April/May 08 reviews

This and the next post will wrap up reviews penned for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record/Guelph Mercury in the past two months. Please take discouraging note of my increasing tendency to use song titles as a substitute for actual critical observation. Also, I wasn't really this grumpy all spring; tomorrow's post will have much more positive reviews!

---

The Breeders – Mountain Battles (4AD/Beggars Banquet)

Kim Deal might have gone for the cash grab when her old band the Pixies reunited, but there’s nothing on her latest album as The Breeders’ bandleader to suggest that she’s looking for easy ways out.

Deal has had a rough time, musically, since The Breeders soundtracked the summer of 1993 with their landmark single “Cannonball.” That song’s success overshadowed the fact that Deal was a wonderfully weird songwriter even when she wasn’t going for big pop hooks. Unlike her Pixie bandmate Frank Black, Deal decided to stick with the strange and unconventional, a decision that has led to spotty material in the last decade but serves her well in spades here.

Mountain Battles is that rare record where an indie icon manages to tap the anything-goes amateurish approach of their earlier career, long before patterns get codified cliché, before maturity sets in and commercial pressures mount. “I can feel it!” are the only words Deal sings in the opening track, “Overglazed,” and in her voice you can hear her shaking the shackles of addiction that plagued her (and her twin sister Kelley, who shares guitar/vocal duties) for much of her career.

In picking her Battles here, Deal delivers one or two bouncy pop songs, more than a few mournful waltzes and country-tinged diversions, one song sung in Spanish, and a rhythm section that sounds as deceptively lazy as the haunting harmonies between Deal and her twin sister Kelley, which remain as compelling here as they were 15 years ago.

Mountain Battles isn’t out to recreate past glories or do anything, really, other than amuse the Deal sisters and those who remember them fondly. While the same could be said of everything Deal has done outside the Pixies, the difference is that this time she no longer sounds stuck in a rut: her musical interests continue to expand while retaining the unrefined, almost naive quality that always made her unique in the first place. (K-W Record, April 17)

---

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti)

The worst thing you could ever say about Nick Cave is to accuse him of being innocuous, and yet 14 albums deep into his discography with the Bad Seeds, Dig Lazarus Dig!!! is Cave-by-numbers. The album opens with a fiery title track about resurrection, and closes with Cave lamenting his own obsolescence on an eight-minute Velvet Underground blues riff called “More News From Nowhere.”

Coming off an artistic renaissance of late—with the expansive, gospel-fuelled 2004 double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and 2007's howling garage punk Grinderman project—Cave crawls back to his old bag of tricks, which makes it somewhat ironic when he sings: "People often talk about being scared of change/ me, I'm scared of things staying the same/ because the game is never won by standing in any one place too long."

If Cave seems on autopilot, his Bad Seeds are in as fine form as always, with relatively new keyboardist James Johnston stepping to the forefront with organ flourishes that define many of the album's best moments.

At this point in their evolution, it would be far more interesting to hear the Bad Seeds backing up someone else while Cave takes some well-deserved time off from writing. (K-W Record, April 10)

---

Constantines – Kensington Heights (Arts and Crafts/EMI)

“Some people’s love is not strong enough,” sings Bry Webb on the opening track of the Constantines’ fourth album. His own love is not in question, however—even if it’s put to the test repeatedly over the course of these dozen songs, where he witnesses friends and family falling on hard times, leaving the harsh environs of the city, hitting the highway or raising children. The Constantines are lifers, and this is their statement of intent: “Kith and kin, when the ice gets thin.”

The last three years have been somewhat tough for this band. After passionate reactions to their first two albums, 2005’s Tournament of Hearts garnered a comparatively tepid response, and the band is now split between Montreal and Toronto. It’s no surprise, then, that resilience is the theme of this record: “Brother Run Them Down,” “Life or Death,” “Do What You Can Do,” “Time Can Be Overcome.”

It’s too bad, then, that they spend much of their stay in Kensington Heights stuck in a murky middle ground between their primary strengths: the fist-pumping rockers (“Hard Feelings,” “Credit River,” “Trans Canada”) and the slow-burning, slightly countrified songs that show a softer side (“New King,” “I Will Not Sing a Hateful Song”). The rhythm section seems to have taken a back seat this time out; keyboardist Will Kidman adds more traditional organ textures to the mix while both Webb and Steve Lambke are experimenting with their approach to guitars.

The kind of tension and release that characterizes their best work is largely absent. This should have been a major transitional record for the Constantines; as it is, it will inject some new life into their legendary live show, but the recording errs on the safe side. They’re ready for bolder moves than this. (K-W Record, May 1)

---

Hilotrons – Happymatic (Kelp/Outside)

Don’t pay any mind to the terrible album title, especially when you find out that Ottawa’s Hilotrons deliver herky-jerky new wave pop music. Yet thankfully, Happymatic is not a non-stop perky party, and are happy to shake up some vintage soul, some 80s pop, some science fiction and trace elements of African and Asian pop just to keep things interesting. They’re also one of the only bands who know how to use a vocoder judiciously and not just as a cheap prop (Shout Out Out Out Out, take note). For every fist-punching glory like the Ottawa anthem “Emergency Street,” the Hilotrons also know enough about dynamics that they can slow things down to a crawl and a hush, as they do on “I’m a Parade,” with its funereal brass section and Martin Tielli-esque vocals. (K-W Record, April 3)

---

Islands – Arm’s Way (Anti)
Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (Sonic/Warner)

Both of these Canadian bands have orchestral instruments as integral elements of the band, not a casual add-on in a bid for respect and maturity. In both cases, the thoughtful arrangements elevate them above the din, but in at least one of these two cases, it’s not enough to save the album in question.

