Singing in Tongues, After the Dark

           

  

            On the night of Monday, May 30^th, I locked my bike on Bloor Street just a few doors west of Brunswick and started walking to the Tranzac. On the corner was a gathering of some of the Tranzac open stage regulars: John P, Chas Lauder, Robert Labell and Steven Lewis. I didn’t stop to chat, but as I passed, I greeted the only one of them that saw me. John called to me though to inform me that there was a blackout at the Tranzac and that it was tentative whether there was going to be an open stage. I suggested that we could do an acoustic set. Steven made a comment that it wouldn’t matter to me since I don’t use a mic. Some of them agreed though that it might be nice to have a candlelight open stage.

            I went to sign in. They had moved the ukulele people into the Southern Cross room and the cute bartender informed me that the open stage would be starting half an hour later than usual because of that. I put my name on the list and then went outside. The whole street, south of Bloor was in the blackout. After tuning up I stood outside practicing my songs.

            Anhi (pronounced “an eye”) arrived, and I informed her of the delay. We chatted for a while as she contemplated whether or not to stick around. I asked her if she ever goes to Fat Albert’s and told me that she’d been a regular there for twenty years when they were on Bloor Street. She said that it had been a great place for Folk music at one time. I offered the view that Fat Albert’s is a little too folky for me. She said the fact that I can say that is evidence that there is something wrong with Folk music now, whereas it used to be on the cutting edge. It can certainly be argued that Folk music had a period of time when it was cutting edge, back when Bob Dylan was writing lyrics that one could get lost listening to. Anhi herself has a singing style that is so unique as to sound like it comes from another world. What one hears at Fat Albert’s or the Tranzac is mostly a rehashing of what was already done decades or even a century ago. Folk music these days is more about artisanry than art, but one has a chance of hearing something a little fresher at the Tranzac. Anhi told me that I’d convinced her to come back later, but then she left and didn’t return.

            Cad arrived and couldn’t see me at first in the dark with his bad eyesight.

            At around 22:00 John and the other guys came back, and while they were approaching the Tranzac, the lights came back on.

            The host for that night was Yawd Silvester, and we started at 22:30.

            The first performer, as usual, was Robert Labell, who began with Leo Kottke’s guitar composition, “William Powell”. His second choice was another Kottke cover, called “Ojo”.

            Next was Steven Lewis, with help on guitar from Robert Labell. Steven took the length of a song just to get ready to play one, and so there was time for Cad to tell me a story. Before he came to the Tranzac he went for a beef patty at one of his favourite places to eat in the neighbourhood. He said that while chatting with the woman behind the counter, she’d informed him, as she gave him his food, that she’d just thrown up.

            Steven’s first song was called “509” – “That 509 rolling away … always moving, that train won’t stay … Brings a tear to a cowpoke’s eye … the 509 is wailing … the whistle blows … That’s Alberta up ahead … where the wild horse rides like thunder …” About halfway into the song, Steven started to take a harmonica solo, but with the first note he realized that he’d slipped the wrong harmonica into his holder. “Such a shame!” he exclaimed.

            For his second song, which had the title, “Let the Music Play”, Steven told us that he was going to try something brand new that he’s never played before for anybody except his wife. He said she liked it and that was a good sign because she doesn’t usually like his songs- “There’s no lines to the music … like whispers whispered in a lover’s ears … Comfort us in times we are in fear … Lift our spirits high … Ladies dance tonight …” At this point Steven stopped, said the guitar was tuned wrong. He changed the position of the capo and then continued – “ … Send this message of love over the years … The times may change but the music still plays … It’s in the stars that light the dark, the voice of music can reach our hearts …”

            Then came John P., with the help of Chas on his electric lap steel guitar. As John was setting up he commented that it was so cold in the room that it was throwing his tuning off.

            John said, “It would have been cool if the power had stayed off.

            It’s interesting that though he said that and a lot of us agreed, none of us requested that the Tranzac just turn all the lights and sound equipment off. I guess we wanted to have circumstances force the situation upon us.

            Of his first song, John said that he wrote it at the cottage where he writes most of his songs. I always think of open stage musicians being poor but then my illusions are shattered with the information that some of them have cottages. I recall John’s friend Chas having told us last year about a trip to Asia that he took with his wife. For all I know now, both John and Chas are a couple of suit-wearing big shot executives during the day.

            From the song- “I was a ghost nearly all of my life, I stood around watching the world go by … I was a spirit all of my days, nothing could stop my spirity ways … I never thought I would ever get through till I met a phantom like you … Even though you can see through me, séances do nothing to me  …”

            John told us that he had written over two hundred songs, then he threw them out and started again.

            I added that Ernest Hemingway once said that the best thing that ever happened to him was when one of his wives threw out all of his writing.

