Open Stage Etiquette

           

            Monday, July 11th was the day for me to check online to see when I’m supposed to enrol in my courses. I found out that my time is July 18^th in the afternoon. I would have to sit down soon and figure out what courses I wanted to take this time around.

            Before leaving for the Tranzac open stage, I tried to mount the bike cam that Nick Cushing leant to me, and it seemed to fit fine on my handlebars but I couldn’t get the camera to keep from tilting, so I didn’t take it with me.

            It was a very beautiful night. John and Chas were already in the Southern Cross Bar when I arrived. At the front, Chris Banks on upright bass and Matt Newton on piano were playing a slow jazz instrumental and Chris was really getting into it.

            The bartender, I think her name is Emily, didn’t respond to me when I said “hi” to her while signing up as number five on the open stage. She had always been friendly to me before, so it was hard not to come to the conclusion that she had been offended by the love song to my penis that I’d sung the week before.

            I didn’t see the host anywhere.

            Isaac Bonk and Robert Labell were discussing the legalization of marijuana in the United States, which Isaac claimed had just been announced as a fact. From what I’ve read, this is a false rumour. I don’t think that the US federal government would pass such a law. Instead, there will probably be some referendums on a state by state basis.

            Sarah Greene showed up at the time when the open stage was supposed to start, but it only took her fifteen minutes to set up the sound.

            When she started the open stage, Sarah told us that she’d just come from a house concert at a loft. I asked if she’d ever been to a loft concert in a house. She said that technically the loft was a penthouse.

            Sarah explained that she was hosting a week early because John and Dave, of Dave’s Bass Lesson, just got back from Mariposa and were recovering, so they asked to switch with her.

            Sarah kicked off the night by singing a cover of Gary S. Paxton’s “Woman (Sensuous Woman), but first she apologized to the bartender because it was not a very feminist song.  – “ … Someone true is waiting and I should be with her, and she don’t know I crave your ecstasy, but many hearts would break if I don’t conquer the lustful spell you’ve cast all over me …” I can’t see why this song would be considered anti-feminist.

            First on the list were a duo called “Maggie and Mr. Rogers”. Maggie looked like she was probably about eighteen, while Mr. Rogers was middle aged. There was a woman his age sitting at their table, who I assumed was Maggie’s mother. Mr. Rogers played ukulele while Maggie sang “California” by Joni Mitchell - “Sitting in a park in Paris, France, reading the news and it sure looks bad. They won’t give peace a chance. That was just a dream some of us had … I wouldn’t stay here, it’s too old and cold and settled in its ways here … California … I’m gonna see the folk I dig, I’ll even kiss a Sunset pig …” Maggie has a very good voice.

            For their second song, which was Arthur Hamilton’s “Cry Me A River”, Mr. Rogers switched to guitar – “You nearly drove me out of my head while you never shed a tear … You told me love was too plebeian …”

            They were certainly well rehearsed.

            Mr. Rogers asked if they could do another song. Sarah tried to tell him that there would probably be a chance for everyone to go around again, but it seemed that he misunderstood, because he said they would do one more, and so Sarah just shrugged and went with the flow, as she tends to do.

            They sang “Take A Break” by Catherine MacLellan, who I found out just before writing this that she is the daughter of the great Canadian songwriter, Gene MacLellan, who helped launch Anne Murray’s career by writing “Snowbird”. “Take A Break” is about working beside a person that one cares about and not caring if the work goes on forever.

            Before they left the stage, Mr. Rogers shared a Mariposa story. He had been sitting beside Gordon Lightfoot, who said to him, “I love your work”, but Lightfoot thought he was someone else.

            Next was Robert Labell, who started with his mandolin, playing his version of Ry Cooder’s adaptation of “Hey Porter” by Johnny Cash.

            I was sitting next to the left speaker, and when Robert finished the first song, I complained to Sarah that it was crackling. She told us that she didn’t want to jinx it, but the Tranzac might be getting a new p.a.

            Robert’s second choice was based on a Ry Cooder adaptation of Chuck Berry’s “Thirteen Question Method”, which outlines Chuck Berry’s steps toward a successful date, though they aren’t all in question form and there are only twelve of them.

            I noticed that Maggie and Mr. Rogers had left, and called out that they were assholes for such a breach of open stage etiquette. If one performs on an open stage they should at least stay to hear the next three people after them.

            Since Maggie and Mr. Rogers had gotten a third song, Robert asked for one too, and got to do it. Everyone but me did three songs from that point on.

            Robert’s third choice was again derived from Ry Gooder’s repertoire. This one was the gospel song, “Jesus On The Mainline” – “Jesus is on that mainline … call him up and tell him what you want … The line aint never busy …” Chas played along from his table.

After Robert came John P., with help from Chas. John told us that he was going to do two new songs, but that he would begin with a cover of R.E.M.’s “Wendell Gee” – “ … He had a dream one night that the tree had lost its middle, so he built a trunk of chicken wire to try to hold it up, but the wire turned to lizard skin and when he climbed, it sagged, there wasn’t even time to say goodbye to Wendell Gee …”

John said that his first original piece of the night had been inspired by George Harrison – “You travel light but you’re carrying a heavy load, you’ve gone far but you’ve got nowhere to go … When did you turn into your dad … The sun is our but you’re staring at the moon … Things are looking up, but you’re staring at the floor …”

From his last song – “ … It’s pretty good that I wound up with a pretty bad girl … I would sing you Verdi operas if I only had the voice.

Maggie and Mr. Rogers came back.

