Category: Music

Open ear-ed

Open Ears is a Kitchener Festival of Music and Sound, the goal of which is hearing new things, or old things in new ways. This year’s theme is environments.

The KW Symphony is a major sponsor, and the first Open Ears event we attended was indeed a Symphony concert at Centre in the Square. Called “Sound Explorations,” the first half featured R. Murray Schafer’s “The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller,” with concert master Stephen Sitarski walking to different parts of the stage to play his various moody solos. It ended with Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” a very lively tour through every instrument in the symphony. And in between, we got John Cage’s 4’33”. That would be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the various sections of the orchestra raising their instruments, yet none of them ever playing a note.

So, yeah, that was different. But not that different. And certainly not in a different environment.

So this weekend, we explored. We went out to downtown Kitchener for a 10:30 PM concert by a band called The Books, at a club called The Gig. The Books’ thing is sampling sound, and films, and writing songs around them, but on acoustic instruments. Their entire show had visuals, from home movies, old films, TV clips, whatever. The songs they come up with range from the quite lovely and touching to the completely confounding and dissonant. It’s a lot to take in, actually. So the hour or so they played was about right.

But though done with The Books, we weren’t done, not quite yet—even though it was now approaching midnight. Instead we went on to a Blue Dot event at The Tannery. We were even less sure what this was supposed to be (the brochure said an experiential metaphor. Gee, thanks, that’s helpful), or what The Tannery was, exactly.

Turns out that The Tannery is an old warehouse, converted to a nightclub kind of thing. The whole place was somewhat dimly lit. Blue light adorned one section, art slides were projected on one wall, a film loop of something like an Olympic gymnast was projected on another wall, and various physical art pieces were on display. A DJ played electronica. The crowd was Bohemian and, we were guessing, mostly in their 20s. So it was certainly an intriguing atmosphere. We went to the upper level to take it in.

About a half hour, maybe 45 minutes after we arrived, we were all ushered into another room for an art event. This turned out to be three guys—one of whom was hunky KW conductor Edwin Outwater—each standing on a podium thingie, each swinging a speaker, with a lights, from a rope, over their heads. Meanwhile, the artist adjusted the sound from this central console. At some points all the room lights went out, leaving only the illumination from the swinging speaker thingies, creating a kind of strobe effect.

It was pretty cool, actually. Though looked absolutely exhausting to participate in.

YouTube video of this performance—not from Kitchener, of course:

Then it was back to the big club room, as the music was to be playing all night.

Of course, we’re too old for that kind of thing, so we didn’t stay much longer, and therefore missed out on whatever other coolness ensued. But we certainly did experience new sounds in new environments.

Then this morning, CBC Radio gave me a new appreciation of disco music. But that’s a subject for another day.

Not over The Kinks

Magnet Magazine produced their list of the five most overrated, and underrated, songs in The Kinks canon. This inspired me to do something similar—well, maybe not that similar.

I mean, I have to agree with many comments on the article that declaring anything “overrated” in terms of The Kinks is a bit absurd, given their unfair residence in the shadow of that “holy trinity” of The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. You can point out all you want that while the Beatles early songs were kind of lame (“Love Me Do”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”), The Kinks’ were—and remain—pretty awesome (“You Really Got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night”). Or that Arthur—not Tommy—was actually the first rock opera. Or that The Kinks continued to develop musically throughout their 30-year career, while the Rolling Stones musical development seems to have died along with Brian Jones.

None of that matters. Those bands are just more popular, overall, than The Kinks, and nothing’s going change that. (And if Kinks fans are honest, they’re going to admit to liking having The Kinks as their own secret great band of the British invasion.)

Now, The Kinks did have some big hits (“You Really Got Me”, “Lola”, “Come Dancing”), but they’re all good songs, in my opinion, and none “overrated”. But none worth talking about any more, either.

But underrated… What does that really mean, with these guys? Songs people slagged unfairly? What would those be?

So, my list is not really overrated, nor underrated. It’s just Kinks songs that I really really like, that most people don’t know. These are ones that came to me off the top of my head, with no scouring through song lists. It’s about evenly divided between 60s/early 70s and 80/90s—the Kinks having somewhat lost me in their 70s concept album phase.

