DERAILED!

A couple weeks back, I noticed that The Divorcees were going to be playing at the Railway Club. This is a band I discovered through the wonder of MySpace, but have never seen live, so it immediately caught my attention. I circled July 15th on my calendar and started counting down the days...

I show up at 9:30 and there is this big neon green sign on the door that says, "We are closed - sorry for the inconvience" WHAT?!?!?! The Railway Club is NEVER randomly closed. Then I am reminded of the man-hole fire the day before that knocked out power to most of the downtown core. Where did that happen again? OH YA... about a block from the Railway Club!

Silly me, here I was, all dressed up with no place to go. Literally. We wandered down to Gastown and it was black - no street lights, and nothing open. But wait. Are those people I see inside the The Lamplighter? We walk in and they have a generator running a couple tvs and keeping the beer cold. So we stay and it's Dead Bunny Comedy night. I have a little hint for aspiring comedians... if people aren't laughing its because you're NOT funny and telling the audience that they are lame for not laughing at your unfunny jokes will not make them laugh. It wasn't all an uncomfortable disaster, the headliner for the evening Todd Allen, was very funny, it just took WAAAY too long to get to him.

Musically speaking, I'm going to James Taylor on Friday and hitting the Whistler Music Festival this weekend. I can't wait to hear Mr. Taylor do this song live...

Flat Top Joint

Earlier this week I was a little bummed as most of my friends had tickets to see the legendary Stevie Wonder at GM Place and I ... well I did not. I had conceded to the fact that I was probably just going to spend the evening feeling sorry for myself when I picked up a copy of Friday's Province. Thanks to Stuart Derdeyn and his list of "Great Things to Do - Weekend" I discovered one of the best events I've been to all year... They called it "BOP" a 50's themed night, featuring four great Rockabilly acts including L.A's Pep Torres, The Roy Kay Trio out of Seattle and two local acts, The Still Creek Brothers and The Roadhouse Juice Daddies.

I walked into the Fairview Pub on Broadway at about 9:15, and it was like I'd walked onto the set of "Happy Days" complete with beehives and flat top haircuts. Add in some poodle skirts, tight jeans and the sounds made famous by artists like Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley and you couldn't help but "bop" along.

I was impressed by the Still Creek Brothers. Not only did they look the part but their duoing vocals added a depth and dimension that the other bands lacked.

The band I was looking forward to the most, did not disappoint... The Roy Kay Trio was fabulous even with borrowed instruments. They did a great cover of "Cadillac in Model A" orginally done by Rockabilly pioneers of the 30s and 40s - Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

The good news is the Fairview Pub on (898 W. Broadway) has a night they call Rockabilly Roundup each month. I'll definately be back!

Open Mic is Like a Box of Chocolates

One of my favorite little coffee shops, the Wired Monk on 4th and Trafalgar, has a couple really decent open mic nights each week. If you've never been to an open mic night, the concept is simple - show up, put your name on a list and you can perform 3 songs. No questions asked. As you can imagine, you never really know what you're going to get with the open mic and last night was no exception. I'll be honest, I had moments of utter discomfort as I watched performers struggle through their material missing notes, chords and sometimes the entire concept of melody with orginal compositions that were... well, orginal.

We'd been there for about an hour when to be quite honest I was about to leave. The last group had completely butchered "BirdDog" by the Everly Brothers, one my one of my all time favorites - I have about 30 of them. That was when Kyla Rawlins took the mic. She opened her mouth and I thought WOW, those are some powerful vocals. She mixed jazz, r&b and opera vocal styles with a hint (at times) of what I would call east coast country. Regardless, out came a sound that can't quite be classified except as polished, controlled and delightful. Clearly the highlight of the night. Kyla has a CD coming out soon and I'll keep you posted in the meantime check out her webpage at http://onlinerock.com/musicians/kylarawlins/music.shtml

I'll leave you with some BirdDog