SLCR #365: Joel Plaskett (September 17, 2022)

This show has been planned for so long that my tickets have the show date listed as May 2, 2020. At the pace I’m churning these things out as of late, you’d be forgiven for assuming I actually saw the show then and only got around to writing about it now.

Some of the advertising said “Joel Plaskett.” Other ads said “Joel Plaskett Emergency,” implying a full band. When it was booked, I was pretty sure Mo Kenney was opening, but as we finally approached the actual show, it was made clear that Mo would be here and was part of the show, but wasn’t doing a set of their own. So I just put “Joel Plaskett” up in the title for simplicity’s sake. Even though we got a full band. And Mo did 2 of their own songs. See? Simplicity.

The Exchange was a smaller venue than usual for Joel Plaskett and it sold out. Having 34 months between tickets going on sale and the thrice-delayed actual show gave the stragglers lots of time to make up their minds too, I suppose. 

With no opener, the band split the show into two sets. Joel and two of his bandmates started things off, with Mo Kenney joining a few songs in to sing the “at the post office” verse of Extraordinary. 

The first set drew heavily from Joel’s latest album, and honestly, I don’t know it well. He once put out a triple album called Three, but his new album is called 44 and is – you guessed it – a quadruple album with 44 songs. And I love Joel but that’s a lot to take in all at once (said the guy sending out 4 concert reviews in one day). I’ve heard some of it and did enjoy it – I’ve never thought “this Joel Plaskett song is unenjoyable” – but for me, live shows will determine the favourites off 44 over time.

The second half leaned more on Plaskett’s back catalogue so there was much singing along. This is where you’d find your Fashionable Peoples and Love This Towns and whatnot, but still with a few new tunes. One he wrote for a virtual campfire for a youth organization. Named – and this is a thinker – “Campfire Song,” this was made for singalongs. It’s rare that I’d remember much from a new song at a concert a month later, but I could still sing the chorus of this one and I assure you I will not. In addition, Dave Marsh from the band sang a song he’d written called What I Like About Charles. Not about our new King. Presumably.

What can you say? This was super fun. I’d have been stunned if it wasn’t. The next time will be super fun too and hopefully we don’t have to survive another global pandemic to get there. It seems like a reasonable ask, and yet.

SLCR #308: Winterruption 2018 (January 19-20, 2018)

I’m back! It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these. Probably because I let this sit for three weeks and now I have no real memory of these shows. Time to rocket through some half-recalled irrelevancies!

The short version is that this was all good and you can just go ahead and stop here if you want. I kind of want.

For the third straight year, the Regina Folk Festival and the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon teamed up to put on Winterruption, a slate of concerts meant to inject some warmth and light into the coldest, darkest time of the year. And for the second straight year, they missed the mark and accidentally dropped their reprieve from winter into an unseasonably pleasant weekend. Fine by me – I really like the idea of a fun concert in the middle of -40C but I don’t actually want to leave the house for it.

In past years, Saskatoon got a number of extra bands at their Winterruption and it felt like Regina was getting the short end of the stick. This time, apart from Chad VanGaalen making a Saskatoon stop, it seemed like we got pretty equal lineups. I wonder why this pleases me? I should want us all to get more, not just for them to get less. But if we go down this philosophical rabbit hole, I won’t hit my goal of finishing this review by the time this Apple Music Alternative Hits: 1991 playlist ends. Or so I thought until I looked just now to double-check the title and saw that this thing is three-and-a-half hours long. I guess I can put some time into this. Too bad I won’t.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18

Begonia was at the Exchange with Close Talker and Bears in Hazenmore. For those whose tastes are a bit rockier, the Revival Music Room hosted Duchess Says with Partner and The Florals. And I didn’t go to any of this. It’s like you didn’t even read the dates up there.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19

Indeed, I skipped the Thursday concerts, heading out to my first triple-bill of the weekend at the Artesian. I wish I had stories to tell you since I’ve been looking at this blank text file for like 20 minutes. Somewhere in there, I gave up on Alternative Hits: 1991 since obviously THAT’S the issue here. But I still got nothing – I bought a ticket a while back and showed up at the appointed time and showed them my ticket and they let me in and I sat in a pew at the back of the room. I think that’s pretty much how this is supposed to go. Mika wasn’t particularly interested in this show and I didn’t see anyone I knew, though I know Rob was there somewhere. Carver too, which is a given for Tom Wilson shows. Allow me to paraphrase what Wilson said from the stage: “No matter where I go, I don’t have a friend named Carver. I come to Regina, and I have a friend named Carver. It’s like the name of a Coen Brothers’ character. I know Carver does bad things but I don’t need to know what they are.”

But that would come later in the evening. To start with, we had local country(ish) singer-songwriter Belle Plaine. I’d seen her only once before – a little more than a year ago during BreakOut West – which is kind of nuts considering how many shows she does around these parts. I really enjoyed that last set and liked her even better the second time around, where she had the chance to show off more of her original songs and had a bit more of an opportunity to tell stories. Last time, I said “would go again” and that hasn’t changed. Would be more eager to go again, in fact.

Next up was Mariel Buckley, in case you prefer your solo lady country singers to come from Alberta instead of Saskatchewan, though it sounds like she spends enough time here that she basically counts anyway. There was nothing wrong with her set but it didn’t really grab me, mostly for the stupidest, most me-centric reason; basically, her voice reminded me a lot of someone I know. And I don’t like that someone very much. Such a dumb reason! If anyone out there actually listens to any of the bands I write about, give her album a spin and let me know if I was blind to something great. (And if I know you in real life and not just the internet, listen to this and tell me who you think I’m talking about. I mean, I’ll never tell you if you’re right but I really want to hear your guesses.)

Last time I saw Tom Wilson, he read draft excerpts from his upcoming memoir. If you ever get the chance to hear him tell his life story, you should, it’s really interesting and he’s a gifted storyteller. Now the book is out and I was planning on picking it up at this show, but it was being sold by Chapters who set up a little shop in the basement. And if I’m not handing money to the artist and I’m just getting it from Chapters, I can get it from any Chapters, you know? Plus, they left before his set anyway. And I didn’t really want to give up my spot to go get it with no guarantees I’d still have my space upon my return. And this is too many words about not buying a book or even trying to do so, when there are so many more interesting things I don’t do.

Apart from calling out Carver, Wilson’s set was split pretty evenly between music and stories. Both were enjoyable, but at one point he was concerned that we were thinking, “Jesus, the Junkhouse guy wouldn’t stop reading at us.”

I wonder if Junkhouse is ever still a thing? I’ve now got Tom Wilson, Lee Harvey Osmond, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings under my belt, but I’ve never seen Junkhouse. Time for some procrastination Googling, my favourite kind: according to Wikipedia, Junkhouse “still performs together occasionally,” though seemingly not since 2009 (so, VERY occasionally) and guitarist Dan Achen has since passed away. And Wilson was in a band called The Florida Razors that broke up in the 80s. I guess I’m never completing that Tom Wilson bingo card.

ANYWAY. Show good. Wilson writes great stories to begin with, and he has a voice that makes everything he says sound epic. Good combo. And while some of the stories were repeated from last time – they kind of had to be, since they’re central to what his book is about – there was lots I hadn’t heard before too. As for the songs, there was a mix between some Lee Harvey Osmond songs that he’s played here before, a few others from throughout his career, and a couple covers.

With Wilson, I really kind of missed out on his whole career up until a few years ago and that’s where I’d still be if not for my habit of going to pretty much any show for any reason. Now I see him every time he comes through town and I look forward to it more each time.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20

For this night, we were at the Exchange, which had been the plan all along, but for some reason, I’d been convinced it was two nights at the Artesian up until I saw some signs at the Tom Wilson show that indicated otherwise. So once again, I was dumb, and could have lived my whole life without anyone ever knowing about it, but I had to tell you just the same.

This show was very sold out, with a number of folks online looking to buy tickets. Some people thought they could get in at the door. They were denied. I felt bad for the girl ahead of us – her two friends had tickets, but she didn’t – and they drove. She took a disappointing early cab ride home.

The evening’s host was a local community radio DJ. You may remember him from his interminable introduction of Sloan at the Gateway Festival two years ago. That is, if you happen to be Jeff or Mika, you may remember him. The rest of you probably don’t. It was a hilariously lengthy introduction but probably you had to be there to appreciate it. Anyway, on this night, he was called into service at the last minute. He was there as a fan but the scheduled host no-showed and he was asked to fill in. He did a fine job with no advance warning.

It didn’t go so well for him once before. First up was Megan Nash, and apparently at some previous gig, he mistakenly introduced her as Megan Lane, a different local singer. They both joked about this and he took great care to get it right this time. In his defense, I think I had them mixed up in my head too because the person on stage was very much not who I was expecting. However, she quickly won me over with her songs and her charmingly quirky personality, and I’d have to say she was the most delightful surprise of the weekend. Though it should be noted that the aforementioned quirkiness may have been exacerbated by her being all hopped up on Buckley’s Mixture. For my non-Canadians, Buckley’s is a cough syrup that’s advertised with the tagline, “It tastes awful, but it works.” True story: the first time I had it, I actually went lightheaded. I was asked to describe what it’s like and the best I could come up with was “imagine watery jizz that tastes like rubbing alcohol and a pine tree.” Nash was swigging this from the bottle onstage and still managing to play music, which is impressive. “I think there’s a limit to how much of this you’re supposed to have,” she said, probably too late.

