I learned a long time ago not to trust first impressions.
The first few times I saw Wolf Parade live, back in 2003, I was immediately struck by the songs and stage presence of Dan Boeckner, and equally befuddled and annoyed by the songs and vocals of his co-frontman Spencer Krug, which I thought were aimless, proggish anti-pop. I think it was only after hearing their EP (the one that was consistently in print, unlike the earliest demos) that I started to come around, and by the time Apologies to the Queen Mary came out in 2005, I'd totally fallen for every aspect of Krug's songwriting: his way with melody and countermelodies, his penchant for minor keys, his way of conjuring what sounded like old sea shanties and filtering them through a fractured new wave lens.
That said, it also took me a long time to get used to his other songwriting outlet, Sunset Rubdown. The hodgepodge debut album, Snake's Got a Leg, was a soupy, lo-fi mess, with minor gems scattered throughout its generous tracklist. And when I first saw the project live, it featured a rock band line-up that just made it sound like a poor man's Wolf Parade, with all the songs deemed too weird for that band.
Once again, I was dead wrong. On both 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming and the subsequent tour, Sunset Rubdown carved out their own unique identity. The band was dextrous and inventive with its textures. Krug's songs were overflowing with ideas and pop hooks--often inside one single track--but never felt suffocating. Because it came out at a time when Wolf Parade was still building on its momentum, the album was unfairly shrugged off as a side project and sadly forgotten about by the time year-end lists and prizes were being doled out.
In the meantime, Boeckner's new solo project Handsome Furs arrived in my mailbox today (it's out May 22 on Sub Pop), Wolf Parade have started recording a new album, and there's a new Sunset Rubdown album in the can and set for a fall release. Currently, SR are touring with Xiu Xiu, which brings them to Lee's Palace in Toronto on Thursday. Hopefully we'll get a peek at the new material.
This email conversation took place almost exactly a year ago for this article in Exclaim.
Sunset Rubdown
April 17, 2006
email interview, conducted immediately before a Wolf Parade show in New York City
The name Sunset Rubdown goes back how far?
It originated on a beach about 7 or 8 years ago, when a friend and I were watching the sunset, and ended up petting this stray dog, describing it at the time as a “sunset rubdown.” Ever since then I’ve used the name for solo recordings and performances, no matter what the style of music. The origin is actually kind of wholesome and innocent, yet somehow sexuality or even perversion of some sort is hinted at in the phrase. I like this vagueness and contradiction. I’ve had people tell me that it’s “gross,” or “sounds like the name for music that you snort coke to.” I think that’s funny.
Snake’s Got a Leg was culled from different sources, no? How old was some of that material?
Yes, it was. There was a set of 5 mini CDs that I put together about two years ago now. Each cd was about 20 minutes long and featured a different style of music. One was acoustic guitar songs, one was distorted keys and drums, one was instrumental electronic, etc. I was doing them DIY, trying to put them in nice little packages and all that, so only ended up making maybe 20 sets because the process was so labor intensive. It was just a little project that I wanted to try and I didn’t hate the results. It was in doing those mini CDs that I became okay with the idea of putting two or more versions of the same song out there. I would write a song on piano, then rewrite it on guitar, for example, and often the results were different enough that I didn’t feel like I had to decide which version was better, but rather put them both out there. Hence the mini CDs of different styles containing different versions of the same songs. So in that way the project made sense to me and seemed like a fun idea.
But then Global Symphonic heard them and wanted to release the songs, and logistically it’s sort of impossible for a small label like them to release 5 mini CDs. So I had to try to make a sort of “best of” compilation of all the discs, and the idea didn’t translate. It was an annoying process trying to figure out what songs I liked best while still trying to represent the original idea, and then form it into a cohesive record. Basically it didn’t work. Besides trying to get all these different styles to flow nicely together, there was also the problem of differing sound qualities. All the songs were produced lo-fi, granted, but at least on the original mini CDs the sound quality, though poor, was consistent on each disc and in my mind created a mood. But trying to sequence all those different song styles together with all their differing production qualities just made for a really convoluted record. Snake’s Got a Leg is just all over the place, I know, and in the end I was really hesitant about putting it out there at all, but it ended just being one of those “fuck it” situations. So I wasn’t really surprised at the mixed reviews and actually agreed with what the more negative ones had to say about the record, but on the other hand I don’t regret it. It is what it is.
Anyway, most of those songs were written and recorded in 2003, with some of the more electronic stuff going back anywhere between a year and 3 years before that – old computer music I had laying around that I thought would maybe be okay to share (or maybe not).
I was surprised to see SR become a full rock band, which seems to invite obvious Wolf Parade comparisons—in a live context, anyway. Why did you want to go with that format?
Basically, I wanted to hear the songs live, and I wanted to bring some other brains into the mix. I like a lot of layers and I can’t do it all myself in a live setting, and bringing in other people obviously helps to push the songs to places that wouldn’t have occurred to me if I were working alone. So it started with just the four of us learning to play these songs live, then naturally there is a desire to record the material, so we made a full band record. In the future, Sunset Rubdown will probably continue to put out a mix of both solo and full band recordings, because I really enjoy both formats.
The most obvious question I guess is why not just bring these songs that I want to hear in a live setting to Wolf Parade. Sometimes I write songs that I want to hear in a way other than what Wolf Parade would do to them. That band is like a giant 5 man amplifier, most times. And with all the same components in place at all times, there is a certain sound that is unavoidable no matter what the original idea might have been. And that’s fine, that’s what Wolf Parade does, but I don’t always want to hear everything I write subjected to that same format. The song “I’ll Believe in Anything” is a good example of what Wolf Parade does to a song. The original Sunset Rubdown piano version is quiet and slow, and the Wolf Parade version is loud and blown out. And it’s not like I went to practice that day and said, “Let’s take this piano song and blow the shit out of it.” It’s just what happens naturally. Sunset Rubdown allows for different instrumentation, is consciously more dynamic and spacious than Wolf Parade, and in general, slower.
I enjoy both bands and what they do, as I believe both have their place, and I don’t mind if there are comparisons. There are and will be obvious similarities because I write songs and sing in both bands, but I believe the two bands are different enough to justify their coexistence.
I saw what I think may have been one of the first full-band Sunset Rubdown gigs at ZooBizarre, but I don’t recall when that was. When did you debut the line-up?
I can’t remember exactly. ZooBizarre was our second show. The first was at Casa del Popolo opening for Telefauna and They Shoot Horses… I think it was in June or July of 2005.
How is it that your band is mostly comprised of Victoria ex-pats? Did you play with any of them in B.C.?
No. I hadn’t even met any of the Sunset Rubdown kids until after I was living in Montreal. The fact that two are from Victoria is entirely a coincidence, or some sort of socio-political B.C. migration to anglophone / francophone segregated Mile End type thing that is not worth getting in to. I myself only lived in Victoria for a year. The Sunset Rubdown practices were the first time I had played with any of them.
Do you think keyboard players naturally write in a different style than guitarists? Do keyboards naturally lend themselves to different melodies, harmonics and arrangements?
It’s hard to imagine a song like “Swimming,” for example, on guitar. How often do you write songs on guitars?
Yeah. I mean, of course I don’t think that guitarists think any differently than keyboardists, but I think the instruments themselves – the physical layout – demand or lend themselves to different results, but not anything too drastic. For me lately I’ve been really interested in guitar, doing most of my writing there, but I almost always take what I write on guitar and rewrite it on the piano, or vice versa, and every time I make that translation I come up with something that I wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s really interesting for me to play with that difference in ideas that a specific instrument gives birth to, both in structure and in voicings of chords/ harmonies. I used to write mostly on piano, but like I said, lately it’s been a lot of guitar.
Shut Up is probably about a 50/50 mix. But I’m not a very good guitar player. I would be curious to see what a song like “Swimming” sounds like on guitar, but these stubby piano fingers just aren’t fast enough for that yet.
Re: your writing in Wolf Parade, you told the Montreal Mirror that “the only reason my stuff doesn't come off like totally inaccessible, pretentious synth prog is that Dan helps normalize it, so it creates a good balance." How is it that Sunset Rubdown avoids this
fate?
I’m not sure SR has avoided that fate. It’s not synth prog, because the song styles and
instrumentation are both too removed from that, unlike some of the rock stuff that WP does – synthy stuff balanced out with guitars. But if I had to say what band was more cerebral, it would be SR, and cerebral music can come off as pretentious sometimes. Wolf Parade is more of a straight ahead rock thing, not less intelligent, but perhaps less patient, but there is heart there. Sometimes I worry that a first time listener to SR will find a lack of heart in the music, because it is a little more convoluted. For me there is a lot of heart in SR, but a new listener might have to let it grow on them before they find it, if ever.
What do you think of Handsome Furs? What’s the status of it?
I’ve yet to see it in the fully realized way that Dan intends. I saw him do a solo show a while ago and it was good. He writes songs well suited to his voice and guitar style, but I know he has other things up his sleeve that I’ve yet to see. And I haven’t heard the recording yet, so I really can’t say what I think of it, but I’ll bet I like it.
Why does the glockenspiel appear in so many Montreal bands?
Don’t know.
I feel very torn about the role of vocals on this album. Normally I don’t like it when vocals are too high in the mix; I prefer when they’re on equal footing with the other instruments. The vocal melodies here are very strong, yet I feel I have to fight to make out your lyrics, which are often masked in reverb, and it’s all the more frustrating because I really enjoy your approach to wordplay and narrative. What was your intention with the vocal treatment, both here and on Snake’s Got a Leg?
I think the vocals on Shut Up are higher than Snake’s or the latest EP, which was not such a conscious and intentional thing. I mixed Shut Up very quickly, in 4 days, and probably would have ended up lowering the vox on some songs had I had more time with it. The high vox were apparently just my initial gut instinct, and you can read into that however you like. I find SR to be little more lyrically driven than WP, and so perhaps wanted to have them more out there, though I am still very uncomfortable calling myself a lyricist. It’s something that I’m now working on more consciously than ever, and hopefully they will improve with time. The distortion and reverb on vocals is simply an asthetic that I really like. With Shut Up I tried not to overdo it to the point of incomprehension, but then I have the disadvantage of knowing exactly what I’m saying when I mix the record, and so maybe give the comprehension of lyrics too much benefit of the doubt. I tend to like lyrics either very buried or way up, so I guess the latter is the way I steered with this one, but honestly never gave it too much conscious thought.
