Beyond the pail

>>The deceptively simple set-up of
Toronto duo Feuermusik

FETCH ME A BUCKET: Feuermusik

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The lowly bucket has a respectable history of aiding in the extinguishing of fires, but it’s less common that buckets should start one. Empty pails were nonetheless the spark behind Toronto rhythm-and-sax duo Feuermusik (that’s German for “fire music”), whose sound, captured on their debut record Goodbye, Lucille, lies somewhere between free jazz, minimalist baroque, art-punk and acoustic drum & bass.

“I had seen these bucket players in Toronto when I was a kid,” says Gus Weinkauf, the bucket-beating half of Feuermusik. “I would come downtown from Mississauga and see these people play, and there was one in particular, Graeme Kirkland, a bit of a legend in Toronto in the jazz drumming scene. He used to play on Queen Street, outside of the shops, and he had this great set-up of a metal bucket and two plastic ones. I was always fascinated by what he did, so it was always in the back of my mind—that was something I’d like try to do at one point.”

The opportunity came when Rockets Red Glare, the mathcore trio in which Weinkauf played with then-bassist Jeremy Strachan, disbanded in 2003. “We both weren’t doing anything musically. Jeremy had this old beater saxophone he’d been messing around with, and I was like, ‘Know what, man? Let’s try something different. There’s these buckets I wanna play, I know you wanna play the sax, I have this inkling they might go well together.’”

Weinkauf’s hunch paid off in several respects, one being the purely practical considerations. Replicating Kirkland’s set-up of a metal bucket and two plastic ones, he found the logistics refreshingly easy. “Playing in bands before, loud bands with big amps and lots of equipment, it was a real hassle getting to and from shows. Now we take a bus to some shows! The buckets get stored underneath, we take the bus to Guelph or London, take a cab to the show and repeat the process to come back to Toronto. It’s very nice.

“It’s a very mobile band, and that lends itself to the approach, not only getting to shows but where we play and even how we play together. It’s open. There’s no set genre we’re trying to get after, it’s just like, ‘Well, let’s see what works.’”

Part of what works for Feuermusik is the intrinsic appeal of skilled players getting so much from so little. “I like this idea of doing a lot with something simple. That’s the approach that Feuermusik takes, and that I, in a sense, am forced to take when I play the buckets, because I’m limited. There are only really three things to play on, but within those three things, there’s different ways you can hit them, different sounds you can make, different combinations. You’re not playing a Neil Peart kit, you don’t have all these toys constantly around you, so you’re forced to take out of the bucket something that’s interesting and intricate, yet simple, a simplicity that a kit sometimes hides or masks because it’s too complex. Especially with percussion, you don’t need fanciness. You don’t really need cowbells and triangles and all this other stuff.”

Whoa, hold on! Is Weinkauf truly dismissing the mighty cowbell out of hand? “Wait till you hear the next album,” he laughs.

With kickers and Place Hands at Divan Orange
on Saturday, Aug. 4, 9 p.m., pay-what-you-can