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Day four at the 2003 Ottawa Bluesfest.

It's rainy and Sum 41 is playing. Thus: I am not there.

Listening to:

Beulah - Yoko (lacks the dusty heights of their last couple albums. less glittery, more shiny. or something.)

Four Tet - Rounds (i really like this. organic dance music that is neither too organic [Mum] nor too dance [St Germain]. comfortable, and exciting in the background.)

Ben Gibbard and Andrew Kenny - Split EP (since the Postal Service album, I've become addicted to Ben Gibbard's voice - and the acoustica on here feeds my craving better than Death Cab. Kenny's stuff is terribly ho-hum, though.)

The Decembrists - Castaways and Cutouts (not super-enthused, but the opening track is sweet-and-sour in a good way. i hear neutral milk hotel's name dropped a lot, but really this band sounds closest to John Vanderslice. which is good - he's a man who could use more imitatin'.)

Jay-Z [with Eminem] - "Renegade" (this is fun and intense in a "Gangsta's Paradise" sort of way [which is probably an awful thing to say, but it's the truth]. Eminem is so much more fascinating to listen to than Jay-Z. It has something to do with the way you can hear the force in his eyes, the passion in that stare. it's not superserious, though, at least i can't take it superseriously when they do that sliding "renegaaaaade!!!" thing at the chorus.)

I'm not going to rant about Harry Potter here - to sum up my position, they're enjoyable books, I haven't read the new one, and I have a lot of issues with the so-called "phenomenon". I couldn't let this article [NYT] by A.S. Byatt go without a link, however. Between it, Prospero's and grumblebee's comments in the resultant MetaFilter thread, my feelings are expressed perfectly - and far more articulately than i could have done myself. go read!

Day three at the 2003 Ottawa Bluesfest.

the lowdown:

the torture king: caught most of another set by this crazyman. this time he ate glass again, poked the needle through his head, but failed to swallow the sword (he tried four or five times, but he said he'd been doing it too much over the past few days). to make up for it, though, he swallowed a long piece of string, then made an incision in his belly with a scalpel, and pulled the string out of his own body with some forceps. what's mindblowing about all this lunatic nonsense is that he's doing it a few feet of in front of you, and there's very very little room for trickery (you could see his skin being pulled by the string, etc.) he's a little low on the charm, but his feats of daring are, er, daring indeed.

gordon downie and the country of miracles: in "coax me," chris murphy (Sloan) sang the now-famous words: "it's not the band I hate / it's their fans." And the Canadian band towards which that statement has most often been launched is none-other than Gord Downie's Tragically Hip. Today proved the addage absolutely true. I somehow managed to find a seat at the very front of the mainstage area, a couple meters away from mr downie himself (and, more importantly, the lovely ms julie doiron). sad thing was, some drunken, stoned, exuberant Hip fans were also nearby. i swear, they spent the entirety of the hour-long set yelling "gordo!" i watched with gritted teeth as downie tried first to ignore them (assuming they'd give up trying to get him to look at them), and then tried to appease them with some token smiles and glances. unfortunately, this only egged them on. though it was really nice to hear songs like "chancellor" and "vancouver divorce" (from downie's excellent first solo record, coke machine glow), their appeal was substantially undermined by audience contributions such as "gordooooooooo!" and "gordo! yeaaaah! woo! gordo! beer!". I haven't yet heard Downie's new one, Battle of the Nudes, but i hope that it's not the rock-and-roll album that much of his performance hinted at. save that crap for filler on tragically hip records, gord, and leave the offkilter poetry for us. (one of the Hip fans described coke machine glow as "really fucking wild, man. it's such a trip.") "steeplechase" and "into the night" are the new songs i'll need to seek out. i continue to believe that downie is one of canada's finest and most fascinating artists - a fine singer (like a more vicious Michael Stipe), a talented lyricist. i'd love to see him in a more intimate environment. as it is, the set floundered in the noisy bits (though these were the parts the hip-fans loved), as subtlety was tossed aside for chugging guitar noise. julie doiron contributed a ton of backup vocals, though, and it was wonderful to hear her singing so loud and free. she even looked like she was having a good time.

cesaria evora: given the forty-five minutes it took Ms Evora's people to set up (and given how much my legs were acheing), I was expecting a pretty fine show. instead, it was mostly disappointing. cesaria paled in comparison to her reputation - it's not that she's not a good singer, but rather that in her old age her voice no longer has much verve, and her interpretations of the songs were lacklustre at best. like reciting words from memory, the emotion disconnected. (it didn't help that she had all the stage-presence of a peanut.) her band presented a lush folky backdrop, but cesaria simply failed to convince me that she cared, or to create a laid-back groove. I enjoyed hearing some classic songs performed in-the-flesh ("Besame Mucho," for instance), but i don't think i was the only one in the crowd who left nonplussed.

cinematic orchestra: pleasant. certainly more adventurous than the new deal, whom I heard a few songs from earlier in the day. both of these bands, though, are essentially dance music, so it doesn't seem fair to evaluate them from a purely concert-listener perspective. a pity no one was dancing! (does this say something about the bands?) I liked Cinematic Orchestra's sax player - he did some really nice improvs (my jazz knowledge is a little truncated, but if i say he was doing like miles on the bari sax - short, midrange phrases - i figure you'll get my drift) - and filled the choruses with passion and restraint. i was disappointed by the singer, however - the cooing was a little too typical. the smattering of lyrics didn't help - vapid housemusicspeak ("come on home / to the hot red fire / come on home ...": that sort of thing).

I realize it sounds like every band I've been hearing has been middling-at-best. that's not actually true: but talking about someone's fabulousness is boring - it's much for fun to write about the niggling little flaws.

Day two at the 2003 Ottawa Bluesfest.

I've always suspected that what brings you to a festival is the headliners, and what keeps you is the unexpected surprises. That was certainly the case today, where semirandom sampling proved far more successful than safe bets.

I arrived solo in the afternoon, my stated intention to hear Ottawa's Golden Famile. The program described them like so:

Their sound is distinctly Canadian, mixing porch tales and folk tradition with guitar dramatics. At times soft and soothing and at others hard and storming, this music falls like rain making everything shiny and wet. The tools are various as the group collaborates to set the GOLDEN Famile's dark-woods mood.

Unfortunately, they didn't. The group was capable, certainly, at playing its
shy, country-tinged rock. What they lacked, however, was the lovesick intimacy of a band like Royal City, and the wildness, passion and experimentalism of someone like Okkervil River. The so-called "guitar dramatics" were noteworthy - the best part of the show - but Golden Famile was in the habit of ceasing them almost as soon as they began. It was as if they had stumbled across this great, feedbacky, rave-up sound, but weren't aware of the way it could rise into a bona fide climax, drums in tow. Someone should lend them some Sonic Youth, Mogwai and Velvet Underground records.

Since the program had guided me so well before (he rolls his eyes sarcastically), I decided to follow its advice again. Reverend Glasseye and his Wooden Legs was described as

Carnivalesque country-western music from the concrete jungle called New York. Hard to describe?weird but wonderful!

And you know what? They did.

Part of me wonders why the "evil circus music" subgenre is so small - Tom Waits, Mr Bungle, Squirrel Nut Zippers, are there any others?... - but then I realized it's really kinda because Tom Waits has it well in hand. Hearing another band "do" the Tom Waits thing sounds mostly excruciating, so it's to Reverend Glasseye's credit that their act was pretty darn terrific. Decked out in blood-red shirt and night-black suit, the Reverend was joined by the newsie-meets-sailor Wooden Legs on upright bass, trumpet, organ and drums. The singing was warbly and schizoid: Tom Waits, yes, but with a good dash of Jack White. It was polka with stomp and bite and whirling organ-lines, the lyrics a delicious mix of blood, threats, and spitfire ranting.

I also saw the Torture King sideshow act. Though he looked a little past his sell-by-date, the guy lived up to his name. In a good way. I watched as this pudgy grey-haired ponytailed man chewed on a lightbulb; swallowed a sword; walked, jumped and lay on broken glass (and was in turn walked and jumped upon as he lay there); and, finally, drove bicycle spokes through the middle of his bicep, and through the bottom of his head, from the soft palate to under the chin. No trickery, just madness. I won't try his stunts at home.

I went home for dinner, and showed up later to catch (in theory) Elvis Costello. After hunting for parking forever, Julian and I went in to the show ten minutes late. The whole mainstage area was already packed. Neither of us knew Costello's oeuvre, so we hung around in the far rear, squinting at the stage, and mildly nodding along. I wasn't exactly blown away. With very little discussion, we agreed to go wander over to the Birdman Stage, to check out the Deadly Snakes. I had heard a lot about them, but I was nervous that they were going to be boringly screechy garage-blues-punk, something hardcore and hollow.

Thankfully, I was dead wrong - the Snakes are the highlight of the festival thus far: a rearing, frenzied, soulful blast. Guitar, bass, organ, drums, trumpet, sax, and a heckload of tamborine, bleed together to lift garage bluesy rock'n'roll into something nearly transcendent. The chorus of sounds, of passionate yelling and genuine singing, even hints at gospel. The Who meets the White Stripes; Clinic tries to sing down the angels. And they're from Toronto!

