Greg MacPherson Alun Piggins Myracle Brah BigMuff The Nice Outfit Gardens Faithful

In previous years, I've spent my nights deliriously venue-hopping across the city's club district with a schedule clenched in my fist and a head getting gradually fuzzier with booze, but a bum knee and a limited budget forced me to change my style for 2004. This year's approach would be different: instead of running from place to place to catch the bands with the biggest buzz, we set up camp in one club each night and took notes on what we saw. While this mixed-bag attack ensured we'd miss some of the more high-profile acts, like UK junglist Dillinja, singer/songwriter Sarah Harmer and Toronto's next-big-things Tangiers, we still discovered some new favorites, made some new friends and got more than enough rock for our modest buck (US $0.75).

After media check-in and some lengthy debate about the merits of the festival's accompanying workshops and panel discussions, Thursday night saw us at Healey's, an L-shaped basement bar at Queen and Bathurst owned by Canadian blues legend Jeff Healey. Thursday nights are usually reserved for the owner to tear down with some pals, but tonight the host had graciously stepped aside so the new kids could give it a go. When the night's first performer took the stage, we were, admittedly reconsidering our one-venue-per-night policy: one guy with a beat-up guitar who, according to the event program was "a singer/songwriter in the populist tradition of Woody Guthrie, Joe Strummer and Bruce Springsteen." The earnestness, we assumed, would be unbearable. Well, we were wrong. Winnipeg's Greg MacPherson, a G7 Welcoming Committee signee, proceeded to tear his heart out of his chest, slam it on the stage floor and stomp on it with a fiery fuzz-punk set of personal-political originals and the Clash's "Bank Robber Man", bashing at his duct-taped Danelectro with the fury of a man with nothing to lose and even less to gain. Forty minutes in and we'd already found a keeper.

Things bogged down a touch when Driveway, a new country-rock combo fronted by Jason Taylor of indie-rock also-rans MAdE, took over. They brought an impressive clutch of powerful-sounding tunes, but seemed distracted and listless between songs. Good, but not great. You can usually tell how compelling a band is live by how much of your drink is left over at the end of the set -- if they're good, you'll barely touch your beer. In this case, we were in need of a refill.

Calgary's Hot Little Rocket took over next and, although technically impressive and energetic, weren't really our cup of spit. They'd gone to the trouble of depositing custom-packaged rolls of sugar candy on each table, but their vicious, complex post-punk proved to be lesser than the sum of its parts. Great tidbits of about forty different songs were compressed haphazardly into six roaring chunks. A for effort, C for execution.

By this point, we were worriedly scouring the schedule, wondering if we could make it up to College to catch the tail-end of Bunchofuckingoofs at Sneaky Dee's, when Alun Piggins & The Quitters started to set up. Not wanting to abandon a freshly-poured beverage, we decided to stick it out see what these three odd-looking fellas (one of whom looked like Matthew Sweet on growth hormones) would do. Piggins has been a Toronto live-music mainstay for years, playing with folk-punk combo the Morganfields and jobbing as a producer and engineer for the Rheostatics and Blurtonia, but we'd somehow avoided seeing him until now. Shame on us. Piggins and his mates ripped up a furiously fun power-pop racket that incorporated a knuckle-shredding rendition of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" and a spot-on homoerotic Mötley Crüe homage dubbed "Ridin' the Hershey Highway". That freshly-poured beverage had been all but forgotten.

Sticking to our pre-ordained mandate, I hung around to catch punk-poppers Honeysuckle while Splendid's adopted photographer scampered up a few blocks to Rancho Relaxo for local rock 'n' roll trio Galore. Between sets, I decamped to a spot near the bar and overheard Kevin McDonald (of Kids in the Hall and OutKast's "Roses" video fame) chatting with Piggins about horses or whores or both. Honeysuckle's bratty mallpunk forced them to the back of the room, and after a few songs I gravitated there, too, before sprinting down Queen to catch the streetcar up to College. Galore awaited.

There was badness on the Red Rocket that night. Something had delayed the usually swift TTC service, so when I finally got to Rancho I figured I'd missed the band. To my surprise, Galore were just wrapping up, having been held up by THREAD, the new project from ex-Spoons frontman Gordon Deppe, who had run well over their allotted time. Interestingly, the usual trio of Barry Walsh (ex-Cool Blue Halo), Edward Pond (ex-The Conscience Pilate) and Tim Timleck (ex-practically everybody) had morphed into a CanRock supergroup with an additional axeman: bespectacled Pursuit of Happiness kingpin Moe Berg. With two (!) new albums in the pipe (one helmed by Berg, the other produced by Television's Richard Lloyd), Galore's set was predominantly new material, which went over extremely well with the enthusiastic, yet by that point, unfortunately THREADbare crowd. Our photographer reports that the set was a typically strong one, featuring taut, Noo Yawk-sharp performances showing off Galore's classic blend of superior songwriting, unfussy arrangements and charismatic vocals. Sadly, by the time I got there the originals were done and they were mopping up with a mashup-style take on the Velvets' "White Light/White Heat", dropping in fragments of other fun songs in A (tonight's selections: "Isolation" and "Love Vigilantes"). From there, it was off to the evening's final (and, at this point, most anticipated) stop: the blissful void of sleep.

