“Maybe if you stay then we’ll stay too”: Folk Fest 2008

The titular line is from a song by  The Cononant C called “Azeda Booth,” and I saw them perform at one of the sidestage concerts at the Folk Fest yesterday morning. It was a beautiful show; The Consonant C is a six-piece with some very skilled instrumentalists and gorgeous three-woman vocal solos and harmonies. I saw an abbreviated version of them perform at U of C a few months ago during the CJSW funding drive and it was lovely to get to see the whole group give a proper show.

The “Azeda Booth” in the  title refers to my favourite Calgary band (and maybe favourite band, period), Azeda Booth. The singer (from TCC) explained that it’s about people (including musicians) who’ve left Calgary, but Azeda Booth is still very much here, just released a critically adored album (I bought it the day it was released, something I’ve never done even once in my life), and as the sad but hopeful lyric says, maybe both of these wonderful bands will stick around. That would be nice.

But let’s not worry about that now- Folk Fest wrapped up today and there was a lot of beauty there. The mainstage concerts I found pretty uninspiring, sad to say, but that seems to be the case in a lot of these fests- the real pleasures are in the mini-concerts (like The Consonant C’s) and the “workshops” where different artists share a stage and, if we’re lucky, jam together, often bridging seemingly unbridgeable gaps in genre, to create something completely new, unique, and unrecoverable. It can be magic.

So among the three “venues”–the mainstage, sidestage concerts, and workshops–here are my highlights:

Mainstage: I was left pretty cold by what I sat through, on Thursday and Friday (I didn’t even bother with Saturday or Sunday, just nothing of interest to me there); I was most looking forward to Aimee Mann on Thursday night, but I found her really boring, and she refused to do what would be (I’m sure) a beautiful po-mo 2008 version of “Voices Carry,” one of the most beautiful choruses to come out of 80s’ new wave… her catalog is pretty but repetitive and just not the sort of thing I like to sit through in a concert. The high point of Thursday for me was Winnipeg’s progressive rock icons The Weakerthans, who appeal to me in the same way the late great Pavement did. Catchy, lyrical, and they put on a very friendly show. The rest of Thursday was not very memorable.

Friday mainstage wasn’t entirely my cup of tea either but for one oustanding, bright shining exception and the sort of thing I go to Folk Fest for: Andrew Bird. I love to be surprised like this. He records loops on violin and whistles (not as painful as it sounds) and his music is enthralling and very beautiful.

On to the real pleasures of Folk Fest:

Concerts: I was thrilled as noted with The Consonant C, and on the same day by a superb, passionate set by another Calgary outfit called Beija Flor.

I hate to do this but I have to compare them, favourably, to The Arcade Fire, but maybe it’s because they both have blonde male leads. I loved one song that has a call-and-answer chorus (“Boy you’ve got a way of living/BOY YOU’VE GOT A WAY OF LIVING”) that is infectious and a lot of fun to see live. I really wanted to like these guys and I did, they put on a very tight, serious show and I hope to see more of them.

I also loved a concert by some more Calgary alternative royalty called Woodpigeon. They’re one of those massive “collective” bands that might have a dozen folks onstage although today they had… I think it was seven. I loved their set especially as I was almost completely unfamiliar with them so every song was a new discovery and most very enjoyable. Woodpigeon invites inevitable comparisons with Broken Social Scene- every “collective” will- but their music is generally prettier, more reserved, and often more “pop” than is BSS’s, but one place in the show where this comparison is apt (and I mean this in a very complimentary way) was in their last number. It was a soaring, epic number that left me very spent and moved and happy, very much like when I’ve seen BSS do “Ibi Dreams of Pavement.” That’s a good thing. I bought their new album and they signed it, which is always neat.