Between sets, our actual host arrived. I don’t know how she got to be the host – I’m guessing community radio? I do know her name, because she said it several times. She didn’t really bother doing anything to introduce Lindi Ortega, though. I have a whole new respect for the guy from earlier, to say nothing of the usual parade of CBC Radio “climate specialists” they normally get for these things.

After that underwhelming introduction, Lindi Ortega took the stage. I was surprised she wasn’t going on last. We’d seen her a few years ago, opening for k.d. lang, and I’ve seen her name pop up all over the place. Plus, I’m pretty sure she was responsible for attracting the cowboys that were scattered throughout the audience. I was looking forward to seeing her in a smaller venue, but I don’t know what it was – something just didn’t click with me. She was fine, her husband/guitarist was fine (as a guitarist, I mean; I assume he’s good at husbanding though I don’t have evidence one way or the other). It was all good, but for me it ultimately was just there, though I really can’t complain about anything. Apart from the people in the audience who paid to be there and then refused to watch the show or shut up while it was happening, but you’ve heard that one before. There was one heroic lady who told a group of babbling idiot girls to shut up and that was appreciated. Though not enough; you should get a parade for something like that.

Finally, we had Mo Kenney, and there were no major mishaps during her introduction, though I’m only saying that because I asked Mika if the host had mistakenly said “Kennedy” but she said she didn’t think so. I heard Kennedy but I may have been just expecting something to go wrong at this point.

Anyway, I’ve seen Mo Kenney a few times now and I say the same thing every time, so I’ll say it again; namely, she has a ton of songs that I like and she gets more confident as a performer every time out. The shows are always very similar, but despite that, I think this time was the best of the bunch. Not only did I get to hear a bunch of her new stuff live for the first time, but I got all my older favourites too – none were missed.

Really, I wound up feeling about Mo Kenney the same I did after seeing Corb Lund last year. Neither would be the first name to come to mind when I list my very favourite musicians, but when you factor in how many great songs they have and how much I enjoy their music, they both should really be in that mix. And I feel the need to say something more than that as a conclusion, but we’re rapidly approaching Winterruption 2019 and this thing still isn’t done. Except now it is.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:
• The Dears w/Lou Canon (March 17)
• Sloan (April 6)
• “Weird Al” Yankovic w/Emo Philips (June 1)

​SLCR #235: Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls (March 5, 2016)

It’s 1:00 a.m. and I really need to sleep. I did a lot of walking today and a lot of standing this evening. But I thought about making some notes about this show so I could write my review tomorrow (or, let’s be honest, two weeks from now), and I realized I didn’t have a ton to say, so I may as well just get this over with or pass out trying.

I was thinking on the way there that I didn’t have any kind of story about this show. The Art of Time nearly snuck past me, and Black Sabbath was a last-minute decision, but this was just a show. One I booked my trip around, to be sure, with two artists I already really like, but that’s not very interesting to read about. Luckily, I’m an idiot.

Frank Turner’s Twitter said doors at 7:00, first opener at 7:30, “done by 11:30.” I appreciate the announced times so much. Old-man jokes aside, it’s not like I can’t stay out late, I just don’t want to spend hours standing around playing Puzzle Craft 2 on my phone waiting for things to get underway. I can happily do that from home, thanks. So I caught the C-Train and got to the university with plenty of time. Or so I thought. Once inside, I found the line to get through security. I walked to the end of the line… and walked… and walked some more… and yet more. This was the longest line I had ever been a part of. Comically long. Impossibly long. It was moving at a decent pace, but I still had grave concerns about my ability to make it inside for the opening acts. Finally, after about a half-hour, a security guard said “Everybody here for Nightwish?”

Gwuh?

There’s MacEwan Hall and MacEwan Ballroom, and one is upstairs and one had Nightwish, apparently. I did think that there were an awful lot of stupid outfits for a Frank Turner show.

The line upstairs was far more manageable and I only missed half of the first Mo Kenney song. I think I have now seen Kenney four times and every time I think she is great and that her stage presence has improved from the time before. This was quite a short set – only a half-hour – but still delightful. I did not think she was as delightful as this other girl did, though. She decided that we weren’t making enough noise for Kenney and decided to remedy this by her lonesome, which made Mo (and me) crack up a few times.

Mo: “I’m from Dartmouth originally, but my first apartment was in Halifax-”
Girl: “YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH”
Mo: “…are you from Halifax, by chance?”

She was.

