Miscellaneous - Ottawa, 4/7/2003-6/72003

  by Andrew Carver

published: 19 / 7 / 2003

intro

The Ottawa Bluefest is a 10 day music festival which across 10 stages takes over the whole city. During the first 3 days Andrew Carver samples such pleasures as Cherry Valence, the Solded Brothers, Speedball Baby and the Fleshtones...

Friday, July 4 Ottawans are a lucky lot; we get to enjoy one of Canada’s best music festivals, and don’t even have to go tramp out to some muddy field in the middle of nowhere to do it. Eight of Bluesfest’s 10 stages are arrayed around the city hall, while the Sacred Stage is located in a church across the street and the acoustic stage is set up in the city council chambers. The first day of Bluesfest started late: the first acts were scheduled to get on stage at 6:15 p.m., but as usual, things didn’t always go exactly as planned. My first date was at the Roots/Americana stage, where local country band Casey Comeau and the Halfmilers opened things up; it was a quick visit to snap a few quick pictures and hand Comeau a print of a photo I had taken of her at a previous show; then it was off to the Birdman Stage. I arrived in time to discover things were behind schedule. Soon enough, though,  presenter and stage organizer John Westhaver was located, and Raleigh, North Carolina’s Cherry Valence were rocking away. The five piece band has a 70s rock fixation — think Tight Bros from Way Back, Bad Wizard — and the unusual feature of two drummers who also handle most of the vocal duties, each of whom occasionally gets up from behind his kit to take a turn at the front as vocalist (the band is rounded out by an energetic bassist and two guitarists). Cherry Valence's latest album is called 'Riffin’, and there was certainly a lot of that. One of the album’s songs is appropriately entitled 'Sweat, Sweat, Sweat (All Over You)' — there was a lot of that too, with the thermometer hitting 32 degrees Celsius and enough humidity that you could almost peel the air off your skin. Despite the punishing weather, the band gave their all and received warm applause from a small but gathering crowd. The acts at Bluesfest are staggered to allow people to see different stages. Since it was 7:30 I decided to go see that evening’s main attraction: Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. I arrived to find about 20,000 people between me and the stage, most of them facing in the direction at the beer tent. An alarming number of them wore Phish T-shirts. The picture that appeared on the front page of the Ottawa Sun the next day says it all: a vast sea of people stare toward tiny figures on the distant stage. In the foreground, one forlorn fellow, wearing a Bellrays T-shirt, stares toward the camera, completely disinterested in the music — that would be me. This seemed as good a time as any to get some food, so I skipped out of the fairgrounds (having already eaten concession food once, I have sworn to never do so again), grabbed a slice of pizza, and returned in time to catch The Soledad Brothers make their third Ottawa appearance. The Brothers began as a duo: Ben Swank on drums, Johnny Walker on guitar. Oliver Henry on second guitar and saxophone joined after their first album. Their amped up Delta blues draws obvious comparisons with The White Stripes (Last I heard, Walker and Meg White were an item, and she appeared on their first album), but there’s less Led Zep in the Brothers’ makeup. That Friday night, there was also a lot more saxophone. Four songs in, Walker’s amp began to fizz instead of fuzz. A replacement cabinet offered by  Cherry Valence guitarist Cheetie Kumar proved unsatisfactory, so Walker plugged into Henry’s amp, and Henry switched over to saxophone. The saxophones had mostly stayed in their case at the previous Ottawa show, so the switch to brass offered a welcome change of pace, adding a bit of a Sonics flavour to the high energy performance. Saturday, July 5 The first act of Saturday was on stage at 12:15 p.m. Flecton Bigsky and the Dreamcatchers opened up for Neil Hagerty when he played Ottawa (reviewed elsewhere on Pennyblackmusic), and here they were providing more of their off-the-rails artrock, this time supplemented by their bassist. (According to festival tittle-tattle, Bigsky later wandered into the corporate suites, carrying a golf club, wearing a sarong and bombed out of his mind). The next act I wanted to catch was the appropriately named Australian blues harmonicist Harper. His act was solid British blues rock (think Eric Burdon) —well, apart from the didgeridoo — and went over well with the crowd. Entertaining stage banter too; “This next song’s about our phone company ... we hate the bastards ... well, that’s what they’re there for, isn’t it?” Then it was a quick jog to the Roots/American stage, where Pennyblackmusic writer Darrell Angus was performing with his band the Golden Famile. Their moody country rock has a lot of Neil Young, a bit of campfire blues, and a fair amount of feedback. I had hoped to catch the Glen Nevous Retraction. The Glen Nevous Retraction is actually solo performer Chris Page, who’s best known for his singing and guitar-playing for power-poppers the Stand GT; his solo work is frequently melancholy guitar pop. Presumably it still is, but