Chas stayed on stage for his set, and confessed that he never knows what he is going to play and that his pieces are short because he does not have a long attention span.

He started with a very instrumental number.

For his second piece he began to sing in a made up language a melody that was reminiscent of Bob Segar’s “Someday Lady You’ll Accompany Me”.

Finally Chas told us that sometimes he just likes to escape the bounds of tuning altogether. He turned the tuning keys on his instrument at random and then asked John P. to time him for 1 minute and 47 seconds. He said it would be a tribute to John Cale. The result was a spacy, slidy, scratchy bit of organized noise that sounded like insect chatter.

Sarah declared, “We love you, Chas!”

Nobody ever says, “We love you, Christian!”

I was number five, and began with an apology to Maggie and Mr. Rogers. I confessed to them that I’d called them assholes when they’d left, but told them that since they’d come back they weren’t assholes any more. Mr. Rogers informed me that they’d been invited into the ukulele event next door to do something, so that’s why they’d left.

As I did the week before, I started off with “The Dying Man”, which is my translation of Jacques Brel’s “”Le Moribond” – “ … Goodbye reverend my guide of old, so true. About god we’d always fight, we never walked down the same road, but we both reached for the same light. Goodbye old priest, I’m gonna die, and it’s hard to die in the spring, you know. But beneath the blooms I’ll have no strife, and since you were her spirit guide I know you’ll take care of my wife … I hope you’ll laugh, I hope you’ll dance when they put me in that hole …”

To introduce my original song, I began by reciting a poem – “My penis is the hotline to the red phone in the White House of my heart, and my penis is always ringing, but whenever I pick it up, there’s never anyone at the other end.”

From my song, “ … Well the world’s not big enough for me and my cock, we crave a quaking planet made of lava and rock where we’ll penetrate some crater till the comet comes home to wrap its wide ellipse around my glistening dome. Yeah the world’s gonna have to face, my penis is the zenith of the human race …”

Like the week before, the response to my love song to my penis was pretty dead, as if I’d done something offensive to everyone’s household pets or teddy bears. At the beginning, Sarah muttered, “Oh no!” and went over it seemed to consoled the bartender. Also, as soon as the word “penis” had been mentioned, Chas got up, walked over to the other end of the bar and had a loud conversation with someone.

Next was Isaac Bonk, who sang what he told us was the first love song he’d written – “Days they pass through the street, I sit here upon my broken seat, dreaming of her hand coming near, she whom I once held so dear …”

His second song was his “Times They Are A Changing” derived composition, which I assume is entitled, “The Ground Beneath Us Is Shifting” – “Oh come all my friends, my foes, wake from your sleep … The gatekeeper’s voice will rise … Great towers of yesteryear will fall like that old Berlin wall … Over the waters wide we see it begin … a cliff top that won’t forgive …”

Finally, Isaac sang his lament about this year’s Orlando shooting – “Way down in Orlando town there’s fifty people gone … Who did condone the sale of arms to this man …” He stopped playing and everyone applauded, but he explained that his pick had gotten stuck and he wasn’t finished – “ … Their deaths will not be in vain if you don’t know by now …”

Sarah told Isaac that it was a great song.

After Isaac came Anthony, who began as he always does with what might be vocal exercises – “Hah! Hah! Whoosh!” He also announced that it was his birthday.

He said that someone earlier asked him where he was from and he’d said, “I’m from the tunnels!” I know that Anthony has been and may still be homeless. I assume he was referring to the subway tunnels.

Anthony is a great guitarist and singer and always puts everything into his performance. He always does his own material, but over the five years or so that I’ve heard him play, that material has never consisted of more than four or five songs, which he plays over and over again.

From the first – “I can see everything, I can see through rain, I can see everyone, cause we’re all the same … Lost in a world of illusion, play the same game, don’t you see the intrusion.

Between songs, Anthony took some time to tune up, explaining that his guitar is finicky because he’s pounded the crap out of it. That’s true. I’ve never seen anyone bang on a guitar like he does when he’s playing.

He introduced, “a song about my quirky, corny, so called life.” – “ … I wanna walk with you … I had to walk away … I don’t hate when you get that way, I’m not somebody’s fool, I just walk away …” Near the end of this song, Anthony always repeats the phrase, “I see you!” while pointing at different members of the audience.

Leading up to his third piece, Anthony, as he often does just made a few stream of consciousness comments about his life – “ … still time and space … soul survivor … big city subway day …” Then he told the story of the little girl who inspired the song, “Young girl, she never got past the age of seven. She said, ‘You know, what’s about to happen to me was always meant for me.”

From the song – “So sad and lonely, there’s no one place I was never alone … You were always meant for me … and I miss you … You think you’re so pretty and I just know that you’re pretty …”

Sarah borrowed Anthony’s guitar to close down the night with one more song.

Mr. Rogers asked if there was going to be another round. Sarah explained that the third song that everyone had gotten to play was what would have been the second round, if it had gone that way. I think he and Maggie might have stuck around all night because they’d thought they were going to get to play again.

Sarah sang “Middle Cyclone” by Neko Case, which she said only has two chords, but she’s still learning it – “ … Did someone make a fool of me before I could show them how it’s done … Can’t scrape together quite enough to ride to the outskirts of the fact that I need love … A foundry of mute and heavy bells, they shake me deaf and dumb …”

It was a night of many breaches of open stage etiquette, such as the host chatting while her guests performed and of people leaving right after performing. I should write a guide book, but no one would read it.