Poem and piano night all rolled up into one fine show with a great group serving as the nights 21 Tandem Repeats trio. Shawn Killaly on drums, Christopher Johnson on piano and guitar, and our hero Super Robertson on piano and guitar as well... And then there was Allie Bunt a beautiful young poet from the suburbs who answered and ad placed on craigslist that read:
Looking for some adventurous poets to come and share some words live at the Super Robertson Supper Show. We will provide some simple backing grooves (live and improvised) and you see what you can do live on the stage of the Railway Club.
The add had more information but for the purposes of the blog, lets just call it a "buy the ticket take the ride" kind of moment. In a lot of ways it was a near perfect Super Robertson Supper Show... why was it perfect you ask? The key indicator was the fact that shortly before the show was about to start none of the performers had any idea what was going to happen, and a lot of the people had never really met before... this is key. Then you ask the questions; What do we have? Who can do what? Anybody have anything they want to do for sure? What is prepared and what does the prepared need for backing?
In the end we had a king hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), a multi instrumentalist and songwriter (Chris Johnson), a poet with 20 prepared poems (Allie Bunt) and a Super Robertson... also a drum kit, a piano, a guitar, multiple mic's, a sound man (JLS), beer and food.
Ok I'll say it... if you can't make that happen get out of the business... if that's not fun then go file some paperwork... if that's a bad vibe perhaps one needs to volunteer for jury duty... if that's a waste of time the one should pave their backyard.
In the end it's all just memories... flash memories:
Johnson on piano Shawn on drums:
Poem with Allie SR guitar, Johnson piano, Killaly drums:
Wishing Machine with the 21TR trio of the night:
A little fucking dark i would have to say we need somebody on lights... for christsakes can't a man get some production values around here... I'm Joking OK.
Do yourself a favour and don't miss tomorrow night... it looks like we will play the new album with Shawn Killaly on drums, Chris Rippin on Piano, Genny Trigo on vocals and Super Robertson as Super Robertson. If you want to hear the new album check this out man.
what would you rather be doing? watching television? You can catch the tail end of the Rangers Leafs game at the bar just before the SRSS.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Last week re cap... and my grand plan for tomorrow night.
You ever hear the poem "There once was a man from Nantucket..."
Well if you came to last weeks SRSS you would have heard it twice... which gets you in the ballpark of what went down. It was the Cam and Jesse Gong show and lets just say the bell was a ringing... but that happens when you do the Super Robertson Supper Show. I think there is some part of the brain that short circuits when you are on stage and you are thinking you have to be entertaining and do something different, and it's about that time you lose your fucking mind and forget that you are a person armed with an arsenal of songs and all you have to do is just fucking play them... they don't even have to be weird, they can be beautiful. Submit to simple groove and simple melody when the going gets rough is one thing i tell myself...
A little story... there was a time I got naked at the SRSS, actually a couple of times, and i might add i am loath to bring this back into the conscience of the SRSS collective but i believe it is fitting as an exercise to learn... the ideal job for me is the one of a teacher.
It was a Burlesque show I put on backed by some mates... at one point in time my man SMASH had it up on the Internet (the audio). I would say it went really well.. it was a pure comedy piece with the punchline being me stripping down to these haggard worn pair of underwear. I was trying to be all sexy (which must have been hilarious in itself) and then cut to the bad old worn ginch. Unfortunately I had a "wardrobe malfunction" and ripped the damn underwear in half with the final exposure. That was fine... there was guffawing and much laughter.
My mistake came the next week... at the time to make the show more interesting I was writing fake fan mail to myself to read out at the show, and I thought it would be funny to write out a letter stating how people were very offended by the nudity in last weeks show... so I got a phony host to read the letter and the gag was that I was going to walk out right about the time the letter was getting really heated, and I would of course be naked in the middle of a "wardrobe change", because of course the SRSS was so "big" we needed wardrobe changes in the middle of the show. The whole event was a mindboggling failure which essentially ruined any standing I hadn't previously eroded in this town. Perhaps %20 of the people were listening to the letter, but everybody saw me stark naked casually standing there wondering if anybody had a pen.
Point is I did it because I was desparatly trying to make the show interesting and different, and sometimes interesting and different isn't what the brain needs to be thinking while managing a live SRSS... the reason you are there is because you are interesting and different... now lets hear some of your beautiful compositions.
Oddly enough I have a very interesting and different show lined up for tomorrow... I put an add in the paper looking for poets and i found some takers. Also this is the year I play piano so I have been working on some grooves that will fit poetry, and we have 1 king Hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), so the poetry stuff should be good.
This means of course that we shall have a stage piano at the SRSS this week so I'm putting the word out to s few piano players I know, and Shawn and I and JLS will be there, and we just recorded a new album so there are some tunes to spank down.