The hell of it was, this girl actually seemed to get the crowd more into things. The crowd started off pretty subdued, but by the end of Mo’s set, they were reacting really well to her. There were no surprises in the setlist, apart from some personal favourites of mine presumably cut for time, but her closing cover of Bowie’s Five Years carried, of course, a little extra weight now.

There was maybe a 10-minute break before Northcote played. The lead singer introduced himself as Matt Goud and I don’t know why he didn’t name the band after himself. I knew nothing about these guys but they were really fun. Tons of energy and Goud was very charismatic. I can see these dudes on a CMJ CD with “recommended if you like: Frank Turner” under the little blurb about the band. Goud handled a few songs by himself on acoustic guitar and brought Kenney out to sing one with him as well. He also admirably defended Saskatchewan from an attempted besmirching – apparently he went to university in Regina. Anyway, these guys were good and I’d see them again and will check out whatever Apple Music has of theirs. Right now, in fact.

There was a longer break before Frank Turner and his band, the Sleeping Souls, finally took the stage for two hours of high-energy rock. His newest album is Positive Songs for Negative People and I don’t know about the negative people part, but the positive messages are always there. This is good music for the gym or to inspire you to take on the world in whatever manner you choose.

Like with Kenney, I’ve seen Turner a few times now, though I’m less familiar with all of Turner’s records (there’s a lot!). Maybe if you know all his songs, there’d be some setlist surprises you’d be really pumped for but I am not so knowledgeable in that regard. I got some old favourites and some newer stuff and lots I didn’t know and also half of Ace of Spades because why not? There was no Barbara Allen, disappointing a friend from work who wasn’t at this show anyway, but we got The Next Storm, Mittens, Josephine, The Way I Tend To Be, Eulogy, Peggy Sang The Blues, I Still Believe (with Matt Goud on harmonica), Get Better, Try This At Home… like I said, someone else could probably list 20 more songs.

Turner and the band had signed a drumhead and were going to give it to whichever side of the room was the most participatory. Our side was good at yelling and the other was good at jumping, so he decided on a tie-breaker. He called a friend out of the audience and had him crowdsurf around the entire room, touching the walls on both sides and high-fiving the sound engineer at the back – he could then return to the front and throw the drumhead to the winning side. I am proud to say I did my part and held that dude in the air for SEVERAL seconds. With lots of help. I think our side won but the drumhead arced in the air and wound up in Switzerland, the neutral zone down the middle of the room. I later saw the dude who caught the drumhead waiting for the train.

Turner is the kind of guy who has two rules for his shows – sing along if you know the words, and (more importantly) don’t be a dickhead. At one point he had us all sit on the floor (I did!) and make friends with a stranger near us (I did not!). But I sang (after a fashion) when he said to sing and jumped (sort of) when he said to jump and put my hands in the air when told to do so and I’m somewhat okay at following orders is I guess my point? Also I had fun. And I’m sleepy now.

In the interest of not being a dickhead (and because it was boring to read), I removed a lengthy complaint I’d written about a fellow fan. I’m glad you had fun. Just maybe leave your toys at home next time.

I caught the train back and walked towards my grandma’s place. The train stop is by a Humpty’s, which I noticed was still open. After a long day, the idea of midnight bacon and eggs by myself sounded both appealing and monumentally stupid. As I crossed MacLeod Trail and pondered this situation, looking at the Humpty’s, some girl crossing the other way sharply told me “If you look straight ahead, nobody’s gonna be messing with you.” I can add nothing to that except to point out that this paragraph is the most representative thing about my life that’s ever been written. When I’m dead, read this at my wake and make it the last post on my Facebook wall. It’s all that future generations will need to understand me.

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For more Frank Turner goodness, check out Boppin’s interview! I even make a run-in at the end.

SLCR #214: Joel Plaskett Emergency (May 15, 2015)

I knew this show would be really great, and it was. And I’m tempted to just stop here.

Here are some people and things that I dig. You already know I dig them:

• Joel Plaskett
• Mo Kenney
• Darke Hall
• concerts
• any mixed and/or matched combination of the above

Liking things is great! But my stock in trade is disliking things, or at least making fun of things. Or as some people would call it, “generally being unpleasant to be around.” Being pleasant (or at least tolerable) and productive is hard, but my alternate option – namely, staring at a blank text file for the better part of a month – wasn’t getting the job done.

Having said that, I have so little to say about this show that at this point in writing this review, I just stopped and skipped ahead to write my Charley Pride review in its entirety instead. I had some things to say about that show and that day as a whole. But that is for another time; namely, it is for five minutes after I finish writing and posting this thing, so I best get a move on.

So what do you need to know? Well, Plaskett was touring in support of his newest album, The Park Avenue Sobriety Test. He’d debuted the title track (at least to my ears) at last year’s folk festival, and I really liked it. The new album is a good one, though I need to spend some more time with it. Thus far, I can safely recommend it if you like Joel’s previous work and also like swear words. There’s a marked increase; not overwhelming, but noticeable.

