livin’
Outside Your Door
The Grass Is Blue
Those Memories Of You
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind
Little Sparrow
Two Doors Down
Here You Come Again
Islands In The Stream
9 To 5
I Will Always Love You
Light Of A Clear Blue Morning

UPCOMING CONCERTS
• Prozzäk (September 22)
• Hayden (September 29)
• Fred Eaglesmith w/Tif Ginn (October 1)
• Basia Bulat w/Oh Pep! (October 5)
• I Mother Earth featuring Edwin w/The Standstills (October 8)
• BreakOutWest (October 14-16)
• Sarah Slean with the Regina Symphony (October 22)
• Bush w/The Dead Deads (October 27)
• Steve Earle & The Dukes (November 3)
• Bif Naked w/Jordan Alexander (November 8)
• Duotang (December 2)

SLCR #257: Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters (September 6, 2016)

I don’t really understand how this happened.

I mean, logically, I get the rationale behind it. I was at the casino anyway, buying a ticket to Prozzäk – in itself, probably a questionable choice – and I got carried away. I’d probably just gotten paid or something. Or not. I mean, I don’t think that hard about my finances, which is something I should probably work on if I don’t want to alternate my time between concert venues and a refrigerator box in the alley.

Really, what I was thinking about was wanting to hit 40 concerts in my 40th year. That, and the whole Jian Ghomeshi thing.

Not THAT thing. The other thing.

Remember that other thing? Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters were guests on Q, Ghomeshi had the temerity to mention in passing that Thornton was famous for acting, and Thornton immediately turned defensive and basically shut the interview down like a petulant child. THAT thing. Who’d have guessed that Thornton would ultimately gain the PR upper hand in this battle?

Anyway, I wound up at this show for a combination of stupid reasons, is what I’m getting at. Mika opted out. Not due to school, or homework, or fatigue, or a prior commitment. No reason was given and none was needed. I got it. But I was curious. What if these dudes are really good? Low expectations can sometimes lead to great experiences. And what else was I going to do on a Tuesday night?

The first thing I noticed upon arriving at the casino was that I have never seen their parkade so empty. I had written up a big long description of the parking garage but who could care about that? It was largely empty. This is all you need to know.

I had a seat by myself in the upper level. I mean this nearly literally. The balcony is split into two halves; there were three people in my half, including myself. It didn’t look like the other half was any more crowded. The floor looked reasonably full but wasn’t sold out.

As with most casino shows, there was no opening act. The emcee was a local DJ who made a bunch of jokes about the miserable performance of our football team, particularly the kicker who missed a crucial conversion that would have tied the most recent game. Given that our team HAS been pretty terrible this year, you wouldn’t think these jokes would have died quite the death they did, but I don’t think anyone really felt like piling on.

Now that we were all warmed up (?), Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters took the stage. Thornton’s stage presence as a lead singer could be generously described as “aloof.” He kept his sunglasses on for the entire set, standing there, barely moving, looking down at the ground. He came across as either being disinterested or trying to look cool. I’m going to go with the latter, since between songs, he’d talk with the audience and he was actually pretty engaging and funny. He walked out on the floor and chatted with audience members at one point, and gently handled one die-hard fan who tried to rush onto the stage at another.

(He also talked a lot about having never played Regina before, which I’m pretty sure isn’t true? I feel certain that they had a previous casino date at one point. Maybe it got postponed? Or maybe I’m imagining things – if they were scheduled to be here, I never even mentioned it in a previous review.)

The Boxmasters were quite good, despite having a late substitution when their normal drummer found himself unable to cross into Canada for… reasons. However, I really don’t know how to rate Thornton’s performance as a singer, except to say it seemed like his mic was kept quite low and I found myself wondering if maybe that wasn’t intentional. I mean, I never thought he was terrible, but nothing stood out as being particularly good, either.

They played all original numbers, I think; if there were any covers, I didn’t pick up on them. The songs were like the vocals, in that nothing stood out as being particularly awful or particularly interesting. Is it super insulting to say that if they had a frontman who brought some energy to the performance, they could be a really great bar band? Because I don’t mean that in a dick way but it probably sounds like it. Oh well.

