Scene and Heard with Will McGuirk

Don Messer: The Man Behind The Music

I'm waiting for the launch of Whispering Pines by Jason Schneider. Its subtitle - The Northern Roots of American Music... From Hank Snow to The Band sums up its content and those familiar with this blog and my writings in-paper will be aware of my own thoughts on the subject. For those new readers let me say I think that what we call Americana is pretty well dominated by Canadians to such a degree that Americana is actually Canadiana.

While I'm waiting for that book to show up on the shelves I'm reading Don Messer: The Man Behind The Music. Johanna Bertin writes about the gifted fiddle player from New Brunswick in a direct and entertaining manner. Its a pleasant read with little analysis of the actions or thoughts of the man...just a straightforward narration of the facts. Its a style appropriate to someone of a Calvinist background and one as organised and disciplined as Mr. Messer. I recall reading somewhere thats music critic Carl Wilson considered the fiddle as the backbone of Canadian music. I disagreed with him at the time...I offer the pedal steel as an alternative... again with the Americana. However as with all things Canadian the jury is still out. (I'll try and get that link though.)

When I get the link I'll repost.

Jonas Bonnetta, Joel Plaskett, Paul McCartney and Neil Young

Here's a Monday Morning smile... a couple of days before we celebrate 142 yrs of Canada.  Neil Young and Paul McCartney take a playful approach to One Day In The Life. Brilliant sense of friendship between the two with the ex-Beatle bowing to the ex-Durham Region resident's take on the classic song.
McCartney makes a trip to Halifax for his only Canadian date on his current tour. Joel Plaskett has been chosen by the Walrus as his opening act for the July 11 show.
Plaskett played Cobourg recently at the Park Playhouse. It was presented by Becky Choquette. Great gig too. Plaskett whose triple disc 3 is on the Polaris Prize long list, is also playing at the Orillia Opera House July 2. This is a kickoff concert for Mariposa which runs July 3 through 5.
Evening Hymns (aka Jonas Bonnetta) will open for Plaskett  in Orillia. (yay, Jonas...he says he's nervous but we know he'll rock the joint).
So its two degrees of connectivity from Orono to Liverpool;  Evening Hymns opens for Plaskett opens for McCarthney.... Ha!... take that to Council.

Death of a pop icon

Sky Saxon (Richard Marsh) of The Seeds has died in Austin Tx on Thursday. He was the self proclaimed creator of Flower Power but his influence was strongest on the alternative/garage rock scene. it was the much tougher song "Pushin Too Hard" for which his band is most well known.
Locally Simon Oates, (Starkweather) and Rob Sweeney (Purple Toads, Crummy Stuff) claim him as an influence. Sky also had another link to Oshawa. Rob sent me an explanation...

"Mars Bonfire was born in Oshawa as Dennis McCrohan...later he changed his name to Dennis Edmonton & then finally Mars Bonfire. His brother Jerry joined Steppenwolf as the drummer & Mars joined them very briefly appearing only on the Steppenwolf Live album. Steppenwolf had a hit with the Mars Bonfire penned "Born To Be Wild" of which keeps his wallet filled & has enabled him to keep a low profile in the music industry. He befriended Sky Saxon & appeared on Sky Saxon's comeback release "Starry Rid" mini lp. His association with Sky lasted through the Firewall Band in the 1980's. Mars is believed to be living on the west coast of the USA & doesn't come out to play too often."

Crummy Stuff are booked to play Chicagos on Saturday night. I'm confident there will be a tribute to Sky among the offerings. Robots and Royal Crowns are also on the bill.

Zunior.com turns five

The Zunior 5th Anniversary Show takes place at the Tranzac Saturday June 27. Zunior is celebrating five years as Canada's little digital store selling music directly to fans from the best independent artists and labels.

The label was set up by local Oshawa lad Dave Ullrich once of the Inbreds. His bandmate Mike O'Neill is playing as are Whitby's Forest City Lovers.

The show features a hand-picked selection of amazing bands divided into three rooms. The main room will also feature video art projections by Montreal's Mere Phantoms and a DJ set by The Straggler.

Main Room:

9:00 - The Violet Archers
9:40 - Forest City Lovers
10:15 - Mike O'Neill
11:00 - Andrew Vincent

Front Room:

9:00 - Murmurers
9:45 - Culture Reject
10:30 - Entire Cities
11:15 - Wax Mannequin
12:00 - Ben Gunning

Acoustic Room:

9:15 - Dog Is Blue
9:45 - Selina Martin
10:30 - Megan Hamilton
11:15 - My Divine Light (By Divine Right's José Miguel Contreras)

Gigs This Week

Local Gigs
Fri Jun 26
My Darkest Days, The Latency, The Vital Side, and Grace Over Diamonds at Johnny Bs; SASS Open Mic hosted by Nick Reynolds at Isabellas; Stables at Chicagos

Sat Jun 27
Royal Crowns, Robots, Crummy Stuff play Chicagos; Only Way Back,  Lost Cause, Unit 33, Curtain Jumper at Johnny Bs; Doug Hell, Social Cyanide, Stiff Wires, Silvercade at the Atria

Sun Jun 28
Heather Luckhart, Grainne, Sibling Rivalry at the Atria; Adam & Evil, Kardiak Kids, Red City Riot, Network plus more at Johnny Bs

Wed July 1
Hello Beautiful, 1S2L, Kardiak Kids plus others at the Canada Day Celebrations Lakeview Park, Oshawa

