Canadian Sunrise
"Canadian Sunset" was one of my favorite tunes growing up a wee sprout in Syracuse, the number two track side one of Ferrante and Teicher's UA LP "Golden Piano Hits", which leads off with the theme from "Exodus'" (said theme an AM radio hit single in my neck of the woods, direct from these north of the border double piano pumpers...and the first theme I aspired to play on guitar at age nine...a theme I finally nailed on my 'Busy Being Born' album, thanks to John "Genius Award! Genius Award!" Zorn, on a track which ends-- ominously, appropriately-- with the sound of sirens--police? ambulance?-- faintly bleeding right on cue through the walls of Jake 'Dazed and Confused' Holmes' midtown jingle studio where/when I cut this here version, sirens a' bleeding right through the studio walls and onto the master tape...listen closely...God is a shout in the street, indeed)...
...and "Canadian Sunset" was on my mind as I pulled out of la citee fantastique Montreal Saturday night in the light of a blazing Canadian sunset (quick, go to Itunes store immediatement and purchase snowbird Anne Murray's smooth as piste rendition--a duet with Glenn Campbell yet-- of this wonderful pop perennial...even better, check out the Elsie Bianchi Trio's version, also available at the good old Itunes store, from their now much sought after "Atlantis Blues" album, the aforementioned Elsie sounding herein like a lobotomized Sabina Sciubba)...
all this is preamble to saying that I had a GREAT FUCKING GIG opening Pop Montreal last Wednesday with "The Golem", was possibly my favorite Golem gig of all time (all 200 or so of 'em I've executed since 1989's debut with fellow co-conspirator Walter Horn), best I ever played it for sure, certainly best setting for it ever inside the huge lovely awe-inspiring old cathedral Eglise de St. Jean Baptiste, where my "dressing room"/antechamber was festooned with framed vivid depictions of the 12 Stations of the Cross (a setting which concentrated the mind wonderfully)..hey I could happily live inside that church...the sound inside there was 4th dimensional, E. Power Biggs-like (another Great White Northerner), every time I bore down on my guitars in response to some frenzied bit of business onscreen the sound went caromming out of my twin song 'o Roland JC-120's (some cruciformed symbolisme here), ricocheting off the High Windows of stained glass and swirling around and around the domed cupola, had about 1000 folks going berserko at the end, 50 of which I have it on very good authority were on "chocolate mushrooms" (une delicace des tetes Canadienne apparently, recipe courtesy the cookbook/confiserie de L'Internationale Hallucinex--one part essence du psilocybe folded into yummy chocolate apparently)--was proferred some of this sacre bleu sacrament beforehand which apparently rendered one rubbery-- but no thanks! I was working! Anyway my gig was written up as an early festival highlight in the Montreal Gazette the day after the show (see my homepage for the text) and was cited as a highlight again this week in the same paper as part of their Festival wrap-up...and as this was my debut in Montreal, I was, uh--pretty damn chuffed, as they say! :-)))
And that was but the kickoff to a wonderful couple days spent in what is well on the way to becoming my favorite city in the immediate biosphere--such a beautiful locale! Great feng-shui. And what fantastic vibes from such friendly folks abounding, starting off with Pop Montreal mainman Dan Seligman and his co-directorice Noelle, and lovely new friends the very pre-Raphaelite looking sisters Vanya and Carina Rose (Vanya's a film maker who had a premiere of her new film Saturday night which I very reluctantly had to miss, but heard there were lines round the block for it)...also homegirl Candace (a dead-ringer for Shane from "The L-Word") and her killer femme posse who took me dancing one night to the hippity hoppity sounds of Vice Magazine's fave rave Spank Rock...ran into Jerry Leibowitz, one of the original Knit Fac space cowboys who set up shop on Houston Street in 1986, 15 years since last I scoped him and now he's a honcho handing out bourses/twoneys to deserving artists of the Canadian persuasion...and let us not forget the guy who hooked the whole thing up for me, legendary Blue Oyster Cult/Clash/Dictators producer/rockcrit/lyricist/intellectual punk Sandy Pearlman, currently teaching at McGill University, and his cohorts Professor's Don McLean, Dan Levitin and a bunch more hipsters du musique some of whom I was on a panel with called "What's Wrong with Music?" (lots, methinks, but that's another story... got to shpritz on cue about this in an interview/soundbite Thursday for the CBC who were covering the adjunct Future of Music Conference taking place up there during the day)...
...and rockin' on till the break of dawn, some highlights were catching Joanna Newsom's deliquescent, incandescent, nay superhuman set (girl is not of this earth--really); the amazing return to form and then some of the fabulous legendary Roky Erickson in the company of a tough bunch of blues-rock greasers called The Explosions, after the showing of possibly the most harrowing music documentary I've ever witnessed concerning Roky's descent into the maelstrom and amazing comeback, titled (after the 13th Floor Elevators' anthem) "You're Gonna Miss Me"...and memorably, a late night hang in a smoky loft--I was back jamming there the next night at 2am--a packed rehearsal studio that was the domain of a wonderful ethereal-voiced singer/songwriter/pianist named Patrick Watson who writes unbelievably haunting tunes, also very much appreciating the tough ragamuffin charms of young singer/songwriter/waif Jesse Jackson (his real name)...
there was a whole lot more music to catch, and people to discover, and vibes to luxuriate in...but I heard on Saturday that my Uncle Charles had died after a long illness...and so I bid a sad adieu for the moment to magnificent mother Montreal and caught a plane back home Saturday night, and then flew up to Auburn Monday with my sister Bonnie for Charles' funeral...
and now am regrouping for a slew of upcoming Gods and Monsters gigs here in NYC--we got some brilliant press out of the box for our new album "Coming Clean", including a 4 star review in the new MOJO (see home page) and this just in, a rave review in the French magazine Crossroads...
