When I wandered into Richards on this night, Paso Mino was smack in the middle of their rousing set. A very multi-heighted stage was setup, including keys, a drum riser, a really tall bassist, and the regular cascade of speakers and amps that are always at this bar. The singer was getting into a soliloquy about moving ‘to the city,’ being Toronto, and among other things, the fabulous rotis and shwarmas they’ve got (no joke, they are really good for that sort of food over there). Paso Mino, much as their name might imply them to be, played a foot-stomping brand of country folk music. I wish I knew their song titles better, because the fantastic rolling song they played to close off their set was brilliant. Something about my brother is my dealer? Did I hear that correctly? Anyhow, standing as close to the stage as I was, just about all I could hear were boots solidly thudding on the floor. Dun-dun-dun-dun.

Between sets, half the bar patrons clustered in around the one television in the bar that was broadcasting the Vancouver Canucks hockey game. They were up by a crapload of goals, much to everyone’s surprise. After a time, Jason Collett came out, backed by the Paso Mino guys. Collett is like our own little Bob Dylan. Well, more coherent. But he looks and quite sounds the part. He was dressed impeccably as always in a slim-fitting suit jacket, a vest, a bowler hat, cowboy boots, and playing homage to our town, an EXPO 86 tshirt peeking out from underneath. How does someone pull off vertical pinstripes and diagonal pinstripes in the same outfit? He told us about how he had just come from the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, which they’d been looking forward to for a myriad of reasons, including getting away from the Toronto winter and into some sunshine… but… it rained the whole time they were there. “…and then we went to Winnipeg,” he deadpanned. The crowd sympathized. And then they end up in Vancouver on a day where it happened to be bloody gorgeous and everything is green and blooming, so they thanked us for that.

A consummate storyteller, his song explanations and comfortable and humorous banter really make the live show what it is. Regaling us about tales of his youth spent in, around or behind strip malls, and the story I’ve heard before about the prized velour jumpsuit purchased for a school dance that ended up in a blaze from a fallen joint cherry the moment he and his date walked past the principal in the hallway, Catholic youth and putting hands down girls’ pants, tour trifles, on and on it goes. To boot, the gent’s got such a delightful swagger to his slight frame. Casual and sexy, and seemingly through no effort on his part. He just plain is, and all while nonchalantly mawing on a piece of gum throughout the set. He went into a speech about hockey then, how he’s aware everyone was watching the game, that he doesn’t really care a whit for hockey but that one thing he did like was that the Canadian women’s team won gold. He apologized for not paying attention to hockey, but admitted it was interesting having been in Sweden where everyone associated the Canadians with hockey hockey hockey. And of course he brought up the EXPO shirt and how no, no one in the crowd could have it, and he’d been offered lots of money for it before.

“One moment, our drummer needs the cowbell…” is a line that set of a trend for the entire evening. The same guy somewhere in the crowd would then periodically yell out , “More cowbell!” Collett in the meantime lost his mind during one song, playing on his back, losing his hat, crawling around. The small flower tastefully placed in his breast pocket however remained in place. His husky growl escapes through his ever-gum-chewing jaw. At this point I realized how damn cool the organ on stage was. An ancient wooden behemoth, it looked like it might fall apart any second. And the giant bass player was still stunning. Wow, tall. Good Christ they’re fun to watch though. Collett and his shuffle-shimmy around the stage. Pure magic! During a tune where he put his guitar down and just sang, he dashed about singing in his edgy, bluesy way, got up on the speakers to dance, and commandeered an extremely elaborate clapping and percussion sequence during a breakdown. And suddenly it began to smell like donuts, which boggles the mind.

Mid-set, a couple gals dashed to the front with longstem roses for Collett. He simply beamed. “I’ve been waiting for this all tour, and here it is in Vancouver. And it’s a Monday! Goddamn!” He did what he could to place the towering flowers in his lapel as he explained, “ Winnipeg destroyed me, Saskatoon killed me, Calgary is just… uh.. But in Vancouver, I get flowers!” Soon he played “I Bring The Sun” along to a fantastic and gorgeous singalong from the audience. Clapping ensued not unlike the “…September” song from Matt Mays and El Torpedo that I never shut up about. The band broke into a conversation then following another outburst from the cowbell guy in the audience, that went something like, “Good times. GT’s. Good times. Good talks.” The really-tall bassist took the stagefront then for a moment and proclaimed, “Three cheers for Vancouver! Hip hip-Hooray!” And then he stopped. The audience laughed, the band laughed, and one of the other guys informed him, “dude, that was only one cheer.” Collett then explained that the bassist had a root canal that day and was probably still somewhat loopy from anesthetic. And he was also wearing his dad’s Canada Trust basketball jersey, which he then modeled for us. “Somewhere in Vancouver, there is a dentist to blame for this,” said Collett, watching his bass player flaunt the jersey.

The Paso Mino guys jammed us out after Collett left the stage, but soon they were back for an encore. “Oh we’re really funny here tonight, really funny, because I can’t sing a note. But you’re all too drunk to notice,” Collett explained as his voice deteriorated throughout the performance. He brought out his harmonica during one song, but had to stop as he noticed, “My harmonica is upside down. I’m going to fire my harmonica tech.” The keyboardist piped up, “That’s me! Do I get to keep the keyboard job?” Collett said that, yes, he would only be fired as the harmonica tech. The encore was obviously scripted though as that was the only time the harmonica made an appearance.

A definite ladies-only highlight of the evening was the brief rose-in-mouth striptease Collett performed, climbing onto the speakers and shaking his booty around a bit to the delight of many. Rowr. While he was up there, the guitarist took his discarded vest and placed it around the bassist’s shoulders. And as a final tribute, he dedicated the last song of the set to his friend who was the gent I’m sure we’ve all heard about who was held hostage in Iraq for months. Congratulations.

Anyhow, definitely one of the top shows of the year so far, not one to miss. Collett happily chatted with old friends and fans after the set for a while, and hey, let’s hope he’s back soon, the man is brilliant!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : April, 2006.