November 2012 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record and the Guelph Mercury last month.

The Amazing - Gentle Stream (Subliminal)

With a band name like that, this Swedish combo have a lot to prove. Perhaps needless to say, the moniker is mere hyperbole; the album title is a much more apt evocation of the musical contents. Woodwinds, jazzy drums, acoustic guitars, electric 12-string guitars and even some bongos conjure up sonic images of Nick Drake and Belle and Sebastian; if the songs here aren’t quite up to those high standards, the aesthetic most certainly is.

The Amazing features the guitarist from Dungen, who had a fleeting moment of pseudo-fame during the mid-2000s, when the indie boom had an anything-goes thirst for anything exotic, including ’70s-drenched Swedish psychedelia. His noodly yet tasteful style fits in perfectly here, though with considerably less distortion than he preferred in Dungen.

If Tame Impala are the new face of electric psychedelic rock, The Amazing aim to be the folkie counterpoint. Calling themselves The Lovely and Pretty Good was not an option; their name at least gives them something more to work toward. (Nov. 29)

Download: “Flashlight,” “Dogs,” “The Fog”

Bat For Lashes – The Haunted Man (EMI)

The difficult third album: you’re no longer a most promising act, and if you wowed everyone your second time out, you suddenly have a lot to prove. And so Natasha Khan, who records under the unfortunate moniker Bat For Lashes, comes to us with The Haunted Man, carrying great expectations—and shucking them immediately.

If 2009’s Two Suns was a glorious, epic reboot of Kate Bush’s wild, witchy and weird take on pop music, The Haunted Man ventures more into early Sarah McLachlan territory, only with slightly more inventive instrumentation. “All Your Gold” is driven by glass percussion; “Oh Yeah” takes rave keyboards and strips them of their bombast, preferring instead to have them dance over a delicate, skittering beat and a sampled man choir; the real man choir shows up on the title track. Throughout, Khan’s voice shows opera chops and pop perfection; we’d likely be listening to her no matter what she was up to.

Where The Haunted Man falls flat is the songs. Khan doesn’t cast the same spells she did last time (despite her promise: “It’s time to get enchanted”), and there are more than a few times when she sounds downright pedestrian, never more so than on “Laura” (the album’s only co-write), where she consoles a former party girl who’s been left behind by so-called friends; what should be an uplifting song instead sounds like a shallow ode to scenesters (“You’ll be famous for longer than them / your name is tattooed on every boy’s skin”) set to the most simplistically earnest arrangement on an otherwise musically complex album.

Khan is unique enough that The Haunted Man has plenty to love about it, but it’s unlikely to be a highlight of her career, or even of this year. (Nov. 8)

Download: “All Your Gold,” “Horses of the Sun,” “Oh Yeah”

Diamond Rings – Free Dimensional (Secret City)

Ever since he debuted as Diamond Rings, John O’Regan seemed destined for bigger stages. The glam makeup, the big pop songs, the ridiculous dancing—could Lady Gaga territory be far off? Not at all. Now with a big-money promotional push behind him, Free Dimensional pumps up the volume on O’Regan’s previously lo-fi production and proves that now he’s shooting for stadiums, not just perennial opening act status (notably for Robyn across North America) or hometown hero (as frontman for now-defunct rock band the D’Urbervilles).

Tracks like “I’m Just Me” prove that O’Regan is more than just an androgynous stick figure in funny outfits and makeup, and that he’s determined, Gaga style, to inject some affirming self-esteem lyrics into a bubblegum Top 40 context—and more power to him, as the track is destined to be a fist-pumping club hit uniting geeks across the globe.

Aside from that and a handful of others—all front-loaded in the first five tracks—Free Dimensional is sadly not the star-making showstopper it wants to be. “I want to be your A-Z,” sings O’Regan, but he doesn’t get much past C here. The songs are fine—merely fine—and the production seems torn between lo-fi charm and high-sheen bombast; if it was one or the other, it would work much better. Instead, beefing up crappy drum machines and standard vintage synth sounds means that Diamond Rings doesn’t seem quite ready to take the full plunge, instead stuck in ’80s teen movie soundtrack hell. As for the ill-advised attempts at rapping on “I Know What I’m Made Of,” the less said the better.

These Diamond Rings aren’t quite polished yet. (Nov. 1)

Download: “I’m Just Me,” “Runaway Love,” “All in Time”

Brian Eno - Lux (Warp)

Brian Eno returns to the extremely sparse approach of 1978’s Music for Airports. It’s rare to hear anything shorter than a whole note here; melodies are stretched until they’re made opaque in a series of drones over the space of 15 minutes (the 75-minute album consists of only four tracks). The primary sound is that of somnambulism; Eno is not out to raise your pulse.

Rather than rely solely on synths and heavily treated acoustic instruments, the violins and pianos are distinguishable, making this less about sonic innovation than about composition. But first and foremost Eno’s ambient albums—of which this is one of his stronger ones—are about mood, and precious few are the artists who project calm and inner peace without resorting to wind chimes or an equally offensive sonic tranquilizer.

How does he do it? Who cares. He wrote the book on this kind of music, and if it sounds like he can do it in his sleep, that’s kind of the point. (Nov. 29)

Bill Fay – Life is People (Dead Oceans)

Bill Fay’s new album—his fourth ever—is perhaps one of 2012’s least anticipated releases. Bill Fay is 70 years old. Bill Fay put out two albums in the ’70s that neither you nor anyone else other than Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has ever heard. Bill Fay told NPR, “You can't make a comeback album unless you arrive in the first place. I'm getting a little bit worried that I'm coming close to arriving.” In that case, Bill Fay should start worrying: Life is People is an astounding album, not just one of the year’s best, but one of the finest singer/songwriter albums in recent memory.

You know how every classic album has that one song that sounds like it unlocks all the mysteries of the universe in the space of a few simple verses and elementary chords, that carries the weight of the world in the singer’s voice, that is arranged so modestly and elegantly that it can reduce you to a puddle in an instant, a song that casts a shadow over everything else on the album—you know that song? Bill Fay has got 12 of them for you here.

Of course, Fay has the advantage of drawing from 40 years of unrecorded songs that no one other than his family has heard until now. There are no throwaway lyrics here. There are no songs that aren’t carefully drawn character sketches, that aren’t wrestling with weighty philosophy and theology—and yet Fay makes it all sound easy. He’s witnessed decades of war and strife in the “never-ending happening,” but still sees minor miracles every day in the “cosmic concerto.” An old hippie? Not really: Fay is rooted in realistic, non-idealistic spirituality.

There’s nothing belaboured here; the album was recorded in about two weeks with a 30-year-old producer and a mix of players both veteran and young. The sympathetic arrangements combine what you might expect from fellow veterans Scott Walker, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan—gospel choirs, lush organs, cellos, classical guitars, a soulful rhythm section—with more ominous use of fractured electric guitar that owes debts to Godspeed You Black Emperor and Radiohead. In other words, not unlike what Wilco get up to in their weightier moments. Superfan Jeff Tweedy shows up to duet on the sole buoyant number, “This World,” while Fay returns the favour by covering Tweedy’s “Jesus Etc.,” giving it a sparse piano and voice treatment that illuminates new aspects of one of Wilco’s best-loved songs.

The peak, however, is “City of Dreams,” a cinematic masterpiece of storytelling with incredibly haunting soundscapes to match, in which Fay sings, “I’m a street sweeper / in your city of dreams / sweeping up the paper cups / in between the limousines.”

Who knows if Bill Fay will ever record again after this; I hope he does, but he certainly doesn’t have to. Life is People will stand as a legacy for generations. (Nov. 1)

Download: “Never Ending Happening,” “City of Dreams,” “This World”

Guano Padano - 2 (Ipecac)

Ennio Morricone is not yet dead—the veteran Italian film composer is 84, and still working—but this instrumental Italian trio is more than ready to assume his mantle. And they sound better doing it than, say, Danger Mouse did earlier this year with his star-studded album Rome, which was recorded in Morricone’s studio and with many of his key players.

Guano Padano don’t do anything that sounds forced; they sound like they live and breathe Morricone and European reimaginings of American music, rather than treating it like a genre exercise. They’re also big fans of another Italian film composer, Angelo Badalamenti, who is David Lynch’s go-to guy; one track here is titled simply “Lynch.” They love twangy guitar; bandleader Alessandro Stefana could give our own Shadowy Man Brian Connelly a run for his money.

But as with anyone who draws serious influence from cinematic canvases, Guano Padano give themselves free reign to try anything. So there are banjo-led country numbers, Calexico-esque desert soundscapes, Asian melodies, dark piano jazz, and a typically ominous vocal turn by their label boss, Mike Patton. To close the album, they take a lovingly executed shot at covering the slide guitar classic “Sleep Walk,” just to pay an obvious debt.

A band this good deserves to cross all borders, and because there’s no language barrier, that’s all the more reason they should. (Nov. 29)

Download: “Zebulon,” “One Man Bank,” “Un Occhio Verso Tokyo”

Zaki Ibrahim – Every Opposite (Motif)

Sci-fi soul music from South Africa via Toronto and Nanaimo, B.C., filed somewhere between Sade and Santigold: that’s shorthand for Zaki Ibrahim, who first built a buzz around 2008 when she was coming up at the same time as K’naan and other Canadians of African descent. This album has been four years in the making; Ibrahim says she knew she was too green back then to make a serious statement, and this was well worth the wait.

Featuring collaborations from Torontonians like house music producer Nick Holder and hip-hop beatmaker Rich Kidd (who is originally from Ghana), as well as producers from London, Kenya and her new home in South Africa, Ibrahim easily carves herself a niche of progressive, modern soul music that combines electronics, string sections, African instrumentation and strong songwriting—the latter being the essential element to tie Ibrahim’s vision together. Ibrahim has a confident, versatile and seductive voice, but that’s really just the beginning of her appeal.

She may have moved on from Canada, but we’d be idiots to lose our claim on someone this brilliant. This is easily one of the most underappreciated albums to come out of Canada in 2012. (Nov. 29)

Download: “Draw the Line,” “Something in the Water,” “Heart Beat”

Manu Katché  - s/t (ECM)

Best known as the go-to drummer for Peter Gabriel and Sting—a gig that doesn’t just go to any slouch—this Parisian drummer unsurprisingly has a strong interest in jazz. And while his drumming here is lyrical and beautiful as always, this is not an instrumental showcase for Katché—frankly, he plays flashier stuff with Gabriel. (There’s really only one drum solo on the entire record, during “Loose.”) His fifth solo album is about his own songwriting, for which he enlists two Norwegian brass players and a British keyboardist. The tone is one of elegance, of icy cool, tempos rarely rising above a heartbeat, and Katché’s melodies are front and centre; each player’s interpretive solos sound just as meticulously composed as the lead. Yes, it’s more than a bit restrained for most jazz fans and the danger of ’80s cheese lingers large, but all of these guys are way too classy to let that happen. (Nov. 8)

Download: “Loving You,” “Walking By Your Side,” “Beats and Bounce”

Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City (Universal)

Much like his pal Drake, on whose last album he appeared, Kendrick Lamar shot to stardom on the basis of mixtapes and A-list cosigns (paging Dr. Dre). And again like Drake, his major label debut is a sprawling, epic work, musically subdued, sexually obsessed and equal parts braggadocio and self-loathing. But unlike Drake, Lamar is full of personality, storytelling smarts and with no shortage of compelling narratives.

Lamar is old enough to be a child of N.W.A.; born in 1987, he grew up in their L.A. neighbourhood of Compton, raised on gangsta rap and now, at the ripe old age of 25, is coming to terms with that legacy. Lamar embraces the form without coming across like the carbon-copy cartoons that have dominated the genre for at least the last 15 years. He’s not all bluster and boneheadedness; on the contrary, it’s clear that he’s writing in character, developing an album-length narrative about a kid who gets quickly swept up in criminal situations way over his head, whose family tries to teach him responsibility, who expresses real remorse—indeed, the album opens with him praying to Jesus for forgiveness.

Lazier rappers rely on their subject matter itself to tell their story; Lamar has serious skills as an MC, and at one point says, “I could never right all my wrongs unless I write them down for real.” The music—produced by the likes of the Neptunes, Just Blaze, and the pride of Ajax, Ont., T-Minus—is ambitious next-level G-funk on the slow burn, and Lamar contorts his voice around every syllable to tailor himself to the varied beats, and has no trouble maintaining the listener’s attention through the two-song, nine-minute title suite or the 12-minute denouement “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst.”

Plenty of MCs aim for the grandiose, album-length statement, complete with skits and endless star cameos—and they almost all fall flat on their face. Kendrick Lamar deserves credit for coming out on top, and for raising the game in a genre that was played out long ago. (Nov. 15)

Download: “Backseat Freestyle,” “The Art of Peer Pressure,” “Good Kid”

Maestro Fresh Wes – Black Tuxedo EP (independent)

Maestro lays proper claim to being the first breakthrough hip-hop artist in Canada, and it seems he’s been on the comeback trail ever since he first fell off in the early ’90s. Now he’s back yet again, with a career as a TV character actor and self-help-book author on the side, to boast of past glories and reassert himself. Except that unlike most over-the-hill blowhards, Maestro has still got all the goods: he’s always been unfairly portrayed as a one-hit wonder, when in fact he’s a dextrous MC who can lay waste to challengers half his age, and his old-school skills of internal rhymes, double entendres and wordplay make him sound positively Shakespearian next to most modern MCs. “My identity is an endless entity,” he asserts; he’s not kidding.

Fourteen years ago he lifted The Guess Who’s “These Eyes” as a sample; this time he looks to Blue Rodeo’s “Try” (a song as old as Maestro’s debut album) and showcases its soulful swagger on “Reach for the Sky”—it’s the ’80s CanCon equivalent of Otis Redding covering the Beatles, and it works. As does just about everything else Maestro tries here, which is just a teaser for a full-length early next year. Few hip-hop artists get a second act; Maestro’s aiming for a third, and it might be his best yet. (Nov. 8)

Download: “Reach For the Sky,” “Black Tuxedo,” “Too Melodic”

Menahan Street Band – The Crossing (Dunham)

This album came out a week before the American presidential election, and it’s a perfect soundtrack. Funky, cinematic instrumentals recall the malaise of the mid-’70s, which was the last time the U.S. appeared so bleak. And yet the horn section is so majestic and elegant, that it doesn’t just convey the intense drama of the everyday, it also hints at hope in the near future. And so now with a funky president back in the White House, the Menahan Street Band exude cautious optimism.

That this album sounds as good as it does should be no surprise. All the players are drawn from the Daptone label roster: the Dap Kings, Budos Band, Antibalas, etc.; an earlier Menahan Street Band track was used in Jay-Z’s single “Roc Boys.” Where Menahan differs from their brethren is in a more subdued, jazzier approach, heavier on organ than most of those other bands. Guitarist Thomas Brenneck plays acoustic and slide on top of the funky rhythm section and, on “Driftwood,” shows more of a dreamy country influence than one would expect in this context. 

The Daptone crew rarely puts out a bad record, but likewise the pure solid gold gems are few and far between. Menahan puts themselves ahead of the pack not just on skills and songwriting, but with diversity and subtlety as well. It swings, it swaggers, it’s subtle, it’s sexy, it’s somewhat scary. And it’s a perfect soundtrack for November 2012. (Nov. 15)

Download: “The Crossing,” “Three Faces,” “Sleight of Hand”

Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream (Sony)

Miguel has been waiting a long time for this: his debut album was shelved, his second album was delayed for two years and didn’t become a hit until six months after its 2010 release. Now that the world is finally listening—and that the likes of Frank Ocean and The Weeknd have cultivated an R&B scene thirsty for something new—Miguel is ready to cash in all his chips.

