A Single Random Musical Observation, or "What I Would Do if I Could Time-Travel"

There are many shows in history that I would love to see if I could time-travel. Some predate my being born, such as the Who's live shows in 1971 (when they were using live shows to work on the material for Who's Next, the greatest straight-up rock'n'roll album ever, something others agree with); others, like Sonic Youth's 1988 Daydream Nation tour, occurred before I was old enough to go to shows (or even buy many cassettes, and those I could afford, well....the tastes of an 8-year-old are not the most refined). I'm sure we all have shows like that, that we wish we could warp the space-time continuum to witness live.

However, if there's one show I could probably go back and see, it would be when I was about to graduate high school. As I was taking my final exams for graduation, and Toronto was a 9-hour drive from where I lived, there was absolutely no way I could make it to see Spiritualize play live. At the time, they were riding high on what is unquestionably their best album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, and the live album from that time period demonstrates that actually seeing them live would have constituted a major religious experience. I absolutely adored (and still adore) that album. It was the second-most-frequently played album I listened to at that time. The only one I was listening to more was OK Computer.

The kicker? Spiritualized, on the Ladies and Gentlemen tour, was the opening band of that concert back in spring 1998. The main act?

Radiohead. On the OK Computer tour.

If there were a time-machine, forget about going back and killing Hitler, or talking Johnson out of getting involved in Vietnam, or anything else. I'm going to that show in Toronto in April 1998.

Concert Review: Wolfgang Voigt, "Gas"

Last Friday, I had the incredible opportunity go see Wolfgang Voigt performing for the first time ever in the U.S. some of the work he composed as Gas (finally re-released as a box set last year), at Columbia University's Miller Theater (where I saw Xenakis' Oresteia last year), with Toronto's 7-piece Contact Ensemble performing Brian Eno's Discreet Music beforehand. The work the Ensemble did was wonderful, from a technical viewpoint, and I marvelled at their ability to know exactly what to do, when. It was something I should have unconditionally enjoyed. However, it turns out, Discreet Music really works best when you're at home by yourself, just lying around listening to music, or when it's on your headphones while you're working. In a relatively spacious live setting, it is beautiful, and I recognized it as such from an intellectual standpoint, but it just didn't hit me at the emotional level it usually does, and that I would have liked. And this was absolutely not the fault of the Ensemble - as I said, technically, what they did was amazing. I think the shortcomings are really more based on my preferences and tastes, and that's fine.

After an intermission, Voigt began to perform. Now, there isn't much exciting about watching a guy stand at a laptop for an hour and 40 minutes, so this could have been horrible. Fortunately, his music was accompanied by video artist Petra Hollenbach's manipulation of images of trees Voigt himself had taken (many resembling the art from the Nah und Fern box set). Voigt played selections from the four discs of Gas (Gas, Konigsforst, Zauberberg, and Pop), while numerous colors, patterns, and manipulations of the images floated across the screen. It sounds like something that could only work if you'd dropped acid, but even without acid, it was still amazing, and the hypnotic images went along with the songs perfectly. It should have been one of the best shows I'd seen in a long time.

Unfortunately (and this may seem a strange complaint for a show like this)....it never got loud enough. I don't know if it was the acoustics of the theater, or fear that the lower end of the songs would destroy the speakers, but a show like that really should have bass that rattles your chest for an hour and a half, and all the registers just surround you. Otherwise, the music can't envelope you they way it should, and music like that absolutely has to hit you that way to really be successful. Yet only at the very end of the final song of the 10 or 11 songs (I lost count) that he performed did it ever even begin to reach those levels, in what was definitely the highlight of the show, a swirling, panicked, increasingly violent yet beatless ambience that crescendoed to its climax. While I had enjoyed hearing the music in a live and collective setting, it was really only in the last 5 minutes or so that the show reached the levels I had expected for the full 100 minutes, and that was a major disappointment.

Again, it may not have been Voigt's fault, and it may have been - I have no real way of knowing. And to be clear, the show was still really, really good, especially being able to see something like that, and Hollenbach's visual component was visually stunning. Still, I left thinking all it could have been, if it only had just been a little louder.

Minx Burlesque

Last week, I had my first ever experience with a burlesque show. I had actually been under the impression that I was going to see The Gourds (that is tonight), but found out just before I left that this was not the case. Still in the mood for a show, I elected to go. I'm so glad I did. While I certainly wouldn't say that the show was suitable for all ages, it was not some kind of seedy strip act (okay, maybe it was a little seedy). It was a vaudville like I've never seen up in person.

The show opened with a punk band called Christian Teenage Runaway, one of the best band names I've heard in some time, who reminded me a lot of the old Riot Grrrl acts like Bikini Kill and Eugene's own Bratmobile. They weren't the greatest band in the world, but they were playing their hearts out and piercing the ears of the audience. One thing I found hilarious was about the drummer, who was very small, played in a bra and hose, and sported a "Thug Life" tattoo on her stomach (unfortunately, I wasn't able to get close enough to her to see if it was real...I sure hope it was). They were a great opening to a great night.

When the actual burlesque act began, I guess I didn't know what to expect, but they came with everything. The emcee, a woman in convincing drag, walked on stage with all the bad jokes one could stand, they had the requisite strip-tease to old dirty blues songs, a tap act, silent movie skits (including the classic girl tied to the railroad tracks bit), a stand up comic, baudy Valentine's Day gift ideas. I really appreciated that the girls were of all shapes and sizes and their performing was dependant upon their talent instead of their looks. Everybody, on stage and off, looked to be having a great time. There's nothing wrong with a little self-exploitation now and again. Fun as unexpected as this doesn't come around too often.

The most interesting question of the night, however, came from a friend of mine I happened to meet there. We had all heard about it fairly suddenly; there was no advertisement, the only way anybody knew it existed was by papering the streets, and very little at that. For only five bucks, to boot. Her question: how is this so far underground and strip clubs are so far above ground?