SOUNDTRACK: NICK BUZZ-Lula Lounge, Toronto, ON (December 9, 2010).
I was looking through the solo concerts on the RheostaticsLive page and realized that there were only a few left for me to post about.
This is the first of two Nick Buzz shows on the site and the one I hadn’t posted about yet.
This audio has been taken from the Mini DV recording of the show that I put on YouTube (which is available in 13 parts). These clips are all available on YouTube.
It’s interesting hearing Martin with Nick Buzz because they are clearly a more cabaret style–even on Martin’s solo songs. As of this recording, they had released Circo and the Shoenberg EP.
“Spilling The Wonderful” sounds terrific. It’s odd and cabaret-ish and as the title says, Wonderful. On “That’s What You Get For Having Fun” it is cool watching him pluck at his guitar. It’s a weird song but always sounds great.
He says, “Thanks a hell of a lot for coming” and then takes off his suit jacket. “Just Because” is quiet and pretty.
Then he explains that the next few songs are from the Schoenberg EP.
I can’t tell how they do that opening collage of music and spoken words for “Gigerlette.” But Martin seems to be enjoying it. At the end of the song he says “Strangely all these rather formal songs that Schoenberg wrote back then are all about sex, is that strange? I don’t know.” I cracked up that during “Der Ganugsame Liebhaber (Black Persian Kitty) he shakes his head after he sings “it shivers as I stroke its velvety nap.” Then he even does some jaunty dances. The final one is “Arie Aus Dem Spiegel Von Arcadien.” It is so much fun with the boom boom boom bits. He notes: it’s 100 years old.
“A Hymn To The Situation” is from “our first and essential only album Circo. The other album was part of a subscription service I’ve done over the past 38 years–a collection of the creepiest Schoenberg songs. But this is one of the most despicable songs I have ever written. And I want to share it with you.
“Milkeek” is a new song. It’s inspirations are from a dream world. It doesn’t make any sense to me hopefully it will make some sense to you. And it’s about keeping certain types of food separated from other types of food. There’s scratchy violin. He says that song was about “The relax”.
This song ain’t. “Eliza” features banjo and Martin takes his guitar guitar back. Although once the vocals start he takes the guitar off again.
“L’Astronaut” has an amusing story attached: He says it’s inspired by a fantasy: one of the things that occurred to me and a friend of mine was how we felt at folk festivals. We would like to attend one in a spacesuit with tools to take samples of the boutiques and booths and bongo jams and take samples and do observations to take back to our world. To use a boring drill to take sample drill into a djembe. We’ll play the song and see if its comparable at all. Don’t think so. Not sure if there’s second unknown song or if that was part of “L’Astronaut,” but at the end, Martin jokes, “yes, we’re a little bit country.
“The House With The Laughing Windows” is spare and pretty with a lovely piano melody. I love when the guitar comes kicking in near the end of the song. “Sane, So Sane” opens with him saying” Are you enjoying the show so far? This is only our second show in a normal venue. We’ve only done abnormal venues at this point things like television and classical tent arrangements. This is a song about Toronto where I don’t live anymore. There’s some really cool sound effects throughout.
“Love Streams” is from our album Circo. The first time we played it from top to bottom we kept it for the record.
He says this next song features my bass playing. It’s “Uncle Bumbo’s Christmas.” It’s pretty long and for the end he’s basically playing two notes. I wonder if he was bored. The final song “If You Go Away” gets cut off at the end, but it is a delightful torch song. Martin walks away for a bit in the beginning but comes back after 2 minutes to start singing.
I assume there were more songs at the show, but we will have to make due with what we have. The quality is good and the band sounds great. It’s nice to see Martin working with violinist High Marsh in the Rheostatics reunions.
[READ: April 20, 2017] Giant Days 3
Boy do I ever love this series. It might just be my favorite graphic novel series yet. And that’s saying a lot.
The only thing that confounded me a bit was that in the year since I read the last book, I’d forgotten a bit about what was going on. But it only took a short amount of time to get caught up again. I also noticed that I said I didn’t like Max Sarin’s drawing style in the previous book. Well, I find that I really like it now and that I just didn’t like the change from one to the other in the middle of the previous book. Because here it’s just right on–exaggerated and fun, but still delightful.
Chapter Nine opens on what I thought was a confusing scene–Ed and a woman (Amanda) are spying on the student government. The woman is an editor at the paper, she is older and pretty intense. But they find out some shocking secrets (which allows them to make great use of the joke “absent Parent”). After their espionage, Ed falls for this editirix. And she is quite taken with him so she invites him home. But she is older and more experienced and well, soon someone has some stories to tell.
Of course their detective work means the administration is going to close down the paper, which makes no one happy. And the chapter ends with a mysterious figure trying to convince Susan to rig the next student election.
Chapter 10 introduces us to Esther’s old friend Big Lindsay. Big Lindsay is a red-haired punky girl who takes the whole gang out for drinks. And more drinks. And more drinks. No one is able to get up in the morning. There’s even a funny scene where Esther throws up and Lindsay say Classic Esther.
Ed, still reeling from the newspaper news, decides to take one for the team and goes out with Big Lindsay the next night. They go to a doom metal show (guys in robes I had to wonder if it was supposed to be SunnO))), but during the show, she asks if they can go bowling. Lindsay and Ed are having a nice time until she lets it slip that she heard what happened with Ed and Amanda. And then she tells us her own story–she had sex only once, on her 18th birthday and got pregnant. And then she shows off her adorable baby (who id at home with her aunt for this party weekend). But that doesn’t mean the party has gone out of her.
Chapter 11 shows us the problems that running a political campaign can lead to–Susan is super stressed, spending all her time on the campaign and not spending any time with McGraw. We meet her candidate finally–Logan is so vapid and meaningless that they are sure he will win. But Susan is working so hard at the promoting of him that she is staying up all night. There’s a great wonky couple of pages where Susan begins living in the night realm, where the sun-deniers hang out and hum all night long–it’s strangely inviting. Esther–familiar with the night realm–decides to overwork herself on her papers so she stays up late and joins Susan there She intends to snap her out of it but instead winds up getting drawn in. Until Daisy is able to snap them out of it.
But Susan’s new life has taken its toll, and McGraw is now seeking some space.
The election ends in an unexpected way, and so the girls decide to go hiking to escape the university world. Well, Daisy-who was a Girl Guide–decides to go and she takes the two city folk along. Susan is full of hilarious rage and Esther is typically clueless. How they manage to survive is anyone’s guess–although the wolves have a message for them should they come back.
This lighthearted scene ends with Esther going home for Easter and revealing to her parents that she is done with school.
Can this be the end of our dynamic trio?
This story just gets better and better. The characters are hilarious the drawings are superb. I am so hooked on these people, I want these books to go on forever.
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