What a wonderful show at the Rickshaw tonight! Danced up a storm. Paul Pigat did mostly Cousin Harley songs, but solo acoustic, plus an amazing quieter song called "Hartland," a murder ballad with a very poor survival rate indeed. Paul has explained to me in a previous email that the song was "written by Tolen McNeil, who is a roofer on Vancouver Island; we used to play together with Carolyn Mark" in a band that he told us tonight was called the Metronome Cowboys. "He wrote that driving home from the Heartland Dump, so that entire song took him about 30 minutes. He walked in the door and played it to me off the top of his head. Beautiful and infuriating!" (or as Paul put it from the stage, "I love him and I hate him for it").
My favourite photos of Paul all involved Melody Mangler, who, near the end of his set, took the stage in a green dress, which did not last her very long. She had several costume changes over the course of the night, and appeared for one or two songs with each artist.
After "Hartland," my favourite song Paul did was "Rained Like Hell" off Let's Go, but I was too busy dancin' to shoot video. That Cousin Harley stuff works just fine solo, turns out.
I didn't shoot any video of the Vanrays that I liked -- superb Vancouver soul band whom I wrote about here, previously, but I was too into dancin' (though I wish I'd shot "Take a Dive," my favourite song from their set, unless I got the title of that wrong... it's always hard to remember what was what after a gig, and I was *not* taking notes). But I got lots of photos, including... who is this gorgeously zaftig fleshpot taking the stage? It's Melody Mangler again!
Did I hear someone call the Vanrays' female singer "Rebel," at one point? It got me squinting: "Is that Rebel Valentine?" I have not yet determined if it is so. She's about the size of Rebel, and the approximate shape, but her face looks pretty different from the woman onstage at the Bowie Ball the other week. Though she also looked pretty different at the Bowie Ball Pit at LanaLou's the next day, so... I dunno!
It sure must be fun to be a burlesque dancer and -- with apologies to anyone who had a prudish-cum-feminist conniption at Ms. Mangler's semi-nude gyrations -- it's a fine, fine idea to have burlesque onstage at a show like this. It doesn't really awaken the "objectifying eye," at least not in me (it might have when I was a teenager) -- it's not like I was "getting off" in any lascivious way -- but it still tickles your kundalini a little and maybe enhances the physicality of your dancing? Seemed to do that for mine, anyhow. And it's rather fun to photograph!
But if the Vanrays were the beneficiaries of the most photos taken, the headliners, Los Furios, were the losers: I got very few of them, and most aren't worth showing. I do rather like these. You get a small taste of Corinne's stage presence -- the second most charismatic person to grace the stage of the Rickshaw tonight, after Melody? She's certainly the bandmember who is the most fun to watch.
But if my photos aren't worth much for the headliner, I did shoot clips of Los Furios doing "Crazy World," "Jokes On You" (featuring Melody Mangler and her floral projectile "lactations," which squirted me more than once), and a twofer older song and brand new one, "Brand New Low" and "This Means War." I already had a copy of Old Ghosts -- it's out at record stores -- but Kyle was very helpful in getting the members present to sign the back of my record. I might have missed one or two -- and one guy on the record wasn't even present tonight -- but, what, I'll settle for six out of nine. Favourite song was probably "No Borders No Flags," but again, I was too busy dancing to shoot video of that one.
Immensely positive, tuneful, and danceworthy night tonight. Let's hope Los Furios come back soon! (I mean, they're local, but Kyle lives in New Zealand and I think there are other members who are dramatically out-of-town besides him). Check out their new album, Old Ghosts, here. Thanks for the great night, y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment