I think I'm aging in reverse this holiday. I started with a trip down to Virginia to see my wife's grandparents. Then through Bingamton where we hung out with her cousins with 3 kids each and then back to our house and one-cat. For presents, I got a robe, a book, and a couch for Christmas and then Guitar Hero 3 for my birthday. And then I did some circus themed shows - so I'm feeling all young at heart...
The first show wasn't actually Circus themed, but was at a small club called "Bread & Circus" in Toronto's Kensington market. Jeff Straker, a good friend of mine, invited me to play a round robin night with him and Grant Tilly - a singer/songwriter I'd heard a fair bit about around town.
Bread & Circus is a tiny bar buried (It's address is actually 193 1/2) in Kensington market - one of my favourite places to play. The bar is about 8 feet wide but about 50 feet long, so when you're on stage you'e facing about 2 people - and everyone else is either to your right or left - so you feel a little like an oscillating fan. Still, it's a warm, great place, and the mural on the facing wall gives you the feeling that you're in an opera house (with a kangaroo), so it's all good.
Jeff is a good friend and amazingly talented, but occasionally we haven't completely gelled onstage - he plays big, gay piano music and I... don't. But tonight - maybe it was Grant, who has a similar style to mine - we all just fused into this funny little, awesome threesome. Totally fun.
Jeff had billed the night as "The Three Guys" - finding common ground only in our gender and non-opera singer status. But we actually all came from the prairies, all had theatre backgrounds, and all made the crowd laugh a fair bit.
Anyway - a sweet, fun night with a great audience of opera singers, theatre people, gay men, and wonderful sing-a-longers. I debuted a new song called "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding" which went overly nicely. And a friend of mine, Dave, also occasionally known as Sketchy the Clown invited me to guest at the Zero Gravity Circus' "Lunacy Cabaret" on Saturday. Which is where the actual circus part comes in...
The Zero Gravity Circus is an actual cricus troupe that operates out of Toronto (who knew?) in a cool old theatre/warehouse place called "The Centre of Gravity." They are made up of clowns, acrobats, musicians, and boufans (who are dirty, rude clowns - and lovely people underneath). The last time I played with them, I played "Winter Wonderland" for their xmas show, so I knew sort of what the show would be like, but at the same time, had no idea what to expect. The show would include: incredible acrobatics, dancing, music, and likely a lot of swearing, curse, bodily fluids, disgusting skits... and me. Good family fun.
The show started with "Siegfried and Roy: The reunion" and ended with "9/11: The Musical." It transitioned through bizarre clown drinking, cowboys singing about milk (and then pouring it on themselves), a banjo player made of groan-inducing jokes, and a magician who swallowed swords. I played Jetpack and Guilt TripSong which went over great (video to be uploaded soon hopefully...). Afterwards, Dave's wife June told him,"see, they loved him - and he didn't even mention bodily fluids." Dave responded that he could be just like me - but WITH bodily fluids - even better!!!
