DIANA Z @ CALIFORNIA PUB (TORONTO) - June 23
Help welcome Diana Z back to TO at California June 23
Perky, pretty, adventurous and a very talented singer-songwriter, Diana Zitmanis, has been away from her home in The Beaches for several months living and performing in Alaska, and returns to TO Tuesday, June 23, deplaning late morning. Then, that very evening, she’ll be in California —as in California Pub, 914 Pape Ave. at Mortimer in Toronto— as the feature act for Week 27 of my weekly open stage there!
I’m hoping we can get the word out to her many fans here in TO, who appreciate her melodic, upbeat and sweet debut cd, ‘All I Want’, and who’ve enjoyed playing at an open stage she herself hosted down on Queen E. on The Beach for some time prior to her departure, so that they can come out and celebrate her homecoming. The night starts at 9:00 and runs ‘til about 1:30, with Diana Z, as she’s known these days, doing her showcase set starting around 10:30.
Last week we celebrated six months of open staging at California with another fine roundup of diverse talents. We kicked off with Roger Zuraw, who seems to relish and flourish in the first-up position, which is great for me because often it’s difficult to get someone to agree to be the one to break the ice —one of the reasons I always play a couple of tunes by local or Canadian singer-songwriters and bands before the first act (as well as, of course, between live sets.)
It was great to see Paul Nash return after a very auspicious debut the week before and once again he impressed on cover tunes including “Georgia” and a Gordon Lightfoot song. A fellow we hadn’t seen in a while, young Yawn Temiseva (whom I almost didn’t recognize since he’s “reinvented” himself with much shorter hair than I’m used to seeing on him) was up next and demonstrated his versatility and lively sensibility on some originals that are a little different from what he does with his International Turpentine indie band.
Pete Otis made it 26 consecutive weeks attending this event (he’s the only one, aside from me —and including all the staff and even the two owners— who’s attended every week since we started!) and this week also performed some of his originals again, including his two signature tunes, “Crazy World” and “Love Is The Victim”.
Our feature act, Karen Lee Wilde, who brought a decent-sized contingent of fans along (most of whom stayed, as did she, quite late to enjoy other performers as well) was up next and she demonstrated to those who didn’t know of her just why I asked her to showcase by presenting a versatile and captivating set of her own music playing her electric guitar. For a few tunes she also invited up colourfully clad Dave “Grey Eagle” Sanford on djembe drum percussion accompaniment.
Next it was nice to see The Riverdale Kid back in the place where it more or less all began for him 35 or so years ago. Fernando Curcione was raised in the neighbourhood and used to have French fries and cherry cokes in this very building while preparing for rehearsals with a band he was in that played the local high school. He shared some of the fine radio-ready tunes from his ‘Toasted Western’ album released last year.
Guitarist and singer Paul Cross, who’d stopped short part way through one song last week, got back on the horse this week and rode it with aplomb and confidence through a set of tunes that included some originals, such as a tune about Al Gore vs. Spike Lee and another anti-war anthem.
It’s always a pleasure to welcome another local, Trevor Jones, to the stage and it seemed fitting that he was here to participate on the “demi-versary” of the event. As has been his wont of late, he played mostly cover tunes of other local singer-songwriters from the area, including “A Place Called Heaven” by Shawn Sage, who’d just arrived (but didn’t stay long enough to perform himself) and Peter Verity’s “Blue As I Can Get”.
A fellow who made a big mark for himself the previous week when he made his performance debut teamed up with singer Gina, Brian G returned and showed us that was no fluke as he performed some covers solo, including “Signs” and tunes by The Eagles and Bruce Cockburn, demonstrating real versatility and entertainment power.
It was a thrill next to welcome back the gorgeous and talented Bri-anne Swan, who, luckily for us, has taken up residence not too far from the room since her recent return to TO. She did a very enthralling version of “Time After Time” and, to wrap her set, inadvertently set an interesting series of events in motion as she did a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat”. Her version is hauntingly enchanting, but what she didn’t realize is that the artist who was up next has, during the past few months while she was out of town, made quite a name for himself doing his own powerfully melancholic version of that same song, prompting me to announce that she’d launched “The Battle Of The Famous Blue Raincoats”.
