Indie Cage Match: The Apostle of Hustle vs. Kings of Convenience

Welcome to my first “post-introductory blog” blog.

This is where it all REALLY begins. This is where the rubber hits the road, where the spit hits the pavement, where the grapefruit falls on the floor (I made those last two up. If you like them, please let me know so I can copyright them, and claim royalties off them every time you say either term). Remember that blog I wrote where I told you about who I was, my background, my lack of credentials? Well, that didn’t count. That was like a test drive, nothing more than the preamble to all future bloggage.

And so….it begins.

Oh yes, one note before you proceed: I don’t take notes of any kind when I go see live concerts. I may SOMEDAY, but for now, I am going entirely by memory. Forgive me if you have a slightly (or drastically) different account of the events of a particular show. My electronic scribblings are mere opinion and conjecture.

This past weekend and pre-weekend allowed me to catch a couple of your average buzz bands. One’s a local act, currently expanding his fan base in pockets across North America (judging by the fact that he’s playing a bunch of shows in select cities across the continent and not just smaller towns in southwestern Ontario). The other was a frail-looking Norwegian duo, massive in indie circles in parts of Europe, which had a sold-out Lee’s Palace listening and looking on in absolute silence. When was the last time you saw THAT? I’ll discuss that one first.

I heard about the Kings of Convenience from a coworker who is from the UK. He recommended a bunch of music which I ended up buying and getting into. In lieu of a KoC disc being non-existent at all the used CD shops I frequent, and extremely pricey at the unused CD shops, I chose to download some of their live stuff, foregoing their studio sound for the quick, dirty, and cheap fix. On record, the KoC apparently have a pretty full sound, complete with all kinds of cool electronic effects and instrumentation. The live stuff I downloaded was just a couple of guys playing acoustic guitars without any accompaniment from anything.

I got to the show JUST as it was starting. I found my coworker friend and his crew and proceeded to join the crowd soaking up – the total silence. Well, not exactly. These guys were playing, but everything was oh, so hush. All you could hear was the cha-chinging of cash registers every time someone bought a beer. It was quite remarkable to both hear and see this scene, at a venue more often than not known for shows of a more raucous nature. We were reminded of this fact twice during the show by Erlend Øye, one-half of this duo, who looks like a bizarre blend of Bill Gates, Napoleon Dynamite, and Kate Moss. The guy is anywhere from 5’9” to 6’1” in height, and anywhere from 120-150lbs. He also wears these HUGE glasses, which are just too unhip to be considered hip in any way. He was also battling a flu bug or cold, and had to leave the stage several times. We were reminded of this several times as well by both him and his partner.

As far as the music goes, I do respect what these guys do. They are sort of a like Norwegian SimØn and GarfÜnkel. They both play acoustic guitar, and at times, Erland will hop behind a keyboard that sits on stage. The harmonies are layered and there is a subtle beauty to the combination of their well-matched voices with the dual acoustic guitars. But in all honesty, it’s just not my thing. It COULD be though. I have nothing against acoustic music or ambient settings, but I just don’t find their melodies to be memorable enough. After a while, they all sort of sound the same. People did seem to really enjoy this show, as evidenced by remarks heard after the show, even though the show was very short – around 1:15 in total. I’m glad I went though. It’s not every day you get to see a show in an intimate venue where the number of complaints by the performers outnumbered the songs that left a huge impression on me.
The next night, a friend of mine was given two tickets to see The Apostle of Hustle at the Drake. He had never heard of them, but was willing to go. I’ve been a Broken Social Scene fan for about a year and a half now, and have been tempted to pick up The Apostle (fronted by BSS member Andrew Whiteman)’s CD. Unfortunately, like many things I am tempted to do that involves nothing more than a whimsical curiosity, I didn’t (I’m usually cheap when it comes to whimsical curiosities). But a FREE show – now there are some stars lining up!

The scene at the Drake had the usual hipster vibe going on. A little younger scene than I would have expected for an act like this, but an interesting crowd nonetheless.

When we walked in, there was a scruffy, solo performer onstage with nothing more than his electric guitar. I wasn’t sure if this was Whiteman, or some opening act (what do *I* know???!?!?). The bartender told me that it was indeed the opener. I always felt that, in the words of Toronto Raptors play-by-play man Chuck Swirsky, it takes “a lot of onions” to win a crowd with nothing more than your own songs, voice, and electric guitar. There’s nowhere to hide if things don’t go well or if you’re having an off-night. You have to push through, and there’s NO support from bandmates. I dug his stuff, and would be up for checking him out again. Turns out, he was Peter Elkas, who’s been around for some time now, having been a member of Montreal act the Local Rabbits. Good stuff Pete.

Scene aside, this was an excellent performance. I’m not really even sure how to describe their sound: Sort of like carefully-crafted indie guitar rock meets Latin vibes. This was evident by the Spanish lyrics of the opening tune, and by the female keyboardist/egg shaker/background vocalist moving to the forefront of the stage to do a spirited Flamenco dance. It was definitely unique.

