Music, Music, Music
(and a little film)

Oy, it's been a busy week/weekend, with the NxNE festival in town.

Tuesday night I went to the White Ribbon benefit concert at the Phoenix. This has become a traditional launch event for the festival, but I had never been to it before. Considering I had just written an article about it for SOCAN, it seemed like a good time to check it out. The crowd was pretty heavily populated with Tea Party fans (Tea Partiers? TP-ers? Tea-heads? Waddya call íem?), who shrieked every time anyone on the stage mentioned the band or Jeff Martin. It was a good show though. The whole idea is for the various acts to do cover songs, and mostly it was "let's break out Led Zeppelin and rawk!" Which can be fun, and it was. The whole ensembleóThe Tea Party, Todd Kerns, Gordie Johnson, Snow, Holly McNarlandócapped off the night with a big jam on "Gimme Shelter", which was quite excellent. (Party on Wayne.) Gord Downie started things off with acoustic versions of John Lennon's "Oh Yoko" (an odd coincidence, as I was wearing my Yoko Ono "this is not here" t-shirt, which I rarely wear) and Sarah Harmer's "Hideout". But the most memorable moment had to be Snow, backed by Gordie Johnson on guitar, doing "Man Of Constant Sorrow". That's one you don't see every day.

Other highlights:
Thursday's El Mo set by solo Local Rabbit Peter Elkas, with Sloan's Chris Murphy on drums.

Friday night's Horseshoe set by The Fembots was outstanding. They're playing more alt-country these days, and less sound toys...well, except for the guy who played saw, wine glasses and held up a big piece of sheet metal to make thunder sounds. But other than that...relatively straight up. Great set though. Several moments of musical transcendence.

I didn't bother wasting my time in line outside the Rivoli to see Tangiers. A full hour before their 11pm set, and the lineup was already larger than room capacity. So I scooted over to Healey's and caught an enjoyable set from The Recoilers and a somewhat less compelling set from Detective Kalita, though notable for a fine, jazzy version of Huey Lewis' "Power Of Love" (think all major-7th chords a la BTO's "Looking Out For Number One"). Best cover version of a Huey Lewis song I've ever heard.

Only cover version of a Huey Lewis song I've ever heard.

Saturday, I caught the world premier of the documentary film "Just An American Boy", about Steve Earle. The fimmaker, Amos Poe, was in attendance, as was Mr. Earle himself. He said a few words before the film began. It's quite a good film, mostly done in a hand-held style. Poe essentially followed Steve around over the past couple of years, so it caught a lot of the controversy over his song "John Walker's Blues". The audio was a bit muddy in parts, but overall, a good doc. Best line: Poe is driving Steve around Nashville at night time, and he's going a bit fast, so Steve chastises him: "You don't want to be pulled over in Nashville with me in the car." That's funny on several different levels.

Then I went to Lee's Palace to see Gord Downie, with Nathan Wiley and Alun Piggins opening. A very good night. Downie encored with a very intense version of Neil Young's "Tonight's The Night".

Afterwards I had time to pop down to The Silver Dollar to catch a very good set by Jay Clark And The Jones.

And that's all she wrote. Over and out for another NxNE.