Gig Review

Caught a gig tonight. This guy I've been watching over the last five years or so. Caught him opening for a band one time, and he walks on, just him and his acoustic gueetar, and starts into this incredibly frenetic, tense instrumental and just fucking rocks it out. Blew us the fuck away. Band? Who needs a band?

Guys like this are why you show the hell up for the openers. They'll usually suck ass, but now and then, they're the whole reason you're a music fan. The find. The find.



Wil, aka Wil Mimnaugh, who lives over there at www.ibreakstrings.com,* hails from Calgary, Alberta, here in the great land of Canada. Some music reviewers Somefuckingwhere say that his new album, by December, cut after five years of dicking around on the club and opening scene (opened a tour for Matt Good, and others), smacks of tones from stalwarts like Wilco and Arcade Fire, who, as you may well know, are decent in their own right.

Wil's that music purist a la Elvis Costello and indie gurus like Gomez. When he comes to play, he comes to play. He comes to show up and pound out song after song until sweat just pours off him.

Put it this way: that first summer we discovered him, it was early June. About five weeks later he blew back into town on Independence Day there in the States, Just Another Day here in Canada, and played in one of those shitty dives with hay on the ground. He'd been opening ever since our June sighting for Matt Good, 'cross the nation. He lost some 30 lbs from just Playing The Fuck Out up there. Dude's intense. And funny like all get-out.

You really have to be there to get the humour, but stuff like "This one's a new one off the album, She's Coming Down, and no, it's not the opening for "Night Moves". Every time this plays, people are thinking 'Seeger! Dude!' But, no. It's more like 'Silver Bullet this, bitch.'" (Then the song sounds exactly like the opening to Seeger's classic, so much so that Wil closes the song with his little play rendition of the fade-out chorus to Night Moves. Hell, I saw him cover Britney Spears and Dick Dale in the same show.)

It's dry, but he keeps a crowd in stitches in between sets, and blows you away during 'em.

Anyhoo. I don't often talk music here, but fuck it. This dude deserves bigger audiences. Wil's the bomb. Check out his site. He's got mp3s and stuff. If you like musicians you can see yourself having a beer with, and you love bluesy indie rock, I'm JUST SAYING. Check it. Besides, for $20 a show, it beats the hell out of the "Fantastic" Four. (I don't know about you but I'm not thrilled that film companies are taking such ironic liberties with titles now. Fantastic? Insert derisive snort here.)

A must-hear track's Honey Pie, btw.

Oh, yeah, and I'm now entering four days of manic madness @ work. If you don't hear from me by Sunday night, phone the authorities. I'm goin' in deep and I may be a lost cause just yet. Pray for me, Martha.

*Wil has been known to take a Samsonite toolcase on to sets. It once came in handy when a little fangirl was grinding a big floorspeaker and got her navel ring caught on the meshing. Wil, concerned at the hullabaloo with the bouncer/tender and the fangirl, aborted playing to lean over and see what the to-do was about. The girl was in tears, bleeding, as the bartender explained. Wil reaches into the silver Samsonite case and pulls out pliers. Navel ring is cut. Damsel in distress saved. Last we saw her, she was holed up with an icebag over her belly in the corner. Anyhoo: Wil, pliers. The site name comes from Wil's tendency to snip wires mid-gig. He played a song called "Four String" and proceeded to cut strings one at a time each two or three minutes. About 15 minutes in, he's playing '50s surf-guitar legend Dick Dale on a single string. And it sounded real fucking good. So, he breaks strings... if you're lucky.