Emergence Exposition Opus 01

A few days before the show, I found out that Krista and Shane were play­ing a small venue in town. Usually I make it a point to see an artist just once in my life, but last time was dif­fer­ent; I was expect­ing Lederhosen Lucil, but was treated to an entirely dif­fer­ent and unfa­mil­iar sound. This time, it was my chance to see Krista and Shane per­form after becom­ing famil­iar with the songs. Turns out the venue was in un petit salon des arts. This place boasted a mix­ture of dif­fer­ent art­forms; music, metal sculp­tures, pho­tographs, paint­ings, and graphic poems.

I didn’t really feel like going out that night, but I forced myself to go, remind­ing myself that I could say the same thing any other night and I’d never get anywhere.

When I arrived, the Salon was to capac­ity. I couldn’t even get in the entrance; there were peo­ple phys­i­cally block­ing the door. My chance to get in came after a few had made room by leav­ing, then I saw a path up the stairs and took it.

Enter six degrees of sep­a­ra­tion.

With the metal sculp­tures and graphic art poems upstairs was Nisha, who was the pho­tog­ra­pher for Pat and Jen’s wed­ding. We spoke for a bit before she intro­duced me to some of her friends.

It turns out that Nisha’s hus­band, Jérôme, was the pho­tog­ra­pher being show­cased¹. They’re both friends of Frédéric and Misun through a teach­ing posi­tion, the painter and his wife. The Salon is also their house; fur­ni­ture was moved to make room for the artwork.

I had missed the cel­list and Shane’s per­for­mance (for shame!, I had my heart set on hear­ing a live per­for­mance of It’s A Drag), but I caught James Cohen as he was begin­ning his set. James is an elec­tri­fy­ing fla­menco gui­tarist, who plays with speed and con­trol. Before leav­ing, I bought his lat­est album, which is quite rare for me at live shows². He some­what reminded me of Jesse Cook, and I wanted to men­tion this to him (quite a com­pli­ment, in my book), but bit my tongue in case such a state­ment may have offend him³. In the end, I asked him who his influ­ences were, and he gave me a bunch of unfa­mil­iar names. Jérôme is one of James’s gui­tar stu­dents.

Misun intro­duced Krista as an old ele­men­tary school class­mate. Krista’s per­for­mance (with Shane back­ing her up) was delight­ful. She began with some old songs not on any of her albums, and switched it up on the fly “cause it feels right”.

The thing I found most inter­est­ing was that Krista would never look any­one in the eye. I do the same thing for per­for­mances and pre­sen­ta­tions, but that’s because I’m rather self-conscious. I sup­pose that even nat­ural per­form­ers have the same sense of ner­vous­ness. It’s easy to get lost in the stare of an audi­ence mem­ber, and before you know it, you for­get what you’re doing.

The twist is that I rec­og­nized Corie, Krista’s sis­ter, from the last show. I had asked Julie to trans­late some Lederhosen lyrics, and we soon real­ized that Corie went to school with her. Julie was always won­der­ing why Corie’s Myspace mes­sage would say, “Good show!”. Yet another strange connection.

Before I left, Jerome intro­duced me to Frédéric — who exudes an artist vibrancy — and we had a chance to talk for a bit before he had to see to his “guests”. It turns out that I had rec­og­nized Frédéric and Misun in some of my pic­tures at the last show. Along with them, Krista and Shane, I was the only one left in the house, of which over 300 peo­ple had come and gone, so I left because I started to feel like an impos­ing house guest (literally).

I stayed for about four hours, stand­ing the entire time, but I couldn’t sit at the bus stop. There was too much energy in me that night. I had expe­ri­enced some­thing dif­fer­ent. A new begin­ning. The open­ing of a door.

I kept remind­ing myself how I didn’t feel like leav­ing the house that night.

And how much I would have regret­ted it if I didn’t go.

Other shows with Krista Muir and Shane Watt

1. At the Workshop Studio & Boutique
2. At Le Petit Salon des Arts
3. At Irene’s Pub

1. Pat had already met Jérôme and seen these pic­tures, as he and Jen met with them when choos­ing wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. [↑]
2. I usu­ally go to a show to see a spe­cific per­son per­form, which means that I already have all their music. On the rare occa­sion, such as this night, a dif­fer­ent artist will catch me. [↑]
3. I get pissed when some­one hap­pens to hear me play­ing Lederhosen Lucil, and they say it reminds them of Lily Allen. [↑]