I don’t feel like I was alone in my lack of enthusiasm for this show. After they finished their set, there was the most tepid applause for an encore that I’ve ever heard, like “we all know what happens now and we are playing our roles” but there was no enthusiasm behind it. And then something really telling happened. The band (minus Thornton) came back out on stage to some cheers, and they began to play. Thornton followed, and when he walked out, there was no spike in cheers at all. I’ve never seen that happen before. Some bands try to paint everyone as equals, and others are the Front Man and the Other Guys. This was clearly meant to be Front Man and the Other Guys. And yet, when the Front Man came back, there was no reaction from the crowd to indicate that he was a bigger star than anyone else on stage. And really, if you’re bringing one person out separately, you’re presenting that one person as the star and trying to get that big reaction. And I’ve never seen it not work.

So yeah. This was an interesting experiment but not so hot and not really my thing. Which is about what I was expecting.

SLCR #256: Greg MacPherson (September 1, 2016)

Ah hell crap dammit I have three of these things to do. I want to do other things but I also don’t want to have FOUR of these particular things, so here we go.

I just looked up my last Greg MacPherson review and it was from four years ago and I can’t even fathom that. I’m fine with being 40, I can handle any of the “Want to feel old? _____ came out _____ years ago” posts (though the idea that Snakes on a Plane has been around for a decade is a bit disconcerting), but four years since that concert? Really? I do not understand how this is possible.

I remember that show well. It was an intimate setting (the first show I saw at the Artful Dodger) and a fantastic performance, one that made me into much more of a fan than I’d been going in. I know he’s come back through town a few times since then, but he has a knack for showing up on nights when I’m already booked. Also, he really seems to like to play here around tax time, much to Jeff’s frustration.

I actually had a ticket to see him earlier this year, but I would have had to go by myself, it was him sharing the stage with a few other folks to talk about songs (the format actually sounded really neat, but it wasn’t really what I was after), and it was up against a UFC PPV so I sat it out. Sometimes I am fine with going to shows by myself and sometimes I am very not. Regardless, I was glad that he came back through town so I’d get the chance to see him.

Like the last show, this was my first time at a new venue – this time, Creative City Centre. I feel like Stefon describing where it is: “Located above a jazz club situated in a former shoe store in Regina’s downtown, this place has everything.” But then it trails off because it has two flights of narrow stairs, a dozen tables, bowls of pretzels, and Jeff and his friend, who beat me there. No human Roombas.

But seriously, this is a really tiny space. I said that the Artful Dodger show was intimate, but that place holds twice as many people. I’d have to think 50 people would sell out Creative City Centre unless they pulled the tables out.

Possibly the highlight of the night came when the lady who (I think) runs the place opened the show by listing off all the upcoming events. She got to the guitar jam, where guitarists of all skill levels come together to play and learn and talk guitar… stuff. Anyway, they’re going to hold Regina’s largest ever guitar jam in the park downtown, and they’re all going to play the Experience Regina song – making this four straight public events I’ve attended with Jeff where that song has come up. I don’t know if I should take him with me everywhere? Or would that just jinx things?

Our opening act was a collabo of two local artists, Dan Holbrow and Leo Keiser, about whom I knew pretty much nothing at all. I still know very little. They played six or eight songs with the two switching off on vocals. Keiser had a song called “I’m Bored and You’re an Asshole,” which is, I guess, really what a lot of songs are about, but I’ve never heard of one that outright said it before.

The venue filled up as the show went on, and it looked pretty close to capacity by the time Greg MacPherson started. Good for him, but that did prevent us from stealing a bowl of pretzels from a nearby unoccupied table. The only open spot was, oddly, front and centre, but MacPherson started off the show by insisting that someone move up from the back and sit at that table.

It was a very different show, possibly because it was a very different tour – not a tour at all, really. He and his partner were off to Edmonton for a wedding and he just picked up a few gigs along the way. He said he was out of practice and hadn’t even remembered to bring any records or CDs to sell us (to think, I raided Mika’s purse for nothing). His voice was a little hoarse and it did seem like he didn’t have a set list and was just going to play for as long as his voice would hold out.

Last time, he played all of his songs that I know and love. This was decidedly not that. The bartender had requested the song Heatwave; someone requested it at the last show too, and I didn’t know the song at that time. Here, it was the only song I’d heard before. Even Jeff, who knows much more of MacPherson’s music than I do, only recognized a few songs. It seemed like he was trying out a lot of new material, and he was talking a lot too – lots about the political climate and general state of things, both globally and on a local level.

So it was quite an interesting show, and whenever I see him play, I think “this dude is super good and I really need to listen to his music more often.” Just not quite the show I was expecting, which isn’t a bad thing.