December 21 re-cap

GoGo Bonkers, not Gongo Bonkers opened up the night... I hate it when i get a name wrong... such a simple thing to check and get right... but i failed.
 GoGo Bonkers was set to play in November but there was a conflict where they received a paying gig so i threw them into this night... unfortunately there were many things set to happen so they only played for 13.5 minutes... but they took it like pros did their thing, and what a good thing it was.  I was delivering mail the next day singing "green slime", although i didn't have the harmonies down like they did:



Next up was Chris Rzepa, a Vancouver cellist and scene builder herself.  She had a looping pedal and set up some loops and played to them and then sang over them... very delicate and brilliant.  I was sitting in the back with Rob  from "Devilsplender" trying to enjoy the show while a couple of dudes were talking loudly over the show... i felt conflict.  I believe i was barking on about stage volume and audience respect last week, and truth be told i have seen this shit for a long fucking time and in my heart i was just like... "enough is enough"... so panicked, nervous and conflicted i went up to the table and in my most polite manor asked the gentlemen if they would mind moving to the back room where their conversation would be less disturbing to the performance that was happening.  they looked at me incredulously and suggested i move closer to the stage so they wouldn't be between myself and this apparent performer that it seemed so fucking important for me to be able to hear... i tried to re-explain but there was nothing... apparently they were done anyway and they left but they made sure to let me know that i was way out of line.

Oddly enough a few weeks ago... after the 30th show there was improv acting crew and i was at the back and king Dinosaur was telling stories and a lady came up and told king Dino that his voice was a very dominant presence in the room so we immediately moved to the back... it is what it is.  You know people do things, and it's one thing to not listen but it is another thing to put up competition for sound waves... and believe it or not i think most people might want to catch the performance than rather hear about what happened between you and your co-worker and why you feel crossed by their actions.

After they left some patrons thanked me saying "I didn't realize how much that was annoying me"... It is an unfortunate part of the Vancouver Music scene... almost like an irremovable culture... one that i will not miss.

Chris Rzepa was was solid on the loops, killer on the melody, and sang like an angle... and then Shawn Killaly joined her and put on a clinic himself:



Next up it was the 21 Tandem Repeats collective marked by the return of Alvaro Rojas on bass... forgot what a treat that is!  He really is a Bobby Orr type player... solid defensively on the bass but yet easily able to shift into offence with a quick bass run and then back patrolling the blue line holding it all together.  Shawn Killaly on drums never hurts of course, neither does Sandra Bouza singing, finding spots and harmonies like she has heard the songs a hundred times.  First time 21 tandem repeats had Cello, and Chris Rzepa was totally solid... did i mention Johnny Wildkat and Willingdon Black on twin guitars.  Kind of going out with a line of Division 1 hockey players for a division 8 game... total control, good passing collecting your own rebounds.

We had decided to play "Hey Rock's Living room" before the show and Super Steve and Willingdon Black were going over some old western Hockey league trivia book... there was mention that it might be a good idea for anybody answering and questions to know some Portland Buckaroos trivia... i snatched the book out of Super Steve's hands and tried to remember that "In 1960, Portland was granted a franchise in the minor league Western Hockey League (WHL) for its newly-built 10,500 seat Memorial Coliseum, and the Buckaroos name was reincarnated. The new Buckaroos were composed mostly of players and coaches from the New Westminster Royals, including its head coach Hal Laycoe. The Buckaroos went on to beat the Seattle Totems in the league championship and win the Lester Patrick Cup in its first season of existence.That 1960–61 Buckaroos team was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

But that proved to much so i made sure that WB was too far away from a mic and that he would have to shout questions to Sandra who had never heard the song before and in the chaos i would slip the noose of being embarrassed by those who carry themselves as Western hockey trivia elitists.  I wonder if Harper would know this stuff?  The press releases say he has an encyclopedic knowledge of hockey, but the press release might just say that to make him feel Canadian to the average consumer... i mean voter.   Hard to know for sure but you know it's bad when you are doing a song and wondering if Harper could help you:



We also did that hockey song written by that nobody:



King Hell thanks to GoGo Bonkers for letting us use their bass amp and guitar rig and Rob for doing sound when Johnny was pulled from the soundboard and on to Ian's guitar rig.


Tomorrow is the last Super Robertson Supper show for sure... I know there has been some confusion... i kind of did the last "big one", on November 30 cause i knew we had a good band and i also knew that December is a very busy month haunted with all kinds of sickness, obligations and debauchery... so i didn't want to try to rally the troops at such a time, but it appears that the troops have rallied themselves and we have a good crew coming out to play tomorrow... Oh yea i was going to give a seminar on how to run a SRSS... i do have some notes... and at a supper show you can always improvise something over improvised music... as the sound man from the old Malcolm Lowery room use to say... "It doesn't matter nobody is listening anyways."

A Spectre was blasting the Railway Club

From the boys themselves-

While that show was the tightest we've ever been, the first chords still cleared the room. A Spinal Tap is Haunting A Spectre Is Haunting Europe...so much for Railway Club patrons who wanna talk to each other over a quiet beer.

After the show one of them members asked me if they lived up to the "ace freak show" billing? I said that they had and it was mentioned that they are not usually that self deprecating... which was odd seeing that their review of their summer show started "Our first live show in two years went off like slightly damp firecrackers in a rented paper bag..."

Who can tell anything anymore... at the show on the 30th there happened to be a woman from the garden who got called out for inadequate watering and happened to read about it in the S. Robertson Man Gardening Blog and was perhaps a slight bit offended... apparently certain blogs have been known to bite... from time to time.  Never be hurt by the truth, the truth is your ally, the truth needs to be circled like a prey and eaten, digested and absorbed.

