Category: Non classé

Yes, I know…it’s late. Sorry!

Part of the reason was a busy work week, which took me to Québec City, accompanying a group of 11 and 12 year-olds on a an excursion. Short version: the kids were excited but nice. No worries there.

The revelation came on Thursday evening when we went L’érablière in Lac Beauport for a French-Canadian dinner and maple taffy tasting (followed by marshmallow roasting over a bonfire — kids, sugar and pointed sticks; what could go wrong?
During dinner, we were entertained by a bearded chansonnier in a checked shirt, playing guitar on his own and singing in both English and French. Good thing the prudish Anglos didn’t understand the lyrics to the second verse of Plume Latraverse’s Retour à la Terre.

Having first hand knowledge of how challenging handling these kids can be, I was very impressed by this performer’s ability to engage not only my group of three dozen, but two other groups as well. That’s when I realized he would be the subject of this blog: another “Fellow Traveller”.

Turns out his name is Charles (Chuck) Lehoullier. I only spoke with him briefly, enough to get his okay to write this, but beyond that had to research him the usual googly way. I seems he was a DJ on a local radio station, and from what he said, he was working on an album. So far, I cannot find any samples of his music, but I am hoping he will let me know when something is ready and I will link to it. All I can say from the material he played is that he has the voice and presence to carry over a large group of noisy kids. Well done!

Anyway, the point of all this, as I touched on in Fellow Travellers Part 4 post, is that performing in all its forms, originals, covers, dinner music, kids entertainer, etc. requires dedication and hard work. If the audience is appreciative, then one has done the job. Chuck did.

Charles, mon ami, si tu lis ceci, laisse-le moi savoir!

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Coming later this week and likely to be topics on the next blog:

The first ever open mic at Legends on the Danforth, Thursday, May 4, 2017, hosted by Gary Edward Allen.

I will be there along with Susanne Maziarz Tony Oldland Scar-Bro Pete Jana Teovano Cristian Cioata Anita Tank Phil Larkin Stratos Grigorakos Nick Papalambropoulos and Tiffany Fairborn. Awesome lineup!

 

Friday, I am seeing the fabulous Hermina George with Circle 5 at Dora Keogh Irish Pub, and will report on that show, and my connection to Hermina in Sunday’s blog.

Somehow, I have to fit in Hot Docs films in between. Should be busy but very interesting. So, until next week, be well!

 

 

Just a short piece this week.

Last Thursday, I went to catch Leanna Yamada’s show at the Amsterdam. It’s a shame so few made it out as Leanna and Chuck were in top form.

Last night’s show at Relish was the first time FatC delivered an “acoustic” show fully intentionally (although we did perform that way a few months back as a virus had bedridden our drummer at the last minute). Safe to say things went well. Crowd was good (thanks all from all sides of my life). NeMo was his usual fun self on bass. I can’t say enough good things about how he energizes the performance for me. It looks like we may be doing more “unplugged duo” shows at the least in the near future. In fact our next is a showcase at the Eton House May 25. Times and details to come.

Today, prior to writing this post, I made the rounds of a few new possible venues, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

That’s it this week…brief and sweet. Be well!

 

This Saturday April 22, 2017 is an auspicious date for FatC: it will be my third annual birthday bash at Relish Bar and Grill, the crucible of this little adventure in musciland. Ongoing gratitude goes out to Mary Stewart and Johanne Clayton who both took a chance on me, even despite occasional less-than-stellar open mic appearances. Shoehorned onto that event will be the first official celebration of my imminent retirement from the DAY JOB©, which I have decided to stretch out until the actual date occurs at then end of June.

NeMo and I have decided to make this special and different, so it will be worth your while to come — hint: the picture is misleading. Please arrive early as the place is busy with the dinner crowd; in fact, best is to reserve for dinner. Entertainment this week until we get on at 9:30 will be provided by singer/songwriter The Voyageur. Make of it an evening: great food and TWO performing acts!

If you have a chance to get out on the town earlier in the next week, work friend and fellow traveller Leanna Yamada is at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club this Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 10 PM. I’ll see you there!

Some have asked me what is next after retirement. The answer to that will be the subject of a future blog. Until then, be well!

Those of you who are regular readers and know me personally will connect the dots.

For the rest, I will do my best to talk about this song without going into the uncomfortable area of others’ privacy.

The song I have selected to feature is fairly recent: The Final Winter. It is not a post-nuclear apocalyptic tale but rather the story of a man who for a long time has escaped to sunnier places, and finally comes to the conflicted and reluctant realization that life has caught up with him.

