Holt showed up in drag and did an awesome opening set – we rolled the piano out from the Tiki Lounge and he played in front of the stage. My friend John K said it was a “profoundly humanizing experience” listening, and I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Mike’s a beautiful and brave person and every time I see him I like him more.

Arkana Music was awesome, in that jazz pro/can-play-circles-around-anyone way. I was a bit worried about having a full set of instrumental music as the middle part of the night. But no need. Everyone who talked with me about the show loved them.

Then we finished the night with a set of oldish songs from our rep. Kristin was a bit drunk and I was sober, which was a strange role reversal. Band played really well. And Dane Swan, a fantastic poet and one of my fav people in the world did three pieces with us:

The Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra with Dane Swan:

Escape Plan

But we didn’t get a good crowd out. Lost a bundle of money. I’m in a self-promotional funk. I like doing these shows at the Tranzac and I love being connected to all these great musicians who want to share the stage with us. But something’s got to change. Thinking that it’s coming time to move from doing ’songs’ to doing ‘projects’.

Been thinking about it a lot and making a plan – had some drinks with my friend The Happy Fish after the gig and talked through it. He suggested a brilliant concept for a show that I’m going to do in early summer.

I’m convinced: music is distinct from art. Doesn’t work the same way at all. A delightfully twisted classical pianist told me last month: “I’ve come to despise music”. Actually so have I now. If you examine the reality of how we make music here and now — how could you not? There’s something grotesquely wrong with every stage of the process.

Sidestep and move on to a better way of making something with the resources I’ve got, or drown in bile. Art must become more like jujitsu, using the culture’s momentum to turn it on its head. Keep on working like this and I’ll lose what I’ve got left. Which is plenty, thanks.

Some music from the show:

Recurrents
Bizarre Love Triangle
Driving Me Backwards

Our musical adaptation of The Torture Memos just found its way onto the San Francisco-based Fire John Yoo! Blog this morning.

Fire John Yoo? Yes – of course fire John Yoo. It’s outrageous that a criminal like Yoo goes on teaching law at Berkeley. This Aussie video captures the moral dissonance of the situation really well:

Good for the people behind the Fire John Yoo blog for keeping people aware of this totally unresolved issue.

Everything I hate about New Music in Toronto, with examples in the form of a critique of a recent Esprit Orchestra performance of R. Murray Schafer.

Listen to (or right-click to download) W.A.T.T. no.25

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This week’s What’s All This Then?! podcast features an interview with percussion/computer duo MiMo (Matt Miller and Samuel Morgenstein). Also this week’s concert highlights, and Guitar Drone does something shocking.

Listen to W.A.T.T. no.23

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Dear Friends and Colleagues in the Arts,

The Tranzac’s offered us their Wombat Wednesdays weekly series for March. Rather than put together a collection of bands for each night, we’d like to put together something more interesting and ambitious. And, if it appeals to you, you’re invited to participate. Here’s what we’re doing…

On three nights of the series we intend to present a program of collaborations:

- a concert of collaborations between dancers and musicians.
- a concert of collaborations between film/video artists and musicians.
- a concert of collaborations between spoken word performers and musicians.

Some of you have created cross-disciplinary work before and already have a project that fits into one of these programs; some of you are interested in working with people in other disciplines but haven’t made contact yet.

All of you are welcome! If you have something to perform already, or artists in other media that you have a working relationship with – please let me know you’re interested and we’ll set it up. And if you’d like to be involved but aren’t sure who to work with I’m happy to facilitate introducing you to a potential partner or group to collaborate with.

No limits on the nature of your contribution. This is an open invitation and however you choose to approach this work is fine. So I’m sending this invitation to artists working in the most varied styles: improv, classical, jazz, rock musicians; literary and slam poets; live video and concrete film artists. I think the result will be three really fascinating concerts that’ll show these artistic disciplines in all their colours, and bring together performers across disciplines in the process.

Let me know you’d like to be involved! The potential dates for the shows are March 3, 10, 24, and 31 and I’ll put each program on the date that’s most convenient for those involved. So let me know which dates you can do. And let me know if you want to be on the free agent collaborators list or if you’ve already got partners in mind. If you have any questions, send me an email (address below).

Also, please forward this invitation to let others know they’re invited to take part as well.

Looking forward to working with you,

Ben Mueller-Heaslip
The Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra
http://www.parkdalerevolutionaryorchestra.com
ben@parkdalerevolutionaryorchestra.com
647.435.9068

This week’s podcast we stop by Eve Egoyan’s performance with Tilman Lewis (cello) and Nilan Perera (guitar) at Somewhere there, then head to the Tranzac to hear John Farah and Atilla Fias on two pianos. Also: the guitar drone saga continues…

Listen to W.A.T.T. no.23

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Really nice show last night at the Tranzac. We tried out some new stuff and some old stuff in new ways. Thanks to everyone who made it out to see us play.

