piquresque

I went to the Vancouver art gallery last week and it was pretty interesting. They charged me a student price despite me asking for full price admission - I guess it pays to carry a book around.

There were three exhibitions on - two of which I enjoyed. The gallery doesn't have a permanent exhibition, which was a little disappointing but what are you going to do.

On the bottom floor there was a history of photography/photographic art exhibit and it was really good. I learned that the first photographed war was the Crimean (although there weren't any shots too close to the action because of the nature of the equipment) and that photographs were taken of the Paris Commune that were later used to identify Communards who were then executed.

There were quite a few prints from Robert Frank's The Americans series as well as his great shots of London. Here are a few of The Americans -

http://m2.aol.com/UvGotMail/frank/frank.html

And a great photo by Judy Dater with this cool old chick -

http://www.peterfetterman.com/artists/dater/dater.html

In addition, there were some of Larry Clark's photos of the Southern underworld - which are much better than his crappy films (Kids etc).

Anyway, as with a lot of art, the exhibition started to lose me around the "conceptual art" stage.

The art of Rodney Graham, the local conceptual artist, occupied floors 1 & 2 of the gallery. His work was often grand, sometimes interesting and mostly crap. In one room he had a TV with a scene from the James Bond flick Dr No on repeat. He'd replaced the movie soundtrack with a recording of (presumably) him reading the section of the Fleming book that corresponds with the scene. That kept me entertained for literally minutes.

I watched a couple of his avant garde short movies, listened to his bands on the discman provided, looked at the model of the camera obscura he'd built and then quickly made my way to the top floor where the work of Emily Carr resided. Emily Carr is the Canadian equivalent of someone like Sidney Nolan. An icon who is very interesting to the tourist but I'm sure a little too omnipresent for the local (not that there are degrees of omnipresence but you get my drift).

I liked her work a lot and she seemed like a very interesting and eccentric woman. I won't go into much detail about her work (I'm sure a google search will bring up a lot of stuff) but I liked her quote about being a nature artist during the depression years.

"Papers are full of horrible horrors and the earth is so lovely"

She reminds me a bit of Maude from the movie Harold and Maude (ie old hippy who was a hippy before there were hippies).

Enough about art.

I saw a sign warning of coyotes in the parks. Coyotes moved into Vancouver in the 1980s and can be dangerous to small animals and potentially children. The sign said, "if you see a coyote - face it and make lots of noise; do not run away; throw objects at the coyote..."

Made me think they should have similar signs for panhandlers, "if you see a bum - ..."

Observations about bars here:
- All female bartenders have tattoos ((correction - everyone in Vancouver has a tattoo))
- Some bars have Jagermeister machines, which consist of upturned Jager bottles on top of big black boxes that chill the herb liquor to temperatures "colder than ice". This is way cool.
- The Lennox pub in town is just like King O'Malley's (sans dance floor) and charges way too much for beer. I went there and ordered a Molson Canadian almost-pint to drink while watching the baseball. It cost 6 bucks. A waitress turned up for work, sat down next to me, told her workmates she really didn't feel like working then told me that she wouldn't drink here if she was me - the place is a rip off. "Employee of the month" I say.

I went to another gig on a whim the other night ("gig on a whim", sounds like a cool title or something...) and it was an experience. The headliners were Ann Arbor noise band Wolf Eyes. That's right, a "noise band". I walked in during the support band's set and took my place among the art school types. Magneticring consisted of a guy who twidled knobs while also blowing air through a trumpet (not playing the trumpet mind you) and a guy who just twiddled knobs. The sound was sometimes like someone tuning a radio but mostly like sonar - completely sh*thouse. Reminded me of a description of an Icelandic band I once read - "sounds like whales talking about chartered accountancy". The art school kids went nuts at the end of the set.

I went to find the washroom of the dark pokey Media Room and decided I wasn't going to bother closing the door of the stall because if the art school types can handle this "music" they can handle watching me pee. I finished up and turned around to see the line of girls waiting for the toilet. I initially thought, "oh, unisex toilets, okay" then realised they weren't unisex toilets. Lucky it was art school chicks (who presumably aren't easily offended).

I headed out and prepared myself for the headliners. Actually I was thinking "if this is just like the support band then I've wasted 18 bucks".

