The New Year approaches so it's that time again! Here is my music centric Top 9 of '09 list in chronological order. Jonny, Ryan and Duncan will be following with their own lists in the next few days.

- Kevin Parnell

Photo by Justin Cutler

Cloud Eye Control & Ammo Factory @ The Theatre Centre

Co-presented by Wavelength & Images Festival

The idea for this show was sparked over a year before it was finally realized, but all great things take time and planning and budgeting. Pablo, Jonny and I had discussed the possibility of presenting LA-based music/projection performance art ensemble Cloud Eye Control for a Wavelength/Images Festival co-presentation in 2008 but deadlines loomed too quickly and it was postponed a full calendar year. A whole year of anticipation could easily set someone up for dire disappointment but the entire night at the Images closing gala this past April was more awe inducing then we could’ve imagined.

Kindred spirits to Cloud Eye Control, local collective Ammo Factory unhinged the night by enveloping the audience into a musical Lynchian labyrinth that managed to be candid and heartfelt while recontextualizing film, theatre and a live concert setting that commented on music’s place in a media arts environment. With music by Toronto’s solo tickle trunk daredevil Matt Smith (aka NIFTY) and ingenious singer-songwriter and Deep Dark United frontman Alex Lukashevsky, the performance melded two brilliant and inventive musical minds with two of Toronto’s most uncompromising and provocative stage performers, Alex Wolfson and Liz Peterson. Mixing absurdist wit, soulful tautology and bewitching melodies, Ammo Factory smashed, built and smashed again the walls between performer and audience and stage and studio.

Following Ammo Factory would be a hard task for any seasoned performer but Cloud Eye Control had the luck of being guests in Toronto for a one-night-only Canadian premiere. That, and they had the entire room drooling to see their endlessly imaginative use of interactive projection-based set design. Having seen a sneak-peak during sound check I was already trying to wrap my mind around the visual salivation that was about to occur. Integrating pop music and live vocals, animation and puppetry and live theatre Cloud Eye Control took us on a surreal safari through three neon stories blending themes of science fiction, nostalgic escape and child-like curiosity. Each set piece grew more stunning as the stories unfolded and you could feel everyone in the audience having paroxysms of wonder as the room transformed from a rocket launching pad to a subterranean moonscape to an emergency room operating table to internal organs made of clockwork robotics to a bird’s eye view of a sleepy village and sleepless city, in which we the audience became constellations for the townsfolk below.

B.C. Scene Arts Festival in Ottawa

Presented by The National Arts Centre

Sure, presenting Wavelength shows is all volunteer work and simply out of a love for live music but I can’t pretend there isn’t sometimes extra perks, like a free record now and then, a guestlist here or there, and then very rarely a most-expenses-paid invite to a festival celebrating the various art scenes of British Columbia – in Ottawa.

Last April Ryan and I headed up to our country’s capital, a place I had never actually been. Our Porter flights were entirely paid for by the festival and we were given a room for three nights in a hotel filled with BC artists and arts workers from around the world. For four days we hopped from live concerts to experimental theatre to modern dance to art galleries all showcasing current artists based out of BC. As Wavelength reps we were primarily invited to check out music artists like Said The Whale, Hey Ocean!, Ladyhawk, Black Mountain and others, though we had already seen or even booked many of these artists back home. Even better than rock shows was being able to freely drop in on everything else, such as the multi-cultural/multi-lingual theatre experiment Bio Boxes, Crystal Pite’s Kid Pivot ensemble’s new genre smashing modern dance spectacle, audience provoking performance lecture Assembly and Brazilian guitar virtuoso Celso Machado.

With free cab chits we dashed around from dark rock clubs to churches and libraries to giant performance halls at the NAC. But best of all was everything in-between the events: the random lunches, brunches and coffees and drinks with cultural and arts workers from all across Canada and the rest of the world. It was such a unique opportunity to exchange views and share what we love about Toronto artists and learn about artists working in various U.S. cities, Helsinki, Macau, Tokyo and elsewhere. We palled around with a few new international friends to a few patios as well as ducking out of festival events to just wander around and see some the city itself.

With some new contacts in hand and potential artists to program back in Toronto the festival sent us home with a renewed appreciation for our country’s artists and arts workers around the world.

Do Make Say Think & Final Fantasy & Robert Lippok live score Tales of The Uncanny @ Yonge & Dundas Square

Presented by Luminato Festival

It was cold and pouring rain and I had just worked fourteen hours as a background extra on the Scott Pilgrim film, but damn it I was determined to enjoy this show. Some of my favourite musicians live scoring a fantastic silent German horror film from 1919? How could it be anything but incredible? It couldn’t; that’s the answer.

