The Masonry of Not Listening At Fat Albert's Open Stage

            On Wednesday May 18^th I arrived at Fat Albert’s at same time as I have every night that I’ve come there for the last three years. This year though more people have gotten there before me by that time, and the list is longer earlier. I have ended up playing after the feature two weeks in a row, and I find the mood of the audience is different after already having sat there for more than an hour and a half.

Martin Owen was there already and he’d brought another one of his paintings to show everyone. He said that he could be a professional art teacher but the world could end in two weeks. I asked him why he thought that was going to happen and his answer was because there is “so much catastrophe”. I told him that people have always seen the world like that, but if you look back at civilization a few centuries ago the crime rate was sky high. If one were to compare it to today it would be like holding a ten-story building up to the CN Tower. People are much better behaved than they used to be.

Many years ago, Martin had been a student at the Ontario College of Art. He says he got kicked out when he had just a few courses to go. He confessed to me that he’s never been a morning person, but a lot of his classes had been early, and he would freak out after a cup of coffee.

I helped Glen hook up all of the microphone cables.

Michelle Lecce’s wife, Alicia, told me that I had a feather on my pants. It was actually a bit of white cat fur from one of my cats. She and I had a conversation about the beasts and she seemed quite nice.

The open stage started on time. The first performer, as usual, was Charles Winder, whose face looked like it’d gotten sunburn, since the previous week.

Charles began with a type of flamenco guitar piece known as a “taranta”.

I couldn’t really tell the difference between the first flamenco number Charles played and the second.

Glen then introduced Brian Rosen, but since there was no response from the audience, Glen told us, “I say, Brian Rosen, and then you applaud.”

Brian chose this time to sing without the help of his guitar. He told us that he would be doing three short songs about farming.

The first was Connie Kaldor’s “Spring On the Prairies” – “Spring on the Prairies comes like a surprise, one minute there’s snow on the ground, the next there’s sun in your eyes …”

The second song was a traditional farmers song called “Country Life” – “I like to rise when the sun she rises early in the morning … We go rambling through the new mown hay …”

Everyone is only supposed to get two songs but when Brian was finished and Glen walked up to thank him, Brian told him he was going to do one more, but that it would be short. It didn’t seem any shorter than the others. It was another traditional song and it had the title, “The Industrious Farmer” – “Come all ye lads and lasses … with the reaping hook and sickle … it’s in the time of haying our partners we do take …”

Next up was Martin Owen, who Mary Milne arrived just in time to introduce. Martin sings in a wavering bleat similar to that of a sheep. I’ve been listening to the Marc Bolan discography and he sometimes gave his voice that same effect. I’ve never heard Martin sing in any other way though, so I wonder if it’s his natural voice or just an affectation to which he’s attached himself.

Martin started with Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” – “ … I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky turning into butterflies above our nation. We are stardust, billion year old carbon …” Halfway through the song, Martin began to make sound effects with his voice, perhaps in imitation of the lead guitar solo in the middle of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young version – “didadidadidadidadida woow!!!

Martin had brought another of his paintings with him. He told us that it was the painting of a wedding that never happened between him and a girl he couldn’t marry because they were both too unstable.

His second song was Kris Kristoffersen’s “Me and Bobby McGee”, which he claimed that Kristoffersen had written about Janis Joplin. I’d never heard that before, and I didn’t think it was likely, but I give everyone the benefit of the doubt until I’ve done the research. According to the songwriter, it was not inspired in any way by Janis Joplin.

Martin told us his painting is not for sale. I asked how much it’s not for sale for.

Before introducing Dark Cloud, Glen sang, “One of these days and it won’t be long …” Then he asked, “Who sang that? Does anybody know?” Someone said they did. There was a pause and then Glen said impatiently, “Well … how much do you want for the information?” I don’t know if he ever got an answer. I think a lot of songs have that phrase, but I think he was talking about “I Believe To My Soul” by Ray Charles.

When Dark Cloud sat down on stage he told us that he’d been doing a lot of musical homework and organizing. Then he told Alicia, “This is your song.”

The song was one I’d heard him do recently at the Tranzac open stage. In each verse he lists several things he’s lost, while in the chorus he declares that nothing can be taken from him if it’s free already.

