june Mess - just the venue

As you might know, we decided right after our first Mess that we wanted to keep the show travelling, instead of staying in one venue. We knew this would make it a bit harder to build a regular following, but the exploratory and adventurous fun is worth it. We get to know the venues in our city well by working with them, and since the Mess is different every time anyway, with a crazy hodge podge of great acts, it works to have the whole thing in a new context each time as well. I’m super thankful to have met Josh Hinck, because he shares my vaguely maniacal delight in process, improvisation, juxtaposition and doing things that are hard for the fun and challenge of it. I help him figure out which venue to go for next, and put him in touch, and he largely takes it from there and has been doing a pretty bang up job. Anyway.. here’s some insight on June’s Venue:

The Playhouse

5656 Parc is probably the weirdest venue we’ve been to so far- which is not a bad thing, but is really saying something if you consider our first venue was Katacombes, complete with metal spinal chords and such. But the Playhouse has video lottery. And some dedicated video lottery players who didn’t lift their heads or twitch a muscle in response to a single one of our acts.. not even the gentle lesbian touching that emerged as part of Christine Bellerose’s poetry, or the Dead Doll Dancers punk burlesque number. Given the Playhouse used to be a strip club, I suppose staff and regulars are logically unphased by a little rampant sexuality. But the awesome live music didn’t draw a single glance either - not even the impromptu invite from poet mofocoso to the 2 stellar musicians from OK Giraffe to come up and accompany him! not even Alex Montyro’s fricken hilarity or wicked reggae! not even Chesley Walsh’s Billie Jean cover that had that sound man rockin out behind the board! not even the dark and insanely funky stylings Mars Hill!…

It felt a bit like one side of the Playhouse room was haunted by figures who couldn’t see or hear us. And sometimes they won, and the crash of coins accompanied our mess making.

The layout of Playhouse is kind of weird too: most of the space for audience to watch what’s on stage is way off the sides of the stage. When I arrived, there weren’t any chairs or tables at all set up in front of the stage. I could see the fear in some of the performers’ eyes staring down the blank wall in front of them during sound check - especially performers like Angela Potvin, there to do “theatrics” ie; a monologue from a play, which would be particularly anxiety-enducing with all the audience beyond your sightlines. On nights with just a few danceable bands I could see audience standing for the whole show, packed into that spot before the stage sans-tables, but for our kind of show peeps need to sit. So we started moving chairs around, and the audience was able to cozy in before the stage, and Angela’s monologue from Bad Weather was super funny and well received - no need to fear!

The staff at Playhouse were pretty great, and really nice, notwithstanding the normal communications glitches that arise. The only slightly more serious snag was that the sound tech arrived a good hour or more after all the bands had arrived at the scheduled time. Nevertheless, we can’t really complain about that- we only started half an hour late, which has to be a local record, and the sound was nice throughout, and the changes super quick. Ahh right, the sound was nice - except for the buzz that started halfway through the night and continued on steady till the end. Yeah. You might want to inquire about that if you’re doing an acoustic night or a poetry reading- loud bands drown it out no problem though.

I’m quite sure we’ll go back to the Playhouse. We had a good vibe, and the night pulled together nicely. Plus, the manager told Josh “as long as I’m here this venue won’t charge artists to play” and he means it: sound tech and 12 drink tickets are included, and beyond that we were allowed to buy 3 pitchers at cost to make sure the 9 acts and 4 volunteer staff all got a drink or two in ‘em. Sweet deals yo.

Note on documentation: With our two regular Indyish staff photographers down for the count - Marilis with lasers from her eyes and Tristan recovering still from the Montreal Fringe - we were lacking the massive photoing we usually like to do. But a Gazette photographer was there for the first 3 acts, and Sylvain videotaped just about the whole darm thing. I believe he and Josh will be hand-offing to get the footage captured, cut and posted here and on a few selectedly good video sites very soon. The Gazette article will come out in time for the July Mess.

The Mess blogging will continue to come streaming in over the next while and you’ll just have to watch for it. For line up and links for this and other past messes, check out the round up.