Performance Archive

I Have Eaten the City
Colin Fisher, guitar and saxophone; Nick Storring, computer, cello, and electronics; Brandon Valdivia, percussion

Registry Theatre, April 25, 2007
Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, Kitchener, Ontario

For this concert at the 2007 Open Ears Festival, Artistic Director Peter Hatch brought seasoned improviser, composer and clarinetist François Houle together with a trio of young Toronto-based musicians whose work crosses over from creative improvisation to indie rock (or more accurately, uncategorizable music with a rock ethos). The concert began with I Have Eaten the City’s set. After about 45 minutes, one by one they left the stage, leaving feedback still emanating from their amplifiers. Then Houle entered and began his solo set by playing along with the feedback. Finally, both groups came together for a final short set. (See the archive of Houle’s solo set, along with an interview). Two of the band members, Storring and Valdivia, both in their early 20s, studied composition with Hatch at Wilfrid Laurier University, and at the time of this interview Storring was pursuing graduate work in composition. An autodidact, Colin Fisher is a bit older, and had been around the Toronto experimental music scene for about a decade.

The excerpts from our interview included here help to describe the increasing pluralism and boundary crossing of the experimental music scene in Toronto and area. I Have Eaten the City find themselves playing in bars more often than theatres and concert halls. (In fact, they were a bit disconcerted by the quiet audience at the Registry Theatre, which was also removed by the bright stage lights that made it impossible for the musicians to see the audience.) Theirs is a scene that is marked by stylistic pluralism, entrepreneurship, (more or less) friendly local venues, and an increasingly organized milieu centred on the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto.

Interview (Excerpts) with I Have Eaten the City, Open Ears Festival, April 26, 2007

Ellen Waterman – EW

Colin Fisher – CF

Nick Storring – NS

Brandon Valdivia – BV

Ellen Waterman Tell me a little bit about the band. How did you meet?

Colin Fisher It was after the Racket Festival.

Nick Storring A festival Kyle Brenders put on in Waterloo in 2005. It was just an ad hoc thing that Kyle set up with Ken Aldcroft, Joe Sorbara and Evan Shaw. We brought some people down from Toronto and Stratford. [Colin is from Stratford] Brandon and I were both students [at Wilfrid Laurier University]. We met there and somehow got in touch.

EW Sounds like AIMT [Association of Improvising Musicians, Toronto].

NS Yeah – we formed small groups, drawn out of a hat.

CF I don’t know how the idea of forming a band started…

NS We liked each other’s playing, though we didn’t play together that night [at the Racket Festival]. We just got together at Laurier and played a couple of times. Then we played a show at the U of W [University of Waterloo] grad house, and then in Stratford…Then Brandon went off to Thailand…

EW Where does the name “I Have Eaten the City” come from?

CF It’s from John Haines the surrealist poet. I tend to get most of my material from surrealist poets! Band names, song titles.

EW Colin, can you tell me a bit more about your background? I’m more familiar with Brandon and Nick [who studied music formally at Wilfrid Laurier, and also played for awhile in my improvising ensemble the CME at U. Guelph]. Did you start out as a guitarist or a saxophone player?

CF I started out as a guitar player, I started out in a punk band at 13. But I played piano and sang as a child. I had a pretty consistent musical upbringing. My mother’s a pianist and my dad plays bag pipes. So I was surrounded by music my whole life. With the guitar I went through all those rock phases, from punk to shoe gaze…then I stumbled on improv and free jazz and that piqued my interest and I started doing that. I was already into experimental rock. Then eventually, I think when I was 21 I decided to finish high school and I picked up alto sax because I had heard Ornette Coleman and thought to myself ‘I wanna be Ornette Coleman’, [laughs] and it just went from there. From there I just started playing with all sorts of people. Mainly this one bass player – he was a drummer when I first met him – Jason Hammer – who is now globetrotting. We became co-conspirators, brothers in musical cacophony.

EW So you haven’t done university training on your instruments [Nick and Brandon have composition degrees from U. Wilfrid Laurier, under Peter Hatch]

CF I did some private study with Ellery Eskelin, Tim Berne—and Ben Monder in New York.

EW And you live in Stratford?

CF I live in Toronto now, but Stratford was home base for awhile.

NS We were all spread apart for a year—Brandon was in Toronto, Colin was in Stratford and I was in Kitchener—we basically just played shows.

EW You’re doing a master’s at York [University, Toronto] in composition, right Nick?

