Electric Circus

Having been at the Sarah Harmer concert Saturday night, I did not get a chance to see opener Miss Elizabeth for a show with electronica acts at the Garrison. But talking with an early attendee, it was clear they were still doing the same high reverb atmospheric dance that they did last time. This is an acquired taste which apparently not many people acquired.

The same can be said of the next act Dark Ages. With the singer being big, heavily tattoed, and wearing a black luche libre/executioner's mask, I was expecting some NIN/metal-electronic hybrid. Yes, there was the beat-heavy electronic tracks, that grew tedious after a while, and not enlivened much by the guitarist. As for the singer, he had a rather girlish, higher pitched voice which was an odd contrast. But there wasn't much lyrical content, just some looped vocalizations.

Parallels was less avant-garde but more enjoyable. They played an updated 80s dance-pop with an enthusiastic drummer, a keyboardist, and a female vocalist. Finally, the crowd started dancing. This should be the minimal requirement for any electronica band before they attempt anything else. Though way before their time, they ran through a fun cover of Gowan's Moonlight Desire.

The headliner Digits is originally from Toronto, but currently resides in Berlin. However, it has been a long day for me and I decided to call it a night.

It's Harmer Time

Sarah Harmer is a well-known Canadian singer but I am not particularly familiar with her music. I thought she did a great job singing a few covers at Andy Kim's Christmas show so I went down to the Garrison Common to see a free show with her Saturday night.

To celebrate Canada's victory in the War of 1812, there was a free concert down at the heritage site of Fort York. It was a good line-up of acts but with the unrelenting heat I couldn't muster the energy to drag myself down there. But Sarah was the last act at 9 pm, after sunset, so the temperature would be more bearable.

Odd how there are places in Toronto I have never visited. Fort York had an old-timey feel and reminded me of Upper Canada Village. It didn't have full-fledge medieval trappings of the Fortress of Louisbourg but the old homes, raised embankment, and strategically placed cannons were evocative in the falling dusk.

Garrison Common is a field just past Fort York itself, and she was about to take the stage when I arrived. For the first 6 songs (The City, Around This Corner, Pendulum, One Match, Almost, Silver Road), I admired her poetical lyrics but felt that the songs were too much "adult contemporary". It was mildly disappointing until she went to a stripped down set-up: only her on acoustic guitar, and sometimes accompanied by a stringed bass or electric guitar, that her songs soared. Without the bland arrangement, I Am Aglow, Oleander, Uniform Grey (with guest Kathleen Edwards) resonated with a timeless quality. She ended her set with Hideout, Late Bloomer, Dandelions In Bullet Holes, Washington, and Captive.

Answering calls for an encore, Sarah played solo two audience requests: In The Road and Dogs And Thunder. Though she had been making political statements all through her set, Escarpement was the most overtly political of her songs. Finally, Sarah, Kathleen and the band sent everyone home on the up-tempo Basement Apartment. For me, just Sarah and her guitar was the best way to listen to her songs.

Not Sketchy At All

The Helan Gardiner Phelan Playhouse is a large Victorian house tucked behind the University of Toronto Drama building on St. George. I went on Saturday to watch a sketch comedy show called Two Weird Ladies Bomb The Fringe.

Two Weird Ladies were Laura Salvas, short and dark-haired, and her sketch partner, Mandy Sellers, tall and lanky. They took the audience through a number of skits that tended to proceed from relative normalcy to over-the-top outrageousness (organic egg sellers one-upping each other) or expose the characters to absurd situations (office drones deciding to ditch it all for Broadway.) Opening the show with a birthday celebration for a 90-year-old nana that deteriorated into inappropriate songs from her grand-kids (sample lyric "When there's a will there's a way; When there's a way, nana where's the will?"), the ladies were consistently funny. I didn't have any major belly laughs, but I was entertained the entire 60 minutes.

Specializing in "female situations", they played insecure double blind-daters whose critique of their own failings grew ever more hyperbolic; wedding guests that alternated between sweet congratulations and nasty comments about the bride; and blue-haired matrons delighting in revealing shocking secrets to each other. Though they played various characters, Mandy tended to portray out-going, confident, and oblivious doofuses while Laura gravitated toward manic, uptight rule followers. This also applied when they "played themselves" a couple of times in the show.

What made the show worked well was its pacing. Every sketch ran without flubs, transitions were smooth and natural, and often included small throwaway scenes to segue between the main skits. It was like watching a well-edited television broadcast with seamless changes and excised bloopers as opposed to a typical live show with forgotten lines, missed cues, or overlong pauses. At the end, they earned some well-deserved cheers by reprising all of their sketch characters in a musical about, per the title, a bomb that was about to blow up the theatre.

Noodles On Baldwin

Shio Ramen

The proprietors of Guu decided to open up a ramen noodle shop near Baldwin and Henry, along a block jam-packed with restaurants. There are already 2 ramen vendors in the neighbourhood, Ajisen in Chinatown and Kenzo by Bay and Bloor. Will Kinton Ramen fare just as well?

At 11:40 am on Saturday, 10 minutes after opening, every seat was taken and the wait list was growing. It also took 30 min for the food to arrive. First suggestion: go after the lunch rush. 2 tables for 6 are located at either end of a long narrow space, with the remaining seats propped up facing the bar or the open kitchen. The atmosphere was trendier than the competition: upbeat J-pop piping through the speakers, dark bar top, wooden square blocks covered the walls corner-out to form diamond patterns.

Every waitress and barkeep was tiny, pretty and slender in black outfits. Like Guu, the whole staff shouted greetings when you arrive. Luckily, they didn't shout every order either. I got the Calpico Sawaa ($6): vodka, calpico and soda; Hot Karaage ($4.8): spicy fried chicken; and Shio Ramen ($9.5): sea salt, pork, and soft-boiled egg.

Karaage

The drink was sharp with a bitter flavour, refreshing on a blistering day. Unlike the other shops,  you can pick your broth's fattiness (light, regular, rich) and pork (shoulder, belly). I don't know about the rich broth because the regular was almost overwhelming with the first few sips: richly fat and strong; I could practically taste the bone marrow. Perhaps too much of a good thing, second suggestion: go with the light broth unless you are anemic. The noodles were thicker than Kenzo so they were a bit chewier, though both diners have great noodles. The pork belly was also perhaps too much of a good thing. On the other hand, the strip of fat added a nice contrast to the tender meat.

The Karaage was one of just a handful of side dishes. It was lightly battered and not too oily but could have use more spice. The smaller pieces were soft and tender, though the larger pieces had too much cartilage and gristle.