The Pearl Company

Stephanie Vegh: Revisions: Gallery Opening: Thursday, April 12.  (7pm to 10pm) No Charge. Respected Hamilton-born, McMaster graduate, artist and writer Stephanie Vegh has an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art.  Her body of work has been shown from Toronto to Leeds, England. Her playful, drawn interventions into history books are both humorous and unnerving. These drawings are both a direct creative response to the book’s contents and a subversive act in which the status of the book as inalienable fact is undermined by the interpretation of the reader.  While playful in the spirit of the idle student’s textbook scratchings, Stephanie Vegh’s  interventions into history books reveal a serious stake in civilizations defined by their conquerors. Her labour-intensive drawings of diminutive subjects at an excessive scale in relation to their illustrated environments refuses the logic of these books, forcing a fusion between their history and another, more fantastic possibility.  www.stephanievegh.ca
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Maeve Donnelly in Concert with Andy Hillhouse: Wednesday, April 11. Doors 7:30/ Start time 8:00.  Tickets: $18 advance / $20 door.  Lyrical, passionate fiddling with the brilliant world-renowned, award-winning, All-Ireland Fiddle champion, Maeve Donnelly, from County Clare, well known for her fiery and stunning musicianship. She is making a rare appearance in Ontario, accompanied by the superb Canadian guitarist, Andy Hillhouse; together they will perform their uplifting, high-energy, toe-tapping music. Maeve possesses virtuosic technique and a profound understanding of traditional Irish music, played with a passion & exuberance rarely encountered. Over the years she has toured widely in the US and Canada, playing such prestigious venues as New York’s Lincoln Performing Arts Center and the Washington Irish Festival. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEGW7NHsqUo Andy Hillhouse, 2007 Juno winner, is a superb guitarist, singer and songwriter with a diverse musical background. He is the founder of the popular Canadian Celtic funk band Mad Pudding, plays guitar and sings with the innovative fiddler Jaime RT. Also a well-versed instructor, he currently teaches an acoustic roots ensemble at the University of Toronto, where he is pursuing a PhD. http://www.myspace.com/andyhillhousemusic

Shane Koyczan with His Band, The Short Story Long: SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL: AN OPERA OF SOULS: Friday April 6: 8PM – $20 at the door; Shane Koyczan is one of the world’s premier spoken word performers.  Known for his rhythmic verse in high gear, his performance at the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies brought the 55,000 seat house to their feet with his tear-jerking homage to Canada “We Are More”. Now the multi award-winning spoken word performer breathes life into the new genre of talk rock with his band, The Short Story Long: a group whose musical range stretches from folk to funk, from ambient to rock.  Their sound showcases a blend of original music and Shane Koyczan’s remarkable performance poetry.  Along with Koyczan, the group has created a whole new style of song/verse. This is Talk-Rock.  This is something new. This is worth checking out. Their new album ‘Remembrance Year,’ has already garnered acclaim from music reviewers and fans alike. A writer and spoken word virtuoso, Shane Koyczan navigates through social and political territory with a furious honesty and a tender humanity that has brought audiences to their feet everywhere. Winner of the US Slam Poetry Championship and the Canadian Spoken Word Olympics, Koyczan is truly an extraordinary talent. www.shanekoyczan.com (more…)

Dwayne Morgan: SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL: AN OPERA OF SOULS: Saturday April 7: 8PM – $20 advance/$25 at the door; With Dan (aka Dan Murray [AKA DAN]), Yogi, Kay’la Fraser, Tomy Bewick. Dwayne Morgan has won three Canadian Urban Music Awards for Best Spoken Word Recording, for his three albums. His Spoken Word performance style is straightforward, dynamic, thought provoking and layered with a heavy hip-hop culture influence. On the 7^th he will perform GRADE 8 which received raves when performed at Hamilton’s Fringe.  “Dwayne Morgan’s one man show is an impressive soul barring confession about the trials  of raising a daughter alone. Morgan’s flow is tight and solid, and when his monologue transforms into rap, the mercury rises; his powerful energy shines huge. This piece is intelligent, funny, and honestly performed. Highly recommended  .”  -View Magazine
In 1994, Dwayne founded Up From The Roots entertainment, to promote the positive artistic contributions of African Canadian and urban influenced artists. Dwayne’s work ethic has taken him across Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Barbados, England, Belgium, Germany, France, and Holland. His emphasis on quality has driven his success, and has made him a well respected member of the Toronto area’s urban music community, as well as the North American, and Global, spoken word scenes. www.dwaynemorgan.ca