Dark Cloud told us that he’d written his second song for the late Levon Helm, and suggested that maybe he would be listening. He said of Helm, “He was a gentleman, a proud southerner and he loved his choo-choo trains …”

At this point, Glen interrupted and told Dark Cloud to play the song.

“Train man where you rolling … humming Dixie, shooting steam … Sing me fighting songs … passing rebel burial grounds … Lincoln’s got it wrong … fix your bayonets, man … Lee’s horse is running strong …”

Then came Bob Allen, with Tom Hamilton on violin and Glen Garry on piano. Bob began with one of his own songs, but didn’t drop the title – “I’m dreaming of Elizabeth … Never thought I’d feel this way, meeting someone new … hope she feels the same about me … it’s been a long time since I seen her kind …” He gave Glen a solo, halfway through.

For Bob’s second song, he covered “The Singing Waterfall” by Hank Williams. The song talks of a waterfall where the narrator used to meet his love, where he still visits her grave and where he still has dreams about meeting her there. Bob gave Tom a solo and he took a pretty fancy one in which he threw in some sliding and picking.

Following Bob was Mark Russell, who began with a Jimmy Rankin song called “Followed Her Around” – “ … I was quite naïve … I wore my heart upon my sleeve … despite the stories I’ve been told, now I don’t go into town, since I followed her around. I stood and watched in disbelief from the shadows of my grief, she wore lipstick black as coal and her boots up to her knees … all the boys were making time … oh how that girl could work a bar … All my kids have come and gone, all except my youngest son … I think he follows her around …”

Tom Hamilton’s fiddle playing is quite versatile. He never plays quite the same for every song.

Mark’s second offering was Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road” – “ … Granddaddy … only came to town about twice a year, he’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line, everybody knew that he made moonshine. Now the revenue man wanted granddaddy bad, he headed up the holler with everything he had … He never came back from Copperhead Road. Now daddy ran the whiskey in a big black Dodge … I volunteered for the army on my birthday, they draft the white trash first, around here anyway … I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico and plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road … I learned a thing or two from old Charlie don’t you know, so you’d better stay away from Copperhead Road.”

Tom’s playing was totally in sync with the changes of the song. Either he’s incredibly sensitive or he and Mark rehearsed this song together beforehand.

When Mark was finished it was time for the feature performer, Michelle Lecce, and she was joined on stage by Tom Hamilton and his violin. She started sitting at centre stage with a guitar. Michelle said that it had been a while since she’d been at Fat Albert’s because she’s recently had problems with her health. She told us that she would be doing three originals and three covers.

The first of her own songs was “Fly” – “I can’t take it anymore, why can’t I just close the door … I can do so much more than dance … Someone special in my life makes me want to be the wife … love has come and built the bridge that leads me to the other side …” Tom had a nice violin solo in the middle.

Michelle moved to the piano for her second song and Ruth Jenkins came up on stage to stand behind a microphone. The song was called “Travelling From Nowhere” and she informed us that it was co-written by Michelle’s wife, Alicia. – “ … I’ve seen many walls, seen many sleepless nights, the sky is my best friend …” Ruth sang a back-up vocal.

Michelle told us that when you’re battling cancer you want every day to be special. Of her third song, called “Give Me Faith”, she said she wrote it a couple of months ago after leaving Sunnybrook Hospital – “Hope spring connection is what I see these days … Once I danced to Bowie, now I’m left with his songs … Where will I be in a month or a year from now … Give me hope, give me connection …” She left a space in the song for Tom and Ruth to play a violin and harmonica duet.

It had been Michelle’s intention to do three covers next, but she was both surprised and disappointed when she was told that she only had time for one more song. She chose Mark Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis” – “ … I saw the ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue, I followed him up to the gates of Graceland and then I watched him walk right through … They’ve got catfish on the table … She said are you a Christian, child, and I said ma’am I am tonight …”

Michelle Lecce is a good musician but her songs are somewhat middle of the road. Though her lyrics convey strong emotions, she doesn’t really say what hasn’t been said better by thousands of others.

