From: owner-canadian-music-digest@smoe.org (canadian-music-digest) To: canadian-music-digest@smoe.org Subject: canadian-music-digest V2 #39 Reply-To: canadian-music@smoe.org Sender: owner-canadian-music-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-canadian-music-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk canadian-music-digest Tuesday, March 2 1999 Volume 02 : Number 039 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [none] ["Tabassum Siddiqui" ] Moxy Fruvous at Lee's in Toronto, with Susan Werner, Sarah Slean, and Tory Cassis [Steve I ] Re: ["Andrea " ] Alanis in MacLeans ["Andrea " ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 16:05:54 PST From: "Tabassum Siddiqui" Subject: [none] Hey, folks... I was browsing the CMW (Canadian Music Week - Toronto, March 3-7) guide, and while I'm going to try my best to make it out to a couple gigs at least, it's not going to be anything like last year, 'cause I just don't have the time. Some Fumblers who were talking about these two bands last year will be interested to know that Jack Tripper, the psychadelic-rock trio featuring Sarah's bandmates Sean Ashby and Brian Minato, is coming to town - they have a new indie disc out that is being distributed by Page, so Canadian Fumblers at least should be able to find it in indie-friendly stores shortly. Also, Sarah's old (amazing) guitarist, Luke Ducette's surf-rock band, Veal, is also playing a CMW gig, and *their* album, "Tilt-o-whirl", is due out shortly. Other stuff of note to CanMus and FTE folks: - - Ivanna Santilli (ex-Bass is Base) is playing her second local solo gig in as many weeks. She *does* have a new album coming out in March titled "Brown". - - Oh Susanna is doing double-duty at CMW by releasing her second disc, "Johnstown". Buzz has it that she'll be joined by "special guests". - - Is *anyone* familiar with trip-hop outfit King Brand Valium? Tey're fairly new, and they used to play weekly at the Bamboo, but they now play at the new Vox Central. The group's made up of a couple of local mainstays, including new "The New Music" host Byron Wong (the new format of the show is *awful* - half an hour isn't nearly enough, and it's become so damn *glib*; very jolt-pe-minute. I'm disappointed.), who is also in longtime local trip-hop/ambient group My Brilliant Beast, who are *also* playing CMW following King Brand Valium. The point of all this is: a) If anyone knows anything about where I can pick up King Brand Valium's CD (one of the cuts has East Coast singer Damhnait Doyle on vocals, which is the only reason I want it ;-)) besides their shows, or if you're planning on taking in their gig and can pick up a CD, please let me know. b) Does anyone remember (they're been pretty dormant as of late, although they did put out an EP in '97) My Brilliant Beast? I'm not too familiar with them, but I'm looking for their song "Fall Away", which was a minor hit for them a few years ago (on TV and such, not radio), and can't seem to find it anywhere. C'est tout (oh, but for those of you who *are* going to be going all out during CMW, please do report back on the gigs/panels, etc.), - - Tab :) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 20:25:15 -0500 From: Steve I Subject: Moxy Fruvous at Lee's in Toronto, with Susan Werner, Sarah Slean, and Tory Cassis Hey folks, this post is prompted by one of Tab's requesting a review of Saturday and Sunday's Moxy Fruvous gigs. I reviewed the Sunday show for ecto so I'll repost it here. I never actually reviewed the Saturday show because my friend and I arrived late, almost entirely missing Susan Werner's set. Apologies to the resident Fruheads hear but some of the attendees at Saturday's show especially were just a tad frightening in the sheer depth of their frufandom. Most of the ones we talked to were very nice, but the overall sense of the crowd was disquietingly cult-like. I was almost expecting one of the Fruvous boys to walk out in priest robes and say "brothers and sisters of fru, forsake all your earthly belongings and come with us to the airports of the land so we may spread the message of FRU!" Just kidding. kind of. Don't get me wrong; I like Moxy Fruvous and I think their shows are a lot of fun, but I think a little moderation is in order! Anyway Sunday's show was much less crowded than Saturday's show (and probably featured a greater proportion of non-fruheads), featured Sarah and Tory Cassis, and both Sarah and Susan Werner were invited back up onto the stage to play