Toronto – Most people from Hong Kong are usually fashionably late. This is now my excuse for not discovering twee/indie pop outfit Allo Darlin until around now. I’m just fashionably late.
Allo Darlin is a London based band featuring the singing talents of Australia’s Elizabeth Morris. Call it a Commonwealth connection. They released a self-titled album last year that was well received by everyone. With a lovely blend of ’60s inspired folk pop sound and a summery disposition, Allo Darlin seems primed for some listening in these next couple months. Check out this track called “Kiss Your Lips” which features an excerpt from a well known band.
Toronto – It’s probably no small thing to win the “Just For Laughs Best Comedy Award” at the Montreal Fringe, which improv troupe Uncalled For’s Hypnogogic Logic did last year. I mean, Just for Laughs does the Just for Laughs festival. And those rarely funny TV standup shows. And Just For Laughs Gags, which is actually not very funny at…hmm.
Anyway, Uncalled For are very funny indeed, and Hypnogogic Logic proves it in a series of oddball sketches from inside somebody’s not-quite-asleep mind. This is hypnogogia, the state of mind you enter in when you’re about to fall asleep, and it’s a setup that gives Uncalled For the excuse to fire off a series of truly bizarre sketches.
Not every sketch is howlingly funny, but Uncalled For rolls between them effortlessly with the polish of a skilled, seasoned troupe. The best are a post-apocalyptic cooking show where the contestants have to use ingredients like cockroaches and guano or be banished to the radioactive mutant zone, a street preacher who claims that all life’s answers can be found in the dictionary, and the hard-boiled officers of the “Falling Wish Foundation,” who refuse wishes for money and love but grant a wish to bring Freddie Mercury back to life.
It’s great sketch comedy and well worth a look. You might want to try and get advance tickets; their first show was a near sellout and they’re getting great reviews.
Uncalled For presents: Hypnogogic Logic plays at Venue 3. Check your Fringe program or the online play listings for showtimes.
Roskilde – Whoever does the music programming for the Roskilde Festival really must be commended. Having already seen acts as diverse as Portishead, Kylesa and Shangaan Electro, the remaining days proved to be equally eclectic and perhaps even better.
Things started out on an interesting note with post-punk/industrial/metal pioneers Kiling Joke. Clad in a camouflage jumpsuit and often lumbering across the stage like Frankenstein’s monster, singer Jaz Coleman took on the role of an angry prophet of doom. His between song banter consisted of a series of Howard Beale-esque rantings like “the European Union is in trouble,” “there are no more fish in the ocean,” and more cryptically, “soon, they’ll attack the supermarkets.” Each of these rantings segued perfectly into the title of the next song and worked to create a perfect mood to match their music. In fact, Coleman seemed a little miffed when bassist Martin “Youth” Glover asked the crowd if they were having a good time between songs as if it were breaking the angry comspiracy theorist mood he was trying to create.
One of the most impressive acts I saw was Dutch art-punkers The Ex. I had known the band by reputation and heard a bit of their music, but was not quite prepared for it to be quite as good as it was. Known for their love of collaboration, the group was performing on this occasion with Italian jazz trumpeter Roy Paci, who played on their most recent album Catch My Shoe. For a band that’s been going for 32 years (though admittedly not with all of it’s original members), these guys had an incredible amount of energy, jumping and flailing about the stage with the energy and enthusiasm of teenagers. Also delivering an energetic set was Swedish electronic act Little Dragon. Dancing, posing, and twirling (yes, twirling) across the stage, singer Yukimi Nagano is a totally engaging, charismatic frotwoman. I expect to hear more from this band in the future.
One of the more unique acts of the festival was Congotronics Vs. Rockers. It was essentially a massive jam session made up of 19 musicians from six different bands – Konono No. 1, Kasai Allstars, Deerhoof, Wildbird and Peacedrums, Skeletons, and Juana Molina – all of whom had participated in the Tradi-Mods Vs. Rockers CD compilation. It was really pretty impressive to see that many musicians from various musical backgrounds playing together and they all seemed to be having a lot of fun up there. Of course, as would be expected with that many musicians, the logistics of organizing it all didn’t go 100% smoothly as it seemed that certain instruments were not always as prominent in the mix as they should be. Still, this was one of the highlights of the entire festival, and well worth skipping out on most of The Strokes’ mainstage set. Luckily, Julian Casablancas and company frontloaded their set with a lot of hits and I walked away after about half an hour satisfied that I had seen enough.