In no particular order…

1. Art Lover (Give the People What They Want, 1982)

The song that made me a Kinks fan. I saw The Kinks perform this on Saturday Night Live, and was instantly infatuated by Ray’s extremely flirtatious presentation. Only later did I realize it’s actually a song “either about a lonely Dad missing his daughter, or a really mellow pervert.” The uncomfortable ambiguity is very Kinks. (And I still find Ray terribly sexy in that clip.)

Live version of Art Lover—sadly, not the one from SNL

2. I’m Not Like Everybody Else (To the Bone, 1994)

While I also really enjoy the original 1965(?) version, sung by Dave, I think my favorite is the live 1994 version, sung by Ray, who introduces it thusly:

This song summarizes what The Kinks are all about. Because everybody expects us to do wonderful things, and we mess it all up, usually.

I like the slightly altered lyrics, and most especially, the delicious irony of a whole crowd of people gleefully singing in unison that they “aren’t like everybody else!”

The original, sung by Dave

3. Village Green Preservation Society (The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, 1968)

I love this song beyond all reason, given that it’s on a subject I neither know nor particularly care about: preservation of British heritage. I think it’s the clever wordplay (“We are the Sherlock Holmes, the English-speaking vernacular / Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty, and Dracula”), the gorgeous harmonies throughout, and the very pleasing key change near the end. (The version on To the Bone is also wonderful.)

The original and a live version (more interesting video, but not as good a version)

4. Days (single, 1969)

OK, this is cheating, because this was probably was a hit. But it’s too beautiful not to include.

It’s about a now-ended love affair. But instead of expressing self-pity, or anger, it expresses gratitude. Thank you. Thank you for ever being with me at all. Thank you for the days, those endless days you gave me.

I’ve never heard anything like it. And not to be morbid, but… I want this played at my funeral. (“I bless the light, I bless the light that shines on you, believe me. And though you’re gone, you’re with me every single day, believe me.”)

The Kinks miming “Days” on Top of the Pops (guess it was a hit)

5. Shangri-la (Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1969)

This one was on the Magnet Magazine list, and I have to agree. It’s the best song on an album with no weak tracks. It starts out in soft tones, as apparent homage to idyllic suburban living: “Now that you’ve found your paradise, this is your kingdom to command.” It then segues into an angrier, louder middle section, pointing out the multitude of ways that “life ain’t so happy in your little shangri-la”. When the initial verse returns, in the same tune but now retaining the angry horns, it now seems rather ominous: “You’ve reached your top and you just can’t get any higher.”

It’s nothing but brilliant.

The original and Ray playing it live–for the first time

6. Living on a Thin Line (Word of Mouth, 1984)

The Kinks have a lot of songs about British life and mores—gardening, drinking tea, china cups, and virginity. They have whole albums about it. But one of the very best of these is actually by Dave Davies, not Ray.

Now, Dave wrote this with the thought that Ray might sing it. It’s keyed for Ray’s lower vocal range. But Ray declined, and Dave does the honors, and does a fine job of it. It’s nicely produced, sort of epic-sounding, and had it ever been released as a single, who knows? (One of the many sore points between the brothers.)

Living on a Thin Line

7. Don’t Look Down (Phobia, 1993)

Phobia is the last full studio album from The Kinks and has a lot of strong tracks, notably the beautiful “Scattered” and the incendiary “Hatred” duet between the brothers. But I keep coming back to this simple track as a great example of Ray’s ability to so vividly paint a portrait of daily life. And of his optimism.

Walking down the street, he sees a man on the edge—literally. “Don’t look down.” More and more people join in. “And we all start to say: Don’t look down.” “Now the sun’s coming up—looks like he’s standing on a rainbow”…

Don’t Look Down

8. The Moneygoround (Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround, 1970)

The Lola album is also very strong, and includes the touching “Get Back in the Line” and Dave’s spiritual ode, “Strangers”. It also has a number of fun tunes (apart from “Lola”)—the fabulous “Top of the Pops” (“Life is so easy when your record’s hot”) and this one. Here is Ray taking what was actually a very painful experience (“Do they all deserve money for a song that they’ve never heard?”) and turning it into catchy romp (that you can totally dance to).

The Kinks video for Moneygoround

9. Property (State of Confusion, 1983)

Ah, the divorce song. Just a sad, beautiful song, observing how “all the little things, we thought we’d throw away / The useless souvenirs, bought on a holiday / We put them on a shelf, now they’re collecting dust / We never needed them / But they outlasted us.”