since I waited too late and missed it, I can’t say. Thus, I stopped at the Black Sheep Stage (just around the corner from the Birdman Stage) to watch Atomic 7 — this is the band formed by former Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet guitarist Brian Connelly. There’s actually only three members, including Connelly, as with his former band, and plenty of stylish surf sounds. Nice gown on the bass player too. I then popped over to the Birdman Stage to watch Pedro Zamora, a.k.a. the Torture King. The Torture King starts his show with a little carnival spiel,warning the audience that his show is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach — then it’s on to a spot of fire eating-and-exhaling. Unfortunately, the same pleasantly brisk wind that was cooling off concert-goers made the flames somewhat unpredictable, so he quickly moved on to some sword-swallowing. Next, he broke a bunch of bottles and jumped up and down on their shattered remains (placing his microphone by the side of the board the shards were lying on to capture every crunch as he landed). He then invited a woman from the audience to walk on him as he lay down on the glass. Then it was time for a “light snack” — this meant breaking a light bulb and eating its broken remains piece by crunchy piece. Finally, his piece de resistance: He stuck a metal skewer entirely through his arm, then another through his tongue and the floor of his mouth. Ouch ! Next up: Boston’s Rev. Glasseye and his Wooden Legs. The Rev is also a member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. His band features a standup bassist and trumpeter, and plays pumping gothic country tunes to accompany the Reverend’s songs, which he delivers in a reverberant yodel. The Torture King got on stage for a repeat performance — more fire eating, self-skewering, etc. — then it was time for the Night Callers, a groovy instrumental quartet somewhat in the vein of Booker T and the MGs. They were good, but I honestly expect more from a band that features Joe Patt (Hairy Patt Band, Them Wranch) on drums and Cash Audio’s John Henry on guitar. Next up was Mr. Airplane Man, the female duo played a raunchy set of electrified trash-can blues. The influence of Howling Wolf, Bo Diddley and John Lee Hooker was definitely in the air. They left the stage, and I made a quick jaunt over to the main stage to see Elvis Costello and The Impersonators. After a fine version of 'Doll Revolution', I realized that I am not really capable of enjoying music when there’s thousands of people between me and the stage, so I zipped back to the Birdman Stage for Toronto’s the Deadly Snakes. The Snakes high-powered shake-your-booty rhythm and blues quickly had the crowd all worked up. Their super-entertaining set would have been a perfect capper to the evening, but there was still two acts I wanted to see, regrettably scheduled to play at the same time: The Sadies and Daniel Lanois. The vast crush of people trying to squeeze their way in to see Daniel Lanois made my mind up for me, so I went off to see the Sadies give the performance of their lives at the Roots/Americana Stage. A sizable crowd had gathered, but not so thick that I couldn’t make my way to the front. The Sadies, now a five piece with the addition of vibraphonist, ripped through a set of their own songs with the consummate musical ability that is their trademark, along with tunes like 'Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone To Kill', a Merle Haggard tune they did with greasy R&B shouter Andre Williams, 'Solitaire Song', from the album they made with Jon Langford, and 'Pretty Polly' an old hill tune they’ve made their own. As the clock rolled down to 11 (when Ottawa noise bylaws give any outside performance the chop) they were pulled out for an encore. “Hey, I’m bleeding like crazy,” guitarist Dallas Good said — sure enough, there was a three-inch long red smear above the bridge of his Telecaster — but they still pulled out a raucous-times-two version of the Mekons' 'Memphis, Egypt' (best known for its choral refrain ... “like rock’n’roll!”). Still the crowd wanted more. One last song: 'Leaving Here' (“We learned it from Motorhead” Dallas explained), then they were off, to well-deserved, thunderous applause. Sunday, July 6 The first act on stage was the V.E.O. — the Valiha Experimental Orchestra. Once upon a time they were a psychedelic band that used Malagasay instruments (the Valiha is a boxy string instrument from Madagascar) — then came the fateful day that one-man band and slide guitar dementoid Bob Log III came to town. Since then, a hard-driving blues sound has been part of their musical recipe. I caught the tail end of their show, it seemed to lean more toward their original sound, with Dave “Rave” Reford playing a little woodwind. The Torture King once again performed between acts. This time, he lay down on four upturned swords and had a stagehand break a cinder block on his chest with a sledgehammer. The Silver Hearts come from Peterborough (they even have a song about the highway that connects that town with Ottawa, the icy killer Hwy. 7), and with 12 members (13, if you count a guest harmonica player) playing, respectively, piano, trombone, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, harmonica (and various mouth organs), violin, accordion (the accordionist also did a few lead vocal turns), pedal steel, saw, theremin and, of course, sousaphone, they make a heck of a noise — particularly on their no-holds-barred version of 'St. James Infirmary Blues'. The band manages to mix the usual downbeat country fare with a broad comedic sense — aided by the antics of trombonist Tom Reader, who was obviously the class clown in school. Call it big band R&B; it’s a terrible shame that the group’s size puts a damper on extensive touring. The Torture King skewered himself again (always entertaining, but I was beginning to think he should alter his patter a wee bit), then it was time for Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue — or rather three-quarters of it, since second guitarist Bruno Meyrick Jones is forbidden to enter Canada. (This begs the question: They let in James Brown. They let in Wilson Pickett. They were even prepared to let in R.L. Burnside, who once killed a man. Good Lord, what has Jones done?!?). But Melchior and his two compatriots — Brad Truax on bass, Greg Anderson on drums — were more than up to the task. John Westhaver introduced the band by saying they were the first people he thought of when he was given the go-ahead to book performers, and no wonder: Their sound is an amazing concoction of blues, garage and punk (“That was originally done by Blind Johnny Lydon” Melchior joked of one song). I thought their performance opening for the Immortal Lee County Killers during the group’s first visit to Ottawa a year or so ago was a shade better, but that’s slight criticism. Their hard-driving sound and Melchior’s declamatory singing went down swell. They were followed by another group of New Yorkers, but there’s no mistaking the Revue — transplants from Shepperton and Miami, Florida, — with the died-in-the-wool New Yorkers of Speedball Baby (oh okay,  Matt Verta-Ray was born in Montreal. But he wears all black!). Speedball Baby doesn’t so much have songs as rants. Al Pacino-esque lead shouter Ron Ward twists, jumps, twitches, contorts, howls, leaps and glowers as he raps out dire warnings and tales of desperate deeds over a backing of drums, organ and Verta-Ray’s spiky guitar. There’s something slightly JSBX-ish about the group, I’d say. The band concluded its set with 'Speedball Baby' and Ward swinging his microphone like Roger Daltrey — right into the keyboard of organist Ali Smith. As the mike went dead with a loud crunch and the organ throbbed with a single note, Ward stalked off stage. A hurled key from Smith followed, as did a pair of grumpy soundmen, apparently wishing to speak with Ward about the proper care and treatment of microphones. While Cesare Evoria warbled on the main stage, another island group was on the Birdman Stage: Iceland’s hotly tipped Singapore Sling, making their first Canadian appearance (“That’s a long way to drive,” Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones later joshed). Forget Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — this six-piece from Reykjavik  is the real heir to the Jesus and Mary Chain. Their album, 'The Curse of ...' is great, but the white noise and fuzz guitar doesn’t translate as well to the stage, though their bass player certainly tried to make up for his compatriots rather stolid demeanor. Pretty good, but to follow Speedball Babyyou almost have to do cartwheels ... you have to do synchronized kicks ... you have to do a dozen pushups in mid-guitar solo, then dare an audience member to match your feat ... and you have to make it look easy, even though you’re in your 40's. In other words, you have to be that night’s Birdman Stage headliners: The Fleshtones. Singer Peter Zaremba is looking a little fleshier, but he still does the twistlike a pro, and guitarist Keith Streng missed a career as a ballerina. I hereby award him the title “sprightliest man in rock’n’roll”. He and bassist Ken Fox take full advantage of their radio units to race around the crowd, jump about on stage and generally demonstrate that no one in the rock’n’roll world entertains like the Fleshtones.   In terms of musical tightness, the band is a machine, powered by rock-solid drummer Bill Milhizer. The crowd that quickly collected along the security fence (never mind the standing-room only one in front of the stage) was all the evidence one needs that more than a quarter-century after their high-energy debut, the Fleshtones can put on a better show than just about anyone in the music business. (Between Singapore Sling and the Fleshtones, I popped off to see the middle portion of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. The band always gives an energetic show;emaciated singer/guitarist Jay Munly carried on more than usual, spraying Cessna with bear foam and cavorting in a far too small  band T-shirt. The two reverends, Dwight and Glasseye provided their usual excellent musical backing, along with a lady standup bassist and drummer. Much of the material was new, as the band has worked up a host of fresh material for a soon-to-be recorded follow up to their smashing 'Always Say Please And Thank You'.) The photographs that accompany this article were taken bY Andrew Carver

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