Lawnya Vawnya Weird and Wired
DAY FOUR JUNE 8, 2024
Hi! Welcome to the fourth day of Lawnya Vawnya 14! Check out this extended newsletter, featuring the full version of Andrew Sampson’s Music Crawl!
DEBBY FRIDAY | Myst Milano | CUERPOS | Host : \garbagefile
If last night was an album, there would have been no skips. The word of the evening was charisma. Everyone who graced the stage had it in spades. There was Nadia in Cuerpos, stomping around the stage and into the crowd, shredding her guitar and screaming into the mic, as she implored the audience to remember the cardinal role: “DON’T BE BORING.” There was Francis, her bandmate, who kept it 100, frantically twisting and turning knobs, and transforming these songs into something otherworldly – a soundtrack for a dance floor located at the end of the next millennium.
All night, \garbagefile let it fly, MCing with panache, even as they refused to let the crowd forget there is life beyond the dancefloor, leading DRAG QUEENS FOR PALESTINE as they took over the stage between acts and reasserted the need for a ceasefire NOW.
When Myst Milano took the baton, they rapped with supreme confidence, paving the way for Debby Friday to bring us home. She helped the Rockhouse shift into a different stratosphere. Somewhere off the island. To a club where people do more than just nod their heads gracelessly. Where they dance, and shout, and forget everything but the here and now. Where they beg, and plead, chanting DEBBY’s name in unison for just one more song, before they have to wake up from this beautiful dream and go back out into the rain.
- Andrew Sampson
ALEY WATERMAN | GALLERY | BLUNT CHUNKS | RIBBON SKIRT
Full disclosures: 1. I’m sort of drunk writing this (the options were late night drunk or early morning hungover and this seemed like a better option), and 2. I am Aley Waterman so I can’t really review my own reading specifically, but I will say that it was fun and people were nice. Gallery was so cool. I had the pleasure of reading Nick’s moving and deft book of poetry during the soundcheck (he hand bound and cut them himself), and there was feeling in the poems of bright investigation within chilling or melancholic contexts that ran through their set. Next up Blunt Chunks played, which was like forbidden forest fairy soulful utopia; not only was the band so locked in but Caitlin is IMO one of the most magnetic vocalists I’ve heard live and, paired w harmonies from Kat, it had people moving/feeling moved in a big way. Ribbon Skirt blew everyone’s minds with these pulsing, heavy, almost psychedelic rock vibes that were like Life Without Buildings in terms of sprawling, propulsive lyrics, creating this intense spark in the room that everyone seemed to be feeling.
DESTINY | STACEY SEXTON | ASH PARK | AUGUR’S WAND AT VELVET
Ash Park opened up like a resident and a pro with throbbing bassy sounds that both gave the room time to chill and down their first few drinks as well as get moving, deftly weaving smooth new jack sounds into soulful, bumpy house and electro. At one point, the incomparably buttery vocals of Galcher Lustwerk drifted atop deep, Moodymannesque steppers. Shortly after Bjork intoned her signature wails alongside lush synth melodies.
As the dancefloor began to come alive Ash led us into that hypnotic space only jackable music can take the body. With def cuts and smooth mixes he kept us in a flow state for the duration of the set.
Seamlessly, Stacey Sexton took up the decks with a skip in her step. The crowd filled out, ready to get footsie & flirty on the floor. Through pulsating basslines, melodic and energetic club tracks and even a Nelly Furtado edit, Sexton took the floor from a simmer to a boil as more revelers spilled in from the Rockhouse & the Ship as festivities wrapped up.
Augur’s Wand dazzled and entranced with their magical laser show, putting a glimmer on the fabulous crowd’s joyous faces. It was an excitable and sexy vibe in the room as regulars and first timers to the Velvet experience mingled and moved together.
Closing out the night I took the booth for my maiden voyage at a St. John’s party. Riding the dancer’s effervescence, we hopped around sonically between brand new wubby club scorchers, tunneling techno and acid and the odd SOPHIE and Linkin Park edits. The raucous crowd indulged in make outs on the stage-cum-dancefloor behind me and “yass queen!”ed at every turn, giving this Montrealer a very warm downhome welcome.
As the room let out into the street, partiers were aglow from a night of unbridled queer joy, something that grows in potency and strength in political climates which seek to police it.
- Destiny De Choix
DOWNTOWN MUSIC CRAWL
We begin at Fred's Records with Aquakultre. He's not singing this afternoon, but instead reading from a book about notable Black women from Nova Scotia history. He speaks of these women, and of his own history, growing up in Halifax, and how meaningful his life became when he started learning about the past. Talking to his grandparents, looking into his genealogy, and taking in the triumphs of his ancestors and other Black Nova Scotians throughout time. Knowing these stories, he says, gives him a sense of purpose. An extra pep in his step.
Behind him is a display celebrating Fred’s 50th anniversary. Posters of various Newfoundland legends speckle the wall, some of whom helped keep the store churning all those years.
One banner honours Da Slyme, the first punk band in NL history, and another poster is of the Wonderful Grand Band, an 80s supergroup fronted by, among others, Ron Hynes, and two would-be drag queens (Tommy Sexton and Greg Malone) known for putting on their gowns and transforming into groupies Mavis and Carmel-Ann in bar-rooms all over the province. That's history too, I think, and would Lawnya Vawnya even exist without some of these people deciding to make original music and art in spite of everything?
I love the Downtown Music Crawl. It's another sunny day (thank God!) and next we walk to the Duckworth design studio where Riddle Fence magazine has set up shop. I miss the first reader, mistiming how long it would take me to knock back a cappuccino, but arrive in time to hear the disembodied voice of Craig Francis Power coming out of a speaker on the sidewalk. (it's already at capacity indoors) He's reads poems about being in recovery and one sassy number about a rich jerk trying to pass as working class. He says it's about someone he knows IRL and I think -- what's the tea? But then I realize all of us are probably thinking of one person who fits the definition and that's the point.
Next we head to the Alt Hotel. Blunt Chunks is playing on the patio, with the narrows and Signal Hill decorating the background. All that glitters is gold. She sings a lyric - "The City is Filled with Ugly People" -- and breaks the fourth wall, explaining quickly that she's not thinking about this city. Crisis averted.
We end at Eastern Edge, where there's a merch fair, and I struggle not to buy a half-dozen paperbacks that inevitably won't fit in my carry-on bag, then stumble into the light to watch Jenina MacGillivray.
Behind her is a massive cruise ship and it feels appropriately surreal. Jenina ends her set with a cover of Dancin’ Late at Night by Jonathan Richman, and everyone sings along, while a kid cartwheels on the pavement as she strums her guitar.
It’s true. We’re all having a very nice time by the sea.
- Andrew Sampson