What I wrote for Savfaire before it Stopped

I just received word from the founder of Savfaire that the local free zine we’ve been enjoying for the past few months is putting production on hold, at least for a while. Tessa Smith wrote about Savfaire on Indyish here a little while back. We thought it was a really neat project, and they’d asked me a couple of times to contribute, and finally I wrote something! Just in time for that quiet kapput of not enough funding, so sadly familiar to the art lovers ears (and which we’ll be hearing more of as the arts in Canada keep getting cut.)

Hopefully the project and it’s organizers will be back with renewed enthusiam and funds very soon. For now I figured I might as well share the piece I’d worked on with the Savfaire editors. If you follow Indyish you’ve heard lots of versions of this story, because I tell it a lot, but there’s tidbits in here I don’t think I’ve mentionned yet, so here ya go kiddos:

The Sun-Ra Also Rises

My boyfriend Elran and I started Indyish.com about 2 years ago. Since then we’ve done nineteen monthly live shows for the network, but our June 2008 Monthly Mess was the single best moment I’ve had with Indyish so far. Picture the 15 members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, aged 28 - 85, crammed on a small sunlit stone stage outdoors, with about 40 young local musicians all around them jamming (including saw, tuba, cellos) with 6 Ethereal Tribal belly dancers shaking it resplendent in feathers and bells. This was the highlight of an eight-hour marathon show, most of it planned well in advance, except for the Sun Ra Arkestra bit which came together in about two weeks. That includes my initial discussion with the Suoni Festival director; writing the proposal, confirming that our sponsor would say yes; proposing the collaboration with the dancers; getting posters and press releases out, etc.

We saw the legendary afro-futurist orchestra’s contractual rider about 20 hours before the band would take the stage. The contract stipulated that we would need to provide an upright acoustic bass, a jazz drum kit, a bass amp, a guitar amp, bongos, and a conga with stand. On top of the 15 music stands and 18+ mics and stands and chairs.

To pull it off, I basically over-tapped the generosity of my sponsor rep from AKG Microphones. He helped figure out the cheapest place to rent the congas, bongos, and upright (Italmelody) and drove me around on a borrowing spree accumulating favours now owed to the Jimmyriggers, the United Steelworkers of Montreal, and the Franco Proietti Morph-tet.

We definitely bombed some stuff, but we kept the Arkestra equipped with beer and kept introducing them to different members of the Tribal Ethereal belly dancers whenever there was a delay. It’s hard to be stressed around those ladies. For some reason the tech team weren’t able to get the keyboard working for most of the show, but the young guy playing it was really chill and didn’t stress about it. Later we found out he plays with Wynton Marsalis. So, not our finest hour, but still. At one point backstage there were joints being passed, drums roaring, belly dancers improvising, and Elran’s twin baby brothers wandering around wide eyed and muttering. Best Mess yet.