Property

10. Love Me Til the Sun Shines (Something Else by The Kinks, 1967)

Got to stop somewhere, so why not with this bit of horny ridiculousness by Dave from a classic 60s Kinks album. In a steady rock chug, Dave informs us that not only does his girlfriend not have to cook or clean for him, she doesn’t even have to laugh with him or hold his hand. Oh, and she can totally make out with his friends, and it’s fine if she borrows and wrecks his stuff.

Just as long as she still “loves” him til the sun shines.

Well, at least he has his priorities straight.

I don’t want to make excuses, but… I was 16 years old. I had the world at my feet. I had the world [laughs] at my… d***. — Dave Davies

Love Me Til the Sun Shines

Appendix: OK, couldn’t quite stop until I added these two…

11. Noise (B-side 1983)

A really obscure tune that only later showed on up on the CD version of State of Confusion as a bonus track. Yet it’s as good as anything else on the album. I love the soaring chorus—“All I hear is noise.”

Noise

12. Alcohol (Everybody’s in Showbiz, 1973)

This one is probably cheating as well, as it was a centerpiece of The Kinks’ stage act of the 1970s, Ray balancing a bottle of beer on his head. So not really obscure. The verses are in third person, telling us “the story of a sinner who used to be a winner.” Then the chorus switches into first person: “Oh demon alcohol / Sad memories I can’t recall”. I suppose I should be troubled by a song about alcoholism sounding so jaunty, not to mention the sexism of the “floozy” and the wife beating. But it’s just too fun to take seriously.

Alcohol, live (as it should be), 1977

Exceeding expectations

The concert was billed as “Alan Frew and Friends.” Alan Frew, if you don’t know, was lead singer of eighties band Glass Tiger—a band, I will freely admit, I was never (still aren’t) much of a fan of.

But having seen Mr. Frew perform twice before in the Jeans’n’Classics format of rock band + symphony, I have definitely become a fan of Alan Frew’s. The man is a really a dynamic performer—charismatic, funny, energetic, and talented. Great voice.

So my expectations actually weren’t that low for this concert. Still, they were considerably exceeded.

Alan himself was again very funny, very charming as he recounted some of his latest adventures, which include a new song to raise funds for breast cancer research plus a recent stop to perform for the troops in Afghanistan. He also acted as master of ceremonies in introducing all his friends (joking that their collective ages would almost add up to Gordon Lightfoot’s), who helped raise the show to something special.

First guests up were the two founding members of the Spoons, Sandy Horne and Gord Deppe, who both still looked and sounded really good on “Nova Heart” (though with four guitars on stage at this point, it wasn’t a number that particularly highlighted the symphony). They returned in the second half with “Romantic Traffic,” which reminded me that I liked it so much, I had to buy it!

Lorraine Segato of Parachute Club was another guest. She seemed perhaps a bit subdued on the iconic “Rise Up” in the first half (though expressing her appreciation that people still wanted to hear these old songs), but warmed up in the second. Commenting on Frew’s skills as raconteur, she decided to tell the story of how she came to write “Dancing at the Feet of the Moon.” This was a phrase spoken to her by a man in Mexico. Then, for the first and only time in her life, she dreamt the entire song, both lyrics and music. She awoke and had to scramble to get it all down.

The song itself sounded great with the symphonic accompaniment, and an a Capella part with singers Rique Frank and Katherine Rose joining Segato was particularly awesome. (I tried to buy this song too, but it doesn’t seem to be easily available.)

Amy Sky was another performer. Woman has a serious set of pipes. She brought herself to tears on the touching “I Will Take Care of You.” A planned duet with husband Marc Jordan had to become a solo, as Jordan was fighting off a chest cold and couldn’t hit all the notes. That didn’t stop him from performing a couple numbers on his own, though.

Jordan was the Frew’s only rival as funniest man of the night. Before his first song, he commented on the wonder of playing with a symphony, “all these real musicians. Me, I just got into music to get laid. And I’m not leaving until I do!”