Montreal's Islands have not only had a string section and a bass clarinetist on board since day one, but their songwriting on this, their second album, increasingly resembles a rock opera where verses and choruses take a back seat to longer, linear compositions—which would be fine if they were able to pull it off. The strings themselves boast much more colourful arrangements than heard on Islands' debut, but the similar-sounding songs themselves aren't strong enough to sustain interest.

Some of this is due to songwriter Nick Thorburn's limitations as a singer, but this also marks the first time that he's worked without a strong foil and/or editor: in his past life in The Unicorns, he had an often tumultuous relationship with that band's co-founder; in the first incarnation of Islands, he was collaborating with inventive Guelph drummer Jamie Thompson, who helped steer the ship through some of Thorburn's thornier twists and turns.

Now that Thompson is gone, the current line-up of Islands break up their more plodding numbers by embarking on extremely awkward Motown/Latin/calypso breakdowns—something that Thompson could segue together seamlessly—and seem to be building towards a dynamic release that never happens. By the time Thorburn starts singing about shitting in swimming pools, it seems like an apt metaphor for the entire album.

Real-life islanders, Hey Rosetta! are Newfoundland newcomers who fare far better on their first widely-distributed album. There are no shortage of orchestral flourish for vocalist Tim Baker to howl over, usually set to driving, propulsive rhythms that sound like more muscular version of Hidden Cameras—or, for those who remember, the 80s Irish group Hothouse Flowers.

It's not surprising at all to see that Into Your Lungs is produced by Hawksley Workman; both artists share a love of grandiose stadium-size gestures, and the emotive Baker shares more than a few Workman-like operatic vocal tics, though none of his sense of economy—Into Your Lungs wears out its warm welcome well before its 60 minutes are up.

Even though Workman gives Hey Rosetta! a larger-than-life radio sound, this is a band that undoubtedly sounds much more invigorating live, where their more bombastic side would truly come alive. (K-W Record, May 29)

---

Jamie Lidell – Jim (Warp/ Fusion 3)

Some artists go further out on a limb as they get older; some discover the joys of simple pleasures. Jamie Lidell started out in the abstract techno world before attempting a Timberlake-style millennial soul makeover on 2005’s Multiply. The transformation is now fully complete, with Lidell reaching even further back to mid-60s Stevie Wonder for inspiration.

Thankfully, Lidell comes to his new state of Wonder-ment with an undeniable set of pipes that don’t sound the least bit the product of studio trickery, which is even more obvious with his new stripped-down sound. Lidell is one of the few British soul singers whose whoops and hollers are convincing enough that he’d feel entirely natural leading a Southern gospel choir. With the help of some of Feist’s key collaborators—Gonzales, Mocky and Renaud Letang—Lidell is never short of finger snappin’, piano rockin’ soulful pop to wrap his voice around.

As good as he is, there are few instances here where one wouldn’t rather pull out some dusty vinyl from his source material and listen to that instead—especially when one song is a direct lift of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Jim is the beginning of Lidell’s reinvention; next time he’ll likely dive in even deeper. (K-W Record, May 8)

---

Matmos – Supreme Balloon (Matador)

Matmos are, and always have been, scientists. Often dressed in lab coats on stage, their studio albums create music from found sounds in the unlikeliest sources: shuffling decks of cards, snails and lasers, spanking bottoms—even liposuction. Each album by these Bjork collaborators is tied to a specific concept, wherein the source material for their instrumental compositions is directly linked to the intended musical narrative.

This time out, however, Matmos are one step removed from the lab, and more like soundtrack artists for a 70s sci-fi film—or even an educational filmstrip, which children of that decade will remember fondly. Matmos boast that “no microphones were used on this album,” instead turning to a series of analog modular synthesizers to create what could be early synth pioneer Wendy Carlos romping through a Nintendo-generated fantasy world. If nothing else, Supreme Balloon will certainly conjure memories of that first school trip to the Ontario Science Centre.

