BLESS THIS HOUSE AND ITS HEART SO SAVAGE Joanna Newsom w Ohbijou October 4, 2006 Mod Club Theatre
Joanna Newsom is one of those artists that polarize music listeners and critics alike. You either freakin’ love her or hate her, there doesn’t seem to be an in-between. The lovers of Ms. Newsom turned out last night for her sold-out debut Toronto performance at the Mod Club. Unusual choice for her, I think a venue such as The Music Gallery or St. Paul’s Trinity would have suited the show much better. Maybe they were too expensive or not available.
Brantford-raised, Toronto residents Ohbijou opened the show. Their take of twee, delicate pop music was a perfect compliment to Newsom. I can’t imagine a better local opening band. The band played tunes from their just released debut, Swift Feet For Troubling Times that is reminiscent of Broadcast, minus the robotic coldness with a little of Ida’s heart warmth and smiles mixed in. The strings and trumpet added excellent flare, and lead singer Casey Mecija’s voice is much stronger than I thought. The girl can sing. And she’s adorable. Needless to say, I think they totally won over the audience, except for the noisy bastards in the back.
Joanna hit the stage at 10:15pm to joyous applause. Immediately she launched into Bridges and Balloons from The Milk-Eyed Mender. During the song, it was evident that she wasn’t miked correctly; her voice was carrying through the mikes set up to capture her harp. Her vocals sounded a bit distant and muddy. When she finished the song, a sound guy rushed on stage to correct the placement. She explained that since it was her first Toronto appearance, she decided to play a set of new and old material. Second song was the stunning opening of Ys, Emily. Ys is very slick sounding, almost overproduced. As mentioned in an earlier post, Van Dyke Parks arranged and recorded strings for the album. Live, the new material sounds raw and striped down, which is closer to how her older material sounds. She played a bunch of songs that I really wanted to hear live, Sadie, Peach, Plum, Pear etc. I found that the older material was somewhat rushed, she sped up the songs (Mark didn’t like Sadie, said it was way to fast), which may be because she’s bored of playing them live. Over at stillepost, it was mentioned that she dropped parts of songs while playing old tunes (I didn’t notice). The new material was definitely the highlight of the night. Her set was just shy of an hour, which is understandable due to the fact that all she has to rely on his her hands and her voice. She mentioned that her hands were beginning to blister due to playing. It was surprising how fast her hands move across the harp and how intracite her music really is. An amazing show overall.
I took my camera, but didn’t get close enough to get decent pics. I did take video of her performance of The Book Of Right-On, which I will post shortly. For really great pictures, check Frank’s site. He must have been right up against the stage to get such amazing pictures.
Sucking A Lemon was also there and super close to the stage. Check her blog post here.
Read the Globe and Mail’s article on Ms. Newsom here.
Pitchfork has…ummm…had an article about her performance yesterday at Pop Montreal, but it’s gone. Will repost it when I find it again.
YouTube video of Joanna performing “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie” at the Mod Club. YouTube video of Joanna performing “The Book Of Right-On” at the Mod Club. YouTube video of Joanna performing “The Sprout and the Bean” on Jimmy Kimmel
UP ALL NIGHT Nuit Blanche September 30, 2006 Part 1.0 Note: Click on links to see the pictures I took over the course of the evening. Blogger is being a bitch and won’t upload them.
Last night a bunch of us got together for a night of contemporary art in the city. Mark and I met up with Ang, Melis, Melis and Raj at Yonge St. and Avenue Rd. at 8:30pm, right on Melis B’s schedule. She spent the afternoon drawing up an itinerary for the night, which was great cause no one else seemed to what to take the event by the reins and map out our route. Started in Zone A at 8:30pm. Started at Church of the Redeemer for Kelly Mark’s neon installation Hold That Thought. A large neon sign hung on the front of the church (see below). I liked that she chose the front of a church for the installation, it gives the installation another layer of meaning, bringing in the idea of the loss of religion in the modern world.
Walked north into Yorkville Village, stopped first at I Am Curious by Annette Mangaard and Ihor Holubizky. This was a DVD projection with live video camera feed interspersed of the crowd checking out the projection. The projection centered around hippie culture. Walked further down Yorkville Ave. to General Idea’s installation titled Pharmacopia, three huge inflatable vinyl blimps in the form of perscription pills. The installation was first created in Barcelona commenting directly on the AIDS pandemic. The choice of venue for this installation is actually quite interesting. In the write up in the guidebook on the piece, they explain that the installation was set up in close proximity to the original site of Mount Sinai Hospital. Hit the slowest Starbucks known to man next for some fuel, then down to the Royal Ontario Museum for Carlo Garaicoa’s exhibit. On the way we walked past the planetarium to check out Michael Snow’s Counting Sheep, a DVD projection onto the Planetarium’s roof. The video was of sheep’s grazing in a field. Garaicoa’s exhibit is one not to be missed, I believe it’s running until December and if you can check it out. It was uber-busy in the gallery, so I didn’t get a chance to spend as much time as I wish I could have, but what I did see I really enjoyed. His photos with thread and pins over top are brilliant. Headed out to Philosopher’s Walk to see Fujiko Nakaya’s Fog in Toronto#71624. This was the one thing I really wanted to see, and the one that ended up being my favourite. Artificially created water fog coated the entire area, fog lights were set up to cast interesting shadows and glares, and the trees created amazing sculptures. Incredible. Walked south through U of T’s campus to Hart House to see Dark Hart, two multi-media environment showcases by two different Toronto-based collectives. First up was Instant Coffee’s environment on the main floor that featured tons of artificial X-Mas trees, lawn chairs and televisions positioned like campfires and an igloo-structure with a floor that light up like a disco floor and a sauna furnace. It was retarded packed in the room so we didn’t stay long. We eventually found the second environment, downstairs (underground) in the pool area. FASTWURMS transformed the area into a movie theatre with trays of candles lining the sides of the pool. Clips from A Clockwork Orange were spliced with other video. We jaunted farther south making our way to Zone B. Stopped on the steps of some random building on Queen’s Park for snacks (oh, there were plenty), and shots of that tasty Greek booze that tastes like black licorice. Raj brought a large bag of 70% cocoa Lindt chocolates which Mark was grateful for, and Melis B. had a bunch of dried fruit. Hit House Lights at the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building designed by Norman Foster. There are two suspended “teaching pods’ that look as if their floating in the atrium of the building. Theatrical lights light up the pods. Very cool, made me think that if Apple product designers designed a building, it would look like this.