It is stylistically different and a respectful attempt to indulge myself in being blatantly influenced as best I can by the flavour and feel of Crowded House, a band whose music I love. Since I will be doing some less electric shows in the near future, there is a good chance you may hear it performed live.

The Final Winter ©2017 R. Pelletier/Félix and the Cats

The Final Winter
Verse 1:
Alone again in this sunny place
I can’t seem to face
Truths that keep me here
This will be the final act
There’s no turning back
This is the final winter

Verse 2:
I can ignore the evidence
I live with dissonance
In this mental prison
It’s easy to forget the facts
And many thankless acts
That have kept me living

Pre-chorus:
Don’t drag me from this warm cocoon
The snow is coming for me much too soon
Don’t want to be a cause for trouble
So why do you try to burst my bubble?

Chorus:
This is the last winter
In my paradise,
This is the last winter
In my paradise,
This is the last winter
In my paradise.

Verse 3:
Keep me fed, and keep me warm
I can do no harm
It’s not complicated
Pick me me up if I’ve fallen down
I’ll still wear my crown
Though I’ve abdicated

Pre-chorus:

Chorus:

Bridge:
Why should I fight?
You’ve demonstrated
You can see through
This thin disguise.
It seems so right
The way you say it
But try to see
Through my eyes.

Verse 1 reprise:

Pre-chorus:

Final chorus:

 

Until next week, be well!

This week’s blog is coming to you from the hot and sunny Dominican Republic. I wish I could say it will be about some hot band I saw performing here, but alas, the reason for me being here are less entertaining, and much more personal. So instead, let me tell you about last Tuesday at the Linsmore (in context, it feels very weird writing this). The evening had the customary three acts. 

First up was Richard Charles Moulaison whose powerful voice occasionally verged into Joe Cocker territory. Good territory!

Then came Marinol Nation, or a chunk of it anyway, who had traveled from Sarnia for this show. Great lyrics; Two Snakes and Should Have Been Dead stood out for me and exemplified their raconteur approach to writing. 

Finally, and the main reason I was there was singer Leanna Yamada, accompanied my Chuck Majic on the guitar. Leanna is a work friend (Tyler Ellis‘ has an great song on that subject with his own twist on it). She began working at my school this past September. I will not be appropriate to do a performance appraisal here and now, but it’s safe to say the kids and parents really like her. 

I have seen Leanna and Chuck perform before, and vice versa, so it’s easy for us to share contacts for gigs, update each other on when we are next performing and sound each other out on various musically related topics. 

Last Tuesday was the best I have seen and heard. The focus was there, the energy was up, and the confidence and coordination much more palpable. It was great to see Leanna play guitar for a song as this gave Chuck more room to improvise for his solos. I hope to see more of that. 

I am told that Chuck and Leanna met at university and struck up a musical friendship from a common desire to write and perform their own compositions. I’d say it has worked well so far, and even better is to come.

Here is a bit of a song to give you some idea.

https://instagram.com/p/BSNM99TFVbt/

Before signing off, thanks again to Sam Taylor for a vocal intervention house call this past week. I’m hoping to put some extra focus and effort into that aspect of the performance. These things take time, so please don’t expect miracles overnight, but I am trying. 

Until next week, I am off to the pool. Be well!

Last week, I had intended a post on today’s topic, which got put off because of the death of Chuck Berry. Here it is now.

Earlier this month, the band did a show at the Linsmore Tavern as part of the Indie Tuesday Series. After our set,  Mrs. Félix-and-the-Cats points out to me a nice young man the audience, whom she had recognized from earlier in the week, as she had spoken to him and his father at Canada Blooms, the biggest garden show in the country.

Mrs. Félix-and-the-Cats, a very dedicated garden writer/blogger and consultant (check out the linked sites!), had been at the show to hear (and later give) a presentation, and had spoken with the aforementioned young man, Ben Cullen, and his father Mark.

For those clueless about gardening, Ben Cullen is a horticultural consultant and presenter, and comes from an illustrious gardening family: his father Mark is a renowned garden writer, educator, broadcaster and Order of Canada  recipient, and his grandfather was Len Cullen, a horticultural pioneer in Ontario, who created Cullen Gardens & Miniature Village, a popular tourist attraction in Whitby, Ontario that was a favourite of families until its closure in 2006.

Embed from Getty Images

 

To top it off, just this past week, we both met Ben’s aunt, Sue Cullen Green, when she introduce Mrs. Félix-and-the-Cats as the keynote speaker at an event in beautiful little Brooklin, Ontario.

