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“Band + Poetry” Happy Hours

Our Happy Hour series “Band + Poetry” Happy Hours is for devotees of what’s happening in contemporary music. The free, accessible shows let us introduce new voices and take chances. And this year, quite frankly, we’ve outdone ourselves. Sometimes it’s the band that invites the poet. Sometimes it’s the poets who find a band they like. Either way, it’s always fresh and original. Come out to discover these emerging bands at the brand new Casa, right next door to the old one (still standing). It’s a little bigger, which is good: last year, some groups mobilized record numbers of fans and we had nowhere to put them.

February 5

5:00 pm

Bernard Adamus

Bernard Adamus with Séba, Benoît Paradis and MH MH MH.

Free admission

In French. Another genuine original this year is Bernard Adamus with guests Séba, Benoît Paradis and MH MH MH. Bernard Adamus is a singer-songwriter, originally from Poland, and his low-down dirty blues sung in French wins him new fans every time he performs, whether in clubs or competitions. Séba is an old hand at the FVA, where he took some baby steps before blowing us away with his incisive lyrics and explosive stage presence. We discovered happyelectro indie MH MH MH stirring up the beat in her superb duo Rue Ontario with Bernard. And the very funny, versatile (acrobatic, you might even say) Benoît Paradis brings a playful jazz touch to it all.

February 6

5:00 pm

Dynamo Coleoptera

Dynamo Coleoptera: Maya Kuroki, François Girouard.

Guest poet: Ian Christopher Goodman.

Tomomi Morimoto, dance

Free admission

In English. A power duo featuring Maya Kuroki on electric guitar, vocals, keyboards and theatrical performance and François Girouard on drums (he also manages just fine on keyboards, electric bass, percussion and musical saw). Joining them in concert will be dancer and performer Tomomi Morimoto. But it’s not your classic concert act. Their shows belong more to the realm of multidisciplinarity. Dynamo Coleoptera defines its music as experimental pop-rock in Japanese. Words and melodies transport you to a world breathing with lyricism and surrealist dreams. Their guest will be poet (Bhagavad Goalie) and respectful bicycle gardener Ian Christopher Goodman.

February 7

5:00 pm

Chinatown

Chinatown in an intimate version of Pierre-Alain Faucon and Félix Dyotte.

With the collective Maman Lion: Daniel Leblanc-Poirier, Virginie Beauregard D and Shawn Cotton.

Free admission

In French. Chinatown for a small room features Pierre-Alain Faucon and Félix Dyotte, the group’s pioneers and lead writers. It’s an imagistic musical fantasy show that is bright and hummable. Their first album, Cité d’or, evoked a perfect world, an ideal city rife with the promise of unfulfilled dreams. From there, it’s been a flow to romantic pop, Tarantino-style spaghetti western, moody ballads and pop grooves. Sharing their pared-down poetry and cinematic universe, will be the terrifying collective Maman Lion featuring poets Daniel Leblanc-Poirier, Shawn Cotton and Virginie Beauregard D.

February 8

5:00 pm

Music for Money

In French. “We can’t all be Émile Nelligan!” Who among us does not have, under a pile of dusty school notebooks, at least one lovelorn poem or a page from a teenage diary? Ten poets read from the things they were writing as callow youth. Nostalgic, intense, sincere, awkward, self-deprecating… We promise you, any notion you may have cherished that all great poets are born that way will be joyously dismantled. You’ll see that even published authors began with some pretty awful stuff scrawled in the margins of their Canada-brand scribblers. Accompaniment: Music for Money.

February 9

5:00 pm

Passagères

Free admission

In French. Les Filles Électriques, in partnership with Planète Rebelle publishers, invites you to the launch of Passagères: Voix de changement, an audio book featuring the voices of women who have spent time at Passages, a shelter and community resource for women at risk, ages 18 to 30. More than forty women contributed to the anthology including residents, ex-residents and caregivers. Their voices are raw, vulnerable and authentic. These poems and short prose pieces lift the veil on lives that too often remain in the shadows. These are women saying, I love life! Come out to be touched and to celebrate.

www.passageres.com

February 10

5:00 pm

Krista Muir

Krista Muir (the former Lederhosen Lucil) performs her travelling songs along with Toronto poet and friend Mónica Rosas (La Loba).

Free admission

In English. She intrigued us for nine years as the Tyrolean madcap Lederhosen Lucil. Then she fell in love with the baritone ukulele, composing the numbers on her albums Leave Alight and more recently Accidental Railway, about an imaginary city inspired by her travels to Greece, France and Texas. But Krista is also a lovable fixture in the always welcoming Montreal underground. “It all started when I was three and broke the ivory keys on my father’s piano with a glockenspiel mallet.” On her latest CD, she supplies recipes and scores arranged for ukulele so we can all play and sing along. Her guest is her friend and poet from Toronto, Mónica Rosas, known also as La Loba.

February 11

5:00 pm

Les Sirènes

In French. Beware the power of the siren song, all sailors who venture near: your ship will surely break up and be lost on the reef. What brings these girls together is Heartbreak. Marie Davidson, Alice Tougas St-Jak and Géraldine Bureau use the lure of echo, reverb and feedback to bewitch. Bits of improv thrumming with the tension between melody and pure noise. Combining prepared instruments, vocal tweeking and entirely feminist rage, they create an ambient cinematic experience that is both ethereal and unruly. For the brave only, prepare to be hypnotized. With guest poets Olivier Gourde, Shawn Cotton, Damien Blass and Jean-Philippe Tremblay.

February 12

5:00 pm

Atréal

Atréal: Charles F Picot, Denis Ferland, in collaboration with the poet Fredric Gary Comeau.

Free admission

In French. The band Atréal was formed in 2004 by guitarist-composer Charles F Picot in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Denis Ferland. Stepping out of his solo career for a moment, singer-songwriter Fredric Gary Comeau contributes his deep vocal tones and writing talent to the adventure. Atréal marries sung poetry and spoken word with sensual atmospheric rock and the result is a magnetic universe that leaves audiences soaring. The “Northern Winter” showis arctic cold and the warmth that comes from the heart.