In the second half, before performing Rod Stewart’s “Rhythm of My Heart” (which Jordan wrote), he talked about how it’s nice to be recognized, and to have people ask for his autograph because they like his writing. Until he realized they were mistaking him for Margaret Atwood (think glasses, curly black hair… Anyway). Maybe that’s a “you had to be there” kind of joke. But a lovely song.

The big discovery of the night, though, was one Stephan Moccio. Frew explained how they’d been introduced when Frew was looking for a song co-writer with serious piano chops. Moccio then played a solo piano piece called “October” that blew everyone away.

Frew afterward reported that Moccio’s Exposure album was the best-selling of its genre in Canadian music history.

In the second half, Moccio told the story of his adventures with one Céline Dion. He was a cocky (his words) music student at University of London when Dion came to perform there. Moccio met up with her manager/husband René Angelil and insisted that he had to meet Dion. That did get arranged, and Moccio pledged that he would one day write her a hit song. She was fairly dismissive, but he did manage to get photographic evidence of their meeting.

Flash-forward 10 years or so, and doesn’t Moccio get an opportunity to co-write a song for Céline Dion’s comeback album. And doesn’t it just go to number 1 and sell and sell. (That would be “A New Day Has Come.”) So he met up with the chanteuse again at one of the big award shows, and he tells the story of their first meeting, and pulls out the picture. To which a delighted Dion responded:

“Oh my God! We both look so much better now!”

The big hit was then performed, with Katherine Rose standing in for Dion. And Rose has a great voice, but no, she couldn’t quite match Dion’s power. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a matter of taste.

With all these performance changes (and yes, Frew also performed several of his solo and Glass Tiger numbers) and stories, the show ran long. Too long for an encore. But thing is, it didn’t feel long at all. It was over 2 1/2 hours, but seemed like it went by in a flash. That’s when you know you’re having fun.

All performers were available afterwards to meet fans, sign purchased products, etc. We all decided we wouldn’t mind getting Moccio’s CD. Good thing we didn’t dawdle on that, because we got the last three copies available! (Out of an original 60, apparently!) And, we got there just in time for him to sign them for us. And yes, he’s every bit as cute in person as he looks in photos.

So all in all, that was a great evening. Next up is Woodstock—Who, Hendrix, Joplin, Santana, The Band, Jefferson… So my expectations are fairly high. We’ll see if they can be exceeded.

Two days of eye candy

Tuesday, I went to see So You Think You Can Dance Canada—live, at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. The friends and I were expecting that it would be us (the cougars?) and thousands of screaming teenage girls, but it was  remarkably diverse audience. Lots of little kids, older people—all ages, really. And though it definitely skewed female, it wasn’t really so hard to “spot the dude”.

The show itself was a lot of fun. They redid many of the favourite dances from the season, broken up with some video montages from the show, some introductions by the dancers themselves (there was no MC). Now, some numbers didn’t come off quite as well as they did on TV; you could see the strain more, somehow. But other performances looked even better, even more impressive, in person. My faves Vincent and Lisa were particularly awe-inspiring, but I was also newly impressed with Danny in his solo, Izaak and Caitlan acquitted themselves very well in their “Breaking dishes” number, and the second half was packed with favourites—the mirror number (Lisa and Miles), the angel number (Nico and Arassay), Nico and Natalli’s quick step.

And these are pretty people! We had good seats—not right in the floor area, where views may have been blocked, but close enough to see well. Still, I did bring the binoculars, and did whip them out at times, maybe particularly when “Canada’s favorite dancer” was in the spotlight. (Lady beside me also had binoculars, and I became amused at our nearly synchronized moves to raise them at each “Nico time”.) Very nice. Very fit—everyone very fit. (I should really get off the computer and work out.)

Nico Archambault

Next evening, I headed out to the Galaxy cinema for a showing of The Who Live at the Isle of Wight. Given my recent obsession (somewhat abated, but not exactly gone), I felt I couldn’t miss this one, presented in honour of the film’s release on DVD Blu-Ray.

Unlike the packed Copps Coliseum, very small crowd for this one… Not that it really mattered.

I have excerpts from this concert on some of my DVDs, but I’d never seen the whole thing. It’s from a 1970 show, and features a similar line-up to the Live at Leeds album: Starts off with “Heaven and Hell” (which I somehow hadn’t realized featured John on lead vocals); includes “Can’t Explain”, “My Generation,” “Magic Bus”; and includes ones of those awesome “remixed live” things that they did then, this one built off the little-known song “Water” [or “Wa-da”, as they say in Philadelphia, as Daltrey deadpanned].

