This Lady’s No Tramp, An Interview with Sharon Van Etten
Upon the release of her first album, Because I Was in Love, Sharon Van Etten garnered the reputation of writing very sad, emotionally heavy, post-break-up songs. Sharon’s songs have become something like penicillin for broken-hearted people everywhere, who cling to her music during moments of immense melancholy, for a brief respite from the pain. Is it just me, or is that a painfully narrow perception of Van Etten’s music? Nevertheless, her music did set up some mental parameters that influenced my perception of Sharon Van Etten the individual, before I got the chance to talk to her. Needless to say my initial mental picture of Sharon was a rather bleak and serious one. I certainly did not expect to be greeted by a bright and airy voice on the other end of the phone. So naturally I was surprised when I heard the voice of a young, passionate musician, one who has so much potential and, to what should be the immense satisfaction of music-lovers everywhere, her career is just getting started.
The release of Sharon Van Etten’s latest album, Tramp, is not only significant because it’s her third studio album, but because it is her first album released under the Jagjaguwar label. The label carries some noteworthy musicians like Bon Iver, Black Mountain, and The Besnard Lakes to name a few. “I’m really excited,” she said, “everyone who works at the label are really beautiful people who really care about music and their artists.” The feeling of being part of an inspiring musical community is not lost on Sharon, who definitely became giddy when talking about her new family.
But signing with Jagjaguwar was not her only highlight from the last two years. After she released her single, “Love More,” from her sophomore album, Epic, she started getting attention from some of the musicians she admired. “I was on tour with Megafaun,” she recalls, “and they woke me up one day and showed me a video of Justin Vernon [Bon Iver] and Aaron and Bryce Dessner [The National] playing Love More.” The sudden attention from her peers did more than just humble her; it motivated her to contact them and try to collaborate with them. Aaron Dessner eventually replied to her and offered not only his time, but his garage studio as well. “He said that if I ever wanted to do some demos to keep him in mind for the future,” she said, “And when we were both in town we met up and talked about music and our philosophies on recording. We got along really well.” What became evident to Sharon after that first meeting with Aaron Dessner was that he was a musician whom she could trust. They shared similar ideologies about making music, and eventually, collaboration was inevitable.
“I Never Want To Record the Same Record”
Eventually, Dessner proposed that Sharon record Tramp with him, and he proved to be an invaluable asset during the recording. “Aaron has an impeccable ear for music and band instrumentation.” Sharon said. Dessner was able to make plenty of musical suggestions that not only helped the songs, but were in sync with Sharon’s vision for what she wanted to accomplish on the new album. “I wanted to open myself up [with Tramp],” she said, “and work with somebody else, and let go of my idea of the song.” It seems that Sharon found a partner in Dessner who could help her unleash the full potential of her music. His advice on what Sharon could do to tinker with the music helped her differentiate her songs from one another, lest they start sounding similar. “Aaron would play this game where he would play the beginning of three songs back-to-back,” she said, “and then he would ask me if I knew which song was which. And I didn’t.” Dessner then pushed Sharon to alter her playing styles in each of the songs, giving them a diverse sound, and to rely on her band more. Sharon already had the ability to write beautiful melodies, each one different from the other, but Dessner was able to get her thinking about how she could alter her guitar rhythms, or start a track with a different instrument to add diversity in the opening stages of a song. “We were able to re-shape songs and come up with different versions of some songs,” she said, “some of the songs turned into something I wouldn’t have dreamed of had he [Aaron] not helped me.”
Sharon Van Etten started her musical journey alone, writing sparse, minimalist music. Since then, she has added a band and has opened her mind to transforming her style into something more. “I never want to record the same record,” she said, “I want to push myself every time.” Sharon has done just that with Tramp. Her admirable attitude towards growing as a musician and taking the time to learn new things is very encouraging, and the type of thing I love to see in musicians. While she has maintained the idiosyncrasies that make her an adored artist, she has opened up her style to allow more methods of expression to enter her music. Her music is evolving naturally in a way that further compliments her style. “I never thought I would have a string or a horn section,” she said, “and I didn’t know you could do it in a way that was subtle.” Although there are new textures to her music, Sharon’s voice still highlights the songs. Her voice still carries the weight of her emotions in that remarkably somber but beautifully way, to the point where she sounds like an angel with a broken wing. But now with the focus on altering the music, her music now has much colour and depth to it – and I assure fans of Sharon Van Etten that the alteration is good. I can emphatically declare that it’s not over-bearing and it doesn’t transform Sharon’s music into something it is not. It’s subtle. It’s robust. It’s elegant. It’s typical Sharon Van Etten.
– Joe F.
Mark Sasso says “Hi” An Interview with Mark Sasso of Elliott Brood
I gave Mark Sasso of Elliott Brood a call a week after the self-dubbed “Death Country” trio finished the Canadian portion of their Days Into Years tour. What a quotable guy he is. I feel like I had most of my work done for me in this article, so I’ll just let Mark do most of the talking. There are some great nuggets of gigging and song writing wisdom in here.
Take it away, Mark.
On the Songwriting Process of Days into Years
Now that you have a following that depends on you for new material every few years, does writing songs for a record with some sort of deadline scare you?
“When I was younger, in my twenties, I probably would have freaked out trying to put a record together in a year where now I can kind of cut through all the fat and find the songs a lot quicker. You have that knowledge… and that’s a nice thing to have. And we’ve grown as singers, songwriters and as a band so that makes things that much better. We’ve kind of honed our craft and hopefully they’re better songs.”
“You know what’s really been nice on this tour?”
No Mark, I was not invited. Do tell.
“We’ve been playing eight out of ten songs [from Days Into Years] on tour at the moment, and it’s really nice to play new songs live, but sometimes it’s really nice to slip in an old song that you haven’t played in months or years. They still have the capacity to move you as well.”
That IS nice, Mark.
Sasso seems pretty pleased to see the roughly even songwriting split on Days Into Years.
“On Ambassador and Tin Type I wrote all the songs except for one but on [Days Into Years] it’s great, I think it’s almost even right across the board. It’s kind of nice to have the person that’s writing the other songs to be your favorite artist. It makes life easier because you’re bouncing ideas off of someone you trust when you’re writing a song or creating together.”
Hey, Mark, the new record is less gritty, a little more polished than the last one. Did you set out to do that?
“I don’t know if it was part of the plan that’s just kind of what it became. It’s kind of like what I said about growing as an artist. We did a lot of vocal arrangements that we probably wouldn’t have tried three years ago. But you just grow as a person and that’s part of it… and sometimes you feel as though you owe it to the song to give it what it needs and sometimes that’s a more polished feel, sometimes it’s a fuller feel so that’s what we did.”
What’s the secret, Mark? What was it about Elliott Brood in particular that got people listening; that made the band able to tour the world for a living?
“I have no idea. Literally. I have no idea. It’s hard. How do you quantify why people like you? We like our music and we enjoy putting it out, but there’s a lot of bands that I really like, that I think should be touring all over the world and they’re not. We bring them on tour with us and try to get them out, I don’t know. Why does one band kind of click with people while the other doesn’t… I have no real clue. There’s a lot of bands out there where I think ‘these guys should be huge,’ and they’re not. They’re struggling and they’re trying to make it. And that doesn’t take anything away from their ability to play music and to play great music. I guess its timing and people that hear you. The right people.”
Advice for Aspiring Artists
“You can’t control your fate, all you can kind of do is show up and play your music and hope people love it enough. Keep doing it. You’ve got to get beat-up, pick yourself up off the ground and go do it again and again and again… believe in what you do.”
Solid answer Mark. He’s off to the States for the next while, happy travels. Oh, and Mark thinks you oughta listen to Grant Lee Buffalo… and of course Elliott Brood’s new record Days Into Years is in fine record stores everywhere, yadda yadda. It’s in the ether. Get your hands on it, punks!