I wanted to mention three perfectly amazing workshops that I saw, simply because they so perfectly demonsrated that emergent magic that I mentioned earlier. The first was with Andrew Bird, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

Now I only caught the end of this one, but TMMJ were a big group of men from Morocco who play Sufi meditations and it’s all drumming and droning and repetitive and not all that pleasant… but with a sprinkling of Andrew Bird’s musicality, it was incredible, and brought everybody to their feet for a standing O at the end. I was shocked, in a good way.

Second was a workshop with Andrew Bird again, Calexico, Bill Callahan, and those Hawk/Hacksaw people. I’d seen Calexico on the mainstage didn’t love them, but they did a great MCing/organizing job and the real beauty, thrilling beauty, came with the first and third of Bill Callahan’s numbers. Those were “Blood Red Bird” and “Cold Blooded Old Times,” and the gorgeousness of Andrew Bird’s violin and Calexico’s horns made those songs spectacles. It was really too much, perfect moments.

Last was a set featuring Vancouver DJ duo No Luck Club, a Klezmer-hiphop duo (seriously, and it works!) from Montreal called So Called, and two female vocalists, Kara Keith who is formerly of Calgary’s Falconhawk (and she’s a superb pianist, not just a vocalist) and another (ex?) Calgary gal, Wendy McNeill, who has a beautiful, ethereal voice. And these disparate artists MADE IT WORK so beautifully, it made time stand still. It was pure collaboration, and that’s what these things are all about. I only have a pic from No Luck Club’s earlier standalone concert and this is them:

Last thing: right by the merchandise tent was a little tent run by Cantos Music Foundation, and as it happened they had little concerts there too- with no stage per se and hardly any room for an audience, but they had them, and lo and behold but one was by Kris Demeanor and his Crack Band- and I love them and got to stand a mere few feet from them, request (and hear) “Perfect Buzz,” and generally cap off my experience perfectly.

I even got to play with Cantos’ theremin, very briefly but still.

Last last thing: Folk Fest attendees line up like sheep for what I consider to be very average–worse than average, in fact–Indian food at one of the food stands on site, and I had to note that I had what I consider the best dish I’ve had at the Fest ever, in a sea of great options: It was Indonesian beef rendang at a place called “The Jungle Chef.”

Look for this guy!

49th Parallel “Primate Reserve” single-origin espresso: Is there anything Rhesus monkeys can’t do?

A great thing about the explosion in this city’s coffee scene over the last year or so has been the range of tasty (and some not so tasty, but whatever) beans that are out here now. Just talking espresso, within a short or long-ish walk from my house I can purchase a single-origin, mixed roast Ethiopian Arecha from Phil and Sebastian (roasted by Denver’s Novo Coffee); at Kawa Espresso Bar I can buy both 49th Parallel Epic Espresso and Josuma’s Malabar Gold; at Bumpy’s I can also find Epic as well as locally-roasted Big Mountain; at Good Earth I can try their house espresso roasted locally by Fratello; at Caffe Artigiano I find their Private Reserve espresso blend that’s roasted by 49th, and at DeVille Luxury Coffee there is Intellligentsia Black Cat on hand. Good times? GREAT times! And I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody here. Much good.

But even with this choice the palate sometimes needs a challenge and I found it today at Kawa: They had three 12-oz bags of 49th’s “Primate Reserve” single-origin espresso from India. I bought it, $23, which is indeed pricey, but that’s $2 less than on the 49th website and it’s… special. Here’s the bag from somewhat afar:

And close up. Click on it, you really have to read this:

Yes it sounds a bit gross, but damn if those monkeys don’t have fine taste. I pulled a shot (this bag has a roast date of eight days ago so I think we’re in the sweet spot today) and it was pretty…

…especially as my Leva is stingy with crema, generally, and this pic was a good minute after the shot. Very nice looking, thick durable crema and a nice colour (it looks blonder than it was due to the flash) too.

The taste? Yummy! Super balanced with some initial very bright notes but they mellow beautifully. It’s a nice espresso and I’d like to try it in other forms too.