And, as on Leeds, a run-through of Tommy, though not in its entirety.

I felt very Who fan-ish through the first song and a bit, as I couldn’t stop thinking, “It’s just not loud enough. We’re losing all the harmonics!” Then, indeed, the sounds became much louder and fuller—clearly, the thing had started on the wrong sound setting. From that point on, it did sound very good.

It looked… Well, the camera-work was weird. All these little close-ups. Pete’s head. Moon’s back. Entwistle’s fingers. You’re left kind of craving an overview, a panorama. I was thinking maybe that was the limitations of 1970’s film techology, but I read a review at the time that suggested it was just bad camerawork. And was correcting in saying that we did see too much of the audience. Though it was somewhat amusing how they cut to drinkin’, tokin’ audience members during the “Hey you getting drunk / Hey you smokin’ mother nature” parts of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

Overall, very worth seeing on the big screen, especially since I don’t have a Blu-Ray, nor even a big-screen TV.

The Who at the Isle of Wight festival.

Finally, some fashion notes.

Continue reading “Two days of eye candy” →

A rock’n’roll odyssey

The Record will be publishing another Letter to the Editor from me sometime next week. Not about politics, but in response to a book  review they published.

The book reviewed was X-Ray by Ray Davies of The Kinks. The review wasn’t terribly positive, but that wasn’t really my issue. It’s that the whole thing was littered with factual errors—names, who played what instrument, musical genres of particular songs. And that the book was finally dismissed as just another “sex and drugs” rock’n’roll memoir.

Even leaving aside that there isn’t that much sex and drugs, really (Ray was never a drug addict and isn’t that open about his sex life), the style of this bio is really unusual. To quote the Amazon description:

In this unique “unauthorized autobiography,” Kinks singer and songwriter Davies casts himself as an eccentric old man some 20 years hence who is asked to tell his life story to a young interviewer working for a world-ruling conglomerate called “The Corporation.” Eventually, the Orwellian subplot is overshadowed by Davies’s very personal account of his band’s many rises and falls.

So I really thought, man, this reviewer didn’t even bother to read the book.

So then I wrote a really mean letter about that, and sent it to both the letters page and the Book Page editor.

I heard back from the latter, saying that, you know, I’d like to print this, but you can’t go around accusing reviewers of not reading the books. And also, the letter is too long. (My letters to the editor are always too long.)

So I rewrote it, now stating that the book had not been read very carefully—but still pointing out some of the factual errors (in what was a really, really short book review), and my view that whatever flaws the book has, lack of originality isn’t one of them.

Whereupon it was accepted for publication. Of course, these things get published under one’s real name. And I started thinking, huh, this is kind of a small town, and boy, would it be awkward if I ever ran into the book reviewer at a party, or something.

Then the Book Page editor contacted me again, with a message from the book reviewer, who really wants to talk to me! So we can “discuss rock’n’roll”. Oh, boy.

Of course, I’m not really up for that. But I am in the phone book… Perhaps it’s time to invest in Call Display. 🙂

All I want is Who

And then the other reason I can’t put much energy into political thinking is that I’m too busy thinking about The Who.

The Who? They doing something? New album? Good-bye tour number 10? Another one of them die?

No, nothing like that. They’re not doing anything in particular at the moment, that I’m aware of. But, I did get The Amazing Journey DVD for Christmas, and now I’m slightly obsessed.

OK, so that was that the trigger, but why? Earlier this year I got the Kids Are Alright DVD, and that didn’t spawn any sort of obsession.

I went to the Jeans’n’Classic concert recently featuring music by the Rolling Stones and The Who, and it was really good, but again, didn’t make the band enter my thoughts any more often than before.

But now, you know, I’m digging out the old albums, other DVDs, the videotapes (!), the books… finding new websites… (And it’s irritating me like heck that I can’t remember anything significant about the one time I saw them live—on goodbye tour number 2.) It’s not like I ever stopped liking The Who, you know, but normally they’re just one among many.

It’s sure not to last, but for now, I’m just going to go with it. The beauty is, I don’t even have all their albums yet, so I have stuff to discover.