NS Yes, with David Mott. I was fortunate enough to do a directed study with Holly Small in the dance department. I didn’t know how I felt about the [music department at York] until the dance thing, which changed everything.

EW You have to bend school to your will.

NS Sometimes! The thing with Laurier is that it was trying to bend me, so I had to bend it. Not everyone was like this, but there were some weird reactions to my cello playing. So I was forced to think about my training and try to shape it. Whereas York was like “hey come on in, sit down, do whatever.” It is more of an invitation, but there’s also no opposing force. Which I thought was very helpful at Laurier because you definitely think more for yourself then.

EW So now you have to provide your own opposing force! Brandon, you’re freelancing?

Brandon Valdivia Yeah, I’m doing some teaching, working in a theatre, and playing.

EW Do you have to have day gigs in the Toronto scene in order to survive? Nick, I know your day gig is going to school so you presumably have teaching or scholarships or whatever. But what about Brandon and Colin? It seems that everyone in the Toronto scene puts up with a lot of 12 dollar gigs…

CF Yeah. I’m teaching right now.

BV Recently I’ve been lucky enough to be making some money with various things. With various shows, I’ve been able to make some money. But that doesn’t happen all the time! That happens for, like, a month and then for two months I’ll make nothing. There are people who don’t have to have a day job, but I think most people do. Especially in the improvising community.

CF As improvisers, certainly. Maybe not as pop or rock musicians.

BV Some people do session work. But most people I know do something, like teaching.

EW Teaching privately out of your place?

BV I teach at a music store. You could build up a private studio. Some people teach at high schools.

CF Unfortunately I’m teaching in New Market and Etobicoke so I have to drive everywhere. But I do some private lessons, I have a studio at my place.

EW I’m having this terrible ‘aging’ moment—this is me in Toronto in the mid-1980s teaching at different high schools and my house, and gigging around. Eventually grad school started to look like a really good idea! [everyone laughs]

CF I’m not at odds with it at all! I really enjoy it. It affords me the opportunity to play music that I feel really passionate about. That’s all that really matters.

EW Fair enough. I’m interested in the role of AIMT [the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto] in your lives in Toronto. Do you often play Leftover Daylight, or the Now series (as a band or as individual musicians)?

CF I help curate or book shows for Leftover Daylight.

NS I do the NOW lounge stuff. Joe’s asked me to… I live with Joe [Sorbara, percussionist and AIMT organizer] in his basement…so I might be doing some curating if I have time.

CF I suggested you – they’re looking for curators.

NS There are several communities in Toronto. There’s the improv community, and there’s also a really vibrant scene, a variety of weekly series. There’s one in particular called Poor Pilgrim that happens on Dundas West at the Press Club, a sort of weekly experimental series. It’s fairly diverse. It spans the gamut of different experimental styles (barring contemporary classical, but the promoter wants to bring that stuff in too.) They have experimental rock, electronic, the noise people, experimental improv stuff.

CF Strange folk stuff.

EW Tell me about the venue.

NS It’s this tiny bar called the Press Club. It’s a very strange space, very narrow. They have great import beers! I’ve been there on other nights when there’s like 4 people. And there are people who hang out on Poor Pilgrim nights, they’re odd people who don’t necessarily like the music but they’re regulars. They have projections and DJ nights – I DJ there sometimes and I can play whatever. I play world music – I play, like, Charles Ives [general laughter].

The AIMToronto thing is a bit different; it’s a little more ‘sit down and take it in’ where this is more sensory overload.

CF Community, social, it’s a bit of everything. And everybody’s incredibly open. Whether or not they have the skill to perform this vast array of musical idioms, they welcome new people.

BV A lot of them are art students. It’s always great to play there, it’s never stuffy.

EW How many nights a week does it happen?

CF For that it’s once a week; it’s taking a hiatus for May because there’s the “Bummer in the Summer” crew from last year…

NS That’s another festival that they had last August. It’s named after a song by the band Love. Yeah, they had a festival last August that we played at with Barnyard Drama and the aforementioned Jason Hammer. We had “I Have Eaten Barnyard Drama” and that was great. [General agreement]

CF They’re doing a month of Wednesdays at the Tranzac in the back room. We’re doing a mash-up this year with our friend Max Smith whose [stage] name is Nifty and with Michael Keith. So “I Have Eaten Nifty Michael Keith” [laughter]

EW You’ll need some bromo seltzer anyway! So back to last night’s concert at Open Ears. Last night in the concert with [clarinetist] François Houle you rehearsed in the afternoon, you got all set up and then you went away and François started preparing the piano – and you came back and did have a little bit of time to meet and play with him. How much of the architecture of last night’s concert was planned? [I Have Eaten the City played a set, then left the stage one by one, while the last person left his amplifier on with continuing, resonating feedback that slowly faded out. Meanwhile François came onstage and began his solo set of clarinet and electronics by playing accompanied by the feedback. The concert ended with a jam that included both groups.]