Facebook’s got another new app. Essentially a copy of the popular turntable.fm website – which is unfortunately not available in Canada – “Listen With” is a real-time music listening application that you and the likewise internet-inclined can DJ on. Simply put, it’s a music sharing chat room.
And to think that just yesterday I used to go through all the trouble of sending YouTube links to my friends, which inevitably invites their response of, “Oh yeah, have you heard this track by so and so?” And so on. It’s a neat idea, but this sounds to me like making an app for something people already do. Nothing like slapping a “Like” button on a timeless human tradition is there?
The idea is that while you’re listening to a song Facebook will tell all your friends that you are listening to it, and give them an opportunity to jump in and listen to that song as well – only in real-time. Which is nice, I suppose. Call me a Luddite, but I prefer sharing music in person. Not a big deal. My problem is that once again we’re turning music into a means to an end, a means to killing hours and interpreting music in acronyms.
I like sharing music with my friends too. But this app is going to go the way of all apps and websites that have tried this idea before. It might be fun for a little while, but soon we just realize that music isn’t, as one Facebook blog states, “a way to connect”. That’s not what it’s for. It’s for listening to fucking music. Isn’t that what makes us want to share music with others? When we hear a song that takes us out of the cell phone, tippy-tapper, keyboard world, and makes us feel like we’re the only ones on the planet? Isn’t that what makes us want to share music in the first place? Enjoy the app (if you must) for the week or two of its foreseeable use, before it becomes yet another annoying Facebook invite to be ignored.
– Anthony Damiao
Making Mothers Smile, An Interview with Actual Water
The first thing you should know about Actual Water is that they like McDonalds, a lot. The most important thing that you should know about Actual Water is that they’re a band that makes music for music’s sake, and nothing else.
“Frank Falco chewed nicotine every class. Stopped once just to take a piss,” Gary says. This is how the foundations of Actual Water were built – in a jazz class. There, Gary Arthurs and Anthony Price had made their very first two records, which were performed by a band of eight people they assembled to play the tracks live. “In that band was Steven and Siena,” says Arthurs. They met Siena through Price’s mom, who was friends with her father, and Steven worked in a record store at the time. “Steven and Siena were our two best looking friends, so we decided to bring them with us into the new smaller band. And there you have it – birth of modern Actual Water.”
Not long after the band was formed, they started work on their first album, Double Negatives. “The record was successful, because it was loud and aggressive and still accessible,” Arthurs says, “and unlike other bands around at that time, me and Anthony can actually play our instruments well since we started listening to Prog Rock and Led Zeppelin.” They had a clear idea how to make music and deciding to do nosier, more avant-garde stuff worked well for them. “You see, in Toronto, and I guess everywhere else in general, people like to ‘be in a band’,” Price joins, “Unfortunately these days, you can get away with ‘being in a band’ by wearing vintage sweaters and making music that sounds like Ian Curtis moaning into a can. Everyone is extremely concerned with being anything but "normal". Why? Why is that okay? It shouldn’t be. I'm not saying we are far beyond everyone. I’m just saying that we think about life differently. There are many many bands that may be better live than us at this point. But you can practice and get better, but you can never stop being a wanker.”
“It is Pop music with a capital P,” Arthurs says about The Paisley Orchard, their newly released album, which has been waiting to breathe air for almost two years now. “We don’t think of Pop music as a genre, really. It’s just part of life. It’s like McDonalds. You can’t ignore it. It’s a framework, it’s a structure. What would life be like without structure?”
“It was our first attempt at doing ‘what we do’, which is writing music that is easy to listen to, easy to enjoy, music that creates an atmosphere that you want to be in. We did this by determining a secret meaning or something that reflected our lives at the time, and then turning that into a dumbed down sugary product that other people can easily smile at,” Price explains. “It’s a proper product; every aspect of it is made to flow within itself. It’s not a collection of songs. It’s something that is charged with power. You can play it in your room and you won’t be able to stop feeling its presence. Like a Led Zeppelin record. The music may be shit, but an effort has been made to hold back a certain amount of information, so that there’s a bit of mystery there.”
Every track in The Paisley Orchard carries “DHM” as Arthurs calls it – Deep Hidden Meaning; meaning that an outsider will discern with difficulty. The songs are mainly about “hamburgers, bakeries, multicultural females that like to get their hair done regularly, songs about big butterflies, gardens, wood and oak, about parties and it may all appear to be fun,” says Price, “but there’s much more there.” A lot of their happier songs have sad undertones beneath the surface. But there are two reasons standing behind not stating their true message. First of all, this is how the band aims to give the audience a chance to find a meaning for themselves and suit the songs to their mood and needs, but also because a lot of Actual Water’s music is “a direct attempt to make fun of or bully people around us that we can’t stand,” Price states.
Many times people have said that music back in the ‘60s was better; the ‘60s with their Jimmy Hendrix, Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane. “The absolute worst shit, is the throwback shit,” Anthony says about music today, “Why would you want to sound like 1966? Wait. Let me correct that. Why would you want to sound like a band no one cared about from 1966? Back then everyone wanted to sound like the future and wanted to be BIG, like the Beatles, they had ambition. So, now people are doing the opposite? Why?” At this point I could not stop myself from asking the question which everyone who had listened to The Paisley Orchard would want to ask.
“But your album sounds like the ‘60s, what makes it different?”
“We like the atmosphere of lots of music from bygone eras,” Price explains. “And, like I said, this is what we are going for. The sound of a 12-string guitar reminds me of my Macedonian grandparents' pepper garden when I was three years old. To me The Paisley Ochard is pure garden music. And for some reason, the sound of 12-string guitars, tambourines and harmonies, which signify the ‘60s, reminds me of being young. What you do within the song, which instruments you use changes everything. But at the end of the day it’s the same thing.”
Ever since I watched that interview with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in Shine A Light, where they say they can easily imagine themselves doing what they do when they are sixty, I can’t help but ask bands about their future plans; just out of simple curiosity to see whether they will come true.
Arthurs: Make SICK Pop music. Have 15 kids each. Own and operate a McDonalds. Get financially sound.
Price: Just keep writing songs, we refuse to jump into the deep end. We aren’t going to "tour" because that’s what you do when you are ‘in a band’, unless something magical happens and lots of people like us. We want to be masters of our craft. We want to mature as songwriters and musicians. We are still very immature and young when it comes to that. We want to show our music to people, because they will like it. There is nothing wrong with it. It’s like a Friday night with beer and your friends. It’s just there, neutral and fun, it doesn’t rock the boat.
– Ivelina Dulkova
Mad Dogs and Scotsmen, An interview with James Graham and Andy MacFarlane of The Twilight Sad
The Glasgow quartet burst upon the scene like a Scotsman with rage repression issues in 2007. That first full-length album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, contained the epic single “Cold Days from the Birdhouse,” an epic Shoegaze symphony that distinguished The Twilight Sad – if nothing else, as that band that played feckin’ loud and sounded “really Scottish.” Refusing to rest on that early success, the band continues to evolve. Now as the release of their third album nears, the band reflects on their journey to date and the thought-process that leads to kicking fire extinguishers in the name of fine musicianship. I recently had the opportunity to speak with James Graham (vocals), and Andy MacFarlane (guitar/accordion) of The Twilight Sad.
Spill: You’ve said that Twilight Sad “was never going to be huge from day one… we were never going to have the opportunity other bands have got because we're on a smaller label but basically I knew a lot of work was going to have to be put in.” What sustains the creative drive to create and to perform?
