“I never thought I’d be in a jam band,” Tim Balash says during a break the other night at The Black Dog. “We sound totally different every time we play.” What Dub Vulture sounds like is their name, basically. It’s drummer Mike Silverman providing “riddim” behind Balash on the Dog’s recently de-scented entertainment platform. The feeling is good.
These two white boys, who usually work in the country-rock circuit, are chasing an odd rabbit of a goal—namely, to take us into one of reggae’s most interesting, haziest evolutions via a tiny squadron of pedals Balash keeps buying more of almost every time he leaves the house. “I used to only have a couple, and now look,” Balash smiles. He’s a proud papa.
Yet the effect of the effects is terrific. Even the drums go through distortion. A couple serious reggae fans I know in the crowd are moving their heads to the music, one under an octopus of dreads. The other says a more typically Balash-sounding song is “too rockin’” for his specific Jones, but comes around a couple songs into the tide of dreamy rhythm. This is high praise: these dudes play island music 24/7 around the house.
Balash has run a steady course over the years, being in the pre-spandex Big House, if you remember them, later fronting the Chrome Magpies and switching leads with Brent Oliver in the MayKings. This incarnation, I have to say, is most exciting, and perfectly timed with a weekend of playing the culturally tingling new Grand Theft Auto.
One of the characters in the game, a Jamaican friend named Little Jacob, is practically incomprehensible at first, but as you keep getting bombed with him on the streets of Liberty City, your ear begins to get it. On the drunken drive home (virtual, of course), you inevitably listen to Tuff Gong Radio, hosted by Carl Bradshaw, playing mostly Marley. Given the reach of the game, breaking all sales records so far and selling in the millions, you can probably expect your kids to be saying “respect” at the end of conversations more often now. Which is hardly a bad thing, right? Praise jah.
Videogames aside, another fine show this week was thea.vs.loki at Studio E for Smilin’ Jay’s Happy Hour broadcast. Singer Greg Greenleese put together a wicked band of bar regulars/managers, Matt McKell’s trumpet seriously thumping. You can hear Shuyler Jansen in Greenleese’s songs, but he takes them smoothly into his own thing.
What struck me was just how awesome an unexpected Saturday afternoon jam can be when you’re bumming around downtown not playing murder simulators on the Xbox, and it’s especially good to know there’s something worth doing on the north side.
The ARTery complex continues to be the most compelling venue in the city, upcoming events including the Edmonton Arts Council explaining its 10-year plan in a town hall meeting this Monday and a shaker for Vice magazine with a secret guest band.
Let’s just hope we don’t score too many “Don’ts,” people. Seriously, leave your fucking Crocs and flame shirts in the closet for a couple days, will ya?
And, just because it’s too cool not to mention, especially after all that talk of distortion: former Talking Heads singer David Byrne has turned a building into a playable instrument. The interface is a jigged-up antique organ in the centre of an empty NYC warehouse which, when played, sets off devices all over the space. The press release tells me: “Metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, heating, and water pipes. These machines will vibrate, strike, and blow across the building elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds. As Byrne explains, it is an elaborate system for ‘activating the sound-producing qualities that are inherent in all materials.’” Sound sculpture!
That’s it—I’m headed to the kitchen for a pot to bang on my head as I run around the yard. Maybe the idea will inspire someone a little more ambitious?