Anyway, after the Linsmore set, Ben came to say hello and pay the band some very nice compliments. He had just moved back into the neighbourhood and very much enjoyed the presence of the Linsmore in the area. We had a lovely chat.

So the point of all this? The world is indeed a small place (still wouldn’t want to paint it, though) and one can meet a lot of nice people travelling through. It would not have guessed until now that there would be an intersection of my “world” and my wife’s, but I’m glad I was wrong!

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On to news: new show! Please mark your calendars for Thursday, May 25, 2017, when NeMo and I will be doing a special one-hour “acoustic” set at the iconic Eton House, on Danforth, just east of Pape, as part of its M Factor Redux Weekly Indie Music Series. Hosted by the brilliantly talented Elana Harte and her band, the show starts at 8:00 — good for a school night! This will be a good one to catch rarely performed material, given the special format.

Also, don’t forget I have my Birthday & Day-Job-Retirement Bash at Relish Bar & Grill this coming April 22 (a Saturday), starting at 9:30. A very special show!

Until next week, be well!

I had another topic in mind for this week, but that will be deferred following the news of Chuck Berry‘s death.

This one struck me harder than Bowie or Prince, no offence to these other artist’ legacy. Many of the headlines celebrate his accomplishments as a rock and roll pioneer and innovator in a musical sense. No argument there. To say he was more or less innovative than any of the great blues guitarists is an argument for another time. I honestly don’t care whether he originated those licks, but to a huge number of young rock guitarists growing up in the seventies, and even later, his aproach was the entry point and the home base. Any decent player could easily learn these songs and spin them in his or her own way. His music was both unique and completely malleable.

But it’s as a performing guitarist that I think he had the most enduring impact. Chuck Berry was the prototypical rock star guitarist, and created the template for the mad, lusty, joyful swagger of swinging that guitar around right in an audience’s face. It looks and sounds loud and crude, but man is it fun, and it hasn’t stopped.

All rock guitarists owe him a lot, perhaps everything. He will be missed.

Here he is featured in the movie “Hail Hail Rock ‘N’ Roll“.

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So, it’s been a busy week.

Tuesday was the show at the Linsmore with friends Michael Sheen Cuddy and Arch Rockefeller sharing the bill. Thanks to all who came out (I thank you individually here). The show also brought about some reflection, and I may share that in a future post.

Thursday night brought the out to the Eton House tavern on Danforth near Pape to catch an unplugged set by friend Fraz Milne, whom I have spoken of previously. It turns out that they have an Indie Music night each Thursday, for which Fraz played the second set. The evening is hosted by Elana Harte, who you can watch and listen to here (sorry, the video won’t embed). Awesome singer! https://www.facebook.com/emma.oneill/videos/10158285300075580/
I’m sorry I could not stay for  Wendell Ferguson, but here is a bit of him below.

Instead, I finished the evening at the Peppery Cat for one of Mike Sedgewick‘s inimitable blues jams, where I rocked out some frustrations, doing originals which the band picked up fantastically!

The week ended at C’est What for T.C Folkpunk‘s newest CD, Hearsay Is 20/20, listening party. I wrote more at length about T.C. in an earlier post here; always the gracious host, he introduced me to RexySpice (self-confessionally not your average lyrically driven violently acoustic unintentionally comic singer songwriter), with whom we all share similar yet uniquely slanted approaches to songwriting. I look forward to the opportunity of hearing him at a live show soon.

Unless someone famous passes on next week, the planned-on post for this week will be covered then. Be well! I mean it!

For people attending this Tuesday’s March 14th show at the Linsmore (and I hope a lot of you will), I have added one of my newer songs on the set list.

This one is called Waterline, and retells the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark, but from the animals’ perspective, and more specifically, a frog’s.

I found it interesting how this narrative of ultimate reset focused on land dwelling creatures. For anything living in water, it may have been a bit a “meh” event.

The first verse introduces the story, then the second highlights the anthropocentricity of the narrative. Finally, in the third, I draw to draw a parallel to climate change, set up by the bridge. Yeah, it’s heavy-handed, but it gets the job done. The breakdown before the bridge is silly fun, and an homage to the B52s Rock Lobster.

I hope you like this one, and look forward to your feedback at the next show.

Until then, be well!

