FME Day 2

I’m sitting in Twiggs coffee shop in North Bay. Across the street is an LCBO where three cop cruisers just rolled up to hassle a drunk dude staggering around the sidewalk. It’s raining. I’m looking down at my right wrist, which is covered in blue, red, green and black stamps from the shows I went to see yesterday at FME. I wish I was back in Rouyn-Noranda.

On Friday, after a continental breakfast at the DevilleMotel, I received an e-mail notification about a pool party with free chips and beer hosted by Bonsound that was running until 5. I didn’t know what Bonsound was, but I do know a great deal about free chips and beer. I had a look at the attached map and it seemed pretty far away from my hotel. Luckily, the fella they had me sharing a room with, Colin Medley, returned to the room at that moment to tell me he had just gone for a ride using a bike from a rental service within a 5 minute walk from our hotel.

I walked down, grabbed my free bike, and started pedaling furiously. As it turns out the location of the party was right around the corner from the bike rental place. After three years of driving a taxi, you’d think I’d be able to read a goddamn map.

From now on, for any trip I go on, the first thing I’m packing is a bathing suit. I’ve been caught without swim trunks too many times when the opportunity to swim arises.

The house Bonsound rented for the party was right on the lake (apparently you can swim in the lake, you’re just not supposed to touch the bottom). It had a colourful treehouse and a kidney-shaped pool in the backyard. Inside, the fridge was full of beer with another cooler of beer outside. Beer everywhere.

Most of the attendees were media and industry types, but the party lacked the forced atmosphere of typical industry mixers. It was a casual way to meet people and talk about my favourite subject: myself.

Due to my lack of swimsuit, I was uncertain about whether or not to jump in the pool. With some words of encouragement from Maude Charest (FME’s anglo media liaison), I stripped down to my underwear and executed a perfect cannonball. Maude said if the pool was bigger, she’d challenge me to a race. I said we could have a breath-holding competition instead. It never materialized; I think real recognized real and we both understood the potential for drowning with such competitive spirits involved. I swam around for a bit then I made my way down to the dock and smoked a joint with a bunch of music media and label people.

Just as I was planning on leaving to return the bike I had borrowed, the organizers brought out a ton of poutine from Chez Morasse. Great timing, but Chez Morasse is an inescapable presence at FME. It seems there are literally no other restaurants in Rouyn-Noranda. If I was staying in town for the rest of the weekend, it would make more financial and logistical sense to just rent a room next to the grill.

As I stood over the poutine, loading up my plate with forkful after forkful, one of the organizers of the party was looking at me with an expression of mild annoyance. “Don’t judge me bro,” I told him, my plate overflowing with poutine.

The first band I went to see was Bernhari at Cabaret de la Dernière Chance. The guitar player from Jimmy Hunt’s band, whose playing I had enjoyed so much on Thursday, also plays in Bernhari. Félix informed me produced both Hunt’s and Bernhari’s albums. He then informed me that he had just taken MDMA for the first time.

They sounded fantastic; I could hear all the instruments, and despite the fact that the band had some very loud passages in their music mixed with extremely soft vocals, there were no feedback issues and the vocals were clear and audible the entire time. Their music kind of set the tone for the evening for me, as pretty much every band I watched had a strong element of post rock running through it.

After that, it was off to le Petit Théatre Du Vieux Noranda to catch sludge-rock band Les Indiens. Yet another beautiful venue! I can’t recall any of the specific decorative flourishes, but this space was large, clean, sleek and modern-looking on the inside. Before Les Indiens started, there was a projector set up that showed a video of clips edited together from Thursday night. The Shoeclack guys were pretty impressed with the rapidity and quality of the edit.

As far as Les Indiens’ set goes, I felt moved to make my way up to the front of the stage during their first song and pump my fist for a bit as the guitarist and bassist locked into a riff and hoisted their guitars to the sky. I kind of lost interest a bit after that though, as I didn’t like the sounds their keyboardist was using and I found the lead singer’s vocals to be lacking in both power and virtuosity. A few other Sudburians were feeling the same way I think, so we took a walk over to Andrew Knapp’s van to let Momo out for a bit.