with the moxy boys. It had all the makings of a sublime concert, and it delivered. Anyway, here's the first of two posts to ecto. One was a review of the Sunday show, the other was one for Veda Hille's from Friday where I chatted briefly with Jian from Moxy about Sunday's show (that will come in a separate post). Most of the discussion here is about Susan, because I always seem to be talking about Sarah on ecto and I thought I should talk about someone else for a change. =========== I'd like to thank everyone who's been recommending Susan Werner (and especially to Jeff W for getting me one of her CDs), I finally got to see her play this weekend (twice!) and was MUCH impressed. She's even more powerful live than on CD, and I liked the CD (the Live at Tin Angel one) quite a lot. Ah what the heck, might as well do a mini review while I'm posting. I saw a great show with Tory Cassis, Sarah Slean, Susan Werner, and Moxy Fruvous yesterday, which I'm sure will inspire some impassioned jealousy in at least a few ectophiles here. Sarah played with just her cellist, the talented Kevin Fox, who is much in demand these days with ectophilic artists from the Toronto area. She played a few tortured-heart type songs (at least one of which should appear on the upcoming CD) and then launched into Me and Jerome and Universe. There was an annoying level of talking among the Fruheads near the back where I was standing, but there was also a huge group of them standing mesmerized at the front. Susan came on by herself and played a rocking set, in stark contrast to the more subdued acoustic set she played at an instore performance I attended the day before. I'd been looking forward to seeing her since getting her live CD in the summer and I wasn't disappointed. She brought the house down with that great hidden track on the _Time Between Trains_ CD. Is that her own song, does anybody know? It has a very musical theatre kind of feel, Sondheim or Gershwin-esque I guess. And it's hilarious! I was ready to leave at that point since I had a ton of papers to mark and I'd already gotten my fill of Moxy the night before, but a friend let me in on a little secret that both Sarah and Susan would be invited up on stage to play with Moxy in the middle of their set. Sure enough, before too long they called up Sarah and they did a great version of "Angel" with Sarah doing the lead vox and the moxy guys lending instrumental support and harmony vocals. Sarah said later on that they practiced for about 2 seconds before the show. Amazing. Not long after, they called up Susan and they did a great version of "Summertime" and then a priceless medley of pop songs from the 80's and 90's and including an audience singalong (prompted by Susan) of "It's a Small World". As we were leaving I ran into Susan and her entourage, and she impressed me by remembering my name from speaking with her briefly the day before at the instore performance (we'd chatted about seven string guitars and the ecto-infamous karaoke bar incident [note to non-ectophiles: basically Susan and some friends/ectophiles hit a karaoke bar where Susan went up pretending to be a complete novice, not knowing how to use the mic etc., starting out the song really badly and gradually and miraculously improving as the song went on until by the end she was belting it out, every bit the professional singer she is]). Anyway to sum up Susan bowled me over with her vocal talent and guitar playing, her stage presence, and friendliness. It was such a pleasure to finally see her play. The ectosynchronicity of her appearing on the same bill as one of the artists I've been championing on ecto for the last couple of years just blows me away. Anyway many thanks to the folks who've been recommending Susan, if I wasn't a total convert from her CD alone, I certainly was after seeing her live. ========== Coming next, the Veda Hille show ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 20:30:10 -0500 From: Steve I Subject: Veda Hille So the last post was about Moxy and Susan's shows in Toronto last week. Here's a bit of an epilogue, (also lifted from one of my posts to ecto), in which I ran into Jian from Moxy Fruvous at Veda Hille's show. ============ Heya philes... saw Veda Hille yesterday at the El Mocambo in Toronto. Not my favourite venue in Toronto, but I shouldn't complain too loudly because it's conveniently right across the street from work and they were kind enough to let Veda play there when she got stranded without a venue due