i believe the only new instrument officially recognized as having been created in the 20th century was the steel pan (drum), and it came from the fisherman wharves of trinidad and tobago … probably from kobo town, really …
well, those trinis keep on innovatin’ mahn … at least these coolios from toronto (by way of port-of-spain) do.
check ‘em out, and read their full bio … really neat.
c.
… her voice, energy and music all seem to bring out the best in an already gorgeous autumn season …
don’t you think?
i hope she brings you as much ‘cosy’ as she brings me.
: )
ps - a trobairitz.
ya … one of those nights. more than a week of family visits, seeing friends from childhood, being in a place that you come from and can always go back to …. does something to a soul, no? it definitely isn’t a bad feeling i come away with when i go home, but certainly a mix of wonderfully important, complex, beautiful and slightly troubling feelings!
and for whatever reason, bedouin soundclash comes to mind, perhaps this song in particular … well, or this one!
i am not sure why, or how, but his voice almost does something … almost reaches some point of success; almost … and that just seems incredibly familiar to me. that sort of sloppy forward momentum full of sincere belief, innocent promise and simple beauty. i don’t think it’s important that he gets there or not … i just find it absolutely wonderful that he is looking that way, and throwing his voice with so much intent!
oh, the hope!
looking back on summer i think: how quickly it passes. looking ahead to the cosiest season of the year (autumn), i sigh with tired anticipation: oh, how perfect; just what i needed …
speaking of which, thanks for the photo by druppelgewijs, reminding me that putting one’s feet up is always in order.
c.
hey all, i am feeling a little quiet tonight … a little sleepy, a little cozy; happy even, in that low energy, glad to be home sort of way. maybe that is why i am thinking of hawksley workman, with his sensitivity, sense of metaphor and his mad poet sing-song. you and the candles is too lovely a song, really, although to be honest i have only just recently paid attention to the words despite having heard the song many, many times …
picture the world much more simple than it is currently — no money, no zipping cars or planes … just voices that gather to sing, the latenight quiet, touching skin and candles. imagine a place where the mad commercial distractions are gone, and all there is is our beauty, our intimacies, our dreaming, and ourselves … imagine all that, and listen to this romantic little latenight utopia as sung by mister man himself …
once you’ve listened to that, check out the other few songs posted on radio 3 — merry christmas (i love you) is a must listen.
night all, c.
below adolescent oak trees, beside the entrance to one of the busiest metro stations in town, on a still and humid saturday night full of movement and people, but remaining also charmingly calm, fresh and quiet almost — below, within and amongst all of this a small band of the most talented of people sat down and played music, and in the process made a world full of magic and joy come to life, for everyone involved.
we were working late, at an all night café, and through the seven foot sliding windows wafted towards us their music, full too of all the pollen, nectar and spring sweat that saturated the fecund june air. we walked over and sat on artfully crafted stone slabs meant for sitting, and listened to these 4 very young, very inconspicuous, musicians. they all played immaculate, rich acoustic instruments, dressed in faded blue-jeans and t-shirts: two on those lovely django reinhardt jazz guitars, one on violon, and one on a big ol’ stand-up bass. people would come and go, but there seemed to be an easy 80 people there throughout, gathered in along the benches or sitting on the young grass, juxtaposed in the way that your thumb and forefinger do when at rest near the bottom third of your morning cup of coffee. they played a sort of early jazz, mixed with dolups of ragtime, world rhythms and free jazz. it was lovely. it was gypsy.
sitting there, i couldn’t help but realizing that one of the reasons i love montreal as much as i do is the fact that it has the room for just such events to spontaneously erupt. all the ingredients are present: there is no shortage of talented musicians in montreal, or any other sort of artist for that matter; there is an impressive abundance of people eager to revel in any good art being made (and thereby support it); and there are well-designed, or at least wonderfully random, public spaces — physical spaces not owned by any corporate interest, increasingly rare in most north american cities – where people can sit, loiter even … string together notes on some sort of instrument, gather crowds.