The other Toronto act for the evening was the Sadies. I didn't stick around for the whole set - though I had heard a lot about the band's "psych-country," I found it disappointingly low on the psych, disappointingly high on the cheeseball Merle Haggard country. They played two types of songs: authentic country-western in the vein of early Johnny Cash, and crazy 40-second country-surf instrumentals. The latter were fresh and fun - exquisitely played, gnashingly delivered - but the former had me nodding off. As much as I enjoy the last few Johnny Cash albums - and as much as I'm loving a lot of twangy music, these days - that kind of thing remains hokey and stale, and it only seems to be able to connect with me on an ironic level.

Tomorrow: Gordon Downie and Cesaria Evora.

Day One at the 2003 Ottawa Bluesfest.

I met Julian at 6 and sat down on the grass outside the grounds with a "vegetarian noodle bowl to-go". I had assumed that this would be a bowl of noodles (to go), but instead found it to be, to put it glibly, soup. The soup tasted like miso, I suppose, if miso was a brand of cardboard, but the bigger problem was the whole hot-thick-liquid thing. The air in Ottawa, you see, is going through a hot, thick and liquid phase. Muggy doesn't begin to describe it: so humid that the slightest breeze feels like a terrifically frosty blast of winter.

Anyway, you don't care about soup, I suppose, and I'm not going to turn into one of those bloggers who rambles on and on about what they had for lunch (or for dinner, in this case). Allow me to make a quick segue, then: After finishing some small portion of my dinner, Julian and I entered the City Hall/Bluesfest grounds, collected our bracelet passes, and sat down on the grass in front of the Main Stage.

There, we waited, and sooner or later, a man named K-OS came out, accompanied by the typical white, sunglasses-wearing guitar-player, and the typical black, po-faced percussionist. After years of going to shows, I think it must be impossible to have a white percussionist and still maintain your street-cred. Witness Kinnie Starr (who had a white guy on djembe when she visited Montreal in 2001) - she is now ululating as part of Cirque du Soleil.

But please don't let me start racially profiling the musicians who I see perform. Suffice it to say - both of K-os' sidemen were superb, by far the best part of the show. Though K-os rhymes aren't particularly electric, the backup instrumentation is - the guitarist suprised me by coaxing out bar after bar of Indian and flamenco-tinged thrum, while the percussionist did genuinely exciting things with his tablas, snare (and everything else). K-os performs what the kids call "conscious" hip-hop: this means that he writes songs that insult bling-blinging MCs, that he does a lot of Buddhist name-dropping, and that he feels the need to do a barely passable adaptation of McCartney's "Yesterday." K-os' version, rather than mourning love lost, mourns the death of, well, other "conscious" hip-hop.

I shouldn't be so hard on him - K-os seemed an intelligent guy, the music was good, but the songs lacked any genuine insight. When I listen to hip-hop, as with jazz, I expect the MC to surprise me with a deft turn-of-phrase; a sharp, wise or funny rhyme. K-os kept throwing out references to oneness, love, struggling, revolution, but not in words that made the ideas seem fresh, or even powerful. It didn't help that all of his tunes followed the same pattern: upbeat rapping (and his flow was a real letdown - it rarely followed the beat, the syllables always seemed to be racing to catch up [and I say this as someone who enjoys the rhythm-ignoring flow of The Streets]), followed by a melodic, soul-singer chorus. K-os had a great voice - somewhere between dancehall and Marvin Gaye - but he kept using it in precisely the same ways, at precisely the same part of each song.

After K-os, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. A few years ago, I was an enormous fan of Mr. Harper. The guy could write, sing, and play guitar in songs that ran from folk to blues to pop, rock and back. Beauties like "Glory and Consequence" or the inimitable "Steal Your Kisses" made a real impact.

His new album, however, sucked. Diamonds on the Inside is boring, scattered, and self-indulgent. Vapid electric funk tracks, lacklustre ballads. Better/Worse still, it caused me to reevaluate Harper's back-catalog, and seeing the show today, I couldn't help but accept how little I care about the man's work any more. Though it's still skillful and passionate and appealingly romantic, Harper's running on fumes. The skill is certainly there, but Ben Harper always seems to be passionate about precisely the same things; he's always appealingly romantic in precisely the same ways. His vocabulary is small, and he challenges himself (or more importantly, the listener) very rarely. I've heard enough slow-cresting songs about worshipping a perfect, bejewelled lover, or calling for strength from the Lord.