to a double-booking at the Rivoli. Anyway it was really good to see her since it's been over a year I think since she was last in town with the Scrappy Bitches. Coincidentally one of the other Scrappy Bitches, Oh Susanna, was playing just down the street the same night and came down to say hello to Veda. Anyway Veda was terrific as usual, and thoroughly impressed James who promptly went and picked up her Emily Carr disc (he loves E. Carr). Veda is sheer brilliance. It took me a few of her shows to really warm to her but once I did I was completely hooked. I ran into Jian from Moxy Fruvous there, and he told me he could always tell when a show was going to be a good one because I would be there. I told him that was a 2-way street. Seriously though we must have similar tastes in music because I run into him at shows all the time. Anyway we chatted a bit about Susan Werner, who'd opened for Moxy last week (I reviewed their show in an ecto post last week). It rapidly became apparent that he was just as awed by Susan's incredible performance as I was. He said that he didn't want to seem conceited but that it was the first time that one of their opening acts was able to stand up to them, meaning that Susan totally captured the crowd, which by the end of her set was cheering for Susan with the same enthusiasm that they did for Moxy Fruvous, which is an especially amazing thing considering that this was a die-hard Fru-head crowd which had travelled to Toronto from all over North America for the fan convention. (I found their overwhelming devotion both charming and somewhat frightening, but I digress). Then when Moxy invited her up to the stage to jam with them, it was clear that the Moxy uber-fans were cheering just as much for her as they were for Moxy. Anyway Jian was effusive in his praise for her, and said he hoped they could set up a tour with her in the near future. Moxy and Susan fans beware... they're both pretty volatile live performers and when you put them together, they're liable to react quite explosively! The Demolition tour may be coming soon to a venue near you... Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 20:59:47 -0500 From: "Andrea " Subject: Re: > Other stuff of note to CanMus and FTE folks: > > - Ivanna Santilli (ex-Bass is Base) is playing her second local solo gig > in as many weeks. She *does* have a new album coming out in March > titled "Brown". I know I'm probably alone on this one but all I can say is yeeeesssss! There is a God! I've been so excited for this, and I initially read that the album wasn't due until late this year, but thankfully after surfing the CMW site, I was proven wrong!!! Did anyone else see her itty bitty spot on Rapid Fax in mid/end of January? (Titled "Ivana be alone") Ivana looked and sounded great, I didn't even recognize her at first until she started to sing. But now I'm happy happy happy...That's what I'm going to buy next month. If anyone is interested, I still update the only Bass Is Base site around with news on the 3 ex-members. http://home.istar.ca/~andyc/funkmain.htm It's not much, but it's something. ~Andrea! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ICQ: 10294764 AOL IM: TheAndyC http://listen.to/canadianmusic - http://listen.to/boots - http://travel.to/thecomfortzone - canadian-music@smoe.org PROUDLY CANADIAN MUSIC WEB RING http://surf.to/canadianmusic ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 21:30:16 -0500 From: "Andrea " Subject: Alanis in MacLeans To those with access to Canadian news magazine, MacLeans, there's a cover story article on Alanis Morrissette. (March 8th 1999 issue). It is a 6 page article with some concert photos and of course the typical, when she was a teen pop star pics too. Following the Alanis article, is a shorter 2 page article titled "The season of the diva". As you can probably guess, names like Celine, Maddona and Shania popped up. I haven't read much, but judging from the photos, a lot of the article is about last week's Grammies and the up-coming Junos (!!!). That's it! NP: "You were so crazy, I was so chaste, I don't what happened to me, I don't knoooow..." ~Andrea! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ICQ: 10294764 AOL IM: TheAndyC http://listen.to/canadianmusic - http://listen.to/boots - http://travel.to/thecomfortzone - canadian-music@smoe.org PROUDLY CANADIAN MUSIC WEB RING http://surf.to/canadianmusic ------------------------------ End of canadian-music-digest V2 #39 ***********************************