Despite the sheets of rain and wall of umbrellas the performance was absolutely captivating. Comprising a few short films each artist took turns leading the mostly improvised score to the tales, with each artist bringing their own signatures to the soundtrack, creating moods that truly brought out the films qualities of supernatural doom, gallows humour and haunting dread. From the blips and creaks of Lippok’s gadgets, to the spine-tingling scrape of Pallett’s strings and his nervous tippy-toeing pizzicato to the creeping crescendo interlock of Do Make Say Think’s guitars, drums and horns, the musicians brought the films alive in one of the best instances I’ve ever seen of live musicians creating a new score to an old film.

It takes a keen eye and ear to re-score a film and to not just play to what you see on the screen, but to really get under the film’s skin and bring out its inherent qualities and use the music to propel the story and develop the characters. The musicians met this challenge with utter aplomb while being beaten with windy rain and florescent billboards.

Bite Your Tongue 1 @ The Guildwood Inn

Presented by Bite Your Tongue

Building on the work they’ve accomplished with their Extermination Music Night events, Matt and Dan of Bite Your Tongue set out to try something a little different (and legal) but with keeping the same general principles of making a show an adventure, stressing the importance of the physical environment to the music being performed and incorporating visual artists as key elements of the events.

Funded in part by the Toronto Arts Council, of which I am a current committee member, it was great to see an event that I had read about on paper months earlier leap off the grant application page and be such a success. Purchasing a ticket got you a small card with barely any event details but a message to trade in your card on the appropriate date for the event program and map. When a map is involved to get to a secret location you know you’re in for a unique time. The real program guide was a beautifully minimalist designed pamphlet that unfolded into a poster and contained wonderfully zany fake biographies of the performers and directions to the show, revealed to be the Guildwood Inn park grounds.

If you’ve never been to the Guildwood Inn you really should venture out there. It’s an enchanting area full of trees and the salvaged building facades of Toronto’s past. Giant stone pillars and arches scatter out among trees and manicured lawns and as you walk around you’re transported into historic Toronto as though imagined by Tolkien. Among the ruins were situated two large boulders that if glimpsed at the right moment astonished you by rising on two legs and quickly settling in a new patch of grass. At once like a Monty Python sketch and yet surprisingly much more eerie and sinister, it incorporated installation art seamlessly and contextually to the territory.

As the audience trickled in off public transportation or on bikes they were greeted by the sound design of Carl Didur performing solo on the edge of the bluffs overlooking the water. Lounging on the grass the surrounding forest enveloped the audience as the sun began to dip.

Second to perform was Wyrd Visions whose meditative rhythms beat the remaining sunlight out and coaxed the moon up from its murky depths. Never have I heard Wyrd Visions sound so hypnotizing, foreboding and in perfect symmetry with its realm. As an example of the importance of the physical environment on a performer Wyrd Visions set against the Guildwood Inn pillars and the din of surrounding night forest was unrivaled.

The backdrop ambience again worked in favour of the Huckleberry Friends whose songs were brought to new commanding and terrifying levels. As though three Shakespearian witches the three Huckleberry Friends turned the stage into a cauldron boiling with masticating desire and portent. Their chants and churning drums and snaky guitar lines blackened the night and seduced the audience into a binding spell.

Rioting up the night were out-of-towners Gowns who, with their squelching guitars and electronics and intimately squirming lyrics, broke as many hearts as they plundered and pummeled.

While experimenting with legal venues and permits may allow access to funding and better promotion, it also presents new limitations, mainly sound and venue curfews. Closing the night was Final Fantasy, who should’ve also been right at home against such a fantastical setting, but hampered by technical glitches and an impeding curfew counted down by the nearby park ranger cut Owen’s set quite short. Though what we did briefly get included some new songs and a shining cover of The Blankket’s “Independence Is No Solution”. Even Owen’s shortened set couldn’t dispel the night’s grandeur and slowly the audience spilled out for the journey back home.

The Ex w/ Getatchew Mukuria @ The Polish Combatant’s Hall

Presented by Wavelength

This was another show of ours that had been percolating for over a year after Jonny had gone down to seen Getatchew and The Ex in New York. I had seen the Ex twice before and knew how incredible they were live so I could only imagine them sharing the stage with Ethiopia’s sax legend Getatchew Mukuria, whom I was introduced to a year earlier by Bite Your Tongue’s Matthew McDonough. A year later after drooling over the thought of bringing the ensemble to Toronto for their Canadian premiere it was actually happening. Major kudos must be given to Jonny who did the majority of work in presenting this show as well as kudos to our audiences who welcomed the group and packed the hall for two nights of their genre-fusing performances.