They kept things fresh and interesting by constantly revolving the on-stage lineup. At times, there were as many as eight musicians up on stage. The other thing that raised an eyebrow or two (ok, maybe only mine was raised) was the fact that quite often, songs were played without a bass guitar. You know a band is doing something right when you can’t even notice the absence of the bass guitar.

The intense drumming, the dense, reverberating guitar tone & riffs, and the brilliance of the horns, all displayed a level of intensity that I hadn’t seen from a band in a while. Of course, I don’t go to see as many concerts as I used to. But still – these guys (and girl) wowed me. As noted by my friend, they displayed a great deal of both onstage and overall musical creativity.
At one point during the show – I even saw a familiar face – it was Erland from KoC (come to think of it – how many other Erlands have I mentioned in this blog???). He was floating around, soaking it all in, looking pretty odd and introverted all the while. His appearance kind of made sense – KoC have recorded with quasi-BSS member Feist…you can figure out the connection from here. I also heard some other members of BSS were in the crowd. I’m honestly not great with faces, even though I have seen BSS live twice now.

So, yeah, fantastic show, not a bad thing about the evening. When I got back to my car (parked in the street) at 2am, I had a $30 parking ticket under my windshield. Oh well. You gotta take the bad with the good.

Step out of the pool....I'm diving into the body of water known as....BLOG!

Welcome to my first ever Blog.

After not getting it for a while, I think I understand what this whole blogging phenomenon is about, and more importantly, why people have bought into it.

Mind you, it’s sort of like Spinal Tap or professional wresting – either you get it, or you don’t.

So, the way it worked for me, was that one day I had no clue what blogging was, who exactly was blogging, and what stupidly-named internet-based trend was going to pop up next. The next day, some fluroescent light in my brain turns on, and I’m thinking: “where can I go to do MY blog? Y’know – where I can openly express my opinions, exagerrate the levels of excitement in my life, vent my frustrations, and laud my…errr…….Let me rephrase that: where others may read it and enjoy it…”…and thus, I got it. Sounds pretty cool to me.

The question then shifted from my blogging affirmation, to: “what the hell am I going to write about?”. No one is really interested about my stories about life at a major global software company. I mean, the backstabbing, the politics, and the lack of hot chicks working there isn't everyone's thing. Tales of guilt and days of Passover past from my stereotypically semitic parents? Wait – actually, some of those stories are GREAT….but I can admit they’re not for everyone. I mean – I don’t care about YOUR job or YOUR parents. Wait – that’s not true. I’ve heard some very amusing career and parent stories. However, they all involve jobs and parents pretty similar to mine.

Come to think of it, more people would probably interested in reading my thoughts and opinions with respect to popular music, which is pretty absurd, considering not much of the music I enjoy is TOO popular. However, my goal is to not come off like some pretentious rock critic who's bitter that other people like stuff that's on the radio or who thinks he's some sort of higher life form because he was there when Death Cab For Cutie made their Toronto debut. I'm always reading stuff, checking stuff out that sounds like it may appeal to me, and then I just form opinions that interest the hell out of myself. If you're into my opinions too, then all the better.

Here’s the type of music fan I am: Wise enough to know that the best music being made today isn’t on the radio, yet unhip enough to read about it only once it makes it to SPIN or even HARP; watches a few documentaries on rock and roll history on PBS; the occasional Rolling Stone magazine; knows who Lester Bangs IS, but never actually knowingly read his stuff; reads most of the stuff that the local weekly “alternative” rag writes about. In other words, I have credibility among some, but a square to others; knowledgeable enough to avoid the condescending slurs from the guy who runs the used CD store, but not credible enough to work there according to that same guy.

Then again, I don’t really have to apologize for this. I have a demanding career which limits my time (thus preventing me from going to “indie night” at some urban downtown bar), no friends who are really into discovering new music on a regular basis, and parents who wanted me to conform to the norms during my formative years. I think my friends growing up were all raised by similar parents. Whatever – it’s the way things were. No sense in dwelling on it.
Apparantly, people in my peer group that I meet seem to think that I “know” more about music than they do. I don’t know if I actually “know” more about music than they do, but I guess I have a greater desire to hear good music and good music which is fresh. Well, fresh to my ears anyway. It’s all relative.

So, I’m at that point where if I continue to write, no one will ever check out my second blog.
So, in summary, I plan on using this blog to write down primarily some thoughts on music. I may want to write about a new CD I recently acquired, or a CD I already own. I may draft something on a live show I saw or perhaps a concert video/DVD I watched. Another possibility is the phenomenon behind various groups or artists. Lastly, if I ain’t got nothing to say about music, I’ll just revert to old faithful: stories about life at a major global software company and my Jewish parents.

Here’s hoping I haven’t scared you off….