As we hung out there, Max and Ashlyne showed up and I tried to rally people to get food. No one else was hungry, but Ashlyne mentioned that there was a sign up the street that said “Hot Dogs Gratuit”, and had an address underneath it. Naturally, I had to check it out.

I started walking down what I thought was the street where the hot dogs were, but after about five minutes I got a feeling I was going in the wrong direction. I passed a couple of thirtysomething ladies parking their car and asked them if they knew where the free hot dogs were? They thought maybe I was mistaken because their friend had been walking around with a sign offering free hugs earlier.

“Lady,” I said, “I think I know the difference between a hot dog and a hug.”

As it turns out, they were locals and they were kind enough to stand there and answer some of my questions about the town’s history and why it has so many amazing music venues despite the fact that the population is only 50,000 (supporting the arts is a big part of life there). We started walking back to where I had seen the “Hot Dogs Gratuit” sign and sure enough it was real. They gave me directions to the address, and decided not to accompany me as they had a concert to attend. For my part, seeking out free hot dogs seemed the most worthy use of my time.

Turns out nothing is really far away in Rouyn-Noranda. After about two minutes of walking, I found the location of the free hot dogs, which were being served in front of an old church. A young man came up and shook my hand, mentioning the free hot dogs and pop. I responded, “I know all about the hot dogs man; that’s the whole reason I’m here.”

“How many hot dogs would you like? One, Two?”

Usually at these sorts of things it’s a one hot dog max scenario, so I was pretty surprised. “I can have two?” The guy responded, “You can have three if you want man.” I thought about it for a moment, “Tell you what, if I eat two and want more, maybe I’ll get a third. I can’t just stand here eating hot dogs all night.” (Even though I could totally stand in one place and eat hot dogs all night).

While waiting for my hot dogs, I figured I’d make a little small talk. “So, what’s going on in here tonight?”

“What do you mean?” said the young man, handing me a red Solo cup ¼ full of Pepsi.

“Like, is there a show in here or something?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s no show but we are spreading the word of God if you have a minute to listen.”

Now, it takes a lot of balls to proselytize to someone wearing a tank top with flamingoes and palm trees on it and a half-empty can of Boréal Rousse sticking out of the chest pocket of his jean jacket. I glanced over at the grill. It wouldn’t be long before the hot dogs were done.

His friends looked nervous, “You don’t need to talk about this stuff; you can just have a hot dog,” but, the kid who gave me the Pepsi was already off and running, “Do you believe in God?” “Would you consider yourself a good person?” “Have you ever lied?” “Have you ever stolen?” “Have you ever looked at a woman with lust in your heart?”

I didn’t really know what to do; the first two questions weren’t as cut and dried as he was making them out to be, but I wanted to speed things along so I could get my hot dogs. So, I answered both in the affirmative, thinking that if I could somehow convince him I was already a Christian, maybe he would leave me alone and I could get my hot dogs and go. I told him I was raised Roman Catholic, that I went to catholic school, and that I was confirmed. None of this dissuaded him in any way from continuing on with his message.

My food came off the grill, and I felt like I was engaged in some bizarre race to see whether he could finish his thoughts on sin and God’s infinite capacity for forgiveness before I was done stuffing my fat face. Clearly he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

As he told me about how we are all evil in God’s eyes because many of our actions are in direct contravention of the rules set forth in the Ten Commandments, I was gazing philosophically over his left shoulder while eating half a hot dog in each bite.

Even if he had left a spot in the conversation open for me to respond, there was no way I possibly could, as my mouth was too full, so I just grunted while he preached.

After about two minutes, I finished chewing just in time to catch him taking a breath and said, “mister, your thoughts and mine are so diametrically opposed that there’s no possible way we’ll ever see eye to eye on these matters. Thank you very much for the hot dogs.”

I then turned and walked away to catch the Feather back at Agora Des Arts (the church that had been converted into a music venue). One neat decorative touch at Agora that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry is that there were unraveled cassette tapes hanging from the ceiling everywhere in the converted church, and the FME sign behind the stage was made out of cassette tapes as well. THIS is my kind of church.

The Feather were a very disciplined 6-piece band. They incorporated odd time signatures and polyrhythm into their sound, which was very melodic and consonant, but interspersed with occasional moments of heaviness and subtle dissonance. They had two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and a vibraphone. They were the first band I saw that sang in English, which is odd because they reminded me of a darker version of one of the only franco bands I’m familiar with: Tricot Machine.