The guys were two mid-thirties looking ex-punk types (one was bald and the other looked just like Jack Black) and a dude with long hair who looked like a mix between an art student and a death metal fan. They were hilarious before the show. They put on some old school punk, stood next to the stage and sang along while punching the air to fire themselves up. Then they took the stage talked with the crowd for fifteen minutes about Degrassi Junior High and cops. At one point the bald guy seriously referred to this city as Portland.

Anyway, they finally got round to playing. The long haired vocalist/knob-twiddler said, "hit me with some feedback" to the guitarist and then there was a wall of noise, feedback and semi-screaming for the next hour. There were no chords and rarely did a track have a beat - and when it did it was ridiculously slow. It was hilarious and I'm sure the band were taking the p*ss. They finished, the art school kids went nuts, the guitarist asked if anyone had any pot and I left - walking into the glass door on the way out.

When I Wasn't at the Rock Show

I'd hate to give the impression that all I've done since I got here is go to rock shows and soak my right foot with pale ale.

On one of my first days in Vancouver I went for a walk along the seawall and sat for a while to watch the seaplanes float into, and labour to get out of, the harbour. It kind of reminded me of a cigarette ad from the '80s where a light plane floats into the alps to the sounds of the Blue Danube. It was a B&H ad I think. Looking across at the huge urban reserve, Stanley Park, with the snow capped mountains in the background, I find it hard to fathom why I didn't know just how beautiful this place is. Sure, everyone says Vancouver is really nice but I guess it doesn't really sink in till you sit by the seawall with the Blue Danube on repeat in your head. I walked past the little mariner near the park and saw a couple of small house boats that looked like cottages plucked from the country side and floated on the water. I also saw a guy lying back on his yacht enjoying his retirement.

This is the Vancouver I'd like to remember, not the one full of bums begging for change. They can be quite aggressive. Often, when you give one some change they'll say "do you have any more?" Apparently they've just brought in a law to curb aggressive panhandling but I'm not sure of the details.

I've tried to figure out the best way to deal with the situation. I don't want to be entirely uncharitable but I pretty much ignore all of them now (making eye contact or talking to them can be a bad mistake). I give a little change once every couple of days but I think if I was here long term I'd either pick one local bum to "sponsor" or just hand out a couple of quarters to one random bum a day.

I read in one of the many free newspapers here (there must be a dozen) that the number of homeless have doubled in the past three years. There are now about 2100, of which half are on the streets at any one time. The largest group are found in the area around the Firetrap (230 were counted there). A third of the homeless are native.

The other annoying thing about Vancouver is that they don't fill your pints to the top. I don't know why but they just don't. Where's the law against that? So I've taken to calling them "almost-pints" but I'm yet to work up the gall to order an "almost-pint". The cheapest beer I've had so far was at the punk club where I found the $20. That money would buy you 8 almost-pints of the house beer, which is roughly equivalent to Geelong Bitter (for those of you familiar with dodgy Melbourne bars).

Other things I've noted about this place (looking in the notebook given to me by Southo's mum) are:
Canadian cigarettes smell like pot (that's when they aren't actually pot)
Polygamy is apparently legal (the paper had a thing about rejigging taxes for polygamists)
They have yellow school buses just like on tv (well I thought that was cool)
There are bloody limos around (I'd hoped the place would have too much class for that)
The standard of background music in pubs and shops is generally better than anywhere else - of the modern rock variety. (I've heard Interpol, Radiohead and the like a lot. I also heard a Metallica cover of Black Sabbath's Paranoid which was interesting)
I get offered "buds and 'shrooms" all the time. One guy asked if I needed " 'shrooms for the U2 concert". I felt like saying, "if I had to go - yes!"

Alcohol & Irony Pt 3

I was wandering to Richards on Richards again on Saturday when I saw a Canadian bowling alley. I decided to take myself bowling for my birthday. Canadian bowling has five pins and a ball not much bigger than one used for lawn bowls. No finger holes either. I negotiated with the spotty (stoned?) teenager behind the counter and soon had myself a lane, a pair of shoes and a can of Kokanee (not a bad beer). I proceeded to bounce a couple of balls in the general direction of the pins. Canadian bowling balls are very light.

