- Lola #6, SUMMER 2000.
- Author: Yashin Blake
- Headline: What the Guh?
Ultimately the seemingly solid body is composed of subatomic particles and empty space. What is more, even these subatomic particles have no real solidity; the existence span of one of them is much less than a trillionth of a second. Particles continuously arise and vanish, passing into and out of existence, like a flow of vibrations. This is the ultimate reality of the body, of all matter, discovered by the Buddha 2500 years ago.
William Hart, The Art of Living
Need a visual to go with that? Try those overhead-cam curling shots with one rock gliding into a bump-and-grind with a bunch of others in the vast space of concentric ice circles. Curling was on the tube last Wednesday at College Street’s KOS Bar &Grill while the jazz ensemble Guh provided the celestial soundtrack for 40 of the faithful.
Jazz ensembles harken back to New Orleans and to the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, which formed 35-odd years ago. The music is not always anchored to a formal rhythm line as each musician pours ideas and energy into their instrument and out into the audience/universe. When Guh does this, the result is kooky, spacey, enigmatic, in a way that calls up the work of Monk and Mingus, amongst others, and more often than not, their music goes to a new level of remarkable sonic unity that can blow your mind.
I’ve seen trio versions of Guh and a full platoon version with musicians deployed in every corner of the stage. This night at KOS, they were a five piece - bass, drums, guitar, trombone, and yes, bagpipes. There was a fabulous moment during the first set when the piper and the drummer went at it while everyone else laid out. It was during the powerful war march, Dancersplen, that Henry Muth and Blake Howard turned into Coltrane and Elvin Jones. Guh’s trademark ethereal sound was suddenly concentrated into unnerving fury. The bassist came next with a beautiful solo in the high register, piercing through the memory of the blazing duet just finished. They ended the set with the title track off their 1999 release, We Are Sunburning. This minimalist ditty swelled subtly, almost imperceptibly, into a crescendo that left us breathless, then closed on one nicely sustained, perfectly piercing tone.
Guh has been around since the early 1990s. Their other recordings of original
compositions include the triple disc self-titled debut of 1996, and their 1997 release Flog.
I have them all but I use them only for a Guh-fix when there’s a drought between their live
Toronto sets. There is a shimmering, transformative sparkle about Guh that only comes out
in the flesh. They’ve played gigs in Chicago and at The Knitting Factory, NYC’s stronghold
of avant-garde music. On another trip, they played three solid hours under The
Laurentians’stars: a wedding present from the groom’s brother!
"They’re like a weather system moving in" is how one friend put it as Guh finished a set and the audience slowly came back to the reality of the Rivoli’s back room. That was early last September, when the band returned form a 15-show tour of Western Canada, bankrolled by a grant from FACTOR. The Rivoli gig included a vocal cover of Gil Scott Heron’s revolutionary classic Whitey on the Moon.
But back to KOS. The players warmed up quickly in the second set and the ensemble vibe was strong. They even threw down that mid-song stop-start tightness I usually associate with crackerjack metal bands. During Schickendance, Jason Clarke’s guitar solo was powerful, each note clearly articulated and something about the tone evoked those particles observed by Buddha rising, bubbling, vanishing pearls strung together on the wacky scat-vocal line that I’ve come to love. Patron Bentley was beautiful as ever, and Guh finished with a cooking version of Brown and Out. We were on our feet, dancing.
- OTTAWA XPRESS, May 13, 1999.
- Author: John Lyttle
- Headline: A bundle of contradictions
Before we expose a recently unearthed scandal about GUH, let’s deal with the name of this eight-piece bag-pipe-driven party experience. No, those three letters are not an acronym. They don’t stand for anything but must be capitalized nonetheless. Why? "I think people notice it in the paper more", explains trumpeter Brian Cram. And what exactly does GUH mean? "After this much time (the Toronto-based group began playing together in ’92), different people think it comes from different things", considers Cram. "My version is it’s the sound (Charlie) Mingus makes when he plays the bass".
