Grass Widow/Raincoats gig review

AT THE ROCK SHOW




GRASS WIDOW/RAINCOATS, Wrongbar, Toronto, Ontario, 9/23/11

Initially, there was confusion about this gig, both my fault and, to some extent, due to how the event was initially advertised on-line. To make a long story short (it is almost always too late to invoke that by the time you’ve said it), it developed that there were two shows that same evening (which was not clear when I bought my tickets), and it was originally billed as (that act) and The Raincoats, so I bought the tickets for (that act), thinking it was her and then The Raincoats, only to discover when things were updated that I had purchased for the wrong programme. After some frantic negotiations and communications with both Shirley (The Raincoats’ manager) and the event organizer, the boyfriend and I were on the guest list, so we got in cheaper than would normally have been the case, as the tickets for the other act were a smidgen less pricey. (By the way, the other act was Marnie Stern, an excellent guitarist – I would go see her on some other occasion, and would have loved to have seen her if she had been on the bill with The Raincoats, but I wanted to see the band, as there could not be that many more opportunities and, as it develops, they revealed during the intro that they had NEVER played in Canada before).


There was a very small group of people waiting at the door when we arrived at the designated time (it may not be very rock ‘n’ roll of me, but I foolishly still think the stated kickoff is when things will start), and the door was locked, which caused us some concern. A couple of employees who were going in were unclear when it was starting, though one thought the door would open in about twenty minutes. When that time arrived, we timidly knocked, and a woman came to the door and said she also was not sure when it was going to commence. That woman was, in fact, Ana Da Silva from the band! (It was both a thrill to speak to her, however briefly, and somewhat ominous, given that the GROUP was not sure when it was going to launch).


When we entered, I sincerely wish I’d had my video camera at the ready, as the band were all gathered over in a corner and Ana and Gina were doing dance moves to the Motown blasting from the jukebox. Candid YouTube moments, foiled again…


I’m afraid I hit the merch table in advance of the show, while I could still hear (which is when I had my second conversation with Ana, albeit in terms of her asking me to move my big bearish butt (no, not in those words) so she could get a snapshot of the stuff). I got a t-shirt of The Raincoats (I was glad to see that they actually had one in my size, though the band that recorded ‘Odyshape’, with its critical remarks about size discrimination, would have been ill-served had they NOT), as well as a 45 and a cassette (yes, a cassette) by the opening band, Grass Widow.


On the subject of Grass Widow – they are a San Francisco female trio, consisting of Hannah (bass/vocals), Raven (guitar/vocals) and Lillian (drums/vocals), who perform very intricate and rhythmically tricky/elastic songs, in a mode somewhere between Erase Errata (yes, I know it’s lazy to compare a female band from San Francisco to ANOTHER female troupe from the same place), Throwing Muses and, well, The Raincoats, which made them an ideal opening act.


Because of the interwoven nature of their vocals and arrangements, they were a bit ill-served by a murky mix, but it got better (because it gets better) as time went on, and they were an original and intriguing ensemble whose albums I feel obliged to acquire over time (their 45 and their cassette were both excellent, arty affairs, full of interesting lyrics, chorale voices and sharp angles).


And The Raincoats? Oh, my goddess, where do I begin? Ana (guitar/bass/not functioning sampler/vocals), Gina (bass/guitar/vocals), Anne (violin/guitar/bass/vocals) and either Vice Cooler or Jean-Marc Butty on drums (they didn’t introduce him and my research has not found pictures identifying who he is/was) took to the stage with ferocity and none of the alleged shambling and uncertainty I have heard of their shows. Gina, who had swept into the bar looking rather damp and wind-blown (yes, it was pouring the day they played…imagine the aptness), was looking ferocious and fabulous now, and Ana had the energy and inventiveness often attributed to women half her age, while Anne and the drummer were perky and on top of their game. They played the hell out of a wide swath of their material, even including b-sides such as “I Keep Walking” (more baleful and Velvets-touched than the studio take), as-yet-unrecorded gems like “The Feminist Song” and my personal faves “Don’t Be Mean” and “Babydog”, along with absolutely required numbers such as “Fairytale In The Supermarket” and “No Side”. My only quibble is that they didn’t do “Lola”, but one can’t do EVERYTHING.


And before we knew it, it was over. The boyfriend and I walked back to the hotel, on a now clear and not overly cool night, though I rather suspect I floated on a wave of satisfaction and glee. :)

The art show theme

The art show theme

THE YOUNG WIDOWER

The young widower arises

From the nearly flat

Oceanic expanse of blue and white sheets

And wishes for roiling, as they had been before.

The young widower arises

Cold feet to cold kitchen

And takes down a cup, one of many

Matched by color, in one of two names.

The young widower arises

To claim the daily paper

Marking another passage of the moon through night

And the haughty arrival of another day.