The first performer after the feature was Glen Hornblast, who started off with a song that he told us he’d just recorded with Tom Hamilton (What a busy beaver that Tom Hamilton is! I wonder if he follows the whole Fat Albert’s family around with his fiddle and even plays the soundtrack to their most mundane activities.) The song was “When Will I Get Over You?” which could easily be considered Glen Hornblast’s signature song – “I remember your sweet caress when you wore my favourite dress … Love can keep us alive, it can lift us to the skies … When the love affair is through it can break your heart in two … Just like a red, red rose our love started getting old …”

Glen told us that his next song was one that he’d recently written. It had the feel of a country swing tune – “ … That dimple in your chin, the way you flash that silly grin … The way you pour a cup of tea, the way you fold my laundry …” When Glen was done, Tom commented that he would be humming that melody all the way home.

After Glen came Bridget, who I think said that this was her first time at Fat Albert’s and that she would be singing two new original songs.

The first was called “Cherokee Man” – “Well I can tell you a story bout a wise old Cherokee man … roaming the hills of Tennessee … led a band of warriors to the top of the highest hill … tales of battle and bravery, dancing the river birch tree, triumph over our enemy etched in the stones of history …”

Bridget’s second song was “Carry Me Away” – “There you are again looking at me looking at you … Drawing me in, wearing me thin, I can see that you can see right through me.

Then it was time for Ruth Jenkins’s set with Glen Garry on piano, Tom on violin and Wayne Leon on flute. As Ruth was getting set up, Tom was, for some reason, singing the theme song from the old TV show, “Mister Ed” – “A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is of course unless that horse is the famous Mister Ed …”

Glen asks somebody to give them some balance, so Glen Hornblast goes to the soundboard. Ruth agrees and complains, “I can’t hear my guitar against these psychos!”

Ruth’s first song was “Orphan Girl” by Gillian Welch. Glen joked that she was Raquel Welch’s sister and that they made great grape juice together. From the song – “I am an orphan on god’s highway… I have no father, no mother, no sister, no brother …” Then Ruth called out “Save me Tom!” While Tom was doing a solo on mic two, microphone one suddenly dropped in height, by itself. After the next verse, Glen got a solo.

Then Ruth sang Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me”, with harmony by Tom and vocal by Glen. Every instrument on stage got a solo.

I was next. There were no people at all sitting in the first two rows and a smattering in the rest. Most everyone was sitting along the back wall. Because of that I decided not to go on stage, but to stand on the floor, just in front of the middle aisle between the seats. I started with “Hang Up A Ham and a Fiddle In Your Window”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Un Violon, Un Jambon”. I didn’t play it too badly, and I noticed that Mark Russell was tapping his foot to the beat of my song, but it didn’t look like very many members of the audience were paying attention. In fact, there were two or three people standing with their backs to me and having conversations. Maybe some people were on their way out. Maybe the energy was low because it was already 22:00 by the time I’d gotten up. Maybe people had been distracted all night and I hadn’t noticed because when I come I sit and listen until it’s my turn and when I’m done I sit and listen again. Whenever I have something to say to someone I either do it between songs or between performers.

My second song was “Paranoiac Utopia” – “ … Whoever doesn’t share our hell must be the devil, they believe, each greeting is a curse and kind words are an even greater evil. Queen Street West is slippery with ice in summer weather and amidst all this blindness I feel I can see forever …” Playing to so many people that obviously weren’t listening was distracting and so my already precarious command of the chords to this song was slipping on the ice of the audience’s inattention. If the group had been listening, I would have been disappointed in myself for screwing up the chords, but as it was I was disappointed in them and with Fat Albert’s in general. When I sat down, I went back to paying attention, but I was also stewing in anger and depression for the rest of the night.

Isaac Bonk followed me, with the help of Tom.

He did a song I’d heard him do a couple of times before about a girl who’d been abused by her father – “Poor girl … her father the beast … Too small to run … At eight years old her father was too strong, and insists to this day that he did nothing wrong …” Then the song describes the girl’s life after she grew up – “ … She was standing in a doorway exposing her flesh and letting strange men look beneath her mesh …”

Isaac’s second song also told a story from the same sort of dark world. I’d heard him do this one before as well, from the point of view of a man that had fathered a son with a beautiful woman only to have her abandon them both. When the boy turned twenty-one his father gave his son a gun with which after he tracked down his mother he killed her in the middle of the street.

It was Glen Garry’s turn, with the accompaniment of Tom, Ruth and Wayne. As they were getting set up, Glen was reciting some lines from Jim Morrison’s “Soul Kitchen” – “ … Your fingers weave quick minarets, speak in secret alphabet … learn to forget …”

Glen’s first song was “Mystery Train” by Herbert Parker and Sam Philips, with slightly altered lyrics – “ … I watch the train coming round the bend, I don’t have no friends except for Ruthy!” which was Ruth’s cue to take a solo. Then later, Glen called out, “Come on Wayne, knock a hole in this thing!”

Glen finished with “Stormy Monday” by Aaron “T Bone” Walker. Everyone, of course got a solo.

After Mary Milne introduced Peter James, on her way back to her seat she approached Isaac and invited him to do a feature next year at Fat Albert’s. Overhearing this just added insult to injury for me. This was Isaac’s second time at Fat’s while I have been coming for three years and haven’t been offered a spot at all. Back in the 1990s, at the Bloor Street location, I did at least three features at Fat Albert’s between 1994 and 1997, and the first time I didn’t even play an instrument. The second time I sang with a band behind me and the third time I had just started playing guitar.

Peter James played the piano and sang – “I can see, I can feel, round and round we go, in a circle we grow … Sand and sea, you and me … when the prayer of man is written in the sand, we’re all alone inside …”

Peter’s second offering was an instrumental.

Then came Wayne Leon, with Tom, Glen and Ruth. Wayne had put down his flute for this set, and picked up a guitar. Tom described Wayne’s singing voice as a type of sonic chocolate.

From Wayne’s first song, which I assume was an original – “One Sunday I went with Miranda … we dropped into on the way home for some bagels … our fingers entwined in a knot … make love on the big sheepskin rug … made some hot toddies with rum …”. Ruth and Glen had solos at different points in the song.

Wayne’s second choice was the roaring twenties hit ”Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” which a lot of people claimed to have written. Ruth sang back-up vocals.

Meanwhile I was still in a funk over the fiasco of my set. I was thinking about how I sit paying attention all night, no matter how boring other people’s lyrics happen to be. Nobody has to like my songs but they could at least shut the fuck up while I’m trying to play them.

The penultimate performer of the night was Elizabeth Knowlton, with the assistance of Tom. As she was doing her sound check she complained that the monitor sounded like there was “tinsel on the edge of everything”.

Elizabeth didn’t give a title for her first song – “I don’t know what love is, but I know what it’s not. It’s not attraction or even satisfaction … I don’t know what I’m doing here …” Glen was sitting in the front row with his camera, recording Elizabeth’s performance. While continuing to play, she said, “I just completely lost what I was doing! If you point a camera at me I fall apart!”

She finished the song and then Glen gave her some advice: “Just keep playing! Don’t let on that you’ve made a mistake!”

Before starting her second song, Elizabeth commented, “We’re lucky to have Tom to make us all sound like angels!”

From her second song – “If my helplessness bothers you please turn your face away … I’m paying for this fear of the dark … I must be Jesus, my hands are sore, I have been forsaken, I can’t take it anymore … This wilderness is wide enough for my soul.”

I say that Elizabeth was the second last performer, but while she was playing we all thought she was the last. It was at the last minute that Mama D came in and asked if she could do something. I think that there should be some kind of rule in place that if someone is too late to listen to the last three performers then one shouldn’t get to play. An open stage should also be about listening.

From Mama D’s first song – “ … If they take us in the morning, it’s not quietly I’ll go …”

From her final song – “Somewhere, sometime long ago, it started with a beat … Papa taught me how to dance … I learned my alphabet and dreamed of being free … Teach me how to spin a tale … Every child’s a blessing and should not learn how to fight …”

I did not help to put Fat Albert’s to bed. I had already helped it out of bed, and I would have stayed if I hadn’t been so pissed off.

As I rode west on Cecil Street, a cold moon was shining through broken clouds. I could relate.

At Queen and Ossington, someone had set fire to the cardboard and paper set outside of Starbucks for recycling. The flames had already caught hold of one of the two wheeled plastic bins and they were three meters high. I guess I was too down to really think about it until I’d passed it by, but I stopped about ten doors west and dug out my camera. I started walking back towards the fire, shooting video as the fire truck wailed its way to a stop at the corner. I walked about five doors from the flames but one of the firemen turned and looked at me, so I figured I was as close as they wanted me to be. It took them about five seconds to put out the fire, but I got some good footage of the little inferno and its reflection in the shop windows.

            There was something about the fire, like the moon, that also reflected my mood. Just as the moon was breaking through obscurity, the fire had dealt with other people’s garbage.