blogcutter

Although I'm not quite as old as Joni Mitchell or Neil Young, my contemporary music of choice has long been of the genre(s) that emerged from the 60s coffee house scene.

Last Friday, dianora and I had the pleasure of attending a cosy house concert featuring Natasha Liard, Erika Lashbrook and Libby and Cal. And five cats, although all but one had been spirited away to a back room to avert attempts to escape.

Natasha was a gracious host who said she organized intimate concerts like this one because her music was quiet and folky and didn't always find a suitable home in an often-rowdy bar environment.

Libby and Cal wrote something similar in the most recent edition of their newsletter:

​​​​​Bars Are Not the Only Venues
Our last few shows have been in alternative venues, or should I say, not bars. It's hard to make money, whether you're a musician or a venue owner, but I feel very lucky to have had a variety of performance experiences. Last month we played in a church basement and a living room. As one attendee remarked, "I found it had a strong old coffee house vibe."

And Erika Lashbrook, a self-described "queer, undisciplined multidisciplinary artist and musician" exuded a kind of raw vulnerability characteristic of many of the musicians I like. I particularly enjoyed her song "Sit back down", even though it was quite critical of folks of my generation, who unfortunately are wont to assume that young people today just don't know what they're talking about!

I had never heard Natasha or Erika before, but I'd absolutely go to see them again.

Then yesterday, after picking up my new glasses (appropriate for my post-cataract operation eyes), I decided to drop into the nearby Compact Music shop. Of course, I should have realized that it would not be a brief, drop-in kind of visit. I got caught up in the Folk section of the second-hand vinyl section. It took a fair bit of discipline to whittle down my selections to the following records, which ranged in price from $5.99 to $16.99:

The Famous Melodies of Stephen Foster
Colleen Peterson
Rehearsals for Retirement - Phil Ochs
Lillebjörn & Steinar, recorded live at the Nordland Fest, Sioux Falls
Mary Black - Collected
Civil Service Songwriter - Nancy White
American Stonehenge - Robin Williamson & his Merry Band

To round things off, I glanced at the CDs by local musicians at the front of the store. I chose one CD by a local singer/songwriter, Craig Cormier. I hadn't heard of him but I loved the cover, which was a black-and-white photo of someone stroking a cat, in front of some grocery store shelves. The album was entitled Bodega Cats and was recorded at Ottawa's Lycanthrope Studios in April of 2020. At the height of the COVID lockdowns. Plus, I think it's important to support independent local artists. I haven't actually listened to the CD yet but I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I'll enjoy the music of another era with the Ottawa Bach Choir.

Hi, Folks and Folkies! The topic of today's blogcutter café is... coffee! When I was at Carleton University in the early seventies, the on-campus coffee house was called "Arthur's Place" after its genial host, Arthur McGregor (of Ottawa Folklore Centre fame). Later, it moved up to the fourth floor and was renamed "Roosters". On weekends, there was coffee-house type entertainment including such people as Ian Tamblyn and Cedric Smith. By that time, it was licenced to sell beer and wine and a few light snacks. For the longest time, it was the last bastion of the ten-cent cup of coffee.

Fast forward some forty years, and I'm visiting the campus on a weekly basis to take a "Learning in Retirement" course: Phil Jenkins' "A History of Ottawa Culture". Even though coffee house culture is a thing of the past, I thought for sure there must be plenty of places to get a decent (or even mediocre) cup of coffee on campus. But no. There are still all kinds of vending machines serving cold beverages, but nary a coffee machine in sight. Don't students drink coffee any more? Or has Tim Horton's used its considerable muscle to oust absolutely ANY other coffee vendor (be it human, mechanical or electronic) from the campus?

In desperation, I queued up for "Timmy's", though I really don't like their coffee. I find it insipid, there's no real choice of blend, and you can't accessorize it to your own taste. Unlike other chains which are coffee-places that also happen to sell snacks, Timmy's is basically a doughnut shop that happens to serve weak coffee. As for any specialty coffees like espresso, cappuccino and so on, forget it! Yes, they have beverages they CALL those aforesaid names, but I don't consider them worthy of the name.

This column is also something of a requiem for coffee house culture. When the drinking age in Ontario was lowered from 21 to 18 (it was later raised back up to 19), that was the final nail in the coffin of coffee house culture. Ottawa's Le Hibou closed shortly thereafter, although it was somewhat kept alive on the airwaves through CJOH's show "Café Hibou". Then we had Rasputin's, which burned down although a few brave folk are trying to keep it alive through "Spirit of Rasputin's" concerts and small-stage open-mike presentations at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

When I was a teenager, there were Friday-evening drop-in "coffee houses" at our local church. Those of you who like me are of a certain age will know the atmosphere that is required for these things: red-and-white checked tablecloths, each sporting as centrepiece and sole light source an empty Chianti bottle (in signature raffia wrapping) with a candle in it and multicoloured candlewax drippings on the part of the bottle that the raffia doesn't cover.

As they say, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.