Decision-making when on vacation

Harpers or the New Yorker. Or People. Beach now, or later. Fried clams or fried scallops. Fries or salad. Red or white wine. Sleep in or get up. Breakfast or brunch. Exercise or lie down. Sunscreen 40 or 30. Bikini or tankini. Coke or Pepsi. Or water. Toenails pink or red. Blog or no blog. Bob Dylan or Rolling Stones. Or Neil Young. Strawberries or raspberries. Chocolate coconut cake or berries and cream.

Five life lessons learned in the last week

1) Trying to get insurance companies to cooperate with you is challenging when you are homeless.
2) Getting your cat a root canal or yanking out your cat's tooth costs exactly the same.
3) Getting your cat's tooth yanked out costs more than getting one of your own teeth yanked out.
4) Paying others to clean after you have vacated your place is money well spent.
5) Carrying your old heavy CPU down narrow basement steps with no railing when you are a little bit drunk is a very bad idea.

Bluesfest. Done. Like Dinner.

Stick a fork in us. We're overdone. Like Mom's trademark Sunday dinner. You want anarchy, Short Guy? Try this: by the last day of our big blues binge, the sound reinforcement professionals twisting the little coloured dials on the multiplicity of mixing boards strewn across the site were pretty much all deaf, and their therapeutic remedy as a cohort was to CRANK IT UP REAL LOUD ALL OVER... Oy.






Our frenetic sprint through the finale of Ottawa Bluesfest had highlights: witness the big, blazing Detroit Women ensemble, preceded on the Rogers by vivacious economy-sized former pornstar Candye Kane's very credible barrelhouse blues -- and the sudden huge thundering (all-male) herd of 'official' shooters aiming real big, long telephoto lenses up her feathered and spangled mini....

But before the tail-end of it, the Independent Observer and I were both ready for it to be over. We took in Sam Roberts' superior power-pop, then surveyed our options for the big windup. Solid Gold Dance Party, featuring some twisted remnant of the Village People on the Main Stage? Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings on the Blacksheep? Alexisonfire on the River?

Nah. Done. With all due respect to their brilliance - and we're huge Dap-King and Alexis fans - we'd hit the very tippy edge our human and canine limits. We called Aggie's Big American Taxi Service and whisked off to a quiet debriefing. Well outta earshot...

Pix, From top, l-r: About a quarter of the Detroit Women; Candye Kane; Standup blues: Mannish Boys' sharp dressed bassist, Tom Leavey; Horn shots: King Sunshine; Full-bore swamp funk from the Chief Thunder Chicken: Papa Mali; Romeo goes electric: Steve Forbert; Authentically grizzled blues wheelman Watermelon Slim (left) with one of his Workers; Sam Roberts hitting the crowd with well-crafted tunes; After all the hoo-hah, ya didn't think we'd forget the chair contingent, didja? Check out this li'l hummer -- Comes with its own built-in sunshade; And finally, from the HiloTrons' hot-boppin' afternoon stage show: definitely not your average gogo dancer....

Wondering about the Anarchists

Have you noticed that the anarchists are recruiting? I've been meaning to go to one of their meetings to see if they plan to do anything about the Irish conspiriacy. I imagine that like any group, the Anarchists have their difficulties, but you can see that back in April they were ready to deal with them face on:

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the problems with anarchist organizing in Ottawa and attempt to come up with concrete proposals on how to organize better both within and between our groups.

I'd like to see a copy of the flip chart paper from that meeting. My guess is that it looked something like this:

Key Problems

• We're all freaking anarchists
• ...
  

Stringin' the blues

A strange brew of sounds Saturday as Bluesfest wailed into its final weekend. Conch Shell and Painted Stick were flatly unimpressed with the usually engaging Danny Michel.

DJ Champion & His G-Strings win the award for Kindergarten Teacher's Worst Nightmare. They had ADD-fuelled energy to burn and actually sounded pretty good if you closed your eyes. (It's impossible to actually hear them with your eyes open because just trying to watch them bounce, jump and flail around takes all of your faculties.)



The Deadstring Brothers filled the high, dry Barney Danson theatre with a rockin' good vibe, kinda like Wilco channelling the Stones with a touch of the Band's Garth Hudson thrown in. Classic Hammond organ and steel guitar make these folks a must-see for anyone visiting their hometown of Detroit. Only problem is their name: they are neither dead, nor stringy. And they have a purty gal sharing vocal duties, so they ain't all brothers. Coyote and I were impressed.

One had to feel sorry for Da'truth, servicing a small crowd of musical faithful on the Black Sheep Stage. His rap-rant about cable companies that hawk porn had enough fire and brimstone but could've used some good beats to juice it up. Amen. Enough said.