            John introduced his second song by saying that he’d been doing it a lot lately and so this would be the last time for a while – “ … Would it be so bad if you told him your mind … I always thought that love was a crutch, I never lose but I never quite win …”

            Chas stayed on stage for his own set when John was done. He reminded us that he doesn’t really sing lyrics, but that this time he would do a song without words. He played the melody for the Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts”, but used different vocal sounds other than English – “Tadoora yanamda … dangatakayo … ayo chakeera alama … darolamda … keero alama …” Chas gave us a brief outline of the history of the Shakers and offered the view that their celibacy was counterproductive to the growth of the cult.

            For his second offering, Chas did piece that he called “Four Square Tons”, which was really a slow Blues instrumental improvisation on “Sixteen Tons”, which was either written by Merle Travis or George Davis.

            Then it was my turn.

            I started with “The Cha-Cha of the Wolf”, which is my English adaptation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Cha Cha Cha Du Loup” – “ … Well girls your age they’re afraid of guys like me, you’re much too sage to come and sit upon my knee, but I love you dear, so do not fear, come up to my side, I promise you that I will not bite …” I ended with an attempt at a wolf howl, and when I suggested that mine sounded more like a hamster going through a vacuum cleaner hose, John and a few others did their own wolf howls.

            My second choice was another attempt at my song, “Paranoiac Utopia” – “ … I take a brief ride on the bad ship donut shop so it can ferry me across a hostile ocean of time, I am a ghost, but only part, so pass painfully through borderlines …” I fumbled a bit on the chords, but it was a better live version than my previous efforts lately.

            Following me was Starros, who plugged a type of effects pedal between his guitar and the system. Yawd seemed to recognize the tool and commented that it was a nice one to have. Starros said that it’s great when it works.

            His first piece was an instrumental with lots of fast fingering of the strings and percussion on the body of his guitar. He started to sing, but then stopped to ask if the microphone was working as he swung it over in front of him. He was singing in another language that sounded like it might be Greek. Whenever he put his foot down on the pedal, it made a loud obtrusive snapping sound in addition to its function, which was to record segments of the piece that he was playing and then to repeat them on a loop while he played other sounds in accompaniment.

            When Starros had finished I asked him what language he’d been singing, but he answered that it was gibberish. I commented that this was a night of people speaking in tongues.
            Someone was impressed with Starros’s guitar and asked him what kind it is. He told us that it’s the cheapest classical guitar that Godin makes and that it only cost $375. That’s a lot more than mine cost.

            Ian, the guitar instrumentalist had been sitting at the back on a barstool earlier in the night, but he didn’t stay to play.

            The last person on the list was Erik Sedore, who shared a new song entitled, “Global Nuclear Winter” – “You laughed at me when I said we needed to get to the bomb shelter … Oh how you’ve changed, while I’ve stayed the same. You exploded, for example … It’s not fair, after all the time I was stuck in there … I returned to what was left of our house, there was a silhouette of you sitting on the couch, you cast such a long shadow.”

            For Erik’s second piece he began to change the tuning. Someone asked what tuning it was and he said that he makes up his own tuning because he doesn’t know how to do things the real way.

            Starros told Erik that he’s going to need a few guitars for the concert series.

            His second song was called “How I Killed All My House Plants” – “I let all my houseplants die one by one … starving to death in the artificial light … The punishment should fit the crime … they buried me up to my knees out in the yard … Please forgive me little ivy, forgive me bathroom cactus, forgive me ficus, forgive me rubber plant that got eaten by the cat …”

            With the open stage finished, our host, Yawd Silvester, then went to the piano to do a couple of his own songs.

            From the first- “ … Things have been lame since I changed my name … Now I’m wishing for a twist of fate and my fist in your face, yeah you balled my gal, you can go to hell.

            The last song of the night was called “Rebecca” – “All over town, folks are filled with indecision, I aint looking for a new religion, it’s you … All over town folks are looking for answers from the holy ghost, but I aint looking to be diagnosed … You can put the squeeze on the tuba, crazy glue, I aint looking for a new tattoo … Don’t call me Becky, you know I hate it.”

            Yawd told us that the songs he’d sung were ones that he doesn’t usually play solo, but rather with his band, “Tres Bien Ensemble”, which was named after the line from the Lennon-McCartney song “Michelle”.

            I walked out with Erik. On the way, Starros had high praise for Erik’s song about killing his houseplants and for his tuning and playing style.

            Personally, I don’t really understand other tunings, since the song that one has written will have the same melody no matter what the tuning happens to be.

            As we walked to Bathurst, Erik said he was probably going to take a break from coming to the Tranzac for a couple of weeks, until the next time Sarah Greene hosts.

            We chatted for a while at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor. Erik made a nice comment about the lyrics I write, saying they are some of his favourite.