James Graham: It's pretty simple, we love what we do and we're really lucky to be able to tour the world playing our music. The drive to try and better ourselves, try new things and not repeat ourselves will always be there. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty hard watching bands come and go, getting more opportunities than we do but the thing about The Twilight Sad is, there isn't isn't any bullshit: what you see is what you get. We're just friends who enjoy writing and performing music together and that’s it. These days people seem to want to have a spin or a crazy story on a band and unfortunately our band isn't about that. It's not about how we look, who we're dating, what TV show we've been on. All we have are the records we've released and hopefully that will slowly but surely get past all the shit out there and people will take notice. If not we'll be very happy and proud because we've done everything our own way. Also, I'm shit at everything else, so I’m counting on this band sustaining my drinking problem.
Spill: Scotland seems to produce a heap of immensely talented bands/artists. With a population of somewhere just north of five million, am I correct in thinking that Scotland produces more excellent music, per capita, than anywhere else in the world? And what is it about Scotland that encourages this phenomenon?
JG: Eh, I'm not sure about that statistic but if that's true it's pretty cool. Most of my favourite bands are Scottish. This kind of relates to my answer to the last question. I'm not sure why exactly Scotland produces so many good bands. It could be the shit weather, because we don't go out much, we need to find something else to do and if that's not drinking maybe we're all writing music. In my opinion, I think it's because the music we're all writing is honest and no one is trying to be anything they’re not; I think people really connect with that. The bands that I love from Scotland are about nothing more than creating good music in the studio and live on stage and everything else apart from that which goes along with being in a band is secondary.
Spill: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters received such great acclaim from critics and widespread buzz from fans. In fact, “Cold Days from the Birdhouse” provided the soundtrack to my own 2007. Was there ever a moment of panic when you thought “My god I have to do this all over again?”
JG: No, not really. We just never want to repeat ourselves. We want to try to make music that excites us with each record we release and hopefully in doing that we will excite the people who liked us from the beginning and they move forward with us. I think each of our records have been different from each other and as we get older we are influenced by new things but ultimately we are always doing what comes naturally to us and that's what ties all our music together. We never write a song because we have too, we only write songs when we have something to write about.
Spill: And then not only did you do it again, but you took a number of risks with Forget the Night Ahead. Critics called the lyrics more personal. The music itself took a darker turn. You even experimented with the sonic pleasures of fire extinguishers. Can you talk about the time between the release of those records? What might have been inspiring you to challenge the sound you’d just established? And what was it about kicking fire extinguishers that appealed to you?
JG: Between the first and second records I went through a bit of a tough time and did some things I wasn't proud of and lost someone very close to me. Because I write very personal lyrics I wrote about that time and tried to be as honest as possible. I don't really want to go into it if I'm honest because I don't really like to talk about my lyrics too much. My favourite songs are ones that I don’t know the meaning to and later I can then relate them back to myself or a certain time in my life, be it happy or sad. I hope people can do that with our songs. The inspiration was not to repeat ourselves and to do what comes naturally. The subject matter was pretty dark and that meant the album was going to be dark. If we're honest with ourselves we don't really write happy music; it was never going to be a happy go lucky album and the same goes for No One Can Ever Know. I have no idea why were kicking fire extinguishers. It must have sounded good. Although, that could have ended in tears: “Band Disappear as Fire Extinguisher Explodes!”
Spill: You have worked and toured a great deal with Mogwai, a band that’s become legendary for its live performances. Twilight Sad has also garnered a reputation for “ear-splitting” live shows. Clearly Rock music was meant to be loud or the Spinal Tap bit about turning the amp up to 11 wouldn’t still resonate. Is your reputation well earned? Intentional? And how many amplifiers have you harmed in the process?
JG: We're definitely a loud band and maybe in past maybe we've been guilty of being a bit too full-on. We've done one tour with the new songs and I'd say our live set has improved 100%, there's breathing space between full on parts which I think help accentuate those parts. I think if we weren't so loud our live sets might come across as limp. Our music is pretty intense and it’s meant to be played loud. We've broken one or two amps in our time. I'm surprised we haven't broken more to be honest. A few times it's not been our fault. A few support bands have ruined our equipment by doing things like pouring a drink in the back of our guitar amps. We now bring a spare on tour with us.
Spill: James, you’re very open about your discomfort with the “frontman” label. You’ve toured extensively over the past few years both in North American and the UK in support of your records. How do you view the performance side of the business?
JG: I'm definitely not a natural frontman but I think I'm getting better at it. I'm not ever going to be the kind of guy who chats to the crowd and tells stories or jokes. We'd only played three gigs in our lives before we got signed and thrown in the deep. Our fourth ever gig was at CMJ in New York. We were mixing the first album in New York and our label got us a few gigs on the East Coast of America. So our fourth ever gig was in front of some of America’s biggest online music press. It was all pretty daunting and we didn't help ourselves by getting blind drunk. I love playing our music live and in front of people now. It might not seem it as I've been told I come across as a bit of a maniac onstage and people are frightened of me as they think I'm mental. That couldn't be further from the truth… I hope. I like to think I'm quite am an easy-going guy and very approachable. I do like to think of why I wrote the song in the first place when we're playing live because of the fact that people have paid to come see us; I'd like to convey how I feel about our songs. I get lost in my own wee world and I usually have my eyes closed and don't look at the crowd. I hope it doesn't come across as rude because I don't mean it too. We put everything into our live shows, we don't have the fancy pyro or laser shows, so it's just the five of us on stage doing what we love to do. If No One Can Ever Know hits the big time we'll get a fancy light show.
Spill: I’ve seen some bands refer to touring in not so many words as a necessary evil of the business. But having seen one of your shows, I don’t get that impression from you. Your performances appear to be a more personal experience than “just business.” Having also seen live shows from Frightened Rabbit and Beirut, I got a similar vibe from both Scott Hutchinson and Zach Condon. None of you seem to love the stage, but you appear, and correct me if I’m wrong, to relish the performance of your music.
JG: Yeah you’re totally right. I can understand why people don't like touring or even playing onstage because it's a total different experience to writing or recording music. I used to not like touring. It wasn't the playing part of touring, it was everything else. I missed home and travelling took it out of me, but playing live was always the release I needed after a long day of traveling, etc. and for that one hour we get to play out songs to people in different cities/countries and that part of touring is amazing, be it in front of 10 people or 1000! I love it now and actually miss it when I'm back home for too long. It's my life and all I'm used to. Being at home for too long now feels weird and touring is now the norm.
Spill: Your new LP comes out in February of 2012. When did you complete production on No One Can Ever Know? What is the wait like between the completion of a record and the release date? Is there ever any thought of panicking and starting over? And how has the anticipation of a release day changed since your first record?
JG:We finished it around March/April so we've been sitting on it. Although the music was finished a while ago it's taken a while to sort out everything else to go with the album, such as art work, touring schedules, videos etc. It's been kind of frustrating but I'm glad it's coming out next year. I like having an album out in the year of the so called apocalypse. We would never put out anything that we're not 100% happy with, so at no point have we panicked. We just did what came naturally with this album and that's what we've done with every album and it's gotten us this as far. I don't really have any anticipation for the release of the album because you never know how people are going to react to new music. You just do your best and be as honest as you can with your music. Obviously I hope it’s well received because we've worked so hard on it.
Spill: After listening to No One Can Ever Know this morning I noticed some influences I hadn’t heard in your music before. The “wall of guitar” sound is less important. Your use of guitar could be considered a little experimental. You’ve also included some new-wavey elements, including synth and drum sampling, that might surprise some people. You’ve woven these “new” elements into the record relatively seamlessly, creating a something that is still very much in line with the evolution of The Twilight Sad. What bands or artists influenced this latest shift?
Andy MacFarlane: No one in particular influenced the, "new elements" or development of the sound. It was more something that happened during the song writing stage. When I was writing the music, it seemed to translate much better with a more-sparse, bleak approach, which actually helped to add a certain amount of aggression to the sound. I was listening to stuff along the lines of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Can, Public Image Ltd., Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, Wire, Bauhaus, Magazine, D.A.F. etc. at the time which I suppose all have similar elements.