On the big stage, meanwhile, Kanye West preached to a much bigger posse, but his enthusiasm couldn't hold off the rain.

Looks like Bluesfest is in for a soggy conclusion. But it could be worse. In days gone by, in the pre-wine tent era, the combination of Bluesfest, LeBreton Flats and rain meant one thing: mud.

Words: The Independent Observer. Photos: coyote. All the blurriness is an effect, people, honest! Not shakiness from increasing exhaustion... or all that Ritalin we took in a futile attempt to keep up with the G-Strings...
Photos, top to bottom: Some of the G-Strings; Vocalist Masha Marjieh of Deadstring Bros; (do you sense a theme?); and Da'truth, rappin' righteously.

Tangled up in blues

Friday was a night for big stages. And there shoulda been more. The day's Bluesfest schedule was so highly ambitious, there really was not room for it all.

Audrey, Ottawa's biggest pop fan, insisted that INXS, on the MBNA, was the act to see, and the IO, Conch, and Painted Stick were mere tails in the wake of her irresistable comet. INXS had crisp sound, crisp playing, crisp packaging -- consumate pros. Singer JD Fortune is still growing into his new role (Duuude! Stop asking the crowd if they're having a good time! They are. And the near-constant F-bomb? Adds little if anything to your street cred. You can sing, already.) but he and the band know what they're doing.

Earlier, on the Rogers, some of us enjoyed Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, music jazzily elastic, undefinable, wierd, lovely and utterly compelling. And better than her discs. Live, you can see the musical gestalt and feel Edie. She talked about finding the end of a double rainbow in Central Park, one day with her kids. Presumably her husband, Paul Simon (Yes, that Paul Simon) was there as well. They didn't find any gold, but what the hey. They've both got gold records.

The indy hipsters probably wished their preferred acts had gotten bigger stages -- the vast crowd for breathless Newmarket power-post-pop-punk band Tokyo Police Club gridlocked the Black Sheep venue completely, then kept coming. They didn't quite flatten a security guard that vainly tried to stop them during the mob scene at the gate. But the indy hipster crowd is very good at giving rent-a-cops the collective "Huh? You mean moi?" look, and keeping right on going. Great band, terrific fast tunes, fully worthy of the buzz. Then hipsters moved on to a similarly packed scene at the River Stage to watch local alt-conceptual darlings, Metric. And probably hold their breaths some more.

Dinosaur rockers were also out in full force, spilling in to the Black Sheep for a reconstituted Ten Years After as hipsters fled in droves. Coyote ventured there briefly, despite Audrey's strong persuasive powers, but soon evacuated, pointy ears near bleeding from the sound pressure. When last seen, he was holding his head in his paws and (very quietly) yowling, 'Now I know what killed all the dinosaurs to extinctedness...'

Photos, Top(ish) to bottom(ish): Edie Brickell channels Steve Tyler - in a good way; INXS and JD Fortune cop major rawk star attitude; Tokyo Police Club bassist and singer David Monks; Ten Years After bassist Leo Lyons and 'new' guitarist/vocalist Joe Gooch, amid lotsa smoke and lights and noise.

Rainin' nothin' but the blues

The amazing thing about the blues -- and all wistful, gut-wrenching music, for that matter -- is it ends up making you feel not sad, but just right. And Thursday night was a fine example of how some wailing licks and plaintive vocal tricks can help it all shake down.

Blue Rodeo reminded everyone why they're Canada's Poster Band. By turns playful, sentimental and darkly soulful, they held the crowd fully in sway during their varied set. A few new tunes, due out this fall, added spark and surprise to a welcome roster of familiar numbers.

Who else can tunefully compare a broken relationship to an iceberg adrift at sea? Hell, they ain't got no icebergs in Texas, so stop lookin' there.

Coyote, who captured several more ace images at all four stages, summed up Blue Rodeo nicely: "Reliably excellent."

Lucky Peterson and wife Tamara revved things up on the River Stage (hey, you can actually see the river before sunset), with a rollicking, borderline campy but greatly inspiring run through classics including Proud Mary. I haven't seen a crowd having more fun in a long time.


















Throw in some new sounds from Michael Nau and his band Page France, a dose of the Strong Persuader himself, Robert Cray, plus rain, rain that stayed away another day, and you've logged another worthy notch on that guitar indeed.

Cryin' the Blues about Chairs

Well, I do find it amusing how the Bluesfest just couldn't figure out how to manage the "chair" problem. So now it's back to the free-for-all mayhem that we've become accustomed to. We might have a new opportunity. Now that Mayor Lex and his posse have stopped funding the crack pipe program, maybe they can divert the saved funds for umpire chairs to distribute to those "standingly-challenged" Blues-festers.