Because they’re so associated with conceptual art, this is the first Matmos album that must be approached entirely on its own musical merits. Their playful spirit prevails, on the glitchy blips and bossa nova beat of “Rainbow Flag” or the non-sequitur quote from O Canada that appears in the middle of “Exciter Lamp And The Variable Band.” But they pop their own balloon and set themselves adrift on the 24-minute title track, which sounds like a plodding outtake from Kraftwerk’s more psychedelic period, where nothing develops over the course of its epic length to justify it taking up almost half the album’s running time. (K-W Record, May 15)

---

Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada – The Alchemist Manifesto (ESL/Select)

Adrian Quesada and Martin Perna are the two men responsible for this chilled-out, trippy Latin groove album—which is not what you would expect considering their day jobs in two of the hottest live bands in the U.S.: the Latino powerhouse funk band Grupo Fantasma and the neo-Afrobeat Antibalas, respectively. But playing in those acts must be exhausting, which is why they probably start making music like this back at the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. Some stronger grooves prevail, but this is definitely post-party music, the kind where renowned horn player Perna breaks out his alto flute far more often than his baritone saxophone. It’s also several steps above the usually tepid downtempo modern muzak that this will invariably get lumped in with; Quesada and Perna deserve much better than that. (K-W Record, May 29)

Julie Doiron

Growing up Catholic, I always believed that confessions were something you did in a dark closet with a stranger that someone told you was closer to God than you'll ever be.

I don't know if Julie Doiron was raised in a church at all, but for the last 17 years her recordings and performances have often been raw nerves played out in public: raging psych punk and otherworldly dreamstate folk in Eric's Trip, followed by apologetic lullabies in her solo work--all of which had a knack for alternately making the listener both empathetic and squeamish, especially on stage, where Doiron's stop-start stage banter has been known to infuriate those not already enamoured with her.

But unlike drama queens such as Cat Power (well documented in this month's excellent Magnet cover story, which made one friend of mine want to sell off her entire Cat Power discography), Doiron is disarming, dorky and always delightful in person. The first time I ever met her she was showing off pictures of her three kids within the first five minutes. Even though much of her material is autobiographical--or so we infer, anyway--she's a far cry from a self-involved demanding diva, and has always played well with others: in Eric's Trip, with French band Herman Dune, with the solo project for The Tragically Hip's Gordon Downie, and, most recently, as bassist in Shotgun and Jaybird.

Woke Myself Up is her seventh solo album [it's out today], and far and away her best. On an entirely aesthetic level, it breaks the hush-and-shush monotony that's plagued her last three albums, making the title all the more apt. Her Eric's Trip partner Rick White is responsible for the rejuvenated sound, and the rest of that band also appear on several tracks. Melodically, she's also come up with her best set of songs since her 1999 collaboration with the Wooden Stars.

Yet Woke Myself Up is also incredibly painful to listen to. Even if you didn't know the personal details (revealed below), it's impossible to listen to without feeling like this stranger is telling you far more about her life than you ever wanted to know. Though her lyrics are earnest and direct, Doiron's prose still has a universal ring. Anyone who's been through gutwrenching heartache and confusion can relate; the lyrics here have stopped me cold in the middle of the day several times, often when the CD's not even playing.

There's a larger essay to be written here somewhere about the confessional singer/songwriter, but we'll let her speak for herself here.

---

Julie Doiron

December 18, 2006

locale: phoner from a friend’s house outside of Sackville, NB, where she was housepainting. The sound of barking blind dogs in the background.

How long have you been back in Sackville now?

This is the third year. I moved back here in September 2004.

I’ll admit that I’m very excited about this record. It’s my favourite of yours in a long time, particularly musically: there’s so much more going on whereas others were about very specific moods.

It’s true, I think. The other ones I wanted to convey a certain sentiment or mood. I listened to Heart and Crime the other day with a friend of mine, and we were laughing so hard at how I was singing. I haven’t sung like that in years. With that record I wanted to make something that was totally different from the Julie and the Wooden Stars record, because this was the anglophone follow-up to that [2001’s Desormais was entirely in French]. I made it really quiet and mellow.

With Goodnight, Nobody, I wanted to make a record really fast with my friends in Herman Dune. We did that in a day, except for three songs that I did later in Canada. I wanted the songs to be fresh to me, so I didn’t teach them to [Herman Dune]. With this one it was fun to teach the songs to Rick and {ET drummer] Mark [Gaudet] and get everybody involved in it, and then leaving it with Rick and giving him an opportunity to work on my stuff. It was fun for me to see what he was going to use. I didn’t take it as far as I wanted to, still. I think the next record will do that. I wanted this to be a full-on rock-out record, but there are still three songs here that are just voice and guitar. But we felt those songs needed to be like that, not to add anything to them.

One of the last times I saw you play was with Gord Downie’s band, and I remember you taking the lead on “We’re Hardcore.” I thought at that time that I hadn’t heard you sing out like that in ages, just really project and grab the microphone.

I think that was a totally impromptu thing that night. I don’t think I did that very often in the set. Maybe a couple of nights I went for it. I think it was fine for Gord, I don’t know—I never talked to him about it! It was in the moment. Now that I’m in Shotgun and Jaybird it has been fun to rock out on that level, too. The Gord Downie stuff for me was really fun at the time because I wasn’t doing that in any other manner.

Basically what’s been happening is that I was doing that with Gord, and whenever I toured in Canada it would always be solo. But in Europe I would play with Herman Dune, so I’d had a backing band for a while but no one in Canada knew about it. Playing with those guys fulfilled that [urge to rock] for me, but I wasn’t necessarily bringing it back home. For years people here believed I was only doing this quiet music, but over there I’d be doing guitar solos and was backed up by a band.

In terms of the difference between records like Desormais and Heart and Crime and the last two albums, do you write differently when you know there’s a band involved? Do you consciously write a solo album if you know you’ll be touring solo for a while?

I used to. With this record, I actually had decided that it should be a rock album. The songs that turned out that way were totally written to be that. The ones that didn’t come out that way were more about me needing to let stuff come out without hitting people in the face with it. For [the solo acoustic track] “Me and My Friend” I wrote it on the spot in front of the microphone. I wrote the lyrics while taking a bus out to Rick’s house after doing some shows in September. I’d written a whole page of lyrics, and then sat down at the mic and came up with the guitar part right there. That one I didn’t even think about it.

Most of the time when I write one that I want to be quiet or solo, I’m usually too attached to it to give it a band treatment.

I know you have family nearby, but why did you move back to Sackville?

We moved back east because we were missing our parents out here. We loved Montreal, but it was starting to feel bigger than us and we were missing the taste of smalltown life. What did it for us was we were given notice at Christmas time, and it was our third apartment in six years, and the last two were a similar disaster in that we had to find an apartment at the last minute. We felt maybe this was the time to go back east and buy a place.

Our main plan was to come here, buy a house and set it up as a summer home, and then go back to Montreal after two years. Now we’re coming up on three years, and it looks like we’ll be moving back to Montreal in September.

But I love it here. I don’t want to move, but [husband] Jon does. I don’t want to blame him, but he prefers the big city. For his paintings, he’s way more inspired by big city life. It’s really nice here, but there have been a lot of changes in my life.

Jon and I actually split up a year ago. [personal details] That’s been a big mess. The last year has been a total disaster for me! (laughs)

Frankly, I was worried about asking how many of these songs were autobiographical.

Well, the crazy thing is that I wrote the record right before the trouble started. It was all written when I was still happy and in marital bliss. Everything fell apart right after I recorded the album, basically. We were pretty discreet about it.

Right after it was decided that I would get my own place, I went on tour in Europe for five weeks and called home all the time. When I got back I got my own place, but all winter I thought we were working things out. I was only staying at my place two or three nights a week. In April, I moved all my stuff back in the house before my cross-Canada tour. I thought everything was okay, but when I got back from the tour Jon told me he didn’t want me there.

It’s sort of… yeah, you can’t really be married to a musician who tours. Jon can’t stand it anymore and doesn’t want to be married to someone who’s away a lot. He was able to put up with it for a long time. Unless I made a decision to become a teacher or something, he’s not interested.

It’s tough for me, because this is the one record where I feel it could maybe get to a different level. I feel I need to give it another really good go. Because I’ve been working extremely hard for the past 16 years, but not everyone has necessarily noticed. Even though I have more fans than ever and I seem to be some kind of legitimate name in music history (laughs), there have been a lot of ups and downs. You can tour Europe and it’s amazing, and then you tour Canada and it’s only 30 people. But the last few Canadian tours I’ve done have been amazing and people are interested again. Maybe it’s because I’m touring with a band again too.

Anyway, I don’t want to quit yet. Jon and I are both seeing new people anyway, so we’re not considering getting back together.

But you’re both moving back to Montreal.

Yeah, but not together. He has the kids during the week and I have them on weekends. In the summer it was the other way around. But because I’m touring a lot, he thought it would be better for them to be at his house, and he has a point, even though it breaks my heart. [plenty of personal details about the custody and living arrangements]

When I had kids, I didn’t plan on being a deadbeat parent, on not being around. In the past, when I’d come home from tour, I’d be with them 24 hours and be getting up in the night and everything, and now I’m missing that. So it’s been a year of dealing with all that.

I don’t know how much of this you’ll be able to use! I’m really opening up here.

But the record is going to prompt a lot of these questions, you must realise.

I guess, yeah. Our whole life together was full of ups and downs. [off the record personal revelations] We had five whole years where it was amazing and this last year was too bad. There were other good years too, and just this one year where it didn’t go so well. I truly believe that if I hadn’t been away from my family so much that [the break-up] wouldn’t have happened.

Yet these songs were written and recorded before any of that actually happened.

They’re so prophetic. It’s so weird for me.

When writing and recording a song that draws from painful personal experience, do you ever think about having to perform the song in public for years afterwards?
I do, actually. Sometimes it’s really hard. I do think about committing to that. There are some songs from the past that I can’t play anymore, even if I really like the song. For this [album] I just have to be a professional performer and not think about it. There were a few times when I was touring in Europe last year during the initial break-up, when I’d be playing “Snow Falls in November” and tears would be rolling down my face, because that song was truly written at a beautiful time in our lives. That’s the one time I really tried to write a beautiful song about my family and for John. When I was playing it on tour in the middle of breaking up with my family, it was really heartbreaking to do it live.

There’s one song on this record—the hidden, bonus track—that was a post-break-up song. I went to record with Rick in September, the record was mixed in October—the whole thing is really late in coming out, but the label kept pushing the date back and it was out of my hand—and then the bonus track I recorded after SXSW at the end of March. That song is my apology and acknowledging that I messed everything up. But I worked on that song for months. I started it in November and it took me until March to finish it.

It closes the album for more than chronological reasons, then. After going through this song cycle…

Yeah, it couldn’t have gone anywhere else on the record.