John Ferguson: Thursday, April 5. 8:00pm. $15 door /student/artist price $10: John began his musical career in 1972 as a founding member of the Cape Breton folk band Miller’s Jug. In 1977 he joined the Halifax group McGinty; McGinty is still up and running. John has recorded seven albums with McGinty, one with Buddy MacDonald, one with Roger Stone and three solo recordings to date. Career highlights include sixteen consecutive appearances at Celtic Colours International Festival, opening act for The Chieftains, John Prine and appearances at innumerable local festivals, pubs, concerts and corporate shows. A forty year career has seen John perform in every province of Canada, Nunavut, United States, Ireland, Iceland and Luxembourg.
John sings and plays guitar, bouzouki and fiddle on stage. He is also proficient on other stringed instruments and versatile enough to have joined many fiddlers, pipers, singers and dancers over the years. His folk roots are evident in songs and tunes from the Celtic Diaspora, Americana, and the many and varied compositions of many talented Canadian artists. John also performs his own songs and tunes.

What Happens When Your Lawyer Dies?!? Tuesday, April 3. 7:00pm. No charge. The City of Hamilton is fertile ground for stories of corruption, influence peddling, and back room dealings. This has been going on for decades seemingly “unnoticed and unreported” by our local media.

The story, “What happens when your lawyer dies?!?” has been meticulously documented and researched; it investigates the failure of the legal profession’s regulatory body in Ontario, the Law Society of Upper Canada, to protect the client rights when the death of a lawyer ‘interrupts’ the process of the law.

This story may never be published in Hamilton as it involves the Spectator itself, prominent legal firms and lawyers of Hamilton, The Law Society of Upper Canada, and now the Halton Regional Police.

The man at the centre of this story is former City Alderman John Gallagher who has been on a 25-year quest to have his good name and reputation restored. The Law Society ignored even the report by former Ontario Ombudsman, noted jurist Clare Lewis Q.C., whom they hired to investigate the Gallagher complaint, and no further action has been taken on the matter.

Check out the facts, join the discussion, view the video that explores the story….

DAWN AND MARRA w MELISSA BEL & KIM KOREN: Saturday, March 31, 8:00pm. $10 at the door. Join us for a relaxing evening of great music with 4 talented, intelligent and creative women of song.  If you are interested in the songwriting process, this is the night for you! It will be an intimate songwriter’s evening focusing on four of Hamilton’s finest, playing and talking about their influences, their processes, and their own music. You can look forward to a mix of genres with Kim Koren (roots, pop), Melissa Bel (pop, rock, blues), and Dawn and Marra (indie-folk).

Dawn and Marra came to our attention winning the 2010 Hamilton Music Awards Rising Star competition. Soon afterwards they released their first album and shared a stage with many renowned acts including Daniel Lanois, Gord Downie, The Reason, Sarah Harmer, and more. At only 19 and 17, these two young ladies’ incredible harmonies and engaging original songs establish them as a must-see act in the indie-folk revival. www.dawnandmarra.com
Melissa Bel’s voice has power and soul. It’s a voice all the more remarkable because it belongs to a petite, fresh-faced 22-year old. Growing up in Burlington, Melissa has received much critical acclaim from her 2010 tour in Germany and at home here in Canada. Her new ‘Distance’ EP is rich, smoky, impassioned and powerful, a rarity in the present day pop world. http://melissa-bel.com
Singer/songwriter Kim Koren (aka Marra’s Mom) draws from her roots to deliver an uncompromising musical mélange from alternative country rock to beautiful ballads, sharing the stage with a diverse and celebrated group of artists that include; Steve Earle, Barney Bentall, Country Joe McDonald. “This Dundas-born country rocker has a voice that could melt butter. She writes with Stevie Nicks’ power. ” – Graham Rockingham http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/Kim-Koren

