As pre­dict­ed, I left my house feel­ing ner­vous and excit­ed, and put on my Top Rated playlist to dis­tract myself. The music of Lederhosen Lucil has nev­er touched me on a deeply inti­mate lev­el, the way, say, a Leonard Cohen or Thrice song does, but it’s still remained very per­son­al. I dis­cov­ered L.L. at a time when I was feel­ing rather jad­ed from life. The music was sil­ly, fun, and con­fi­dent, so I embraced it with delight­ful hedo­nism. It lift­ed me when I was in a strange state of numb­ness and lim­bo.

I got there at what turned out to be an hour and a half ear­ly (though it was due to a mis­take on the venue web­site), so I wan­dered the store until the show start­ed, feel­ing like a fish out of water in a tiny room filled with hand­made wom­en’s cloth­ing and jew­el­ery. Though beau­ti­ful and impres­sive­ly unique, they would­n’t let me take pic­tures of any­thing¹.

As soon as I saw Krista alone, I began to hyper­ven­ti­late, which was rather unex­pect­ed (I’m still get­ting over how hilar­i­ous­ly embar­rass­ing this was). I approached her and man­aged to spit out “Hi” in a whis­per. I did­n’t know what to say, so I just asked her to sign my CD (still whis­per­ing, unable to con­trol the vol­ume of my voice). I’m sure I’ll appre­ci­ate such a reac­tion in a cou­ple years, as not many peo­ple can cause me to be so flus­tered².

After some­what regain­ing my com­po­sure, we spoke. I asked her why she now per­formed as Krista Muir instead of Lederhosen Lucil, and she told me it was both an evo­lu­tion and a change, although the L.L. isn’t gone yet. She gave me some more insight into her lyrics, told me about her past sug­ar addic­tion, and shared some details about upcom­ing project, which I prob­a­bly should­n’t reveal. I also found out that her col­lab­o­ra­tion with Shane was solid­i­fied with his will­ing­ness to wear sil­ly cos­tumes — of which she sewed her­self — for the L.L. shows.

Amongst the hand­bags and the bibs, the jew­el­ery and the under­wear, the show began.

Shane opened with Where We Are Now, as well as a few oth­er songs from his debut solo album³. It was so cap­ti­vat­ing (You can hear it on Shane’s MySpace) that I had to pur­chase an ear­ly copy of his CD, to be released in the new year. He promised to send me an offi­cial copy when it comes out, along with an acoustic ver­sion, as I com­ment­ed on how great it sound­ed with just him and a gui­tar.

Several tracks off Krista’s lat­est album, Leave Alight, were per­formed. This is a clip of La Grenade, track six, and my favourite song on it so far.

Outside, the rain began to pour, and filled the place with a refresh­ing breeze. Even in a thick hood­ie wrapped over my shirt, I was com­fort­ably cozy amongst those who could appre­ci­ate the indie mix­ture of a ukulele, a gui­tar, a melody and a har­mo­ny. During the inter­mis­sion, it was home­made cup­cakes and sweet­ened tea. I had a chance to speak more with Krista and Shane, before Krista (who kept check­ing my watch) decid­ed it was time to start play­ing again.

A few songs fea­tured Krista on a funky elec­tric instru­ment, of which I for­get the name, but it added a very won­der­ful­ly rich sound to the min­i­mal, folky acoustics (which can be heard in the last video). It’s seemed like more of a gui­tar than a piano; there’s a touch-strip that can be “strummed” at dif­fer­ent speeds — like a pitch ben­der on a key­board — while cer­tain but­tons are held for the notes.

It was an inti­mate night, casu­al and light-heart­ed. At one point, Shane start­ed kick­ing his amp because it was hum­ming like a pos­sessed appa­ra­tus. Before the show end­ed, Krista includ­ed cov­ers of It’s Gonna Be (Alright) by Ween, and Another Love Song by Queens of the Stone Age.

My brain was buzzing when I left. I don’t go to shows any­more cause I don’t like the scene⁴, but this was some­thing else. Waiting at the bus stop, I could­n’t help but pace back and forth, filled with an elec­tric ener­gy. While much more calm and sub­dued than I expect­ed, the music was touch­ing all the same. It felt like I was part of some­thing spe­cial, and a show I’ll nev­er for­get.

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. I’m guess­ing to pro­tect the designs of the artists [↩]
2. Perhaps it was the strange feel­ing that Krista, who was now sud­den­ly in front of me, had so unwit­ting­ly affect­ed me, with­out ever even being aware of my exis­tence. Or per­haps I was intim­i­dat­ed. I like to con­sid­er myself a cre­ative per­son, but by no means a pro­fes­sion­al, earn­ing a liv­ing off my cre­ativ­i­ty. Krista is, how­ev­er, a born enter­tain­er. [↩]
3. Off Grenadine Records, the same label as The “orches­tral pop noir roman­tique” Dears [↩]
4. Exceptions are about half a dozen bands — Blonde Redhead, Dreamtheater, Portishead, Thrice, The Mars Volta, The Dwarves, etc. — for whom I’d brave any­thing too see live [↩]