~now u~ vou~ ~TACHE1 Music previews Cahoone drewonColorado memories for sadsongs ~ THE YOSEMITE SAA\Student protests provided A palpable sense of longing ~ THE i\\AQIO Lewis withPotsimpetusA. V permeates Sera Cahoone's Deer 1 ... ••• = ••• t he••• ..1 1 ··: :::. .. . ..... ii ••••••• ::: :::::• ::: ... ::: .-.THE COP ~i\\USTACHIO NOV I • 30 ,.-, THEWALl!US Creek Canyon, this coming through even before you know anything about Vin a minute you'll know more the inspiration for the album's name. about George E. Lewis's Pots than Consider the title track, where the musicians who are scheduled to Seattle-based songwriter sings "Deer iGNl'TE THE COWBOY the perform it next week. Creek Canyon is where I am from/ .- .... CONNOISSEUQ"I didn't really know if I wanted And it's where you are still/For all the 1--.,.,;1:-,,. to get into this, but I guess I might love I have here I needed to be on my as well," says the Chicago-via-Man- own/My brother and my sister both SAVE UPTO~ VIKIN~ hattan trombonist, composer, and left and now they've gone back home." historian, on the line from his New Ultimately, Deer Creek Canyon York City home. seems like the work of someone wistAnd what he's initially reluctant fully wishing they were somewhere to reveal is that his new long-form else. That isn't that far from the truth, composition has both a Canadian even though Cahoone makes a point 1%ofprofits gotoMovember Campaignconnection and an explicitly pol- of noting that she loves her adopted ~ (1 olfoum6e, itical subtext. On the surface, it's home of Seattle. It's just that there are just the latest in a line of import- times when she finds herself thinking '-" ant pieces originally written for of Colorado, where she was raised, such Vancouver ensembles as the and where most of her family still 778-786-0977109 WCordova ignitesmokeshop.ca NOW Orchestra and the Turning lives. That seeped into the writing. Point Ensemble. But the idea be"A lot of this record, I was homehind it wafted in through Lewis's sick," Cahoone admits, calling the hotel-room window during a visit to Straight from a Colorado gas-station Montreal last May. pit stop on her current tour. "1bat "Every day and every night, really came through in the songs, they had demonstrations at ran- even if the songs aren't always about dom times," he recalls of Quebec's me and how I'm feeling." student-led Maple Spring protests. While she tends to work on materi"You'd be having dinner, and a al 12 months of the year, the 38-yeargroup of people would come out old confesses that there times when banging pots or whatever they were the gloomy Pacific Northwest indoing .... The funny thing was, I spires her more than others. had a pretty good-quality digital "When it's dark and rainy, and recorder with me. So I recorded you're inside and bummed out all hours of that material-and, in the time, it definitely does help the a way, the piece is based on those writing," she says with a laugh. "But field recordings." even though I like Seattle, I have to Lewis recalls being knocked out say that I can have a hard time with by some of the spontaneous beats the rain. Being from Colorado, kicked up by the kitchenware- it doesn't rain a lot there. Seattle wielding protesters. "You hear some has definitely taken some getting sophisticated stuff in those field used to-the winters can be a little recordings, like pretty competent tough for sure." Sunday C:oncert Series sambas and march-time rhythmsNo surprise, then, that Deer Creek No Cover,12 -4 pm stuff that you wouldn't want to have Canyon is the kind of record you're Nov 25: HenryYoungw/ Joani Taylor a band just playing along with. So often tempted to file under melanfo1 bookings contact I tried to make a piece that would choly. Cahoone certainly knows patspub,·ancouver@grna1l.com be open, that would allow the band how to play things slow, pretty, and to play itself and not get entrained dreamy, as evidenced by the pedal to the electronics. Often you find steel-swept folk of "Worry All Your that the electronics tend to take Life" and the codeine alt-country of over and then they're like the star, "Here With Me". But she's also not but I just wanted