Play - Do

The Bell House, Brooklyn (c) TheMst.com

I sometimes complain about the lateness of some music acts. Some of us have to get up early the next day. So a pair of acts at Wrongbar scheduled for Saturday from 6-10pm sounded just up my alley. Having bought my ticket at Soundscapes (original concert location: The Mod Club), I spent a lazy afternoon doing acro yoga at the park. A leisurely dinner until 8 or so was the plan until I found out from a Facebook post that the opening act was at 7 pm. They're serious about that early start!

I saw Allie Hughes back in March. Back then, I thought she had a powerful voice but not much else going on. I wanted to see if things have changed. A sparse crowd of about 20 was scattered around the room when I arrived at 7:20 pm. I caught the last 3 songs in her set. Her band was much more polished and greatly benefited from the good sound system and smaller venue. She still likes to harness that big voice to some quirky tunes but she's growing into her style. But her last number, a more mainstream duet called "Not The Stars" (1st track here), was an excellent crowd-pleaser. I wonder if she should grow her concert fan-base with these conventional songs and let them discover her more avant-garde stuff when they buy the CD.

The ♩ø (as in do-re-mi) is a Finnish-French duo who had success with their debut album, A Mouthful, when it was released in France in 2008. Not sure how they were received in Toronto last year but only about 50 or so people came to see them tonight. Well, they missed a fun show and gave me a chance to stand right up at the stage and discover this great act.

The Bell House, Brooklyn (c) TheMst.com

Dan Levy is a multi-instrumentalist who stayed mainly with his electric bass though he will occasionally play the electric organ or reach into his grab-bag of instruments (flute, percussion, chimes). A twin to Johnny Depp, he spent the night either strutting or hopping around on stage, laying down some groovy bass. Early on though, he did give an appreciate Gallic stare at some girls next to me. And well he should. One cute girl, in a chin-length bowl cut, was bobbing along in a 60s-style dress - snug to the body with a loose knee-length skirt. The other girl was Robyn sexy with a blond bob and a red top.

The Bell House, Brooklyn (c) TheMst.com

Olivia Merilahti out-shoned them though in her white suede boots and a red-yellow designer dress. A tiny tricorne perched fetchingly on one side of her red-maned head for half the night. They say Finland has some of the most beautiful women in the world; she is rather spectacular but in an otherworldly super-model way (all high cheek-bones and strong jawline) instead of your everyday attractive woman (round faces and soft cheeks). Her breathy alto voice is more full-bodied live than on the album and she also played guitar on some songs. An interesting guitarist and able drummer rounded out the band.

Their dance pop style sounds even better live. With the studio instrumentation stripped away, they acquire a rawer, more rock sound while still retaining those catchy beats and rhythms. Their cover of Janelle Monae's Tightrope is a blues-rock number with a massive crescendo. Their newer tracks are also fun to listen to. In fact, their last number - and one of their best - is a new song called "Dust It Off". A folk-like ballad that became a sonic explosion as Olivia layered on looping samples of her singing and the two guitar players abandoned their instrument to simply play with their effects pedals.

It was on the strength of that number, and the rest of the set, that got them an encore. Though most of the audience was packed right up against the small stage, it wasn't a big crowd. So they and the management thought the show was over when they stepped off. The house music had already come on. But the persistent clapping of the audience convinced the technicians to run backstage to grab them for another song. They seemed genuinely surprised and pleased, and ended the night with "Travel Light" - a song whose announcement elicited a delightful shriek from one of their fans.

The Do is the first act since Basia Bulat where I became a fan right after the concert. Having bought their debut CD afterward, I hope they release their second album soon and come back to Toronto again.

EDIT: Photos of the Wrongbar concert can be found at Chromewaves.

MORE EDIT: 2 acoustic songs (The Bridge is Broken, and new song Dust It Off) filmed in Toronto by Mitch Fillion.

Rap Vs Indie

Yonge-Dundas Square hosts a number of free music concerts profiling Canadian artists. I went down to one of their Urban Groove concert to check out Masia One, a Singaporean-Canadian female rapper. It was a gusty evening that promised rain. Opening for Masia was a Jamaican MC, spinning some Caribbean tracks. His efforts to get the Toronto crowd to get up and dance was a failure. Then Masia One came on with an MC, 2 back-up singers and 4 dancers.

