Fellow singer-songwriter Gare Black and I have done some gigs as Ben and Gary’s Ice Cream Band, playing half his stuff and half mine. He plays guitar and I play keyboard and mandolin. We both sing. The people who have heard us so far have been appreciative, as I hoped they would be. Piano was my first instrument and I’ve enjoyed getting back into it.

In August I jammed in Hoboken, New Jersey with the excellent, feelgood, reggae-influenced singer-songwriter Bobby Syvarth. We hadn’t seen each other for 19 years but reconnected through facebook. During that time he’s become a great guitarist too. Later on in the year the literate folk of Toronto were supportive of my guitar/voice sets at The Boat and St Clair/Silverthorn Library.

Not being a natural member of any one musical community, I’ve been moving away from folk jams and towards DIY punk gigs. There’s more scope for original music at the latter, if your eardrums can hold out. Both scenes are about community and are non-exclusive, though, so amen to that.

It was a delight, in 2011, to meet performer, jazz singer, poet and sculptor Hugh Oliver. His new CD, sympathetically produced by Mike Rosenthal (who plays all the instruments, including banjo and drums) is called ‘Grandpa and the Alleycats’ and consists of 11 songs by Hugh and Mike sung by Hugh and his grandkids.

Hugh writes charming, witty, well-crafted verse which is free of sentimentality and explores universal themes, both vital and trivial, with a light-heartedness which is enviable. Do he and the kids always sing in tune? Nope. Is everything in time? Uh-uh. Is the musical genre a classifiable or lucrative one? Not really. But the album brings something genuine and noble to my ears, which is more than I can say for Michael Bublé.

Here’s hoping that 2012 will be a year in which independent people support independent music.

Links:
Links:
www.bobbysyvarth.com
www.punksandrockers.com
www.hugholiver.com

In the UK people think of doughnuts as large, sticky confectionary items, either with a hole in the middle or closed-up and filled with jam. They’re bought in a bakery instead of a newsagent (where you might buy chocolate), generally for or by children – the only age group who can take that much sugar in one go – and handed over in a white paper bag. I used to enjoy these now and again.

Then as a teenager I progressed to the ‘iced finger’, an elongated bread roll with a layer of vanilla or strawberry icing on top. You could pick these up without getting sticky fingers. It somehow felt more wholesome to get food from a bakery, where they had some ‘good’ food, than pillaging the chocolate display at the corner shop. I thought this was how it was going to be forever. Then I discovered the donut shop.

When I was an exchange student in New Jersey in 1992, I would go and sit in ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’ at the top of Haledon Avenue, about a mile from the city of Paterson. In England you couldn’t go and sit anywhere in the evening except the pub. In the US, you could go to Dunkin’ Donuts and drink coffee instead of going to the pub and feeling conspicuous. The donuts weren’t coated with sugar and came in a variety of flavours. My friend would drive me down there and wait in the car while I went in.

Arriving in Toronto in 1993 I found a huge proliferation of donut shops. Relatives from outside the city talked about a chain called ‘Tim Hortons’ but I only came across one or two outlets. Instead I frequented franchises like ‘Country Style’ and ‘Coffee Time’ as well as independents like ‘Fifty Plus’ on Queen Street, ‘Donut World’ near the library and one in the Beaches that I think was called ‘The Donut Cave’.

In mid-2011 I was back in a Dunkin’ Donuts in New Jersey. There was a huge widescreen TV showing local news, some overweight people, some kids kicking around and a bloke on his laptop. Up in Toronto, Tim Hortons has become the McDonalds of the donut industry, virtually wiping out Country Style and the independents and selling a wide range of light meals as well as snacks. There are still quite a few Coffee Times. The middle-of-the-road radio station still plays. Conversations still go on. Poor folks can afford it.

It was a forlorn desire, however. The song was from 2003 and, according to Scottie, Fleetwood Mac never did anything worthwhile since Peter Green’s departure in 1970. He said their subsequent output was akin to John and George leaving The Beatles and Paul and Ringo recruiting a couple of session musicians.