In fact, both Mo and Joel – which doesn’t quite rhyme well enough to bother repeating – have relatively new albums, and I’d seen both performers in concert within the past year. In that sense, this show was a bit of a re-run, as there wasn’t much that I hadn’t seen before. This is not a bad thing, since I loved both of those shows, but I WAS tempted to just copy and paste old reviews and see if anyone noticed. Mind you, there are enough repeating themes and turns of phrase in my reviews that most of you likely think I do that already.

In fact, I think copying and pasting would have been much better than this:

• The ticket people said that I’d need my order number and photo ID to pick up my tickets, and I had no idea what my order number was, but I emailed them and they told me. And then they just checked my photo ID at the door anyway.
• There was a food truck outside the venue. We didn’t get any food.
• There was a lots of stuff at the stuff table, including tons of vinyl – Kenney’s newest album and most of Plaskett’s catalogue. Neither of us bought anything. I would have bought my favourite Plaskett album – Ashtray Rock – on vinyl, but I already had it on order from MapleMusic.
• The host of the show was some local CBC person. At one point, she tried to talk, but her mic was turned off. Then the sound guy turned it on.

I am very tempted to rewrite the entire review so that the whole thing is comprised of the dullest bullet points imaginable.

Mo Kenney’s set was very similar to when I saw her last fall, though she played for a bit longer and managed to include the song Take Me Outside, which was sadly missing last time. I feel like it might have replaced the cover of Five Years, which is a fair trade-off in my books. I like both but Take Me Outside is one of my favourites of hers. She told a few of the same stories (such as the origin of the creature on the drum kit – though this version seemed to have been expanded a bit), but there were some fun unique moments interacting with the crowd. At one point, Kenney showed off her new guitar; so new that it didn’t even have a name yet. Someone from the crowd yelled out his suggestion – something along the lines of “Red Lucille.” Kenney replied with the most polite “that could work” which was so transparently a secret code for “no” that even she cracked up. She then went on to name the guitar “Foot,” which, why not?

She also plugged her new record. “Will you sign it?” asked a random person. “Absolutely,” said Mo, quickly adding “Oh… you meant right now” as the aforementioned person rushed the stage with a record and a Sharpie.

Also, she was wearing an “Italians Do It Better” shirt which I believe was from Christie’s Bakery in Saskatoon. “I am not Italian. And I have no knowledge of whether they do it better.”

If anything stood out from this set, it’s that the improvement in Kenney’s confidence and stage presence from the first time we saw her to now is amazing. I am delighted for her as she is a lovely human who writes and sings great songs and deserves to be well-known and successful. I am, however, a little fearful. This progression cannot be allowed to… um… progress unchecked. Otherwise, give her another few years and she’ll be leading cults.

Joel Plaskett is also a lovely human, but I’ve been a fan for long enough now that I’m just used to him being completely charming. Maybe that means I’m already in a cult? Whatever. The entertainment is top-notch and there’s a food truck on site. I’ve got no complaints.

Plaskett had much more time than he had at the Folk Festival, and he used it to play most of the tunes off the new album, as one would expect. There was about a 50/50 mix of new stuff and old favourites, which never vary all that much. Compared to the Folk Festival, we got the same Do Wa Diddy Diddy intro into Work Out Fine, but no Mamma Yamma Fashionable People – I don’t think we got Fashionable People at all, come to think of it, but most of the usuals were played.

As per usual, the older stuff got the best reactions, but there was one family there who was trying their damndest to balance everything out. I have never seen so many Joel Plaskett superfans in one group. All ages. Standing, dancing, singing along with every song, leaving notes on the stage, the whole shebang. I bought our tickets for this show back in December and I don’t remember what they cost, but at one point I was trying to figure out just how many people were part of this clan and whether the bill for the evening would have topped $1,000. Wouldn’t have been impossible. It was kind of remarkable, really.

So yes, a good time was had by all. Especially by those folks. It would be really hard to have a bad time at a Joel Plaskett show, and I should know. I once tried and ultimately couldn’t do it. The guy comes across as the nicest dude ever and writes catchy songs that are made to be sun along with. A++++ would go again – but you already knew that.

SLCR #206: Kim Churchill w/Mo Kenney (November 13, 2014)

A guy named Kim and a girl named Mo walk into a bar. They put on a good show and everyone has a good time.

I am the worst at jokes.

Mo Kenney is a protégé of sorts of Joel Plaskett. Mika and Other James and I saw her last year and it was good times. She has a new album out and I like it. And Kim Churchill is Australian. Now you are caught up, or at least as caught up as I was.