Do you like to write with narrative and characters?
Sort of, not really. I don’t know. My favorite songs are definitely NOT the ones where I write from some character’s POV, but I have done it and still play them. I like to write from my own POV in a way that is honest enough that I can live with it, yet not overtly self revealing, and so metaphors and wordplay come in, which are fun to work with. I don’t know. I’m still really trying to figure out what the fuck I’m doing with lyrics.
Why do you like recurring motifs and titles?
The recurring titles are simply the different versions of songs that I want to put out there, like I mentioned above. And motifs, I think, evolve slowly in a connected way that often overlaps. It’s a linear process where things overlap and lead to one another as a person grows as a songwriter. I don’t think it makes natural sense to be writing songs where topics sprout and have no thread within them.
Has Wolf Parade allowed you to be a full-time musician?
Barely…
How does this effect your output and various projects?
It’s good. There is obviously more time to think about projects and writing, but the catch is that you can’t write on tour. Your brain goes numb. I’m writing this interview on tour and perhaps you can tell. I usually gush out a bunch of built up ideas between tours and get them into the practice space or on tape as fast as possible, before we go out again. But yeah, it allows a certain freedom that I don’t take for granted.
How old is Fifths of Seven? Is that a continuing project or was it a one-off?
It was a one off for me, that I did about two years ago now. They are continuing without me but it was never a “band.” It was fun but not enough down my alley to pursue any further.
Has it ever performed live?
Not that I know of.
What’s the status of Swan Lake?
Comes out in late 2006, no plans to tour. We’ll see how this first one goes before thinking of doing it again, but I imagine the three of us will keep working together in one way or another.
What is the instrumentation like?
Sort of what you’d expect. Guitars, drums, keys ... and a GLOCKENSPEIL.
-end-
Showing posts with label swan lake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swan lake. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
2006: Nix on 06
After collapsing under the weight of blurb-itis at year's end, I humbly offer the last of my lists. Normally I'm a big fan of the process and the controversial results, but this year it felt like my only worth as a writer was being able to conjure 100-word witticisms distilling the essence of a work of art that moved me deeply. Nothing makes a writer feel more like little more than a consumer guide than year-end lists. I feel promptly scolded here.
That said, here's another 25 records that almost made the master list. These all had some stumbling block that preventing me from loving them outright. Some impressed me if only because they exceeded any expectations of them, unlike the plethora of albums released by some of my favourite artists this year that simply left me indifferent. Some of these are culled from my more mainstream gig as a columnist at a daily paper, and as a consequence are records whose worth I value more objectively than subjectively. Nearly all of the blurbs below are reconstituted from my previously published material in Eye Weekly, Exclaim and the K-W Record.
After this, that's it for lists, I swear.
Again, this is in alphabetical order, no ranking is implied.
That said, here's another 25 records that almost made the master list. These all had some stumbling block that preventing me from loving them outright. Some impressed me if only because they exceeded any expectations of them, unlike the plethora of albums released by some of my favourite artists this year that simply left me indifferent. Some of these are culled from my more mainstream gig as a columnist at a daily paper, and as a consequence are records whose worth I value more objectively than subjectively. Nearly all of the blurbs below are reconstituted from my previously published material in Eye Weekly, Exclaim and the K-W Record.
After this, that's it for lists, I swear.
Again, this is in alphabetical order, no ranking is implied.
Christina Aguilera – Back to Basics (Sony/BMG). Four years and an image makeover did wonders for Aguilera, who dropped this double disc of dynamite soul. Despite its occasional indulgences, even the most hardened hater had to cop to her exhilirating performance on “Ain’t No Other Man.” Qualifier: More than a bit of filler over the two discs, especially the execrable “Thank You,” comprised of little more than gushing fan messages.
Barmitzvah Brothers – A Century of Invention (Permafrost). Thrift store folk pop doesn’t get any better than this. This Guelph band’s much more mature third full length shows that they still have plenty of tricks in their treasure chest, while retaining the wide-eyed innocence that was always central to their charm. Qualifier: Because this band keeps improving, I think their next one will be their masterpiece.
Brightblack Morning Light – s/t (Matador). The sound of zero gravity. These Californians create opiated daydreams and ghostly whispers that made it sound all too easy to grow out your hair, move to the forest and live on solar power as a respite from such a volatile year. These hippies make drugged-out dirges so that you don’t have to take drugs: their guitars and Rhodes are drenched in reverb and tremolo, their hushed harmonies are spine-tingling, and the soul claps and shakers save the whole affair from sinking into the sand. Qualifier: They’re caught in the middle between not being freaky enough to get away with threadbare songs. It’s great as a mood piece, but something else has to happen before they reach greatness.
Solomon Burke – Nashville (Shout Factory). As good as his 2002 comeback album was, the blustery Burke sounds even more relaxed and natural surrounded by some of Nashville’s finest. Not that he needs starpower to sell the sizzle. His gospel blues vocals mixes seamlessly with more conventional country arrangements, making this Exhibit A in a lecture about what Americana music is all about. Nashville rings with joy and exuberance, and Ray Charles would be mighty proud. Qualifier: This is entirely subjective and a slightly ridiculous thing to say about such a great soul man, but to me Burke always sounds constipated—granted, less so here.
Danielson – Ships (Secretly Canadian) Whereas once it was hard to get past the
Editors – The Back Room (Sony/BMG). Editors make it look easy, tapping their deepest darkest angst and translating it to stadium rock. Nobody broods like the Brits, and this band is one of the few who understand why U2 are huge Joy Division fans. Qualifier: Bad timing, as the much clunkier Interpol already has this market cornered.
Nelly Furtado – Loose (Geffen/Universal). Loose was liberating and libidinous for Furtado, who only hinted at this abandon in her pretty pop past. With the help of Timbaland—who also tried his best this year with the less talented Justin Timberlake (who only came up with half of a great album)—Furtado found her groove and maintained it for more than just a few great singles. Qualifier: The vastly overrated single “Promiscuous,” about Furtado playing hard to get, is the worst lexical mishap in pop since Alanis mistook bad luck and coincidence for irony.
The Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control (Kill Rock Stars). This title track is one of those songs that simply too exciting to simply stumble across while driving—it’s guaranteed to make your accelerator stick to the floor while your better judgement is buried in the glorious chorus. The Gossip’s hybrid of blues, punk, and gospel has always been tailor made for a rock’n’roll revival dance party, but new drummer Hannah Blilie gives this bassless trio the bottom end it’s always needed, allowing them to slip into disco and provide a Tina Turner transformation for singer Beth Ditto. Qualifier: None, really, other than the fact that I didn’t get around to buying this album until recently.
Ben Harper – Both Sides of the Gun (EMI). For all his inherent talent, Ben Harper has always been too reserved for his own good. No more. His country’s political situation has prompted him to make the finest album of his career, a double disc of fiery tirades and gentle reflection. Qualifier: I still don’t actually like Ben Harper.
Kevin Hearn & Thin Buckle – The Miracle Mile (Celery/Warner). This rainy day collection of planetarium pop marks a career best for the Toronto songwriter and Barenaked Ladies sideman, whose analog keyboard tapestries provide perfect colouring for his fragile voice and meditative mood, written in exile amidst the humid haze of Los Angeles. Qualifier: “Map of the Human Genome” drives me up the wall, and “In the Country” sounds like a Flaming Lips-lite Volvo ad. I prefer the ballads best.
Herbert – Scale (!K7). The man who made a name for himself by sampling the destruction of McDonald’s packaging has entered middle age. Sure, there were signs before: the expertly chilled jazzy house of Bodily Functions, the cut-up big band swagger of Goodbye Swingtime. But less than a year after his concept album about industrial food production, Herbert drops the conceptual conceits to encase his pointed societal critiques in a cushion of bumping, lush disco, complete with big strings and brass, balanced by beautiful blips and blurps that he and singer Dani Siciliano weave into seductive pillow talk. Activists—both aesthetical and political—need to unwind at the end of a long day, too. Qualifier: It doesn’t come close to the brilliance of 2001’s Bodily Functions, which I suspect most Herbert latecomers and Scale boosters haven’t heard, or at least spent quality time with.
Hylozoists – La Fin du Monde (Boompa). Any band that regularly employs two vibraphone players and a glockenspiel all at once runs the risk of sounding like a long shift at a wind chime retail outlet. Bandleader Paul Aucoin, a longtime MVP in Canada’s indie scene, knows better than that, and here his compositional skills match the brilliance of his arrangements. Alongside all the shimmering keyboards and mallet percussion, it’s pedal steel guitarist Dale Murray who is the secret weapon here. Qualifier: The three vocal tracks here fall flat compared to the instrumentals; the vocalists also sound dry and dusty next to their ornate surroundings.
Greg Keelor – Aphrodite Rose (Warner). Considering the lacklustre last couple of Blue Rodeo releases, was Keelor stockpiling his songs for this sadly unheralded solo record? Unlike his last couple of lullaby collections, this was a lo-fi, 60s-inspired incarnation of Keelor’s best Blue Rodeo moments, coupled with a more experimental side nurtured by his side project the Unintended. He also pens some welcome political material for the first time in 15 years; that may have fired up his muse more than anything. Qualifier: I can’t help but wonder if I love it simply because I haven’t liked anything else from the Blue Rodeo camp since 2000’s The Days in Between.
K-OS – Atlantis: Hymns for Disco (EMI). Along with Buck 65, who guests here, K-OS is the rare breed of Canadian artist whose eclectic tastes actually translate into great pop music while retaining their individuality. That he can do this on a major label and on MuchMusic is a minor miracle. Qualifier: Two songs here are horribly obvious attempts at rewriting his last two hits, “B-Boy Stance” and “Crabuckit,” and neither of them top the originals (actually, the former was the dog on Joyful Rebellion, too).
John Legend – Once Again (Sony/BMG). Finally, a neo-soul heartthrob who has the songs to match the suave voice, and doesn’t sound like a precocious youth while pulling it off. Marvin Gaye and Bill Withers can rest easy. Qualifier: As much as I like this, it’s too slick for my regular rotation.