A New Piece on Swabbin' th' Deck

I've a new Google Poem over on my other other blog.

Northern-fried blues

Take Yoko Ono on a bad crack jag, the possessed chick in The Exorcist and one of them sea lions from the San Francisco pier and you've got a rough sense of the sound Tanya "Tagaq" Gillis gave birth to on the Bete Noir stage Wednesday night.

Part Cambridge Bay ingenue, part grand mal seizure, Tagaq held onlookers spellbound with the help of her DJ partner's Apple notebook-created soundscapes. In the delightfully harrowing process, she dragged Inuit throat singing -- screaming, groaning and ululating -- into the 21st century.

When a couple of beatbox homeboys joined her on stage, she taunted one with: "You better be good, or I'm going to hurt you."

And when her voice jammed up, she quipped: "Throat singing doesn't work when you've got a ball of phlegm in your throat. You need water -- or whiskey."

The highlight was an extended duet with her cousin Celina Kalluk that showcased their northern hypno-trance to mesmerizing effect.

A night earlier, Alejandro Escovedo dedicated a song to Joe Strummer on the same stage. Joe would've approved of Tagaq.

Busy, bluesy...

Uh, yeah, really busy last night. Clockwise from top left: local hero John Allaire; 'just another' Tex-Mex band from East LA, aka Los Lobos; legendary Texas 'folk-blues-classicist-unclassifiable-incredible' Alejandro Escovedo, with half of his completely rocking string section; and the incomparably wry and funny observational folkie, Todd Snider.

The Independent Observer, Aggie and I also stumbled across a Motley Assortment Of Random Friends trekking through Randy Newman and George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars as we migrated from stage to stage. Reviews of Newman were polarized; the Motleys were uniformly high on him, but the IO (we don't call him "Independent" for nuthin') suggested that watching him was like entering the Eighth Circle of Hell. P-Funk fascinated us all: Diaper Guy, Feather Pants Guy and Neon Rasta Guy (George?), physiques showing a full range of buff-ness and seminudity, leaning toward large bellies, drew us to the Jumbotron like rubberneckers to a trainwreck. The musical funk was fun, though.

In further fashion news, Aggie was smashing in her new metallic Bermudas! Eat your heart out, Short Guy! You could have had all this and more, instead of getting dazed and confused in Rockliffe...

Wedding Tips

Rather than get annoyed by people smoking cigars and standing in front of my chairs at the Blues Festival, I went to some weddings this past weekend. Lovely affairs, they were, but I have thoughts on how things could be more efficient:

• The Rockcliffe Park Gazebo is a beautiful place for a wedding ceremony, but if you want the Fourth Dwarf to actually get there and not wander around Rockcliffe for an hour and a half, have your wedding in a facility that is served by a bus route.


• If the 3-year-old son of the bride and groom couldn't manage to keep his clothing on during the rehearsal dinner, it is probably a bad idea to give him a baseball bat and ball to play with during the reception.


• You may not really need a photo of the bride and groom with every possible permutation and combination of the wedding guests. But once you have every possible photo shot at the wedding site, you definitely do not need to go to a public garden to get more photos.


• If you're inviting the Fourth Dwarf and he's going to be wandering Rockcliffe for an hour and a half, do not have an open bar.
  

Blisterin' Blooz

Ottawa loves Buddy Guy, and Buddy Guy loves Ottawa right back. Guy is gettin' up there - he's alleged to have taught Hendrix & Clapton a thing or three - but as the saying goes, "Age and guile beat youth and speed every time". Specially when the old guy can still (selectively) play about six times faster than any of the hot young gunslingers in his band. He pretty much blistered the Tolex right off the amps and stacks. And if his playing hadn't, his patter surely would have. In addition to being the kind of soulful gutbucket blues player you won't hear every month, Guy is a veritable poet laureate of the profane anglosaxon monosyllable. I think his first word onstage was "Shit". I stand in dropjawed awe and admiration.

And speakin' of profanity, I have this to say to that ovine herd of smirking Junior Chamber of Commerce fuckwits who decided to celebrate their coming inheritance of society by firing up large stogies in the midst of a packed and gridlocked crowd, gassing about an acre of 'em just before the music started: You're inconsiderate, foul, (ob)noxious jerks. And your Stepford wives and girlfriends, who giggled at how cute you all looked, suckin' on reeking replacement dicks? Uglier'n bucketsful of smashed assholes. Every last one of 'em. Ummm, I think that pretty much covers it....

Woulda liked to have seen that orgy...