Sure enough Edo Peled kicked off his set with that very song, but in a surprise twist invited Bri-anne up to do some backup vocals for him, which she did, resulting in the most convincingly powerful and memorable version of that song I’ve heard in a long, long time. So the “Battle Of The Famous Blue Raincoats” ended up becoming a “Famous Blue Raincoat Coalition” and everyone had smiles and was beaming with pleasure as the night wound down about 2 a.m.
On the mp3 player this night I warmed up the stage with three tunes from Maria Kasstan’s ‘Love Songs For The Homeless Guy’ album (she has a feature coming up here July 7, btw) and also spun Julian Taylor’s “Never Spoiled By Love”; “Brand New Day” by Kathleen Gorman; Neil Traynor’s “Not Love At All”; Sebastian Agnello’s “All My Fault” (he was in the room but said he was more in the mood to audient rather than to play this evening); two from Lynn Harrison’s latest album, ‘Simplicity’; “Thinkin’ and Drinkin’” by David Rotundo Band; Redhill Road’s “This Is Just All Right”; a pair from Gayle Ackroyd’s new ‘Give It All You Got’ disc; “I Can Do Without” by Vanessa Hanson; and a few tunes by The Kings from their ‘Because Of You’ album to round things up.
Stuart Wilson of www.bigfix-music.com was on hand as usual and he’ll be back again for Week 27 offering the best recording deal anywhere: it’s free to get recorded, he’ll send you a mp3 sample and if you like what you hear and want to buy the set it’s just $1.00 per minute! His show last Friday, June 19 at Blue Moon Saloon on Queen at Broadview was quite successful considering there was so much else going on that night (NXNE, Ribfest, Taste Of Little Italy and several other festivals) and the bands, including his own Bigfix and Edo Peled’s trio, were excellent. (Too bad that the club owner there is a total dickhead and disrespected Stuart and the bands —Stuart won’t be going back there again, and nor will I— but I’m sure he’ll have no difficulty finding a room that will appreciate his ability to bring in 30-60 people for a stellar show that also captivates the room’s regulars; I’ll keep you posted on when and where that will be.)
BTW, if you want to see pics of some of the performers mentioned in this note, you can join our Gary 17’s Acoustic Open Stage group on Facebook and dial in!
And just a quick word about our special California Day show next week, June 30. With Canada Day being the next day a lot of people north of 49 don’t realize that June 30 is also a holiday. That’s right, it’s California Day, and we’ll be holding the First Annual California Day Holiday Party at the club that night. Nominally I’ll be doing a feature set but it may be a short one since I’m expecting a lot of holiday partiers will also want to play and the open stagers always come first!
As always on June 23 and 30 I’ll have three mics set up, the new 61-keys polyphonic, touch-sensitive Yamaha keyboard and the excellent house guitar (the latter provided courtesy of Long & McQuade Musical Instruments) for players to borrow and I’ll be spinning tracks from Canadian and local singer-songwriters and bands between live acts.
Do also check out the menu at California —the food is home-made by Danny and Jeanette and they’re family-sized portions too. There are several draughts on tap and a fully stocked liquor and wine bar. And of course, the patio will be open and should get lots of use if the weather forecast is to be believed.
Getting to California is a breeze —and there’s a small parking lot for five or six vehicles behind it, while street parking is free after 9 p.m. on both sides of Pape. Several buses run by frequently, including the Mortimer bus (#62) between Broadview and Main stations and, north from Pape Station, the Thorncliffe Park (#81) and Don Mills (#25) buses —and after 1 a.m. the Don Mills 303 bus runs all night between Steeles and Queen and stops on Pape right out front of the club’s entrance at 914 Pape Avenue on the corner of Pape and Mortimer a few blocks north of Danforth Ave. Just look for the brilliant orange backdrop to the patio and you’ve found it!
Gary 17,
Check out my Sonic Bids EPK at http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.asp?epk_id=202800
Now hosting Tues. open stage 9-2 @ California Pub, 914 Pape Ave. @ Mortimer, Toronto
------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment