Tag Archives: Tom Thwaits
Bring Your Own Vinyl night returns to The Red Door
By Vic Michener
By his own admission, Tom Thwaits used to be “a bad record borrower”. He recently told Wei Chen, during an interview on CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning, that he had a habit of borrowing records from other collectors (which nobody else seemed to do), and then he’d never get around to listening to them. “I realized that if I was sitting down with those people, I’d probably listen to those records more. It was the socialization and the camaraderie that I was missing.”
His solution was to launch BYOV Meaford (bring your own vinyl). And on a Saturday night last July, a group of vinyl aficionados gathered in Meaford at The Red Door Grill and Pub to share their favourite disks and stories at the inaugural event.
To get a sense of the grab-bag of tunes you might encounter, here’s the playlist from that first night:
Bruce Springsteen – Reason to Believe
Travelling Wilburys – End of the Line
Bonnie Tyler – It’s A Heartache
Rolling Stones – Time Is On My Side (mono version)
Michael Jackson – Rock With You
Gino Soccio – Love Is
Thee Oh Sees – ?
Sons of Ishmael – Small Town Mentality / Break Free
Sadies feat. Kurt Vile – Easy Like Walking
La Luz – Sleep Till They Die
Bell + Arc – Song Long Marianne / She Belongs To Me
Gorillaz – Kids With Guns
Alice Coltrane – Journey to Satchidananda
Blood, Sweat & Tears – I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know
Roy Buchanan – Messiah Will Come Again
The Smiths – Am I Still Ill
Throwing Muses – Fish
The Kinks – Skin & Bone
The Men – I Saw Her Face
Pink Floyd – The Nile Song
MF Doom – All Caps
MF Doom – Rap Snitch Knishes
Frazey Ford – Done
Zapp – Be Alright
Since then, roughly once a month, the event has returned to The Red Door (with one exception – a BYOV Dance Party at Kimberley Hall in February.)
It’s all very informal: when you’re ready to play a song, you step up to the mic and introduce it with a few words, and then Tom spins the disk.
BYOV 11 returns to The Red Door at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 21, and according to Tom, “It’s summer and Chef Ben said he might have sound wired to the patio in time for the next vinyl night!”
Join the Facebook Group or check out playlists at BYOV Meaford.
BYOV Dance Party In Kimberley
By Bill Monahan
The monthly Bring Your Own Vinyl Night at The Red Door has become so successful that it is moving this month to Kimberley Hall and turning the listening party into a dance party.
Initiated last year by Tom Thwaits, keyboard player for Bored of Education, the idea of BYOV is that people bring in their favourite records. They introduce the track they want to play and Tom spins it on the turntable.
For this dance party, Tom has enlisted the help of Mike Reid from Kolapore Gardens.
Because of the change of venue, the normally free event will entail a $5 cover charge to help cover the cost of the hall rental. And because it is not a licenced venue, Tom is suggesting that people can bring their own bottle, as well as contribute and share in a potluck approach to snacks.
The chance to pull out the vinyl to share has found an appreciative audience that’s a mix of baby boomers and young music lovers who have become hooked on vinyl. It results in a very eclectic mix of music as fans bring up their favourites, covering every conceivable genre. Each time Tom prepares a list of trivia questions about music, with prizes for the winners. The evening becomes as much about the stories as the music as each person tells their own story behind the vinyl they are presenting.
As the popularity of BYOV has been growing continually, Tom has arranged for advance ticket sales, available exclusively at the Kimberley General Store. He’s suggesting buying your tickets in advance to be sure to get in.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how eclectic we can get with this one,” says Tom, “Got a good two-step, a great line-dance, do you have any clogs, tapshoes or roller skates you can bring out? Does anyone know how to polka, waltz or ballroom dance? Who’s got the killer slow-jam that’ll have everyone on the dance floor pairing off?”
Kimberley Hall is located at 235309 Grey Rd 13 in the little hamlet of Kimberley, south of Meaford. Doors open at 8 on Saturday, Feb. 24th, with a $5 cover charge. Bring your favourite dance tune on vinyl.
Meaford Musical Community Shines In “The Last Waltz”
Review by Bill Monahan
featured photo courtesy of Patti Kendall
On Saturday night at Meaford Hall, “The Last Waltz – Meaford Style” was a celebration of our musical community unlike anything that has been seen before. A complete sellout more than a month in advance, the show featured a cavalcade of home grown talent that was equal to any visiting talent that has graced this great venue, and the audience loved it.
The template for the show was the famous Martin Scorcese film from 1978 that documented the last concert by The Band, with all of the performers who had been part of that celebration represented here by local talents. It was actually the 41st anniversary of the original concert, which took place at Winterland in San Francisco on November 25, 1976. The film set the bar high for a group of local performers who had little more than a month to practice. They rose to the occasion. The band was tight, often indistinguishable from their model, and each performer who contributed tributes to the other performers did a stellar job. The energy from the audience matched that coming from the stage.
Jaret Koop photo courtesy of John Scerri
A few of the vocalists stood out with their ability to mimic the originals to an uncanny extent. Drew McIvor’s take on Doctor John’s (Mac Rebennack) “Such A Night” had that New Orleans drawl down cold, and Jaret Koop perfectly captured Rick Danko’s anguished vocals on “The Shape I’m In”.
Fran Bouwmann photo courtesy of John Scerri
Fran Bouwman did a great take on Joni Mitchell’s “Coyote” (and even looked the part), and Tom Thwaits’ version of Neil Diamond’s “Dry Your Eyes” sounded like the real thing. John Hume reproduced not only the vocal parts but the keyboards (that beautiful Hammond organ sound) with fidelity.
Sandra Swannell photo courtesy of John Scerri
Others added their own special talent to the songs that reflected what they bring to music. Sandra Swannell’s violin solos on “Acadian Driftwood” and the encore “I Shall Be Released”, and Emma Wright’s vocals on “Evangeline” were spine-tingling standouts. Chris Scerri’s vocals, of course, are 100% his. He’s a belter and his style made new versions of the songs he covered.
Some of the Special Guests at The Last Waltz
Meaford’s version of The Last Waltz, slated for Meaford Hall on Sat, Nov. 25th, is fast approaching a sellout, as promoter Chris Scerri is announcing some of the special guests that will fill out the bill.
The Band itself will be well represented by local rock stars but one of the great aspects of the original performance was that it included a wide variety of influential artists from the time, and these will also be reproduced by local artists. Two of the artists just announced to represent some of these friends of The Band are Fran Bouwman and Tom Thwaits.
Tom Thwaits is well known as keyboard and accordion player for Bored of Education. He’s recently added a sideline with a Bring Your Own Vinyl night the third Saturday of every month. This popular gathering at The Red Door encourages people to bring along their favourite vinyl records, introduce them to the audience, and Tom spins them on his turntable. For him The Last Waltz was not only a document of an era but an inspiration to the generations of musicians who have followed.
“The Last Waltz is, for me, the epitome of a particular time and place in the history of North American music,” he says, “so many disparate threads coalesced for one night in 1978, thankfully captured on film by none other than Martin Scorsese, that for generations to come it will serve as a starting point for hungry ears to understand a bygone era.”
Fran Bouwman has been making waves locally performing as Frannie Wisp, accompanying herself on washboard. As the Frannie Wisp persona she explores, with her own humorous take on it, the trials of being a single middle-aged woman, part monologue, part songs. Her frank approach to some taboo subjects adds spice to her act. Fran is also an accomplished sculptor whose works are as thought-provoking in their own way as is her washboard act. For The Last Waltz, she’ll be taking on a new persona as one of the stars featured in the movie.
“I first heard about The Last Waltz when I worked in the criminal ward at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, now known as CAMH,” she says, “Robert, who had been in and out of the Don Jail since he was a teen talked incessantly about The Band. It was The Band that got him through his most difficult times. He begged for me to take him to Sam the Record Man to buy The Last Waltz album. I agreed to sneak him off the property. Although he had been wheelchair bound for months, he stood up, threw his cigarette to the curb and stepped onto the Queen Street streetcar. Although we got caught for our petty crime, he said it was one of the best days of his life. So that’s how I was introduced to The Last Waltz. An incredible album with an incredible memory.”
If you review the list of performers included in The Last Waltz movie you’ll see that there are many other roles to fill. Chris says they are lined up and rehearsals are “amazing”, but he will wait to feed us the details in the coming weeks.