Spill: How soon do you start thinking about the next record?
AM: I already have been, over the past few months, just need to get the demos done.
Spill: The interview circuit has got to be an exhausting affair. The same questions over and over again. I once interviewed Dennis Quaid about one of his films and I was told by his PR rep beforehand that I absolutely could not mention Meg Ryan. If I did, the interview would be over. What question would you like banned from interviews forever? Feel free to tell me it’s one of mine. I hold no grudges.
JG: This is a good question. I don't really think there are many questions that you could ask that I won't answer. I don't talk too much about my lyrics and that's about it. I like to think I’m pretty honest and open and I'll say if I think something's shite or not. If you asked me what happened in Prague I probably couldn't tell you though.
Spill: There’s that famous quote attributed at times to Martin Mull, Elvis Costello and Steve Martin that “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Do you have an analogy that best sums up your feelings about talking about your own music?
JG: That's a good one. I'd say "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"! I don't know why, that's the only analogy I could think of, If that's even an analogy.
Spill: How to you take your mind off the rigors of musicianship and touring?
JG: I love to go to the cinema. I have a pass, for which I pay £15 a month, which means I can go see as many films as I want and believe me I get my monies worth. I go at least twice a week when I'm home. I love Football (soccer) and play twice a week with my friends. I drink a lot, which probably gives me things to write about as I get myself into some stupid situations.
Spill: Since Spill is a Canadian-based magazine, declaring a love of hockey goes over well with readers. Have you ever watched much hockey? I don’t imagine that Scots think much of the sport. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh I’d love to take you to a Penguins game (though I notice that Pittsburgh is conspicuously absent from your tour dates. And yes, I’m taking it personally.)
JG: I like Pittsburgh! I don't actually know why we're not playing there. Also a lot of The Dark Knight Rises was shot there recently so I would have liked to have pretended to be Batman whilst I was there. Hopefully we’ll visit on our next tour. As far as ice hockey goes I don't know much, all I know is that Emilio Estevez is one hell of a coach! Coach Bombay for the win!
Spill: Is there anything else on your mind that you’d like to share with us?
JG: The Green Lantern Movie was totally shite and a waste of good original source material!
– Jay Patrick
The Tip of the Iceberg An Interview with Chris Levoir of The Mark Inside
The Mark Inside have suffered many of the obstacles that face bands trying to co-exist within the traditional machinery of the music industry while trying to maintain the DIY work ethic and artistic control of a Punk band. After parting ways with Maple Music in 2008, the band received a ringing endorsement from producer Jim Abbiss, (Arctic Monkeys, Adele), who personally financed the bands trip to England’s Chapel Studios to record their sophomore record, a recording opportunity most bands would kill for. However, unlike most bands, they rose to the challenge and made a compelling album (Nothing To Admit), only to have it stranded in limbo for nearly three years. I was able to talk with singer/guitarist Chris Levoir, about the troubled delivery of the album.
Spill: When did you actually complete the album?
Chris Levoir: 2008 I guess. We had left our Canadian label at the time, and the producer who we were talking to before leaving, Jim Abbiss, offered to just pay for it all himself and just figure it out afterwards. It just took a fucking long time to sort shit out. In the meantime we got rid of management and just kind of took the bull by the horns ourselves and eventually muscled it into being released.
Spill: Was it more of a relief to finish it or actually get it out?
CL: We’re still really proud of the record. It was an amazing experience recording it, but yeah it got fucking pretty trying, knowing that you’ve recorded a record and you tell people “Yeah it’ll be out in a couple of months,” until three years later… you kind of feel like you don’t want to talk about it anymore, but it’s our victory in the end.
Spill: How different was it from previous recording experiences?
CL: The recording process was quite different, it was in a converted chapel from the 1700’s, and we stayed in a building attached to it. We had a chef who cooked all our meals, so it was pretty hip. We’re eating Kraft Dinner at home, and get to go over there and get pampered. I had 20 amps to try and we were encouraged to play music constantly. It was fucking amazing. Jim really loved the band, and really committed his time to it. He gave it everything he had. Being over there, in that environment, it felt like a huge weight had been released off of the band.
Spill: Was it a conscious decision by the band to do a mostly live recording?
CL: We were the ones choosing who we got to work with. When we were with Maple Music we got down to choosing between two producers who were interested, one of which was Andy Gill from Gang of Four which was cool just to be able to fucking talk to the guy, and having the conversation was fun. But Jim just right off the top said, “This record sounds awesome, I want to leave all the instruments set up so anyone can go back and do anything, anytime, and I’m going to capture it as best as I can.”
Spill: It shows in the performances, it’s a very performance driven record.
CL: It was largely off the floor, some guitar takes were sacrificed for the rhythm section, but some takes were truly one-offs and some of the vocals were straight first takes.
Spill: It really sounds that way, which was refreshing as opposed to many newer records which use a composite of 40 takes and then throw fuzz on it to make it sound “garage-y”. It was a nice balance of tight and loose. You’ve got some longer songs, is it ever difficult to sustain the energy in a studio setting over a six or seven minute song?
CL: Not if the groove’s there. “Nothing To Admit” was one take, and Jim wasn’t even there. He’d gone home for the weekend, and the engineer asked me to come down and do a guide vocal. I’d had a long day of recording and was just about to go to bed, and I got a knock on my door asking, “Can you come down and do this?” I came down, went into the studio, did the whole take, and at the end of it you can hear me say, “I’m done,” and I’m glad they kept it in there.
Spill: Is it tougher to play the songs live, knowing you’ve had to sit on the record for so long?
CL: No. For the release show that we did at the Garrison in Toronto, we did the full record front to back, it felt pretty good. Some of the songs have fallen out of favour, but largely the bulk of that record’s been in our set since before the record was recorded.
Spill: It seems to take longer these days for records to get noticed. That must make it tough when you finished it so long ago.
CL: Yeah, and that’s part of the frustration. We’d been demoing after our first record was done. Going over to England we had probably about 40 songs that we’d been sitting on. And since that record’s been done, we’ve recorded demos for about another 25 songs. That’s been the big thing of the band, what people can actually see of us, we’ve recorded at least triple that, it’s like an iceberg. So we have tons of shit squirreled away. Right now, actually this month, were doing our next record. We’re doing it in my loft in Toronto. Just a bunch of random circumstances happened, and I’m basically in this big loft apartment until the end of the month. So I called on Jim and told everybody that this is just fucking happening. So we’re actively polishing off songs before we head out touring, but we’re just going to make our sets as meaty as possible, and hopefully deliver as much fun. I wouldn’t like to think we’re going to concentrate on just selling records, we just like to give people a party.
Spill: Where does that leave you, in terms of touring for this record?
CL: This year’s going to be pretty tour heavy, I hope. We’re going to start building it up again here, and we’re heading over to England for the Great Escape Festival, in the springtime. The last few years we’ve just really become recommitted, it’s been like, do we want to do this or not? And we’ve had to pull a Herculean effort to own the direction the band wants to go, understand how to describe it to people, and just fucking make it happen.
As we wrapped up, Levoir asked about local venues, promoters and bands, making it perfectly clear that despite their good fortune recording, this is a humble band whose main concerns are the same as many less proven ones. The Mark Inside leads an existence of finding shows, despite dwindling venues, and reaching people in a live setting. “We’re happy to be invited on any stage, we’ll just focus on whatever amount of time we’re given. We can play half an hour or two hours. But a half hour set is going to be serious punch from this band.” A fair assessment, because if you’ve heard Nothing To Admit there’s no doubt that this band can deliver a punch.
– Jeff Vasey
LET ROCK ‘N’ ROLL DIE
Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney recently suggested that “Rock and Roll is dying.” He is quoted by Pitchfork contributor Carrie Battan as saying “Rock & Roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world… So they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit.” It’s easy to hate on Nickelback… so I agree. On the face of it, Carney is stating the obvious. But I wonder if he appreciates the irony in his words.
