C.R. Avery
BC
In any other case, it would take a team of people to do C. R. Avery’s career or even conceptualize his 17-album catalogue, let alone gain his beautifully twisted, wonderfully dirtied world view. From what dimension he pulls his ideas, we’ll never know. He’s a regular guest of writers festivals, sexy poetry slams, badass burlesque dances, punk piano bars, and if there ever was, is, or would be such a thing as a rap opera festival, he’d surely be the guest of honour with his six rap operas which have been staged from LA to New York. Avery is always up to a stunt of some sort – a performance-art drama in which he fakes his own death and acts his resurrection to promote a crowd-sourcing campaign, for example – and summer folk festivals are certainly not his idea of a vacation, he’ll be working his magic hard on the audience. As a matter of fact, his spot in the line-up makes the entire festival a challenge for fans to spot him on as many cameos and fill-in spots at as many willing artists’ stages as possible.
His artists’ toolbox is overflowing with paintbrushes, mixed tapes, props and costumes, and vocabulary remixed in ways never heard by the human ear before. Hailing from Ontario in 1976, he’s since settled into the east van troubadour’s lifestyle. C.R. makes music messy by mixing beatboxing and blues, harmonica and opera with banjo, and watching the rips he makes in time warp old timey showtunes with futuristic melodies that haven’t been invented yet.