Friday night involved less running and more sitting. Back at Healey's, we took in the Rainbow Quartz label showcase, starring Volebeats, Myracle Brah, the Waxwings and one of NXNE's most-anticipated acts, Detroit's Denise James. James came on at 10:00 p.m., strolling through the crowd with guitar in hand, and turned in a solid, if somewhat detached performance. Maybe it was nerves, but she left most of the talking to her backing band, some of whom did double-duty as Volebeats. From James's sweet jangle-pop, we moved into the good-timey pop/rock of Baltimore's Myracle Brah, a catchy guitar-pop trio with more sharp hooks than a bait shop. The crowd ballooned in size midway through opener Neil Traynor's set as the curious stopped in for James, but Myracle Brah's British Invasion-influenced indie-rock snared the lion's share of them. Detroit's Volebeats took over from there but struggled to match the energy of their labelmates, turning in a solid, workmanlike set that seemed a touch sluggish. No quarreling with those soaring country-rock stunners, though.

For whatever reason, the delay between the final two acts always seems to last a million years, especially when you've been parked on your keester for four hours. While the Waxwings set up, I braved the back washrooms behind the stage, nearly killing myself in the dim light in the process. With the unhealthy noises the fellow in the next stall was making, I'd never been so happy to hear a band soundcheck in my life.

That adventure over, the Waxwings took the stage and were immediately confronted by a blast of muddy sound. Fortunately, it was short-lived and the Detroiters recovered to turn in an impressive set. Their blend of time-honored classic-rock textures and anthemic choruses brought many (okay, maybe just one) a drunken patron to his feet to dance. This night's more unified roster of talent made for smooth transitions between acts, a rare feat in the often random mixed-bag approach of festival club shows. No anomalous Canadian celebrities in attendance tonight (but we saw Moe Berg again, and he counts), which is probably just as well: the action was on the stage, where it should have been.

Saturday night put us at Rancho Relaxo. The bar's long, narrow room and small stage have produced several great-sounding shows in the past, and tonight's entertainment was true to form, with some memorable hits and a few lamentable misses. With all the acts being relative unknowns, we played pretend A&R; sometimes you strike gold, other times you strike a buried power line and burn your extremities off. Tonight's lineup had equal measures of shock and awe.

BigMuff, a three-girl/two-boy post-grunge outfit from Victoria, BC, were first up. My companion immediately dubbed them "slut-rock", defining it thus: "Slut-rock is sexy and a little bit dirty, but not as morally bankrupt or filthy as sleaze-rock. You can date a slut-rock star, maybe even take her home to meet your parents, but you screw a sleaze-rocker in the backseat of the van after the show." Slut-rock it is, then. BigMuff's somewhat superfluous lead singer only sang for about three-quarters of the set, bouncing around in a too-tight vinyl bustier while the stronger-voiced guitar player took over vocal duties. They need a little work, but a semester at Spinal Tap's Bitch School would straighten them out right.

Milwaukee's The Nice Outfit came after and turned in a surprisingly flat, lifeless set. We tried to like them, but they steadfastly refused to hold up their end of the bargain. Road fatigue had robbed their interesting little tunes of much-needed vitality and they looked like they were in desperate need of a warm meal, a hot shower and a few weeks in bed. They left the stage to sparse applause from the largely indifferent crowd, who seemed put off that the band was interrupting their conversations. Often, the members of Team Splendid were the only ones clapping. (This was voluntary -- not a policy. -- Ed.)

Spirits lifted with a hometown secret: The Gardens Faithful, who shot the crowd full of glorious faded-Elton-John-1974-summer-tour-t-shirt-style pop and oodles of charm. With the grueling grind of the limited bass/guitar/drums indie band template starting to set in, TGF's keyboard heavy white-boy soul-rock was a refreshing change of pace. If Ben Folds had listened to more Steely Dan -- and maybe even a little KC and The Sunshine Band -- these boys would've been out of a job and our Saturday night would have been far less enjoyable.

We were actively dreading the fourth act on the bill, Toronto's Red Light Rippers. The Xeroxed pamphlet for this trash-rock foursome promised poor hygiene, poorer wardrobe choices and implied still-poorer trash-rock, but once again we proved ourselves to be pretentious, presumptuous jackasses. Despite some wholesale ogling of Splendid's photographer during a between-sets jaunt to the candy store, the Rippers gave us all the cheap thrills we could handle and then some, wrapping up the leftovers in a doggie bag for future consumption. Superbly trashy gutterpunk fun. We still feel a little dirty.

Sadly, our 16-bands-in-three-nights odyssey ended on a bum note with Vancouver's Lonesome Heroes, a bland bunch of overly-serious frat-rockers who, for reasons still unknown at press time, were the heavy crowd favorites. While technically skilled, their turgid and seemingly-endless set contained almost no soul or personality with most songs running together into a shapeless, samey mush. That said, the assembled masses (many of whom looked like they'd never been in a rock club before and sat on their hands for the two far-better preceding acts) ate this slop up and cheered for seconds. We, however, furtively checked our watches, grabbed our coats and made a break for the exit. That'll do. At 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning we'd had enough, but by Sunday afternoon, we were already missing it. Next year, babies, next year.

Tale of the tape: 16 bands, seven clear winners, three honorable mentions, three no-decisions, two major letdowns and one large pile of jam-based dung. And while we're talking numbers: $52 (CDN) in cab fare, 25 Kraft caramels, 14 beers (11 import, three domestic), a dozen blessed hours of sleep, four Jack-and-Cokes, three sketchy hot dogs, three packets of swag candy, two rolls of film, one ill-spent TTC token, 2,142 words and only nine months ‘til Canadian Music Week 2005 in March. God help us.

Article by Steve English. Photos by Kathleen Kidd.