After that, I went outside to catch a breather and met up with Félix, who since I had last spoken to him, had taken another hit of M. “I’m not tripping, but I really need to find Andrew…I mean, I’m not freaking out, but I’d feel a lot better if I had my buddy here.” So, I went off to find Andrew, who was hanging out with Maxshlyne & sent him back to calm Félix down. I didn’t see the two of them apart from each other for the remainder of the night.

After that, I saw my favourite band of my time at FME: Fontarabie. They were a 9 piece band featuring three guitars, bass, drums, two keyboardists, and a utility man who played trombone, trumpet, vibraphone and aux percussion. Their arrangements were highly nuanced, with many passages using volume-swelled electric guitars in the same way strings would typically be used in an orchestra. The depth of instrumental interplay, counterpoint, and heavy use of dynamic shifts in the songs made for an exiting performance, and I honestly could have watched them play for another hour even though their set was already over an hour long. I also had finagled a pretty dope seat and was enjoying the respite from standing, but regardless, it’s pretty rare nowadays to see a rock band both this ambitious and meticulous.

Feeling pretty sure that I wouldn’t top that experience, I briefly contemplated going back the hotel and calling it an early night since I had to catch a 9AM bus to North Bay. However, my words to Christian from Thursday began to echo in my head, “Tomorrow night, I will party like an animal…”

So, I made my way down to the Paramount, where Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra were performing. The Paramount is an old movie theatre that has been converted into a concert and performance space. Inside, it still has the gilding and flowing crimson curtains that I recall from the movie theatres of my youth.

I spotted photographer Graeme Phillips, whom I had met earlier at the Bonsound party, near the front of the stage along with my roommate Colin, and went down to say hey. I wondered aloud why more people weren’t standing up near the front. My question was answered immediately upon the start of their set, when the guitar player’s amp nearly rendered me deaf.

I made my way back toward the sound booth and watched the rest of the show from there, where the volume was more manageable and the mix less guitar-heavy. I have a predisposition to prefer bands where I can pick out the individual parts of their performances, which is not at all the point of a lot of Mt. Zion’s material as far as I could tell. I did enjoy the sheer sonic force of the band, but found myself frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t tell what each player was doing. I also couldn’t help feeling like there were melodies I was supposed to be hearing that I wasn’t.

At some point, I spotted Peter Zwarich and Lara Bradley near the front and went down and greeted them. They had just got to town and were heading over to see the Vibrators. I was trying to casually flirt with some girl so I stayed behind for a bit, but it’s pretty hard to chat up a broad when all the sonic space in the room is pretty much occupied.

The Vibrators were back at Cabaret La Dernière Chance. They were the last band of the night, and the last band I saw at FME. Their singer/bassist seemed to know just how to stand so the shadows would menacingly highlight his weathered and gaunt face. He was genuinely scary for a minute.

They had a healthy mix of bouncy hooks and heavier, more plodding fare. It gave the audience an opportunity to both mosh and dance. Things almost got out of control for a bit as I spotted two young bucks pushing each other aggressively. I stepped in and separated them before they could mix it up and yelled “Fuckin’ Stop!” I was a foot taller than both of them so they actually did fuckin stop. During the Vibrators’ encore (which pushed the end of the show to 3:30 AM), I felt compelled to get in there and dance during the Vibrators’ encore as the girl I was standing beside was beset by a couple of meatheads, one of whom decided he wanted to stand in the exact spot where I was already standing. Women are few and far between at a punk show.

I wrapped up my night wandering around Rouyn-Noranda with Félix, Andrew and Momo. We eventually made our way back around to Chez Morasse, which is apparently the nexus of every route in the entire goddamn town, and parted ways from there. When I eventually did make it back to my hotel and set my alarm for 8AM, the clock on my phone read 6AM.

As I sit here in this coffee shop in North Bay, this all seems like it transpired last week, not last night. This whole summer has been filled with amazing experiences and honestly I just don’t want it to end. But, if the summer truly must end, FME is a great way to cap it off. If you are a music fan, or simply a fan of cool things, there’s no cooler place or better place to catch interesting music than FME.