Kenney also played the Regina Folk Festival this year, but not while I was there. Other James had backstage passes for the weekend and he got to chat with her for a bit. He said she was very nice and very gracious, even when mainstage host Al Simmons said “Mo Kenney – that guy is great!” This story made me laugh much harder than it should have. When I told Mika, it had a similar effect. I guess we will take any excuse to make fun of Al Simmons, who is still much better as a festival host (and probably all other areas of life) than Bubba B The MC. PHOTO OP PHOTO OP PHOTO OP PHOTO OP

Oh well. They can’t all be Fred Penner.

Anyway. I’ve been complaining about bands skipping over Regina, so I’ve been trying to make a point of going to more shows. The best way to get more bands to come here is to go see the ones who do, right? But it’s cold now, and I get lazy, and it’s real easy to bail out if I haven’t made concrete plans. So in a moment of enthusiasm – by which I mean while I was briefly awake and energetic and aware of my surroundings – I popped online to buy a ticket to this show. There have been times when I was willing to take the financial hit by skipping out, and I’m sure it will happen again, but buying in advance in moments of enthusiasm helps the odds.

If you read the MBF review, this evening started off much the same. Mika went to school. I took a bus downtown. Walked through the cold to The Exchange. Bought an iced tea when I got there. The cold is colder now, with no way to avoid wearing a parka, but there were lots of open seats so I had someplace to park my coat. And my butt. I appreciated having a place for both. I sat around for a bit, probably getting caught up on iPhone games (it’s been several weeks since this show – I really don’t know what I did – but that’s almost always a pretty good guess at concerts) (and at home, at work, in airports, at funerals, etc.) until Mark and Other James arrived. We chatted for a bit before they found their pals and took their seats.

Kenney was here with a band this time. I don’t know if it was having a few other people on stage with her, or if it was just the result of a year of recording and touring, but she came across much more confident this time out. Beyond that, her show felt much the same as the one the year before despite the addition of a new album’s worth of songs. This is not a bad thing! I liked both shows; there were just no real surprises this time (apart from the story of the drawing on the drum, which I’ll keep to myself so as not to wreck the eventual comic book). They played many of the same songs as last time, including the same covers of Shakin’ All Over and Five Years. I suppose her new single Telephones is a cover too, but I didn’t know that until yesterday (it’s by a band named Mardeen, who I had never heard of until writing this very sentence) so it doesn’t count. Because I get to decide what counts. I’m listening to the Mardeen version right now and it’s good! So we’re all learning something here today. Or maybe I’m slow and thus the only one.

The hits from the last album – Déjà Vu and Sucker – got the big reactions, of course. And I don’t believe she played my favourite song from the new album – Take Me Outside – so that will be something to look forward to for next time.

Between sets, a dude walked through the crowd selling Kenney’s CDs. I admired the hustle – don’t wait for me to come to the stuff table, bring the stuff to me! I already had both of Kenney’s albums, but I’d see that salesman again later.

During the break, I got to chat some more with Mark. I had bought my ticket to see Kenney and really knew nothing about Kim Churchill. I was prepared to give the guy a shot but was also quite willing to leave early if I wasn’t into it. Mark echoed my sentiments. He then told me that he couldn’t come to the Buck 65 show the following night because he had plans. These plans included “setting up a craft show” and “cutting up a deer.” I think we live very different lives. Mine has much less venison.

Kim Churchill looks Australian. He has Australian hair. If that makes you think of Yahoo Serious on the box for the Young Einstein videotape, 1) you’re wrong, but not by as much as you might think, and 2) when did we get so old?

Unlike Kenney, Churchill was alone on the stage, but though he was just one man, he was indeed a one-man band. He played guitar and sang, wore a harmonica on a harness around his neck, played drums and sampling pedals with his feet, and had some chimes set up by his elbow. I on the other hand, cannot pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. I was impressed enough that he could do this at all, and then it turned out he was really good on top of it. Dude can play. And I just tested that patting/rubbing thing and wound up punching myself in the balls and poking an eyeball.

Seriously, Churchill put on a great performance. I couldn’t tell you what he played, apart from recognizing the one song I’d listened to one time before the show (Window to the Sky). Didn’t matter. This was great. I recorded a video of one song and put it up on YouTube. No idea what the song is called. Don’t care. Great. You should watch it, and if he ever comes to your town, you should go. There should have been more people there for this.

I caught up with Mark and Other James after the show and they were both suitably blown away. Mark picked up all three Churchill CDs, as the salesman cut him a package deal. They left, and I browsed the stuff table while waiting for Mika to come and get me. I decided to pick up a CD. “Which one?” asked the salesman. I had no idea so I went for the newest one. The salesman smelled blood and pretty soon I had the package deal too. I can’t even be upset about it. He did his job amazingly well. And as I only had $48 in cash on me, I got the CDs for $2 less than Mark did. VICTORY!

