(Not So) High, (Kinda) Lonesome

If you need a little back porch picking, and you live in Toronto, you’re probably shit-out-of-luck. But, if you’re as hungry as a vegetarian at a NASCAR race, High Lonesome Wednesdays at the Silver Dollar Room feature a local bluegrass outfit called Crazy Strings. Clad in cargo shorts and roman sandals, a down-home band this is not. Crazy Strings can’t sing worth a lick, the acoustic guitarist needs smelling salts to stay awake, and the Dobro man’s facial contortion suggests a heavy metal ambition. Nonetheless, these are talented pickers, anchored by the gifted Chris Coole on banjo who contributed a tinge of honky tonk when he set down his instrument in mid-song to visit the can. If you can tolerate the hippies with feathers in their filthy dreads, dancing goofy Irish jigs, on a go/no-go scale I’ll give it a “go” for lack of alternatives around here.