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Elise's show tonight
Jan. 27th, 2008 02:13 amThe precipitation was snow today for a while before dissolving into rain. The resulting slush has partially frozen again, and is very slippery. I had never actually been to the Cafe deux Soleil, though I've seen it from outside several times, and could not quite remember where on the Drive it was, so I rode the bus down the street and back up again before I spotted it and was able to turn my attention to not quite falling over on the way to the door.
Elise's new band (called 'La La Boom Boom') is good; 'joyous' is the right description. They do a complex, many-voiced pop that makes me think of the New Pornographers -- it's a little less scattered and sugary, but there's that same sense of adroit playfulness. I liked the way the violin came in high and shining over the other instruments.
They were preceded by some people doing spoken word poetry that I thought was rather silly -- one of them would have been better without the awkward rhyme scheme, though I think that generally my poetic sensibilities run sufficiently textual that I'm out of sympathy with the goals of the genre when it's not being performed by Ani DiFranco -- and followed by another band, all male and wearing dresses, who sang a surprisingly fun rendition of 'Amazing Grace' including the later verses I feel geeky for knowing, and a swing tune with what sounded like an interruption by an enraged Tom Waits. I sat in a booth with several people known to Elise. There was a brief conversation about which of the existentialists we could tolerate, which made me happy and simultaneously (perhaps because we were in a coffee shop) uneasy that I was becoming a caricature. A large bearded fellow with a thoughtful demeanor said that the atmosphere here made him feel like he was in Montreal; Vancouver, he said, is generally a more conservative city, containing fewer hippies and being more self-conscious about the ones it has. Having never really lived anywhere else, it's difficult for me to judge.
The thin snow on the sidewalk near my house showed at least as many animal tracks as human; at least one raccoon, I think, though I couldn't identify the rest. I made my own contribution and arrived back home, feeling embarrassed and internally dishevelled in a way that tells me I have overloaded on extroversion. But I am glad that I went.
Elise's new band (called 'La La Boom Boom') is good; 'joyous' is the right description. They do a complex, many-voiced pop that makes me think of the New Pornographers -- it's a little less scattered and sugary, but there's that same sense of adroit playfulness. I liked the way the violin came in high and shining over the other instruments.
They were preceded by some people doing spoken word poetry that I thought was rather silly -- one of them would have been better without the awkward rhyme scheme, though I think that generally my poetic sensibilities run sufficiently textual that I'm out of sympathy with the goals of the genre when it's not being performed by Ani DiFranco -- and followed by another band, all male and wearing dresses, who sang a surprisingly fun rendition of 'Amazing Grace' including the later verses I feel geeky for knowing, and a swing tune with what sounded like an interruption by an enraged Tom Waits. I sat in a booth with several people known to Elise. There was a brief conversation about which of the existentialists we could tolerate, which made me happy and simultaneously (perhaps because we were in a coffee shop) uneasy that I was becoming a caricature. A large bearded fellow with a thoughtful demeanor said that the atmosphere here made him feel like he was in Montreal; Vancouver, he said, is generally a more conservative city, containing fewer hippies and being more self-conscious about the ones it has. Having never really lived anywhere else, it's difficult for me to judge.
The thin snow on the sidewalk near my house showed at least as many animal tracks as human; at least one raccoon, I think, though I couldn't identify the rest. I made my own contribution and arrived back home, feeling embarrassed and internally dishevelled in a way that tells me I have overloaded on extroversion. But I am glad that I went.
