[mplpost] toronto star story / jan. 3 / what's on

[derek andrews]

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perhaps as a result of ann lederman's idea to lobby greg quill, perhaps
because he just gets it, there was a major spread on the health of the
toronto folk scene this past thursday.

it ran as a cover in the "what's on" section with a massive photo of
stephen fearing up front.  the point of the story was a little vague, but
he speaks of the viability for folk performers being revived, in large part
due to hugh's room's emergence this year.

sorry i didn't get this out sooner for folks who don't see the star.  you
can go their site:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=3Dthestar/Layout/Art=
icle_T
ype1&c=3DArticle&cid=3D1009796956470&call_page=3DTS_WhatsOn&call_pageid=3D97=
8552666364&c
all_pagepath=3DEntertainment/WhatsOn&col=3D978552666551

or read on:


`Strum and jangle' lives

Acoustic music hasn't been this lively in Toronto since Yorkville in the '60=
s

Greg Quill
ARTS WRITER
TONY BOCK/STAR FILE PHOTO
BACK TO OUR ROOTS: Canadian singer/songwriter Stephen Fearing is an example
of a rebirth of acoustic rootsy sounds in Toronto.

"Sometimes it feels like the 1960s again," a friend remarked recently after
he'd spent the better part of a week's nights sampling Toronto's
live-performance music venues.


"All these great young songwriters and acoustic pickers, lots of
harmonizing and audience participation ... lots of strum and jangle ...
it's a millennial hootenanny."

If you extract the political component from the mix - politics seem far
more complex and distant to the poet sons and daughters of boomers, who
found in folk and pop music 40 years ago a means of effecting changes to
social policy - the music that's being played around town these days, in
clubs (more "listening rooms" in these comfort-minded times) such as Hugh's
Room, C'est What?, Free Times Caf=E9, Holy Joe's, The Tranzac Club, The
Cameron House, The Silver Dollar, The Horseshoe, Healey's, Cadillac Ranch,
occasionally at The Rivoli, and, before its demise in October, at Ted's
Wrecking Yard, sounds remarkably like folk music.

No one's calling it folk music, of course. It's "roots" or "alt.country" or
"Americana" or just plain "country" - all misnomers that disguise the
elementary charm of music that relies less on instrumental ornamentation
and formal presentation than on communication skills, narrative powers and
unusual ideas.

Its musical origins are cross-cultural, cross-genre, cross-generational -
running the gamut from Celtic forms to Texas cowboy songs, from rhythmic
Latin music to bluegrass and blues. It's not dance music. It's not drinking
music. It's not singalong music.

And it's more personal and quirky, less "music of the people" than the tag
"folk" implies.

This is, however, the real music that's left for thinking adults in the
wake of the hip-hop/techno revolution in pop, now more than ever a highly
capitalized form of mass-marketed pap for teenagers who've succumbed to the
dubious rewards of globalized, big-box culture.

While Toronto has always had a reasonably healthy live blues framework, it
hasn't embraced singer-songwriters and acoustic folk artists so heartily
since the Yorkville days.

In the past year, the city has seen an unusual resurgence of interest in
the art and craft of songwriters in the roots music medium, thanks largely
to the accessibility and portability of acoustic instruments, inexpensive
digital recording equipment, computer recording/mixing software, CD burners
and the Internet, which have stimulated the growth of a vast alternative
and completely independent musical culture.

Every second night, somewhere in a live performance space in Toronto,
someone is celebrating the release of an independent CD, usually showcasing
some hybrid form of rootsy "strum and jangle."

In recent months, roots music has acquired additional lustre and
credibility in Toronto within the confines of the west-end concert club,
Hugh's Room, on Dundas St. W., just south of its junction with Bloor St.
W., and easily accessible by streetcar, bus and car (there's a shopping
plaza parking lot within steps of the entrance). It's a wonderfully
arranged, three-tiered space, raking gently down to a cornered stage, with
tables and chairs on the floor and mezzanine levels, and a large bar area
at the back of the room, near the front door.

Run by Richard Carson - the former social worker and the brother of the
late Hugh, a devoted participant in the Canadian folk festival scene, has
no prior experience as an entrepreneur - and booked by folk aficionado
Holmes Hooke, Hugh's Room has hosted some of the very best roots music
concerts Toronto has seen.

Jesse Winchester, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Loudon Wainwright III and Guy Clark -
high ambassadors from American folk's "official" era, who'd be lost in a
rowdy drinking pub and would have difficulty filling a 2,000 soft-seater
like Massey Hall or Convocation Hall - have performed at Hugh's Room in the
past year. Primo British folk-rockers Fairport Convention are booked for
April 3.

More important, Hugh's Room, which relies for anciliary income on boomers'
predilection for quality restaurant food rather than suicide wings and jugs
of beer, has become home to Canada's folk festival regulars such as Chris
and Ken Whiteley, Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing, Quartette, Ian Tamblyn,
Mose Scarlett, Daisy Debolt and countless others who rarely get to play for
city crowds under civilized circumstances.

Jane Siberry, whose performance art defies categorization, has twice in
recent months adapted Hugh's Room for her own purposes for several
consecutive sold-out events. Carson and Hooke are also booking jazz artists
to augment the roots bill, as New York folk club owners used to in the
1960s.

They even invited yours truly - in my phantom guise as a singer-songwriter
- to open recently for American country blues artist Guy Davis.

It was an absolute joy to play in a room where everyone had come just to
listen.

