Power Mapping

For the last month, Papermaps has been the resident artist for Elvis Monday at the Drake hotel. I decided to wrap up this holiday week-end by going to their last show Monday night.

First up was a duo playing "World Music". A didgeridoo player, with bells around his feet, sitting on a box drum kept the beat and drone going by playing on his wooden tube, stamping out beats, and tapping on the drum. His didgeridoo was hooked up to an effects pedal, allowing his to add interesting reverb and manipulate the sound. His companion played poly-rhythmic patterns on a hand-held electronic drum pad, furiously switching between sound effects: tom-toms, snares, screeches, and cymbals. It was odd but an interesting melange of aboriginal and latin-inspired sounds.

Wendy Versus was up next. Composed of 2 members of Papermaps (Wendy and Dean) and a 3rd who did double duty on the electronic drum machines and bass guitar, they veered more to electro-pop. They had some catchy tunes but a few weaknesses live. First, they needed to speed up some of their dancey numbers because the songs have the same beat. Second, it would be better to have a strong finish to their songs. Trailing off and petering out on numerous tunes weakened their performance.

After Wendy and Dean re-configured their set-up, they were joined by 3 other members for Papermaps. This band played good songs, often with catchy choruses and guitar hooks. Dean started the show with a solo on Wishful Thinker, slowly being joined by his bandmates as the song progressed. They concentrated on newer numbers from their upcoming EP such as Nobody's Perfect, Break, and Interior Ghost. Their cover of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain got feet moving. The show ended with their anthemic signature song You Are My Gallows. Given the power-ballad nature of a lot of their songs (i.e., soft verse followed by rocking refrain), I would like to see more animated stage presence from Papermaps, even if "guitar face" and such antics may seem a bit cliche.