Kaleidoscope Dream follows a lineage from wacked-out Sly Stone to trippy Shuggie Otis to “Sexual Healing”-era Marvin Gaye to Prince circa 1999 to—well, not many others outside of D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. Other than the modern update on the wonderfully weirdest corners of R&B history—for this is far from a retro record—Miguel separates himself from the scene by placing songs first, rather than depending on his producer’s beats or his own vocal acrobatics. There’s no shortage of ear candy here, but it’s never the main focus.

As a singer, Miguel has got macho swagger, but he uses it in unusual ways; who else would croon a line like, “You can defiiiiiiiiiiiile me!” He’s not always on the mark, of course: a line like “Do you like drugs? ... I’m going to do you like drugs tonight” is almost enough to put you off entirely, if it wasn’t followed up immediately by the arresting title track. Otherwise distracting moments are few and far between; Miguel’s dream is fully realized. (Nov. 15)

Download: “Adorn,” “Kaleidoscope Dream,” “Where’s the Fun in Forever?”

Son Real and Rich Kidd – The Closers (Black Box)

This cross-country collab between Vancouver MC Son Real and Toronto rapper and beatmaker Rich Kidd has all the makings of a mainstream breakthrough. Though both have gained considerable reps on their own, by teaming up they’ve created the most entertaining, well-rounded and hit-packed hip-hop album to come out of Canada since the heyday of Kardinal and K-os (and, at a concise 11 tracks, with no filler). Both MCs are complementary and competitive, one upping each other while Rich Kidd’s beats are some of the funkiest heard this year from anywhere. It only dips when they go for big pop hooks—“Control,” “Mind All Day” and the insipid yet catchy “Fuck Yeah” all seem to be aimed at the Black Eyed Peas crowd—that they get sidetracked, although each of those tracks is entirely successful at what it’s trying to do. On the poignant “Hometown,” they manage a mix of both approaches that recalls the best of K’naan and should be a surefire hit—or at least a gateway for listeners to discover two of the most exciting new voices in Canada. (Nov. 1)

Download: “Best Believe,” “Money Money,” “Hometown”

The Tom Fun Orchestra – Earthworm Heart (independent)

One of Canada’s best-kept secrets is this Halifax group of barnburners, the rare live band who bottle their rock’n’roll energy with banjos, accordions, fiddles and full horn sections (think: Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger sessions band, the Pogues’ less traditional moments, Sunset Rubdown meet The Burning Hell on Cape Breton Island) and successfully translate it onto tape. The result is a triumphant recording that delivers (most of) the release of their live show, with more focus on the seedy underbelly of the lyrics, communicated with gruff male lead vocals and female harmony, never better than on the opening salvo: “God lives underground / in a dark and dirty hole / he’s waiting to be found / we dig to save our souls.” This band wants to make you think while you drink, to pour some tears into your beer, and to have you end the evening with your arm around a total stranger and howling at the moon in unison with the rest of the crowd. Sound like a good time? You bet. (Nov. 8)

Download: “Merry Christmas Jim,” “Lungs,” “Sympathetic Wolf”

Non-Rheunion

Five years after the Rheostatics played their final show in 2007 (not counting an appearance a few months later at Paul Quarrington's living wake), they announced three shows at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern to celebrate the venue's anniversary, featuring original drummer Dave Clark and a promise of new material. As a huge fan of the band, I was of course excited—although I will admit that I was not planning on going, primarily because my memory of that 2007 Massey Hall performance is so precious to me. That didn't stop anyone else, though: all three shows were sold out.

Then came the abrupt announcement that the shows had been cancelled. Dave Bidini posted on his Facebook that Martin Tielli was "unable to perform" and offered his apologies to fans who had bought tickets. As a consolation, Bidini's current project—Bidiniband, featuring one-time Rheo drummer Don Kerr—will be performing a free show at the Horseshoe tomorrow, Wednesday December 5, with special guests that will include Rheo bassist Tim Vesely (and others have been invited to come and sing Rheostatics songs).

The explanation for the cancellation was suitably vague enough to spark endless speculation: about relations in the band, about the open secret of Tielli's alcohol addiction, about Tielli's career-long bout with stage fright. The latter explanation was picked up by the Globe and Mail, which prompted singer Jenn Grant to also talk about her own struggles with stage fright (which in turn sparked stories of support from other fellow artists). Bidini engaged in several retorts on Twitter, in which he said stage fright was not the reason for the decision, that the four musicians were absolutely getting along, that there was no fight involved, and that they all supported Tielli's decision, tough and frustrating as it may be.

Early this morning, Tielli took to Facebook (something he rarely, rarely does—and when he does he's a hilarious critic of the entire medium) to offer his own explanation. Among other things, he makes a clear distinction between stage fright and a much larger problem of anxiety, a condition that is even less understood by many. Here's what he said, in full:

I'm very sorry to the Horseshoe Tavern, the Rheostatics, Tim Mech, Steve Clarkson, Shauna de Cartier, and especially our fans for what Vesely called a "shit-storm of inconvenience". I really wanted to do it and did not foresee this, otherwise I would not have said yes. I regret it very much.

All I can say is that I simply could not do it. It's not a decision I took lightly. I have played through many an ailment over the years: whooping cough, many flus and colds, complete exhaustion and finally, at the Rheostatics final show at Massey Hall, my first case of laryngitis (contracted from an opera singer... no joke). This is more difficult to deal with than any physical problem I've ever had. 

"Stage fright" is a light and simplistic term for my psychological blight but it'll have to do as it's been my personal concern to varying degrees since the first time I ever played in front of anyone else. I don't show it on stage because that is not where it happens -- it's the days and weeks leading up to a performance that are physically and emotionally brutal for me. 

Why it happened so bad this time is partly because I retired from playing live after a series of Nick Buzz performances almost two years ago and it seems as though the less I play the worse it gets. I'm not interested in talking about this publicly, but those kind people who showed concern and those who are miffed deserve more explanation. Also, there are rumours that it's due to alcohol addiction and though I've certainly had some periods of prodigious exaggeration in this and other regards this has not been the case for a long while. 

This whole situation aside, I haven't been happier in a long time. I live outside of Hamilton under the Niagara Escarpment where I pursue my first interests which are "nature" and painting. I also record a lot, having done the soundtrack to the documentary "Payback" and just finished an album with my group Nick Buzz. 

I love music and I love performing it but the public aspect of it has always felt disorienting to me. I hope to one day find my way back on to the stage, but for the time being, it just seems impossible. I am very sorry to all of those who bought concert tickets and/or airline tickets.

--Martin

Supplementary reading: the Rheostatics chapter of [the first edition, unrevised] Have Not Been the Same was posted in four parts on this blog in advance of the 2007 show.

Boxing in Blue Rodeo

As the author of the Blue Rodeo chapter in Have Not Been the Same*** (please see end of entry for footnote), it’s no secret I’ve long believed them to be one of the defining Canadian artists of this generation, and I feel somewhat vindicated that they’ve survived as long as they have and their legacy is intact. Maybe I feel particularly attached to them because while they’ve been a mainstream band ever since “Try” was a massive hit, the circles I’ve been running in every since high school have found it easy to disparage Blue Rodeo as weak, safe, old, etc. (When Patti Schmidt told me I got a job at CBC's avant-garde show Brave New Waves, I exclaimed in surprise, "But I'm a Blue Rodeo fan!")

What’s always attracted me to them is their ability to take tried and true conventions—Beatlesque songwriting, country music, Neil Young—and push them in all directions, bringing in psychedelia, jazz, ’60s soul and jam-band excess yet always reining it into a pop song. I also love any band with very different yet complementary singer/songwriters sharing the spotlight equally. And on a personal note, the first four albums, featuring Bob Wiseman, contain many of my favourite keyboard solos from any period of rock music, period.

Blue Rodeo have only recently been recognized in the same breath as Steve Earle, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, the Jayhawks and other Americana staples, and the next generation of Canadian artists is more than happy to embrace them as cool godfathers.

And so now they’re being venerated with a box set to celebrate their 25^th anniversary, which includes the first five albums—Outskirts, Diamond Mine, Casino, Lost Together, Five Days in July—as well as remixed version of Outskirts, the demos for Casino, and a 17-song disc of Odds and Ends. They launched it with a show at CBC’s Glenn Gould theatre, and I spoke to Greg Keelor two days later for this article in Maclean’s.

Below is my conversation, as well as a track-by-track review of the new material in the box set.

Greg Keelor

October 31, 2012

Phone conversation

How long ago did you start planning the box set? Was it thrust upon you or did you see the anniversary coming and decide to do something?

We saw the anniversary coming. A couple of years ago we transferred everything to hard drive. The record company first thought of doing a box set, of doing something simple like five remastered records and putting it out. I thought, if you want anyone to listen to your first record again, you have to remix it at least. I’ve always wanted to remix it anyway. And knowing that we have these Casino demos, I love them, I love the sound of the band recording live off the floor, and I think people will like that.

These five albums are easily your best-loved, the records that people still form the bulk of the set list along with whatever your new record is at the time. These are the canon and a lot of people own them, so you need to give people a reason to buy it.

Yeah, so I think if you’re a fan, you’re going to love the Casino demos. And the odds and ends is just a collection of stuff.

It struck me that there isn’t a lot of songs there that never resurfaced later: they were rerecorded or tried with different arrangements. But I feel you don’t put something on tape unless you’re ready to put it on a record.

There are probably only five or six songs that no one has ever heard before.

Is there anything you realize now that you took for granted at the time, that you appreciate more now?

There is a lot of stuff. When I think of the mistakes that we have made over the years and we’ve survived, it’s ridiculous. That we didn’t use [Beatles engineer] Geoff Emerick for Casino is one of our major regrets. We got Pete Anderson [Dwight Yoakam, Michelle Shocked] and everything he put on the record, he thought was a single. He didn’t want any sort of filler. When he heard the demos that we sent down to him, he picked the ones he liked. The first two songs on the Casino demos I love, and I don’t know why we abandoned those.

I’m surprised they never resurfaced later, never rerecorded for a subsequent album. Those are really strong songs.

And a song like “Room for Rent” on Odds and Ends—that’s a good song, I don’t know why—I remember at the time there were a couple of lines that embarrassed me completely, so I abandoned it. It’s a great song.

Conversely, is there stuff you would rather shove under the rug?


Well, you know, there is still stuff under the rug. And there it shall remain.

  

I read that after finishing this project that you unearthed another box of tapes you had been looking for the whole time. What was in that box?


That was a whole pile of old Hi-Fi’s stuff, and all the masters for Five Days.

Outskirts is the centerpiece here—and probably the reason for the whole project, it being the 25^th anniversary—and you’ve been on record for the last quarter-century griping about the way it sounded. Are you sleeping better at night now? Is this an itch you’ve been trying to scratch for that long?

Most definitely. I’m very happy with what that record did for us, but it always sounded like we were using Tears for Fears samples when they went to mix it. It was a treat to just go back and listen to those recordings and hear the way that band played, and make it sound more like the band—put a bit more of the bar in there rather than the ’80s radio sound on it.

I had a revelatory experience when k.d. lang put out a best-of her country years, and her early records sounded way worse than yours did in terms of ’80s production.

What, with the big gated snares with reverb?

Huge. And she remixed all of it and it sounded completely new and amazing. It was the best de-’80s trick I’d heard up to that point. Had you heard that or anybody else doing that?


No, but it was the same desire, to get rid of that ’80s cheese and just have the sound of the band playing the music.

Other than the sonic differences, are they entirely different Wiseman takes on “Piranha Pool” and “Floating”?

Yeah, that was fun too. Going back, there were seven intros that he played. I just loved that one. “Floating” was a different solo. There are four bed track vocals we used rather than the overdub vocals, too. So “Rose,” “Joker,” “Piranha Pool” and “Underground” were the vocals that we would have done with the tracking of the song, rather than the overdub.

Because the band has been so popular for so long, it’s easy to forget the context of 1987—which Jason Schneider touches on in his liner notes—where people didn’t really blur genre lines that much, unless they happened to be playing both pop and metal. There was nobody in mainstream country music who came to it via punk and new wave—other than k.d. lang, who had to deal with a lot of suspicion and resistance. There were a lot of people at the time who thought Blue Rodeo were the most mainstream band possible, and others who wondered how they ever became a mainstream band.

When we came back from New York—we moved there in 1981—it was funny that it was in New York where we started to listen to country music. There was this bar called the Lone Star that we used to go to all the time. Mostly it was Texas country, not Nashville country. People forget that there are all different types of country. You can go to Bakersville or Nashville or Memphis or Texas, and we definitely leaned toward Texan country, which was more rock’n’roll. There was one show at Irving Plaza that Jim and I went to with Los Lobos and NRBQ. It imprinted on both of us what we wanted to do. 

When we came back to Toronto, that was where we wanted to be, a cross between those two bands. Handsome Ned had this matinee at the Cameron on Saturday afternoons, and all the old punks and guitar players and singers, we’d all hang out all afternoon there. So you had a guitar player who once played with the Viletones playing James Burton licks with Handsome Ned: Steve Koch, who was in the Demics, too. So from that world came this new country. It took the punk ethic and applied it to country. That seemed like a great way to approach country music. So we were never thinking we were going to be Merle Haggard. I can hear my attempts on Outskirts to sing like Merle Haggard, and it’s terrible. 

Hearing Jim’s vocals on that album, he sings the same then as we first did when we started the Hi-Fi’s and as he does today. He has the same melodic structures, the same intensities, the same dexterity with his falsetto. And Bazil—we amped all the bass parts—so for a whole couple of hours you’d just hear his bass parts being re-amped—and it was like he was just sitting upstairs. He plays the exact same then as he does now. Then I listen to my vocals, and I start a song with an American twang; halfway through I change to a British accent; and then by the end of the song I’m a combination of the two. There’s a few songs there where I sing in my own voice.

You weren’t tempted then to go in and just, you know, touch that up a bit?

We had done recording, but we were still novices in the studio. I know myself that when I listen to the overdub vocals, they’re a bit too overwrought. I’m trying to sing too much. The ones I did off the floor with the band are just so much better. It sounds more like me.

More like you than the guy in the isolation booth with his hands cupped over his headphones.

That’s right, yeah. I didn’t wear them well.

Something that has come up since the beginning of the band is the two singers and the difference in styles. How often were you given gentle suggestions to step aside, or to ask Bobby to leave the band, or do things to make the entire project more normal?

The Bobby thing was quite evident with Pete Anderson producing. For me, that was the beginning of the end for Bobby. Pete Anderson just didn’t like that part of our band. He would have wanted to have some guy who understands the L.A. thing. As far as having one singer, I’m sure it happened, I can’t really remember. Jim has a story he tells about being told to let the scruffy guy step aside and let the blue-eyed soul boy do the singing, but that was never an interest to us. We enjoyed the two voices, and since our first band we love singing together.

It’s still rare to have more than one singer in the band, and the only exceptions I can think of are all Canadian: Arcade Fire, Sloan, Broken Social Scene.

It is, it’s a strange thing. It’s hard for people who want to sell your music to make it into a widget that people will identify with.

For all the regrets you’ve had about producers or recording decisions or the band second-guessing themselves, do you also think that resulted in a tension that created Blue Rodeo’s best-loved work?

The idea of working with Geoff Emerick: there’s something beautiful about not doing it, because I can then just imagine how beautiful it might have been. I mean, it could have been a disaster. Everything goes the way it’s supposed to go. Casino is for a lot of people their favourite Blue Rodeo record, for all the reasons Pete Anderson put into it: it is a concise, snappy little effort. It isn’t self-indulgent and full of meandering solos, and a lot of people really love that record. They all stand as they are.

The contrast to what I just posited is that Five Days was entirely the band left to their own devices, and that record is your biggest seller and most beloved: your set every night still has at least four songs from that record.

There are times when a band, everything fits. That was a time for us. Everything came together. It was easy to do. It was quick. We had a lot of good songs. We had a lot of fun. As a band, when you look at bands’ histories, it’s really lucky when those times happen. And for the most part, you take them for granted. You don’t think, Omigod. You think, Oh, we’re making a record and it’s fun.

There was a story told on Monday night: did you offer "Hasn’t Hit Me Yet" to the Skydiggers?

I think Andy phoned me up and asked me for a song. I went to Phase One and played them "Hasn’t Hit Me Yet." They tried to record it that night but they couldn’t get a version they liked. I think I’d just written it, which is why I offered it to them.

I’m sure they’ve been kicking themselves ever since.

I know, they could have had it out before us.

You once told me about a song called “Railway Crash,” which you told me was an homage of sorts to A Neon Rome and that it was an incest/murder/drugs sort of song.

Couldn’t find it anywhere. No existing versions.

Where there other things from that time that didn’t surface? That song was described to me as the most out-there Blue Rodeo got at the time.

It was pretty out there. After going through all that stuff, I think that’s the only one that I couldn’t really find. There were so many surprises along the way. That one song at the beginning of the Casino demos, I’d completely forgotten about, "If I Had A Heart." And again, it was something where I was embarrassed by a couple of lines in it so I canned the song. I’m so lazy I couldn’t rewrite it; I’d just can it. But also, it’s that phase of Blue Rodeo; it’s a good phase. I’m glad I found that recording.

Those demos: where were they done?

They were done on Sorauren Ave in our old rehearsal space. It was pretty rudimentary. We had a Tascam—maybe half-inch eight-track machine with mics in the room, and that was it. We’d just press record. We didn’t know anything about the process. Our live engineer, Kenny McNeill, made us cassettes, and sent one off to Pete Anderson, and that was the end of it. We didn’t find them until halfway through remixing Outskirts.

To me, those eight-track recordings could have been released as is.

We always did love those. But none of us had listened to them since. It was just a memory. We’re bad that way. I knew that I loved them at the time, so it was great to find those.

More recent history: the last record came out three years ago and was the best-received album you’d put out in more than a decade and one of your best-selling ones. Do you have any theories why? Is it just cycles of attention spans: one year you’re washed-up, the next you’re a creatively reinvigorated, revered godfather of the scene?

It’s just a good record. There are times over 25 years where the band goes through good times and bad times. There are times when the band is firing on all cylinders. The band was working well. A lot of it has to do with songs; we had a good bunch. We’re just about finished making a record now, and I think it’s better than that one.

What makes it so?


You know my ears are toast, eh?

Both, or one?


Both. So the band made big adjustments this year. All the electric amps are off-stage. Everyone has in-ear monitors. I wear plugs that cancel sound above 25db. I just play acoustic guitar; I can’t play electric. Colin Cripps is playing electric guitar and Mike Bogulski is playing piano. He was on Things We Left Behind, but only half of it; we had two keyboard players on that one. The band has made this great effort to accommodate me and my ears, and through that the band is playing great. It’s a connected unit, and having Colin and Michael has given it a new spark. The songs are really good, and the recording sounds great; I’m quite happy. It’s a simpler presentation of the music.

You once joked that Colin has been chasing you for 25 years, first out of Crash Vegas, and then as the guitarist in Jim’s band. Do you tell him how to play his parts in Blue Rodeo, or do you give him free reign?

He’s a pretty great guitar player. I can play electric guitar in the studio, but I don’t wear headphones anymore; I sit with the speakers. That volume is fine, and we can play electric guitar together that way. We play well together; it’s very enjoyable for both of us.

So with your condition and regular solo records for both you and Jim and Jim tours all the time with his solo band and all the lineup changes: can you imagine anything putting an end to Blue Rodeo?

(long pause) Right now we’re okay. My ears are toasted, but the way the band is playing right now it’s working out. This record will come out next year this time, and we’re going to do 25 shows before that; the record will come out in the fall and that will be another tour. That will take us another three or four years there. We might have had enough and Jim can go full-time on his solo career.

I also hear you’re working on a Michelle McAdorey album. What can you tell me about that?

It’s so funny, eh? Last year she wanted to come out and write some songs. It was so natural and easy and we wrote a whole pile of songs, so we started making a record and it sounds great.

I still think it’s a crime that all the Crash Vegas records are out of print, because I love those so much.

It’s weird, eh? That first one I thought was a great record. If Red Earth were to come out today, I think it would be a very popular record. It’s very much in the style. I’m also doing a record with Julie Fader and Graham Walsh. They’ve been coming out here and doing Julie’s record, and it’s brilliant. A really great record.

For the ubergeeks, here’s a track-by-track take on the box set’s bonus tracks. But of course, the liner notes by my Have Not Been the Same co-author Jason Schneider are worth your while alone. Speaking of whom, have you seen or heard this yet?

Odds and Ends

“Room to Rent”: A perfectly pleasant, if unremarkable, Keelor mid-tempo number.

“No Miracle No Dazzle”: A lazy Cuddy country version of a song that was later redone as a raging Keelor rocker on Tremolo. Co-written with Colin Cripps and Michelle McAdorey of Crash Vegas.

“Moon and Tree”: A sludgy electric Neil Young take on what would become the breezy acoustic opener of Tremolo. It’s perhaps one of Keelor’s most underrated songs, and it sounds fantastic in either version.

“Bad Timing”: This Five Days favourite recast as a piano ballad, without acoustic guitars or harmonicas

“Dark Angel”: A solo piano demo for Five Days that’s almost identical, minus Sarah McLachlan’s voice (is she on piano here? I don’t have liner notes).

“Head Over Heels,” “What Is This Love”: Virtually identical demos of more Five Days favourites.

“Til I Gain Control Again”: Slightly slower take on this Rodney Crowell song for Five Days, one of only three covers Blue Rodeo have ever recorded (one is the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody on their greatest hits album, the other being a Gordon Lightfoot song for a tribute album). Andy Maize is more audible on backing vocals.

“Shine On”: Autopilot Keelor.

“We Walk Together”: Autopilot Cuddy.

“Tell Me Your Dream”: solo voice and didgeridoo field recordings of Keelor on the farm, with frogs and cats. Intimate and enchanting.

“Tell Me Your Dream (piano outro)”: Exactly what the title suggests.

“Willing Fool”: This demo sounds more sneaky and sinister than the blustery rocker that ended up on Lost Together—one of the only demos here that is a definite improvement, not just an alternate version. Both Cuddy and Wiseman pull off superior solos, and who else in rock or country but Keelor was writing a lyric like, “You kinda remind me of those psychos in a German film / you’re a cool, smirking weirdo with the voices in his head.”

“5 Day Disaster Week”: The fact that Outskirts sounds so rich and full is probably because they left subpar early material like this off it.

“God and Country”: A slower, less hungry version of the lead-off track from Diamond Mine.

“The Ballad of the Dime Store Greaser and the Blonde Mona Lisa”: A demo from Diamond Mine that’s just as moody, ever-so-slightly quicker, and featuring cello and a guitar solo

“Not My Time (Question of Love)”: A pre-Blue Rodeo Cuddy and Keelor demo recorded in New York City with New Zealand band the Drongos, it’s a decent ’80s slice of jangle pop. The guitar pedals make it the most obviously dated thing Blue Rodeo has ever recorded—that and the faux-British accents.

Casino demos

Keelor is right to be proud of these: it’s a collection of Blue Rodeo’s poppiest songs recorded live in a room, capturing all the band’s strengths. However, if this is truly representative of the band at the time, it’s a myth that Wiseman was clipped by Pete Anderson; he’s no more present here than he is on the studio recordings. What they ended up recording and releasing on Casino was exactly where they were at that moment in time. The differences in arrangement here are negligible: “Trust Yourself” has superior backing vocals; “Last Laugh” has a guitar solo. The only truly improved version here is an extended version of “After the Rain.”

The real treats are the two unreleased songs. “If I Had a Heart” opens with a fractured honky-tonk solo piano intro from Wiseman, and is perhaps the strongest unreleased track in this entire collection, though the tempo inexplicably drags in the second half. “Always Have a Place For You” is a Cuddy power-pop number, and one of his best from this period. There is no demo version here for Casino’s “You’re Everywhere”; in its place is a mandolin-driven early incarnation of “Photograph,” with electric guitars and Wiseman on accordion, which wouldn’t be re-recorded until Five Days; this take is arguably much better. They also recorded Lost Together’s “Is It You” during these sessions; it sounds just as lovely on either take.

The takeaway lesson here is that Blue Rodeo was more than ready to produce themselves for the American market or anywhere else; Pete Anderson didn’t seem to offer them much other than better amps and mics.

Outskirts (remixed)

For all of Keelor’s griping about what producer Terry Brown did to this record, it is nowhere near as bad as he imagines it is.  Granted, the original 1987 version doesn’t sound like the bar band Keelor is justifiably proud of, but neither is it The Fixx. As noted in the interview above, the only audible changes for non-audiophiles are alternate Wiseman performances on “Piranha Pool” and “Floating”; steel guitar on “Underground”; and slightly less reverb on everything. It’s nowhere near the radical reimagining that k.d. lang’s Reintarnation compilation was, and is a curiosity at best. I’m ecstatic to hear the alternate Wiseman takes. But that’s just me. Most fans will be just as happy to hear a remastered version of the original, which remains one of the finest debut albums in Canadian music history. 

*** This is probably as good a place to any to correct the text of the book, which states that cellist Anne Bourne, who plays on Five Days in July, was going out with Blue Rodeo drummer Glenn Milchem at the time the album was recorded. This is not true, and she was invited to the session as an old friend of Greg Keelor, with whom she performed in an early incarnation of Crash Vegas. This information only recently came to my attention, and I regret that it has been incorrect in print for so long and not corrected in the revised version of the book. I'd like to publicly apologize to Ms. Bourne for this.