Come What May

Heading home from the Tegan and Sara concert, I got a tweet that Weezer cover band Sheezer was doing a set at the Monarch Tavern in Little Italy. Sure enough, they were rocking out at the Christmas party for local community choir Choir! Choir! Choir!. It was a short set so they played only the big hits such as Holiday and The Good Life. But the crowd was also up for B-side tunes like Susanne.

I then headed south to Dundas to The May, a new hipster joint that used to be a Vietnamese karaoke bar for a Silent Shout concert. But given a few people who didn't quite fit in and the Buddhist shrine on the wall, it may be only rented out for live music. The crowd skewed quite young, even more than usual.

Miss Elizabeth came out, now down to a duo. They played plaintive synth pop with lots of alto singing and sustained chords and reverbs. The drum machine allowed them to add unusual syncopated drumming that kept the songs moving. It was reasonably danceable music, but only a few took up the challenge.

Majical Cloudz was another duo that played trance-y synth. The shaven-headed singer reminded me strongly of Michael Stipe not only for his emotive singing, but tendency to gesticulate and move his whole body. The music was directly from another bald singer, Sinead O'Connor circa Nothing Compares 2 U: bleak, emotional lyrics backed by long, slow synth chords.

It was getting late for Moon King, a collaboration between 2 members of defunct Spiral Beach. I will have to catch their take on synth music another time.