Cram - like the band in its entirety - is a bundle of contradictions. He plays the trumpet but for a while was responsible for the bass in the band, using an Octapedal to alter the pitch of his instrument.
And Cram, who makes frequent references to Mingus and his own trumpet teacher Kevin Turcotte, is not the one who brings a jazz sensibility to the group. This horn player’s compositions lean more heavily on Jimi Hendrix’s Foxey Lady than on any Miles Davis tune. "I guess for a trumpet player, exploring rock and roll is a new direction for me", Cram says, noting that guitarist Jason Clarke steers the group towards bebop with his compositions, while sole surviving GUH founder Henry Muth (pronounce it as 'moose' with a lisp) brings Eastern European sounds into the mix - on the bagpipes, of course.
As for the scandal, well it has to do with narcotics. "There are certain members of the band", Cram says cautiously, "who don’t do drugs". After listening to the band’s live album, We Are Sunburning, that may come as a shock to some audiophiles who can’t figure out whether they’ve been thrown into a Grateful Dead drums/space set with Sun Ra sitting in, a Turkish bazaar, or a jazz night-club. Don’t worry though: they’re not all squeaky clean. "As for being on drugs listening to the music, I wouldn’t discourage it", Cram hastens to say.
Anyway, back to the contradictions. Cram admits he is at a loss to explain the longevity of the band and he knows it isn’t the money that keeps the machine rolling. "Nobody in the band has ever been paid for a gig", he says. All the dough goes back into touring budgets, paying for recording and other expenses.
Musicians are encouraged to opt out of the band if they can find paying jobs. Muth has taken time off to write a commissioned composition for The Trillium Brass Quintet; other members parted ways to form Glueleg or tour with pop sensation Edwin. It may seem like a raggle-taggle operation flying by the seat if its pants, but there is a richness of musical talent that keeps Cram and the others clinging to GUH. "I’ve had musicians say to me after joining us on stage, "I’ve learned more playing with GUH than all the other time I spent learning music", Cram declares.
- Wavelength, July 2000.
- Author: Jonny Dovercourt
- Headline: GUH
GUH defies description. Forget labels like jazz or classical, it’s dubious if they’re even a 'band' or an 'orchestra' - or just a bunch of really smart guys with wicked senses of humour who get together to make crazy music. They’ve confounded Jonny Dovercourt since 1992, and one day he decided that turnabout was fairplay.
JD: GUH = noun, verb, adjective, adverb?
Brian: An exclamation. An imperative. A guttural. A vibration from deepest down.
Blake: Quit speaking the English language to me.
Do you plan on tearing down nice old neighbourhoods to build GUHdominiums?
Brian: We don’t tear things down, we just lose things. Old neighbourhoods account for half our performances; from one in Etenhiem, Germany, to Hamid’s on Draper St. here in Toronto, to Darlene’s living room on Hornby Island. Old neighbourhoods don’t need changing.
Blake: No I don’t plan on doing that. Someone else will take care of that. I don’t like GUHdominiums.
Have GUH Family allegiances switched from KOS to the Paddock?
Brian: In the ring Nick could take Ken and Tom. No question. Only an underdog lover would switch allegiances.
Blake: No. The Paddock has offered us a place to play on Mondays (as Bug Nite - nit-picking ed.), but GUH people can be seen at KOS with Nick.
Describe the aftermath of a hypothetical GUH in-store performance at Chapters.
Brian: The two remaining listeners would be applauded by the band. Then we’d take them to a bar because we need beer.
Blake: A lot of people taken into the staff room and put back together again ‘cause they would have fallen down the escalator hurrying to the Internet port to search for the music they’re hearing.
Will every man, woman and mutant ever know the truth about GUH?
Brian: Anyone who has had (an infectious) belly laugh, anyone who has experienced the ecstasy of finding your way after being lost, or anyone who has sank their toes into the hot guck of a sulphur spring, knows.
Blake: Yes they will know the truth about GUH.
- RHiG MAGAZINE, OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 1997.
