Last Chance To See

This past Friday, I went to a local bar called The Piston to check out some music. The Piston took over the spot of the old Concord Cafe. It's supposed to be the harbinger of the gentrification of the area of Bloor and Ossington. Something that was previously attributed to Disgraceland, Comedy Bar, et al. A long and narrow bar with a separate room in the back for live music. The music area is certainly the smallest I've been in, probably no bigger than my apartment if you discount the stage and the sound mix area. The clientele is a mix of casually upscale and ironic hipster.

The first act at around 10:15 pm is a local band called Mantler. They play an updated 70s style of music, heavy on the funky bass. Having read that description, I decided to skip out on the band. I arrived in time to hear their last two songs. They are certainly capable musicians but not my cup of tea.

The second act is Otouto, which is Japanese for younger brother. However, this Australian trio took the name for its sound, as one of the singer (Martha Brown) told me after the set. The singing duties fall to lead singer and guitarist, the Lisa-Loeb-ish Hazel Brown and her sister Martha Brown, A Natalie Portman look-a-like, who also man the synthesizers. Kishore Ryan is the drummer who sometimes like to play his rhythm on a cooking pan. They remind me of Bjork on her third album Homogenic. Kishore lays down complex, syncopated and skittering beats while the Browns play fragments of melody and bass. I enjoyed it but the small crowd was restrained at Otouto's low-key stage presence and odd music. The two songs that got the biggest cheers were more mainstream: one employed a drum machine to give it a thumping beat, and one used their voices in a rapid back-and-forth that was like a live version of stereo panning.

I bought their CD "pip" and chatted with them a bit after the set. Unfortunately as is the case, some of the songs aren't on there including my favourite which was the aforementionned human stereo. Not surprisingly, their "international" 35 city tour is being done on the cheap. The main act, Owen Ashworth, has been touring a lot and has contacts in numerous North American cities. Of course, this still meant that often times they slept on the floor at somebody's place. Given the cheap door cover of $10 and the small crowd, I doubt that the bar revenue covers much more than their travels.

At this show, there weren't too many takers for their CDs or t-shirts either. It seems odd to me as the CD was only $12, not much more than the price of a beer or two. For supposed indie music lovers, people seemed to be a stingy bunch. Afterward, I was thinking that if they could pull in $100-200 in "merchandise" a show, the tour wouldn't be a total wash. As a small indie Australian band, they're unlikely to ever come back to North America so forget about building a fan base. But how to get someone to reach for their wallet after a 30-40 minute set? Here's my "talking out of my ass" take on things, having observed Allie Hughes and other indie acts.

• Otouto need a "swagger coach" like Justin Bieber, That is, they need a stronger stage presence. As two young attractive women in a musical genre (i.e., indie) mostly attended by High Fidelity male musical nerds, their sex appeal could go a long way to quickly win over the crowd.
• They need more mainstream hook-friendly tunes to grab the rest (i.e., the more conventional friends or girlfriends of those lo-fi nerds). Given that most listeners would not have heard their material before, the music can't be too out there. Luckily, they don't need to "pander" with fluff pieces; just create "live remix" versions of some of their songs where the drum machine plays a more prominent role and maybe add musical layers via loop pedals or sequencers. I can imagine the reaction if they use their harmonies to do an original (perhaps ironic) cover of a popular tune, such as Tegan and Sara singing Rihanna's Umbrella.

The main act is Owen Ashworth, otherwise known as Casiotone For the Painfully Alone. Apparently, he started out with a 4-track mixer and some cheap synthesizers. Well he's now a well-oiled one man band with a pile of keyboards, drum machines, and effects plugged in every which way. This is his last tour under this moniker. He cranks out melancholic song after melancholic song, driven by sad, confessional lyrics. Despite all the live effects, the slow strings and synth beats of those 80s Casio underlie most of the songs. So it was like listening to a whole set of Bob Dylan doing Make You Feel My Love and Sinead O'Connor singing Nothing Compares 2 U. But I don't mean this in a pejorative sense. According to Owen, he's moving on to other kinds of music and will never do these songs again after this tour. I've never listened to him before and I'm glad I got to hear these songs before they are, in his words, "locked in a vault and dropped into the ocean".