I was back at The Tranzac on Thursday for another monthly session with The Holy Oak Family Singers. It wasn't as packed as "Toronto Plays Toronto" because of the bland theme title of "Team Building". Johnny Spence explained how this all fit in. Back in 2010, Spence along with Carmen Elle and Stephen Foster attended an open mic night at this venue. Unfortunately, their professional musician chops got a few side-eye from the other folks there who were amateurs. So they started Team Building (a corporate-speak jargon to deter non-musicians) night at The Holy Oak. So although it was never part of the Family Singers tradition, tonight was a full circle moment.
Both sets comprised of new songs (some were only finished only hours ago) that were being work-shopped or never played live. Later on, Ivy Mairi ("artist wrangler") revealed the dirty secret of the Family Singers: they didn't usually rehearse or only in the car. So those musical improv skills came in handy to turn songs into performances. There was an eclectic mix of folk jazz, ambient experimental, americana, spoken word (a revision of Rilke's poetry) and other genres. It was a similar line-up as last time but Kieran Adams was behind the drums. A guitarist named Rudy, just moved here from NY, made his Toronto debut after meeting Josh Shabason. The evening ended with the 3 strongest performances of the night: Caitlin Woelfle-Obrien's emotionality on a "you cheated" song, the pure tone of Felicity Williams on I Am The Arrow (written for a song-of-the-month challenge issued by Robin Dann), and Alex Lukashevsky (along with Adams, Shabason) on a driving number with a jaunty riff.
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