May Mess - From Baroque to Burlesque and Beyond

May’s Monthly Mess was this rainy Wednesday at the Green Room, which will also be the site of many events and fun coordinated by us Indyish for the Montreal Fringe Fest, June 7-17. We got a taste of working with the nice people there, and even had a mini version of the “oh crap we’re missing tech thing X let’s improvise!” merrygoround, which I’m sure will re-emerge repeatedly and with lip-chewing variation throughout the fest. We rode the merrygoround well I thought and had everything figured out by the start of the show. Projectors add maddness, but man, are they worth it, check out these pictures from the Paul Warne doing the 3d visuals and Vorpal magic music happening on another laptop - 3d projections (3 screens spaced apart make shadows that echo and are awesome) with layers of sampled soundscapes make for great dreamy beering:

(thanks to mistress marilis for all the pics)

Morlando was a stand out for me, as was the short film “Trailor Park Unicorn” directed by Sid Zanforth, who is also in the band Creature which we’re proud to say will be the opening night band at the Fringe Festival Montreal this year (courtesy of a little last minute indyish hook up what’s up.. I think they’re perfect for a danceable dramatic fun night at the Fringe, kicking off the Lost Circus Parade! We’ll see, but i’m pretty excited about it.) I got to meet Sid at the Mess, which was cool, and he mentionned that we were actually giving the film it’s Canadian Premiere that night! This is a remarkable and beautiful film, with a great score by Patrick Watson. (See Pat Watson tonight for free in Montreal, up the block at the St.Viateur Street Fest!)

All the films on Wednesday had either impressive visuals (painterly even- like the dark mortality drama “The Collection” by Lukas Constantine) and special effects and/or funny fascinating rawness and real people (”Seven Questions About Clothes” a film by Tricycle Media gal Clare Elson, which made us feel much better about how rarely we do laundry =).

Chris Bavota started the live music aspect of the night, and opened up the room with his wail and wild vocals and soft storytelling. The last song about child molestation with the “NONO NONONONO” was kinda disturbing, but so’s child molestation, so there you go. I liked Chris Bavota a lot.

At the other end of the evening, Marie Read closed the night with their female singers incredible full gravely blues voice applied to songs that rocked hard with the two electric guitars, harmonies and cello. It was fun to hear the story behind their name too - Marie Read was a pirate who flashed her tits to people as she made off with their dubloons. A great name for a great young rock pop band. The sound mix wasn’t great while they played, I didn’t think, but they made it work and kept up a posivite vibe instead of getting visibily frustrated which saved it.

In between and through out the evening we had Lexie’s Burlesque bit to some old school industrial tunage, and 3 readers who gave a good idea of the range that’s out there in spoken word. Young Erica Kitner read a 4 or 5 page rhyming rhythmic piece she’d written that afternoon about Strawberries, which was pretty weird but funny too, and she had some good instincts in it for flow. My advice would be to never use the word “strawberries” that much ever again, but aside form that it was cool.

Jeff Gandell, who read at the first Mess was back, this time with a musical soundscape that had been developed by friend Steve from their band Launie Anderson. I thought the music was an cool addition, and Jeff went some interesting places rhythmicly in the text, but I actually thought his piece from 2 months ago was more honest and therefore funnier. It’s a cycle we all have to go through I think - as you develop conceptually you lose some honesty and need to go around a loop to keep the new good stuff and get the old good stuff back and hone your own voice out of the different influences and ideas you’re wokring with. It’s very cool to get to watch different artists to return from Mess to Mess and to get to be a part of these different stages in individual creative cycles. Jeff’s a champ for sharing this work with us as he develops it.

The highlight of the spoken word had to be Paula Belina. Even before she brought up her best friend beat boxer her poems successfully combined serious head shaking beat with hilarious jokes and language games and surprises and smart ideas. She’s a class act, that Belina and a fun, physical performer. She had told Josh she’d do about 10 minutes. When she started to run long, he just sat back and smiled. She’s “pretty badass” to use a Josh-ism, and it was great we thought to have her up there for as long as she wanted, to give people an idea of great spoken poetry can be.

She also said a great thing about the mess: “I’ve figured out what this is like” she said “it’s like we’re a very small town, and this is our talent show” and I thought: yegzactly.

But the real stand out for the whole night, the act that had strangers coming in off the street, and me yelling “You guys fucking rock!!” shamelessly, was the baroque quartet “Les Tabarnaks D’Epoque“. They carried in a Harpsichord bigger then a coffin, and played their vintage instruments and compositions with all the adorable scruffy hoodies and wry jokes of an indie rock band, and all around us people whispered to each other “I need more live, cool classical in my life please”.

A great night. Jump on board the next one and watch for updates via Indyish.com/events/monthlymess.

Also note- we’ve decided to keep the Mess travlling for a while longer anyway, so if you think you know where we should go, send me an email:
risa @indyish.com.