- Author: Ernest J. Agbuya
- Headline: GUH Order and Chaos
STARGAZING IN THE COURTYARD, reads the baby blue flyer tucked in my pocket as I cycle up to the "second laneway south of Queen" off of Dufferin. I am not sure if this is the right place until I hear that familiar sound of tonight's host, GUH. Down the alley and around a corner I find, indeed, the party takes place in a courtyard. A courtyard larger than I had imagined (just larger than a hockey rink). The building I am facing introduces itself as "The Prophouse", which is painted on the wall. Accordingly, various accoutrements have been brought out to embellish the grounds: a pyramid with candles in red and white bowls on each of its nine tiers; an 8-foot flashing faux-juke box; a prop telephone booth as well as a fire hydrant. I especially enjoy the 5-foot tall stars placed randomly around the courtyard walls, outlined with flashing white Christmas lights.
GUH, only seven-strong tonight (guitar, bagpipes, alto sax, trumpet, trombone and two drum kits), are set up, music stands and all before the Prop House wall, transmitting their indescribably, often impenetrable, brand of ordered chaos (maybe chaotic order?) which has in the past encouraged many out the back door and has confounded just about all.
"You are the county folk," says first-drummer, Blake Howard, by way of introduction for one of their compositions, "and we are gonna play a short..." He trails off as the satyr-like bagpiper, Henry Muth suddenly charges like an ambulance around the periphery of the audience, letting vociferous tremolo ululation before resuming his place with the band which launches into a vampy 5/4 tune.
As the piece comes to an end one of the 40-50 "county folk" releases an ungodly guttural sound. A dog sniffs around the audience, a couple of whom now dance to a song set in precarious 13/8 time signature. The whole thing is odd. Just like the hidden reasoning of the universe, you just assume that their work makes sense, that they know what their doing.
In conversation with Henry, Blake, trumpeter Brian Cram, and guitarist Jason Clarke after the show, I find they banter in the same oblique way as their music- slowly revealing its logic through close, layer-peeling examination.
"Whoever wrote the song is the dictator of the song," says Henry.
Does it often turn into a dictatorship?
"Well It turns into a multiple-dictatorship." He says. "If you wanna be a dictator, write a song."
But if it's a multiple-dictatorship, then isn't that a perfect democracy?
" A-ha! That's yer!"
Do you contest?
"Oh, I don't know," he says. "Yes I do because it all exists within time. It's like in a country which goes from one dictatorship to another. I happens over, maybe a couple of decades or something. But in GUH it happens over a period of between one and thirty minutes."
Do you think your audiences often miss the humour in your music?
"It's great funniness." Blake says. "Seriously, it's not humour. I think it's a struggling piece of manure."
"It's hard to do all that effort without having some seriousity." Brian says.
"Seriousity," Jason Clarke, guitarist says, "People don't know how to spell it."
You're right. I can't use that word.
"What do you mean, you can't use seriousity?" Brian asks without any seriousity. "It's like William Falkner...Everybody in the band from UofT was chosen because they were outsiders in a way... Like in a Camus novel. Everybody in GUH has shot somebody and not felt guilty because it just happened. That's the only prerequisite for membership."
Many of your song titles seem to have historic references.
"Why shouldn't it be an obscure idea from somebody else's mind?" Henry says. "Everybody's got very good tastes throughout the world so if you get somebody in one spot in the world is gonna be interested in something that has nothing to do with the other person even if they're in the same spot in the world.' Despite the poor grammar of this last quote, the sentiment somehow makes a world of sense.
Again, it's just like their music- whatever form they decide to scramble and deconstruct, be it modern jazz/classical, European pre-classical, polka or march, give it some thought and things will start to come together.
After the interview the four core members of GUH stand for a moment of reflection as they gaze at a star. A prop star, that is.
"You know what that there says?" Henry poses his bandmates. "Mushrooms."
They all nod in epiphanous contentment. In a strange sort of way that only they can understand, life, the universe and everything makes just a little more sense.
