Rocktober (part one)

October has been an exceptionally good month for music in Kingston with one foray out to Toronto. So much so that October shall henceforth be known as Rocktober (TM OptimusCrime).
So here it is: 5 shows in 4 weeks...blogged all well after the fact.

It all started simply enough with Matthew Barber's CD release party on October 6th at the Grad Club. The opener, who's name I can't remember and which Barber himself didn't seem to know, was kinda uninspiring (see below regarding the Four for Fall show regarding how every opening band should be), just one rather nervous guy with a guitar. The rather large group of rather chatty and rather obnoxious people standing beside/behind us meant that we really didn't get to hear the guy. This is, in my opinion really really rude and it makes me mad. If you don't want to pay attention, fine. The Grad Club has 64 rooms, surely one of them would be much more suited to gabbing. This brings me to my eternal rock-show question: why on earth would you pay cover just so you could not pay attention? It is a concert. Watch, listen, dance if you feel like it. But please don't talk through the whole damn thing (even the main act? what are you people paying for?) while some kid is playing his guts out. Go to Stages. Just. Shut. Up. Ok, that's it for the rant. Matthew Barber came on and played a very good set of straight up rock and roll. The new songs sounded very good - especially "Love/Death" that his sister Jill previewed during her last visit to that very same stage (although, i must admit I liked her take on it better) and he played the best songs from his Story of My Life EP. Speaking of which - go out right now and buy that album. His new one is pretty good (with members of Stars and Metric as well as Jill Barber and his band the Union Dues backing him up, and while I was not in love with it at first it is growing on me. He sounded better on stage than on disc) this one is absolutely amazing. The crowd was a bit strange that night, rather sedate for such a rocking show, but it was definitely a good start to this musical month.

The next show, on the 13th, saw me heading to Toronto after work for the Decemberists show at the Phoenix. I have only started listening to this band recently but when I first heard they were coming to Toronto I raised the idea of going to the show with Mark (click here for his take on the concert). After discussing it for what seems like ages we finally decided it would be a good thing to do so we got tickets. By the time I got into town, up to Mark's, and down to the Phoenix we missed all of the opener's set. It was Cass McCombs and he/they sounded pretty good but I must admit we really weren't paying too close attention. The Decemberists were very good throughout but absolutely great at the end. I expected them to be a little more zany than they initially were but even through the first part of their set they interacted with the audience a bit, made fun of each other, and played extremely tight. The last few songs - the last of the main set "The Mariner's Revenge Song" and the last song of the encore "Chimbley Sweep" - were some of the best live music I have ever seen and were themselves worth the price of admission. Lots of fun audience participation - in the MRS they had us scream like we've been swallowed by a whale at the right part of the song and Chimbley Sweep was transformed from the short album version (just shy of 3 minutes) to a raucous, spiraling epic that included band members switching instruments, a random audience member getting on stage to "play" (I use that term very very loosely in this case) a guitar, and, to end it off the entire audience was made to sit down and become very quiet before they erupted into the chorus for the last time instantly making several hundred people jump to their feet. "Twas awesome. All in all the show was very good musically and was great fun.

On October 18th I was back in the Grad Club for one of the strangest line-ups I have ever seen. It was the Four for Fall show put on by Exclaim! magazine and featured, as you might expect four bands. While I found out later that there were some connections between the bands there was quite a stark divide in the styles. Essentially the middle two acts, the FemBots and Luke Ducet, are country or alt.country groups and the first and last acts, Whitey Houston and Shout Out Out Out Out are loud, manic, mental outfits that would have been quite a surprise to folks just looking to hear some slide guitar. But let's take them one by one. First up was Whitey Houston. This band is made up of two guys, one on drums and a singer/bassist. In this respect and somewhat for their sound the immediate comparison is to Death From Above 1979. These guys, who only referred themselves as the String Cheese and Ham duo (so I wasn't entirely which of the four they were as I was only familiar with the FemBots going into the show), played like every opening band should - they absolutely kicked ass. There was no ignoring them. You couldn't talk over them. You had to be blown away by them. I thought they were great, playing loud, driving, noisy, raw rock. The real unfortunate part about it was that it was just me, two other people, and three guys from the other bands watching. Up next were the FemBots who were exceptionally different but very good. They have been described as alt.country or "death country." The two permanent members of the band were accompanied by The Weakerthans’ Jason Tait on drums and Julie Penner on violin (both of whom popped up at the BSS show the next night) and by guys on bass and on the vibraphone. The vibraphone, to me a big xylophone, was awesome and the guy used a bow on the key-thingys as well as bashing them creating a really great sound. Up next was the headliner, Luke Doucet. Again in the county vein, and it might even be appropriate to drop the "alt" prefix. Also, a very solid set. I can't say too much more as I was wholly unfamiliar with him before going in but he played some excellent guitar (apparently he has played with Sarahs Harmer and McLaughlin) and it is safe to say he is worth checking out. The fourth band took quite a while to set up and the already small crowd thinned considerably by the time they were ready to take the stage. All in all I counted 6 band members....and 9 audience members. However, it was Kingston's loss that they missed Shout Out^4 as they were absolutely unbelievable. (photo by) I hadn't a clue what to expect. The lead singer/knob-fiddler Nik Kozub was part of Luke Doucet's former band Veal and he played a song with Doucet at the end of that set. The Whitey Houston guys were onstage as well as a number of others. There were two drum sets, four bass guitars, many keyboards, synths, and other devices that emitted awesome sounds. They bill themselves as a dance band (because I know essentially nothing of the genre my immediate point of comparison would be Daft Punk) but they rocked out seriously. Everyone on stage gave it their all and put on quite a show, despite most of the remaining audience was not terribly interested in dancing at first. By the end of it we all were up grooving. I really enjoyed their set and I really respect the fact that they played their guts out despite the fact that there was essentially no one there and after, so we were informed, their tour van broke down earlier in the day.

Since this post is already huge I will end it there but stay tuned for the recap of the rest of the month's rocking which will be done....sometime.
rgsc