COMMUNITY ARTS COUNCIL PRESENTS C.R. AVERY IN CONCERT, TUESDAY NOVEMBER 13TH AT THE CENTRAL CARIBOO ARTS CENTRE,WITH SPECIAL GUEST DANNY BELL.
BY VENTA RUTKAUSKAS
C.R. Avery haunts dreams and truck stops, blues bars and lane-ways, from here to pink moon. He’s a beat poet gone bad, and a harp player gone mad. He’ll take you to St. Saviour’s with his melodies, a little chime on the ivory keys. When burlesque dancers are your very best friends, events can get a brassy mystique in the end.
Chain-smoking butterflies glimmer in the club’s spotlight, and the man at the mic dives deep into his back pocket history, unpacks a Pandora like rhyme for the Amazing Grace of Wastings and Pain. When the eyes see like C.R.’s do, they’re mirror receivers for metaphor steeped in style and grit, the string quartet meets Little Walter, who made babies with hip hop swagger.
Williams Lake, you’re in for some entertainment gladness, ‘cause C.R. Avery’s coming to town with his enchanting badness. He’s been on the road for twenty some odd years, over continental frontiers, honing his skillz to tell you a story through prose and song, he lays it all out, dives in headlong. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he performs to be inspired, to make a thousand paintings reify the walls around you, ghostly and conjuring. He’ll fight for you, so you slip not into the Reality TV brain drain downer, but rather encounter the spark and light that moves you to battle for the man in the street and the child in your heart.
He’ll have with him dear Danny Bell, Prince George’s accordion toting songster, who recently released his debut Album, ‘Good Timin’ Man’. With this album, Danny steps up front with authentic and lucid tunes, and he’ll let us in on his newest musings. Then he’ll hit the drum kit to back C.R., a place he’s been before for acts like Black Spruce Bog and Folky Strum Strum.
Image by Evan Campbell
C.R.’s performed with Tom Waits, Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips, criss-crossed the globe and garnered praise from every corner. As David Kidman from the UK’s Net Rhythm website aptly describes, “It will come as no surprise to learn of Tom Waits' oft-voiced deep admiration for C.R.'s talents. In the words of the musical ornithologist, C.R.'s a cultural magpie who's impossible to pigeon-hole! The world needs more like him...”
C.R.’s born and raised in small-town East Ontario, but for a long time now his bed’s been made in the East Van scenario. He’s put out over a dozen albums, produced four hip-hop operas, written four books of poetry, and made paintings you might have seen… man’s a pistol, no doubt. Times like these, he’s making a movie, and the labour of love’s nearly outta the bag. Watch for its premiere in 2019, Victory on East Hastings, a new calling-card-baby for a well-oiled art making machine.
See him live on Tuesday November 13th at 7:30 pm, Central Cariboo Arts Centre. Tickets on sale now at Open Book and Red Shreds, or email Venta at williamslakearts@gmail.com.
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akDvJv7nytk&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ZsdaOjEA8&feature=youtu.be