I noticed that unlike ten pin bowling - where, try as one might, it's impossible to spin the things like the pros do - the slightest tilt of the hand sends a Canadian bowl into the gutter. While I wasn't great at the actual bowling, I was impressed with how well I worked out the scoring system. Enough so to confidently instruct the young Aussies who turned up to use the lane next to mine. For the record, I bowled 116.

So I turned up at Richards in a good mood.

As a result of my (mostly mental) notes from the night before, I knew where to stand for the birthday show. Front & centre and a few rows back so that I could hear properly. I was also not going to put up with bad crowd behaviour (at one point I bravely told a couple of loud short girls in front of me to be quiet during the soft songs).

The show went pretty much along the same lines as the others - nervous local support (this time a diminutive girl), Constantines rocking and Weakerthans opening with (Manifest) - the title comes with brackets. I started to get worried about having asked JKS to play Aside for me. Was he going to mention that some Aussie with big hair had come half way round the world to see the Weakerthans on his birthday? At this stage I really hoped he didn't. Anyway, at about the same time the band played the song at the previous shows (fourth or so on the set list) Aside was played, I sang along ("I'm leaning on this broken fence between past and present tense...") and there was no mention of my birthday. I was both very relieved and a little disappointed.

The highlight of the show was the encore. This was the last gig of a seven week tour so the smashed Constantines took the stage with enough shots for everyone. The merch guy grabbed a guitar, the diminutive girl shared a mic with a roadie type person and JKS announced that for the first time an audience member shared their mushrooms with the bands.

The newly formed twelve piece rock act belted out End of the Line one more time and with a little more meaning. The girl, the merch guy and the roadie then decamped and the remaining nine played Neil Young's Don't Be Denied with the son of Bruce & Bob on lead vocals. If you form a band, don't ever have the Constantines support you.

Alcohol & Irony Pt 2

The second and third Weakerthans' shows were held at Richard's on Richards Cabaret, walking distance from the Firetrap. Richard's is one of the darkest venues I've ever been in. It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, minutes spent wondering if I'd need 'night vision' goggles to find my way to the bar. All the staff appeared to be large islanders with Aussie or Kiwi accents. It was very strange for a "Cabaret".

On the Friday night, while I was walking south, hundreds of people were walking east - to the other sold out show that night, put on by some up and coming Irish band called U2.

The first guy to play spent about 65% of his time tuning and talking nervously while doing so - mostly talking about tuning.

The Constantines were excellent once again and I started to realise that my favourite band made quite a mistake when they picked them as a support. As good as the Weakerthans and their songs are, they're not amazing performers like the Constantines, who put on a rock show to rival any I've seen. They're all interesting to look at. The drummer is short, balding (although with long hair) and sports an AC/DC t-shirt. The keyboardist is the Wil Anderson lookalike who jumps up and claps whenever he doesn't have to play. The guitarist is the nerdiest rock guy I've seen in a while. He wears a t-shirt advertising an anarchist publisher (AK Press) and strays out into the crowd with his guitar every now and then. The bass player wore an acid wash, zip up denim vest that must have been made in about 1984 (and worn by a teenaged girl with crimped hair). He has a kind of limp fauxhawk and every now and then one can glimpse the purple g-string as it rises over the back of his jeans. The singer is the tall love child of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen (I know that's biologically impossible but bear with me). His presence is based on his distinctive voice and occassional kick out into the air.

This time around I made sure I was sober for JKS and the band. I took note of what songs they played (see the set list below if you're inclined) and tried to remember what they and the crowd looked like. I stood behind three jockish guys who regularly punched the air, told the band how much they rocked and talked loudly over the soft songs. I think they took a wrong turn south on their way to the U2 gig. I made a mental note to avoid such people the following night.

The Weakerthans were good once again. They played a couple of songs they hadn't at the all ages gig, which was a nice touch. The crowd loved Plea from a Cat Named Virtute (a song written from the point of view of a cat who is a little disappointed with how his owner is faring - "you sleep as much as I do now and you don't eat much of anything") and Left & Leaving (a tale about the band's home town, Winnepeg, and how people tend to leave it "the city's still breathing but barely it's true, through buildings gone missing like teeth"). I wouldn't have picked those songs as crowd favourites before seeing the band but it made sense when I was there. Once again the show finished with End of the Line, John K Samson doing the Tom Petty bits and the Constantines' guy channelling (even though he's still alive) Bob Dylan. Once again, never choose the Constantines as your support band.

