It may not quite be Glastonbury but Sled Island, Calgary’s own indie-music festival, culminated last weekend with some outdoor concerts a mere 6 blocks from my house. I like it when rock is convenient like that. But like Glastonbury, Sled Island is about more than the music. It’s only the second year of the festival but the organisers are thinking I big and I salute them for it. Festival director Zak Pashak made quite a stirring call to arms in his notes in the festival guide. He said Sled Island was all about civic pride:
Calgarians are searching. The city is gradually learning that pretending to be what you think another city is, is an empty path. Visit one of our various new $10-a-beer-resto-lounges to get a first hand experience of emptiness. I don’t think we really want pathetic interpretations of New York, what we want is that thing that New Yorkers have - we want real pride in where we live.
Go Zak! But dude is just warming up…
Alberta could be so many things. We could be an unrivaled center of education. We could have free, high quality education for every citizen of this province. Money is there by the bucket load - but where is it going? How different would Calgary look if we focused on educating ourselves and attracting bright minds to our city? Would the epicenter of our greatest civic celebration still consist of drunk millionaires renting cocaine dusted barbie dolls at an outhouse smelling parking lot behind a downtown theme-bar? Is that really how we want to represent ourselves to the world? Is that at all real?
Nice work. I heart Zak Pashak!
Anyway there was music too and my friends Andree, Jason, Pat and Victoria. Here’s my heros, zeroes and meh from the festival.
Heroes - Elliot Brood. I like a band in a shirt and tie. They played just what the programme said they would play: “audacious old-timey frontier musical stylings”
Zeroes - Yo La Tengo. Maybe I should have gone with Martin to their indoor gig. Because out in the field they seemed all over the place. One minute they were doing sub-Radiohead sonic noodling which frankly I can’t be bothered with even when Radiohead do it. Then they sat down and knocked out a few Ben Folds numbers on the piano. That was a bit better. Then back to the guitars for a Jesus Built My Hotrod-era Ministry tribute. Or that’s what it all seemed like to me.
Heroes - Tegan and Sarah. Local girls made good. Great songs and great singing. And when Tegan borrowed some sunglasses from a member of the audience I got a great idea that’s going to make me rich. An all-girl Ramones tribute band called the Shemones. Rock chicks, shades, guitars, high-energy rock and roll. You want that in your life - come on!
Superheroes - Chixdiggit. Another local band but apparently they’ve been going nearly 20 years so they never made really good it seems. They were fantastic though and my highlight of the festival. You knew they were going to be good when they walked on stage guitars slung around their knees. Lead singer then adjusted his mike stand, lowering it by about a foot, spread his legs wide apart in a classic Lemmy pose, announced he’d had a shawarma and might be sick and then proceeded to rock. They knew the golden rule that any song over 3 minutes long is getting into noodly prog-rock territory so kept things commendably brief. Their stage banter was unparalleled as well. I particularly enjoyed the good-natured baiting of the Broken Social Scene fans clustered at the front of the neighbouring stage who wouldn’t walk 50 feet to their right to see them. In the words of the band - let’s hear it for Chixdiggit.
Meh - Broken Social Scene. Maybe it was following Chixdiggit but I couldn’t get into their pompous (again sub-Radiohead) sonic noodling for a while. But the second half of their set tightened up when the started to play some actual songs with a bit more oomph. Score draw.
Hero- Jonathan Richman. I’d last seen Jonathan Richman in Edinburgh in the early 90s. I remember it as a very bohemian gig where the support act was some dude doing poetry with a guy on the cello accompanying him. Or maybe he was accompanying himself at the time. Anyway if you can remember a Jonathan Richman gig you weren’t really there. I do remember that JR had a pretty crazy look in his eye and came across as fun but odd. I’m glad to say that 15 years later it’s all still there! It was just him on guitar (and occasional shaky maraca things) plus a drummer. It was fun and odd in equal measure. He writes great songs and sings with wonderful style and I would certainly hope to see him again in less than 15 years time.
Somewhere on the continuum between zero and meh - Mogwai. Mogwai seriously didn’t do it for me but I think it might be my fault. As the headline act on the last day of the festival I encouraged my friends to leave our comfy spot on the grassy bank overlooking the stage and get down to the front and into the crowd. Big mistake…. huge! I reckon if we’d stayed back there then their neo-shoegazing would have been a perfect ambience for sunset on a hot summers evening. But not knowing what to expect I thought we should be in the thick of it. I’m just old fashioned, I know, but when a band (or anyone) is on stage with an audience in front of them I expect to them to do something to capture and hold our attention. Here we are now, if you will, entertain us! But Mogwai have to have the least stage presence of any band I have ever seen. At one point all four guitarists were at the back of the stage, backs to the audience facing the drummer or amp stands. Lads - don’t forget the funzone! I couldn’t take it to be honest and hollered - “Yoo hoo! We’re over here!” Didn’t work and after some more of the same I got bored and went home. I later came to see it was probably my fault for wanting them to be something they are not. I still think they aren’t headline material though. I wanted more Chixdiggit!