>>PREVIEW
MAYOR McCA
Saturday, September 23
Hifi Club
By some poetic coincidence, Mayor McCA (Christian Anderson "C.A." Smith) is strolling across Abbey Road in London when his cellular phone rings with my call. Only a couple of years ago, Mayor McCA was Hamilton’s favourite son. He had run for mayor of his beloved hometown. After losing a heartfelt campaign, he assumed the title of Mayor for the stage anyway.
Over the span of seven years, Mayor McCA became Canada’s most popular one-man band. He moved to Toronto to work on music by day and bartend at night, but in spite of his hard work, he felt stagnant and underappreciated. In April 2005, he packed up all of his belongings and moved to London, England for a change of pace.
As he walks across the road historically captured on the famous Beatles album of the same name, he tells me that London is as cool as ever. There must be loads of stylish people walking around, right? Without missing a beat, he responds, "And me."
McCA has always had an excellent sense of humour. Occasionally, he has been penalized for it by being slapped with the "novelty act" label, something that plagues many one-man bands. See the terrifically talented B.A. Johnston, Wax Mannequin (both of Hamilton) and Fat Possum Records’ Bob Log III. Luckily, proving himself is a task McCA has never shied away from.
Since arriving in London, he’s had to start all over again, but has eagerly risen to the challenge. New fans and friends include Nick Oliveri – the wild child formerly of Queens of the Stone Age. Oliveri and bandmate Blag Dhalia (The Dwarves) keep inviting McCA to open for their new band, The Uncontrollable. One of the head photographers at NME is also a big champion of McCA.
"The idea was, Canada is great and everything, but they’re bored by me or they’re used to me," explains McCA. "(So) go to a place where no one knows me and, hopefully, they’ll go mental for it because they haven’t watched me grow. They just see this guy do all this crazy stuff. They haven’t watched me practice it for eight years.
"I love Canada. I’m so proud to be from there and I’m so proud to be from Hamilton. I can think of… countless people who’ve (moved away) and then they come back and it’s like ‘oh yeah, we’ve loved you all the time.’ Which is true, but maybe people forget. In any sort of relationship, you’re not constantly telling your friends, ‘hey you’re really great.’ I’m 30 years old now and I was 17 when I released my first album. It’s been a long time that I’ve been doing this."
The new album, Cue Are Es Tea You, should lacerate the last of the novelty act comments even though the titles in his discography are purposefully mimicking the alphabet. It’s heavily inspired by the Beatles, it’s loud rock in other parts and, overall, it’s a very respectable body of work. The new songs are richly contemplative and the album reveals more of McCA’s soul with each listen.
"Every time I play music, it’s one more reason to live. I love music. When I say that music has saved my life, I’m not saying that in any sort of dramatic fashion, like, ‘ohh, I’m so depressed.’ Music is a magical thing. Playing any time is what makes me get up in the morning.
"I can think of several gigs where it was just like, ‘oh my gosh, I really needed that.’ That last gig I did with Nick (Oliveri) went so well. The audience was so far on the page. Those are the moments that are really special, when I can really feel a connection with the audience. For example, people applauding or people screaming, I love when that happens. Sometimes I’ll play and people will just start screaming because they’re so excited about what they’re seeing.
"When I get really down, ’cause I do – I’ve spent my whole life failing and I don’t mean that in any sort of weird way. It’s just like, y’know, you fail all the time. You make mistakes, but you learn from your mistakes. If you learn from your mistakes, I know a lot because I’ve made a lot of mistakes. When people go ‘yeaaaaah’ and they scream from what I’m doing, it’s those moments when I’m like ‘oh my god, I’m such a fuck up’ – that’s the sort of thing that keeps me going." |
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