It’s really intensely personal, and extremely uncomfortable, to say the least, yet I find it speaks universally. I’ve felt all those things before, and I’m sure most people have.

I feel really lucky that I seem to be able to write songs that are really personal to me but that a lot of people relate to. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t know what approach I take. I wish I had a bit explanation for it. But I don’t.

That song in particular—I almost don’t feel I should play it live, but every once in a while I do and it’s really intense for me. I don’t know how other people feel about it. I played it once in Sackville last month, and I did it a cappella. A few people came up to me, including a guy I know pretty well, and he was mad at me because I made him cry all through it. I don’t even know him that well, I know him okay, but he knew our situation. It had that effect on a few people at the show that night. If someone dares come to see Julie Doiron they might end up crying!

That’s just a given! You pay your money and you take your chances.

Exactly. But a good cry releases a lot of endorphins! Just feel glad that you’re not Julie Doiron.

Do you ever think what the appeal for audiences is? Is there a certain amount of voyeurism involved when an artist is really personal on stage? Is part of the appeal giving an intimate glimpse into a person’s life through songs that may or may not be fictional?

When I go to see shows—I guess I don’t see that many—no, that’s not true. But I don’t go to see the same thing that I think I’m offering when people come to see my shows. I offer a lot of myself, and maybe I shouldn’t put so much of myself out there.

For me, it’s a really personal experience. If it’s a really good night, I’ll give a lot of myself to the audience. But I don’t expect it from anyone else when I go to a show. I expect to have fun or see a great show, but I don’t expect that same personal level.

I don’t really know what people expect when they come to see me, but if they come to a solo show and they’re hardcore fans, for them the more personal it is the better. I get that sense. I imagine it makes some people really uncomfortable. Sometimes I regret my shows, and sometimes I think they’re exactly how they have to be. Not regret in that ‘oh I wish I never played ever’ but sometimes I wonder if it’s too much. Maybe I’m making it seem way more than it is right now.

How do you react when you go to see someone else’s show and it’s very personal?

I’m trying to think of a show that has really set me back and made me feel like crying.

Of someone else’s?
Yeah, because I know I’ve had people come up to me and tell me they cried.

I’m always blown away by Snailhouse, because I love his songs and he’s a beautiful guitar player. Mainly I love really good rock shows. The highlight for me recently was when [Shotgun and Jaybird] opened for the Constantines for four shows in a row, which was amazing. I was so excited and danced the whole time and sang all the lyrics.

I also love seeing Chad Van Gaalen play—he’s an awesome guy and it’s wonderful to be around him and see him play [he also lives in Sackville]. He was wonderful at the Sappyfest, although I was playing in Eric’s Trip later that night and I was scatterbrained, worrying if I would be able to remember how to play everything in three different bands.

But it’s been a while since I walked out of a show feeling “Oh my god.” Well, for the Constantines I felt really moved, but that’s different. I can’t think of any solo shows like that, that would compare with what I do. (laughs) You’d have to ask someone else—I don’t know! Let’s not make me sound so egotistical! (laughs)

But this is an interview with you, about you!

(laughs) I know, but I don’t want to be an egomaniac! ‘I am the best! No one else does what I do! I make people cry—every time!’

Let me ask you about your fans, then. When you play with Gord Downie or Herman Dune, do you think their fans relate differently to their music than your fans do to yours?

I don’t know, because Gord’s fans are really into him and love him. In terms of fans relating to your music, it’s the same level. Anytime you have fans who are relating to your music and love your music, they give the same kind of attention to anything they’re into. The Herman Dune fans adore them. The Eric’s Trip fans were really loyal and loved the band to the point where when we broke up a lot of people were mad at us. Which is too bad.

It’s selfish, too.

We had to break up at that particular time. It had to be done, even though we were still friends. I don’t have that many fans, but the ones I do are really loyal and are really nice people. And if it wasn’t for them, I would have quit a long time ago. I’d still be married! (laughs) No, I’m just kidding!

(off the record anecdote about dialogue with her fans on MySpace)

I think it’s really good, though, actually. It’s helped me realise that there are way more people who know my music worldwide than I ever would have believed. It’s an amazing tool for musicians. I mean, obviously, the internet changed everything, but MySpace in particular is a wonderful tool. You don’t need a webmaster.

Has it helped you internationally, do you think? You’ve always had pockets of support here and there.

I’ve worked harder in Europe than I have here for a while now. But it’s nice to get emails from people in other countries; I get a lot from France, probably because of Herman Dune and because I’ve toured there quite a bit. But I’m also getting a lot of messages from Americans. For the longest time I gave up on the U.S. I quit touring there for years, because it was a money-losing venture, always a disaster. Now I’m feeling very supported by the response there, just from MySpace alone. I’m going to go there in the spring.

Especially considering the events of the past year, what was it like going back to Eric's Trip and recording with your old band? Was it a comfort zone of sorts?

It was really fun. Rick had been talking to me for years about making a record together, just me and him. But I was always busy on tour and never had the time, and he was living in Ontario. Finally, because I wanted to make a rock record this time, I was trying to think of people to do it with. I’d already done one with Herman Dune and their schedules weren’t matching up, so I called Rick one day with my idea to get him to record it and get Mark and Chris on it too.

