Another week another review... load up the toboggan and lets go for a ride

Last week my good buddy SMASH put together the SRSS... or at least brought out a few band's worth of fine musicians to jam it out. He even had the opening act (a woman named Sandra Bouza) who was set to come and jam with us afterward... on principle a perfect supper show. The only problem was the loud insane feedback that happened during her set... i think it was due to some soundman the night before who didn't know what he or she was doing and so a bunch of settings were tweaked in the wrong direction. That's just my guess... but in 4 years of the supper show that has never happened before... so i would assume that some band that thinks that they are about to make it big and wants to bring their pot smoking, beer swilling buddy with them as a sound man and he gets in there and starts tweaking knobs with no understanding of the consequence of each little tweak.

Actually come to think about it i do remember hearing that sound a long timer ago at the Purple Onion during a Groovie Gals set... and i remember how that happened.

Band becomes over conscious of their sound... asks freshly baked boyfriend to fix a problem with the bass... he goes over and starts tweaking knobs and then you hear that sound that makes everybody in the room uncomfortable... that guy doesn't touch soundboards anymore.

Where was i... Oh Yea Sandra finished her set and then a dozen or so of us took to the stage... we were going to start with an improvisation but i abandoned that plan as i was feeling a little rattled after the sound disaster... it probably took me back to that moment at the Purple Onion. The point was we needed to come out hard, so we did by pulling Simian Special out of the audience and doing a version of Bent... just sit on a groove and feel good for a while. Sim's inspiring vocals soothed us and then it was good times. We actually only played 3 songs but they became what one might describe as a "DOOM JAM" is that right? i have heard the term before (doom jam)... perhaps a doom jam is more minor and gloomy. Perhaps we should ask our good friend, and author of Difficult Music, Mule Hughes to define DOOM JAM.

I Taped the show but unfortunately i had it set up to film Sandra first and then after the feedback fiasco i never "zoomed out" to catch the full stage and all the players... which would have made for better documentation.

you can see Sandra, SR and Maia... also playing are Vic on congas, Smash on Bass, Jeffery on guitar, Blake on drums and Audrey on vocals... so there wasn't quite a dozen... my first ever blogging half truth.

this part of the jam is where we were promoting the Railway Club Kitchen... for some reason.



Next week we have Shawn Killaly in his farewell tour... did you know he his leaving to go and live in Toronto?

May 13th 2009 re-cap

it's funny, here i am trying to think of what happened last week but all i feel is blogophobia... there were some interesting conversations last week after the SR Supper Show, and some of them ended with the idea that what gets written in a blog can affect the overall fundamental belief in the supper show among certain members of the team... or so the theory goes... which is all pure rubbish of course but alas i digress... i always try to get an "alas i regress" into the odd blogaroo, it's a good way to forget that kind of fool gibberish.

We had another full band scenario with King Karl on the skins, Smash Bass on the bass, Mean Maia on the keys and Syllable Sim on vocals. Then Gentle Genny Trigo came up to try to belt out a few numbers over some spanking drums and acoustic guitar while Jumpin' JLS worked the sound board.





for tomorrow (Wedneaday May 20)



We have Sandra Bouza for solo tunes & jamming. Very soulful singer & great freestyler. She's fresh from Toronto and had a band in Scotland.

We have Smash, Super R, Vik, and Maia.

On drums we have Blake Kirkwood of the band Eyeamu.

Last week

Jesse Matheson held the fort last week at the Supper Show... the band Vale was there to play a few numbers and another man and woman team who had superior harmonies. i sat with Nick and Deb and saluted Super Steve at the high point of the night.

Jesse did a great job involving folks and it was a fine show indeed... there was one moment where i was looking up thinking "look at Jesse there trying to keep the show going"... i think he was interviewing somebody after their set live in front of the audience. I knew what he was going through...

Tomorrow we have Genny Trigo and Super Robertson, with an outside chance that Julio Cerama (who delivered a package to me containing a "Crooner's resume") might come down to play some proper conga's. i guess we will see.

OK

Monster Jam

It was Mule Hughes that called it after last weeks show... My work with fate, omens and good sense paid off in spades. I doubt many understand that last statement but it is all true... Not that you can go wrong with the people who came to play... but if i was aware that they would all bet there i perhaps would have lost my mind and tried to do something Grand, and hence foiled what did become grand.

Ok so i go to see ZOE Trio play at the Libra room on friday night, only they are not playing, but some blues band is playing so i head down to the Railway to catch some music and it turns out "the deep dark Woods" are playing, who are quite the band... and i run into a few people one of them being Ken Killbeat who introduces me to a CBC producer who just happened to be talking about the Super Robertson Supper Show on account that she took a phone call from somebody who saw the Radio Play last week and was raving about how good this new "Diner Theater" was... Now i agree completely and then start to panic about the next Super Robertson Supper Show... it HAS to be good... not just because somebody might come to check it out, but more for me... I have to answer the bell.

So i'm taking in the music and i happen to meet this guy Karl Jonasson who just moved from Saskatchewan like 4 days ago and he is a drummer... then the old Super Robertson Supper Show long ball scenario starts spinning in the brain. I say, i guess i should get a bass player... he said "yea you should"... so i found a bass player that came with a keyboard player (Smash and Maia) and emails started to happen... and then on Monday Shawn Killaly made contact saying he was ready to rock... and Shawn being a King Hell drummer really got things going. i couldn't possibly not have Shawn come because i met a guy in a bar who said he was going to come and play and had yet to contact me... even though i was sure he could play and was coming.

We decided on a few numbers and were going to do some improv, so come Wednesday we had 2 drummers, 2 bass players, 1 keyboard player, 3 singers and a guitar player. the only problem was that the snare and tom were not in the kick drum where i last left them but rather locked in a small room at the back of the bar... that put me in a bit of a bad mood... there was a brief moment of hope that i might find my stool and my stick bag but that didn't happen.

it looked like we weren't going to find the snare and tom but yet people were going to make it work... for a minute we had 2 drummers playing half a kit... that the kind of spirit we had going on. i didn't tape the show because, as i said before i needed it to be a good show... that's the pro OMEN reading i was talking about before... luckily Smash taped it... i thought he might but i didn't mention it as that would have cursed the event.

Smash brought a stand up bass and an electric bass and Alvaro Rojas showed up so we had pro double bass. And then of course Simian Special was there to sing.



and then Karl on drums



Next week we have Jesse Matheson and Cameron Dilworth... in what they call a diner show.