For her first set, she decided to do some of her older tracks such as Return of the B-girl, New Love, and Halfway Through The City. I really like the smooth, jazzy beats of these songs. But she kept stopping the songs halfway through ostensibly because these are old songs and the audience didn't seem to recognize them. Not to disrespect Masia but I think most of the people have never heard of her and were just hanging around the square. When one of her backup singer got profiled in a solo song, the rain came pouring down and that was that.

I enjoy her even flow but I prefer a little more punch, syncopation, and internal rhyme to my rap. So as far as female Canadian rappers go, I will have to give a slight edge to the hard stylings of Eternia.

I didn't think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was my kind of movie because of, um, Michael Cera but I gave it a shot because of all positive reviews. I like the comic-book and video game aesthetic of the movie, there were also some funny retorts and exchanges. Overall though, I thought it was a dud. First reason, well, Michael Cera ... who plays Scott Pilgrim Michael Cera the same mumbling introvert in every movie. Second reason is Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is an enigma. There might be more to her in the graphic novels but here she's just a cute girl with funky hair. In real life, this is more than enough for a guy to find her interesting enough to pursue. But for a movie, it's hard to the rest of us to care. Third, Scott is (metaphorically) fighting her past by (literally) fighting her exes in combat. Sounds like a fun conceit. After all, we all carry baggage from our past.But 4 of her exes are just short term middle-school dates, the 5th is a bi-curious make-out, the 6th are generic twins (titillating!), leaving only the last ex, a record executive named Gideon Graves, to have been in a serious relationship with her. As far as relationship scars go, that's not much to get anxious about, let alone 2 hours of it. Finally, there's a weird prudishness to the movie, culminating in Scott accusing her: "Isn't there anybody at this party you haven't slept with?" A nasty barb that's probably a deal breaker in the real world. But it's particularly odd with regards to Ramona. After they met, she changed her mind about sleeping with him on the first date. In fact, he doesn't have sex with her at all during their courtship for the entire movie. And as far as her exes go, the only ones she might have slept with are the Japanese twins and her current ex. By the sexual mores of the last 50 years, she's practically a virgin. Maybe he'd be happier with one of those Christian girls who wear purity rings.

GAME OVER. Continue? you have selected no.

There Are No Third Tries For Second Chances

Back when Queen St. West between University and Spadina was a food wasteland, Trimurti was one of the first to bring tasty and inexpensive dining to the area. It was the restaurant where I introduced some of my friends to wonders of Indian cuisine - something they had always associated with "stinky" food. But I haven't been back in a while since there are now great Indian restaurants closer to my neck of the woods.

Since I was in the area for a production of South Pacific, I decided to revisit this restaurant. The atmosphere is still quiet and relaxed, with attentive service from the waitstaff. I hope it was an off-day though, because the food was sub-par. I was a bit worried when the complimentary papadam came out soft instead of crispy, and the accompanying chutney was weak in flavour. Maybe it was the humidity. Then the vegetable samosas came out. Two overly large pieces, quite greasy with a tough shell. The potatoes inside were bland and a bit coarse. Oh, dear. The entrees didn't fare any better: a Gosht Saag (lamb in spinach with spices) and a Murgh Sonfi Simla (Tandoori chicken sauteed in onions, tomatoes, and aniseeds). Two of the blandest Indian dishes I've ever tasted. We ate barely a third of the dishes and only 1 of the 2 naans (they were good though).

I'm at a loss for my poor dining experience since it seems Trimurti is still quite popular. The restaurant was two-thirds full on a Sunday afternoon with some tables seated with obvious regulars. There were some South Asian diners in the crowd, who presumably have eaten enough South Asian cooking to know the good stuff. But I know what I ate - and it wasn't great. As an aside, one of the South Asian couple I saw was one of the most attractive couple I've ever seen: the man was handsome with strong features, and the woman was absolutely stunning.

Disappointed, and a bit bloated from the grease, I headed over to Second City for a night of stand-up comedy. This is a recent experiment as this venue is typically known more for sketch shows. For $15, there was a line-up of 7-8 comedians including two "walk-ons". It was a mixed night with more comedians bombing than not. One totally flamed out - it's hard to do angry comedy. Two got a few chuckles, but the short time allotted to each comic wasn't a good fit for their brand of long, drawn-out stories. A couple of them got people laughing at about half their jokes. The two funniest comics were the walk-ons - people who signed up just before the show. One was a wild-haired "ginger" who did non sequiturs and one liners ("They say you are what you eat - that's why I eat human"). The other was a blonde who told crazy, wildly exaggerated, stories. By the end of one tale she was going clubbing with her change in a mason jar, her accessories in a bucket, and all of them stuffed inside a condom. And naturally, without that condom, she needed to resort to dick-punching as a form of birth control. She's got some good material and I believe she'll be appearing in an HSSE (Heterosexual for Same-Sex Equality) benefit in September.

A Semi-pleasant Afternoon

The musical revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific by Bartlett Sher got rave reviews on Broadway. The touring version also got positive reviews when it arrived in Toronto. Having been on a bit of a musical kick lately (Haunted Hillbilly, Ride the Cyclone, Fairy Tale Ending), I decided to check out this classic on Sunday afternoon.

Let me say that although I did enjoy the 3 hours or so, I didn't feel much more than a pleasant engagement with the musical. It was like going to a matinee of a movie you'll forget in a couple of hours. So I'm mostly going to focus on what were the negative points for me. It wasn't just me though as this performance got only a single curtain call from the audience.

South Pacific has 3 main strands: the budding relationship between Emile de Becque (Jason Howard) and Ensign Nellie Forbush (Carmen Cusack), the affair between Lt. Joseph Cable (Anderson Davis) and a native girl named Liat (Sumie Maeda) engineered by her mother Bloody Mary (Jodi Kimura), and the hurry-up-and-wait lives of Luther Billis (Matthew Saldivar) and the other sailors.

Nellie, a simple girl from Little Rock, Arkansas finds herself charmed by the Gallic sophistication of Emile. Though they had just met, there's a strong attraction between them except for some obstacles. First, their age, though this is essentially glossed over in the play. He is 44 (as Cable would put it, "He can't be in love, he's 44!") and she is in her early 20s. Second, her racial prejudice makes it difficult for her to accept Emile's half-Polynesian children. I find this a bit unfair to Nellie. Yes, she does have trouble with his, in her words, "coloured" kids (or more specifically their deceased mother) but for all of his supposed more liberal stance, let's not forget that he's a French plantation owner during a time (1940s) when France is still laying claim to its colonial territories. Conveniently, no one asked what his workers thought of him. Finally, he has a dark secret. He fled France because he "killed a man". Unfortunately, this twist is so risible that I heard some titters when Howard made his confession: "Nellie ... I keeled a man". Yet there is still a sense of passionate predestination in their romance, though a marriage proposal after 4 weeks may boggle modern minds.

But I could not get down with Cable and Liat. For one thing, they're obviously pushed together by Bloody Mary. Even if she's is Liat's mother, there's too much of a mama-san vibe there. Cable doesn't seem to fight too hard about it though, his supposedly straight-and-narrow upbringing in Philadelphia notwithstanding. Unlike Nellie, a white Southern belle, there's no genteel courtship, fancy dinner parties, or marriage proposal for Liat. It's straight to the sack, or rather grass hut, for her. And if most cultures use the metaphor of the Spring Season for an innocent girl just discovering love (For example, Kudelki's Four Seasons), then what to make of Cable singing "Younger Than Springtime" to Liat? Add the fact that he's probably at least a foot taller and 100 lbs heavier; she barely came up to his ribs and looked to be only as big as one of his leg. All I can say is ... weird psychoses alert!

Jason Howard makes a serviceable Emile, though his sonorous voice with its French accent sounded distractingly like Victor Laszlo from Casablanca. I actually do not like his operatic voice, with its rounded enunciation, applied to these modern songs. Carmen Cusack is a plucky Nellie, a bit self-conscious of her narrow experience but ready to embrace this new wide world. I did not like Jody Kimura's Bloody Mary with her pidgin English and strong asian accent ("You like? You like!"). I don't much find the old "Me love you long time" schtick that amusing. If Emile can speak perfect English but with an accent, so can Mary. Anyway, Bloody Mary can be played Asian, but also Black or Pacific Islander. In the latter cases, if their English aren't perfect, it still wouldn't be in the "Me chinee, Me no dumb" category. So it's a mystery why they went with this caricature. Anderson Davies played Lt. Cable oddly, all wide-legged hero stances and mannerisms.

Ultimately though, a musical has to stand on the strengths of its songs. For an acknowledged classic, I found only 4 songs to be worth listening to: "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine", and last but best, "Some Enchanted Evening".