Sounding Off in Toronto

July 7 2004

Peace from the East

  I had a week off between the Montreal and Toronto Fringes and I spent most of it in Ottawa, messing with photoshop and my website and email.  I also heard back from the rockers I met in Prague, Jonny Quality, and connected them with my venue managers in Edinburgh, and they are now booked for some shows there in August, in which I will be featured.  Also, Sean (a.k.a. Jonny) emailed me an Mp3 of one of their songs, a rockabilly twang hiphop flavoured jam called "John Deere Greene" with a slide guitar riff and a funky beat, and I was put to the task of writing some rap lyrics to go with it.  The song is incredibly catchy, and I instantly had it stuck in my head and couldn't wait to get writing.  Basically, the song is about a young hick who tries to woo his sweetheart by writing "Billy Loves Charlene" in John

Deere Greene coloured spray paint in three-feet-tall letters on the barn.  So with those details to go on I penned a rap detailing the nuances of this romance, something to the tune of:

We drove here in a John Deere tractor
I cracked a few jokes, happy to hear 'er laughter
And then cracked a beer to reduce my fear factor
So this lump in my throat would disappear faster
And then I got down on one knee and asked 'er
If she would be my sweetheart until the sweet hereafter...

  When I had sixteen bars written I emailed them to Sean, and he was so excited about the project he phoned me in Ottawa, from Brighton, with his studio set to record my rap over the phone.  So I put the song on my headphones and spit the rap into the receiver of my cell, while he put the phone on his end up to the studio mic.  Then he mixed the lyrics into the song in his studio and emailed me a rough version, with the vocals, all within about an hour, and it actually sounds amazing.  The internet is a beautiful thing.

  Since then I've written another verse for the song and we've done a second phone recording session, and I'm expecting the final mix within a day or two.  Jonny Quality is currently working on songs to put on their forthcoming first album, which will be produced by Fatboy Slim.  Now, I don't know if "John Deere Greene" will make the cut, but it's a contender for sure, so if all goes well I might be rhyming over some beats by the Funk Soul Brother himself.

  That was about as much excitement as quiet little Ottawa afforded me though, and when I was good and rested I made my way to Toronto to start preparing for the Fringe.  I am billeting with a former Fringe star named Erin Gamlin here - she put on a show last year called "Scrambled Leggs" which was a big hit, but she didn't get into the Fringe this year on account of the lottery, so she signed up to billet.  She has also been supporting my efforts to get the word out through her network of Fringe and Comedy contacts, a great bonus for me in a strange city.

  Speaking of which, my first day here was the annual Gay Pride parade, which consisted of a million people on the streets in various degrees of semi-nakedness, and a four-hour-long parade featuring just about every human form you can imagine (picture muscular naked men with massive breast implants posing for pictures with tourists).  The parade was somewhat politicized as well, since the election was the next day, and it included floats representing all the political parties.  It was a spectacular introduction to what has since turned out to be a pretty impressive city.

  I had a few days leading up to the beginning of the Fringe, which I spent postering, handing out flyers and getting the word out.  Once again I sought out diverse audiences, including local hiphop shows as well as the English department at U of T.  I got to make an announcement about my show in the summer Chaucer course.  I also did my tech rehearsal, though I spent more time messing with lights and set than I should have, which meant I couldn't do a full run through of the show.

  At my first show about twenty-five people were in attendance, which felt like a good audience after Montreal.  Unfortunately, I had set the sound levels way too high in my tech rehearsal, but I didn't notice because I only recited a few lines at a time to test them.  It became obvious once the show was ten minutes underway however, because I had to shout over the beat to be heard in the large theatre, and before the Knight's Tale was even over I was already losing my voice.  I couldn't signal the tech to turn the volume down, however, since the beat goes on no matter what I do, and I can't lose my place in the Tale, so I struggled through it and went on.  By the end of the show my voice was cracking so badly that I could perceive looks of concern on the faces of the audience, which obviously detracted from their enjoyment of the stories.  All in all it was probably the worst show I've done so far, since I was struggling so badly to be heard that I also lost my place in the beat a few times and overall crashed and burned.

  Luckily I had a few days off after my first show, enough time for my voice to heal and for me to reset the sound levels.  It was also a painful few days, however, since I read viewer response reviews online from people who weren't too impressed with that first show, understandably.  As much as try to I still find it impossible not to take reviews personally, and I occasionally fall into slumps of self-doubt when I get the sense that what I'm doing out here isn't appreciated.

  The day after my first show was Canada Day and I had no performances so I went to the fair in the park.  Erin (my billet) had set up a booth where she was selling rice crispy squares and pop and doing face painting and I came down to help out.  At first I was just handling the refreshments, but then first Erin and then her assistant had to run off on errands and I was at the booth by myself, with kids asking me to paint their faces.  I begged off for a little while, claiming ineptitude, but eventually I accepted some simple requests, maple leaves, butterflies, etc.  This was almost scarier for me than performing a show, but over the course of the next two hours I painted almost twenty kids' faces, transforming them into everything from Spider Man to tigers to fireworks - two bucks a face.  Somehow this lifted my mood considerably, especially since I did some pretty impressive work and I don't usually consider myself a painter.

  I drew thirty-five at my second show, and it was the complete antithesis of the first.  My voice was strong and I nailed my timing and got a great response from the crowd, taking home almost three hundred dollars for the performance.  I was also approached by a woman from CBC radio after the show; she invited me in for a live interview on the air, which I will be doing tomorrow.  This had me back on track and I went on to see a few other

Fringe shows in the subsequent days, trading comp tickets with other artists.  Earlier today I went to see the One Man Lord of the Rings show, a masterpiece of theatrical satire by a performer named Charles Ross; last year he did the One Man Star Wars show.  It was completely sold out and deserved to be.  There are artists on the Fringe circuit who have this game mastered and who I have a lot to learn from.

  I have four more shows coming up in the next four days here in Toronto, and then I'm back in B.C. for a much-needed breather.  This Fringe is already going much better than the previous ones in terms of audiences and I am having a great time still, but I am ready for a few weeks off for sure – or rather, a few weeks to regroup.  I am going to performing a few shows in B.C. while I am there; I will keep you posted on the details when I know.

  In the meantime, all the best, and I hope to see some of you soon.

 

baba