I remember seeing the cover of ‘Rumours’ in the late 70s, along with LPs like Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Darkness at the Edge of Town’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ round my friend’s house in East Putney, south-west London. His stepdad was into adult-oriented rock. I was more into disco and child-oriented rock but the image stayed with me. However, I only became a Mac Man during the last few days.

There was a BBC documentary that was screened last year which focused on the break-ups of the 2 couples within Fleetwood Mac and the songs which 3 of the 4 people involved wrote about them. At the time I was more interested in the break-ups than the songs but later came to appreciate the complementary songwriting styles of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie.

The rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, despite representing a link with the band’s origins in late 60s London and providing the inspiration for the name of the group, seem to supply a somewhat bland backing to the songs, particularly in the 80s and 90s.

Checking out the experimental follow-up to ‘Rumours’, 1979’s ‘Tusk’, I found a sprawling masterpiece with some more great songs. Buckingham adds grit and virtuosity to the sound and is the leader in the studio; Nicks has a way of conjuring up deep feminine imagery in her lyrics; Christine McVie has the most commercial songs and sings them in an appealing folk/pop style.

Like a lot of acts who were soulful and organic in the 70s, Fleetwood Mac became a watered-down and dumbed-down (though hugely successful) version of themselves in the 80s, particularly on the album ‘Tango in the Night’. Then the industry moved on, like it always seems to, and started promoting younger, more infantile product.

Reuniting to make a greatest hits CD and DVD, ‘The Dance’ in 1997 seemed to be a worthwhile venture. The fans enjoyed it and it gave Christine the chance to wrap up her time as a pop star and move back to England from LA. Now she seems like a nice liberal who goes to the village pub occasionally and supports good causes.

I watched another documentary, this one highlighting not the romantic but the creative tensions within the band (minus Christine) during the making of its latest album. What was obvious was that they still cared (with the possible exception of bass player John), they still had the desire to create and they were still debating, pretty passionately, about the best way of exploring all the creative possibilities available while still appealing to a record-buying public ‘between the ages of 10 and 27’.

The production and arrangement on 2003’s ‘Say You Will’ is pretty contemporary, with drum loops to the fore and not many rough edges. But there’s some crazy stuff too, like ‘Murrow Turning Over in his Grave’, and some moving lyrics and vocals from Stevie Nicks. If you don’t believe me, give me a call. I’ll leave the answerphone on.

Full of Beans, 1348 Dundas St West Sunday July 3rd 1-4pm

The Port, 1179 Dundas St West Wednesday July 13th 8.30-11.30pm

Any Torontonians in need of some uplifting music in a cool (in both senses of the word) setting this Sunday June 12th should come and hear Gare Black (vox/gtr) and Ben Walker (vox/keys/mando) alone and together at Full of Beans Coffee House and Roastery, 1348 Dundas St West, 3 blocks east of Dufferin St between 1 and 4pm.

There’ll be some folk, some rock and some cabaret jazz. Actually, the music won’t be in any one style but it will be all-original and all-acoustic. Why not pop down for a coffee if you’re about…

Before I joined, Machari made a (self-titled) CD and this concert, which is in ‘a delightful and unpretentious little oasis’ (former church, now ‘Heliconian Hall’, built in 1876) is the launch party. The programme lasts about an hour, split into 2 sets. Admission is $15 and start time is 7.30pm. Should be a great night!

The song features some great London jazz musos. Guitarist Patrick Naylor and bassist Alex Keen play in an amazing band called Viper’s Dream; sax player Derek Nash is in Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra; drummer Milo Fell had to leave the recording session early to play with one of my favourite singers, Mark Murphy, at Ronnie Scott’s.

The visual quality isn’t great but I hope that it is atmospheric. The song is available to download from amazon, itunes, cdbaby and elsewhere.