In the middle of a stint at the Toronto International Film Festival the ebullient aura of the nights were rejuvenating for me after long days filled with masses of cinephiles. With Daniel Nebiat and Canaille both setting the dance filled nature of each night Getatchew and The Ex won over every person in the crowd with their very first note and called on every pair of feet to dance in a celebration of, simply, life. With punked out skragly guitar riffs or flirtatious lines of jazzy horns or a full ensemble assault of pure bliss there was something to make anyone get up and shake their bones.

The two nights went by and we could’ve easily watched and danced to another week of shows with Getatchew and The Ex. A milestone presentation for Wavelength it was also a phenomenal and kindred performance by legendary musicians who have been doing it their entire lives simply for the love of music.

The Garrison / Wavelength venue change

In the late summer previous Sneaky Dee’s booker and Wavelength friend Shaun Bowring called us to visit the future home of his new and first personally-co-owned music venue. At the time the unnamed space was still a run-down Portuguese sports bar, complete with billiard tables, faux-tropical themed bar, a basket of free condoms and multiple TV screens mounted around the room. But despite the décor under Shaun’s new care the place oozed potential. As he toured us around describing his plans our minds raced at how we could present shows there, whether Wavelength events or not.

Since Wavelength’s inception the series has always been about building the music community and constantly looking forward with innovative programming. It’s survived multiple venue changes and grown stronger for them. So as we began to wind up the weekly Sunday night series and look forward to the changes 2010 will bring to Wavelength it became a good time to shake things up at the core with the weekly series. When Shaun’s invite came to the newly christened Garrison it was an offer too tempting to refuse. Though not an easy choice to make, it felt like the right one and October saw our weekly series set up shop in untested waters.

Show upon show The Garrison has developed itself since opening in October and will continue to find its identity as a premier live music venue but since it’s very first day The Garrison has had that intrinsic quality that is at the core of the music community – it feels like home. Our weekly Wavelength series hasn’t changed and we’ve encountered new stumbling blocks in the new space while no longer facing the hiccups of previous spaces. Our audience has neither increased nor diminished and remains in constant flux as it has over the last few years.

But we shouldn’t make presumptions about The Garrison. At its basic core it’s a small business and must make money to survive; it has to sell drinks. Wavelength isn’t a moneymaker for anyone, not us, not the bands, not the venues. It was never intended to be. And much of Toronto’s music community operates in the same vein: presenting and attending shows that celebrate the people involved, the people doing the work, making the music, designing the record art, promoting the shows, and those simply showing up to listen. Everyone is important. The Garrison recognizes this, the community’s foundation, and that welcoming and fostering it results in a stronger community.

Every new business faces immense challenges in its first year and The Garrison is no different, but with the community embraced and cozy under its roof it won’t be alone in the struggle.

ALL CAPS! On The Island @ The Artscape Gibraltar Point

Presented by Wavelength

Not meaning to be self-congratulatory but three of my top nine events are Wavelength presentations and I have to admit that in our tenth year we’ve found incredible success with our special presentations and revitalized interest in what’s possible for presenting live music.

Invented by Ryan McLaren, the ALL CAPS! brand of all-ages shows was folded into Wavelength in 2008 but to weather-beaten results. Meant to be an all day outdoor family-friendly event the show was forced indoors at a postponed date and never quite recovered or captured the essential spirit of Ryan’s vision. Attempting to reclaim that spirit this past summer the ALL CAPS! event was planned to be a Toronto Island summer bash but was again thwarted, this time by an unfortunate citywide strike. Postponed once more, the show was finally rescheduled for an October farewell to summer fundraiser for the Artscape Gibraltar Point centre. No longer an outdoor event, the showcase was moved into the cozy communal room of the centre and with everyone banding together Ryan’s vision was fully realized and celebrated by a community of musicians, artists, families and friends.

Much respect must be given to Ryan who presided over months of changes and complications and hitches required to present this show. But the amount of work was entirely worth it and was an adventure for us organizers, from driving the backline and gear from downtown onto the ferry and across the island to camping out in the artist resident rooms over night and seeking out a greasy breakfast at the Yacht Club on a warm October morning.

With Artscape providing food and drinks the audience was treated to nine different performers from the likes of the snug and warm melodies of Snowblink and Carmen Elle to the introspective and haunting songs of Brian Borcherdt to the raucous and dance-cajoling vibes of Times Neue Roman and Sun Ra Ra Ra and a brief apt interlude by Ghostlight outdoors at the island’s haunted lighthouse.

