Withered Hand + Woodpigeon @ Attack, 03/06/2015

My workday on Wednesday, June 3rd was truly horrible and it ended with teleconference full of bad news and fuckups.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon when I was leaving for home I was spent and annoyed and my head was buzzing with cusswords.
I waited for a friend to come down since we carpool home and I sat into my car - it was a giant toaster white from the heat - the sun was rich and beautiful yellow sunny side up egg in the sky
and we drove to town on the side of the street where there are no poppies to please me.

I thought; "Even though paid in blood, finding a babysitter so I can go to Zur party tonight will be all for nothing - 'cause there is no way I could recuperate by 9 pm to enjoy the gig."

But we drove
and we chatted
and we laughed some
and I came home, made and ate simple but truly inspired dinner (who knew adding crushed sour cream & onion potato chips could improve mixed beans, proteins and veg salad so much!?)
and had a short nap.

When I woke up, just half an hour later, there was a cat on my chest and he was purring so much he woke me up. We played a bit and cleaned the house some and I went for my (surprisingly early) evening run, came home, showered and dressed and jumped back into the car.

There was blood moon hanging on the horizon. Evening was young and promising and it smelled sweetly of linden trees and unsuspecting vice.

I love Attack! commons.

I love the air of relaxation permeating the area and whole this squat/diy/upcycle idea the residents are living so vibrantly.

As I came in I bumped into a friend so we hugged and we spoke and I bought ticket and a drink
(never did a beer taste so appropriate than right then) and evening was rolling out beautifully. Then, there was Woodpigeon on stage:

I have listened to Woodpidgeon's music before, but not lately (I realized fuzzily how long it has been while commenting something to a friend) but this guy (Mark Andrew Hamilton) is so endearing and so awesome that once the gig started it all came back, even the songs that I heard for the first time.
Very unpretentious, styled more like a tourist then an indie hipster musician he was both magnificent and completely adorable. With excellent "bedside manner" when treating his audience he came across as smart, kind, mindful and a true artist. His comments and ideas were transparent and diplomatic and I truly enjoyed hearing him speak just as much I enjoyed hearing him sing/perform.

He said he does not write songs about politics and he sang a song he wrote disappointed that Canada decided to bomb Syria. He was adamant that violence is wrong and then played Death by Ninja:

"I went to Ninja school
To learn how to murder you
With just one little punch"

There was an awesome intro he told us to get us to sing with him and I'm sure he told the intro thousand times already but it was so great it will not grow old even with million more repetitions.

He did some magic with various doohickeys and doodahs he had in front of him on the floor so he was singing and making samples and playing them and all at once and right in front of us and I was smitten and amazed and it was completely unexpected and fresh and great (even though I'm no stranger to delaying and pedals and beatboxing).

Later on he was standing outside in the commons talking with a friend and their body language was so honest and so revealing there has to be a great guy in there, behind those vigilant and intelligent eyes.

Little after Woodpigeon had finished Withered Hand took center stage… .. And I'm of mixed emotions (and impressions) of this gig.
Maybe the expectations got the best of me.
Withered Hand's music, at least what I heard from it on the albums, just seemed more polished to me (then Woodpidgeon's) and I thought it will sound different live.
And it did.
But I was untouched.

It was well presented, and the guy was appropriately styled and in good spirits, and there seems to have been a lot of his ecstatic fans there
and I too felt a fan when he said:

"We're only on tour together for second time now... but that's only because I hate leaving my house so much"

and songs sounded well…

I remember hearing Horseshoe and it did sound great live, and I'm listening to it now writing this and it truly is a great song...
But, at the same time,
It is like a magnificent ornate dagger someone is attacking you with
and you're so frightened blood drains out of your heart
just to realize in the end that it is a switchblade mechanism, a theater prop -
one that retracts back into the handle when pressed against something so not to draw blood.

I've listened to a couple of songs and have tried to participate but to no avail so I got out, back into commons, where I conversed a little and rested my sore hip (that was inflamed for past two weeks) and got kissed by a guy who asked me to roll him a cigarette and was utterly pleased with results.

It was an excellent evening out, unexpected and highly pleasing, and Zur collective had closed one more season with awesome gig and a party.

derza fanistori // 06/06/2015

PS: Originally published on Kaleidoscope Situations blog.