Malajube – Trompe L’Oeil (Dare to Care). The francophone lyrics weren’t the only thing that set this Quebecois band apart from the pack. Their musical dexterity and genre jumping meant there was never a dull moment on this dark horse favourite. Qualifier: Even though they’re really good at it, the rock radio moments here ring less true than their weirder idiosyncracies.
More or Les – The Truth About Rap (Public Transit Recordings). Usually it’s a sign of supreme sour grapes if an MC spends the better part of an album lamenting the state of modern hip-hop. But over 19 solid tracks, Toronto busker More or Les backs up his bitching with solid beats and reminding us that: “It’s about fluency with rhyme and ingenuity.” By releasing an embarassment of riches over 19 tracks and 72 minutes, Les sounds like he’s hungry—literally, as we hear on “Brunch!” and “Eat Your Food!” And what better sign that he’s a class apart from today’s hip-hop pack than the bottle of red wine he’s rocking on the album cover? Qualifier: Way too long.
Joanna Newsom – Ys (Drag City). Easily the most misunderstood album of 2006, by both its champions and detractors, Ys deserves points for its lofty aims alone, even if almost half the album falls flat on its face from intrusive string arrangements and breathless Costello-itis lyricism. On the odd-numbered tracks, however, Newsom keeps us rapturous and removed from verse-chorus regularity, awash in wondrous imagery and no shortage of melodic invention.
Republic of Safety – Vacation EP (Ta Da). “Let’s do something meaningful before we die,” pleads the opening track here, but even if this fleeting ten minutes were the extent of their public record, their legacy would be guaranteed. Without sounding like soulless gravediggers, there are trace elements of a Dead Kennedys/Go-Go’s double bill circa 1980, though Republic of Safety are far more preoccupied with the present. Singer Maggie MacDonald embodies everything a punk entertainer should be: smart, sexy, overarticulated and able to prick your political instincts with melody and charisma to burn and a kick-ass band behind her. Sure, some of the lyrics could be accused of sloganeering, but these are more rouse than rabble, inspirational calls to action that should be immediately stenciled on the walls of Torontopia and beyond. Qualifier: It’s a four-song single that’s over in eight minutes—which might be an ideal format for a band like this, but for obvious reasons doesn’t qualify as a full album.
Sloan – Never Hear the End of It (Sony/BMG). Sometimes it takes an ambitious project to save a band from irrelevance: just ask Green Day. This 30-track song cycle plays like a rock opera, even if the only thread is the band’s persistence on challenging themselves and topping their past discography. Qualifier: One can’t help but wonder how much better this would sound at half the length.
Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope (Sire/Warner). This precious pianist and songstress sets herself apart from a crowded field with pizzicato pop songs that always seem to be set on snowy New York City streets during the closing credits of a better-than-average quirky rom-com. Qualifier: The fact that I just used the phrase “better-than-average quirky rom-com.”
Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome (Sony). This is the first Springsteen album in 20 years that hasn’t been a minor chore to listen to. Faint praise aside, every note here is infused with joy and spontaneity, these ancient songs brought to life by an ace band and a clearly inspired bandleader. Qualifier: Why the hell doesn’t he sound like he’s having this much fun with his own material? Here’s hoping he writes some originals for this new band, and alternate between them and the E-Streeters for his next few releases.
Swan Lake – Beast Moans (Jagjaguwar). The ghostly groans and beastly moans emanating from the depths of Swan Lake are likely to put off any fairweather fans of father bands Destroyer, Sunset Rubdown and Frog Eyes—wait a minute, do Frog Eyes have any fairweather fans? Here, Dan Bejar, Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer retreat into a murky fog where disintegrating keyboards drape themselves over acoustic guitars, and distant percussion colours the mirage of melodies that reward the patient. Traces of their day jobs are apparent, but the focus on texture here gives them a tabula rasa to start anew. Closing track "Shooting Rockets" may be more of a séance than a song, but otherwise they remain ever so slightly on this side of the spirit world. Qualifier: It’s not exactly in high rotation, if only because it’s not easy to slip into the sonic swamp this creates for itself.
Ali Farka Toure – Savane (Nonesuch). When he passed away earlier this year of bone cancer at the age of 67, “The King of the Desert Blues Singers” Ali Farka Toure was a world traveler who had retired to an agrarian life and became mayor of his Malian hometown. His last session, recorded live in a Bamako hotel room in 2005, produced two albums: his award-winning collaboration with fellow Mali musician Toumani Diabaté, In The Heart of the Moon, and now this, a thoroughly satisfying final statement that finds him in full strength. Saxophones and harmonicas conjure a mirage of classic Chicago blues behind his ngoni string band, with Toure’s delicately electrifying guitar work at the forefront. The rhythmic repetition and occasional reggae lilt create a narcotic effect, a perfect antidote to urban heat waves on the other side of the world, not to mention a valuable lesson to young freak-folkies attempting transcendence. Toure himself pens the extensive liner notes, detailed dedications to heroes and spiritual traditions that shaped the life he lived. An entrancing epitaph. Qualifier: As a sufferer of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I only seem to enjoy this when the weather is warm.
Scott Walker – The Drift (4AD). David Lynch fans searching for the audio equivalent of Mulholland Drive should turn off the lights and turn up this baffling, disorienting, mysterious and magical record that is as confounding as it is intriguing. This 63-year old artist has a storied career that keeps getting stranger, much like this album itself. But no context will help you by the time the donkeys start braying and Walker’s tremolo-ridden croon sings “I’m the only one left alive!” like Antony of the Johnsons singing a Diamanda Galas libretto at the end of his sanity. The Drift is a terrifying enigma that’s either a masterpiece or a hoax, but either way it demands your full attention. Qualifier: As brilliant as this is, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve listened to it all the way through.
-end-
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
December housecleaning
No interview today, but some reviews from the last month that have appeared in various publications.
Some other thoughts first:
The Liberal party held its leadership convention on the weekend, where Stephane Dion--who was tied for third place going in--leapfrogged over the main contenders to take the prize. He made climate change and environmental sustainability the key issue of his campaign, which is remarkable, considering that during the English-language leaders debate in January 2006 (the election that brought Conservative Stephen Harper to power in a minority government, in case my American readers are already lost) the environment wasn't even one of the ten topics of discussion.
What happened? Either this is the effect of new movie star Al Gore on the mainstream, or the new Liberal party establishment rallying around Dion and kingmaker Gerard Kennedy are ready to redefine the national discourse in ways that the old boys who got behind frontrunners Ignatieff and Rae are not.
Dion's speech to the convention was prefaced by an introduction from newly-elected MP Glen Pearson, who won a by-election in London, Ontario where Green Party leader Elizabeth May came in second--the Green's largest electoral standing in Canadian history. Pearson talked about how Dion ignited people in his riding when he came to speak, but also made a strange statement to the effect of: "When I debated my opponents, I could take on the Conservatives, no problem. I could take on the NDP, no problem. But [and this part I remember verbatim] I did not lay a finger on Elizabeth May!" Before he sounded too much like a defensive Catholic priest, he went on to point out that the Green Party platform and Dion's platform were extremely compatible, and that the environment was indeed the primary issue of the 21st century, etc.
How will this play out in a real election campaign? The Liberals have enough trouble splitting the left vote with the NDP--a party Dion attacked in his acceptance speech (ironically enough, in the same sentence he was praising leadership opponent and former NDP premier of Ontario Bob Rae). But how will this election play out if Dion's Liberals "refuse to lay a finger" on the Green Party? Is there already a coalition in the works?
Overheard: After ex-PM Jean Chretien's speech to the convention (his first partisan appearance since leaving office), whoever was DJing the event played Madonna's "Hung Up": a modern disco song based on a riff from the 70s (the last time the Liberals had an inspiring leader) with the lyric "Every little thing you say or do/ I'm hung up on you." Interesting selection, to say the least, scoring a speech by a former leader. But that doesn't beat playing The Cure's "Let's Go to Bed" a few minutes later to pump up the crowd awaiting the results of the final ballot: "I don't care if you don't/ and I don't feel it if you don't/ and I don't want it if you don't/ and I won't say it if you don't say it first." Wow, inspiring words to hear at a leadership convention. At least no one played INXS's "New Sensation," played ad nauseum at the Conservative convention that nominated Harper.
Best moment of political drama: I missed Kennedy's dramatic walk over to the Dion camp. But while waiting an excruciating 40 minutes past the expected announcement of the final ballot results (intended between 5 and 5.30PM, the Liberals deliberately stalled the announcement until 6PM to make the news hour), the CTV feed spent a good ten minutes focused on Michael Ignatieff sitting with his wife, his once-estranged brother and other supporters. Everyone obviously expected an announcement within seconds, so the commentators stopped their nattering. Instead, we got to watch an extremely uncomfortable man--one who was considered a shoo-in for the win, one who uprooted his international academic life to come home to Canada for this job, one who only a few hours ago looked like he could pull it off--sit and wait, in full glare of the spotlight, trying to look sanguine and aloof, even though he must have been told the results beforehand. It was a fascinating piece of candid political theatre, and kudos to the CTV team for running it without commentary... unlike the CBC, who spent most of that 40 minutes talking inexplicably about Trudeau and the '68 leadership convention.
Final thought before we get to some boring CD reviews: The fact that Dion is yet another Liberal leader from Quebec is considered his major electoral weakness, one preyed upon by most of the letter-writers in today's Globe and Mail. Yes, his English is shaky (shakier than Harper's French?) and his acceptance speech was less than inspiring (he fared much better on CBC call-in show Cross Country Checkup the next day). He's not a man for dog-and-pony shows. But if nothing else, this former academic--the first Liberal leader since Trudeau with no ties to Bay Street--is a man of ideas (much like policy wonk Harper), and it is his ideas on which he should be judged.
Geography still plays a huge role in post-Civil War America when it comes to presidential tickets and the north-south divide. But this country seems all too quick to bury a candidate's chances based on their home province, as if someone more than 300km away couldn't possibly understand the complexities of our regional specificities. It will be interesting to see what role Kennedy takes in all of this; as has been suggested, the two of them could form a Macdonald/Cartier alliance, playing to each linguistic constituency on their own turf and building a national team, not one based on one leader's centralized concentration of power.
Yes, my degree is in Canadian history and politics.
Here's some reviews from the last month, some from Eye Weekly in Toronto, and considerably more mainstream fare from the K-W Record.
From Eye's Record Guide, November 23, 2006
SWAN LAKE
Beast Moans
(Jagjaguwar)
three stars
The ghostly groans and beastly moans emanating from the depths of Swan Lake are likely to put off any fairweather fans of father bands Destroyer, Sunset Rubdown and Frog Eyes—wait a minute, do Frog Eyes have any fairweather fans? Here, Dan Bejar, Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer retreat into a murky fog where disintegrating keyboards drape themselves over acoustic guitars, and distant percussion colours the mirage of melodies that reward the patient. Traces of their day jobs are apparent, but the focus on texture here gives them a tabula rasa to start anew. Closing track “Shooting Rockets” may be more of a séance than a song, but otherwise they remain ever so slightly on this side of the spirit world. –Michael Barclay
THE SADIES
Tales From Rat Fink
(Outside)
four stars
Just in case you thought the Sadies couldn't make a record without a massive guest list or copious amounts of psychedelics, here they whip out 26 tightly wound instrumentals that take full advantage of their Morricone moments and summers of surf rock past. The Ron Mann documentary of the same name focuses on hot rod car designer Ed Roth, whose heyday was the 50s and early 60s; the Sadies' soundtrack doesn't sound a day older than '65, before the younger Good Brothers were even alive. In some ways, this sounds like a more mature update of 1998's Precious Moments. Now that they've released a career-defining live album and begun recording in the UK with Gary Louris, Rat Fink might even put a cap on that era. –Michael Barclay
FLASHLIGHT BROWN
Blue
(Union 2112/Warner)
Four stars
No, these venerable Toronto underdogs are not giving Joni Mitchell's masterpiece a 35th anniversary tribute. They are, however, doing the equally impossible by not only making a pop-punk album worthy of redeeming the entire tired genre, but surviving a huge major label clusterfuck in the process. On their first album of original material in five years, they're raging without any musical sign of resignation, even if singer Matt Hughes is "sick of all the loud music" and laments, "I want to feel like I did when the chaos was real." The healthy sense of self-deprecation is balanced by multiple killer hooks, making this much more than the mid-life crisis of a sardonic punk—perhaps even a totally unexpected career resurrection. –Michael
Barclay
ALUMINUM
s/t
(XL)
Three stars
File this next to Nouvelle Vague for cover projects that defy the novelty factor and showcase the ingenuity of reinvention. "Orchestral versions of White Stripes songs"— those five words pretty much sum up this classical rock album, and Richard Ashcroft is likely already scrounging it for sample material. Don't mistake this for muzak: arranger Joby Talbot works minor miracles with even the sketchiest of Jack White's songs, colouring the more repetitious choices ("Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me") with plenty of flourish, and wisely picking four tracks from the band's best collection De Stijl. Oh, and a gamelan and harp help "Hardest Button to Button" totally kick major ass. In case you think this is all ridiculous, wait for the accompanying ballet. I'm not even kidding. –Michael Barclay
from the K-W Record, a mainstream daily newspaper west of Toronto:
Nov 9
Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5.55 (Warner)
There's a new Sean Lennon album out that, more than anything, proves that talent is not genetic. And on the surface, this album by the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg might also prove that to be true—depending on your tolerance for cooing French romantics. Her voice is whisper thin and practically transparent; one has to wonder if she sings that way because she wants to—to suit the dreamy, weightless material—or, like Paris Hilton, if she has to.
But if nothing else, this progeny of French pop royalty has impeccable taste in collaborators. She handed over complete songwriting duties to her the band Air and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, which turns out to be a brilliant move. Cocker shares her father's perverse sense of humour, which gives us a soothing song about a fiery plane crash, and an icy new wave song about the sexually intimate nature of surgery. Air set it all to music with their most captivating melodies since their classic debut album Moon Safari; if you lost track of them after that, you haven't missed much until now.
5.55 the album is much better than Gainsbourg herself; she's little more than a vehicle for the songs, but such is their hypnotic spell that it rarely matters.
John Legend – Once Again (Sony/BMG)
If I had a dollar for every time a new artist was touted as being the next Marvin Gaye, I'd be sharing stock tips with Jay-Z. For all the promises made by the neo-soul movement of the last ten years, much of it merely makes gestural nods to the spirit and sound while falling prey to all the usual pitfalls of modern R&B: second-rate material, showboating vocalists, and style over substance. Not here, however.
On his second album, John Legend establishes himself as much more than a Kanye West protégé, more than a sideman to Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, more than an upstart with beginner's luck and three Grammys under his belt. Once Again is leaps and bounds ahead of his 2004 debut Get Lifted, with snappin' soul tunes and swoony, string-drenched ballads that stave off the syrup.
With the help of all-star producers Will.I.Am (Black-Eyed Peas), West, Craig Street (Cassandra Wilson) and Rafael Saadiq, it's the songwriting here that separates Legend from the countless others who only know how to wear the suits. He's also a perfect piano accompanist, whose arrangements help conjure apparitions of 70s soul and piano pop; the cover image of Legend playing a grand piano on a New York City street also helps.
Finally, and obviously, there's the voice, which is earnest without ever being cloying, and is convincing enough to make the featherweight lovers' lyrics sound deeper than they actually are.
If he keeps this up, he'll certainly have earned his stage name.
from K-W Record, November 30
Jerry Lee Lewis – Last Man Standing: The Duets (Shangri-La/Koch)
If he's the last man standing, why does he need all these other dudes propping him up? And no mistake, they are all dudes—not many women want to be left alone in a studio with Jerry Lee.
This comeback album was five years in the making, and it pairs up Jerry Lee with 21 other rock'n'roll legends, most of whom take vocal turns with him. It's undeniably invigorating to hear him rip through Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll (with Jimmy Page on guitar), CCR's Travelin' Band (with John Fogerty), and Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (with the Boss man himself), all featuring the piano pyrotechnics we all want to hear. Most amusing is his "duet" with Little Richard on I Saw Her Standing There, which would be one for the history books if only Jerry Lee let his archrival near the piano—or even near the microphone for more than the occasional holler.
For the most part, however, he focuses on the country music that's been the focus of his last 30 years. Robbie Robertson's Twilight is a highlight (thankfully Robertson doesn't sing), as is That Kind of Fool with Keith Richards and Kris Kristofferson's The Pilgrim. The latter, about a "walking contradiction" and famously quoted in Taxi Driver, may well have been written about Jerry Lee himself.
While his voice is drenched in Sun Studio-style reverb for the rockers, the other tracks betray the fact that his 71-year old voice just isn't what it used to be, and neither are the voices of most of his equally aged duet partners, which just makes the whole affair sound like a bunch of non-descript old guys getting together with a shit-hot piano player.
from K-W Record, October 26
The Tragically Hip – World ContainerTM (Universal)
Maybe they felt their ass getting kicked by the next generation of CanRockers. Maybe they took a long hard look at their lacklustre recent work after issuing last year's box set and hits compilation. Maybe producer Bob Rock hooked them up with Metallica's therapist and
opened new doors of communication.
Who knows? Who cares? The short of it is that World ContainerTM sounds like The Tragically Hip are willing to put up a fight and resist the irrelevance that's been nipping at their heels for most of this decade. There were some definite steps out of their slump on 2004's In Between Evolution, but now they've gone back to the drawing board.
Gord Downie is no longer relying on guitar riffs to conjure his melodies for him, and ends up writing some of his poppiest melodies ever, especially the toy-piano-driven single In View. Guitarists Bobby Baker and Paul Langlois have finally realised that The Hip have long ceased to be a decent jam band, and have quit noodling themselves into the netherworld; here they sound tight and focused and exploring different textures to their playing. Bob Rock's production errs on the side of stadium-size drum sounds, yet he also leaves enough sonic space for every guitar track to ring out loud and clear. Downie's vocal performances sound like he's hungry again—or maybe he's overwhelmed by the oceanic setting of Rock's Hawaii studio, as aquatic themes dominate several songs here.
Fortunately, the album is front-loaded with future hits, like the surprising The Lonely End of the Rink, with its reggae-tinged verses adding an extra twist to standard rock chorus. (Maybe they took notes on how to pull off this tricky feat with subtlety when the Joel Plaskett Experience opened their last tour.)
World ContainerTM dips considerably in the second half, especially when Downie sounds like a grumpy grandpa shooing the whippersnappers off his lawn on The Kids Don't Get It. But he's rescued by the rousing Family Band, a shout-out to struggling young bands on their first tour ("what's gripping the city ain't hitting the town") set to an anthemic avalanche of guitars that may well have been borrowed from Broken Social Scene.
If this country's recent rock success stories threatened to unleash a classic Canadian cultural amnesia, one of our finest bands has finally returned to remind us why we once loved them so—fully, completely.
Greg Keelor – Aphrodite Rose (Warner)
To date, Greg Keelor's solo records away from Blue Rodeo have been either hushed lullabies or hazy psychedelia. This time out, he goes back to his favourite paisley-tinged country records of the 60s, with big Byrdsian harmonies, ringing Rickenbackers, pointed political lyrics, trippy jazz-folk, and back-to-the-garden spirituality ("wild flowers are proof enough of a higher power").
Recorded on his farm, it's all captured on a gloriously warm one-inch analog tape machine, which really does make a difference when it comes to capturing what made those 60s records sound so good—including plenty of hard panning into left and right speakers. Keelor sounds
completely comfortable playing all of the instruments himself, with occasional favours called in from the Sadies and Sarah McLachlan, but this isn't just a vanity experiment: he also conjures up his best set of songs in over five years.
At a time when a new generation is turning on to the psychedelic properties of folk music, Keelor kicks back and teaches us old school style.
Jim Cuddy Band – The Light That Guides You Home (Warner)
Keelor's lifelong partner in crime doesn't fare as well on his second solo album. Once again, despite the fact that employs most of Blue Rodeo as his backing band, Cuddy proves that he does his best work when egged on by the creative tension wrought by his partnership with Keelor. Any Blue Rodeo fan will find plenty of pleasantly recognizable signposts here, but only the honkytonkin' Oh Susanna duet Married Again, the pan-Canadian love letter Countrywide Soul, and the rocking Stagger In leave any impact. When faced with a total creative carte blanche, it's still baffling why anyone would put out a solo album that sounds almost exactly like their day job.
from K-W Record, Nov 2
Los Lobos – The Town and the City (Hollywood/Universal)
For fans who have followed them for the better part of their 27-year career, Los Lobos have been locked into a pattern of blowing us away on every second record—as recently as their 25th anniversary album The Ride, which boasted plenty of guest stars, reinvented older material, and a solid set of new songs.
But as this album illustrates, the lulls are getting lower, and there's very little on The Town and the City that suggests they're doing anything but phoning this in. The fact that it's comprised primarily of plodding mid-tempo songs isn't the problem, so much as the fact that the venerable masters sound as bored as we are. The only real life to be found here is found on Cesar Rosas's Latino numbers, though even those sound like leftovers from previous albums.
The only surprise to be found here is the fact that it's taken this long for their neighbour, the famed graphic novelist Jaime Hernandez, this long to illustrate one of their albums.
from Exclaim, December 2006
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
directed by Davis Guggenheim
This hit film was shocking to many North Americans, and buried deep in the movie is a funny little statistic that explains why. Al Gore describes how even though every peer-reviewed science journal unequivocally believes in global warming, mainstream media coverage continuously treats it like a questionable theroy—usually by soliciting opinions of scientists on the payroll of oil companies. Gore briefly compares them to the doctors trotted out in the 60s to defend cigarettes, but doesn't push the issue. And nor should he, lest the potential converts to his cause think he's one of those wacko conspiracy theorists that actually believes that Florida 2000 was an unfair fight. But the film's producers are happy to expand on that thought—and others—during their informative commentary, which acts as an excellent supplement to the information in the film itself. Director Guggenheim is less enlightening on the issues, but provides a textbook example of someone who doesn't consider themselves an environmentalist, yet was totally swayed by the strength of Gore's presentation on global warming. He also explains how hard it was to convince Gore to include glimpses into the former vice-president's own life struggles, which explains Gore's passion for delivering this message, while also breaking up the density of information and drawing the audience closer to its subject. Guggenheim laments at how hard it was to trim down Gore's two-hour lecture into less than 90 minutes to make an effective film. If that's true, why not include more extended scenes as DVD extras? Gore does appear in a featurette with a bare minimum of this material, as well as an update on some facts and case studies cited in the original film. Rest assured, there's no wasteful plastic packaging on this DVD: not only is it made from 100 post-consumer recycled material, but apparently it was powered by Native Energy. After hearing him talk the talk, it's good to know he's walking the walk. Also: short making-of featurette, Melissa Etheridge music video. (Paramount) –Michael Barclay
-end-
Some other thoughts first:
The Liberal party held its leadership convention on the weekend, where Stephane Dion--who was tied for third place going in--leapfrogged over the main contenders to take the prize. He made climate change and environmental sustainability the key issue of his campaign, which is remarkable, considering that during the English-language leaders debate in January 2006 (the election that brought Conservative Stephen Harper to power in a minority government, in case my American readers are already lost) the environment wasn't even one of the ten topics of discussion.
What happened? Either this is the effect of new movie star Al Gore on the mainstream, or the new Liberal party establishment rallying around Dion and kingmaker Gerard Kennedy are ready to redefine the national discourse in ways that the old boys who got behind frontrunners Ignatieff and Rae are not.
Dion's speech to the convention was prefaced by an introduction from newly-elected MP Glen Pearson, who won a by-election in London, Ontario where Green Party leader Elizabeth May came in second--the Green's largest electoral standing in Canadian history. Pearson talked about how Dion ignited people in his riding when he came to speak, but also made a strange statement to the effect of: "When I debated my opponents, I could take on the Conservatives, no problem. I could take on the NDP, no problem. But [and this part I remember verbatim] I did not lay a finger on Elizabeth May!" Before he sounded too much like a defensive Catholic priest, he went on to point out that the Green Party platform and Dion's platform were extremely compatible, and that the environment was indeed the primary issue of the 21st century, etc.
How will this play out in a real election campaign? The Liberals have enough trouble splitting the left vote with the NDP--a party Dion attacked in his acceptance speech (ironically enough, in the same sentence he was praising leadership opponent and former NDP premier of Ontario Bob Rae). But how will this election play out if Dion's Liberals "refuse to lay a finger" on the Green Party? Is there already a coalition in the works?
Overheard: After ex-PM Jean Chretien's speech to the convention (his first partisan appearance since leaving office), whoever was DJing the event played Madonna's "Hung Up": a modern disco song based on a riff from the 70s (the last time the Liberals had an inspiring leader) with the lyric "Every little thing you say or do/ I'm hung up on you." Interesting selection, to say the least, scoring a speech by a former leader. But that doesn't beat playing The Cure's "Let's Go to Bed" a few minutes later to pump up the crowd awaiting the results of the final ballot: "I don't care if you don't/ and I don't feel it if you don't/ and I don't want it if you don't/ and I won't say it if you don't say it first." Wow, inspiring words to hear at a leadership convention. At least no one played INXS's "New Sensation," played ad nauseum at the Conservative convention that nominated Harper.
Best moment of political drama: I missed Kennedy's dramatic walk over to the Dion camp. But while waiting an excruciating 40 minutes past the expected announcement of the final ballot results (intended between 5 and 5.30PM, the Liberals deliberately stalled the announcement until 6PM to make the news hour), the CTV feed spent a good ten minutes focused on Michael Ignatieff sitting with his wife, his once-estranged brother and other supporters. Everyone obviously expected an announcement within seconds, so the commentators stopped their nattering. Instead, we got to watch an extremely uncomfortable man--one who was considered a shoo-in for the win, one who uprooted his international academic life to come home to Canada for this job, one who only a few hours ago looked like he could pull it off--sit and wait, in full glare of the spotlight, trying to look sanguine and aloof, even though he must have been told the results beforehand. It was a fascinating piece of candid political theatre, and kudos to the CTV team for running it without commentary... unlike the CBC, who spent most of that 40 minutes talking inexplicably about Trudeau and the '68 leadership convention.
Final thought before we get to some boring CD reviews: The fact that Dion is yet another Liberal leader from Quebec is considered his major electoral weakness, one preyed upon by most of the letter-writers in today's Globe and Mail. Yes, his English is shaky (shakier than Harper's French?) and his acceptance speech was less than inspiring (he fared much better on CBC call-in show Cross Country Checkup the next day). He's not a man for dog-and-pony shows. But if nothing else, this former academic--the first Liberal leader since Trudeau with no ties to Bay Street--is a man of ideas (much like policy wonk Harper), and it is his ideas on which he should be judged.
Geography still plays a huge role in post-Civil War America when it comes to presidential tickets and the north-south divide. But this country seems all too quick to bury a candidate's chances based on their home province, as if someone more than 300km away couldn't possibly understand the complexities of our regional specificities. It will be interesting to see what role Kennedy takes in all of this; as has been suggested, the two of them could form a Macdonald/Cartier alliance, playing to each linguistic constituency on their own turf and building a national team, not one based on one leader's centralized concentration of power.
Yes, my degree is in Canadian history and politics.
Here's some reviews from the last month, some from Eye Weekly in Toronto, and considerably more mainstream fare from the K-W Record.
From Eye's Record Guide, November 23, 2006
SWAN LAKE
Beast Moans
(Jagjaguwar)
three stars
The ghostly groans and beastly moans emanating from the depths of Swan Lake are likely to put off any fairweather fans of father bands Destroyer, Sunset Rubdown and Frog Eyes—wait a minute, do Frog Eyes have any fairweather fans? Here, Dan Bejar, Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer retreat into a murky fog where disintegrating keyboards drape themselves over acoustic guitars, and distant percussion colours the mirage of melodies that reward the patient. Traces of their day jobs are apparent, but the focus on texture here gives them a tabula rasa to start anew. Closing track “Shooting Rockets” may be more of a séance than a song, but otherwise they remain ever so slightly on this side of the spirit world. –Michael Barclay
THE SADIES
Tales From Rat Fink
(Outside)
four stars
Just in case you thought the Sadies couldn't make a record without a massive guest list or copious amounts of psychedelics, here they whip out 26 tightly wound instrumentals that take full advantage of their Morricone moments and summers of surf rock past. The Ron Mann documentary of the same name focuses on hot rod car designer Ed Roth, whose heyday was the 50s and early 60s; the Sadies' soundtrack doesn't sound a day older than '65, before the younger Good Brothers were even alive. In some ways, this sounds like a more mature update of 1998's Precious Moments. Now that they've released a career-defining live album and begun recording in the UK with Gary Louris, Rat Fink might even put a cap on that era. –Michael Barclay
FLASHLIGHT BROWN
Blue
(Union 2112/Warner)
Four stars
No, these venerable Toronto underdogs are not giving Joni Mitchell's masterpiece a 35th anniversary tribute. They are, however, doing the equally impossible by not only making a pop-punk album worthy of redeeming the entire tired genre, but surviving a huge major label clusterfuck in the process. On their first album of original material in five years, they're raging without any musical sign of resignation, even if singer Matt Hughes is "sick of all the loud music" and laments, "I want to feel like I did when the chaos was real." The healthy sense of self-deprecation is balanced by multiple killer hooks, making this much more than the mid-life crisis of a sardonic punk—perhaps even a totally unexpected career resurrection. –Michael
Barclay
ALUMINUM
s/t
(XL)
Three stars
File this next to Nouvelle Vague for cover projects that defy the novelty factor and showcase the ingenuity of reinvention. "Orchestral versions of White Stripes songs"— those five words pretty much sum up this classical rock album, and Richard Ashcroft is likely already scrounging it for sample material. Don't mistake this for muzak: arranger Joby Talbot works minor miracles with even the sketchiest of Jack White's songs, colouring the more repetitious choices ("Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me") with plenty of flourish, and wisely picking four tracks from the band's best collection De Stijl. Oh, and a gamelan and harp help "Hardest Button to Button" totally kick major ass. In case you think this is all ridiculous, wait for the accompanying ballet. I'm not even kidding. –Michael Barclay
from the K-W Record, a mainstream daily newspaper west of Toronto:
Nov 9
Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5.55 (Warner)
There's a new Sean Lennon album out that, more than anything, proves that talent is not genetic. And on the surface, this album by the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg might also prove that to be true—depending on your tolerance for cooing French romantics. Her voice is whisper thin and practically transparent; one has to wonder if she sings that way because she wants to—to suit the dreamy, weightless material—or, like Paris Hilton, if she has to.
But if nothing else, this progeny of French pop royalty has impeccable taste in collaborators. She handed over complete songwriting duties to her the band Air and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, which turns out to be a brilliant move. Cocker shares her father's perverse sense of humour, which gives us a soothing song about a fiery plane crash, and an icy new wave song about the sexually intimate nature of surgery. Air set it all to music with their most captivating melodies since their classic debut album Moon Safari; if you lost track of them after that, you haven't missed much until now.
5.55 the album is much better than Gainsbourg herself; she's little more than a vehicle for the songs, but such is their hypnotic spell that it rarely matters.
John Legend – Once Again (Sony/BMG)
If I had a dollar for every time a new artist was touted as being the next Marvin Gaye, I'd be sharing stock tips with Jay-Z. For all the promises made by the neo-soul movement of the last ten years, much of it merely makes gestural nods to the spirit and sound while falling prey to all the usual pitfalls of modern R&B: second-rate material, showboating vocalists, and style over substance. Not here, however.
On his second album, John Legend establishes himself as much more than a Kanye West protégé, more than a sideman to Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, more than an upstart with beginner's luck and three Grammys under his belt. Once Again is leaps and bounds ahead of his 2004 debut Get Lifted, with snappin' soul tunes and swoony, string-drenched ballads that stave off the syrup.
With the help of all-star producers Will.I.Am (Black-Eyed Peas), West, Craig Street (Cassandra Wilson) and Rafael Saadiq, it's the songwriting here that separates Legend from the countless others who only know how to wear the suits. He's also a perfect piano accompanist, whose arrangements help conjure apparitions of 70s soul and piano pop; the cover image of Legend playing a grand piano on a New York City street also helps.
Finally, and obviously, there's the voice, which is earnest without ever being cloying, and is convincing enough to make the featherweight lovers' lyrics sound deeper than they actually are.
If he keeps this up, he'll certainly have earned his stage name.
from K-W Record, November 30
Jerry Lee Lewis – Last Man Standing: The Duets (Shangri-La/Koch)
If he's the last man standing, why does he need all these other dudes propping him up? And no mistake, they are all dudes—not many women want to be left alone in a studio with Jerry Lee.
This comeback album was five years in the making, and it pairs up Jerry Lee with 21 other rock'n'roll legends, most of whom take vocal turns with him. It's undeniably invigorating to hear him rip through Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll (with Jimmy Page on guitar), CCR's Travelin' Band (with John Fogerty), and Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (with the Boss man himself), all featuring the piano pyrotechnics we all want to hear. Most amusing is his "duet" with Little Richard on I Saw Her Standing There, which would be one for the history books if only Jerry Lee let his archrival near the piano—or even near the microphone for more than the occasional holler.
For the most part, however, he focuses on the country music that's been the focus of his last 30 years. Robbie Robertson's Twilight is a highlight (thankfully Robertson doesn't sing), as is That Kind of Fool with Keith Richards and Kris Kristofferson's The Pilgrim. The latter, about a "walking contradiction" and famously quoted in Taxi Driver, may well have been written about Jerry Lee himself.
While his voice is drenched in Sun Studio-style reverb for the rockers, the other tracks betray the fact that his 71-year old voice just isn't what it used to be, and neither are the voices of most of his equally aged duet partners, which just makes the whole affair sound like a bunch of non-descript old guys getting together with a shit-hot piano player.
from K-W Record, October 26
The Tragically Hip – World ContainerTM (Universal)
Maybe they felt their ass getting kicked by the next generation of CanRockers. Maybe they took a long hard look at their lacklustre recent work after issuing last year's box set and hits compilation. Maybe producer Bob Rock hooked them up with Metallica's therapist and
opened new doors of communication.
Who knows? Who cares? The short of it is that World ContainerTM sounds like The Tragically Hip are willing to put up a fight and resist the irrelevance that's been nipping at their heels for most of this decade. There were some definite steps out of their slump on 2004's In Between Evolution, but now they've gone back to the drawing board.
Gord Downie is no longer relying on guitar riffs to conjure his melodies for him, and ends up writing some of his poppiest melodies ever, especially the toy-piano-driven single In View. Guitarists Bobby Baker and Paul Langlois have finally realised that The Hip have long ceased to be a decent jam band, and have quit noodling themselves into the netherworld; here they sound tight and focused and exploring different textures to their playing. Bob Rock's production errs on the side of stadium-size drum sounds, yet he also leaves enough sonic space for every guitar track to ring out loud and clear. Downie's vocal performances sound like he's hungry again—or maybe he's overwhelmed by the oceanic setting of Rock's Hawaii studio, as aquatic themes dominate several songs here.
Fortunately, the album is front-loaded with future hits, like the surprising The Lonely End of the Rink, with its reggae-tinged verses adding an extra twist to standard rock chorus. (Maybe they took notes on how to pull off this tricky feat with subtlety when the Joel Plaskett Experience opened their last tour.)
World ContainerTM dips considerably in the second half, especially when Downie sounds like a grumpy grandpa shooing the whippersnappers off his lawn on The Kids Don't Get It. But he's rescued by the rousing Family Band, a shout-out to struggling young bands on their first tour ("what's gripping the city ain't hitting the town") set to an anthemic avalanche of guitars that may well have been borrowed from Broken Social Scene.
If this country's recent rock success stories threatened to unleash a classic Canadian cultural amnesia, one of our finest bands has finally returned to remind us why we once loved them so—fully, completely.
Greg Keelor – Aphrodite Rose (Warner)
To date, Greg Keelor's solo records away from Blue Rodeo have been either hushed lullabies or hazy psychedelia. This time out, he goes back to his favourite paisley-tinged country records of the 60s, with big Byrdsian harmonies, ringing Rickenbackers, pointed political lyrics, trippy jazz-folk, and back-to-the-garden spirituality ("wild flowers are proof enough of a higher power").
Recorded on his farm, it's all captured on a gloriously warm one-inch analog tape machine, which really does make a difference when it comes to capturing what made those 60s records sound so good—including plenty of hard panning into left and right speakers. Keelor sounds
completely comfortable playing all of the instruments himself, with occasional favours called in from the Sadies and Sarah McLachlan, but this isn't just a vanity experiment: he also conjures up his best set of songs in over five years.
At a time when a new generation is turning on to the psychedelic properties of folk music, Keelor kicks back and teaches us old school style.
Jim Cuddy Band – The Light That Guides You Home (Warner)
Keelor's lifelong partner in crime doesn't fare as well on his second solo album. Once again, despite the fact that employs most of Blue Rodeo as his backing band, Cuddy proves that he does his best work when egged on by the creative tension wrought by his partnership with Keelor. Any Blue Rodeo fan will find plenty of pleasantly recognizable signposts here, but only the honkytonkin' Oh Susanna duet Married Again, the pan-Canadian love letter Countrywide Soul, and the rocking Stagger In leave any impact. When faced with a total creative carte blanche, it's still baffling why anyone would put out a solo album that sounds almost exactly like their day job.
from K-W Record, Nov 2
Los Lobos – The Town and the City (Hollywood/Universal)
For fans who have followed them for the better part of their 27-year career, Los Lobos have been locked into a pattern of blowing us away on every second record—as recently as their 25th anniversary album The Ride, which boasted plenty of guest stars, reinvented older material, and a solid set of new songs.
But as this album illustrates, the lulls are getting lower, and there's very little on The Town and the City that suggests they're doing anything but phoning this in. The fact that it's comprised primarily of plodding mid-tempo songs isn't the problem, so much as the fact that the venerable masters sound as bored as we are. The only real life to be found here is found on Cesar Rosas's Latino numbers, though even those sound like leftovers from previous albums.
The only surprise to be found here is the fact that it's taken this long for their neighbour, the famed graphic novelist Jaime Hernandez, this long to illustrate one of their albums.
from Exclaim, December 2006
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
directed by Davis Guggenheim
This hit film was shocking to many North Americans, and buried deep in the movie is a funny little statistic that explains why. Al Gore describes how even though every peer-reviewed science journal unequivocally believes in global warming, mainstream media coverage continuously treats it like a questionable theroy—usually by soliciting opinions of scientists on the payroll of oil companies. Gore briefly compares them to the doctors trotted out in the 60s to defend cigarettes, but doesn't push the issue. And nor should he, lest the potential converts to his cause think he's one of those wacko conspiracy theorists that actually believes that Florida 2000 was an unfair fight. But the film's producers are happy to expand on that thought—and others—during their informative commentary, which acts as an excellent supplement to the information in the film itself. Director Guggenheim is less enlightening on the issues, but provides a textbook example of someone who doesn't consider themselves an environmentalist, yet was totally swayed by the strength of Gore's presentation on global warming. He also explains how hard it was to convince Gore to include glimpses into the former vice-president's own life struggles, which explains Gore's passion for delivering this message, while also breaking up the density of information and drawing the audience closer to its subject. Guggenheim laments at how hard it was to trim down Gore's two-hour lecture into less than 90 minutes to make an effective film. If that's true, why not include more extended scenes as DVD extras? Gore does appear in a featurette with a bare minimum of this material, as well as an update on some facts and case studies cited in the original film. Rest assured, there's no wasteful plastic packaging on this DVD: not only is it made from 100 post-consumer recycled material, but apparently it was powered by Native Energy. After hearing him talk the talk, it's good to know he's walking the walk. Also: short making-of featurette, Melissa Etheridge music video. (Paramount) –Michael Barclay
-end-
Monday, November 20, 2006
Swan Lake: Dan Bejar
Today, the final installment of our three Swan Lake interviews. You can find chats with Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer way back when.
Dan Bejar is known to most as the man who calls himself Destroyer. It's a name that initially seemed like a send-up of glam rock cliches, or at least a KISS cover band, but over time the one thing that Bejar has been bent on destroying is people's expectations. Through his association with the New Pornographers and on his own varied discography, Bejar gives off the air of someone who really doesn't care what anyone might think of what he does, a confidence that confounds critics and audiences as much as it attracts them to his devil-may-care artistry.
Swan Lake is no exception, and it's a license to confuse even some of the most loyal Destroyer fans. Part of the reason I was initially a bit skeptical was because for me, the low point in the Destroyer discography (and there are a couple, balanced by some of my favourite albums of all time, by anyone) is the Notorious Lightning EP of 2005. This is where he hired Carey Mercer's Frog Eyes to be his backing band while touring the synth-heavy misunderstood masterpiece Your Blues, an album I loved. While that material could easily be re-interpreted in a variety of ways, I didn't find any--well, okay, most--of the Frog Eyes arrangements to illuminate anything in particular about the Your Blues material. Au contraire, there seemed to be a certain delight in thrashing it to pieces.
Spencer Krug was recruited to join a later version of this band, which made me all the more curious what would happen when the three of them started something from scratch. While Frog Eyes is the dominant influence among these three strong personalities, Bejar's songs here are unmistakable, even at their most abstract ("Shooting Rockets"). In some ways, the opaque nature of the recording reminded me a bit of his much-maligned (by himself as well) debut album We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, which would be completely unlistenable were it not for fleeting glimpses of later brilliance; indeed, some of those songs were later adapted for the New Pornographers. A similar microscopic eye is required here, but the payoff is much bigger, considering the experience and talent involved.
Time for qualifiers: I sent these questions off to Dan before I spoke to either Carey or Spencer, and at that time I obviously hadn't discerned what the division of labour was on the album. And I also don't feel great about this interview because despite having been a fan for five years now, this is actually the first time he and I have spoke on the record. Early on he refused all Canadian press (except, I believe, one Discorder article and a chat with Mr. Zoilus--can't find any links either way), and I had to decline interviews for both Your Blues and Rubies due to my own time constraints at each time. For that reason alone, I wish I'd put more thought and research into this before I sent it off to him; at the same time, I knew that I had to squeeze three eloquent men into one 800w piece.
Note: Radio Free Canuckistan is taking a brief break for Yanksgiving. I'll be in North Carolina meeting the Fockers.
Dan Bejar is known to most as the man who calls himself Destroyer. It's a name that initially seemed like a send-up of glam rock cliches, or at least a KISS cover band, but over time the one thing that Bejar has been bent on destroying is people's expectations. Through his association with the New Pornographers and on his own varied discography, Bejar gives off the air of someone who really doesn't care what anyone might think of what he does, a confidence that confounds critics and audiences as much as it attracts them to his devil-may-care artistry.
Swan Lake is no exception, and it's a license to confuse even some of the most loyal Destroyer fans. Part of the reason I was initially a bit skeptical was because for me, the low point in the Destroyer discography (and there are a couple, balanced by some of my favourite albums of all time, by anyone) is the Notorious Lightning EP of 2005. This is where he hired Carey Mercer's Frog Eyes to be his backing band while touring the synth-heavy misunderstood masterpiece Your Blues, an album I loved. While that material could easily be re-interpreted in a variety of ways, I didn't find any--well, okay, most--of the Frog Eyes arrangements to illuminate anything in particular about the Your Blues material. Au contraire, there seemed to be a certain delight in thrashing it to pieces.
Spencer Krug was recruited to join a later version of this band, which made me all the more curious what would happen when the three of them started something from scratch. While Frog Eyes is the dominant influence among these three strong personalities, Bejar's songs here are unmistakable, even at their most abstract ("Shooting Rockets"). In some ways, the opaque nature of the recording reminded me a bit of his much-maligned (by himself as well) debut album We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, which would be completely unlistenable were it not for fleeting glimpses of later brilliance; indeed, some of those songs were later adapted for the New Pornographers. A similar microscopic eye is required here, but the payoff is much bigger, considering the experience and talent involved.
Time for qualifiers: I sent these questions off to Dan before I spoke to either Carey or Spencer, and at that time I obviously hadn't discerned what the division of labour was on the album. And I also don't feel great about this interview because despite having been a fan for five years now, this is actually the first time he and I have spoke on the record. Early on he refused all Canadian press (except, I believe, one Discorder article and a chat with Mr. Zoilus--can't find any links either way), and I had to decline interviews for both Your Blues and Rubies due to my own time constraints at each time. For that reason alone, I wish I'd put more thought and research into this before I sent it off to him; at the same time, I knew that I had to squeeze three eloquent men into one 800w piece.
Note: Radio Free Canuckistan is taking a brief break for Yanksgiving. I'll be in North Carolina meeting the Fockers.
Dan Bejar
November 7, 2006
Via email
Is it true you tried to enlist Spencer into Destroyer when he played piano in a building you lived in? Did you hear his original material at that time, or was he just mucking about?
Absurd! We lived together at the E.18th house for a year, and at the end of that year as far as I was concerned his main musical interests were Charles Ives, Texas Swing and ska, in that order. I deemed his tastes insane (and rightfully so). [Jason] Zumpano had already been playing keyboards in Destroyer for a year, before I'd ever met Spencer. I had no idea that Spencer had any interest in writing songy songs till way later when I heard rumour of these bizzarro four-track genre pieces floating around Victoria/MileEnd (in Montreal)/EastVan (there should be a word for the city that those three things comprise), which I guess were the earliest Sunset Rubdown recordings.
What drew you to Carey as a kindred spirit? What is it you share in common?
I like the volume at which he plays his guitar. And, of course, we're both painters. His lyrics are pretty funny, vivid. So are mine. He has a kind of total disregard for melody, and total insistence on it at the same time, which is something most of my favourite singers and guitar players have/do.
What would you pinpoint as the main strengths and attributes of Carey and Spencer's writing?
Kinda tough, don't really wanna do that. It is enough to know that they are there, often in spades.
To my mind, Carey sounds the most different here from his "day job"-whereas I could see both your songs and Spencer's being Destroyer or Sunset Rubdown songs, respectively. Would you agree?
Can't say I agree. I find Spencer's stuff on Beast Moans more croony and soulful, less rigorous than the Shut Up record. As for my stuff, “Freedom” would sound totally out of place on any Destroyer record released in the last five years. “Rubella” has a bit of a This Night vibe I guess, which obviously makes me really into it. But “Widow's Walk” totally sounds like Swan Lake me, and “Shooting Rockets” is a hilariously brutal example of extreme Swan Lakeness, though I doubt anyone's ever heard more than the first minute of that song, and therefore might be hesitant to agree or disagree.
Did you all write together or bring material to the project? Was any part of the recording done piecemeal in isolation, or were all three of you present for the whole thing?
Are there any other players here, or do the three of you cover everything?
Firstly, all I did on this record was write four songs, play them on acoustic guitar, sing 'em, play one electric lead on “Rubella,” and sing back-up vocals on Spencer and Carey's songs, in the spots where they asked me to. I threw in my two cents once or twice during mixing, but fact of the matter is that most of the work went down in Victoria after I'd gone back to Vancouver. The rest of what you hear is all Carey and Spencer. It would be too much work to delineate which of the two did what where, because it's pretty equal and it's all over the place. If you're familiar with their other records, you can probably tell, for the most part, what Carey's guitar sounds like, or what a prototypical Krug keyboard part is, but even that can be tough in spots. Same goes for the mixing, drum building, etc. In that sense, my songs were extremely collaborative, in that I wrote them and those guys made them. Also, I hear Carey all over Spencer's songs, and vice versa.
Did making this record illuminate anything in your own work that you hadn't realized before?
Those guys, especially after having to learn all those Your Blues numbers, seem to think I gotta lot of songs in the key of B, or maybe it was E. Anyway, I never realized that till it was pointed out to me in their usual brutal manner. They also like to point out how numbingly simple my songs are, which is something I've been suspecting for a while now.
Do the three of you share any good/bad work habits?
I'm known to pace in the studio, but I can't remember if those guys did any pacing or not. I'd have a hard time identifying my own habits in the studio (aside from taking the occasional sip of beer), let alone theirs.
At least two of you are known for placing importance on lyrics, but it's very hard to distinguish words the way the vocals are mixed here. Was there an intention to that? Did you consciously not want to make lyrics a focus?
It was pretty intentional. At least for my songs, I think it was intentional. The lyrics being way up front was old news as far as a Destroyer song goes, so I think those guys thought it was time to try something different, and I was totally into it. That being said, if you are referring to the indecipherability of “Shooting Rockets,” the vocals are treated and somewhat buried in an attempt to veil the gurgling sound that I mistook for singing, at the time.
I read recently that you were going to reissue (his 1996 debut) We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge. Is this true? I've read you make disparaging remarks about it in the past, so why did you want to? Part of the reason I ask is that is that in some small way, Swan Lake harkens back to the home recording experimentation of that era. Is there any parallel in the approach for you?
I think the Bridge is out, though I haven't seen it in any of the shops here in Malaga. Maybe I used to be a little embarrassed of it, I felt like I had moved way beyond it even by the time it came out. But I'm way over that now. That's what I sounded like when I was 22, whatever. It's fine. Let it be in print. As for Beast Moans sounding like a screwy toybox one-man-band basement record, I'd concede that neither record is too scared of cleaning up loose threads, but the threads themselves seem to me very very very different. And obviously there is a level of musicianship that is impossibly different. Maybe on both records you get to hear the sound of music taking place in a room, which is pretty rare for anything recorded in a studio these days. But in no way do I think that Beast Moans is the sound of a PZM [microphone] plugged into a 4-track. I'd say if anything there is maybe a little overlap between the way some of the songs on Beast Moans were approached and some of the songs on This Night were approached.
I hear your schedule is filling up with all sorts of new projects: something with [girlfriend] Sydney [Vermont], something with Mr. [Stephen] McBean [of Black Mountain/Pink Mountaintops], something called Bonaparte. What are all these bands, who are they with, what differentiates them all?
Bonaparte has a record that's been sitting on the shelf for ages, and I think will finally come out in the spring on Soft Abuse. That band's kind of on semi-permanent hiatus, though, and has been for quite a while. It was a rock band that Syd wrote songs and sang for. I played guitar. Steve Wood played bass. Krista Marshall played guitar. And Josh Lindstrom [now of Awkward Stage] played drums. Hello Blue Roses is just the two of us, and I think pretty soon Syd will have an enough songs to fill up an album. We're gonna try and record it ourselves. Maybe it'll come out in 2007 as well. If you're referring to McBean's 'old man' band, Pimbod and the Total Boners, that just entails me learning how to play “The Oven Is My Friend” some time between now and 2009. Besides, I thought I got kicked out for spelling Pimbod wrong once in an e-mail!
How do they effect the future of Destroyer? Which has always been in flux anyway, but are these more collaborative or could you see your main focus shifting away from something with the expectations of a Destroyer album?
None of these above projects you mention involve me writing a single song, so that side of things is still pretty focused. They do spur on my interest in becoming a shit-hot guitar player/studio wiz.
-end-
Friday, November 17, 2006
Swan Lake: Spencer Krug
This is the second of three interviews for Swan Lake, the new band for Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, and Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade. This one runs today because I find myself back in Montreal on an abnormally balmy November morning (it's warmer and sunnier than Ontario today, go figure; yesterday was the most torrential and miserable experience I've ever had making this trip on the 401). Also, because my email interview with Dan Bejar is kind of terrible--entirely because I sent him questions in a rush, before I'd really begun to understand what was happening on Beast Moans, Swan Lake's debut album, and before I talked to Carey and Spencer. That conversation will run on Monday, the day before the album's release, and long after you've absorbed the better two of the three interviews.
The Exclaim piece these interviews were commissioned for hits the streets on Tuesday, November 28. I'll provide the link when it goes up.
Side note: Thanks to Chromewaves for the shout-out yesterday.
The Exclaim piece these interviews were commissioned for hits the streets on Tuesday, November 28. I'll provide the link when it goes up.
Side note: Thanks to Chromewaves for the shout-out yesterday.
Spencer Krug
November 7, 2006
Via phone, from his home in
How is
Pretty much as you remember it. I don’t go out much these days.
Have things calmed down a bit? Are you at home for a while?
Yeah, I’m pretty much done for the winter. Wolf Parade was just in
This record was made when, last March?
February and March. Then a little more mixing… I can’t remember.
I had no idea what it was going to sound like, but when I heard it, it didn’t sound like what I thought it would.
That’s fair.
For some reason I thought it would be more band-like, with drums and such. Did you have any idea what would happen when the three of you sat down in a room?
No. There were thoughts of getting a drummer up to the studio, but it just never happened. And we were fine if it didn’t happen. There were no preconceived notions of what any of it would sound like. Whatever came out was going to be the record. It could easily have gone a completely different way, more like a real band with a drummer on every track and more succinct-sounding songs. But it didn’t! I’m not surprised. I didn’t know what it would sound like, but I’m not surprised at all at how it turned out given what I know of Carey, Dan, and myself and what we like. I knew, for example, that there would be a lot of noodly guitar, because it’s Carey.
One thing that did surprise me is the treatment of the vocals on the record; the lyrics are quite obscured. The voices are more textural than they are lead instruments. It’s less of a songwriter-y record.
I can’t really tell why. You’ve asked me about this before, about why I like vocals up so far in the mix, and I think I answered by saying that I didn’t realize I did. I probably wrote a whole paragraph about it. And Dan does that too in Destroyer. I think Carey got his hands on us. If you listen to Frog Eyes, the vocals are fast and a blur to understand anyway, even if they were up in the mix, so they turn into more of a texture. Carey and I mixed a lot of it together. I don’t have a real aesthetic towards vocals that I lean towards one way or another. There are also points where all three of us are singing—and you just naturally want to turn that stuff down. We’re not trying to make an opera.
The record baffled me quite a bit initially and I keep hearing new things every time I listen to it. At first I thought it was pretty much the three of you in your own corners with your own songs, but the more I hear it the more I notice collaborations and people singing on each other’s tracks. But that doesn’t strike me right away.
Yeah, there’s a lot of things floating around in the mix!
Initially, I thought that Carey’s stuff sounded the most different from Frog Eyes, whereas some of Dan’s songs do sound like Destroyer to me and some of your songs definitely sound like Sunset Rubdown. How do you think all of that worked out?
Carey has another project that he used to do called
Both Carey and Dan have singular visions in their other bands, where they drive everything. You have two other bands: one where you write everything, and one where you and Dan collaborate and modify each other’s songs. How did you find it entering into a writing situation with two other bandleaders? Or is that more natural for you because you do that with Dan?
It was fine. I played with Carey for a long time in Frog Eyes. I’m used to taking directions from him. Frog Eyes is his baby and I’ll write my own parts and be respectful of the fact that it’s his material and I like it and I just do what he tells me. That relationship between him and I is fine. None of us are really megalomaniac control freaks.
Carey actually described you all as tyrants.
Then we’re all totally passive tyrants, with frustration taken out through mockery. We make fun of each other’s stuff a lot. We went into it with open minds and ready to let go of that stuff. In Sunset Rubdown I do like to hold the reigns; I bring stuff to that band that I have very specific ideas for that are already fleshed out. With
Did the three of you share any work habits, good or bad?
No, none at all. We’re pretty different. When it comes to mixing, both Carey and I are workhorses. We’ll sit there for hours and hours. We did some shiftwork: overdubbing, mixing, and erasing it. I’d do that all night and he’d do it all day. At this point Dan was in
A lot of people approach songwriting and recording differently; I was just curious how the three of you did that together.
There’s definitely differences, but nothing that got in the way. The one uniform thing we did was sit down with an acoustic guitar for the first few days and had a round table of pressing record and laying the bare bones of a song down. After that, all rules were off.
Carey told me that if someone told you a couple of years ago that you’d both be playing acoustic guitars that you’d be horrified.
I wouldn’t have, he would have.
He’s just speaking for you, then.
Yeah, not the first time! He shirks the thought of the singer/songwriter open jam night at the coffee shop in
Did making this record illuminate anything in your own work you didn’t realize before, didn’t know was there?
Hmmm. Maybe some different approaches to mixing. It was also further affirmation that you can record tons of shit, tons of tracks on top of each other and then go back later and find the gold. It’s the way you treat the things you want to keep that I might start doing differently because of Carey. I mean, once you’re actually mixing it.
We also talked about how it’s a personal project without particular goals in mind, just three friends seeing what they could do together. Obviously when you make a record like this you’re not thinking about how people will react, but now that it’s done, do you think it’s more of a personal thing or is it something…
You mean, how will we react to how it’s accepted? It felt really free. None of the three of us had aspirations for
Yet.
Who knows?
Going back a fair bit, then, what drew you to these two men? When and why did you realize you had something in common with them musically?
I lived with both of them at different times within a few years of each other. Carey’s stuff I didn’t really like when I first met him. Listening back to it now, The Blue Pine, I find things that I like. But I liked his ideas a lot, and we started playing together when I lived with him. We always clicked musically right away. I was a fan of Destroyer long before I ever played with Dan. I learned about Destroyer and heard it when I lived with him and a bunch of other guys in about ’98, and it took off just after that. This is around the time of Thief. I remember him doing the cover on his computer. It was my last year of school in
That wasn’t all of Frog Eyes, was it?
No, and I was the replacement for Grayson Walker, who didn’t want to go to
Was Michael Rak there too?
No, he didn’t want to go to
Are you back in Frog Eyes now then?
I can’t really speak to that. I will keep playing with Frog Eyes whenever I can. I’m like an honorary member. I’m always welcome.
You talked about how you met Dan, but musically, what do you like and respect about what he does? Or that you think you might have in common with?
Oh, I don’t have anything in common with him musically. It’s his lyrics that get me. I think he’s an amazing lyricist, and the way he delivers them in his heartfelt crooning style. I don’t think there are many songwriters who are poets, for lack of a better word. I know I’m not, and I don’t think Carey is, but his lyrics transcend songs. I like playing with words and making words and phrases as meaningful as I know how, with the syntax and the cadence of a song. But Dan’s stuff remains poetry with that cadence and rhythm to them, and I don’t think many people can do that. He does it really well.
I find it interesting that it’s obviously part of what drew me to him as well, but in pretty much any interview with him—I don’t know if he’s just being self-deprecating, a jester, or whatever—but he gives off the impression that he’s really just putting words together. I guess people try to press him to explain meanings and relationships in his lyrics, and he usually dismisses all of that.
He always will, though.
Most people would at least defend themselves instead of insisting there’s no meaning to their work. I find his reaction quite funny.
It’s not a show. He is truly humble. You just have to make your own guesses. He’s given me the same answers.
I thought he was just trying to throw off people in my profession.
I don’t think he has an agenda in that regard. There’s just certain things that he won’t talk about.
In terms of the division of labour, it sounds like everyone was all over everything, really.
Pretty much. If you hear a screechy electric guitar, it’s Carey.
Are you all the keyboards?
No, Carey did some. Dan did some of the electric guitar. Drums is me and Carey, mostly. I even played some bass, which I never do.
Do you think the record has a unity? Was that a concern when making it?
Do you mean does it stand separate from our other projects?
I think it does that, but in terms of song choices...
Oh, as a single work of art. Lyrically, there was not a lot of collaboration. But we were definitely conscious of making a cohesion to all of it, to make one work rather than a compilation of three guys. Because the lyrics came from three different people, we could only attempt to do that through the music. Really, all you can do is try to stick to the same kind of instrumentation. There’s some stuff we cut because it conflicted with the rest of the record, not because it was horrible. All you can do is try. I don’t know if we succeeded.
I understand that there are plans to revisit this, schedules willing. What kind of life do you think it will take on?
I don’t know. I think it’s going to get crucified, personally. I think it will be a small handful of people who really like it, whether or not they’re already fans of one of the other projects. Hopefully there will be people who just like it for what it is. But on the whole, I have a feeling that it will be really torn apart, and I’m okay with that. I’m interested to see what happens to it that way, but it’s not a one-off. It is a ‘when-time-allows’ thing. Even if it does get totally brutalized, I think we’ll do another one because it’s fun. Whatever label is willing to pay for it!
I’ll admit that I was baffled the first time I heard it, and anyone who reviews it after listening to it only once might not be kind. But anyone who’s an honest fan of any of the three people involved is going to give it a few shakes. I also don’t think it’s any weirder than any given Frog Eyes record, so anyone who likes that band will like this.
That’s true.
I don’t about Wolf Parade or Destroyer fans, though.
Yeah, I’m not sure frat boy Wolf Parade fans will take a shine to it.
They might not Shine a Light, you mean?
(laughs)
-end-
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