BASEMENT GREATS
Jason Collett’s out of the kitchen and into the Basement Revue, but on a much larger scale
Stuff happens around Jason Collett’s kitchen table, including no small amount of inspiration.
One of the things that has emerged is a musical “happening ” that has come to be known as Jason Collett’s Basement Revue.
These performances have become somewhat legendary in Toronto’s busy music scene. The Basement Revue started about eight years ago when Collett and a poet friend, Damian Rogers, decided to stage a somewhat impromptu evening of music and words with a guest list that was kept secret until the performers stepped on stage.
The event started out at the Dakota tavern at the corner of Ossington and Dundas. The Dakota is an intimate bar where most of the people who started the place and who work there are musicians.
“The vibe lends itself to these kinds of shows. It does feel like a small-town pub and it’s a bit of a ground zero for a lot of musicians,” Collett says.
“Often there is a rich community of artists just hanging out, so if I spy someone in the audience, I just ask them to take part, but for the most part guests are invited.
“There is a high level of spontaneity in these shows.”
The two still bring the Basement Revue to the Dakota, but with success have come new venues and bigger shows.
Recently a bigger version of the Basement Revue has become a fixture of the Luminato Festival in Toronto, and on May 1 the first ever will take place in Ottawa at the NAC Fourth Stage as part of Ontario Scene.
Collett says the idea is not really an extension of his musical career, which includes a stint with the band Broken Social Scene.
“It’s more of an extension of my domestic career. Over the years, my wife and I would host bands from out of town and inevitably other friends would come by and we’d have a big dinner party that would go late into the night and the guitars would come out.”
He calls the revue something of a salon and agrees when the idea of a Newfoundland kitchen party is mooted.
“There is a certain kind of intimacy about these things that is not necessarily about performance. It is a show where an intermingling of disciplines and cross-pollination of ideas happens. Sometimes musicians are backing up poets and vice versa.
“We’ve had Feist backing up Michael Ondaatje and The Sadies backing up Margaret Atwood.”
There is the risk of a train wreck, he says, but “that’s part of the charm. It’s a bit of a high-wire act and it teeters and could come crashing down.”
Collett clearly likes the riskreward factor of the revue.
“It’s a shared moment and we don’t have many of those left in our culture. People will see some artists that you know do something you don’t know them for.”
That is also similar to Collett himself, who for many years worked as a carpenter. He still does some wood work for friends.
“I missed it when I was on the road. I had a shop and had to get rid of it because I was in the strange position of music paying the overhead of the shop.”
The Luminato shows have been taking place in a much bigger venue.
“It’s been a bit of an experiment to see if we can keep the intimacy, because it’s one thing to do it for 130 people, then to perform for 850, but it has worked.”
The bigger shows are more polished but, he says, there is still room for a surprise or two.
The event is a lot like the old Motown revues, which used to travel from town to town in the 1960s. The artists do two or three songs, then sit down. For Collett, “that makes performances more impactful.”
It’s basically a rock ’n’ roll show, but there have been drag-queen performances and cooking shows to go with the music and poetry readings.
“We experimented with comedy early on, but believe it or not, the poets are funnier. You expect a comic to have a gag, but you sure don’t expect a joke from a poet.”
And that leads to another surprise, he says.
“It’s a rock ’n’ roll show, but people are often leaving buying books and I’m really proud of that.”
One obvious parallel is that Broken Social Scene itself is a band made up of disparate parts that come together from time to time. (There are rumours of a possible reunion, but Collett is noncommittal.)
“There are a lot of parallels. The thing with Social Scene that has always stayed with me is the idea of working with a community of artists. The revue is very much something that allows community to happen.”
Growth and success bring their own burdens and Collett does feel that, but he and Rogers are trying to keep it growing, applying for funding and looking for ways to make it pay.
“In Ottawa, there will be at least one local face on stage,” Collett says, but gives no hints who that might be.
As for his day job as a musician, Collett is back in the studio just this week, working on a new album that should be out in 2016. His last was released in 2012. Once again, he is making it with friends including drummer/producer Don Kerr and Afie Jurvanen, a.k.a. Bahamas.
“I really like having the community of folks I have played with over the years around me. What becomes hard is choosing who to work with on new projects.”