The Ben Harper show was enjoyable - his band is tight, the sweaty-and-enormous crowd was in love, the set-list was superb (70% older material). Still, Julian and I both grew bored well before the encore. I could only bop my knees to so many earnest reggae tunes, or listen to so many seems-political-but-actually-isn't speeches. Please, Ben: prove that you can make new, fearsome art.

We stripped off from the megacrowd and caught the second two-thirds of Oh Susanna's set. She's a twangy singer from Vancouver, with a voice as thick as resin. Country-blues, folk, open-hearted ache - I have her first, self-titled EP, which is lovely. In concert, though, she let me down a bit. Accompanied by an additional electric guitar, electric piano and drums, her acoustic strum lost its urgency - the songs came out as country&western yawners, slight cliches. The set was very short - though Ben Harper started 90 minutes earlier, both acts finished at around the same time - but Susanna redeemed herself by closing with a haunting rendition of "Roll Me On Home," which left me yearning for some stars overhead and a hand in mine.

It wasn't exactly an auspicious beginning to a week of music, but it wasn't bad, either. I have high hopes for some of the next couple of days' acts.

canada day.

saw no concerts, except for pitchblack men with drums and smiles and drums drums drums. the NAC symphony show was full-up. u2-producer or no, i wasn't about to sit through a daniel lanois show.

mucked about downtown then went to a barbecue, washed away by sudden (thrashing) rain. gareth put on Sublime (part of the pantheon of summer bbq music, along with Cake and the Tragically Hip [particularly Phantom Power]). later, the beta band's 3 eps, then some album by roni size (it had too many beats. frenetic. for dancing or spazzing.). I had no idea roni size sounded like that. for some reason, had the delusion that they were a new-wave-meets-hip-hop kind of crew, or something. the talking heads crossed with kardinall offishall. i must be going crazy.

later, caught patches of fireworks through the trees and between buildings. people stood on Bank Street, necks craned, squinting at streaks of blue, snippets of gold. airplanes circled overhead. the smoke pushed off westward; i could see it far longer, far better, than i could the rainbow lightbursts from the hill.

on the bus down bank (towards downtown), people wore glownecklaces and canadaflag capes. enormous foam mapleleaf hats. drunken grins. eyes flicked and made contact - happy canada day happy canada day. everyone was leaning into the aisle, smiling, quiet. boom. we could feel the thunder more clearly than we could see the source. everyone trying to glimpse a splash of firedust.

later, took the bus down carling. this was away from the fireworks, away from the crowds and the noise and the national anthem. onboard: the people not hanging around to see the fancy lights. no flagcapes. no foamhats. fireworks were still booming. sputtering behind us. the bus was mostly empty. no one looked at each other. faces down. people sitting solo. me too.

my soundtrack today, when alone, was the new okkervil river record. at first (yesterday, two days ago), i was unhappy. it is less folky, this one, less dusty. the will robinson sheff band, instead of an ensemble. but listening today, there are bits so spectacular that i forgot my past criticisms. the songwriting is so fine. so very fine. songs soar, break hearts, tumble, shatter, gleam. i'll write a review soon.

So it seems I'm not crazy:

The Flaming Lips have been forced to turn over publishing royalties to Cat Stevens as part of a settlement in which Stevens (real name: Yusuf Islam) alleged that the Lips' song "Fight Test" bore a very close resemblance to his early '70s track "Father and Son."

So as of this evening, it looks like Google's been hacked.

Don't worry, it hasn't been. Evidence suggests that either a) every computer in my house (all of which are running MacOS 9, which no hacker in their right mind would waste time on) has been overcome by some adware, or b) our ISP's proxy was hit with some hacker juju. The odds are 6:1 for option b. Should you wish to bet on the outcome, google appears to have great solutions for online gambling!

Listened to a fun cover of the Flaming Lips doing the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." The best part is that they substitute the lyrics from the Butthole Surfers' "Moving to Florida." Huzzah!

I tried using a Sharpie today to defeat the copy protection on my Broken Social Scene album - hoping I could then play it on my discman. Drew a line around the edge outer edge, covering what looked like the data zone of the disc. No dice - still won't play on the walkman, but is fine on the stereo. Anyone else have any luck with this kind of crap? I'm trying to decide whether I want to try it on my copy of Hail to the Thief (but if it doesn't work, I've just killed my chances at resale...).

Is there anyone out there who's interested in joining me at the Ottawa Bluesfest? As of right now, no one else seems to be going - and I'm not really looking forward to doing it solo. The pass is a steal, this year, given the acts on deck; if you'd like to enjoy ten days of shows, and want someone to sip beers with you, let me know...