Music Niagara season finale features host Mike Bullard

Tuesday evening’s Music Niagara Festival season finale will be a reunion for comedian Mike Bullard and drummer Vince Maccarone. 

Maccarone, the leader of the versatile and eclectic world music band Los Variants, appeared on the wildly popular CTV television program Open Mike With Mike Bullard at least twice with a previous band, and he’s looking forward to reconnecting. 

“I haven’t seen him in years,” Maccarone tells The Local from his Toronto-area home. “And he is so funny. I’m also looking forward to getting there early and listening to the other musicians and singers. I love the dark harmonies of the music from Eastern Europe.”

Los Variants, who play a mix of Afrofunk, reggae, jazz, blues, Caribbean, Flamenco and Middle Eastern music, are part of the lineup at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Aug. 29. They will close out a show that begins with performances by Lithuanian musicians Aiste Bruzaite and Egidijus Alisauskas on traditional instruments kankles and birbyne, respectively. Funny man Bullard will tie things together with his stand-up talents. 

Maccarone, who teaches music at both Georgian and Centennial Colleges, says you never get the same set twice from Los Variants, who came together as a revolving collective around 2012.

“For this particular performance,” explains Maccarone, “we have musicians from Algeria, Sicily, El Salvador, Peru and Egypt. Everybody gets a chance to shine. Only when we go out with the same group for an extended tour do we have a consistent setlist.”

Growing up in Sudbury, Maccarone wasn’t exposed to much more than rock and blues. Somehow he developed his love of music from around the world. 

“It’s probably because I’m a drummer,” he says. “I would hear African music, or Latin music, and I would focus on the drums. That became a passion. And then I studied and practised with some of the people in Toronto and became even more interested in the rhythms from around the world.”

Maccarone began living the musician’s life at 18 years old, touring with various bands while studying music at Humber College. His resume includes stints with blues harmonica legend Paul Reddick as one of his Sidemen, underrated guitarist Colin Linden, and Denny Doherty of the Mamas and the Papas. 

Maccarone left Humber before graduating, but a few years later at a blues and jazz festival he met up with one of the school’s professors. 

“He started describing his life, teaching until mid-April and then touring in the off-months,” he laughs. “A light bulb went off for me. So I went back and completed an undergrad degree in music performance and production through Humber and York University, and followed that up with a master’s degree in ethnomusicology.”

While living in Toronto Maccarone began collaborating with the likes of singers Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell as well as guitarist Michael Occhipinti, bass player Jonathan Amador, and percussionist Luisito Orbegoso, all members of Los Variants. From time to time, the band’s tour guests may include Luis Simao on accordion, Kevin Turcotte or Andrew McAnsh on trumpet, Fethi Nadjem on violin and Maryem Hassan Tollar on vocals.

It’s a diverse and unique collection of sounds from around the world that they will be bringing to the venue Tuesday.

Bullard also remembers Maccarone fondly from his six-year stint on the Gemini Award-winning Open Mike, followed by another year hosting The Mike Bullard Show on Global television.

“I remember Vince,” Bullard says. “I look forward to seeing him. You know, Canadian musicians were often the best guests back then because they were used to being in front of a live audience.”

During his phone call with The Local, Bullard shares many memories of his seven years of hosting a successful national TV talk show. As a veteran stand-up comedian by that time, it is appearances by contemporaries such as Al Franken, Jim Gaffigan and Louis C.K. that remain some of his favourite memories. But an unlikely highlight for Bullard involves Burt Reynolds.

“He called our office, and at first I didn’t believe it was him,” Bullard laughs. “I thought it was (comedian) Norm Macdonald trying to pull a prank on us. But I got on the phone with the guy and asked him who his first wife was. When he answered it was Judy Carne from Laugh-In and she was bat**** crazy, I knew it was really him.” 

Bullard cleared the scheduled guests for that night’s show, giving Reynolds, who was in Toronto to shoot the film Driven with Sylvester Stallone, the full hour. Afterwards the pair went out to dinner, and one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs ever regaled the host with stories about shooting Deliverance, free love in the film industry during the 1970s, and how Sally Field was truly the one that got away.

After his second talk show was cancelled in 2004, Bullard moved on to CFRB Radio, where he hosted a syndicated program for about 10 years. 

“I enjoyed radio a lot more than I ever did TV,” Bullard says. “It was freeing, because it all depended on me. I had more callers than anybody, and that’s what I really, really enjoyed. They made the show. There’s nothing I enjoy more than speaking to regular folks.”

That was part of his television act, too, during segments such as his Viewer of the Week and Who The Hell Do You Think You Are. It also continues to be a big part of his stand-up act, which takes him to Yuk Yuk’s in Niagara Falls on a regular basis. 

For his Music Niagara appearance Tuesday, Bullard promises some of that back-and-forth with the audience. He also is pretty sure he’ll touch on some of his recent experience touring a war-torn Ukraine for four months earlier this year.

“I’m in the best shape of my life right now, partly from wearing that 150-pound vest for 5,000 kilometres of walking,” says the 65-year-old. “I listened to the stories from my uncles and my grandfather about World War II. They fought in the Battle of the Bulge and D-Day. What’s happening there right now is just like those stories.” 

Bullard was invited over by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to help raise money and awareness. His efforts resulted in about $100,000 collected to pay for food, medicine and toys for kids. 

But he didn’t just travel around to make appearances as a celebrity. He got his boots dirty while there. 

Bullard delivered wood stoves and supplies to people in Kherson, held a Christmas party for 200 kids and helped distribute up to 1,000 meals a day in Kharkiv. Along the way he came across destroyed tanks, heard constant air raid sirens and witnessed the bodies of two young children being pulled from debris.

“I’ll probably tell at least one story from that experience,” Bullard says about his appearance at St. Mark’s on Tuesday evening.

Also from Music Niagara is a performance this Saturday, Aug. 26 at the Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls. Dubbed A Trip Down the Silk Road, it features world music led by conductor Ismayil Hajiyev, the artistic director of the Silk Road Chamber Orchestra. Admission to that event is on a pay-what-you-can basis. 

The Aug. 29 performance featuring Bullard and Los Variants also includes the world premiere of Lithuanian composer Arunas Navakas’ new work for birbyne, violin and kankles called Cranes, performed by Bruzaite, Alisauskas and Music Niagara founder and artistic director Atis Bankas. The show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $40 plus HST in advance and are available at musicniagara.org.