My brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac honoured me by inviting me to join his balalaika group in performing a selection of Russian and Jewish numbers at his wedding reception. Between my terrible music reading — one of these days, I’m going to have to get better at it — and having to read tiny chord markings in a dimly-lit dining room, I decided to scribble out some quick chord charts for the performance:
I’ve got to tip my hat to my brother-in-law Andy and new sister-in-law Sue. Most newlyweds are happy to vanish into their room after the reception; they decided to throw an after-party. I like a good post-party party as much as the next free-wheeling accordion-playing bacchanalian bon vivant, but even I retired to the honeymoon suite after my own reception. Kudos for Andy and Sue for choosing not to go quietly into the night!
Even better, they didn’t just make do with their hotel room’s decor. There’s nothing wrong with the colonial charm of the rooms at the Avon Old Farms Hotel; it’s just that it needed a little goosing to get it just right for this sort of party. Luckily Andy and company brought decorations worthy of a Phish-head’s VW van including flashing lights, spinning colored lights like the one shown in the photo below…
…plus a couple of oil wheel projectors aimed at the wall to produce images like this:
There were refreshments aplenty: a couple of coolers packed with beer, a few bottles of liquor, some pop, salty snacks of all sorts and a couple of kielbasa sausages.
As for a sound system, it wasn’t necessary. Most of us at the party had performed earlier that evening at the reception. Among Andy’s many talents are some mad balalaika skills, and his friends from his balalaika group were among us. They — and through a very generous invitation, I — performed a short set of Russian and Jewish tunes after dinner. Other guests at the after-party had also brought guitars and tambourines.
Here’s what the party looked like as it was getting into full swing:
Moments after I took that photo, someone from the hotel knocked at our door.
“We’ve got some complaints from your neighbours about the noise,” he said, sticking his head through the door and looking around. We were about a dozen in total, half of whom had an instrument.
“I know where this is headed,” said Andy to the rest of us.
I started to take my accordion off when the hotel guy said something very, very unexpected.
“You could use the lobby,” he suggested.
I’m sure at least three of us said “Huh?”
“Use the lobby. No rooms near it; the sound won’t carry.”
We asked if we could bring our booze and snacks, and he said as long as we cleaned up after ourselves, it was fine with him.
The group made its way to the lobby as quietly as semi-drunk people with musical instruments who’d stumbled on some unexpected good fortune. I helped in finding a luggage cart and wheeling the booze and food to the lobby.
Years of lucky breaks — remember, many lucky breaks are made, not had — have taught me to have a camera ready when they happen. Here are the photos I took:
As you can see, where the hotel room was a bit cramped, the lobby has elbow room to spare.
You can see the front desk in the photo below. The night concierge didn’t seem to mind the jamming, and neither did the very people who passed by on the way to their rooms.
Taking pictures of musicians playing is tricky. Your subjects may be having a good time, but the split-second moment captured by the camera coupled with a musician’s concentration can make it seem as if you’re taking pictures in a depression ward:
That’s Serge on the left, playing the balalaika and Jason on guitar on the right.
I swear, he’s having a great time:
Rick on balalaika.
Really, we’re having fun!
Sascha on balalaika.
Okay, finally a smile:
That’s Judy on the left on balalaika and Andy on the right playing the big honkin’ contrabass balalaika.
Here’s another shot of Andy on the big bass:
Here’s the Ginger Ninja, enjoying the show:
Sue was there too, but after an entire day of cameras in her face, I decided to spare her at the after-party. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya, Sue!
We bounced between classic balalaika numbers and contemporary pop in our jam sessions. I decided to shoot some video for posterity. Here’s the video I shot — it’s our performance of The Gourds’ countrified rendition of Snoop Dogg’s classic number, Gin and Juice. Enjoy!
In closing, I’d like to thank the very nice and very understanding people at the Avon Old Farms Hotel for letting us move our party into the lobby so that we could jam and still not disturb anybody. You rock for letting us rock!
The year was 1991, and as a DJ at Crazy Go Nuts University, I was getting a lot of mileage out of this album:
Guess what: Spencer Elden, the baby on the album cover, is now 15 years old.
[via Reddit and The Striker Diary]
The “Give Me Liberty” after-work party takes place on the second Thursday in June and is a chance for people who live and work in Liberty Village — an area of Accordion City full of factories converted into lofts, offices and television and radio stations — to gather for a street party featuring a beer tent, food from local restaurants and live and DJ’d music.
One of the traditions of the “Give Me Liberty” party is my playing a couple of tunes on accordion between DJ sets. This year was no different — I played Fatboy Slim’s Praise You and Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild for the crowd. The Ginger Ninja shot video of the whole thing, which appears below:
This graphic made me laugh out loud:
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
(I’ve been threatening to learn that song on accordion.)
Last week, I got an email that went like this:
I’m a producer at MTV Canada and we’re looking for someone with your skills and talent to help us celebrate Accordion Awareness Month – which, as I’m sure you know, is June.
We’re heading out on the street with one of our hosts to talk with passersby about accordions and would love to have someone there to play us through.
Would you be willing and able to film for about half an hour either tomorrow or Wednesday in the Yonge and Bloor area? Our timing is somewhat flexible so we hope you can make it.
One of the traits that I have inherited from my American ancestry is that I am always ready to appear on television on short notice. Of course I accepted the invitation!
As a result, I spent my lunch hour Wednesday in the vicinity of this building:
The old Masonic Temple at the lucky address of 888 Yonge Street (at Davenport) in beautiful Accordion City is the current home of MTV Canada’s studios. Prior to that, it was the “CTV Temple of Television”. Before that, it was a concert venue simply known as “The Concert Hall”, and before that, it was the Rockpile club. I’ve been to a number of concerts there, my first one being Nina Hagen back in the 80s, my last one being Tool in the 90s.
I didn’t have to wait too long in their green room, shown below…
…and there’s lots of stuff in there to keep guests fed, hydrated and entertained. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to indulge in a coupel of rounds of the XBox 360 version of Guitar Hero II (I’ve got the PS2 version at home):
I was pleased to find out that I’d be doing the segment Daryn Jones, who hosted my last appearance on MTV Live. I’ve always liked Daryn’s work on the Rick Mercer Report and was a big fan of his old Comedy Network show, Buzz, which he co-hosted with “Mistah Mo”. Funny stuff, that.
The plan was simple — we’d make our way along the short distance between the MTV Canada studios and Accordion City’s main intersection, the corner of Bloor and Yonge streets and get reaction shots from passers-by, improvving all the way. We got shots not only on the street, but inside a pizza parlour and a hairstylist’s as well, and the highlight of the shoot had to be an improvised throwdown putting me against a digeridoo player busking at the corner of Bloor and Yonge.
I’ll hold off on more details about the shoot until after it airs, but I can say that I had a great time doing the shoot, and working with Daryn is always a blast. I even saved a little money: when I went to get my car from the nearby parking lot, the attendant gave me a discount. He told me that he saw me do the shoot from his booth and said: “I always give good rates to celebrities.” Rock!
I have no idea when the segment will air, but it’ll air on Daryn’s show, MTV Live, sometime soon. I’ll post details as soon as I find out.
“I fuckin’ love Duran Duran!” he says, but in the video below (shot last night in Accordion City’s Koreatown neighbourhood), I’m actually playing Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole. Still, a compliment is a compliment…