Stagolee: In the Old Songs the Bad Guys Were Bad

           

            When I arrived at the Tranzac on the night of July 25^th, a drummer was doing one of those obligatory but useless solos that jazz drummers do.

            There were a few people seated and listening to the trio that consisted of Jessie Barrett on drums, Rebecca Hennessy on trumpet and Chris Banks on double bass, but I was the first performer there for the open stage, so the new bartender had to make up a list for me.

The monthly event of Chris Banks and Friends was just wrapping up and they were trying to decide what to play for a final song. Rebecca suggested a number to which they all agreed, but Chris hesitated until he finally said, “I don’t ant to put a wrench in the works, but why don’t we do it with a slow, Latin feel?” They were all more than fine with that.

When I noticed that Eric Sedore was sitting in the tall corner table by the entrance, I went over to wish him a “Birthday, birthday!” and shook his hand. He’d brought a container full of butter tarts he’d made, and offered me one, which I took for later.

            There was hardly anyone in the Southern Cross Bar at around the time the open stage was supposed to start. Abigail Lapel, our host, arrived and set up the sound, then she went outside. After a few minutes she returned with a small entourage of women that included Sarah Greene.

            Abigail sat in front of the microphone and said, “We are here at the Tranzac for one purpose and for one purpose only. To watch me tune my guitar.”

            She began with “Wheat Kings” by the Tragically Hip, with harmonies by Laura Spink, who read the lyrics off of her phone – “Sundown in the Paris of the prairies … All you hear are rusty breezes pushing around the weathervane Jesus. In his Zippo lighter he sees the killer’s face … Twenty years for nothing, well that’s nothing new. Besides, no one’s interested in something you didn’t do …”

            Her second song was a new one of her own to which Laura sang a nice harmony in round style – “If I had a dollar to my name, I’d be a rich man all the same … I’m just a poor old soldier with the weight of the world on my shoulder …”

            The first performer from the list was Isaac Bonk, and he began with his ballad of Sammy Yatim – “ … He held his place … All the officers faced … that he wanted to kill … but that was not the case … They aimed at his brain … The boy of eighteen was not sane … The tension it grew … the bullets they flew … Sam lay dead, all covered in red … Nine bullets he was fed … The blood on their hands, oh it’s too much to stand …”

            Isaac’s second song was the one he wrote about a girl that was sexually abused by her father and later became a prostitute.

            Abigail said, “We just got bonked!”

She took a moment to explain why she was hosting on this night.  She told us that she usually hosts the Tranzac open stage on the fourth Monday of a five Monday month, but this time she was replacing Yawd Silvester. She would be back again in her regular schedule on August 22.

Next was Ben Bootsma, who wanted the monitors off. He used the house guitar for his first song and pointed out that there are several signatures on the instrument from respected Toronto musicians. He said it was available for us to sign. Abigail said she would sign it but Ben said he hadn’t signed it yet. I wondered, “What if one’s signature diminishes the value of the guitar?”

Before Ben’s first song he gave us a bit of commentary on ethics as represented in the song, “Stagolee”. He said that in modern or post-modern interpretations, bad people are good. But in the old songs, bad is bad – “ … Police officer, how can it be, you can arrest everybody but Stagolee … What I care about your two little babies and your darling lovely wife, you done stole my Stetson hat so I’m bound to take your life …”

For his second song, Ben switched to the piano. He struggled with the microphone and commented that he keeps forgetting to bring his roadie. Ben sang one of his own songs – “On the most lonely night, the memory of your confidence and the reasons that were common sense are the tune that you just can’t recall … How could you know that the people you chose were the same as the ones you let down … “

I was after Ben, and started with my translation of Jacques Brel’s  “Amsterdam” – “ … In the port of Amsterdam there are sailors who are dying, full of beer and drama, as the sun is rising. But in the port of Amsterdam there are sailors who are borning, from the warm womb of the languorous ocean …”

My second choice was my own “Paranoiac Utopia”  - “ … I take a ride upon the bad ship donut shop so it can ferry me across a hostile ocean of time, I am a ghost but only part and pass painfully through borderlines …”

Then it was time for Eric Sedore, who went to the piano, telling us that the only other time he’d ever played piano in front of people was once at his grandmother’s house.

Eric began with a Mountain Goats song entitled “Genesis 30:3” – “ … The visitors were here … we watched them disappear … Wherever it was you came from, the power in your voice … You keeping watch …”

Eric told us that exactly a year ago he was in Guelph, attending the Hillside Festival. He wrote a song called “Guelph Lake” about how he felt on his birthday that day – “There is a bus I could have taken, but I chose to walk … I got to the lake, I made a little wish and the ground began to shake and drop off over the cliff … The end of the night I walked back to my car … No one could see that I was breaking apart … There was a bus I could have taken but I made it this far.”

Next up were Maggie and Mr Rogers. Abigail asked which of them was Maggie and which was Mr Rogers. They performed what they said were two new songs for them. The first was Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” – “Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving … How can they know it’s time for them to go? Before the winter fire I will still be dreaming. I have no thought of time … Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving … But I will still be here …” Maggie enunciates very formally when she sings.

Mr Rogers switched to the ukulele for their second offering, which was “Harlem” by The Stray Birds – “My city’s had a lot of trouble sleeping, she’s up all night … Scraping stars from the sky … made a habit of crying all through the night … My sleepless city, I’ll do her sleeping for free … I love my city … She can do my crying for me. My city’s picking fights across the water with the worn out moon …”

After Maggie and Mr Rogers came Matt, who borrowed Abigail’s guitar and seemed to be improvising a very short, gentle piece. He followed that with another and then we were at the end of the open stage.

Abigail asked for requests for one final song, so I spoke up about a Daniel Lanois song in French that I’d heard her sing last time she was there. She agreed to do it, but first of all apologized for her French, which took me by surprise, because of her last name and because she is from Montreal, and I’d always assumed that French was her first language. Her pronunciation seemed excellent to me when she sang “O Marie” – “Y a quelqu’un qui appelle mon nom … On travaille aujourdhui, on travaille sous la pluie, On travaille au tabac hostie, mais mains sont noires a cochon … Trente jours et trente nuits … Qui ma blonde elle attend après mois … Je vais retourner avec beaucoup d’argent … Oh driver donne moi une chance … Avez-vous de feu pour ma cigarette … Ce soir on va au village … Chanter la chanson, boire la boisson  … O Marie, j’ai mal a la tete … Donnez-nous l’esprit, l’esprit du corps … le bleu du ciel a change … après quarante jours et quarante nuits, on ne peut pas travailler au tabac …”

Here’s my translation: “I can hear somebody calling my name, I’m working all the time under rain or burning bright, picking tobacco, Jesus Christ, hands all black from tobacco stains, 30 days and 30 nights. My girlfriend’s been waiting many weeks, but I’ll be returning with pockets full of cash, oh driver please give me a break, have you got a light for my cigarette, Tonight we’ll go to the village, we’ll sing a few songs and drink some grog, oh Marie there’s an ache in my head, give me the strength, the strength to go on, the sky has turned grey and cold, after 40 days and 40 nights, I can’t pick any more tobacco.”

            I chatted with Eric for a while outside the Tranzac, then he went to his car and I went to my bike.