Miscellaneous - Ottawa, 12/7/2006...16/7/2006

  by Andrew Carver

published: 21 / 7 / 2006

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Article

My plan for Wednesday, having passed the festival’s midway point, was to head to the grassroots stage to see friend and local chanteuse Casey Comeau lead her Centretown Wilderness Club through some of its well-honed folk and country. My plan was derailed however, since en route I passed the Black Sheep Stage where Hamell on Trial’s scabrous and funny solo acoustic punk rock grabbed me by the earlobes and yanked me in. Bald and bug-eyed, Hamell launched a humorous assault on all things right and proper, sparing no one, including himself (he even joked "There goes the guy who gave me a cavity search at the border" as I scuttled past him with my camera). After chuckling over his repartee and lyrics for a half-dozen tunes I remembered my original mission and sauntered off to see Casey and Co. That done, I returned to catch Hamell’s last three songs and watch Dan Bern. Bern is obviously a big fan of Bob Dylan, and I suspect he has some Bruce Springsteen albums as well. His set was enjoyable, but I found his skills as a melody writer occasionally overshadowed by a silly lyric. Still, he fared better than Dickie Betts and Great Southern. The Allman Brothers founder is a great guitarist, but his music has gone so far into jam band territory it struck me as dreadfully dull. The only other performers which piqued my interest that late in the day were the Grande Mothers. I didn’t expect much from the three Frank Zappa sidemen (or the two ringers drafted in to round out the band). In fact, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Grand Wazoo’s music (I always thought he was trying too hard), but the Mothers were having a blast, and only Tipper Gore could have been unmoved by their loving and sprightly meander through some of Zappa’s best-known tunes. Thursday mostly offered an opportunity to see a few acts I’m already fond of. Elliott Brood’s “death folk”, Fiftymen’s country rock and Alanna Stuart’s soul music were as fine as I recalled. The one set I definitely wasn’t going to miss was Konono No. 1. The Congo band’s amplified thumb pianos have been praised far and wide, and they were undoubtedly the festival’s premier “buzz band”. I have to give top marks to their relentless drummer, and their female percussionist and lead singer both seemed to be enjoying themselves, but the rest of the band varied from moderately bouncy to just plain grumpy. Compared to the brief portion of Honduran Aurelio Martinez’s set I had seen just prior, they just didn’t have a lot of gas live. After about half an hour I was starting to regret passing up on seeing Mofro, one of my favourite bands – a few minutes later I shouldered my way through the crowd at the Black Sheep Stage. Mofro had a far smaller crowd, but it was obviously enjoying itself a lot more. Mofro appeared at Bluesfest last year in an opening slot; they more than earned their headlining status with their soulful rock. The band was sounding more soulful than ever, with one gospel-tinged effort intended for their next album almost completely banishing the spectre of Creedence Clearwater Revival which hangs over much of their work. The next day was of particular interest to fans of independent music since the MBNA Grassroots stage gave up all pretence and billed sets by Wintersleep, Holy Fuck, The Fiery Furnaces and Metric as ‘Dog Day Afternoon’. It was an appropriate name since the heat was blistering. First Wintersleep sweated through their set of cathartic indie rock. Then Holy Fuck performed what might be called analogue techno – using a live rhythm section and various jury-rigged devices, including a 35mm film synchronizer, to create IDM soundscapes. Fiery Furnaces pumped the volume up for their live show – Matthew Friedbergers’ suggested a sudden fascination with Black Sabbath. That aside, their performance didn’t stand out. Having been struck by the abrupt shifts on their albums, live there were no surprises and a competent performance left few lasting impressions. The same could not be said of the two late night acts on the Blacksheep Stage. When I arrived, one time Sarah McLachlan sideman Luke Doucet was wrapping up his set of country-blues influenced rock’n’roll with some help from his astounding-voiced 10-year-old daughter Chloe. He’s been described as the bastard child of Tom Waits and kd Lang, which seems apt. As fine as that brief snippet was, it didn’t hold a candle to the extraordinary workout provided by long-serving roots-rocker Alejandro Escovedo. Having weathered a serious illness and the death of his family, Escovedo has turned tragedy into gold with a heartfelt performance that turned from the melancholy to the ferocious with aplomb. Sadness and joy infused both his own songs and covers of Mott the Hoople’s ‘I Wish I Was Your Mother’ and a crashing version of Neil Young’s ‘Powderfinger’ with eclectic Canadian songwriter Danny Michel guesting on guitar. The second Saturday was dominated by down-home blues (courtesy of Electro-Fi’s stable of rehabbed ’60s bluesmen, the surf-and-country sounds of ‘guit-steel’ player Junior Brown and a capable set of country from Johnny Cash’s daughter Roseanne. Wilco tour mates the Ms also played a good set of alt-country influenced indie-pop. One could also se them sharing a stage with My Morning Jacket. (The aforementioned Wilco also played Bluesfest ... I could just make them out on stage as I walked off to see some avant-garde guitar playing from Tetuzi Akiyama at a nearby bar.) For Bluesfest’s final day I settled down at the Black Sheep Stage. By coincidence or design, all the acts were Canadian: The Melligrove Band made an excellent first impression, with a guitarist who sported 1980s style gym gear and a sound that incorporated the Cure, Sparks and Animal Collective. They were followed by local lights the Hi Lo Trons, whose XTC-loving post punk went down very well. Controller.controller also pleased their fans, but there was something a bit clumsy about their set. They claimed to have returned from a month-long hiatus and they did seem a bit out of practice. The same can’t be said for the stage headliners, the New Pornographers. Last time I saw the New Pornographers, they were loose and funny, not to mention drunk. They had Neko Case with them as well. This time around, they were sobre (apart from drummer Kurt Dahle, who could be seen drinking wine directly from the bottle while they set progressed), and had Carl Newman’s niece Kathryn Calder singing Case’s parts (and doing an excellent job, too). With three albums under their belt, they easily filled out a 90-minute set with drumhead tight versions of their best songs. It was as sharp a power-pop performance as I’ve witnessed, and an excellent capper to the festival.

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