No Joke

Saturday night I was at the Tranzac for an early show. Though they all presented themselves goofily, the musicians tonight wrote some good songs. First up was Henry Adam Svec who described himself as a "folklore archivist". To that end, he presented lost songs written by CFL players called the CFL Sessions with such titles as On Discipline, Horseman, and Life Is Like Canadian Football. Well, these poignant songs from fictional players had better lyrics than most "real" ones that I hear. Then Svec gave us new folk tunes composed by an artificially intelligent program called Livingston. Again, despite titles like S/He's Is Like The Angry Birds and Take It Easy But Take It To The Limit, they were wonderful ditties. The only knock against his set was his guest who could sing some nice harmony but played some lazy piano.

Laura Barrett is a bit of an acquired taste. Her songs: quirky topics, not much rhyme, and with odd arrangement, can be a bit hard to digest. But whether it was a song from local movie Porch Stories or a musical that may never be written (No Further), I found them charming. Barrett has added an autoharp to her repertoire of kalimba and piano, but she hasn't reach Basia Bulat-level of virtuosity yet.

Before the headliner came on, the CEO of "Blimp Rock Enterprises" gave us a PowerPoint spiel ("PowerPoint before profit"). Apparently, he wants to host the first music festival in a blimp (flying over Lake Ontario). To raise the $1M, the corporation has taken initiatives such as investing in "vintage" office supplies like fax machines and Rolodex (people love vintage stuff). As such, Blimp Rock is a band made up of the "marketing" team (members of Forest City Lovers, Rouge) to bring media attention to this endeavour, as well as to raise much needed fund. Their songs included Blimp Rock Live, Lake Ontario Lifeguards, and Band Break-up. The tunes, despite their tongue-in-cheekness, were fun and danceable. Some (The Love That Treats You Right, Monogamy Blues) were genuine pop gems. A night of not-so-serious music was actually a night of great music.