Thing is, Rock ‘n’ Roll has died before, and it’ll die again – Hallelujah. Isn’t that what makes the genre so great? It’s constant pattern of death and redemption? It’s necessary tendency to eat itself alive and spit out something new and distinct? Do you get me?
Look at history. Perspective is key. Looking back, what changed the world more, Lee Harvey Oswald’s gun, or Elvis’ hips?
Rock ‘n’ Roll, in whatever form we find it, is a genre bent on shaking things up. In its birth Rock ‘n’ Roll changed what music was.
It’s not just that Rock ‘n’ Roll was louder, or that it got the kids dancing. It changed the reasons people listened to music. Next to Chuck Berry, Frank Sinatra starts looking as stagnant as a pea in a petri dish. Love him or hate him, Sinatra’s lounge act sure wasn’t about to take the world in a new direction any time soon.
Then, with the rise of the singer-songwriter, or more accurately the songwriting singer, Rock ‘n’ Roll became more than rebellion in sound. It became rebellion through poetry; the records more manifesto than music. Albums began to outsell singles with the rise of The Beatles, Dylan, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young. Rock ‘n’ Roll became about something more than that song you really dig.
Enter 1975. Music’s getting flat again. After one too many sitars, a drum solo 20-minutes too long, Rock ‘n’ Roll begins to show signs of illness. Most bands had already done the best stuff they were ever going to do. Dylan’s finished Desire (1976), arguably one of his last good records, and it wasn’t phenomenal. The Stones were trite after ’76, The Beatles were long done and most likely better for it.
Then along comes Patti Smith, The Ramones and Television. Rock ‘n’ Roll falters as Johnny Rotten hammers the final nail in the coffin. Rock ‘n’ Roll is dead, or killed rather, by its disenchanted offspring bent on reinventing Rock ‘n’ Roll, bringing it back to its roots. But nothing lasts forever, and the Punk Rock movement is a fast, vicious, short lived era. Maybe Punk died with The Clash’s Cut the Crap (1985), maybe they buried it with Sid and Nancy. But die it did. And then, before you know it, the mid ‘80s hit. Rock ‘n’ Roll rears its shaggy, unshaved acne scarred head. The Replacements, Black Flag, Fugazi and Husker Du start the DIY movement that culminates and dies with Nirvana by the mid ‘90s.
Sometimes Rock ‘n’ Roll takes a while to keel over. For every Chuck Berry there’s a Paul Anka. For every Joe Strummer; Whitesnake. Talking Heads; Journey. You get the picture. The problem really isn’t Rock ‘n’ Roll dying. Rock ‘n’ Roll shakes things up, survival is contrary to what makes it so dear to us.
The problem is Rock ‘n’ Roll surviving! Like anything, when Rock ‘n’ Roll lives too long, it gets old and tired. It sits in bed coughing up phlegm. This is how Nickelback happens.
So, Rock ‘n’ Roll is dying. About time! It means something really incredible is about to happen. Put your ear to the ground. You can hear it. Granted, Rock ‘n’ Roll has been clinging to its last breath well past the expiry date. But it doesn’t matter. Good music is rampant. So quit complaining and Google shit, you lazy arse!
[On a side note… if you Google the word shit, you get the Wikipedia definition. It only takes Lady Gaga two lines to be mentioned. The lady’s everywhere. Jeezaloo.]
I could sit in front of my stereo scraping the shit off my speakers too, but there’s better stuff to listen too old and new, waiting to be discovered. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there’s always going to be another thousand incredible artists and bands that I’m never even going to hear about.
So, eyes on the future. Something’s coming. It’s going to be huge – it’s going to be DIY, and it’s going to be OURS.
In the meantime, here are some of my favorite (and often overlooked) Rock ‘n’ Roll records to tide you over until the world starts spinning again:
Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Blank Generation (1977)
Lester Bangs predicted the coming of Punk Rock. When I think of his description of great, visceral Rock ‘n’ Roll (not necessarily directed at Punk music, often directed at Lou Reed), I think of this record. Richard Hell is one of the founders of Punk Rock who usually gets put in the shadows. He seems to enjoy it there. I think he writes books now. He started in Television, arguably kick starting the CBGB’s scene. He is credited in Babylon’s Burning (2007) by Clinton Heylin as wanting to make Rock ‘N’ Roll where the rhythm guitar is “right out in front.” This record is messy, in the best way, like it should be!
Elvis Costello & the Attractions – My Aim is True (1977)
I know, it’s kind of a staple, but I’m always miffed at how many people have never listened to this record. You mention “Waiting for the End of the World,” and they don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Elvis is one of those gems who can span so many genres, and do it with authenticity every time – but this is his first record, the big one. The angry Rock ‘n’ Roll four-eyes can turn a phrase like you wouldn’t believe. Try and get your hands on the extended record, which comes with some great honky tonk stuff. Also, get his newest stuff. I first got into Costello with his second last record, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane (2009). Brilliant record. National Ransom (2010), his newest one, is also well worth the time!
Television – Marquee Moon (1977)
Already went on about Richard Hell. So this will be short. Marquee Moon is instrumentally and poetically solid in every way. Poetically solid in a simple, sparse sort of way. “Listen Junior, don’t you be so happy, and for heaven’s sake, don’t you be so sad.”
The Replacements – Tim (1985)
I think my favorite Replacements songs are on “Don’t Tell a Soul” and “Let it Be.” But this is probably start to finish their most solid record. This is beer soaked madness with a purpose, drive, and a beating heart.
The Dresden Dolls – Yes, Virginia (2006)
Amanda Palmer is a hero of mine, though normally I hesitate to use that word. Sharp as a knife, raw, emotive, dynamic. The band consists mainly, often exclusively, of Amanda Palmer singing and slaying piano, and Brian Viglione making the drums TALK, bark and whisper. I must’ve listened to this record a hundred times by now. I say that not as exaggeration, but to avoid risking exaggeration. There might be five other bands I could say that for. I feel unsure about including this record on the list though. It’s as if people might disagree with me – something I normally encourage. If folks don’t like the other records well, fuck ‘em. Whatever. I love this record so much. I would sneak it on a list of my favorite folk records just to spread it around.
Happy listening,
And hang in there!
– Anthony Damiao
Getting past the Dead Ends, An interview with Deadlines and Diamonds
Listen: A mixture of warming Pop and dark Metal, could it be magic? With only eight months under their belts together, these six young musicians, who call themselves Deadlines and Diamonds, appear to be unstoppable. Eager to jump start their career as a whole, they will be releasing their debut EP, Dead Ends, in late January.
This is no ordinary EP however, as the band has managed to acquire the help of Tom Denney (A Day to Remember) to produce the album. Deadlines and Diamonds are not the typical Metal band we see today, with years of experience between each member, and a girl taking lead vocals, the band hopes that their upcoming album will really show off their talents.
Although recording has only begun, Tom Denney and the band seem to be mixing well. “We came in with most of the songs already written. There were a few spots we left open and he gave some ideas, but for the most part he likes what we’ve already written,” says guitarist, Phil Bates.
Each member comes with their own musical experiences, so when the two vocalists, Shane Gould and Laura Vierra, developed as a duo, and then furthered their project by adding the musicians, they were all more than ready to produce an album.
As a band with so many personalities, they have developed a system where everyone has their own input while still remaining a cohesive unit. “Laura (lead vocals) usually starts off writing a bunch of lyrics about things she wants to talk about and then I start putting the lyrics to melodies. Once the choruses are written everyone can alter and add to their individual part,” says Gould.
Doing a mixture of Pop and Metal can be challenging, but the band is determined to make the perfect combination. The idea is to take each other’s favorite bands (Black Sabbath, Taking Back Sunday, The Cranberries, Green Day, local bands, etc) and to create their own interpretations of the music.