to have a more afraid to push the boundaries of fluid situation." Americana, dragging her inner soul 'The funny thing is that, at press sister onto the dance floor for "And time, Lewis had yet to tell this to Still We Move" and drifting into Orkestra Futura bandleader and chamber-pop territory with "One to saxophonist Coat Cooke, who had Blame", which is dressed up, quite commissioned the piece for the gorgeously, with mournful strings. D New Orchestra Workshop Society's If all this sounds like the work of a 35th-anniversary celebrations. Not musician who's not interested in stickD that Cooke and the other players ing to one musical template, that's would mind: both Orkestra Fu- no accident. Even though she came tura and its earlier incarnation, the to the game of performing solo late, NOW Orchestra, make the kind of Cahoone has an impressive resume radical music that goes well with as a musician, having done time beradical politics. And in any case, hind the kit in Seattle indie-rock unit both parties are in some ways work- Carissa's Wierd and in the folksy Band ing blind: Lewis's first real exposure of Horses. Making the move from the to Orkestra Futura will come next drums to the front of the stage was, Friday '(November 23), when Pots the musician admits, difficult. will get its premiere as part of the "It was a pretty tough transition," Hear It NOW festival. Cahoone says. 'Tm actually a pretty He is intimately familiar with shy, awkward person, so it took me a the Vancouver arts scene, however. really long time to get comfortable In addition to working with many with people hearing what I'm saylocal musicians, he's maintained ing. But I guess it's also really helped a long relationship with the. West- me to not be as shy and awkward as ern Front artist-run centre, and I used to be." has collaborated on interdisciplinThis brings us, in a roundabout ary projects with Vancouver-based way, back to the title of her third revisual artists Stan Douglas and cord. Not only is Cahoone now okay Eric Metcalfe. with standing up in front of the Like his own adopted hometown, world on-stage, she's also okay with our city benefits from "a continuous sharing her inner musings with perrenewal of artistic energy," Lewis fect strangers. Like, for example, says, adding that the local creative- the way that Deer Creek Canyon isn't music community is as much a part some pretty-sounding place she disof that as our better-known paint- covered on Google Maps. ers, photographers, and novelists. "That song is about my mom"The continuing vitality and fe- she lives up on a place called Deer cundity of the Vancouver scene has Creek Canyon," Cahoone says. had this worldwide impact-and, "And it's about missing home again. for me, NOW is one of its crucial Deer Creek Canyon is a really parts. I find that if you take anY' amazing place that's always been part of it away it starts to become really special to me. There are all somehow less vital-but, luckily, sorts of memories attached to it. you don't have to do that." Like the time I got high for the first > ALEXANDER VARTY time and it was really awful-funny things like that." Ill .:-:UH :iH!H:. :i!!!!! =:= .:::· ::: ·r:·= :.: ::::::: :s:::: ::::. ::: ::::-••·:::• ::: •::::. •:::: :::-•11. ::: •••••• Ill HI:=: !!I:::: =u:r:u· r:1 iii ::s:r 11= ~ ::: ::: .. ...... ....... .......... . from previous page A. It's not exactly a secret, but I\ S0%0FF • J.■v.•JtQte-.-" T1flj}illj}illD~ j}~lJ} W1TH SPEC~ GUEST 'BATTLE BORN' December3 PACIFICCOLISEUM BUY TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW t.~~.EnRTIOOco~ AT ~1 CHAfl6£If PHO!([1•155-915--,oQG. nears Al.SQAVAll..ABlf ATTICllEltEADEJI.CA ANDWT,.hw Ila Dlffats: •119ttn cntom111 - ID lo IIOGERSCDM/WIOM Tnt 'TIClETI' Ill 4Ui, AOtlll "'11""' HrriCI m,,u. Alillale1,ldl1Hllchl,rkaso'JKIID~wilbcululla./4ftrfflc~wlllHadfllklAdlllcul. ~~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~ Hear It NOW takes place at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from next Thursday to Saturday (November 22 to 24). 56 THEGEORGIASTRAIGHTNOVEMBER 15 - 22 / 2012 > MIKE USINGER Sera Cahoone plays the Media Club on Saturday (November 17).