With time to spare, I decided to talk to Churchill for a minute and get my CDs signed. By this point, there were only a handful of people left in The Exchange. I was patiently waiting my turn when I was joined by someone who I had never seen before in my life.

If Cathy reads this, she will tell me that the following story would only ever happen to me. I think she might be right.

So. Bald guy. About my height. Has a mustache that he doesn’t appear to be fully committed to so I assume it was for Movember. He’s drinking a beer. And he says to me, “Fuck, man, what a great fuckin’ show, man. That song about the darkness? Fuck, man, I’ve been there. I was out by fuckin’ Radville earlier today, and I blew a fuckin’ tire, so man, I’m fuckin’ lucky to be alive.”

At this point I was convinced that this fellow was the most fascinating man I had ever met. I was also a little bit terrified. But mostly fascinated.

“Man, you never fuckin’ know. Like that song about the fuckin’ darkness? It’s fuckin’ out there, but music, man, music will help you fuckin’ keep it together. Music can save your fuckin’ life, man. It saved mine.”

-pause-

“I was in a persistent vegetative state for three months and when I woke up, I didn’t recognize my own father. But they gave me a toilet paper tube, right? And I could do my fingering exercises from when I used to play the violin.”

He demonstrated on an invisible toilet paper tube.

He then asked if I was musical (no, though I’ve never made an honest effort to try to be) and told me about some of the groups he plays with. One of them sounded familiar and I asked if we might know the same person – one of my workplace’s multitude of Dougs.

“YOU KNOW DOUGIE?!”

-big hug-

Kim Churchill was now waiting to talk to us. I will always very much wonder what he thought of this whole situation. We all chatted for a bit but I quickly took my leave as Mika showed up, and besides, my enthusiastic new best friend had loads of questions about Churchill’s stage setup and I had nothing to contribute to this conversation. But I will always remember the last thing I heard him say: “So THAT’S where the fuckin’ snare comes from!”

SLCR #193: Mo Kenney (September 24, 2013)

In recent reviews, I have complained about how I feel like I’m not getting into a lot new music these days. Between the increasing fragmentation of mass media, the fact that new pop music just isn’t meant for me, and my old-man reluctance to try something that I don’t already know and love, it often feels like the only new albums I hear are from my old favourites.

Luckily, Mika listens to CBC Radio 3. Last year, whenever we had to drive somewhere, she started loading up her iPhone with a few installments of their countdown show, the R3-30. It has its share of stuff that I don’t care for, but the hits-to-misses ratio is surprisingly decent. I just made a new CD for the car – because I am old and set in my ways and dang it, I enjoy my outdated technology – and close to half of it is composed of songs I first heard on the R3-30.

One of the first standouts from those podcasts was Mo Kenney’s song Déjà Vu, a song so catchy that I’ll go through the effort of adding the accents even though this is America and we speak English here. I probably first heard the song over a year ago, but I seemingly can’t make myself sick of it. It’s like pizza, which is a comparison that I’m not certain Kenney would appreciate, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Mika bought her debut album – not specifically because it was produced by Joel Plaskett, but that certainly didn’t hurt – and I really enjoyed it, so I was excited for the show. I’d say that the $10 tickets certainly didn’t hurt, but I hate reusing my clichés so close to each other.

We got to the Artful Dodger mere moments after Other James had arrived. We bought drinks and got caught up, by which I mean we mostly swapped cat stories. They climb so high and land so hard and talk so much, but my cat kills birds. Other James would not stand for such behaviour.

Other James had red wine and Mika got a rum and Coke. In my true boring fashion, I opted for a Diet Coke. They served it in this heavy clay glass that got insanely cold. I had to keep switching hands. I fell in love with this glass. People on the internet who don’t know me might think this is a weird statement. People who know me closely will think it is even weirder. I mean, I am 37 and my primary drinking glasses came from Rogers Video and had the logos of James Bond movies emblazoned on them. I am not even kidding about this. You just can’t tell because they’ve gone through the dishwasher often enough to take off most of the lead paint. Other James – because he knows everyone in the province – told me that my glass was made by Martin Tagseth, an artist from Lake Lenore. I cannot prove this to be true and some preliminary googling raises a very important issue; namely, I can’t see a restaurant or bar paying those kinds of prices considering how often glasses get smashed. However, I am gonna put this link right here in case the glass was made by Tagseth, he puts something similar up for sale someday, and a wealthy benefactor wants me to have drinkware that I can also use to kill a man: http://www.mysteria.ca/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=702&ppage=120

Man. I wanted to steal the glass and Mika said “no” and I wasn’t really going to do it anyway but now that I had to relive its heft and coldness, I’m sad that I didn’t.