Have to split right now for a sitdown with Uncle Bob Strano, more soon later keep watching the (Canadian and otherwise) skies...
xxLove
Gary
...and "Canadian Sunset" was on my mind as I pulled out of la citee fantastique Montreal Saturday night in the light of a blazing Canadian sunset (quick, go to Itunes store immediatement and purchase snowbird Anne Murray's smooth as piste rendition--a duet with Glenn Campbell yet-- of this wonderful pop perennial...even better, check out the Elsie Bianchi Trio's version, also available at the good old Itunes store, from their now much sought after "Atlantis Blues" album, the aforementioned Elsie sounding herein like a lobotomized Sabina Sciubba)...
all this is preamble to saying that I had a GREAT FUCKING GIG opening Pop Montreal last Wednesday with "The Golem", was possibly my favorite Golem gig of all time (all 200 or so of 'em I've executed since 1989's debut with fellow co-conspirator Walter Horn), best I ever played it for sure, certainly best setting for it ever inside the huge lovely awe-inspiring old cathedral Eglise de St. Jean Baptiste, where my "dressing room"/antechamber was festooned with framed vivid depictions of the 12 Stations of the Cross (a setting which concentrated the mind wonderfully)..hey I could happily live inside that church...the sound inside there was 4th dimensional, E. Power Biggs-like (another Great White Northerner), every time I bore down on my guitars in response to some frenzied bit of business onscreen the sound went caromming out of my twin song 'o Roland JC-120's (some cruciformed symbolisme here), ricocheting off the High Windows of stained glass and swirling around and around the domed cupola, had about 1000 folks going berserko at the end, 50 of which I have it on very good authority were on "chocolate mushrooms" (une delicace des tetes Canadienne apparently, recipe courtesy the cookbook/confiserie de L'Internationale Hallucinex--one part essence du psilocybe folded into yummy chocolate apparently)--was proferred some of this sacre bleu sacrament beforehand which apparently rendered one rubbery-- but no thanks! I was working! Anyway my gig was written up as an early festival highlight in the Montreal Gazette the day after the show (see my homepage for the text) and was cited as a highlight again this week in the same paper as part of their Festival wrap-up...and as this was my debut in Montreal, I was, uh--pretty damn chuffed, as they say! :-)))
And that was but the kickoff to a wonderful couple days spent in what is well on the way to becoming my favorite city in the immediate biosphere--such a beautiful locale! Great feng-shui. And what fantastic vibes from such friendly folks abounding, starting off with Pop Montreal mainman Dan Seligman and his co-directorice Noelle, and lovely new friends the very pre-Raphaelite looking sisters Vanya and Carina Rose (Vanya's a film maker who had a premiere of her new film Saturday night which I very reluctantly had to miss, but heard there were lines round the block for it)...also homegirl Candace (a dead-ringer for Shane from "The L-Word") and her killer femme posse who took me dancing one night to the hippity hoppity sounds of Vice Magazine's fave rave Spank Rock...ran into Jerry Leibowitz, one of the original Knit Fac space cowboys who set up shop on Houston Street in 1986, 15 years since last I scoped him and now he's a honcho handing out bourses/twoneys to deserving artists of the Canadian persuasion...and let us not forget the guy who hooked the whole thing up for me, legendary Blue Oyster Cult/Clash/Dictators producer/rockcrit/lyricist/intellectual punk Sandy Pearlman, currently teaching at McGill University, and his cohorts Professor's Don McLean, Dan Levitin and a bunch more hipsters du musique some of whom I was on a panel with called "What's Wrong with Music?" (lots, methinks, but that's another story... got to shpritz on cue about this in an interview/soundbite Thursday for the CBC who were covering the adjunct Future of Music Conference taking place up there during the day)...
...and rockin' on till the break of dawn, some highlights were catching Joanna Newsom's deliquescent, incandescent, nay superhuman set (girl is not of this earth--really); the amazing return to form and then some of the fabulous legendary Roky Erickson in the company of a tough bunch of blues-rock greasers called The Explosions, after the showing of possibly the most harrowing music documentary I've ever witnessed concerning Roky's descent into the maelstrom and amazing comeback, titled (after the 13th Floor Elevators' anthem) "You're Gonna Miss Me"...and memorably, a late night hang in a smoky loft--I was back jamming there the next night at 2am--a packed rehearsal studio that was the domain of a wonderful ethereal-voiced singer/songwriter/pianist named Patrick Watson who writes unbelievably haunting tunes, also very much appreciating the tough ragamuffin charms of young singer/songwriter/waif Jesse Jackson (his real name)...
there was a whole lot more music to catch, and people to discover, and vibes to luxuriate in...but I heard on Saturday that my Uncle Charles had died after a long illness...and so I bid a sad adieu for the moment to magnificent mother Montreal and caught a plane back home Saturday night, and then flew up to Auburn Monday with my sister Bonnie for Charles' funeral...
and now am regrouping for a slew of upcoming Gods and Monsters gigs here in NYC--we got some brilliant press out of the box for our new album "Coming Clean", including a 4 star review in the new MOJO (see home page) and this just in, a rave review in the French magazine Crossroads...
Have to split right now for a sitdown with Uncle Bob Strano, more soon later keep watching the (Canadian and otherwise) skies...
xxLove
Gary
posted by Gary Lucas at 5:38 PM
1 comments
|
1 Comments:
Ha! Cheers, or should I say "cheese" for reminding me of that Snowbird! - our middle school chorus sang that - one of the best pieces in our repertoire I thought. Sadly, unrecorded.
Got tickets to see Ms. Newsom in November, can't wait.
Post a Comment