When Good Sunday Morning happens on Saturday night
I’d been puttering around with a new computer (Peekabooty compile times were getting painfully slow on my laptop), so when I finally took my hands off the keyboard last Saturday night, it already half past midnight. I didn’t want to completely geek out, so I strapped on the old accordion and made my way to the Velvet Underground, a short walk away from my house.
I didn’t even make it to the bar before a trio of women appraoached me and asked me the usual set of questions. Is that really an accordion, or just a backpack that looks like one? Can you actually play it? Would you please play me something?
Luckily, Nine Inch Nails’ Closer — a song whose chords I know (Cm – F – Bb) — was blasting out the sound system. I simply played along which usually makes a good impression.
My friend from Chapters Online, James Bibby, saw me from across the dance floor and greeted me with a hug. We haven’t seen each other in almosst a year.
(The Chapters Online gang — web programmers, editors and writers who used to build, maintain and write for the Chapters website before the bookstore was absorbed by its competitor, Indigo — were a tight group who did everything together: work and play, along with the usual incestuous commingling that came with the dot-com territory. After an accordion performance at their 1999 Christmas party, their president offered me a job: “I don’t know what it is you do, but I’d like to hire you”. Even though I turned down the offer to work for OpenCola, the Chapters folks considered me an ex-officio part of the gang. The gang had a pretty regular social schedule: Kick Ass Karaoke at the Bovine every month, Friday nights at the Zoo Bar, now called the Zen Lounge, Saturdays at Velvet Underground, regular video nights at one of their houses and even a big camping trip up north. When Chapters capsized in late 2000, most of them were laid off and the group, like the corporation, collapsed. If any of you readers are anthropology students looking for a thesis topic, I’ve got one for you right here.)
James was with his girlfriend Katie and her friend Jenna. Katie and Jenna looked tired and were ready to go home, while James was still up for a little more fun. We put the girls in a cab while we headed towards some place James had recommended — The Vatican. “It’s a cool, chill-out kind of place,” he said.
After a few fumbled directions and wrong turns we ended up at The Kathedral (“Kathedral, Vatican, you can see how easy it is to get ’em confused?” he said), conveniently located across the street from the Queen Street Mental Health Centre. It turned out that it had the same owners as the late goth club, Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar (where I had first played Nine Inch Nails on accordion almost three years ago). While it isn’t as large as “The Skank” (the nickname for Sanctuary), I’d have to say the space was a little nicer and more comfortable. The taller ceiling and better ventilation also make the place less smoky than its predecessor. “Lance Goth” still ran the show, and Kelly was still tending bar. “Accordion Boy!” she yelled when I walked in. James and I settled into a few pints of Guinness and soon he was lost in a haze of beer and Baraka, which was playing on the TV set behind the bar.
I ran into two friends: Kirsten, whom I knew from both Queen’s and as part of the Chapters gang, and Sven, who’s often better known as his remixer name, DJ Fresh Disco Porker Gas (a name which used to be a Googlewhack until I mentioned it here) and his red-haired friend whose name escapes me. Sven’s friend asked if I knew how to play any Pixies. As Darth Vader would say: “All too easy.” Sven told me about an upcoming art project at the Swizzle Gallery; it was something about paintings of cute fluffy bunnies in pornographic poses.
We hung out and danced until closing time. James was tired and went home, while Sven and his friend were still up for more fun. They wanted to go hit a boozecan. I said the magic sentence that stretches an evening out until dawn:
“We could go to the Matador.”
For those of you who don’t know, The Matador is Toronto’s most notorious after-hours spot, where it just might be possible to get a drink after the legally-mandated 2 a.m., if you know how. At that point in the evening, I was just up for some dancing and showing Sven and friend (who’d never been there before) around.
The usual accordion encounter again: Can you play that? Play something for me!, followed by small talk over rum and coke before she and her friends went home. I should just get the accordion permanently grafted to my body.
Later that evening, I got closer to the stage to see the band play. While it was the typical Matador fare — classic rock — they were doing an exceptionally good job of it. A young University student walked up to me. She asked me if I was Kara Dionisio’s cousin.
“She keeps telling us about this cousin of hers in Toronto who carries his accordion everywhere! Is that you?”
I ended up at her table, talking with her friends for a while. Some guy who’d joined them said he knew the band, and took me to the stage and whispered something in the guitarist’s ear. They pulled me onstage to do the closing number of their big set, All Along the Watchtower, in the style of Hendix’s version. They even gave me some time to solo, which was fun and got a cheer out of the crowd. All hail the power of the accordion.
All in all, a good evening, despite the late start.
When Good Sunday Morning happens on Monday night
It took me a while to find Electric Machine Studios, which was hidden deep inside an industrial park in Downsview. I was there to lay down some accordion tracks for Lindi’s Good Sunday Morning, which she was going to submit to get a FACTOR grant (FACTOR is the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent On Records).
After searching through a maze of identical offices, I found the studio. It’s small, but really well-laid out, with a lounge (complete with couch, TV, fridge and PlayStation) and business office in the front, control room in the middle, and studio space in the back. Sean Baillie, who owns and runs the stuido with one of the guys from Slik Toxik, took great pains to soundproof the place well and even built some custom walls (called “gobos” in industry parlance) that could be flown in to create acoustically isolated spaces within the larger studio space. The control room has two Mac G4s, a bay of removable drives and one of the new Neve 24-channel digital sound boards. It also has the comfiest office chairs I’ve ever sat in.
(By the way, Slick Toxik were a half-decent ’80’s metal band who blame grunge for both their downfall and the decline of musci in general. I submit that ’80’s metal bands were actually part of the problem with music, and that the music explosion of the early 90’s — in which grunge played a crucial role — actually saved music for a while. Then it got mired in cliche, and then we got crap like Korn and Creed. But I digress.)
Sean first set me up in the centre of the studio space. In front of me was a Sennheiser microphone that probably cost more than both my computers, both my accordions and my synth combined. It could easily pick up the clicking of my accordion’s chord buttons. He asked me to do a little freestyle accordion improv, which he would tack onto the beginning and end of the song, followed by a run through the song. The first take went well, and then we did another take for good measure, which I thought was only so-so, but Sean said there were parts of it he really liked.
We then got a little experimental. Behind the studio is a long hallway — at least 40 feet — leading to the other offices. During the day, it’s just a hallway, but at night, when no one’s around, Sean uses it as a very ambient recording space. We set up the expensive mike and I did a bang-on-the-money take that we were both pleased with. While Sean cleaned up after that take, I sat in the studio and got to listen to the end results, watching Logic Audio’s waveforms representing my squeezing scroll onscreen. All in all the recording process took less than an hour, from setup to tear-down.
Sean made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: “Look, I need an accordion-playing session musician. I can get you lots of sessions, and I can pay you fifty to a hundred bucks per session, which usually don’t go past an hour. Are you interested?”
“I can be a session musician? Like the guys from Toto? Cool.”
When Good Sunday Morning happens on Friday night
If you haven’t heard the song Good Sunday Morning, here’s your chance: Lindi will be performing this Friday in an indie showcase at the Steam Whistle Brewery. We — Neil Leyton on guitars and backing vocals, “Devin Muffin” on drums, Edward on bass and me on you-know-what-instrument — will be backing her up. Come on down to enjoy some good music and locally brewed pilsner.
Spend every Good Sunday Morning chez moi!
We’re still looking for a new housemate. Check here for the details.