The young widower peruses

The deaths and the courts

And also births and weddings, faint smile

At the easy procession of unquestioned routine.

The young widower reflects

On their meeting in college

In knowledge that, had they known the brevity,

They still would have artfully managed to live.

The young widower recalls

The seeking of blessing

From God and humanity, constructed in stone,

A simple marker in a weeded field.

The young widower sighs

At the mad whirl of faces,

Dancing in a space paid for dearly

And held dearly in memory ‘gainst the cold grip of earth.

The young widower glances

At the gleaming container

Hard fought for the right to have, burn and cherish

So many broken bones now brought to ash.

The young widower turns

To go forth in the world

that anonymously killed one thought anonymously loved…

But he proclaims their names in love.

December 5, 2011

new poem

IN A BETTER WORLD




Kurt Cobain married Calvin Johnson

And raised baby kittens on a cartoon spaceship,

While Courtney Love stayed with Falling James…

And if they ever fought, it was over him stretching her dresses.



And Amy Winehouse lived to a saucy old age,

Singing ‘Cupid’ down at her local pub

And the worse thing she ever put in her veins

Was the slimy grease from pork ‘n’ beans. Oy vey!



And Dusty Springfield looked in the mirror

That hung inside her walk-in-closet door

And saw Mary O’Brien as she truly was…

The beautiful girl who could be Dusty as well, and lived.



If Jeff Buckley ever swam, he disrobed, lovely boy.

He could wait to meet the father that he never knew…

And while he never made another ‘Grace’,

His muse took him elsewhere, lovers met but no journey’s end.



Scott Wannberg became the cranky old man

That Kerouac did not, and Burroughs should not have

And hung with Henry, Exene…and Viggo. Why not?

And spun surreal poems on looms of paper and pen.





Sylvia Plath used her oven to cook

As an independent woman with seventeen cats,

For she told her fascist Daddy that they were through

And he became an Iron Giant, a male artist all on his own.



Akhmatova saved her son from Stalin

And became the poet of slumber and summer.

Some would argue they were lesser verse,

But they can have winter and open red eyes and mass graves.



Virginia Woolf put practice to theory

And left Leonard for Vita in 1928

And summered in Paris with Gertrude and Alice

And if she ever swam, had no rocks clutched close to her heart.



Matthew Shepard left Wyoming in haste,

Or perhaps he stayed and married a Phelps.

Life is crammed and packed with twists,

And if God has the answer, the vector brings more than one.



Tipton and Teena share a trailer together,

Grandparent and grandchild in a quiet life.

I have seen their ID, and whatever it says,

Your ID is yours, to share or to clutch to bound chest.



Carlos may have regretted her candour,

Thinking curious playboys wanted to know…

But what they wanted was to feel

They could check off a box – and check one out as well.



I am not a puzzle for you to solve.

I am no riddle to parse in the dark.

I am no joke for you to wheeze, laughing.

I’m a story in progress, and the ending is mine, so just wait.



September 7, 2011

Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill

Don (l) and Chris (r) at Wolfe Island Grill, a photo by The Enchanter Tim on Flickr.

Dog of pure evil cuddliness

Dog of pure evil cuddliness, a photo by The Enchanter Tim on Flickr.

BEAR LIKE ME by Jonathan Cohen (in review)

BEAR LIKE ME, by Jonathan Cohen (Bear Bones Books/Lethe Press, 2011)

I confess to having read this book back in 2003 when it was published by a now sadly defunct company.  I think I prefer this cover a bit to the original, though I'd rather see the model recoiling in horror from the razor. ;)

In that now-distant era, I was fairly new at Bear identity.  However, I've never held identity as this precious thing beyond humour or critique, especially since my general experience with the queer community has required that I both be able to laugh to keep from crying or retching and to realize that some people think that their product resulting from what bears do in the woods does not stink.  Therefore, I loved this book then, if only because it is true that you are a bear if you say you are...until ten other bears rip you to shreds.

This fun romp through the main character's adventures when he sets out to go undercover as a Bear in order to write a piece about that subculture, with the resulting changes in his life, is romantic, hilarious, sardonic and shockingly true-to-life.  Though I must confess that early on I thought perhaps things like beauty contests and A-lists would be something foreign to a community made up primarily of exiles, I should have realized that, no matter what some Bears actually say, we ARE gay men, and there does seem to be some cultural tendency towards bitchiness (or butchiness, if you will).  And the passage of eight years has allowed me to stop cringing at the notion of a Bear named Ben, fortunately. :).

Like the best books that would seem to have an audience in mind, this book could appeal to a wider range of people interested in humorous but pointed satire, which I tested by leaving the book out in a pile of leaves in the middle of the woods.  Soon, several women and straight men ventured along, flipped through it, and guffawed, so I know it could have a broader appeal (no girth humour intended).