Our opener was Andy Shauf, a singer-songwriter from Regina. I didn’t know a whole lot about him, though I’d seen his name everywhere; it seems like he is one of those Indigo Joseph/Julia McDougall types who plays a ton of shows here and you’ll wind up seeing him every now and then, even if by accident. In voice and mannerisms, he reminded me of some sort of bizarre cross between Will Forte and my friend Colin, a comparison which means precisely nothing to anyone on Earth apart from me. And maybe Colin, if he watched Saturday Night Live a few years ago. But I don’t think he did. Anyway, I thought his songs were pretty decent, though I occasionally had a hard time making out the lyrics and I had a feeling that I might actually prefer the recorded versions. I’m currently listening to a few of his tunes on the Bandcamp page for his newest album – http://andyshauf.bandcamp.com/album/the-bearer-of-bad-news because apparently I’m linking to everything today – and it seems like that might be the case.

I see that his page has five tags: pop, dark, folk, Regina, and clarinet. There was, indeed, a clarinet on stage. When Mika first saw the clarinet, she was skeptical. Other James, on the other hand, was delighted. But when is he not?

Between sets, Other James spent part of the evening chatting with roller derby girls, and he also pointed out the lead singer of Library Voices in the crowd. Like I said, everyone in the province.

Mo Kenney has had two songs that did really well on the R3-30 (that I’ve heard, anyway; I tend to skip the show for weeks at a time). One thing I’ve noticed is that people who’ve heard both seem to have distinct preferences for one or the other – Sucker or Déjà Vu. I’ve already established myself as being firmly in the Déjà Vu camp, but I have a newfound appreciation for Sucker after having learned that it was written while drunk, dumped, and depressed about making pizzas for Sobey’s. It all makes sense now.

Kenney’s album has ten songs and clocks in at only about 34 minutes, so it’s not surprising that she played the whole thing. She was on her first tour with a band – a bass player and a drummer – though they left the stage for about the middle third of the set so Kenney could do some songs by herself. Like on the album, In My Lungs segued into Déjà Vu. Before playing Eden, she mentioned making a video for it with director Greg Jackson; she did not say that this was NOT the same Greg Jackson who is Georges St-Pierre’s coach, so I choose to assume that it was. This was for a contest and they won, so let’s continue with today’s linkfest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em6JaCq44nY

The songs from the record were supplemented by some new songs that she’d recently written with some Swedes, as well as a cover of Joel Plaskett’s Somewhere Else. I half-thought Mika might consider this to be blasphemy, but she doesn’t have the no-covering-my-favourites rule that some of my other friends have. Kenney also played Five Years, introducing it as “the first song on a record that my dad gave me; I won’t tell you what it is.” I decided it was a Leonard Cohen song and then I googled it to make sure and haha no whoops it’s David Bowie and probably everyone on Earth knew that but it turns out I sometimes don’t know things about things at all. I suppose this is how one learns.

Kenney seemed a little nervous at times, especially when she was talking between songs. She seemed to loosen up a bit as the show went on, and she also has a dry sense of humour that I found really appealing. Mika noted that her voice seemed the strongest when she was singing other people’s songs. I’m not sure about that; maybe it’s just that most of her own songs are quieter and aren’t really designed to be belted out.

The band closed with a cover of Shakin’ All Over, which was a fun and energetic way to end a really good show. The only real negative during the evening was the crowd; there seemed to be quite a few people who either left as the show was getting going or who just weren’t interested in paying attention. I think some people were only there to see Andy Shauf (I get that; he’s local and he was good and all), and the low ticket prices probably didn’t help matters either. I’ve said before that I’d rather pay to go to a show rather than go to a free show, since the cost weeds out some of the people who aren’t really interested in being there. Maybe raising ticket prices – even $5 or so – might have kept a few not-really-interested people out but brought in as much money? Who knows how these things work.

Kenney said she was planning to stick around after the show and sell CDs, and she also said that people could just talk with her or they could “embrace.” We didn’t stay for that, since Mika already bought the album, and the Artful Dodger had been really warm (which is one reason why I loved that cold glass so much) and it seemed cruel and unfair to ask anyone to embrace me at that point. Other James hung around for a bit; I haven’t talked to him since the show, but I assume him and Mo Kenney are bestest friends now, since that’s just how he works.

UPCOMING SHOWS
• Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls w/The Smith Street Band & Koo Koo Kanga Roo (October 22)
• Loretta Lynn (October 23)
• Herman’s Hermits (the Peter Noone version) (November 20)
• Ben Folds & Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (May 21, 2014)