As the event came to a close we were lucky enough to be invited to stay the night in the centre and hung out into the late/early hours with Artscape organizers and resident artists. As a fundraiser for the centre the event was a great success and as an ALL CAPS! all-ages family friendly party the event was more than we could’ve hoped for after months of setbacks.

Nagata Shachu @ The Al Green Theatre

Seeing Nagata Shachu twice now has been a great perk of being a volunteer committee member of the Toronto Arts Council. I know little of the history of Taiko drumming but seeing it expertly performed live is a stunning and moving experience and I think you’d be hard pressed to find any ensemble more adept at showcasing the intricate and powerful rhythms that can be hammered out of those Japanese barrel drums than Nagata Schachu.

Just witnessing the sheer physicality and toned bodies of the performers is enough to realize that Taiko drumming is more than just music - it’s a way of living. To play and excel at Taiko requires more than just practicing an instrument; it requires utmost dedication to training your musical senses as much as your muscles. It demands patience and concentration and an impeccably controlled outburst of passion filtered through the drums heart-stopping vibrations. As much as we at Wavelength present genre-crossing bands and ensembles nothing we’ve done has come close to venturing near the majesty and liturgical sensibility of a Nagata Shachu performance. To many it may seem too formalized, too restrictive in its tradition and bare solemn presentation, but it’s key to entering the world of Taiko: the performers are vessels unto the drums and the stage a place of worship.

Though Nagata Shachu are also kindred to many Wavelengthy bands in that, while steeped in tradition, they are constant innovators and continuously compose new suites of music to push Taiko drumming and themselves to new and modern heights. Each year Nagata Shachu premiere a number of new pieces that have been developed and tuned with precision over the previous year, expanding their repertoire and, I can only imagine, their hours of physical training and aerobics.

While I’m thrilled to see many bands a number of times in a year, Nagata Schachu requires only one night every 365 days to be fulfilling and provide such substance to reflect back on for the coming months of the calendar.

“Other Truths” by Do Make Say Think

Do Make Say Think are my favourite Toronto band. Since hearing them live at my first Wavelength in 2001 at Ted’s Wrecking Yard I’ve been enthralled with their music and every record they release finds new ways to charm and dazzle. Early in 2009 Do Make guitarist Justin Small mentioned that they had been working on and recording a lot of new tracks that had even the band members perplexed at times. It was a long wait until this fall to discover exactly what he was talking about with the release of “Other Truths”. I’ve read in a few reviews that “Other Truths” feels like the bands swan song and who knows, after fifteen years together maybe it will be or maybe they’ll go on to write more incredible musical suites. If this record proves to be their last it’ll be fitting as “Other Truths” encapsulates everything they’ve done since their self-titled debut, all their experiments and moments of quietude and moments of soul-searing bombast.

Many primarily instrumental bands fall into a cinematic discernment, which essentially leaves the listener still wanting; they fail to tell a complete story in their music and only approach a mood and tone. Do Make Say Think have never had this problem. While not entirely realized on their debut, since Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead, each DMST record and even individual song tells a story packed with conflict and emotional resonance. The listener journeys along with the protagonist as they discover worlds around them and worlds within. If DMST are to be described as cinematic it is only in that their music presents a complete picture without needing a visual accompaniment for further elucidation. Their most recent and sixth record is no exception.

“Other Truths” manages to be both introspective and reflective and brazenly innovative and inciting. It wastes no time immersing you into the Do Make world and shuttles you through three stirring movements at a blood-racing pace before the fourth closing track gently comes to a rest. It is a record of great maturity but one that wholly understands and appreciates without hesitation the youth that preceded it. “Other Truths” comes from a band that can look back at the past decade and celebrate its accomplishments, its missteps, its luck and its endless labor. This record comes from a band that has long abandoned youthful presumptions of fortune and fame, a band that has weathered countless treks across the globe and tireless studio nights, a band that has realized that it’s not even the music itself that matters, but that the ‘other truth’, the honest truth is that what matters most is with whom you make the music. That bond between the members of Do Make Say Think can be heard on every note of “Other Truths” and it fills the listener with a staggering amount of hope and faith in oneself and the people we choose to surround us.

Honourable Mentions

Wavelength 450 Festival

The Happiness Project @ The Music Gallery

Being a background extra on Scott Pilgrim in set designed like the old Rockit club

Danger Bay & Boars premier @ The Music Gallery

TuNeYaRdS & Dirty Projectors @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Bruce Peninsula, The Gertrudes, Ghost Bees @ The Music Gallery

Do Make Say Think @ The Enwave Theatre