The Jazz Connection Big Band: Friday, March 30. Doors at 8:00; jazz at 8:30. $15 /$10 students/artists: The JCBB is a well-established 17-piece jazz ensemble comprised of professional and semi-professional musicians from the Hamilton/Toronto area. They perform only the best modern big band charts from the books of Goodwin, Martin, Menza, Rich, Basie, and many other great contemporary composers. Jazz Connection’s approach is high energy, uncompromising, straight ahead jazz. They combine the highest level of musicianship with great charts in an entertaining show that engages both the jazz enthusiast and the casual listener equally. The incredible acoustics at The Pearl have no trouble accommodating their very cool (and often very hot!) surround-sound big-band music; we are always delighted to have them back and they will return April 27 and then May 23 to 25 for a rousing 3-day recording marathon! Watch for more info re this intriguing experience.  http://www.jazzconnection.ca
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To purchase tickets, please call or email or pay at the door.

For PayPal purchases, please see below.  Please print your receipt and bring as your ticket.

Monday Night Movie! Monday, March 26 Doors at 7:30, movie at 8:00. $10 all/door. Our first Monday Movie will be the Japanese masterwork, Ran (literally “Madness” or “Chaos”), legendary director Akira Kurosawa’s twenty-seventh of thirty films, is not only the summit of his artistry but a universally acclaimed masterpiece. Kurosawa spent ten years meticulously preparing every detail of and scouring the world for funding for his free adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear transposed to sixteenth century feudal Japan. We see, and feel, the “Ran,” the literal chaos of the title, in the destruction of the bonds of duty which once united a son to his father, a brother to his brother, and a samurai to his lord. Kurosawa makes no apologies for taking the time he needs to explore every nuance of his characters and themes. This magisterial film is an aesthetic triumph, with sequences ranging from one of the most overwhelming (and influential) battles ever filmed to intimate scenes which begin with ritualistic formality but then erupt into volcanic passion.  Monday Night Movies will take place on the last Monday of the month and will feature a variety of international masterworks with an international food pairing!
For more information re ‘Ran’, follow the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ran_%28film%29 and for the original movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbbfDntoRRk Stick around for sushi and conversation afterward!

Charly Chiarelli and the Sunnamabeaches: Sunday, March 25: 2:30.$15 door/$10 artists/students. Charly brings his close friends Venesio – aka Dennis – De Salvo (a manager at Hamilton’s Canadian Mental Health Association, on guitar) Ron Weihs (co-proprietor of Artword Artbar, on fiddle) and Gary Santucci (Pearl Company, on very classy guitar).  Charly may be one of the world’s most accomplished storytellers but he is also a songwriter and virtuoso harmonica player, so, it is no wonder that this collection of four notorious Hamiltonians have formed a band called the Sunamabeaches, named after the last play of his trilogy! Charly takes on the role of lead singer, harmonica player and at times will tell a story or two… Any one of the other musician’s may step up to the plate with a story, but the focus is on music,unique interpretations of jazz, blues, rock and Sicilian folk tunes – including some of Charly’s original tunes from his plays. There you have it, Hamilton’s own SUNAMABEACHES, a must see!

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To purchase tickets, please call or email or pay at the door. For PayPal purchases, please see below. Please print your receipt and bring as your ticket.

Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers: Tuesday, March 20: 8:00.$15 door. $10 artists/students. Rugged, raspy, and roaring with charisma, Ben Caplan, former Hamiltonian, now living in Halifax, delivers it all from poetic ballads to frenetic gypsy anthems. He has just been handed the honour of playing the Canadian Music Week (CMW) Opening Night Gala in Toronto’s  CN Tower with one of Canada’s top songwriters and performers, Joel Plaskett!
It is not surprising that Ben has arrived at this current pinnacle with songs that have a depth and musicianship that combines expressive percussion, upright bass, violin, sax, clarinet, flute, with terrific use of call and response sing-along choruses. Caplan has marked his place in the Canadian music landscape with a growling spirit similar to that of Tom Waits while his use of gypsy-inspired strings, amid the sultry tones of clarinet and saxophone, sync beautifully with the energy of his live show.  The show is raging, strong, and exploratory; it’s the blues in Ben’s soul, pounding with the heart in your chest that makes Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers a gotta-be-there kind of act. www.bencaplan.ca
Folk-indie Polish band Paula i Karol will open for Ben.  Inspired by Canadian kitchen parties, acoustic instrumentations, and music collectives, this new band is creating a buzz on the Warsaw scene and helping define the multinational nature of Polish and Canadian pop music.  “[They are] Poland’s new superheroes. Not the tight pants, fluttering cape kind. More like, come to our concert – we’ll break your heart, and then we’ll fix it up kind,” – The Guardian   www.paulaikarol.pl

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To purchase tickets, please call or email or pay at the door. For PayPal purchases, please see below.