BV Very little. It was François’s idea to do the segue between the sets. The whole idea of us playing, him playing then all of us playing was Peter [Hatch’s – the artistic director of Open Ears] idea.

EW Did you feel like you ate François Houle last night? [general laughter]

CF Without hesitation! [laughter]

BV He’s so strong and he’s obviously an experienced guy. The first time we played it was pretty dense. Which we do often – we play pretty dense with no solos or duos, just trios. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. So we did that, and then he suggested that we try a short quiet thing (we were having a little trouble just hearing everybody). So we did that and that just made sense. So when we played in the [Registry Theatre] space, like I said it was weird at first – like I said to you earlier, to play in a sit down theatre with people so quiet—it felt really fresh. We warmed to him, he warmed to us. As soon as we started the quartet felt good to me—I could hear him perfectly, and it was good to react to. I thought we seemed to mesh well.

NS It was a treat to be playing acoustic, for me. François plays more in that context, but it was neat playing with this group that way. Even when we were all playing, there were times when I was just playing acoustic [cello].

EW It was because of the space you were able to do that?

NS The space, but we also talked about having more dynamic contrast, since we had the opportunity to do quiet stuff. I think we were also loud at times too! But for us it seemed quiet because we’re always playing at, like, Sneaky D’s where everyone’s talking in the back and at the front there are people who are really attentive. And they crank the PA. We often play more rock venues, I guess. We all play in rock or ‘rockish’ bands too. I don’t think [Picastro] is rock per se.

EW Do you guys have a CD?

NS We have 4 CD-Rs, mostly live shows –The first was radio sessions at CKMS [U. Waterloo campus radio] – live sessions with Damo Suzuki. We also have recordings of other live sessions: Music Gallery, AIMT benefit, Ambient Ping in Toronto.

EW Last night you played in a free improvisation mode, but your billing made you sound like Toronto’s latest indie rock or post-rock band. Do you always play free? Do you have songs? How do you think of yourselves?

CF We’re chameleons I guess, depending on the venue, depending on the gig. We did a tribute to Alice Coltrane after she died where we basically just played modal the whole time. And then we did a piece for a show we did [in Kitchener], that I composed.

NS That piece was neat, because you were the driving force – you provided the motivic material – and then as a band we sort of shaped it. It was a cool process. For one show we had prepared a composition, but then the environment was such that – we said “let’s just be loud!” [general laughter] It was a friend’s Christmas party and there were all these jazz kids from Humber [College] who were all like ‘we can really play’ so we decided to just jump ship and play!

EW You said “we’re going to eat these people!” [general laughter]…You straddle all these different areas…Do you find that sometimes the free improv scene gets ‘self-serious’?

ALL: Yes! [laughter]

BV Especially the AIMToronto stuff. The Leftover Daylight stuff takes place in a rehearsal space [Arraymusic], everybody’s sitting down, serious. Sometimes it’s fun just to – I don’t mean it isn’t serious, because the music is serious, but at the same time it’s nice to joke.

CF I think it’s the environment that can be a bit stuffy. This isn’t everybody, obviously!

BV And we often play rock shows and stuff. Most of the time.

NS I think the rock thing – last night it was more abstract – but often we do have more of a rock vibe. The pulse is a little more free, and there’s more changes and stuff, but sometimes we get into a rhythmic thing, I guess more African derived.

CF Last night I was doing my Ali Farka Toure thing [laughter]

NS But it was less groovy last night, sometimes we’ll all be grooving. Colin and I will be grooving and Brandon will play melodically on the drums!

CF In those rock contexts we tend to venture into the psychedelic realm – lots of washes, very dense, but then we’re pushing it more from Gnawa, West African music.

BV Also sort of Dub.

CF Yeah it’s a weird mix….

EW It seems like a particular moment in the last three years [early 2000’s] where improvisation seems to have taken a major role in the indie rock scene with jam bands like Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think. Do you market yourselves this way?

