Mo Kenney, Ready for a Big Stage Next Time in NYC

I’d seen Mo Kenney perform live, but never in such an up-close setting as when she played Rockwood Music Hall’s Stage 3 on the lower east side of Manhattan this past Sunday night. I’d heard her sit in during an outdoor set at the CBC Music Festival last May, with Joel Plaskett and the Emergency band, and then in a solo show at the same festival where organizers put her in a too-small tent that overflowed with a couple hundred enthusiastic fans. Suffice to say that in Canada, where she’s become pretty well known, Mo Kenney warrants a big stage. In NYC, where she’s not well known yet, the small downstairs room at Rockwood was just right, though I’d add she’ll need a bigger one here next time.

She opened her set with her song “I Faked It,” full of scorn and romantic disappointment:
It was never you and me
When I said it was forever
I was lying through my teeth

For example
when I said it wouldn’t hurt
there was not a chance in hell
it was ever gonna work

To be truthful
the pleasure didn’t last
Before I took a drink
the ice had melted in the glass

While I’d seen Kenney really wail on a hollow-bodied Gretsch electric guitar at the outdoor shows—and play on an acoustic guitar—she had only a small acoustic guitar this night, I think a Martin, and got great sound from it. What’s more, she plays really interesting stuff. In fact, her chording embroidered the harsh lyrics of this first song with a harp-like beauty, a felt contrast to the embittered narrator’s regrets. When it ended, she remarked to the audience, “I thought I’d start with that one, so right off the bat you could see the sort of person I am.” It was a rueful, humorous note. She kept up that sort of banter throughout, showing an easy stage presence, even she was just tuning. Her second song was one she said she’d written at age 16,”Eden,” also the first song on her excellent 2012 debut album, a wistful song with a finger-picked passage that reminded me of The Beatles’ “Blackbird.” In her next break, she mentioned that she’d driven a car in NYC for the first time ever, a bit different from Halifax, and how glad she was it had been quiet, a Sunday. Not only are her lyrics full of arresting emotional images, when she toys with wordless vocalizations, doing a kind of folk-music scat, or assays to whistle a chorus, it comes off perfectly. She confessed to writing a lot of “sad songs,” but added she’s written at least one happy number, “The Happy Song,” which she played with a lilting eagerness, including a cleanly whistled passage.

She also mentioned Canadian rock superstar Joel Plaskett, who recognized Mo’s talents while she was still just in high school*. Plaskett’s produced her first two albums, and toured across Canada with him and the Emergency trio. He also recommended she consider covering a song called “Telephones,” which Mo played Sunday night. It was written by the Cape Breton, Nova Scotia group Mardeen,, seen in this video.

The rest of her set unfolded rapidly, compressing an hour into what seemed mere minutes, though it was actually almost another ten songs. Mo Kenney is on tour in the US over the next few weeks, with stops coming up in Syracuse, Buffalo, Washington, DC, Northampton, MA, and Saratoga Springs, NY, and several other towns. (details here and below). If you’re in any of these locales, I urge you to go hear Mo Kenney. She’s a brilliant songwriter, an engaging performer, a savvy song picker, and a big talent. She ended the night by telling one more story, about how devastated she’d been by David Bowie’s death (“I took out all my LPs, began playing them while weeping, a lump on the floor,” he’d meant so much to her in formative years.), and then played a cover of Bowie’s song, “Five Years,” with the timeless verse “Your face, your race, the way that you talk/I kiss you, you’re beautiful, I want you to walk.” Kyle and I really enjoyed Mo’s performance and visiting with her after the show.

Here also are some pictures I took when I heard Mo last summer at the CBC Music Festival.

*Source for this is Grant Lawrence of CBCMusic

Matt Andersen and Lee Harvey Osmond at Rockwood Music Hall, Friday March 18 + Mo Kenney, Sunday, 3/20

Looking forward to hearing Matt Andersen & Lee Harvey Osmond Friday 3/18 at Rockwood Music Hall NYC. Andersen’s powerful voice reminds of Greg Allman’s, while Osmond’s also got major vocal tone. Below are music videos by both artists. Admission is a very reasonable $15.
Click this link to get ticket info for Friday night’s show, a rare live appearance for both in NYC.