So there ya go. I benefit from monkey labour and you can as well. It’s at Kawa if you’re in Calgary and presumably other stores that resell 49th.

Stampede vs Folk Fest: I’ll take a bit of both, thanks

So the Calgary Stampede has been over for a week and change now and I’m still amazed and perplexed by my experience with it this year. I ended up visiting the grounds three times, had a delicious (seriously, delicious) corn dog on the last one, did the skyride, noticed–really NOTICED–how stunningly multicultural the crowd was (you’ve never really seen “cowboys” until you’ve seen Nigerian, Chinese, Korean, Punjabi, Arab, Ethiopian, Russian, British, German, and Quebecois cowboys all on the same day), spent some time communing with miniature donkeys at the Agricultural Pavilion:

…not to mention experiencing the whole conviviality thing on the grounds, on Stephen Ave, and on 17th, as well as three superb barbecues at friends’ homes, and I have to say that for the first time in the eight years I’ve lived in Calgary, I had, for the first time, a great time at Stampede. Stampede has always been something that I’ve taken in from a bemused distance, and whole summers have come and gone without me setting foot on the grounds. I’ve enjoyed it in tiny doses and generally have, at best, tolerated it. This summer it’s not as if I’ve become a rodeo fan (I have absolutely no interest in it at all), and my cowboy hat actually saw little use because I hate wearing hats of any description in warm weather. I also generally despise “country” music. So it’s not that I’ve gone native or anything, but I had a great time.

All of this has been a confusing experience for me. See, the way I’ve lived in Calgary has been to carefully shape my life and lifestyle to exlude the things that I cannot stand about this city, and it’s worked. We (Brian and I) don’t complain about “sprawl” because we don’t live in sprawl. We don’t complain about a car-centred lifestyle because our lives aren’t car-centred. We don’t complain (much) about “rednecks” because we live in a liberal neighbourhood near downtown that’s just as antipodal to “redneck” as was our old neighbourhood in Toronto. We’ve taken the good here and have managed to ignore the bad or make the bad irrelevant to us as a day to day matter, and that’s how we can say, and say honestly, that we love Calgary.

But what I think has been the case with me since I’ve lived here is that I’ve thrown out the Stampede baby with the “eschew all things redneck” bathwater. Stampede is way, way more than a rodeo and it’s way more than any of the stereotypes that are, unfortunately, used to market it. It is a much, much more successful Toronto Ex or Vancouver PNE, because the party comprises almost the entire city–heck, the entire provice–here. It is, in that sense, one of the most INCLUSIVE things I’ve participated in in Canada… in fact the only thing I can really compare it to is Canada Day, which I celebrated at Prince’s Island Park this summer and which was a scene of enthralling, incredible diversity. That’s what Stampede is: it’s unity in diversity, and it’s a beautiful thing. I had never seen it this way until this year, and it makes me happy.

So now we are looking forward to the Calgary Folk Fest, which starts this Thursday, and it’s always the high point of summer here. Part of the reason for this is obviously the superb music programming there: it’s far more than folk; in fact I kind of wish it would rebrand as a “world music festival” or maybe just as, say, “The Prince’s Island Festival,” but there’d be hell to pay if they tried that. But I think the real pleasure, for me, of Folk Fest has been that it’s the anti-Stampede. Stampede always struck me as a celebration of stereotyped “western” (meaning rural, conservative, even American) values, while Fok Fest is the sort of event that not only draws a liberal crowd, 21st-century urban Canadian in every sense, but is also, given its timing a week or so after Stampede, a sort of antidote for it. For me, it’s been an assurance that, however much this city might revel in tacky redneckiness, it can also host a monstrously successful music fair that is as far from tacky redneck as can be imagined.

So Folk Fest is an opportunity for me to commune with my own kind, and since I don’t attend church (another such opportunity), I revel in these sorts of social gatherings: Folk Fest, Gay Pride, poitical rallies and protests, and yes concerts. I need that; everybody does; we all need to feel a common bond with others, and the event (whatever it is) lends to a sense of ecstacy and the notion that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.

But, I’ve come to realize, there is a similarly fulfilling experience in events like Stampede (and Canada Day) that draw a diverse audience and manage, despite their differences, to unite them. I hate to wear a cowboy hat, but dammit if seeing all those people with all those languages and skin colours wearing those stupid hats that didn’t get me choked up this year. You don’t see “diversity,” much, at Folk Fest; we attendees pride ourselves on being liberal and inclusive, but the fact is that the crowd is mostly enlightened white people, old hippies and young hipsters, and once in a while it’s great to revel in the same sort of people that I went to college with. But inclusiveness has to mean more than that, and Stampede is great place to see it.

One year…

…in the books! I started this blog one year ago today. I remember that I was sitting at my desk here in the basement (not as sad as it sounds) and I wrote what I wanted to accomplish over my upcoming sabbatical, and I posted a virtual sticky on my virtual desktop that said, “BODY WORK HOME PEOPLE CREATIVITY.” I’m not sure, today, exactly what I had in mind with all of those (“body” yes, but why did I write “people”?), but I know that my intention was to accomplish something in all these areas every day, and thought a blog might help in this last area. See, in academia we’re “writing” all the time (in fact I’m struggling with a batch of revisions for a manuscript right now that I want to get back in the mail next week before Folk Fest starts), but as rewarding as that sort of writing is, it’s not enough (for me) as a “creative” outlet. It’s “work” and was what I saw as another agenda.

Anyway, I started this thing as a “creative” outlet and I guess it mostly to review things, but I’ve gone more in a web 1.0 direction and treated this as more of an online diary (as “diary” as I’d want a public site like this to become) than either a proper “weblog” (though there is a fair bit of that in here) or a proper “reviews” site like some of those that I link to in my blogroll. Having said all that, I also think I’ve done a much better job of maintaining this blog compared to some I link to in my roll and too many I find online. Blogs take commitment and I guess I have that, but writers also have to ENJOY them and I do very, very much enjoy having this outlet. It’s been serving me well and I really appreciate knowing that some people read it, too.

So add July 15 to my birthday (Jan 21), our “unofficial” (June 1, the date we met) and “official” (Aug 8, the date we legally married) anniversaries, the date I moved to Calgary (Aug 10), the date we took possession of our home (Feb 2), the date I was sworn in as a Canadian citizen (June 1),  and all those other anniversaries that signal life-changing events and that mark the passage of time with things that make us happy and proud.

I haven’t done this yet and don’t even know how, but I have to thank and commend the good people at WordPress for hosting this blog (for free!) and giving me this superb venue for my words and pictures. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this over other blogging sites I’d considered and even briefly used. WordPress is for writers. Give it a try.

Oh-speaking of creativity and all that and apropos of nothing else, here’s our house as a stencil- I did this with a website that converts pics to stencils but you can do it in photoshop, albeit not with the label:

Hail Manzito!

On “Manzito”: It’s my Brazilian soccer name. You have one too. Check it out. Brian is “Briildo,” my brother Fred is “Frito,” but my dad would have been “Fortunatandro Peres.” Works for gals too.

Anyway, on “hail”: Monster hailstorm today! After tons of scary lightning and thunder this afternoon came the hail and it was fierce. Our deck with some of the white stuff visible on the back yard grass (well, weeds and grass):

Patio set:

And a handful- not close to “golfball” sized but a lot of hail for sure:

I love these kinds of storms and though it’s been mostly wet here since early May, really, we haven’t had enough of this summertime weather drama.

Stampede is still very much on and I’m very much enjoying it, what I’ve partaken of. On tap are the Calgary Folk Festival starting in two weeks and then, inshallah, a little vacation for Brian and me (he needs it more than I do) driving down to Washington State to partake of some vineyards and such. But right now I’m off, FINALLY, to see Wall-E and look forward to it.