The Toast Collective is one of those undeniably charming miniature venues that so perfectly describe Vancouver’s underground music culture. At times it has been a quiet breakfast spot or sweaty people-packed Music Waste location, but on this night, acting as a fundraiser for Music Waste’s 2015 iteration, it was a humble and gracious location for the absorption of equally gracious soloists.
Morning Coup, aka Chandra Melting Tallow, started the night with looped synthetics and echo-splashed yelps. Normally accompanied by four other musicians, Tallow looked and sounded isolated and almost lonely standing behind her lone synthesizer and microphone. While her set began in unsteadiness, it quickly developed rhythm and warmth and won over the assembled crowd. Mourning Coup’s crooning overcame its technical limitations and fumbled with glorious ease.
Adrian Teacher (Apollo Ghosts, COOL TV) has never looked out-of-place on a stage or with a guitar in his hand, but The Toast Collective may have seen him play with as many of the curtains pulled back away from his rockstar persona as we’re likely to see any time soon. Playing material from his new “solo” project, Adrian Teacher & The Subs, Teacher performed with his usual amplitudes of charm. Separating him from his bandmates didn’t do anything to subtract from the man’s ability to really communicate with his audience in a way that feels intimate and wonderful and silly all at the same time. Although he took the time, often mid-song, to rue the lack of his supporting musicians — including fellow Apollo Ghosts alumni Amanda P back on drums — the show only proved that Teacher is just as instantly relatable on his lonesome as he is with a smiling cast of supporting characters.
Teacher’s stellar acoustic performance gave way to Kellarissa’s soothing one: the singer known for her work in Fake Tears and How To Dress Well lulled the assembled crowd not into slumber but revelry, as those at the front of the venue took to sitting down on the sidelines and absorbing her crystalline musics comfortably. Kellarissa’s synth and pad setup appeared to be mostly self-automated, leaving her free to palm the occasional chord progression and sing with all the intensity and mysticism of an opera performer.
The format of the evening — early to start, early to finish, with quieter performers and a respectful audience — fit the Toast to a tee. While last year’s Music Waste showcase had the tiny venue packed to the rafters and blitzed by noise, here it was almost impossible to realize, standing just outside its doors, when someone was playing a set. Unfortunately, this meant missing Inherent Vices’ singer/guitarist Burnside perform solo, as an overpowering conversation about Ukrainian politics managed to completely mute whatever notes managed to make it through the quiet venue’s doors.
The multi-instrumental wunderkind Spencer Davis gave a stunningly technical and virtually flawless performance as S.P. Davis, his instrumental acoustic finger-picking alias. Perhaps better known as one part of the exceptional noise-punk project Cowards, or as the drone-heavy electronica musician responsible for Nervous Operator, or as the kindest and most sincere sound guy in Vancouver, it is always exciting to see an audience’s reaction from recognizing the man, but not the music, on the stage. His mastery of the acoustic guitar may, at first, not be apparent from the humble approach he has to crafting both intricate and delicate arrangements, but the longer he played at The Toast Collective the more people in the crowd craned their necks forward to see just how he was manipulating his instrument.
The night ended with Dan Geddes, performing under his stage name Lt. Frank Dickens in a rare solo performance. Usually found fronting the Velvet Underground-meets-Talking-Heads band Peace, the uniquely suppressed performance was both incredibly refreshing and startlingly personal. To call Geddes’ songwriting literary would be a critical understatement — often venturing into the realm of spoken word poetry, his solo set saw him use his acoustic guitar almost as a segue rather than a primary instrument. Long passages and verses were obviously meticulously crafted and calculated, and removed from the rock ‘n’ roll noises of Peace, it was even easier to focus, simply, on the lyrics. Geddes’ unique delivery might come across like an English Lit professor’s Vonnegut lecture to some, but a more musical approach, I think, would have threatened to overshadow what Lt. Frank Dickens obviously cherishes most — the wordplay.