“Even if we were compared to other bands, or to A Day to Remember, because Tom is producing, it would be more of a compliment because they are one of the best,” says Gould.
A lot can be said about the fact that as a Metal-categorized band, Deadlines and Diamonds are still trying to focus a lot on lyrics, as well as their lack of worrisome thoughts about critics.
Having such a short lifespan to date, they have not yet had a lot of bad feedback, however they know much will come. “As a band you know some people won’t like your music. On Youtube people will say you suck, but they are usually people who aren’t in bands or know what they’re talking about, so we shouldn’t let it bother us,” Gould suggests.
Having a female vocalist also changes the dynamic of what people may expect, but the band has found that it doesn’t affect their likability once people hear her sing.
Gould says that “[The EP] has a lot more mature songs than the demos, with lyrics that are really incredible. If you really listen you’ll kind of understand the personal things we’re going through as individuals and as a band. It’s really what we like to listen to and play, and the lyrics are very personal for us. It’s a stepping stone to what we’re going to be doing; a transitioning EP. We’re not perfect, and we’re only going to get better.”
Once Dead Ends is released, Deadlines and Diamonds are planning on doing a year of touring, although nothing is set in stone. They are also in contact with a few major management companies that they hope to start a relationship with.
– Alexis MacNeil
DRAKE: Perception Is Reality
Hip-hop is reigning supreme right now because they are the only one’s who have real shit. In the midst of this rock draught we are having here, I can honestly say that hip-hop is the only thing that speaks to me at the moment. That, and the latest Jane’s Addiction single “Irresistible Force,” which if you’re a dreamer of any kind, you already know why. I’ve had a million things to say about Drake since he first broke but it was to soon to say so without sounding like a love letter. It’s not really a question of does he have the tightest raps or the best flow? And it’s not a matter of praising him for being any good at it. It’s about recognizing his ability to pull the whole thing off, and appreciating the kind of calculation it takes to do it this big on the back off a mix tape. The art of being a major player in popular culture and maybe even in history, depending on how switched on you are, is your ability to visualize a desire and then will it into reality. Drake is a brilliant example of that. Do you think he’s dining with hip-hop royalty right now by accident? No. This is a guy who knew exactly what he wanted and that he was capable of hacking it with the best of them, and he went out and got it. Simple-as-that. The amazing part is that he was barely 25 and he managed 2 Grammy nominations before he had even released a full-length album. Excuse me, but that’s untouchable. This is a guy who launched an entire career off commentating his own rise to fame as it happened in real time. Not only has that never been done, it’s one of those things that was so fucking real the first time it happened, anyone who tries to do it the same way again will be doing just that, trying. Did he have an angle? Sure. Was it exaggerated? Absolutely. But, do you know what kind of confidence it takes to tell the whole world that you’re something you’re not even sure, as of yet, that you really are? When he says something like: “the realest on the rise, fuck them other guys,” you believe him because he believes what he’s projecting. This guy proves that perception is reality baby, and that is the real art of it. The credit he deserves isn’t for being the best rapper to ever hit the face of the earth, it’s for having a dream and fulfilling it five fold while we all stood here and watched. Drake busted out of the gates claiming that he was going to be The (one and only) Shit, and he did it, he lived up to and surpassed his own hype. We basically watched this kid come to life before our eyes and when you start to realize that his angle was essentially to tell the story of his real life coupled with the story of his rise to fame, you start to understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. One of the most appealing things about Drake as an artist is his sense of realism, and as human beings we are naturally attracted to positive, confident, and charismatic individuals. I think in a time when music is lacking realism the most people are drawn to him whether they even understand why or not. Listen, whoever you are, if you have a dream, you know, that something that pumps electric through your veins, key to it all is believing that you are IT, whether IT is reality yet or not. Say what you will but this guy’s a fucking inspiration. He’s an incredible example of what this generation is capable of, and he is a marker of a new age in hip-hop and of popular music in general. Drake coming along when he did was an exciting thing because it showed the industry and the listening public that there is still room for people to shake things up and be the first at something, even in a world at the pinnacle of overexposure. What band’s and artists coming up right now need to realize is that long gone are the days when they could expect to be discovered by an A & R guy and swept up by a major label for a 7 album recording deal.
That’s not the world we live in anymore. You’ve got to burn for it.
These days, artists have to learn to become the CEO’s of their own fully functioning, self-sustaining businesses, if they have intentions of sticking around long enough to make a dent, let alone for life. Even if you don’t like his voice or you can’t get into him as a rapper or whatever your issue is, Drake was a serious game changer. As one of the first major musical success stories of this generation, not only has he already begun to shape the sound of hip-hop to
come by recognizing the potential advantages of being a rapper who could also sing melodically, his approach is going to become an archetype of success for future others who are meant to move the cultural needle as he has. It’s taken us a long while to figure out how to re-approach music in a technological world, but
after a whack load of auto-tune and some trial and error, someone like Drake makes you realize that nothing gets you as hard as REAL, raw, emotion.
Juliette Jagger
Morning Comes For Cuff The Duke, An interview with Wayne Petti
Since 2002, Oshawa, Ontario’s Cuff The Duke have been creating music that has a gentle combination of Country, Folk, and Rock aspects, leading the pack of bands who all have that modern, “Alt-Country” sound. Cuff The Duke’s new record, Morning Comes, the fifth in their discography, took the band across Canada this past fall and is finally set to release in the States on February 28th.
Part one of an eventual two-part record, Morning Comes is an ambitious project, treading in darker subject matter, and is hoping to be the start of a big evolution for the band. In an earlier press release, Wayne Petti, lead singer and guitarist of Cuff The Duke, said that part one of the album is the low-end and part two will be the high-end.
“I’d never written lyrics so consistently about one theme before,” says Petti about the somewhat morose subject matter in Morning Comes. “We had a lot of songs which is why we were thinking we wanted to do some sort of double record. We decided to select the songs that all had the same theme and vibe to it so it could lead into the next record.”
After building a strong relationship with Blue Rodeo guitarist, Greg Keelor, (Cuff The Duke opened for Blue Rodeo in 2008) he produced the band’s previous album, Way Down Here (2009). With the great results of the album, and with so much respect for Keelor, the band was delighted to bring him back for Morning Comes.
“There’s an ease with working with him that’s really exciting and enjoyable,” Petti comments. “It’s nice having a producer who’s respected amongst the band. It makes everything really flow easily because if we have an idea that he gets excited about, we’re full steam ahead and vice-versa. The way we can flow through the recording process is something that we have never really experienced. He knows what we want and listens.”
“The next record is a little bit more adventurous”
Although there is a lyrical darkness present in Morning Comes, you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the up-beat, and at times, poppy, Country sound that contrasts the lyrics throughout. “I’ve always enjoyed songs that have that, where the music is upbeat but the lyrics are kind of dark,” Petti explains. “I like that juxtaposition because you don’t always need to have sad lyrics with a sad, brooding song.”
As the album closes with “Letting Go,” which is about just that, letting go and moving on, Morning Comes leaves the listener with a hopeful sentiment, a feeling that will carry over to part two. “When you shift to the mid-way point of the record and you get to “Bound to Your Own Vices,” [an epic eight minute track] to me, that was the beginning of the shift, musically and lyrically, moving to where we were heading,” says Petti. “Ending with “Let It Go” was kind of important because the lyric had that [hopeful] sentiment. Musically, I think that the next record is a little bit more, perhaps, adventurous and lyrically, it is a little bit more upbeat.”
Besides keeping busy with the release of Morning Comes, Cuff The Duke has also found unexpected, but welcomed, attention for their cover of “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire they recorded live for a CBC Radio 2 session.
