I started out last night having dinner with a friend and catching Toronto band The Miles early, who were a catchy little start to the night, and then headed out to see Duchess Says and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.
I missed AIDS Wolf’s set, and I know a lot of people who like this band, but I also know a lot of people who feel the way I’ll summarize with the review a new friend gave me when I ran into him outside: “I last saw them when I was 13 and wasn’t really into it, so I wanted to see if I liked them any more seven years later, but they still sounded the same.”
Noise-dance group Duchess Says played Gus’s in 2006 or so (when they barely had a stage), and singer Annie-Claude Deschenes was dancing around through the audience, rolling on the floor and causing a general ruckus to about 30 people on a weeknight, as I recall. If you were there, picture that same performance from a stage in a big venue packed with people, and you’ll have the general idea: better sound and lighting, louder, exponentially bigger. She crowd-surfed her way around the room several times, dancing through the audience and winding her microphone crowd around peoples’ legs. They sounded awesome, and during the encore they invited the audience to climb up onto the stage and join them for a dance party, and Deschenes surfed through to the sound board and danced on top of it while the sound guy stood by with a worried look on his face. (He got a big hug for his troubles at the end.)
Lydia Lunch walked on stage and delivered quips like, “The fun stops here,” and, “You want pain, I’ll give it to you.” Teenage Jesus and the Jerks played a short, sweet set, with the crowd shoving each other around and Lunch rolling her eyes at the mosh pit and emphatically shoving a guy off stage. I love the sour stage demeanour. She’s like the Margaret Atwood of no-wave.
“There is no fucking encore,” Lunch snapped, packed up her things and walked offstage. A couple idiots took that as an invitation to chant “encore, encore,” but most people got it that that lady was serious.
I made my way up St-Laurent, Pop ground zero, where a few local musician friends and I attempted to get into a handful of oversold shows with no luck, so we headed up to the Espace Reunion, a weird little building that looks like an architecture firm or condo sales office inside (and possibly, it is) north past the train tracks and amidst a series of warehouses-cum-venues. On the bill were Sam Shalabi and the Egyptian Light Orchestra, and Anthony von Seck and the Exiles. Both were quasi-psychedelic orchestral-pop acts with ten members or more and some dancing; of the two, I enjoyed Anthony von Seck more.
I feel like I don’t entirely understand the indie-rock orchestra craze, like it was cool the first few times somebody added a trumpet and viola to their band, but now it’s a competition to see just how many people you can put on a stage using the word “orchestra,” “orchestre,” or “orkestar,” while still retaining your indie-rock cred and not turning into chamber music. I wasn’t familiar with Sam Shalabi, but apparently he’s been around the Montreal scene for a while playing experimental psychedelic, Indian- and middle eastern- influenced music. Half the crowd ended up lying on the floor on their backs with their eyes closed, and the music got drone-y and low-key. I felt like I was at a planetarium, except the ceiling had nothing but track lighting on it. There was one woman dancing on stage, and a girl doing some belly-dancing thing behind us who may or may not have had anything to do with the orchestra, as well as any number of people in flowing clothing shifting through the crowd. I’m also not sure how I feel about groups of mainly white hipster musicians playing middle eastern music. Shalabi’s website mentions a lot about free improv, so maybe the shows are a hit-or-miss kind of deal, maybe I was too overstimulated from the festival to get it.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.
hi-just to correct you-im egyptian and cant really comment on either your blindness(there was a few brown non-indie rock ‘hipsters’ in the group singing and playing ‘non-indie rock’ for you)or your implicit indie-middle brow racism-also,as someone who has seen played written non-indie rock middle eastern music for quite awhile-guess what:white,black,brown,pink blue people play middle eastern music even in the middle east god forbid-maybe you should tell murray from the dears to stop singing indie rock-or tell elfin saddle to call it quits and also that jewish guy-dan bejar-destroyer-shouldnt he be doing jewish cantor music?
sam shalabi
Yes, I also noticed the few brown non-indie rock– as you say, because I guess your band members’ skin colours define whether or not they’re indie rockers– musicians there— and that’s exactly how it appeared to me, a few people out of a large group. I wasn’t questioning your heritage, but I don’t think there should be anything implicitly wrong in questioning it when an interest in any particular form of non-western music is starting to appear as just a trend among young people with no particular connection to it, looking for trends to follow.
“Lydia Lunch is the Margaret Atwood of no-wave”
I want to get this tattooed on my ass. Great job, Laura.
i think what i find funny these days is how suddenly indie rock scribes like yourself have suddenly become experts on non-western music and have this bone-head attitude about ‘questioning’ ‘trends’-have you ever thought that what you see as a trend-i mean,you said you didnt know anything about my stuff-may be a something ive been doing for awhile-just because middle eastern music isnt on random rotation on your i pod,phone or whatever -its o.k to admit you dont know fuck all about a culture- but to wrap it up in this white smug cynical indie nation political twittered conservativism is just lazy and dumb-insult my music-say its shit-i could care less-but this new indie rock journalism of ‘look-i dont know a thing about other cultures and music-but i can critize it anyways because it isnt like my culture and my culture is the coolest’…is about as radical
smart and intersting as getting called a’paki’ by someone who writes for Vice magazine..it just sounds like the usual indie nation bitchy in -fighting-your review-you see a bunch of people doing something different and they suddenly become ‘hipsters’ while lydia lunch is the margaret atwood of no-wave(seems like an insult,but i digress)..i have 2 questions:when would be it ‘o.k’ for us ‘hipsters’ and brown people to be allowed to play arabic music and have it not be ‘trendy’?(i would imagine you a see a lot of trends everywhere)can you send me the list or form so we can fill it out before our next gig-
and
what do you know about middle-eastern music and identity?please tell me?complete me!
why i am responding to your review/because your review isnt about music-its part of this ‘trend'(a real one too!)of indie rock journalists who know very little about something except what they glean from wikipedia or pitchforkmedia suddenly deciding whats proper for other forms of art and culture they know nothing about and slapping it together pretending its factual-for instance-there was no one dancing on stage-there were women singing-i have no idea what your talking about a belly dancer-the reason im writing is because im sick of this boorish,white-smug banality dolling itself up and hiding in in indie rock journalism..
sam shalabi
Sam Shalabi likes adjectives! I learned something today.
i was at that show and i could not imagine a more unenlightened review of it than this.
i was also at the show until the end, something i doubt mz. kenins bothered to wait around for.
mr. shalabi’s response, namely that mz. kenins “[doesn’t] know a thing about other cultures and music but … can critize it anyways” should be taken as a strong comment by the editors and publishers of The Coast, and a stern reminder of their responsibilities as gatekeepers. i hope mz. kenins piece is not indicative of the overall quality of The Coast