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Instagramin the air between Montréal and Newark: some backtracking to catch up on ...
Somehow, in between throwing a frisbee around the car park, eating lots of great food, and going to the park in Terrebonne when there was a mass going on in the church, we finished all the recording on Friday. Given that with some songs we scrapped most of our arrangements and re-worked them from scratch in the session, that's pretty good going. We ended at about midnight with Joli
Bois, in which I drummed on various surfaces of the harpsichord and didn't play a note. Chris played his big frame drum, and David and Betsy made col legno noises while Suzie grooved over the top. A really fun way to end. The CD should be out 1 August on ATMA; I can't wait to hear the final thing. Betsy drove us up the mountain on the way home to see the view of Montréal at night, and when we got back down to the plateau at 1.30 or so the place was buzzing with nightlife. We drank beer for some time in mutual congratulation.
And then on Saturday I was so tired that I couldn't move, so I hung around the coach house, did everyone's laundry and eventually made it out to the Frénésie de la Main, a street market on Boulevard Saint-Laurent that stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. Glorious sunshine, countless thousands of people and a fun atmosphere. David G and I failed to buy anything apart from dinner, but that didn't matter. People-watching was entertainment enough. The three of us provided at least one course each for a substantial meal, and I crawled off to bed early in the hope that the builders across the alley would keep the Sabbath and let me sleep in (and they did).
On Saturday morning DG had his masterclasses and successfully completed his 'word of the day' challenge (as Chris witnessed) by including the phrase 'musicians grow dumb'. You have to say it quite fast. Yes, we can be very childish.
Speaking of childish, Chris sat at the kitchen table in the afternoon and I recorded his playing the guitar solo for the Buzzcocks' song Boredom on the baroque flute. Unfortunately my unscreened mic cable picked up a variety of Francophone and Anglophone radio stations as well, but the random effect is quite amusing. We also started to figure out how on earth I'm going to record my overdubs for his Christmas album - probably in Halifax, NS in August ...
Yesterday was our open-air gig in the Place des Vestiges at the old port, with people out on the water in pedalos and lots of bikes too. Inevitably the sound guys weren't ready for our soundcheck at 1, so what with being in a park, Chris's frisbee dominated the proceedings again. It was particularly wonderful so see someone as physically expert and agile as our dancing master Pierre making a complete arse of throwing a frisbee. But then I was throwing like a girl myself until I got some practice in on Thursday.
Soundcheck completed (and what joy to play amplified harpsichord and melodica to a park full of people on a sunny Sunday afternoon), we went down to the harbour for a brief video shoot. Chris has decided that the three of us should be henceforth known as Joli Bois, or was it Les Garçons du Joli Bois or The Jolly Boys, I've forgotten. Plenty of excuses for lame puns about wood ... I won't reproduce here the photo I have of Chris at the harbour with a renaissance flute in an unusual playing position.
[The kid in front of me on the plane is watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on a portable DVD player, so a young Tim Brooke-Taylor keeps appearing in my peripheral vision. And now we're treated to a great view of the Manhattan skyline as we come into Newark, I'll continue this on the flight home]
The second soundcheck of the day brought the unusual sight of sound supremo François replacing the batteries in Suzie's wireless mic pack. Seeing someone take a screwdriver to the back of a soprano is really pretty odd.
The gig itself was great fun, we had Daniel Tonnon on vielle (in an unusual twist, his vielle's carved head is of Mickey Mouse) and a piper as a warm-up act, followed by a juggler with improvised accompaniment by DG; then we took to the stage as it began to grow dark. The occasional gust of wind aside (felling Betsy's music stand at one point), it was a lot of fun and the audience were vocal and enthusiastic. Suzie sang great as always - I haven't mentioned this yet, have I? My melodica solos were OK rather than stunning (nerves I suppose) and I managed to dislodge the Estey Cottage Organ's pedal rod from its slot just before its big number - of course I then made the mistake of saying 'hey David I've just broken the harmonium' right into the mic. We fixed it again in a matter of seconds. And before the night was out, Chris had bought it from Daniel and loaded it into his beloved old Mercedes station wagon. Now if I'd had a way of getting it home, I'd have got there first. But taking two harmoniums home from a trip to Canada is a bit extreme even for me.
What must have looked a bit strange is that when Chris played his enormous G flute (more wood gags) he was facing away from the rest of us, and eventually lurked at the back of the stage. He was just trying to make sure that the wind he blew across the soundhole wasn't cancelled out by the wind coming in the opposite direction, but it must have looked like he'd had enough of the rest of us and was sulking in the corner.
After the gig, Pierre called some dances, occasionally stepping as well, while Chris and David played tunes. I watched from the stage for a bit, and then I was getting itchy feet myself. At that point, Catherine Motuz (the festival co-ordinator, about to go to Basle to study sackbut) appeared, to make arrangements for the all-important post-concert beer. 'Want to dance?' 'Well, I'm supposed to be organising this whole thing.' 'Wouldn't it be great to dance though?' 'Yeah, OK.' So we joined the throng and I tried to make sense of contredanses and square dances called with great style in French. My dancing was inept but the band were fantastic. Square dances are a bit predatory though, with the four blokes walking around the girls checking them over and then trying them out one at a time. Still, all good clean fun really. Hey, I was in a park on a Sunday night in Montréal, why not re-enact some primitive courting ritual with a bunch of Francophone strangers while my mates play some tunes?
The festival club was in the Café á propos, and when we arrived, Martin from McGill, who'd been one of my masterclass victims and is playing in the Bruges competition this year, was playing Susie Napper's harpsichord on the little stage. After a while, a band materialised with a bunch of fiddle players, and it was announced to the assembled drinkers that anyone was welcome to come and join in, but that they were playing at 415 - if there was enough demand, though, they would consider hiking up a semitone to 440.
The last time I heard a bar band play at 415 was after the La Serenissima Vivaldi sessions last year, and that was in the bar itself rather than on the stage. Anyway, DG, Sylvain and I couldn't resist getting up. How often do you get jam along with a band on a harpsichord in a bar? I even put my beer on the jack rail, but not for long in case it fell off into the instrument ... wish I'd photographed it. It was a bleary-eyed but still characteristically cool-looking Sylvain's fourth gig of the day, after playing the Dowland Lachrymae at 7am (!), and baroque Beatles arrangements mid-afternoon. Back in my seat, Chris and I reflected on how healthy this was, that a large proportion of the early music students at McGill were perfectly comfortable having a pub session on mostly baroque instruments. It would have been wonderful to hang around McGill for longer.
After all this, the Jolly Boys sat up late listening to the second edit of The Red Red Rose, and DG ended the evening sufficiently drunk to be singing Beatles songs from next door as I went to bed at about 3.15am.
This morning I was wasted again of course, and it took me all my time and energy to tidy up a bit, to pack, and to buy and apply some bubble wrap to protect the harmonium on its flight home. I hope it survives intact.