March on, BW

Back in 1995 I used to be a regular at the Black Rooster open stage in Toronto. That was where I first met Gary Black. Like me, he was a singer-songwriter who played an acoustic instrument.

I played some mandolin on one of Gary’s songs at a studio in the west end of the city. I assumed he was making an album of acoustic or folk-influenced tracks. Then I went back to England.

The following year I received a tape of the album, which turned out to be a fairly heavy, indie rock effort entitled All Over the Place by Gary Black and Tilt. There was no mandolin in evidence.

The next time I heard from Gary he said he was getting into gospel music and had even written a couple of songs in that vein. When I finally came back to Toronto for a visit in 2001, he presented me with the CD Timeless by Gary Black’s Gospel Brigade.

I went to see Gary play, expecting a spirited rendition of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ but instead found him sporting a thin moustache and jamming on some Django Reinhardt tunes with an accordion player and an upright bass.

“This is great”, he whispered to me, “but you gotta hear my NEW stuff”. He was now referring to Inner G, a duo which combined drum ‘n’ bass, voice samples and a rock sensibility. Unable to keep up with the rate of change, I left the country once more.

Around 2002, a mysterious package arrived for me. It contained a CD of latin-influenced tunes and comedy skits entitled Introducing the Zorros. It didn’t take a lot of detective work to find out that Mr Black was one half of this clandestine couple.

The next time I was at a Gary Black gig in Toronto, however, there were no black masks or swishing swords, just a 4-piece rock outfit called The Paypers.

I expected a recording to turn up by this band but, as far as I know, it never did. All except for one song.

A few weeks ago I was asked to be part of the ‘bar scene’ at a video shoot organized by Mr Black, also related to this one song.

An old friend of Gary’s, standing behind me, remarked “Finally he’s producing something”. I thought this was a little harsh – he’s produced quite a lot, as I’ve described, but nothing quite like this:

(By the way, he’s changed his name again)

Gare Black – ‘White Trash Trailer Mama’ (2011)

I played this CD while a friend was visiting and he said ‘wow’. Another friend I merely showed it to and he also said ‘wow’. Underneath the first impressions I think there’s another important quality to this album, something that is so often lacking in the music we hear on the radio and see on television: maturity.

Ten of the twelve tracks here are instrumentals by jazz piano player Tom Unwin. Tom’s music is in the mould of 1960s/70s ‘post-bop’ and his playing influences include Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and especially Bill Evans, all piano players who worked with trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis and went on to form their own groups.

Tom’s group consists of himself on keys, Marcus Vergette (bass) and Gary Evans (drums), with less extensive contributions from Stig Olsen (reeds), Will Bower (percussion) and Noelle Rollings (vocals). The group takes its name from the 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, for which Herbie Hancock recorded the soundtrack.

I’ve known Tom since the year dot. I’ve heard him do stuff like this before but only now does there exist a fully-realized, well-recorded project consisting of great musicians playing great music. No one’s showing off. No one’s selling out. Once more, it’s tempting the use the word ‘maturity’.

Stig’s sax helps the album state its case – after the piano prelude ‘Tut Tut’ – on the early tracks. Bassist Marcus weighs in with a colourful intro on ‘Funny Face’. Tom stamps his individuality on Bob James’ ‘Angela (theme from Taxi)’, which has virtually no harmony, just the familiar melody played on electric piano and backed up by drums and percussion. Another nod towards the album’s ‘soundtrack’ influence.

Later, the jazz waltz ‘Blue Sunflowers’ ebbs and flows towards a triumphant repetition of its 3-chord tag, right before the album’s title track provides a sublime climax to the piece.

The three remaining tunes form almost an epilogue. There’s a return of the electric piano, along with some energized jazz-rock drumming from Gary on ‘Big Sur’, while the Jarrettesque ‘Mercurius’ echoes the title track of the album with its shimmering stillness.

I heard that recently the band played at a festival with a projector showing moving images behind them. That’s one way of becoming invisible…

http://www.theblow-up.co.uk/recordings/recordings.html