- derek andrews
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
workday / mailto:derek@harbourfront.on.ca
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Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

perhaps as a result of ann lederman's idea to lobby greg quill, perhaps
because he just gets it, there was a major spread on the health of the
toronto folk scene this past thursday.


it ran as a cover in the "what's on" section with a massive photo of
stephen fearing up front.  the point of the story was a little vague,
but he speaks of the viability for folk performers being revived, in
large part due to hugh's room's emergence this year.


sorry i didn't get this out sooner for folks who don't see the star.=20
you can go their site:


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=3Dthestar/Layout/Art=
icle_Type1&c=3DArticle&cid=3D1009796956470&call_page=3DTS_WhatsOn&call_pagei=
d=3D978552666364&call_pagepath=3DEntertainment/WhatsOn&col=3D978552666551


or read on:



<fontfamily><param>Times</param><bigger><bigger>`Strum and jangle'
lives


</bigger></bigger>Acoustic music hasn't been this lively in Toronto
since Yorkville in the '60s


<smaller>Greg Quill

ARTS WRITER=20

</smaller></fontfamily><smaller><fontfamily><param>Verdana</param><smaller>T=
ONY
BOCK/STAR FILE PHOTO

BACK TO OUR ROOTS: Canadian singer/songwriter Stephen Fearing is an
example of a rebirth of acoustic rootsy sounds in Toronto.


</smaller></fontfamily></smaller><fontfamily><param>Times</param>"Sometimes
it feels like the 1960s again," a friend remarked recently after he'd
spent the better part of a week's nights sampling Toronto's
live-performance music venues.



"All these great young songwriters and acoustic pickers, lots of
harmonizing and audience participation ... lots of strum and jangle ...
it's a millennial hootenanny."


If you extract the political component from the mix - politics seem far
more complex and distant to the poet sons and daughters of boomers, who
found in folk and pop music 40 years ago a means of effecting changes
to social policy - the music that's being played around town these
days, in clubs (more "listening rooms" in these comfort-minded times)
such as Hugh's Room, C'est What?, Free Times Caf=E9, Holy Joe's, The
Tranzac Club, The Cameron House, The Silver Dollar, The Horseshoe,
Healey's, Cadillac Ranch, occasionally at The Rivoli, and, before its
demise in October, at Ted's Wrecking Yard, sounds remarkably like folk
music.


No one's calling it folk music, of course. It's "roots" or
"alt.country" or "Americana" or just plain "country" - all misnomers
that disguise the elementary charm of music that relies less on
instrumental ornamentation and formal presentation than on
communication skills, narrative powers and unusual ideas.


Its musical origins are cross-cultural, cross-genre, cross-generational
- running the gamut from Celtic forms to Texas cowboy songs, from
rhythmic Latin music to bluegrass and blues. It's not dance music. It's
not drinking music. It's not singalong music.


And it's more personal and quirky, less "music of the people" than the
tag "folk" implies.


This is, however, the real music that's left for thinking adults in the
wake of the hip-hop/techno revolution in pop, now more than ever a
highly capitalized form of mass-marketed pap for teenagers who've
succumbed to the dubious rewards of globalized, big-box culture.


While Toronto has always had a reasonably healthy live blues framework,
it hasn't embraced singer-songwriters and acoustic folk artists so
heartily since the Yorkville days.


In the past year, the city has seen an unusual resurgence of interest
in the art and craft of songwriters in the roots music medium, thanks
largely to the accessibility and portability of acoustic instruments,
inexpensive digital recording equipment, computer recording/mixing
software, CD burners and the Internet, which have stimulated the growth
of a vast alternative and completely independent musical culture.


Every second night, somewhere in a live performance space in Toronto,
someone is celebrating the release of an independent CD, usually
showcasing some hybrid form of rootsy "strum and jangle."


In recent months, roots music has acquired additional lustre and
credibility in Toronto within the confines of the west-end concert
club, Hugh's Room, on Dundas St. W., just south of its junction with
Bloor St. W., and easily accessible by streetcar, bus and car (there's
a shopping plaza parking lot within steps of the entrance). It's a
wonderfully arranged, three-tiered space, raking gently down to a
cornered stage, with tables and chairs on the floor and mezzanine
levels, and a large bar area at the back of the room, near the front
door.=20


Run by Richard Carson - the former social worker and the brother of the
late Hugh, a devoted participant in the Canadian folk festival scene,
has no prior experience as an entrepreneur - and booked by folk
aficionado Holmes Hooke, Hugh's Room has hosted some of the very best
roots music concerts Toronto has seen.


Jesse Winchester, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Loudon Wainwright III and Guy
Clark - high ambassadors from American folk's "official" era, who'd be
lost in a rowdy drinking pub and would have difficulty filling a 2,000
soft-seater like Massey Hall or Convocation Hall - have performed at
Hugh's Room in the past year. Primo British folk-rockers Fairport
Convention are booked for April 3.


More important, Hugh's Room, which relies for anciliary income on
boomers' predilection for quality restaurant food rather than suicide
wings and jugs of beer, has become home to Canada's folk festival
regulars such as Chris and Ken Whiteley, Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing,
Quartette, Ian Tamblyn, Mose Scarlett, Daisy Debolt and countless
others who rarely get to play for city crowds under civilized
circumstances.


Jane Siberry, whose performance art defies categorization, has twice in
recent months adapted Hugh's Room for her own purposes for several
consecutive sold-out events. Carson and Hooke are also booking jazz
artists to augment the roots bill, as New York folk club owners used to
in the 1960s.


They even invited yours truly - in my phantom guise as a
singer-songwriter - to open recently for American country blues artist
Guy Davis.=20


It was an absolute joy to play in a room where everyone had come just
to listen. </fontfamily>



- derek andrews

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

workday / mailto:derek@harbourfront.on.ca

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