Canaries in a coalmine

>> The all-male action of Men of the Deeps

by CHRIS BARRY

A burly, all-male ensemble with album titles like Buried Treasures and Diamond in the Rough? Championed and often accompanied by noted fag hags Rita MacNeil and Anne "Dutch" Murray? Sure, you could be forgiven for thinking Men of the Deeps are something that you may have seen on a float at this year's Pride parade, but you would also be wrong. Truth is, the Men are a kickass choir comprised of current and former coalminers from Cape Breton and their schtick is that nobody, no matter how handsome or talented, is allowed to step on stage with them unless they have served time down in the mines.

 Speaking from the coast earlier this week, choir member and Men's business manager, Yogi Muise, informed me that the show is a rollercoaster of emotions. "One minute we take you on a high with some funny upbeat stuff and the next minute we'll take you right down to the bowels of the earth. You know, the guy who sings right next to me in the choir lost his only son in a coalmine."

 Sheesh, a bummer to be sure, but the show isn't just about despair, faulty canaries and premature death from lung cancer. Apparently, the production is punctuated by good ol' Cape Breton jokes and mining stories recounted by Yogi's, ahem, "roommate" and former mine manager "Big" Jim. Jim gets his biggest yuks at the expense of soft Torontonians who "ain't never set foot in a mine and probably ain't never going to." Stupid Ontario fools, they'll never really know the fun they're missing out on.

 Says Yogi: "We start the show in total darkness, and then we creep out from back of the hall clad in just our coveralls and hardhats, with only the lamps on our helmets for light. Let me tell you, it makes for a pretty impressive impact."

 I'll bet! Just consider: 28 hard-bodied men, simple boys but earnest and eager to please, all worked up and sweaty after a week of toiling away side by side in the steamy bowel of some foreboding coalmine, coal dust on their faces and muscular forearms, emerging defiantly from the depths to step on stage and belt out a couple of showtunes! No kidding, that's impressive.

 But despite the undeniable sexuality of the event, Yogi insists that the Men of the Deeps is a "family show" and that "there's nothing off-colour about it"--which may mean that most of the singers are of Caucasian descent and that there are precious few gospel numbers in the set, but then again, may mean something else entirely.

 "When the guys in this choir sing about mining, it's no B.S. I tell ya, they've been there and are authentic," says Yogi. "We're the real thing." :

At the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 8pm, $25