I call it an interesting and different show with variables, but the varaibles will be put into equations where they can work and flourish. There will be no nakedness and it will be essentially a "family" SRSS, except for the fact that it will take place in a bar... where minors are not permitted.
Other notes on last week: earlier in the day the Canadian Junior hockey team suffered a tragic defeat, that really killed the soul of the country... but later on The Crown Royals, a team i play for went into the third period down 3-0 but ended up taking the game 7-6.
Well if you came to last weeks SRSS you would have heard it twice... which gets you in the ballpark of what went down. It was the Cam and Jesse Gong show and lets just say the bell was a ringing... but that happens when you do the Super Robertson Supper Show. I think there is some part of the brain that short circuits when you are on stage and you are thinking you have to be entertaining and do something different, and it's about that time you lose your fucking mind and forget that you are a person armed with an arsenal of songs and all you have to do is just fucking play them... they don't even have to be weird, they can be beautiful. Submit to simple groove and simple melody when the going gets rough is one thing i tell myself...
A little story... there was a time I got naked at the SRSS, actually a couple of times, and i might add i am loath to bring this back into the conscience of the SRSS collective but i believe it is fitting as an exercise to learn... the ideal job for me is the one of a teacher.
It was a Burlesque show I put on backed by some mates... at one point in time my man SMASH had it up on the Internet (the audio). I would say it went really well.. it was a pure comedy piece with the punchline being me stripping down to these haggard worn pair of underwear. I was trying to be all sexy (which must have been hilarious in itself) and then cut to the bad old worn ginch. Unfortunately I had a "wardrobe malfunction" and ripped the damn underwear in half with the final exposure. That was fine... there was guffawing and much laughter.
My mistake came the next week... at the time to make the show more interesting I was writing fake fan mail to myself to read out at the show, and I thought it would be funny to write out a letter stating how people were very offended by the nudity in last weeks show... so I got a phony host to read the letter and the gag was that I was going to walk out right about the time the letter was getting really heated, and I would of course be naked in the middle of a "wardrobe change", because of course the SRSS was so "big" we needed wardrobe changes in the middle of the show. The whole event was a mindboggling failure which essentially ruined any standing I hadn't previously eroded in this town. Perhaps %20 of the people were listening to the letter, but everybody saw me stark naked casually standing there wondering if anybody had a pen.
Point is I did it because I was desparatly trying to make the show interesting and different, and sometimes interesting and different isn't what the brain needs to be thinking while managing a live SRSS... the reason you are there is because you are interesting and different... now lets hear some of your beautiful compositions.
Oddly enough I have a very interesting and different show lined up for tomorrow... I put an add in the paper looking for poets and i found some takers. Also this is the year I play piano so I have been working on some grooves that will fit poetry, and we have 1 king Hell drummer (Shawn Killaly), so the poetry stuff should be good.
This means of course that we shall have a stage piano at the SRSS this week so I'm putting the word out to s few piano players I know, and Shawn and I and JLS will be there, and we just recorded a new album so there are some tunes to spank down.
I call it an interesting and different show with variables, but the varaibles will be put into equations where they can work and flourish. There will be no nakedness and it will be essentially a "family" SRSS, except for the fact that it will take place in a bar... where minors are not permitted.
Other notes on last week: earlier in the day the Canadian Junior hockey team suffered a tragic defeat, that really killed the soul of the country... but later on The Crown Royals, a team i play for went into the third period down 3-0 but ended up taking the game 7-6.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Re-Cap of the last SRSS of 2010
C-Dub, also known as Constance White came down to play on this particular night. I asked her how she got the name C-Dub and apparently she has had some email correspondance with our good man Smash and he "dubbed" her C-Dub which is long for C W but short for Constance White... get it, got it , good.
C-Dub writes her stuff and this one is called My Opinion:
Then Super Robertson took the stage for some banter and some song playing... good old super steve was back there bobbing like a bouy in a winter storm in the Georgia Straight to the song "Famous person". It should also be noted that Super Steve met Super Robertson's wife CT, or partner as she prefers to be called, and the two of them were gabbing like teens at the roller rink. Good times for sure.
SR played a love song among others:
On Wednesday January 5 2011 we had the start of the third year of the can and Jesse show.... if you don't know what that means than I can't help you, I can only do what i do.
OK
C-Dub writes her stuff and this one is called My Opinion:
Then Super Robertson took the stage for some banter and some song playing... good old super steve was back there bobbing like a bouy in a winter storm in the Georgia Straight to the song "Famous person". It should also be noted that Super Steve met Super Robertson's wife CT, or partner as she prefers to be called, and the two of them were gabbing like teens at the roller rink. Good times for sure.
SR played a love song among others:
On Wednesday January 5 2011 we had the start of the third year of the can and Jesse show.... if you don't know what that means than I can't help you, I can only do what i do.
OK
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