Initially, I really wanted it to be rock, and we didn’t take it as far as we wanted, but I love it, so it’s okay. But Rick was hesitant, not thinking it would work with the other guys, because he plays drums and the two of us could do everything ourselves. But I thought it would be a fun way to play with the guys without turning it into Eric’s Trip, because we’d talked about doing a record together that way as well at some point. This would be an easy, non-commital way to work together and see how it sounds. I’d done shows before where Mark played with me, or Rick and Chris backed me up for a few shows a long time ago. Those always went really well. For lack of a better word, I wanted to re-connect with them, because these were the first people I ever played music with.

Was it helpful emotionally during this time?

I think so. Keep in mind that the album was recorded right before the marriage broke up! (laughs)

How would you describe your working relationship with Rick? What are his strengths as an engineer?

I’ve always had full faith in Rick’s ability to be a good engineer. In asking him to work with me, I knew he’d do a good job. He was really confident and not afraid to try things. I wanted to work with someone that I always had faith in but hadn’t worked with for years. At one point I wouldn’t have worked with him because we were both on totally different planes. He was doing psychedelic rock and I was doing quiet stuff and I didn’t see how it would work. Now I’ve come around and I’m open to anything, musically.

I trusted him to the point where I just left it with him after initial tracking and told him that I didn’t have to be around when he mixed it. There’s a bunch of stuff on there that he did after I left that was crazier than I expected, but I was happy he did it because I wouldn’t have let him do it if I had been there and had my own filter on. I know we want to make a bigger project together, and I really wanted to reach out to him. Because even though we were always good friends, there were times when we’d only talk maybe once a year. Now I think we could easily work together again. And we did those Eric’s Trip shows this year…

Where were the other ones?

Well, there were just two, and they were both at Sappyfest. One was opening night, one was closing night. We all had such fun playing together. Mark would always love to be involved with things, and Chris would too. The four of us always had a really nice chemistry. It was very natural for us to be together. I wanted to go back to what initially got me started, and I knew it would turn out differently than anyone else I could have worked with.

Why wouldn’t you have done it with Shotgun and Jaybird?

For years the people I’ve worked with have all viewed me a certain way: making quiet, beautiful music and they don’t want to make it edgier. With Rick, I told him what I wanted to do and he was confident that he could make it different, and not be afraid to veer off the path I’d been on for years. The Shotgun and Jaybird guys, we hadn’t started working together on that level yet. This was all just before I joined them.

When was that?

I’ve been trying to figure it out. I started getting together and playing in their space for fun. I think our first bonafide show out of town was at Pop Montreal last year [05]. Other than that, we did a few things in Sackville together in the summer, and messed around a bit that winter. But they didn’t say, “You should be the bass player.” We were just jamming for fun. They wanted to play Pop Montreal and I knew I could probably get them in. It just took one phone call. So we did a combined set.

How would you describe your role in that band?

They never really had a bass player before in the band. And they’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last while. The drummer quit in November, so we have our friend Jesse Baird on drums. He’s from Toronto but he’s living in Sackville right now. He also drums with Feist, but he’s ours for now. I have this tendency of becoming the bass player in bands that don’t have one, like Herman Dune. I tend to take away the quirkiness and make it more rock, taking away their opportunity to veer off. I think I made [Shotgun and Jaybird] take it more seriously by taking them on tour, because they were mostly doing local shows.

You played bass in Downie’s band, too.

Yeah. And Purple Knight too, over the years. I did a couple of shows with them this year, including Sappyfest.

Isn’t this Mark’s ancient band?

Yeah, they started when he was 10, I think. In 1974! Some of those songs are pretty tricky.

It’s metal, isn’t it?

It’s almost metal. He wouldn’t call it that. Well, maybe. It’s a really cool band. They’re awesome as a two-piece. It’s really fun for me to play bass with all these people, but I don’t really know what it does to them. Because I’m not really a bass player. I just pick a note and play it.

What else is coming up for you, then?

Rick and I have been discussing making a record together in the winter, where it would be more of a collaboration with both of us singing. He’s writing like a maniac. He’s so prolific. He told me he has a new one coming out this winter. This summer he had something like 52 new songs, and only 12 of them are on the new record.

I also heard that you were singing an Elevator song with the Constantines live.

Yeah, that was fun! I told Rick last week and he laughed. What’s funny about that song is that Eric’s Trip used to do it before we broke up.

It was one of the first Elevator songs, wasn’t it?

Yeah, it was on his solo record, like before Elevator became a band and while Eric’s Trip was still full-on. It’s on Parts 1-IV. It was being played as an Eric’s Trip song for months and months. It was funny for me to sing it, because, well… The Constantines were really sweet about it, asking if it was weird for me to sing it. I said, “Let me put it this way: Rick and I broke up in August 93, so it could be about that.” Because it’s called “Why I Hated August 93.” Rick thought it was cute that I sang it with them.

(talk turns to mutual friends, including Julie’s former backing bandmates Jeremy Gara (Arcade Fire) and Mike Feuerstack (Snailhouse, Bell Orchestre, Angela Desveaux, Islands))

It seems that the way Mike and I finally made things work was to work with a bunch of different people. It’s a really good way to do it anyway. You can keep plowing away on your own, but if you can work with others on their projects, it opens you up to way more and you can contribute so much more musically. Which is why I think I’m so rejuvenated, because of all the people I get to work with.

(talk turns to the new Howe Gelb album, produced by Julie’s associate Dave Draves, and Gelb’s recent live dates with his Sno Angel project).

I think I’d like to make a live record, because my songs are so different now live than they are on any of my records. This is my seventh full-length. Finally, I’m almost getting somewhere!

Is that what the title is about?

Woke Myself Up is a reflection on Goodnight Nobody. That was that and this is the new beginning.

Well, here’s to new beginnings!

Cheers to that!

-end-

Baby Eagle: Constantines' Steve Lambke solo

Today: Another diversion from all that heavy Torontopia reading.

The last track on the latest Constantines album, Tournament of Hearts, is a barely-there whisper of a song, featuring little else but Steve Lambke's voice, guitar and vibraphone (from what I can remember, anyway... I've misplaced my copy recently). There are quiet moments on every Constantines album, mostly belonging to main vocalist Bry Webb, but this one was a particular revelation: a real coming-out for Lambke as a songwriter, not just a belter as he was on previous Cons contributions.

Some of that vibe continues on his solo debut as Baby Eagle, but he also picks up a Dylanesque harmonica (actually, better than Dylan, whose harmonica is the sole reason I can't listen to those early records), some country two-steps and various other ornamentations courtesy of the royal couple of Winnipeg singer/songwriters: Christine Fellows and John K. Samson of the Weakerthans. Like Lambke's voice, whose limitations he's well aware of, the album is slight at 24 minutes long, but it's a promising first step.

This interview was a bit rushed in the middle of a busy post-Thanksgiving, post-Pop Montreal week, and not as insightful as I had hoped; I wish I had a chance to spend more time with the lyrics instead of asking obvious surface questions about the music. The article it was for runs next week in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, a paper whose reach includes Lambke's hometown of Cambridge--hence the spin of some of the questions.

Baby Eagle has a whole whack of dates in the next month opening for the red-hot Jon Rae and The River; they play tonight at the Casbah in Hamilton. For more dates check here.

---

Baby Eagle
Steve Lambke
October 10, 2006
Setting: the Three Gut House

When did this come out?
It came out October 3 on Outside. But I first burned CDs in January, and since then I re-did one of the songs, but it’s essentially the same. And it’s been mastered.

What were your initial intentions? Were you looking for distribution?
Outside expressed interest, and it seemed foolish not to take them up on it. One of them came to a show and bought a CDR and took it from there. But the reason it took so long was because of the Cons stuff, just touring all the time.

Did you want to wait until the band had time off to release it?
That just happened, really. Right now we’re taking time off and writing and not playing so much. It worked out well, but it wasn’t a real plan.

When did you first start writing material like this? The last song [“Windy Roads”]on the latest Constantines record [Tournament of Hearts] is very much like this, very sparse. I also remember the song you wrote for the 60-Second Song compilation for DROG Records [back in 2002].
I’d always been doing a bit of stuff without any intent to make a real record. It was in the back of my mind, as was playing shows by myself, because I love seeing people do that. I was accumulating a bunch of songs and recording demos on GarageBand.

How far back does that go? Does it predate the Constantines?
Not so much. Mostly it’s been the last few years. I ended up talking to Christine [Fellows] and John [K. Samson] about it and they were really enthusiastic about working together, so we figured out a time when that could happen. There wasn’t a lot of intent behind it.

Did they talk you into it?
The idea came up and it seemed like it would be fun. Christine is such a great, inspiring person. We had talked about it and it didn’t seem like it would work because we were all on tour last fall. But we passed through Winnipeg early last summer, and when we were hanging out, she pulled out the calendar and said, ‘Let’s make this work.’ But even then I went to Winnipeg without a clear idea of what would happen. I had all the songs, but I was totally open in terms of arrangements, and I didn’t even bring an instrument. I just borrowed and used what was at hand. I thought, maybe I’ll just do something by myself, or maybe we’ll all play together—there was no plan for a release, so there was no pressure. If we got a couple of good songs out of it, that’d be great. But we got a bunch that felt like a record.

Was there something about clearing your own headspace by leaving town?
For sure. Being there was amazing. We recorded at their house and I stayed there. We worked hard; I didn’t go out at all for the six days I was there, except for one night because the Arcade Fire was in town. We just had campfires in the backyard in the evening. It was a positive, creative, inspiring atmosphere. The drummer who’s on there, I hadn’t met before. He plays in a band called the Paperbacks, and I guess John is helping to produce their record. And Keith played mandolin, and he’s played on a few of Christine’s records, though I’d never met him before.