Due to the abundance of mud, I decided to stay at the Odeon stage after Congotronics Vs. Rockers to check out old school death metallers Autopsy. The metal faithful were out in full force, eager to hear something heavy and brutal at 1:00am, and Autopsy did not let them down. I enjoyed their set, but not being overly familiar with their stuff, I felt that I had had enough after 4 or 5 songs. I do have to comment, however, on the fact that guitarist Danny Coralles seemed to be wearing trackpants on stage. Sure, he offset this by wearing studded gauntlets onstage, thus upping the metal quotient, but to quote from Seinfeld, when you wear sweatpants, you’re telling the world, “I give up.” I know death metal has never been the most glamorous of genres, but come on, put a pair of jeans on. Or at least some shorts. Shorts would be better.
By Sunday, lack of sleep had gotten the best of me and so a conscious decision was made to see less bands and take it easy. California punk legends Bad Religion were on my list of must sees and put on a pretty solid set full of songs from throughout their 32 year career. “This is a song from the 20th Century … back when we were good,” joked vocalist Greg Graffin and as with all good jokes, there was a good bit of truth to it. This is not to say that their newer material is bad, but the older songs certainly got a bigger reaction from the crowd.
Also getting a big reaction from the crowd was Janelle Monae. With a great band, a great voice, and a top notch stage show, it’s hard to fault anything she does. She even managed to incorporate covers of Stevie Wonder and The Jackson Five into her set. Yet despite all this and despite the fact that a guest spot from Big Boi on “Tightrope” was pretty much inevitable (although according to this Pitchfork review, he didn’t make an appearance), I just wasn’t really feeling it. What I needed instead was to close out the festival with something a little more intimate from an equally impressive performer – Justin Townes Earle. While his stage show couldn’t compete with Monae’s in terms of spectacle, Earle is a talented guitarist and songwriter as well as an accomplished storyteller. Accompanied only by another guitarist, Earle made it feel like a performance in a small club rather than a side stage at a massive festival. He closed things off with a cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait.” The song was a perfect reflection of how I felt at that moment. Roskilde was great, but after 4 days of music, mud and little sleep, I could hardly wait to get out of there and get some rest.
Toronto – Whatever else one might say about The Sparrow and the Mouse: Creating the Music of Edith Piaf, this much is true: performer Melanie Gall has a wonderful singing voice.
In the original French or in English translation, Gall does great things with Edith Piaf songs like “Je Ne Regrette Rien”and “La Vie en Rose.” An opera singer by trade who’s performed in countries all over the world, Gall’s singing is worth the price of admission. The play she’s written around the songs, however…well, it’s not as good.
Gall plays Simone Berteault, Piaf’s closest friend and half-sister, and describes Piaf’s life, from her humble beginnings to international stardom. The problem is, while Piaf’s life story is pretty amazing, Gall delivers it as if she’s reading Piaf’s Wikipedia article aloud. It’s just not compelling theatre. The only person on stage aside from pianist Erin Craig, Gall acts out different parts of Piaf’s life between songs, like holding a doll and acting like Piaf’s mom, pretending to be Piaf on the streets, miming a mother/doll scene again when Piaf gives birth. Sometimes while she does this, Gall’s recorded voice continues the life story narration while she does things silently. This seems unnecessary, since Gall doesn’t do that much during these scenes and could probably handle both duties at once, and it’s occasionally awkward when Gall’s live voice and recorded voice step on each other’s lines.
Gall’s singing saves it from being that bad, though. While Craig’s piano sounds a bit tinny in the big hall of Bathurst Street Theatre, Gall’s voice fills up the room, without amplification. If you have any fondness for Piaf or opera singing, it might be worth seeing, but otherwise this is probably a miss.
The Sparrow and the Mouse plays at Venue 3. Check your Fringe program or the online play listings for showtimes.
