When we think of a summer festival, many images come to mind. Sunstroke. Crappy food. Dehydration. Too many bands that sound the same. The stage is too far away. At least a $40 ticket. No one you know is on the stage.
In 2004 and 2005, a cabal of indie rockers from the small town of Guelph, decided to change that. They threw a day-long festival at the rural farm belonging to one of their parents, and invited many of Toronto's most exciting underground artists to perform, along with their own posse of Guelph upstarts.
Over 400 people showed up. They cooked together. They camped together. They played badminton and soccer together. It was summer camp all over again. Guelph was proud. Toronto hipsters discovered nature. And the music was a magical amalgam of insane punk rock, throbbing gay electro, out-of-control free jazz, fragile folk pop, singer/songwriters, and campfire folk.
No wonder the cops who showed up to shut it down thought the whole thing was some kind of weird cult.
This year, the organizers-who play in one of Toronto's most underrated bands, We're Marching On, decided that the festival had become too big. It was time to share the love. So instead of one day at one location, the Living Room Festival was born: four weekends in four towns, at a variety of venues ranging from bars to backyards, from farms to fields, from galleries to alleyways.
Everything started a few weeks ago at the scene of last year's crime, Tantramar Farm, just outside Guelph. Things were purposely scaled down to avoid last year's crowds, and the highlight was melodictronica specialist I Am Robot and Proud performing with a live band, which included Simon Osborne of Royal City.
Last weekend things kicked off in Brantford, where Steve Kado of Blocks Recording Club kicked things off playing on a grassy hill by the side of the highway, with the help of an FM transmitter and boom boxes for backing tracks. From there, everyone marched together to The Ford Plant, the gallery venue that has brought a vital shot of hope to this depressed Ontario town in the last few years. There, Bahai Cassette, Think About Life and Kids on TV initiated the sweatiest, sexiest dance party of the year, complete with a torrential downpour to top it off that had patrons puddle-jumping when the party spilled out into the street.
The next day, the shindig moved to Waterloo, where everything took place in a beautiful old mill by the river. The eclectic line-up included Toronto's confrontational noise rockers No Dynamics, Montreal's warm and cuddly electro-poppers Telefauna, Waterloo improv band I Have Eaten the City, recent Warp Records signees Born Ruffians, and Casey Mejica of Ohbijou playing solo. Even the turtles were getting down.
Everything finishes this weekend in Guelph, starting tonight at the Ebar with Ohbijou and Vancouver's Collapsing Opposites. Tomorrow (Friday) is a house show with Pyramid Culture (featuring ex-members of Republic of Safety and Barcelona Pavilion), Bocce (featuring Waterloo's Living Room organizer B. Ong), and something mysterious called Superbandplus. Saturday afternoon is a backyard show near a river and in the trees, featuring the gorgeous kalimba sci-fi folk of Toronto's Laura Barrett, Guelph's alt-country Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy, and Burnt Oak impresario Chris Yang. Saturday night things move indoors to the beautiful Guelph Youth Music Centre for the vaudevillian antics of Brampton's Friendly Rich and the Lollipop People, longtime DIY agitator Bob Wiseman, and Sandro Perri of sub-aquatic electronic acts Polmo Polpo and Glissandro 70 discovering his inner solo singer/songwriter.
And if that wasn't enough, it wraps up with a pancake breakfast and another backyard show, this one featuring the drowsy folk of Matias (ex-Hidden Camera, current Phoneme), the perverse piano stylings of Mantler, and Guelph's Richard Laviolette.
What would you pay for a weekend of non-stop musical action, idyllic settings and social interaction? $15 for a weekend pass. That probably includes pancakes.
Never heard of any of these artists, you say? Fear not, you will soon enough. This is the kind of event that will by mythologized in a decade after these people rewrite the rules of Canadian music.
If your summer has already become too predictable, take the money you were going to spend on that big ClearChannel concert and head to Guelph this weekend instead. You won't regret it.
Here's a sampling of some of the artists playing at this year's Living Room Festival:
:: Tune in Friday night (July 21) @ 10:30 pm EST / 7:30 pm PST on CBC Radio 3 Sirius Satellite Channel 94 when Michael Barclay calls in to Lauren Burrows show to give us a live report from the Living Room Festival.
Photo by Owen Cherry