The show finished early so I went back to the Firetrap via the punk club down the street from the hostel. The first band was terrible. They did a Ramones cover and it was like how the Ramones would sound if everyone in the band was Dee Dee Ramone (ie retarded). After spending 45 mins searching for an ATM that took Visa, I returned to watch the retarded guys dance to the sh*tty headlining band - who must be some kind of Vancouver punk rock institution (ie they were old and drew a crowd despite being sh*thouse). I left at 12:05am singing "happy birthday to me" under my breath feeling rather dejected. That's when I found 20 bucks on the floor. Score.

Some nice people from Seattle bought me a beer back at the Firetrap for my birthday (20 bucks and s free drink in the first 30 mins of my b'day!). I didn't just pipe up and tell them it was my birthday. One of them asked, "what's your sign? when were you born?" Usually not a good thing but in this case... After showing ID to prove I wasn't bullsh*tting - they poured me some kind of pale ale (pale ale in Canada is dark!). I then gesticulated madly, while making some important point, and spilt the lot off the table and onto my foot. I went to bed soon after.

Weakerthans set list
(Manifest)
Our Retired Explorer
Watermark
Last Call...
Aside
A New Name For Everything
Night Windows ((new song))
Relative Surplus Value ((new song))
The Reasons
Elergy for Elsabet
Left & Leaving
Plea from a Cat Named Virtute
Reconstruction Site
ENCORE
One Great City (JKS solo)
Confessions of a Futon Revolutionist (only song from first album, Fallow)
Reunion Tour ((new song))
End of the Line ((Travelling Wiburys cover - with Constantines))

Alcohol & Irony Pt 1

As you know, I came to Vancouver to see a band...

The first Weakerthans show was an all ages affair at a place called Mesa Luna, which is out of downtown. It's a two story bar with a deck that provides an incredible view of the mountains. I also liked looking in the other direction at suburbia - with it's wooden houses and lush folliage.

I had time to spare before the show so I had a pint too many at the bar/restaurant across the road. I talked with a fireman called Daryl for a while. He told me about the mafia and the unions in Canada. 'Fireman' sounds amazingly like 'farmer' when said with a Canadian accent.

At the show I met a few nice people - Jay, his girlfriend Donnabella (no kidding) and their mate Mike. Donnabella was hit by a car that day and was unsuprisingly a little out of it. They won tickets to the show from the radio (so that balances out the car crash right?) and weren't familiar with a lot of the Weakerthans music, so I explained to them exactly how good the band is.

I promised myself I wouldn't talk to singer/genius, John K Samson, because I'm a bit too old for sycophancy. So when he walked past I jumped up and exclaimed, "John? I flew from Australia to see you. You've been my favourite band since 1997. It's my birthday on Saturday, can you play 'Aside' for me". He went, "Pete, Aside. Pete, Aside. Okay" and walked off. Oh well.

The support band was the Constantines, who have been described as "Bruce Springsteen meets Fugazi", which means they write songs about ordinary folk with harshish unconventionalish music. But I imagined that if the Boss really met Fugazi it would go something like this:

The Boss - "You guys want to have a few beers"
Fugazi - "No thanks, we don't really drink"

Anyway, they put on a great show with lots of posing, playing in the crowd and so forth. The keyboardist looks just like Wil Anderson and, coincidentally, he's called Will. Thankfully, despite the physical resemblance to a blandly comic Aussie, he's talented (I made a mental note at the second show to send an email to the band with a photo of Anderson attached - I then decided that was a lame idea and thought the better of it).

The Weakerthans came on and they were pretty good. I was a bit pissy by this point and it was all a bit surreal and all over way too quickly. They played about a third of their material and I was kinding hoping they'd play all of it but what are you going to do?

For the encore the Constantines joined the band to play the Travelling Wilburys' End of the Line, which was remarkably good [JKS explained at the second show that there were two rules for the tour. 1. If you (anyone in the crowd) have mushrooms you must share them with the bands; 2. No making fun of End of the Line].

Jay, Donnabella and Mike were all converted by the experience (at least I think they were).

I then headed back to the Firetrap, a little dazed by the whole thing and looking forward to seeing the next show a little more soberly. Upon return, I stopped two old guys from fighting at the bar only to turn around to see a room full of disappointed drunkards who would rather have seen a little blood. Oh well again.