Here are a couple tracks that I really liked:
(you can download them by right-clicking on the title)

Sprawl (just the ending bit)

Medical Personnel Are On The Scene (from the Torture Memos)

The Squid Confronts the Enormity of its Squidividuality (from Cephalopodae)

Comet (wire cover)

Next gig’s on the 20th, also at the ‘Zac. See you then!

I just read a really clever interpretive listing of tonight’s show, and it got me thinking about wit and humour in journalistic writing. Particularly in Toronto’s weekly papers (Eye and Now magazines) humour and wit tend to be synonymous with a sort of sarcasm that I find repulsive. They’re typically used to establish the writer’s superiority in relation to the subject, to create detachment, and to justify degradation.

using humour = the subject doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously

Wit doesn’t have to be so ugly, or so cheap; and it’s a shame that it’s become so for a lot of writers. It can also be a playful form of appreciation:

MUSIC | Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra
The Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra is a sextet of talented musicians who are apparently trying to overthrow an unnamed government regime with re-arranged New Order songs and instrumentals about squids. If that sounds too bizarre to be enjoyable, the PRO is adept at bridging the gap between their progressive arrangements and an 80’s inspired pop sensibility and have earned heaps of positive reviews for their 2009 LP The Torture Memos. The group will play some new material tonight for those eager to hear where they’re headed next and they will also be selling squid hats.
The Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Ave., PWYC, 10 pm,

I like that. Have you ever thought how clever you’d have to be to take this piss out of a hyper-serious and humourless artist (like moi) without making light of the work itself or an ass of yourself? Pretty damn clever.

Apparently the talented writers of Toronto are working for BlogTO – who knew?

In this half of the interview I talk with bob about how some of the elements of musicianship he finds important have changed over his career and what’s remained consistant; about the advantages of collaboration; music morphing into multimedia; music industry garbage; film and theatre; touring; and the music that he admires.

Enjoy!

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Well: check this out.

This piece, by Tim Shia (of The Worst Pop Band Ever, and other groups) digs into this chasm – or pours salt into a chasmic open wound – in a very profound way. It’s about his experience playing at the Rex while a bunch of City Hall politicos and journalists were having a shmooze and cock fondle session. What went down was ugly:

Being the premier jazz club in the city, the players on the stage included Juno winners that have performed with everyone from Chantal Kreviazuk, Blue Rodeo and Wynton Marsalis, performing original music that’s been commissioned by The National Film Board, the Governor General Awards and even the UN. However, the assembled masses talked through the whole performance, commandeered the stage without a word to the band during the set break and about half the assembled party begrudgingly gave $2 or less in change when the tip jar went around to collect the pay-what- you-CAN cover . A few even disdainfully refused to pay (these journalists and politicians were obviously facing hard times despite their spiffy business suits and dresses). Oddly enough, those that weren’t there for the retirement party and were there for the music gave between $5 and $10, including an enthusiastic group of high school music students from Israel.

…a stupid son-of-a-bitch named David Nickle, who organized the boor party, followed up with an “apology” which is the most painful expression of clueless entitlement I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. You can check out this disgrace in the original post, as well as Shia’s obviously-through-clenched-teeth response.

What makes this piece so striking is the unbelievable restraint in Shia’s writing about this. There’s a lot of anger in it, but his reaction is so profoundly dignified and generous. I know I wouldn’t have anywhere near his self-control under these circumstances and I admire it – both for its basic decency and for how his intelligence, reason, and respect for others’ positions highlights the lack of those qualities in the people he was dealing with.

It’s a situation that everyone who cares about the arts has encountered often enough. But this time it was a group of people who’ve exercised a pretense of being “supporters of the arts” who were behaving like boorish assholes.

It’s sad, but is it surprising?

I don’t think so. And I want to explore this question a bit. I’m going to be discussing these concepts on a future What’s All This Then?! podcast:

1) What does the word “entertainment” mean in defining relationships in live settings. Think about it: “being entertained” is one of a lot of ways to describe an audience’s interaction with live performance. Some others are “entralled” “upset” “interested” “engaged” “bored” or “disgusted”. All those mean different things than “entertained”. Do you expect to be “entertained” by art?

2) Do the people and organizations that exercise influence over who/what/why/where/how art is presented have a moral interaction with artists? Does the fact that artists depend on their goodwill make that impossible? Are artists stupid and craven fuckers for accepting this situation?

3) Where does the question of economic and social class come into this?

4) What general qualities and influences shape the attitudes of the obnoxious bastards who show up at concerts with the tacit understanding that they’re the centre of the world?

5) How should artists react to these motherfuckers?

After I get the second half of my interview with Bob Wiseman up (should be tonight) I’ll get onto this podcast. It’ll probably be my first show with an iTunes “explicit” tag, so hide yer kids.

Comment here with your thoughts about this and it’ll help me shape that show.

And: Tim Shia – all props to you for how you responded to this.