As the two founding members of Cuff The Duke, Petti and bassist Paul Lowman, know all about living in the suburbs, coming from Oshawa, the song was relevant to them. “I guess I always found that the Arcade Fire would be kind of a cool band to cover but also at the same time, a tricky band to cover because they are so huge,” says Petti. “We chose “The Suburbs” because we grew up in Oshawa, which is a suburb, and it’s kind of ingenious, they write a record about the suburbs when a majority of their fans live there. It’s kind of a brilliant subject matter that everyone can relate to.”
What’s so great about Cuff The Duke’s cover of “The Suburbs” is their ability to stay true to the original version but enhance the song with their signature Alt-County sound, a sound that Petti hopes will continue to evolve following Morning Comes. “The thing with Morning Comes, in my mind personally, I wanted it to be the pinnacle of what we had previously done. Everything we had done led to this album and I guess, we just wanted it to represent that era of the band,” he says.
“Moving forward, we could begin to challenge what it is that people think we sound like. It’s not the beginning of the end it’s just the end of the beginning. I felt that that’s what we needed to do at this point.”
– Laura Stanley
A Closer Look at the Compelling Shimmering Stars An interview with Rory McClure
A new Vancouver band, Shimmering Stars, are making their way into the music industry. They released their first album, Violent Hearts, on September 13, 2011. The music they presented for their first album is very unique, compelling and the most important thing – it has a dark and light component in each song. They like to have nice, happy music coupled with dark lyrics that allude to something not so innocent.
Shimmering Stars came to be a band quite accidently. While speaking with Rory McClure of the band he said, “It all began in my parent’s garage – The Garage Mahal.” All three band members were originally playing in the band Bedrooms of the Nation when they first started recording. McClure started the band in order for him to be able to indulge in his most “sickeningly sweet Pop impulses, which [he] was really craving after playing in a band with a more aggressive approach.” They figured out soon enough that people really took to the music and could relate to the lyrics.
Many people might not know this, but McClure mainly wrote and arranged most of the songs, and since the beginning there has been a clear view of the musical direction Shimmering Stars would take. The way the band headed was backwards, exploring the music of the ‘50s and ‘60s and finding inspiration from artists like the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and Phil Spector. McClure describes these artists as the “original sources” of what they have created. “There weren’t any bands that I was aware of who were looking to the Everly Brothers or Del Shannon for inspiration, so that seemed like an interesting avenue to explore.”
The band was deliberately aiming for an ‘old school’ sound, but the songs also have modern styles in it. Most of the ‘old school’ music from the ‘50s and ‘60s is considered fun and happy, but shimmering Stars had a different idea that explored the things that weren’t expressed in the original music.
McClure says, “…behind the veneer of ‘innocence’ and ‘wholesomeness’ are all kinds of repressed emotions, many of which are dark and disturbing. Musicians of that era were very constrained in terms of what they were able to express. So you have to kind of read into it, which for me is very exciting.”
“This is Garage Pop in the Classic Sense”
This was a powerful tool for them, presenting disturbing ideas in the form of happy music that is accessible. This drives people to wonder why the Shimmering Stars recorded cheaply – in a garage – where there’s a lot of background noise which makes it hard to listen to the lyrics. McClure answers that question beautifully, “This is Garage Pop in the classic sense.” They weren`t looking to reduce the sounds in the background, it was part of the appeal of the music.
The dark lyrics of the various songs hold many messages that can be interpreted differently by everyone. The name of the album, Violent Hearts, refers to some of the common themes on the record which represent a lot of things people today are going through. McClure goes on to describe the term ‘violent’ as a “blanket term for feelings of restlessness, anxiety, uncertainty, displacement etc…” McClure also has a strong view of what society feels today, which he expresses in his songs; the idea of being privileged, yet still depressed and anxious. It is very accurate in how the album plays out and the type of themes that are noticed while listening to the songs.
McClure discusses the band being referred to as “sexually repressed and puritanically correct,” and he set the record straight by saying the line was meant to be a joke, but he also goes on to say the statement represents the music on the album. He admits the songs have a soft sound that obscure the darker themes and then recommended the song “Alison” by Elvis Costello to listen to for a true understanding of the concept.
Over all, the band is happy with the project but they want to move into different directions. For the future, they`ll be exploring more sounds and styles. The reason McClure gave for wanting to move into a new directions is, “With any band referencing a specific genre there is the risk of becoming redundant, or getting trapped in a very limited space… I think we’ll be moving in a more noise/shoegaze direction, exploring more atmospheric and dissonant sounds.”
It`s clear that Shimmering Stars can`t wait to get started on something new and McClure mentions they`ll be moving towards a more collaborative operation where he expects to see differences and ideas clash. The bands goal isn’t to get rich or famous necessarily, but to create music that they hope reaches a wide audience.
“My grandparents like it – and I’m sure they would’ve been pretty offended by the bands I’ve been involved with in the past. What’s nice about this project specifically is that it can be accessible to a wide audience while also being pretty subversive. I would hope that younger people get into it too.” This makes it clear, Rory wants everyone to give the music a chance and get involved in it. It`s not meant to be catered to a specific group.
– Amna Pervaiz
Legit Sampling? An interview with with Omid McDonald of legitmix.com
For all its popularity, the employment of sampled music is incessantly hounded, tripped up, held under a quarantine of good/bad taste by the raised eyebrow of the musical skeptic.
Call them purists, call them reactionary, hell call me one of them. It sure wouldn’t be a leap in judgement.
But why is this? Is MIA sampling The Clash really all that different from Keith Richards recycling Chuck Berry guitar riffs? Sure, one artist plays an instrument while the other might not, but all the technical skill in the world doesn’t guarantee a good recording (I’m telling you, sometimes it’ll do the opposite). So let’s throw the instrument argument out the window.
Is there a lack of authenticity in sampled music? I don’t know. How could I? I’ve never given it a go, so who am I to make that call? And if you’ve never expressed yourself, attempted sincerity through the medium, then who are you to decide? Besides, authenticity is a matter of perspective. It’s a personal resonance sort of thing. There are plenty of teenage girls for example, who think Taylor Swift is authentic, sincere even! (If this is so, I can only conclude that little Miss “All-Eyes-and-No-Sight” is an incredibly loose woman.) So authenticity may be a bit of a red herring. Or not – as they say: Authenticity; If you can fake that, you’re in!
Does it lack raw humanity? Maybe. Maybe not.
Visual artist Kate Cox finds old paintings at yard sales, paints little cartoon images overtop, completely changing the context of a painting with the power of suggestion. It’s a brilliant idea, and if you can do that with paint, why not music?
Like all art forms it’s not necessarily about what you do, but how you do it. Sampling can be an incredibly artistic medium. It can also be dog shit, but what else is new?
In actuality, the reason sampling may have a bad name is stupidly simple. Four words: The all mighty dollar. And the usual culprit has claimed another victim. Copyright lawsuits are all in the name of royalties and monetary compensation (not moral or ethical upheaval). Of course, most of the lawsuits we wind up hearing about are the big ones, often big on account of outright plagiarism of the particularly lazy kind (Vanilla Ice, The Verve). But, I suppose any publicity is good publicity… right?
Not for the little guy. Not for artists attempting to get their remixes out into the world, trying to make some semblance of a living through their art form. What kind of disc jockey kid can afford to pay copyrighters the kind of big bucks record companies deal in, even as those millionaires plead impending poverty (boo-hoo). And royalties? What royalties?!
Young DJs, Hip-Hop artists, and the such with next to no money behind them have very few options within which to legally sell their music. This is regardless of whether or not they credit sampled artists.
