Bedouin Soundclash And Friends Reclaim Music At MMVAs

Once the glitzy televised awards show ended last night, the Bedouin crew headed up a motley jam of cover songs under the banner the "MMVA 08 Aftermath" for a half-hour set that was streamed online at muchmusic.com and broadcast live on MuchMoreMusic.

Housed in the Much building's big ground floor room where they used to do all the Intimate & Interactive shows, the set featured a whirlwind of interchanging players and parts that started with Bedouin's own "St. Andrews" before shifting into The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" and, from there, chaos. And K-OS, too.

Musically, the playing was drunk and sloppy, but that was the point.

K-OS mostly stumbled around the stage with a drink in hand, and his wobble-Bez contribution of some backing vocals, a verse of The Beatles' "Yesterday" and a shout-out to Sam Roberts might have risked blurry-eyed spectacle if that wasn't the baseline everyone on stage was working from. Indeed, Our Lady Peace's Jeremy Taggart furiously smashing a beer can to bits with a tambourine near the set's end was definitely higher on the antics scale.

Somewhere amidst all the chicanery, Roberts managed to sneak a rendition of The Kinks' "Come Dancing" on air. And the massive gang love-in of "Pressure Drop" was undoubtedly the first — and last — time Toots And The Maytals will get a nod at the MMVAs. There were covers of The Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love," The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and The English Beat's "Mirror In The Bathroom," too.

It would take someone far more rain man than I to figure out who was playing what for every song, but in the mix besides the Bedouin guys, Taggart, Roberts and K-OS were members of Alexisonfire, Saint Alvia Cartel, Arkells, Zaki Ibrahim and what may have been the entire Dine Alone Records office staff, right down to the interns.

Sure, it was mainly an internet throwaway after-show, but context was everything.

There once was a time when the MMVAs guest list was a super-charged who's-who of every Canadian musician making music "for the kids," regardless of whether they were big, small, indie, major or anything in between. Nowadays, though, you're more likely to encounter entitled daughters of ad execs and losers rocking Affliction tees under sport coats than a Constantines or Woodhands or Run Chico Run member. And yeah, the alphas were all there last night — be they Dallas Green or Sum 41 or Theory Of A Deadman. But if you were, say, The Golden Dogs, you didn't rank in the pecking order.

So when Arkells and Saint Alvia Cartel were conducting a spirited butchering of The Boss's "Dancing In The Dark" and the room was a sea of hoisted drinks and hollers, genuine article rock 'n' roll took the event back for everyone who owns a turntable and wears jeans that don't come pre-"distressed." It was a thoroughly cathartic blowout and was also probably the best half-hour I've ever witnessed in the decade or so I've been going to MMVAs.