I can’t believe I just, just bought “Love Reign O’er Me”. I mean, how great is that song?

And Live at Leeds. Have you heard Live at Leeds? How can any band who jumps around as much as they all do sound so fantastic, so cohesive, so huge, live? There is no band of the 60s who was better onstage. And this is a case where waiting pays off; far from the mere six songs on the original Live at Leeds, the “expanded and remixed” version now available has the entire concert.

I just don’t know how I’ve lived without all these years. 🙂

I leave you now with Woodstock. See me, feel me. Indeed.

The Christmas part of Christmas (or Christmas in parts)

With dispersed families, Christmas celebrations get dispersed over various events, not all of which occur on December 25.

DH and I traditionally hold “our” Christmas on the weekend before we go north. We exchange whatever gifts we’ve bought for each other, and have a Christmas dinner.

This year was no exception. For the dinner, I decided to follow an entire menu provided in the Nutrition Action Newsletter. The biggest challenge, apart from it just being a lot of dishes (turkey breast, stuffing, wild rice salad, green beans, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin dip, cranberry apple pear crisp), was that a lot of the recipes were for 8-10 people—way too much for two. So not only was I making a lot of different dishes, but I was having to do arithmetic (divide in two) on all the ingredients as well.

But everything turned out. Although all “healthy”, nothing was lacking in flavor. The cranberry sauce was nicely punched up with ginger, the sweet potato topped with walnuts and coconut. And I liked that the stuffing was much less greasy and salty than stuffing usually is.

For gifts, we went small, since we’re looking at yet another trip soon. With the help of very specific hinting, I got very cute pyjamas on a musical theme (“Here comes treble!”), but was also surprised with some new kitchen gizmos. The gift I was most excited for DH to open was a bottle of Stratus White that I’d spotted at an LCBO, despite its being completely sold out at the winery itself. Tasting notes:

The 05 Stratus White invites the awesome comment. Cliché but true. Feels like Chardonnay Musqué on steroids—delightfully excessive. A wine to propose with, or serve with foie gras, perhaps to mark an anniversary celebration.

The next event was up north, on the eve of the 24th, which is when French Canadians celebrate Christmas with a Réveillon. Food features prominently here, with little appetizer thingies like bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, sweet and sour meatballs, devilled eggs, smoked salmon canapes, shrimp, sucre à crème, and so on.

The gift exchange is more on the jokey side. Everyone gets a $10 gift on a theme, this year’s being “Cowboy”. Then we sit and play a “left / right” passing game until you end up with whatever gift in the end. I threw a Cowboy Junkies CD into the pot.

On the third day of Christmas, it was finally December 25. But Christmas morning was pretty quiet, just DH, me, and my parents, as one sister was staying in Toronto, another not due up until Boxing Day, and the brother’s family only stopping by later that day. So we did a leisurely breakfast, then each of us opened our stocking things, and DH and Dad exchanged gifts, since they had each other’s names.

DH and I split up for Christmas dinner, each joining our respective parents’ for the traditional turkey feast. I did get to see my brother’s family at this point, which is always fun, along with some aunts and uncles.

So Boxing Day was another event, as finally all the kids (my brother’s and my sister’s) could get together. The reunion occurred later than originally expected, due to a stomach bug that struck my brother and his wife (though not the kids). It was crazy-ness when they were finally all together, tearing through their remaining presents.

I also opened my gifts from my brother-in-law, who had my name. Got a very nice-looking exercise top (that I probably won’t limit to workout wear—it’s pretty cute), the Who’s Amazing Story DVD that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the past couple days, a nice pair of earrings and necklace from the One of a Kind show (and thinking my sister may have helped with the shopping here), and a Paul Anka Rock Swings CD.

Yes, Rock Swings—Paul Anka doing songs like Jump, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Black Hole Sun in his style. This was purchased in all seriousness, since I’ve been known to enjoy oddities such as dance-mix and orchestral versions of Queen songs. But this CD is something else. We played it one night and, well, you almost have to hear it to believe it. It was quite the conversation piece for us.

Spectacular Spectacular

The snow had ended but the roads were still dicey as we headed out to the KW Symphony’s Yuletide Spectacular, so it was nice to see a fairly solid crowd was still in attendance. As was the news that the Grand Philharmonic Choir would live to sing another day after all.

