Live Music Alert: Rock Plaza Central, 10KLF, Saloon Stage, July 22, 6 pm

At the Moment of Our Most Needing

Rock Plaza Central

Self

Though Rock Plaza Central, a band based in Toronto, has been around since 1996, it has changed personnel so often that it has dwindled and expanded like a concertina. The only consistent member has been founder and principle singer/songwriter Chris Eaton. Over the years, Eaton often grabbed musicians he knew who were playing on the same bill as he was and asked them to sit in.

The current seven-piece production has held its size and musician-makeup since 2003. It came to be during a show where Eaton had already gathered a third of his band members. Another band was playing and he asked some of them if they wanted to come up and join him midway into his set. A few did and became another third of Rock Plaza Central—and never left.

A talented interplay of acoustic instrumentalists, band members are able to pull a variety of effects out of their collective suitcases to fit the nature of Eaton’s songs. It also helps to have a slew of different kinds of instruments tucked inside the touring vehicle. For some reason, many of the former band members left their instruments with Eaton, and Rock Plaza Central has been able to pick those up and try their chops on them. For example, though Rob Carson plays guitar, trombone, and banjo, Eaton himself decided one day to pick up the banjo and taught himself to play.

Against Blake Howard’s drums and Scott Maynard’s bass, there are other other tantalizing sounds. Don Murray plays mandolin and trumpet. John Whytock plays trumpet, too, but also accordion, mellophone, and glockenspiel. And, Fiona Stewart adds a versatile violin.

Rock Plaza Central has released seven albums in its entire history. The first, Refers to Cantaloupe (1996), was a limited release cassette. It was followed by Quantum Butterass (1997) and then Stella (1999), another limited release cassette tape that also was recorded to CD. The Things that Bind You followed in 2002, then The World Was Hell to Us (2003) and Are We Not Horses (2006). Refers to Cantaloupe, The Things that Bind You, and Stella are no longer available, and there are very few copies of Quantum Butterass left. All of the available albums can be purchased as CDs or digital downloads.

Rock Plaza Central’s last recording, Are We Not Horses, was released to critical acclaim, marking this band’s continued rise in quality and unique storytelling. But it is the band’s current album that is drawing rave reviews. At the Moment of Our Most Needing is a musical retelling of William Faulkner’s Light in August, a story about a very pregnant, but idealistic, young woman who sets out to find the father of her child. Now, most singer/songwriters might be leery of tackling one of the greatest writers in American literature. But not Chris Eaton. A novelist himself, Eaton has published two books and is working on a new one. The Inactivist was published in 2003 and The Grammer Architect came out in 2005. The latter was a modern rendering of In a Pair of Blue Eyes, an obscure book by Thomas Hardy, written in 1873.

For At the Moment of Our Most Needing, though, Eaton wrote 13 songs. Some have lyrics that further the story; some just have instrumental elements to indicate emotion or movement within the story. Using a mix of genres, Eaton has created a stew of sounds, combining roots banjo and a plaintive vocal delivery against mariachi horns, Eastern European violin, and drum work that drifts from rock beats to Celtic bodhran sounds to jungle drum lines. “The Hot Blind Earth,” the last cut on the album, is a mesh of Primus, South Asian qawaali harmonium, and lavish Big Band or Broadway elements. Though the album is an exquisite work in its entirety, if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the haunting “Don’t You Believe the Words of Handsome Men” with its mountain holler quality.

When asked why do a musical novel, Eaton responded quickly saying, “To save the album.” Not his album, but the album as a viable musical entity. Though singles were the mainstay of early recordings on 78s and the small 45s of the 50s and 60s, it was the Beatles and other rock performers who really stressed the album as a whole structure, Eaton says. Today, the concept album has pretty much fallen away as people download single songs for their iPods. So instead of squawking like some “crotchety old people,” according to Eaton, who don’t like to see change, he decided to write an album that had to be listened to from beginning to end. That said, Rock Plaza Central, however, doesn’t play songs from the album in sequential order when they play live. They mix them up with older material and jumble up the sequence from At the Moment of Our Most Needing.

I would highly recommend taking a lazy afternoon and listening to the whole album, maybe a couple of times through, to appreciate the depth and emotion of the lyrics as well as all of the musical treats embedded within each track.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Issues, July 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.