NS Toronto’s a very supportive place for music. Colin’s other projects are well known…. They know his previous projects. Brandon and I play in Picastro, so people know that. We have these other connections and then people have started to know our group. Even the rock audience is much more plural. Wavelength, for instance, the big indie rock series really embraces whoever.

BV When I moved to Toronto I met all these people who are doing world music and improv and mixing it with rock music. It seems like a cultural shift. I’ve noticed a lot of musicians around my age - in their mid-twenties – doing noisy music, and more intellectual music but also with the rock stuff. There are people in other cities doing the same thing, which I’m learning about more and more. All over the place. I really feel like a kindred spirit. We can play improv at an indie rock gig and its cool, and it’s cool just to be a noise band, totally noisy. And it’s cool for a person to bring new music to indie rock…

NS It is widespread, and I think it’s partly to do with the proliferation of file sharing. Sampling has created a new kind of literacy among musicians.

BV I knew all this stuff from going to music school, but there’s all kinds of people who didn’t do that like Colin…

CF There’s the library!

BV exactly

EW I tell that to music students all the time! [general laughter]

BV It’s about people being passionate! I remember tons of music students who wouldn’t go to shows, and I’d be like “why are you even a music student?” Because they wouldn’t care to explore. But other people love it, and nowadays you can easily go listen to folk music from Thailand and Ghana, all over the world.

NS It’s in classical music too. Esoteric music, the stuff that for many years was captured in an academic setting, you go off to Soulseek [file sharing network] or something and you’ll see people like Dick Bernard, Parmigiani or Stockhausen or something that didn’t really quite penetrate that divide [before]. There’s people who are interested in that, and then you’ll look at their file list and they’ll have that and then Justin Timberlake and whatever! It’s this weird “anything goes” thing on line… Having rock interests and in more esoteric, experimental things, intellectual things, and world music: music that spans a lot of time – not just what’s happening now…

EW How do you market or distribute your CD-R’s?

CF There’s Paypal…

BV A few record stores, Encore has them and Soundscapes in Toronto…But we don’t market – we’ve talked about looking for a label, but we haven’t really done that.

EW A big part of the circuit of credibility for established Canadian experimental musicians seems to have to do with writing those Canada Council grants, getting money to do a proper recording. But it seems you don’t necessarily need a grant to do a good recording these days (unless you want to buy studio time). Is that your horizon?

NS Not yet, but…

CF I applied for a grant this year, for a duo project with Jean Martin. A studio recording. Jean is the grant writing master, so he was lots of help!

EW You talk very differently about the Toronto scene compared to a slightly older generation of Toronto musicians in their 30’s, 40s and 50s….People who’ve been around the scene for a decade or more. [Nick and Brandon are in their early 20s.]

CF I’m 33, and things have changed a lot.

EW How recently?

CF The last—maybe 4 years. Ten years ago things were comparatively frightening, actually. Say with the Rat Drifters [collective], for example, with Eric [Chenaux], he was doing that thing way back. The aesthetic was a European free improv sort of thing – no repetition…. They had their own little scene and I think if you were pluralistic at all they weren’t interested. That’s all they did. It was a very political commitment they had. And I liked that, but I also liked Sonny Murray and Albert Ayler. So I ended up meeting people through…Maury Coles, who I played with in his regular Monday [session], and the Cameron House where we’d all get together. That’s where I met everybody.

It’s changed a lot because, as I say, it’s more pluralistic now. And I think people have grown up, to be honest. I think people realized there’s a broader horizon than our little cubicle of nonsense.

NS There’s still some people like that…

CF Yeah, but there’s more [opportunities] like Bummer in the Summer, Poor Pilgrim, Sandro’s series,

NS Sand Box, your own series.

BV From what I can tell, I always hear that things are going really well now, but I wasn’t there before… From what I hear it’s different now.

NS Even in the time that I’ve been [in Toronto] I remember seeing the Reveries [Eric Chenaux, Ryan Driver, Doug Tielli] from the Rat Drifting group, with no one there. Actually there was a co-production [with AIMT] – were you there?

EW At the Rivoli [in 2005]?

NS Yeah and there weren’t that many people there. Then they got on the cover of Eye Weekly and the back room of the Tranzac is packed full. And I’m like “What? These are people with speakers in their mouths! Come on!” [general laughter]

EW The Reveries are a very cool band!

NS I think that experimental and improvised stuff is coming a little bit to the fore, especially in Toronto…

Acknowledgement: Thanks very much to I Have Eaten the City for permission to post the video excerpt and interview excerpt on www.experimentalperformance.ca.