Nothing Down In Hogtown except for -
Tonight
Evening Hymns plays the Opera House with Obijou, Great Bloomers
Fri Jun 26
Wayne Petti & The Thieves play the Horseshoe with Sunparlour Players, Hylozoists; Anagram and Catl play Mitzi's Sister.
Sat Jun 27
Gentlemen Husbands, Modern Boys Modern Girls, Balconies, Everything All The Time
Tue Jun 30 The ZOOBOMBS return to the Silver Dollar; Crash Karma, Tenn Fold, Bury The Bully play the Horseshoe Tavern

The Montreal House in Peterborough

Fri Jun 26 The Spades w/ Flash Lightnin’    
Sat Jun 27 Matt Mays (pictured above) w/ The Novaks    
Tue Jun 30 The Burning Hell    
Sat July 4 The Dears (pictured below) w/ Amos The Transparent

Tokyo's ZOOBOMBS at Johnny Bs Wed Nite

Oshawa Punk Rock concert finishes on time

files from The Onion (ok the Potato lol)

It was a historic weekend in Oshawa on Saturday as an alternative music concert in Memorial Park finished right on schedule. Durham Regional Police, City Staff and promoters of the 3Tards final show, all worked together to ensure that the punk rock event clocked right on the buzzer. With a permit that allowed the promoter access to the park during the hours of 1 pm to 8 pm the show, which also featured Caution Inc and the Groopies, ended at three minutes past eight o clock.
The crowd estimated between 100 and 300, just under the projected numbers of 1,000 to 3,000, continued to exhibit the good cheer and fun displayed throughout the day by heeding the promoter's call to avoid rioting. There was a fear that the 3Tards popularity would be such that the audience would demand a full set from the band but their permit shortened set which saw the lead singer, a bald headed man with a foot long goatee dressed up as Wonder Woman, seemed just enough for those in attendence.
The myth of punks as troublemakers was debunked as the crowd, who had waited in the all day rain for the bands, chose to co-operate fully with the authorities and disperse peacefully from the public park located in Oshawa's downtown.
The concert which was the 3Tards farewell show was billed as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Research. As of deadline the final tally of funds raised was zero.
Yet another landmark in the acceptance of punk into the mainstream was reached on Saturday as punk-a-billy four piece Lead Sled Rocket emerged as winners in the 16th Bandwarz finals held at the Groove Lounge.

Watch video here

Dad Song - Canteen Knockout

Letter From The 3TARDS (sent to politicians and media)

photo dave hill


Dear City of Oshawa,

I would like to express my profound regret over the events of June 20, 2009 at Memorial Park in downtown Oshawa.

My name is Andrew Ryan Fox, and I am the bass player of Toronto band The 3tards.

On the above date, we played a show, organized on behalf of us by local promoter Tamara Morahan, to raise money for breast cancer research.

At 8 pm, when the negotiated finish time arrived, we were shut down by the city of Oshawa, three songs into our set.

I would like to start by saying that yes, we understand that on a purely technical level, that was the time where the show was meant to end.

If, for a moment though, you can see past the letter-of-the-law factuality of the event, I hope that you can understand the sadness we feel over not only the worthiness of the cause that was circumvented by the actions of city officials, but also the effort that was put
forth by those involved in this fundraiser that was wasted.

I can't speak to what anyone else who put their time, money, effort, resources, heart and soul into the show feel about the turn the day took, but I can say that we feel personally insulted and unappreciated for having put so much into this day and the cause it supported only to by stymied without so much as a chance to appeal the decision to shut us down.

As well, to have such a large group of mostly well-behaved youths stand all day, hour upon hour, in the pouring rain, donating money from their own pockets, for the chance to watch us play, only to be unceremoniously denied the entertainment they so patiently waited for, boggles our minds.  The fact that the city employee on site couldn't empathize with such a diverse and enthusiastic contingent of supporters to the point where we could even play ONE MORE SONG to at least justify the support they showed by being there all day waiting on us to play is extremely disheartening.

Basically, we feel that a lot of good, hard-working, honest, well-intentioned people from many different peer groups and varied social and economic backgrounds came together for an important cause, and were turned off and marginalized without committing any more of an infraction than to run a few minutes late.

So I say Shame On You, City of Oshawa.  Shame on you for disillusioning a large group of people who wanted nothing more than to help other people.  Shame on you for not giving us the benefit of the doubt.  Shame on you for not even allowing us to plead our case on site.  Shame on you for your lack of empathy for people who worked hard to make this happen.  Shame on you for turning a deaf ear to the pleas of the hundreds of people who braved a long, stormy day to watch a little punk rock music.  And shame on you for making a few guys from Toronto who wanted nothing more than to entertain your town and raise a few bucks for a good cause question whether we should ever bother trying to do something like this again.  What's the point of working your ass off to put on an event like this, pouring everything we have into it, if we can't even get the respect of being listened to by city employees when we're trying to state our case for continuing? 

Seriously, the City of Oshawa dropped the ball on this.  And it really, really sucks.  We expect better from people claiming to be representative of the citizenry.  When all is said and done, you guys shut down a benefit for cancer research for no good reason.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Sincerely,
Andrew Ryan Fox
THE 3TARDS


In Reply...
Sorry Andrew...I have to agree with the City on this (that pains me). Here in Oshawa we are still working on convincing the City to allow the Bandshell to be used more for shows. We need to work with those in charge and that means playing by their rules until such a time comes when the rules can be changed. The fault here is not the City of Oshawa but the stage manager. If the deal was that the show could run until 8 pm and you were shut down at 8 pm and not before, I'd suggest you take it up with the promoter instead.
Big thank you to you and the 3tards for throwing one great party. It will be a day those who were there and those (like myself) who dropped in a couple of times throughout the performances won't forget too easily. Best gig of the year so far. LMAO.

Timber Timbre at the Courthouse NXNE