Monday, April 20, 2009

Art Bergmann in Toronto, country music in Vancouver

Damn, man, I wish I was in Toronto this weekend, to catch Art Bergmann opening for the Great Lake Swimmers on the 25th. (Read the Ray Fulber piece below, if you've missed it - it looks like it may in fact be a bit early to pronounce Art's guitar slinger days as bein' COMPLETELY finished, given that we assume he'll be accompanying himself for this show, albeit acoustically...).

In other matters, those of you who like (real, good) country music should consider the followin' gigs this weekend:

a) Rich Hope and His Blue Rich Rangers at the Railway on Thursday (my interview with Rich and Adrian Mack here): a fine time will be had by all!

b) Joe Stanton and the Precious Littles - the other release by Bearwood Music, who put out the Lost Art Bergmann CD, on the 26th at the Backstage Lounge - Ray and Susann Richter of Bearwood and Poisoned have both praised these guys to me, tho' I have not given them a proper listen as yet...

c) Or if that doesn't move you, go see the Minimalist Jug Band and Petunia, I think on Sunday at Cafe Montmartre (review of a past show o' theirs here, with abundant other links).

All I can say for sure about my plans this weekend is that I'll be hosting my Phase IV screening on Friday! 10PM, Vancity Theatre, free with invite (please do contact me to let me know you'll be comin', tho'!). See some of y'all there: and be sure to read up a bit on the film beforehand. There's some very useful backstory linked here; at the very least, check out "Lienengen Versus the Ants" and the Ken Middleham doc... The trailer is very cool, too...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey Allan, I thought you'd like to here a fan's thoughts about Art's performance in Toronto..before the show I felt some trepidation as it took place in a sort of genteel, sit down theatre environment..as well the fans for the most part probably didn't know anything about Art or his music, alot of them were early 20 somethings or older people more used to the acoustic music that the Great Lake Swimmers play..in comparison to the Richards show and what I have read, Art was more in the troubadour/songsmith mode and the focus was on his lyrics and some of his more delicate and moving/tragic songs..it was not a confrontational/punk sort of show..it was a very poignant performance..surprise !, he played guitar for the whole 9 song set, Chris Wardman backed him up and he seemed to be struggling (perhaps with pain or just tuning) at some points but he really seemed glad to be both singing and playing...there were some of the usual between song commments, one about Mary Wollstonecraft and 1789 in the intro to "Our Little Secret" was quite memorable..by the end I think he earned the crowd's respect and received large applause several times..if you were an Art fan it was a moving and memorably stark experience..if not, his charisma/passion and the quality of the songs stood out and could not be denied..P.S In that environment and with that demographic it was great to hear the nervous laughter when people heard the perverse lyrics to "Sleep" and "The Hospital Song"...lets hope there is more shows !
Set list: not necessarily in order
Message From Paul
Buried Alive
Remember Her Name
Our Little Secret
Sexual Roulette
Sleep
The Hospital Song
More Blue Shock
Sin City

Allan MacInnis said...

Wow, thank you - that's very good to know about. I'll forward this on to Theodore Stinks of the Art Bergmann fan site, as well - I'm sure he'll be interested. Sounds like it was a successful night! Thanks again!