SW Austin: Fresh New Work! Wednesday, March 21.  (7pm to 10pm) No Charge. Spring is in the air and with that,  FRESH NEW LIFE! SW Austin celebrates again by showcasing several NEW WORKS! -so new we wonder if the paint has even dried! Come and celebrate the NEW and enjoy LIVE JAZZ with the energetic fury of Errunriv (pron: river run)! Meet the artist, and connect in the Pearl’s wonderful historical environment.
A very exciting display of talent, SW Austin’s declared concern is the paint itself – the physicality of the paint, the traces from the movement of his brush. This is as important to the final picture as colour and shape. Steve Austin creates this new work through a layering and extracting process that results in a thick hide of paint on the canvas. The image is created when the artist scrapes paint away from the resulting strata, revealing in a picture that is neither landscape nor still life, nor pure abstraction, but a study in contrast. He now lives in Hamilton and is excited to show his new works for the first time in Hamilton at The Pearl Company. Runs through March 31st.  www.swaustinart.blogspot.com

Charly Chiarelli’s ‘Mangiacake!’ March 15–17 / 22–24. 8pm. $15 at the door/$10 students/artists. Charly Chiarelli is one of the world’s premiere storytellers, widely known for his trilogy of one-person plays. The 2nd, Mangiacake, addresses the difficult aspects of growing up as a newcomer to Canada, his return to Sicily, and his fight with cancer. Charly shows the funny side of it all with his own brand of Sicilian blues and his virtuoso harmonica playing.  Mangiacake (the Italian immigrant’s name for non-Italians) picks up where CuFu left off; young Charly enters Westdale High School where he concludes the road to success in Canada is assimilation. He decides to become a mangiacake and does his best to blend in – with mixed results. He runs for president of the student council using the slogan “put a wop on top!”.  He wins!
When, as an adult, Charly goes back to Sicily, he finds out what a ‘mangiacake’ he actually has become in this strange, magical land where his relatives are like characters out of myth. www.charlychiarelli.com
Charly has been inducted into the McMaster University Alumni Gallery of Fame – along with performance inductee notables like Martin Short and Eugene Levy, and astronaut, Roberta Bondar.
“Heart, humour and a generosity of spirit…” “Laugh-out-loud funny”…Toronto Star…

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To purchase tickets, please call or email or pay at the door. For PayPal purchases, please see below.

Kaleidoscope Brown:featuring Brownman Ali with ARECIBO: – Episode 8 of the Kaleidoscope Brown Series! Trumpet (Trinidad): With Paul Morrison – piano (Canada) Amhed Mitchel – drums (Cuba): Ben Miller – 6-string electric bass. Saturday, March 10. 8:00pm. $15 door. $10 artists/students. A brand new latin-jazz outfit delving deeply into both Cuban and Brazilian modern jazz traditions in the New York latin-jazz spirit of Jerry Gonzalez & The Fort Apache Band featuring some of Toronto’s most acclaimed jazz and latin music specialists. The group is named after the Arecibo radio telescope housed in Puerto Rico – the largest radio telescope in the world, responsible for the deepest exploration of space mankind has achieved to date.  http://arecibo.brownman.com Jazz writer Conrad Gayle writes: “Brownman Ali does it again as the great mastermind creating bands as vehicles for his creative output.  (more…)

Jean-Paul de Roover with Wax Mannequin: Friday, March 9. 8:30 door; 9:00 show. $10 door. $5 artists/students. Jean-Paul de Roover is much more than just a one man band, this ‘sonic architect’ builds songs through live looping, combining rock, folk, electronica and a capella into his own well constructed hook-filled post-pop. The originality and creativity of his time-less performances shines through to every listener. http://www.jeanpaulderoover.com
Wax Mannequin: “Part wandering minstrel, part rock animal, Wax Mannequin combines a fine sense of prog-rock parody with intense sincerity and lyrical smarts. He will indoctrinate you with chilling harmonies, absurd lyrics and the almighty power of the guitar http://www.waxmannequin.com