Waterline ©2017 R. Pelletier/Félix and the Cats

Verse 1:
He is a mangy dog
She is a feral cat
It seems I am a frog
I guess that’s where it’s at
We’re on to see a man
Who’s building a big boat
Cause when it starts to rain
We’ll either sink or float

Verse 2:
The man chooses who’s on
And who to sacrifice
Creatures who’ve done no wrong
Will pay a heavy price
A good thing I can swim
I know I’ll last this out
For others it is grim
Unless you are a trout…

Breakdown: (ad lib)
…or a salmon, a herring, a pickerel, an eel, a whale, an octopus, a lobster, a crustacean of some kind, a squid, a mollusk, a bottom feeding invertebrate…(etc. ad lib)

Bridge:
The people did not heed the signs
They did not do what’s right
So now the rain keeps falling down
For forty days and nights

Verse 3:
Some call this story true
Some call it metaphor
I’ll leave that up to you
And what you’re looking for
What’s best for you and me
Keeping that tale in mind
We’re not to blind to see
The rising waterline

I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting many talented people on this latest journey. Amongst the most broadly gifted is Rob Greenway. Rob is a voice actor by trade, but also a graphic artist, producer, singer and drummer. In his alter-ego personage of Brilliant Fish, he has performed many times at Relish assisted only by a looper pedal to paint broad sonic landscapes in improvised and highly absorbing vocal performances. Rob also sits in on drums on the rare occasions when Paul Brennan and Jace Traz are not available for Relish Bar and Grill’s Stir It Up Sundays, and is the full-time drummer for the “metaphysical blues” group Cadre, and ensemble of top-tier Toronto musicians. That aspect alone is worth it to catch Rob perform.

As Brilliant Fish, he has released a number of albums and singles that highlight an imaginative approach to songs, such as this brilliant(ha!) cover of Hank William’s Cold, Cold Heart, that spreads a layer of sinister anger over the original heartbreak of the original.

Just recently, Brilliant Fish has launched his own radio show, The Upstream on Mixcloud. I have admittedly not listened to radio for a long time, is this is the first time in ages something like this has drawn me in and held my interest. The songs are often new (to me anyway), and juxtaposed in a aural narrative that keeps you captivated. I highly encourage everyone to listen.

 

My only question remains, how does he find the time to do all this!

 

To close off, I want to remind everyone that we are very excited to be playing in just over a week at the Linsmore Tavern, and part of Indie Tuesdays, on March 14. This show finally gets the original FatC lineup back together, with Paul Brennan on drums, Neil (NeMo) on bass, and yours truly. Expect some new songs, some favourites and a high energy set, cause I picked  ’em that way. This is an outstanding evening to catch new talent as the second set will feature Michael Cuddy (who wrote a lovely invitation for the show here) and the third, Arch Rockefeller, two master songwriters whom I greatly admire. We start at 8, so don’t be late.

Until next time, be well,

Firstly, I toot my own horn a bit and declare this is the first year anniversary of this blog. Thank you to the small but growing number who follow it.

While I take some pride in that fact, it is small potatoes compared to the day-in-day-out commitment of professional journalists like my friend and former Nerve bandmate David Israelson, and Toronto Star pop critic Ben Rayner. The latter wrote a very interesting piece earlier this month entitled Is Toronto facing a live-music crisis? that highlights concerns with recent club closures and a commitment the Mayor John Tory has made to making Toronto a “music city”.

I wrote a blog a while back that outlines my concerns and opinions about the music scene and its challenges. A bit ranty, I know. The gist though is that the club-going public, particularly for the small venues where emerging artists first start performing, is not very inclined to pay cover charges, or even drop a few dollars in the tip jar for the artists. Changing that mindset against an acceptance of “free music” on demand is probably not achievable in the short term. Given the costs of operating a club, that leaves the performers with little or nothing, or less, in their pockets. Many musicians pay to play in this city, just ask around.

I am glad for the note of optimism in Mr. Rayner’s article, and I’m hopeful the mayor will indeed communicate with Austin and other cities for “best practices”, but more importantly execute on concrete solutions. A broad declaration of wanting Toronto to be a “music city” without support is wishful thinking.

Perhaps the city could start by providing a form of tax credit to clubs for payments to live performers, to encourage them to compensate the bands something more than a feeble honorarium or a free beer. This would encourage support for live music at the grassroots. I hope the city avoids supporting specific clubs exclusively, despite their storied past, as the impact of such measures would be narrow. The other action the city could take is a campaign to elevate the status of all musicians in the city, from buskers on up, as their active presence is part of what makes this city one of the best in the world.

To all my musician friends who follow this blog, I encourage you to read the Star article, and respond to the mayor’s invitation therein.

“I think he may have an idea or two,” said Tory. “I’m all ears.”

Until next week, and to more in year two, be well.