I imagine when you were demo-ing the songs—I’m not sure how much layering went into it at that point—but did you picture these acoustic guitar songs being more country, or more ornamental, or what did you think would happen to them genre-wise? Could these songs have gone anywhere?
Once we got into it, the fact that it’s all acoustic felt natural. The only electric instrument on there is bass guitar on a couple of tunes. They are simple songs, so they could be treated different ways. Some of the demos were a little weirder, just goofing around with home studio reverbs, which is a fun way to make music. Some of them are more ‘out’ than what happened on the record.

Had you been performing these songs, or did you start doing that after you made the record?
That came after. I didn’t do that until last January. I’d done a few things, but nothing like a real show.

Didn’t you do that immediately? I remember you playing in Montreal around the time of the election [it was actually the night of the English leaders’ debate, and I missed his set because of it, showing up right after he finished].
Yeah, I toured with Jessie [Stein] of the S.S. Cardiacs. We planned on that sometime in the fall. She was in between bands and was itching to do something, so we both went out solo. I was really nervous about it, so it was great to not be doing it in front of hometown faces and friends, to get a few shows under my belt. I still get really nervous playing in front of people I know, but that tour was really fun.

Was that out east?
Yeah. It was only five or six shows: Moncton, Sackville, a couple in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa.

Did people know what it was? Was your name and the Constantines association on the bill?
Not to any great extent. Jessie has a bit of a following out there, so S.S. Cardiacs were the main attraction. Response was really positive. Performing solo was something I’d always wanted to try, so if people weren’t paying attention, it was fine, because I was learning. It’s different, just technically—singing with just yourself and your guitar. You have to be further away from the mic than when you’re in a loud rock band, and I had no idea. Just stuff like that.

Thinking of your songs in the Constantines too, you often belt it out and stop playing the guitar, letting the rest of the band carry it.
Yeah.

I’m curious about the role of acoustic music in your own development. Did you grow up playing acoustic?
I grew up playing electric. We had an acoustic guitar in the house and I’ve always listened to different music. My parents listened to country music. Even when I was playing in full-on punk bands, I was listening to different stuff.

Because this is the article for a local paper, what were the bands you were in while growing up in Cambridge?
There was Captain Co-Pilot [a hardcore band with fellow Constantine Dallas Werhle and journalist Vish Khanna], and a whole mish-mash of things before that who didn’t play many shows—usually one show and then we’d break up. Nothing worth mentioning, I’d say! It was all essentially just three of us with different drummers.

Captain Co-Pilot was when?
It would have been… 96 to 98, maybe. Then the Constantines started in 99.

What was happening in Cambridge at that time? Were there any acoustic people in that scene?
There was. The only place where anything was happening was the Refugee Café in Cambridge. Lots of different things happened there, not just rock bands. It was an all-ages venue, kind of a hippie café, people doing spoken word and reading poetry and stuff. It was really cool. I was very much on the fringe of that whole thing.

Did you play often?
We played there a couple of times. That’s probably the first time I met [future Constantine] Whil (Kidman), who would play there solo all the time. It was a cool place, because there was nothing else in Cambridge at the time.

When did you move to Guelph for school?
In 1997.

The first Constantines record is now five years old.
And the band is seven years old.

Now seems to be the time when the Woolly Leaves record [Kidman’s acoustic solo project] comes out, and this one too—do you see the band going in different directions at all, not just in terms of other projects, but in terms of the material written for the band?
We’ve started writing the next Constantines record, and that’s everyone’s priority. Whil’s record came out a few weeks before this, but it’s different in that his record is the culmination of something he’s been working on for a long time. And even specifically that record: some of the tracking for it was done a long time ago.

But he performed solo even before he joined the band.
Yeah. I met him a long, long time ago. But once in 2001 the Constantines played in Cambridge and Woolly Leaves opened; it was a duo then, with a drummer. It was great. We played a couple of shows with him, in Waterloo and Guelph. It did used to be more of a rock band. It was more inspired by Pavement and Built to Spill, with lots of riffs. It was still very… ‘sensitive,’ but more of a rock band. It gradually got quieter and quieter until it was what it is now.

Could you see your project going on a reverse trajectory, and becoming more of a band on its own?
In my mind I’m toying around with the idea of playing shows with people, but I haven’t done anything about that yet. The one thing I really do love about it is that I can play a show whenever—there’s no apparatus involved with it at all. That’s immensely satisfying. At the same time, I realise it would be better if other people were involved. It takes someone really special to pull it off alone, and I often doubt if I have that.

How many dates do the Constantines do a year?
Last year it was about 100. This year it will be a bit less, but still about 70.

So that still leaves lots of time.
Exactly.

What is everyone else doing with their downtime?
Dallas plays bass in a band called Deloro, with a couple of other artists in town: Dave Armstrong and Tony Romano. Those guys write the songs, and then the band includes Dallas and Dave Clark on drums, the new guy in Jon Rae’s band. They’re great. I think they’re kind of making a record, kind of just hanging out. Doug is just being Doug. Bry does his own thing, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.

Why, is he secretive about it?
No, not at all, but he’s in Montreal now. He mentioned that he and [Mike] Feuerstack [Snailhouse] might do something together. I don’t think he has real plans for anything, but then again neither did I.
-end-

Post-script, November 30: Bry Webb does in fact have plans. They're called the Paramedics, and they're playing a show here.