So what about the show?

You want the truth?.. Can you handle the truth?

The band was really good, Wildkat loved them, Tyz loved them, Super Steve was diggin' it, some people came to see "the gig" that the band didn't know because they heard about it and liked the band.

On the negative side they emptied a room full of people hanging out... who moved to the back, but it was mentioned by one server that the band is driving away customers.  The rock and roller says "fuck it... you don't like it fuck off", but the supper show kingpin says " A SRSS is about playing to the audience that is there".

A number of factors have me saying the word "meh"

1) I'm fucking out of here in a few weeks
2) Last time a band blasted a room clear it really bothered me and i tried to resolve it, but nothing was heard... as we say in the business, "it is what it is".  Know what you can control and live with what you can't.
3) It was billed as a gig... i kind of saw it coming, but as John Candy said, or his character said in the movie "The Blues Brothers" ... "Now hold on I haven't even seen these guys play... alright"

I found it... It's the looking over the glasses on the "alright" that kills me.



Now again i feel sidetracked... Just spent some time watching John Candy clips on Youtube...  Where was i?  I think i was dancing around the idea that in my version of a perfect world it is totally unacceptable to play high volume at a Supper Show... you want to play nice and quiet so all the fucking ass holes can talk over your whole set... the dilemma.  I go for low volume cause i like my hearing... it seems insane that people who go into music because apparently they love music and end up going deaf as a result.  Very human... full of spirit but yet dumb as a post.


For Wednesday December 21 2011:

We have Gogo Bonkers, Chris Rzepa, and a retro 21 Tandem repeats line up featuring Shawn Killaly, Willingdon Black, Alvaro Rojas and Super Robertson... perhaps more...

December 7 re-cap

The Last Super Robertson Supper Show done by Cam and Jesse under my watch… and the time was ten to eight, Brian and his lovely wife all finished their dinner and NO FUCKING MUSIC!

But hey things happen, we are all imperfect… no point going to town over this issue and ruffling feathers blasting ultimatums and such.  The good news was there was no Super Steve, because he would have been looking at me and then looking at his watch and then insinuating that there is a clear leadership issue going on that is bringing peril to the SRSS in general.  Have no fear... peril is coming to the SRSS, or perhaps it will finally take off once it looses it's human anvil.

In the end the world didn't stop, the beer didn't turn into arsenic water, bats didn't fly into the club shooting lasers decapitating the patrons… No no, Cam and Jesse just played a Supper Show, it was just a bit shorter, and considering a lot of the songs had words changed to things like Super Robinson and xx-censored-xxx , perhaps a shorter set was in order… what the good doctor ordered as a matter of fact.

Actually Cam and Jesse were really (as we say in Vancouver) "pumping my tires", while Shawn Killaly and myself heckled from the back… good times.



I requested the song "Wake up, Wake up" by Jesse Matheson which always reminds me of a song called "Movie life" which gets played on the radio a lot... i know i heard the Jesse Matheson song a few years before the other... very similar... hit song:



I played the Dave Hind number "Jupiter" after chickening out of giving the Cam Owens song that i have been working on called "None of these things mean that much anymore" a try.  Truth be told I wasn't actually thinking of playing... i was tired and only went down to keep my streak alive.  But the boys gave me a fine tribute... that was the "pumping the tires" bit i mentioned earlier, so i couldn't pass. In good Cam and Jesse SRSS fashion i forgot the song and had to take a restart...



On Wednesday December 14 2011 we have A Spectre Is Haunting Europe:



Best quote i have about them is from the Mule "ace freakshow"... I love it!

http://www.facebook.com/events/284763774884948/

November 30 Re-Cap

I just uploaded the videos for the night, and i think i can say we stomped some balls.  I had a great time, perhaps because i aborted my attempt to try to do a high quality video with audience interviews and all... that's the kind of thing that surely would have thrown me into a classic Robertson "Failure" complex.  For the record I think I have mined some good material out of the failure concept... Hobbs once said that "Failure" and "Wishing machine" are the same song looking from opposite sides... i can see that.

I didn't put much effort into putting this show on, besides the 6 years of setting the standard, but for sure it was in the top percentile.  As a songwriter first, the elements in need were all in place... King hell drummer (Shawn Killaly),  siren singers (Sandra Bouza and Genny Trigo), ace bass and piano players (Christopher Johnson and Jason Jones), overzealous tambourine player (Billie Johnson) and a contingent of volunteer singers from the crowd when needed. There was heavy representation from the V5T postal code, and the word i got was "why didn't i come out to this sooner"... perfect.  No Super Steve however, he was flying to Las Vegas the next day... i doubt he made a 100 dollar bet for the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup, but you never know.  I know he was thinking of betting on L.A last year, but didn't, which turned out to be a good thing for him.

We took a request that i wasn't expecting to play, but hey ask and you shall recieve:



First time i played bass in a long time... I knew it was going well when i saw King Dinosaur by the side of the stage... that's where he goes when it is a real 5 alarm show... when the back bar just ain't cutting it.

Did i mention there was a mosh pit at then end of the night?  Not bad for a Super Robertson Supper Show... And then of course we had an english and spanish version of the song "Never wanted to be anyone":




I had the camera set up but it got knocked over on the opening curtain pull so i threw it back up randomly as i was in mid song or early song for that matter... it could have been better, but as we all know i could have been worse.

On Wednesday December 7th 2011, we have the Cam and Jesse Show... they have yet to email me with their plans, but i have yet to remind them to email me.  I wouldn't doubt if we saw Santa suits and blue humour.