Ripe for the picking? Silver Apples' Simeon back in the day.
By Laura Mojonnier
A snapshot of the Pop Montreal festival, Oct. 2.
Irma Thomas at Ukranian Federation, 8:30 p.m.
The night started off with a bike ride up north into Montreal's Mile End area to catch Irma Thomas and a full backing band play the Ukrainian Federation.
I'd only been to this venue once before, to see Patti Smith play a secret show at last year's festival, and the place certainly seems made for that kind of gig. The venue feels like a cross between a middle school auditorium and a Protestant church, rows of 40-year-old theater seating on the first floor and a pewed balcony for the choir. In conclusion, Ukranian Federation is not great for rocking out, but it's just perfect when watching Thomas belt torch songs for middle-aged Quebecers.
The vocalist sounded as good as she looked, and at age 67, the soul queen of New Orleans shows no signs of stopping. Thomas won her first Grammy last year, and just released her 18th album of solo material, Simply Grand (Decca/Rounder) in August.
The crowd - which apparently included members of the Irma Thomas fan club - was a little uptight, however. All the people in the front were standing, so my friend and I perched up on our seats to get a better angle on the stage, which apparently did not please the graying double date behind us.
Once they guilted us into submission (got us to sit down), they set their eyes on the 50-year-old wearing a Steve Earle tour T-shirt a few rows up. Afraid to pick on someone their own age, they alerted a 20-something Pop official, who then engaged in an ultimately fruitless 10-minute argument with the man while pointing back to me and my friend when making the case that some people couldn't see. "It's not us!" we mouthed in vain. "It's them!" And I thought drunk 18-year-olds at punk shows were annoying.
Silver Apples at Sala Rosa, 11:45 p.m.
Next up, I headed south down St. Laurent to the best venue in Montreal, Sala Rosa, to see Silver Apples. I knew I was going to see an elderly, psyched-out, proto-electro pioneer, but, man, was that show weird. The original New York group has been whittled down to one original member, Simeon, who confided to the audience that he just celebrated his 70th birthday.
Looking like he had dressed as a nonspecific Star Trek character for Halloween (freshly shaved head, high-collar black robe-suit), Simeon played an oscillator/synthesizer that looked like it was built in his basement with used car parts and rubber cement. Silver Apples songs are moody, dissonant, and quietly sinister by definition, and Simeon's occasional vocals are vaguely reminiscent of Brian Eno or Arthur Russell.
DD/MM/YYYY and Chinese Stars at Divan Orange, 1:30 a.m.
After removing myself from Simeon's lair, I made my way even further south on St. Laurent to return to Divan Orange for the second night of Pop Montreal's "Weird Punk" series. Not even a hole in the stage created by an angry Sic Alp could stop the madness!
First up, Toronto's awfully named DD/MM/YYYY. Seriously - I tried to find their MySpace and ended up learning that a lot of people with blogs are bewildered by date formats. ("Can I fix this mm/dd/yyyy <-> dd/mm/yyyy confusion once and for all?" asks one Web site.) I only get so worked up because DD/MM/YYYY are an amazing band, of course. The fivepiece have been making their giddy math rock since 2004, and are only embarking on their first European tour at the end of this month - probably because would-be fans have trouble Googling their name.
Moving on: is there a genre called nightmare dance (p/f)unk? If not, then I think headliners the Chinese Stars invented it. Lead vocalist Eric Paul screamed sweat into the microphone while picking his nose. The bassist-synth maestro and the drummer - who look like a washed-up Britpop star and Johnny Knoxville starring in a movie written by Hunter S. Thompson, respectively - balanced out Paul's weirdcore antics with their crackerjack beats. But it wasn't quite enough to stop the moshers.
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