and it needs to be reiterated: these musicians were fantastic, despite the fact one looked hardly 18 and another couldn’t stop his francophone riverdancing between (and sometimes during) his impeccably colourful violin solos. with a growing nightime breeze, after a hot, humid day of intense, scorching heat, we sat and let the music spread smiles of contentment and joy across our faces. like that time when i was 17 and on my first roadtrip without the parents. when everything in life was possible, and ahead, and sure to be better than anything i had ever managed to dream up …
that’s what it was like that night, beside the metro mont royal. those young, innocent musical geniuses plucked not only the souls of their lovely acoustic sirens to life, but also my little oaky soul, over-worked, mature and solid but still leaning towards a lithe, supple cherry pith of perpetual, indolent, dreamy adolescence …
c.
hey everybody (if anyone is even there!) … sorry to keep to pushing music on you, but i have been enjoying great lake swimmers lately, and today cinched the deal: i am just getting over an incredibly brutal spring flu (came on friday, blew me to smithereens on saturday, and is 90% gone today).
sitting in my little work-a-day chair, feeling confident yet still vulnerable (having thought of course that i was a goner only a day earlier), looking out the window dreamily at how springily everything is looking … anyway, admist all this emotion i put on the few tracks posted on cbc radio 3 and i realized this band is wonderful, and should be shared. in fact, i’ve decided to go buy their cds just to let them know i appreciate all they’ve done for me! you should too!
: )
c.
hey, this fella is pretty fun — check him out!
c.
all this past week i have been listening to one playlist over and over and over at cbc radio 3 (although i can’t remember what it’s called, so you’ll have to search out a playlist that you like on your own!) … i was listening to it so much in fact that just yesterday i decided i had to break free, and search out something else to accompany me on my daily ritual of waking, moving myself around, moving other things around, and then going back to sleep again. lo and behold, in my quest for something to colour my sonic-sphere i ended up at the last show of the rheostatics, which took place on march 30, 2007 at massey hall in toronto (canada!) — my jaw dropped to the ground!
the rheostatics broke up!? why didn’t anyone tell me? where was i? was the world of making fair-trade, eco-friendly clothes so all-consuming that i could have missed such a monumental event? i felt alone … sad. i still feel a little bit alone, and sad.
being the quintessential canadian superstars that they are, nobody really knows them. (that’s not true, actually … they are true canadian icons … it just so happens that the vast majority of canadians have never heard of them, and no one outside of canada has heard of them, and oddly enough this is kind of the natural state of affairs when it comes to canadian superstars … except for those who’ve moved to the states to make it big … ).
i first heard of the rheotatics while working in the wilderness ‘badlands’ of alberta (situated not at drumheller like some of you might think, but a couple hours further south near patricia, alberta), through a zany little leperchaun of a man named jed jenkins … jarrid, really, but he liked being called jed … jed used to play ’record body count’ by the fire, and when bill was in the area he and jed would do a stirring rendition of ’self serve gas station’ that gave me goose-bumps.
that’s how the little band that could, from etobicoke, ontario, has become for me an emblem of starry nights perched cosily around a fire in the middle of the grasslands.
i am sad to see them dis-band, but i guess it was time. they formed in 1980, which means they’ve been together for 27 years! crazy for a band that never really stopped touring or making music, and crazy for a bunch of guys who seem so young to me. (to be precise, however, martin tielli is a kind of a newby, since he joined in 1981 … ).
oh well, it turns out tim vesely wanted to pursue his side project, the band called the violet archers (who are tour right now, i believe … i’ll have to make that show at least.)
here’s me tipping my hat to the most inventive band i’ve come across …. and not only in terms of the eerily dissonant melodies they’ve managed to weave together over the years, but also all the art martin tielli provided for covers, and all the kooky hockey-smithing and russia-vagabonding that dave bidini engaged in and ranted and raved about … truly a band to write home about.
or sing-a-long to below northern lights in the quietest, most stunning corner of alberta … the badlands, tree crickets, small-footed bats, common nighthawks … and the best of friends and ‘the king of the past’.
c.
hey all,
do you like the joel plaskett emergency? from halifax originally, lives in toronto now, if i’m not mistaken … i love this song, and pretty much all of the music he puts out.
pass it on! and for those of you who haven’t heard of cbc radio 3, the link below will take you there. poke around the site, and enjoy the lesser known side of our north american music scene.
: )
c.
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