Sunday Bluesfest was joyous noise; musical hipsters and poseurs Dame Aggie, her visiting friend Lady Penelope, the Dishevelled Waiter, and I decided that all four hairdo-matched members of Spiral Beach (vocalist/keyboardist Maddy Wilde, top left; vocalist/guitarist Airick Woodhead, centre) were love-children spawned after a messy orgy attended by Devo, Blondie, Talking Heads and the B-52s sometime in the very late 80s. In other words, the kind of self-referential wankers we totally appreciate. An exercise in total 'tude, backed more than enough muscial skill to make it work. They were a hoot!

Ruthie Foster (top right) sang joyously infectious gospel/reggae-tinged Texas blues -- the Barney Danson theatre's seating section was totally bouncin'. She was my personal favourite for the day...

Halifax songwriter/rocker Joel Plaskett (bottom left) played a rare solo acoustic 12-string version ("This thing's a little off -- but fat chance I'm gonna tune it now") of one of his electric tunes, Fashionable People, in the same theatre, then headed straight out to the Rogers Stage to crank it up with his amplified band, The Emergency. It was all about intelligent wry, sly lyrics, not taken too seriously, with musicianship that is.

And the Independent Observer and the Amazon sent in late reports confirming that the night's headliner, White Stripes, were big crunchy fun. And hey: it didn't rain!

A break from big egos (but not big talent)

Luke Doucet seems to see Bluesfest as a family affair; his wife, Melissa McClelland, a formidable solo performer in her own right, plays rhythm guitar and tips in ethereal Emmylou Harris-style backups; last year, his 10-year-old daughter, Chloe, tore up the stage with a couple of big-voiced barn-burners; this year, his Dad, Roland, came over from his Gatineau hometown with a Telecaster to trade crunching lead licks. And after the first two nights of watching some reeeelly big names in the biz pretty much ignore their audiences and make speedy getaways in blacked-out limos, it was refreshing to see a righteous guy who shows a self-deprecating wit onstage, plays and sings like hell, and happily hits the lobby right after the show to mingle with fans. Great concert, great night...

21st Century Blues

Uh, yeah, makes perfect sense. Why watch kickass blues live, onstage, right in front of you, when you can see the same thing on a really, really tiny screen...?

Dogbloggit

Where were the Irregulars last night? Coulda been an emergency meeting. Coulda been a stamp club meeting. Coulda been Moondancing....

And I realize the dog is getting all piggy about posts lately. To my fellow ESIs , I say this: I'm gettin' tired. C'mon, YA SLACKER WIMPS!!!! ENOUGH WITH THE CHEAP, SELF-SERVING EXCUSES ALREADY!

ESI: The Sock Puppet Movie

Anybody who dips into this chaotic little opus semi-regularly will remember that we've often referred to ESI: The Sock Puppet Movie as 'stalled in development'. So often, in fact, that we were thinking of renaming it that.

We haven't given up, but it's been hell, people. HELL! Stealing Audrey's favourite pink socks for cast costumes. Persuading Conch Shell to rewrite the umpteenth screen treatment. Hiring and firing script writers left, right and center. Trying to line up backers with actual money. Focussing the Independent Don Cherry Observer's lenses on a non-hockey topic. Setting up screen tests. Preventin' the Chair from taking advantage of the Casting Couch. Pryin' Aggie off Facebook, yet again. Gettin' a director's beret... stealin' it back from the Dwarf... cuttin' holes in it so my ears would fit. Doin' lunch 'till it's coming out of our ears. Explaining to Harmony that the mauled cat is lunch, then buying Gravol for her, earplugs for me, and grape Kool-Aid for the Canada Geese. It goes on and on.

Few investors out there seemed for awhile to want to drop their mad-money on the production values that this piece of cinema verite so richly deserves. Yet, perversely, we've had to beat off Brad & Angelina, Jen & Ben, Cameron & Drew, Tom & Katie, Ashton & Demi and even frickin' Paris -- and all of their agents, for gawdsakes-- when it leaked out that we were casting character voices.

Nevertheless! Rising from the chaos! At last! A very-high-quality test clip, based on the never-before-told, unexpurgated story of our adventures in the Caribbean! Only now, can we finally begin to tell you what really happened that night on the fateful three-hour cruise! The dark and lonely lost months afterward! The climb back to bloggy goodness on Elgin Street! Everybody's talking about it! The summer blockbuster of 2007! You can't afford to not to see this! Roger Ebert gives it four paws, straight up, and he hasn't even watched it yet!




('Kay, kiss-kiss mmmmm-wah! You look fabulous! Terrific Botox work! Love ya! Have your people call my people, and we'll do lunch at Hollywood's Number One restaurant sometime. I'll bring my own cat...)

You don't look a day over 140...