The booker at Rockwood is on a roll this week, as Sunday night March 20 they have Mo Kenney on one of their three stages. I hope to catch her show, too. Ticket info here, only $10.

Good for a Laugh—American Network Fails at French Translation of PM Trudeau

Transnational humor in a funny failure at ABC News, via Buzzfeed Canada. See below for a sampling, or click here for the whole rundown of botched captions inadvertently provided to US viewers by ABC.

Mr Trudeau Comes to Washington

Joyous arrival ceremony at the White House welcoming Canadian PM #JustinTrudeau and the entire Canadian delegation. Later, in DC this morning, Michele Obama and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau spoke at an event promoting girls’ education around the world. #LetGirlsLearn. This is going to be a great opportunity for American and Canadians to renew our national bonds with values of tolerance, caring for the planet, education, and much more.

Will Canadian Literature Finally Be Featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair?

Until this March 4 article by Globe & Mail Books Editor Mark Medley, I’m sure it wasn’t widely known outside of Canadian publishing that two years ago organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair had invited Canada to be the fair’s featured country for 2017, a plum opportunity for any country’s book sector; nor that the Harper government, in typical fashion, stupidly declined the invitation (it would have required some investment).

Harper was horrible, and the government he created did too little to put cultural industries forward as economic generators. Glad to see that with PM Justin Trudeau leading Canada since last November the Book Fair has renewed the invitation. The Ministry of Heritage is considering it, with a decision possibly due this month on whether the funds required (around 4 million dollars CAN) will be provided. It would be for 2020. As an American editor who loves Canadian books, has published many Canadian authors in the US, and worked with many Canadian publishers, I’m very excited about this. It would be great to see Canadian literature recognized globally, even more than it is already. I’m hopeful this initiative will move forward.

Justin Trudeau Was Great on 60 Minutes, While CBS Correspondent Lara Logan was Terrible

TrudeauI was eager to watch Justin Trudeau on 60 Minutes Sunday night, and indeed he handled himself very well, but I gotta say I disliked the attitude adopted by interviewer Lara Logan, which had a noticeable American rightwing edge to it with tendentious questions about the 25,000 Syrian refugees Canadians have admitted to their country since last December, and about ISIS. Prime Minister’s Trudeau’s executed a rapid turnaround in Canada’s international reputation, and is showing Canada and the world how to lead one’s country in a new direction, cultivating core social values, all with welcoming inclusion.


Update: During the CBS broadcast, I heard Lara Logan refer to Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s mother, and they showed a picture of a young woman with Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The only problem with this? Turns out, they had shown a picture of a different woman (Kim Cattrall, then a young actress). This reminded me that Logan has long been prone to making serious errors as a correspondent for 60 Minutes, like she did in 2013 when she promoted a faux memoir of a security operative who claimed, falsely, he had been in Benghazi when the US embassy there was attacked in 2012. I wrote about this at the time on my other blog, The Great Gray Bridge.

All the Ways Justin Trudeau’s making Canada Canada again, Contrasted with the Trump Platform

Since Canadian PM Justin Trudeau took office a few months ago I've been cheering his work at bringing his country back…

Posted by Philip Turner on Tuesday, 1 March 2016

George Elliott Clarke, a Stellar Ambassador for Canadian Poetry

Very pleased to learn via CBC News that George Elliott Clarke—”a seventh-generation Canadian of African-American and Mi’kmaq heritage, whose work has explored the African experience in Canada”—has been named the new Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada. In 2006, I published the US edition of his amazing novel George & Rue. He is an immensely likable person with an ebullient, inclusive personality, and a hugely talented writer.
 
 
Video of Professor Clarke: