Posted by On March 2nd, 2023 I found myself stuffing my talk-hole with plate after plate of American Chinese food at a Walmart-sized buffet restaurant in Ottawa called Mandarin. I was in town working* for a couple of weeks and as usual I made a point of getting out to see as many of my friends as possible while I was back in my old hometown. For the most part this involved meeting up at some sort of entertainment venue – whether bar, theatre, arcade, or concert hall – but hey, a guy’s also gotta eat.
To me “all-you-can-eat” is a culinary shopping spree that inevitably devolves into a Olympic marathon of indulgence as I strive to outdo my own personal best, so when I waddled out of Mandarin** with plans to meet some friends at House of Targ to see a band called REYNALDO & the Dalliances I was pretty sure I was going to bail. ‘Matter of fact, when I got back to where I was staying I typed an apologetic text to my friends explaining that dinner had gone late, I was tired and I wouldn’t be coming to Targ after all.
My gosh, I felt so lame as I stood there in the kitchen staring at my computer screen. I swear I had my finger poised over the “send” button for a full five minutes before I got hold of myself. Finally a fleeting moment of clarity came over me and I deleted my lame message and typed “I’m on my way” in its place, making sure to click “send” immediately before I changed my lame mind again. I flew out the door and quickly scuttled an easy kilometre to House of Targ through the snowy night.
When I descended into Ottawa’s favourite live music venue/arcade I was immediately glad I had come. Even before I wiped the fog from my glasses and paid the $12 cover I was already being soothed by live rootsy-smooth synth-rock. I bee-lined it to the bar and ordered the closest IPA. As I waited for my pour I scanned the medium-sized crowd for my friends to no avail. Undeterred, I turned my attention to the band, which I pre-knew included the rhythm section from my friend Dave Lauzon’s new group as well as young Dylan Watts, an increasingly busy local guitarist who I’d met when he was just a young ‘un eagerly learning to play guitar in the chair across from me once a week. From my bar lean I could see everyone onstage except the lead singer, but as soon as I heard him I knew who it was.
It was Rey, the lead singer/songwriter from one of my favourite alt-country bands ever, The John Henrys (now sadly defunct). Oh right…”Rey” is short for REYNALDO. Well, now I was extra glad I’d come!
I grabbed my beer and sauntered back to the other side of the bar where I discovered my two friends holding up a pillar. We clinked glasses with smiling nods and kept our collective attention on the stage, saving our catching up for the post-show. For our raptness we were rewarded with relaxed grooves and delicious vocal hooks overtop a tri-keyboard harmonic swath of chill vibes, and all of it perfectly decorated with sparse and thoughtful guitar lines from young Dylan. I recall a cool, laid-back rendition of Pat Benatar’s We Belong but otherwise I believe it was all-original***, and it was all great.
Despite the nostalgic ’80’s-ish aura and the great company I somehow managed to remain responsible in the face of the next’s morning’s work…err, play…keeping myself to just the one beer, even as my friends and I sat and chatted for another forty-five minutes after the show. Meanwhile both Rey and my former student (who literally fell over himself in surprise when he saw me. “Oh no, I’ve killed Dylan!” I cried) stopped by and joined our table.
And I still didn’t order myself another tasty, frosty IPA beer. Oh, I was the very example of responsibility!
Or perhaps I was just too full of sweet ’n sour chicken balls to stomach another beer. Regardless, I felt pretty good about it when my alarm went off the next morning at the unholy hour of nine o’clock.
(Musicians don’t play that hard.)
*I’ve long claimed that “musicians don’t go to work, they go to play,” but in this case I was in Ottawa for my somewhat longstanding Blues In The Schools gig which requires getting up early every morning and going to a bunch of public schools where me and my good friend Doug would play in the gym and get all the little kids worked into a lather on live rock & roll music, so in this case it actually was work. Sure it was super-fun and pretty rewarding in a lot of ways taboot, but it was definitely work.
Oh, all right…it’s play.
**My dessert run included a Nanaimo bar that I quickly realized had been a Nanaimo bar too far. It was nearly my undoing.
***Okay, the last song – which was definitely an original – featured the exact guitar line lifted from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, so “all-original” might be slightly overstating it.
Todd Man Out 