This was a symphony concert rather light on the symphonic side of things, as they were joined by many guest performers of all types. The highlight of the first half was something I’d never seen or even heard of before, the Synergy Bell Choir. It’s just the coolest thing to see these young people (11 to 20) manipulate these bells—I wish they were on YouTube. But it sounds lovely too; we even bought their CD at intermission.

The Grand Philharmonic Choir did a very nice Gloria chorus in the first half, but my very favourite was the “Musicological Journey Through the 12 Days of Christmas”. Each day of this famously long carol is a sung in a different musical style, from Gregorian Chant to American Jazz, passing through Back, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky, Williams (John), and so on. Very cool! I searched iTunes for a version afterwards, but found I can get it only if I purchase the entire album by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir (I kid you not). Still pondering that one.

The Grand Philharmonic Children’s Choir was just deadly cute on their two numbers, “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” and “Somewhere in my Memory” (from Home Alone). And sounded very sweet. And there were some solo singers as well, including identical twins Mercedes and Phoenix Ann-Horn (and yes, it was feeling a bit PBS-special at times, but delightful nonetheless).

Unfortunately, we frankly sitting too close to really appreciate the work of Carousel Dance, who danced a couple big numbers from The Nutcracker Suite, along with a more modern piece to Stille Nacht. It was hard not to just focus on one nearby dancer instead of trying to take in and appreciate the whole group dance effect.

And then there was the singing along, which we got to do to the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah (good thing they handed out lyric sheets, because it turns out the only lyric I knew was “Hallelujah”), “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”.

“Laughter may be the best medicine, but singing is good for the soul,” said conductor Brian Jackson. Indeed!

The whole gang—soloists, adult and child choir, bell choir, dancers, and—oh yeah—the KW Symphony—got together for the final sing-a-long number, the “Be careful what you wish for” per Mr. Jackson, “White Christmas”. And we even got candy canes at the end.

I am finally in the mood for Christmas.

How can I resist you?

We saw Mamma Mia this week.

No, not the movie—that, we caught on the flight from Rome to Toronto.

It was a live stage play at Centre in the Square. An American touring production.

Darn, that was fun!

We had really great seats. In renewing the Broadway series subscription, we chose the new night being offered, and thereby ended up in the seventh row, right in the centre. Except for the bother of walking by so many people on the way to our seats, it was pretty much perfect.

And the show is just so entertaining. It moves along well, it has lot of humour, the singers were better than Pierce Brosnan :-), and you get to dance along at the end.

DH also enjoyed it, to his surprise. He asked how it compared to the Toronto production I’d seen some years ago, but I couldn’t remember that well enough. (Except I know my seats weren’t nearly as good.) I didn’t recall the TO production being quite as racy as what I saw, and I hadn’t remembered all the encore songs. But that could well be my memory and not actual differences.

Show we saw was sold out, but it’s also playing all next week. If you want a fun night out, I’d recommend it.

RDtNVC: Verbal arts attacks

(Reason of the Day to Not Vote Conservative)

Being the odd man out on the arts funding issue, this is what Mr. Harper had to say about it: “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala… claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough… I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”

So, typically, kind of mean-spirited, somewhat insulting, somewhat misleading (since when are most artists rich?) — but that’s not what I want to focus on. See what he actually said there? What he used as his example? “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala…”

You mean ordinary Canadian come home from work and immediately turn to — the arts?

Of course most Canadians don’t list the arts as “top of mind” issues. They simply take them for granted. It’s woven into the fabric of our lives. TV, galas, concerts, festivals, dance recitals, musicals, music downloads, CDs, DVDs, theatre, plays, museums, galleries, radio, novels, poetry, children’s literature, essays, magazines… It’s all part of the arts, high and low. And government helps fund a good part of them.

No political party would win if they pledged to make arts funding the biggest part of the budget… But none would win if they pledged to eliminate all cultural activity from this country, either. TV, galas, concerts, festivals, dance recitals, musicals, music downloads, CDs, DVDs, theatre, plays, museums, galleries, radio, novels, poetry, children’s literature, essays, magazines — we do want at least some of that to be made by Canadians, in Canada.

I leave you now with this hilarious video by Michel Rivard. Even if you speak French, it’s even funnier with the English subtitles on.