The last 10 Things?

This edition of 10 Things, one of a handful of recurring series I've tried this year, is probably the final one, either for the year or for good. It's a grab bag of moments, mostly live shows, that I haven't written about yet across the last month or two:

1

On October 10th at the Revue Stage on Granville Island, I heard Ches Smith's Clone Row ensemble with guitarists Liberty Ellman and Mary Halvorson, plus bassist Nick Dunston. Smith is so tall that for his one bit of stage talk, he had to pick up the fully-extended boom mic stand to speak into the mic.

The Coastal Jazz-presented show didn't sell out, but it was full enough. Smith's drumming performance integrated what I think of as the freewheeling Ari Hoenig-like style with a variety of beat music patterns and glitchy time shifts. And then he played mallets, too!

We looked at Clone Row's new album back in the summer. They basically played the complex, progged-out music of that album, which has dual guitar riffing and counter-riffing, triggered samples, and improv sections both unaccompanied and collective. Hearing Dunston use a looper and delay effects to ring out ambient noises from his bass, and watching him sway in time as if coaxing them out of the instrument, was fun. You could tell all you needed to know about the contrast between the two guitarists from their seated postures, which they never left: Ellman's knees extended further than his toes as he leaned into every note, Halvorson's legs angled comfortably forward as she navigated the two-part guitar writing with poise and smiles.

2

The next night, I went to the Cobalt to hear the American indie rock trio Wombo touring their new album Danger in Fives.

Wombo's bassist-vocalist, Sydney Chadwick, has incredible pitch. As she moves up and down the bass' neck with single notes, power chords, and tenth intervals. her voice joins those pitches to become one unit. She starts a phrase on a sharp-eleventh better than many jazz vocalists. The band smashed through what seemed like a ton of short songs in just about 45 minutes.

This show had been slated to happen at the Kingsway Club, but like a few Infidels Jazz shows scheduled there earlier in the year, it needed to move. Unfortunately for my sleep, the new start time was 11:00 PM. The opener was the Montreal band Ribbon Skirt; their debut album called Bite Down came out in April.

Both bands take modern branches from the post-punk tree and have a lot of fun with them.

3

After doing 20 episodes as a co-host duo, Carson Tworow and I welcomed our first guest to the Upsample podcast this week. Our friend Madelyn Read works for the BC Co-Op Association on top of being a musician and songwriter, so we talked with her about the triangle of music-labour-business issues, as we do. There are two co-ops we wanted to bring up in particular: the now-defunct Ampled co-op, where I first got to know Read's music, and the would-be Bandcamp competitor launching soon called Subvert,

4

Back on September 23rd (right after George Garzone), I heard Steph Wall and the band My Sister Maria share a bill at the Lido. That was a Tuesday night, so attendance was soft, but Wall rocked it just like any other show. I had stopped by a get-together earlier in September in celebration of her EP called TANG, which I've covered two tracks from. Packing a brand tie-in from Pabst Blue Ribbon, Wall and company drove up near Trout Lake and set up a barbecue party.

I find Wall's music quite honest and compelling. At the show, joining her were longtime bandmates Stephen Nikleva on guitar and Wynston Minckler on bass, plus Jamison Ko on drums; who did double duty, drumming first with Maria Barrington-Foote in her band. Also in My Sister Maria were guitarists Daniel Deorksen and Jake Kostuchuk plus bassist Bella Fedrigo. This iteration of the band doesn't yet have any recordings out, but I look forward to when they do.

5

Later that week on September 27th, I heard a different version of Kevin Romain's Salience Network. Unlike the album, it wasn't chordless. The chord player happened to be the person who wrote that big piece about the group: Chris Fraser. (David Caballero was also in on bass in place of Jeff Gammon, and trumpeter Feven Kidane wasn't on the gig to share the frontline with saxophonist John Nicholson). Romain told me that his music wasn't explicitly supposed to be for a chordless band, and the Rhythm Changes Podcast man indeed fit in well, becoming a rather calming force in the centre of the stage. Romain rang in his 40th birthday at midnight in the fashion that I'd personally aspire to myself: rocking out at the climactic moment of his composition "How Can I Keep Singing?".

6

A week before that on September 19th, I heard a different version of Sick Boss at the same venue that I dubbed "Chamber Boss", because it had no drums. Dan Gaucher wasn't there: it was Cole Schmidt, Peggy Lee, JP Carter, James Meger, and guest Karen Ng. The music became a lot softer and able to spotlight each person's tone, in particular the horn players. They had two interesting choices of opening acts: folk singer-songwriter Malcolm Jack, whom Schmidt and Meger accompanied, and comedian Erin Leigh, who delivered a short roast of the Sick Boss band members that went pretty well. Around the day of the show, I saw photos of the band (with Gaucher, and with Ng) on social media at Jesse Zubot's home on Vancouver Island, perhaps recording some new material.

7

To keep rolling with the Tyrant shows, last week I heard Cindy Dai-Thiessen perform with guitarist Francis Henson and electric bassist Yamil Chain-Haddad on October 9th. She performed her originals, giving Chain-Haddad lots of room to play runs and fills, which impressed the surprisingly high number of fellow bassists I met in the audience. The first artist she cited as a reference was Carole King, whose album Tapestry Chain-Haddad has played through in full with his own band at Guilt & Co. Henson brought an understated approach to the electric guitar accompaniment.

Dai-Thiessen's folk band, The Shorties, recently added vinyl to what has already been a successful album release this year for In Every Season. I bet their annual holiday show's announcement might be coming soon.

8

Semi-related: I also heard Dean Thiessen and his band called the Good Apples – with Henson, Adam Kyle, Noah Gotfrit, and Tyler Murray – play a free outdoor set at RiverFest New Westminster last month. Jake Sawatzky, the young New Westminster-Burnaby-Maillardville Member of Parliament, turned in the worst emceeing performance I've ever seen. He never lifted his eyes from the paper he held, pronounced pretty much everyone's name wrong, and didn't notice that the bassist's name on the pre-show emcee notes was rather unlikely to be the name of the Noah Gotfrit-shaped person who actually stood behind him that day. Enjoyed the band lots though!

9

I met the ShowHub people, Jen Gfeller and Cliff Morrison, last month when I went to the Shipyards at Lonsdale for the final show of their summer concert series. I like them and continue to wish them all the best! It looks like they now add almost as many shows in a week as I do to the gig list in a whole month, and they're experimenting with brief editorial pieces to complement the focus on listings. The biggest difference I still notice between me and them is that they understand venues and presenters to be their customers in some way, which wouldn't make sense for Rhythm Changes specifically: I do that kind of work away from here.

10

I was really hoping to have a significant update about the future of this project for you today. No worries, Rhythm Changes is not going anywhere! Hopefully I can tell you about it next Friday.

11

Happy birthday, Madeleine Elkins! For those of you who got tickets to her album release show tomorrow night, can't wait to see you there. By the time you're reading this, it'll either be fully sold or with only one or two tickets available/released.