I spoke on the phone to Omid Mcdonald, co-founder and CEO of legitmix. legitmix has seen a solid measure of success lately, and it’s warranted. With the first track made available on their website (El-P’s “Rush Over BKLYN”) creating a buzz in Pitchfork Magazine, their future is beginning to look promising. The company works as a conduit between sampling remix artists and their audience. It is currently illegal to sell music using samples without consulting the owners of the sampled material. (Rightly so? I’ll get to that.)
legitmix essentially works by exploiting a legal loophole. Both artists and fans download the company’s software program. Artists sell their music in what they call a legitmix file which is a binary representation of the remixed track. This file cannot be listened to. The buyer uses legitmix’s software to combine the legitmix file with the sampled track (Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” for example). You must own the original recording of “Tom Sawyer,” which the software searches your computer for, or online music stores if you do not own it. Then, by following a set of fairly straightforward instructions (if I can do it, you’re golden), the buyer uses legitmix to assemble the mix on your computer. So technically, the artist never sold the music, just the means to make it. Pretty sly, huh?
But let’s give the elephant in the room its two cents. Everybody’s downloading music illegally anyway. Everybody’s leaking every conceivable remix on the planet, whether they’re legal or not.
“The problem,” McDonald responds, “is that when everything’s done in the grey it creates a whole host of problems. For example, if something goes really big and somebody wants to make money off it they can’t unless they go license it traditionally.” When you have a whole vein of artwork existing in the grey area of the music industry, Omid Mcdonald claims that you risk tarnishing the art form.
“Their Legacy is Communicated to the Consumer”
But on the other hand, if “something goes really big,” somebody is going to find a way to make money off of it. You can bet your life on it. Whether or not the money winds up in the right hands might be another matter. The point is that the laws haven’t caught up with the times, they’re holding up rules meant for an industry that stopped existing thirty years ago. For most small time DJs and Hip-Hop artists, copyright infringement is a toothless tiger they will never have to encounter. But its existence in its current form drives remixers and samplers into the white noise of the online underground. Maybe current laws are silencing more artists than they are protecting.
But the question remains. Is circumventing copyright laws ethical? Theoretically the sampled artist makes money when you buy the original track in order to create the remix (provided you acquire it legally). But that still leaves the remixed artist in the dark. Should they have a say in regards to how other artists use, promote and sell music directly derivative of their material? I asked McDonald this. His response:
“The person who enjoys the remix gets the original work, so we feel that we’re exposing the original artist’s work… their legacy is communicated to the consumer. The other thing is every time an artist puts something out for sale it’s a trade off. They can’t come into my house and say how I’m allowed to enjoy their work in my own home.”
So ethically, the whole affair boils down to a matter of who owns music. An interesting topic for another article? I think so.
You can try legitmix out for yourself by purchasing the work of featured artists on their website at legitmix.com
– Anthony Damiao
An Interview with Josh Ward of Hey Rosetta!
In an effort to promote their third album, Seeds, Hey Rosetta! released music videos for the songs “Yer Spring,” “Yer Fall,” and “Bandages.” All three videos are special, but the video for “Bandages” stands above the others because it captures the essence of the band in a series of picturesque locations spread out across Newfoundland. It’s a simple song with ubiquitous lyrics about waiting for a girl to come around and requite the feeling of love. In the video, the band takes the song to different locations and records short, live snippets of the song and pieces them together. They play in a dark, gothic church; a sprawling, verdant field; on a rooftop overlooking a construction site; on a small street in front of quant cottages; and many other charming spots.
“We roamed around looking for places that looked great and sounded great, and it was just interesting,” bassist Josh Ward reminisces. “We liked it but we didn’t know if it would turn out well because the audio was different in each shot.” The band also plays with many members of the communities they visited. In one truly impressionable scene in the video, the band plays atop a cliff overlooking the sea singing, “She’ll call oh oh oh, She’ll call oh, she’ll call,” along with 50 people behind them. The video ends with the band chanting the same lyrics in a crowded living room with a group of friends surrounding them. Inherent in these cherished moments are all the idiosyncrasies that make Hey Rosetta! a beloved band.
The ability to write music that is nostalgic, transcendental and diverse is the defining quality of this band. “We all just kind of think of ways to maximize the song,” says Josh Ward. It’s this musical ideology that has gained the band prestige and recognition for their compositions, which includes both of their albums being shortlisted for the Polaris Prize. “We take the message of each song seriously,” Ward explains. “We want to make something magical.” This takes many forms for the band, including those valuable moments in the “Bandages” video, and singing loud, anthemic songs like “Red Heart” in front of hundreds of fans. “Whatever is expressed the best way, and if it ends up being a big anthem with 100 people singing then so be it,” says Ward.
“We Had The Time To Play Around With Different Sounds”
Often what gets talked about most regarding Hey Rosetta! is their larger-than-life sound. Josh Ward understands how that perception of Hey Rosetta!’s music has germinated among fans and critics, but stresses that it is an outcome that is not predetermined. “We don’t necessarily look to make big, epic songs,” Ward explains. According to Ward, the one aspect of their music that they do focus on is their diverse sound. “I think that a lot of that sort of diverse sound is the important part of the band. It’s something we have in mind from the start. We look to branch out more and find something that works for our sound.” While recording Seeds the band spent more time in the recording studio experimenting with their sound. “One day Phil [drummer] and I spent an hour and a half doing different things in the studio,” Ward recalls. “We recorded us hitting a toaster with a hammer, and although some of these things didn’t make [it] onto the album, we had the time to play around with different sounds.”
Although the members of Hey Rosetta! work hard to find the best way of expressing their songs, they also enjoy challenging themselves to find alternative ways to play those songs. Many videos of the band playing reworked versions of their songs for acoustic and take-away shows have been uploaded to YouTube. “As a band you get pulled into a lot of different directions, like being that big Rock band on stage,” said Ward. “It’s nice to do something simple like that; like people would have years ago instead of at big live shows.” Hey Rosetta! has built their reputation on their bombastic songs and energetic live shows, but according to Josh Ward, they enjoy unplugging their instruments and playing tame, docile versions of their songs just as much as they enjoy letting go on stage. There is an intimate quality in being able to play their songs anywhere that Hey Rosetta! clearly enjoys indulging in. “We were just in Melbourne, and one day we got on a tram and rode it for a long time while playing music,” Ward reminisces. “Some people getting on the tram didn’t realize at first that there was a band playing.” It sounds like the band is making the most of their time while touring Australia.
Hey Rosetta! is now three albums into their musical career and are showing signs that the band’s collective creativity is just starting to blossom. And people are taking notice, as is proved with Hey Rosetta! signing to the American label, ATO Records. Mix the recent signing with a massive tour and even more people will start to notice this East Coast fusion of Folk and Rock. Considering the band’s ability to produce relevant and intimate music videos, fans of Hey Rosetta! have a lot to look forward to.
– Joe F.
Letting Things Go, An interview with Charlotte Cornfield
After two well-received EPs, It’s Like That Here and Collage Light, Montreal’s Charlotte Cornfield has just released her debut full-length album, Two Horses. Inspired by the Folk-styling of the legendary Joni Mitchell, Cornfield’s music is full of passion, intricate songwriting, and a welcoming mixture of musical styles.
“Most of the record was written in a spark of inspiration over a few months period in winter of 2009-2010, and then the songs kind of took shape over time on the road and that summer,” Cornfield says about the creative approach behind Two Horses. “It’s been a long process getting it all together,” she adds.
The various and clever turns of phrases throughout the record do their best to try and mask the intensely personal sentiments throughout, but they still don’t go unnoticed. As Cornfield explains, the meaning behind the title of Two Horses helps to convey a lot of the feelings behind the lyrics.
“To me, it’s kind of the underlying theme of the album. The album is about push and pull between people, between cities, particularly Montreal and Toronto, and the in between zones and life decisions. I found the image of two horses, especially on the cover of them crossing paths like that, and the pull in between, to be very powerful,” Cornfield states.
After getting her degree in Jazz drumming, and spending time as a drummer for bands including Bent By Elephants, Cornfield is still getting used to the whole singer-songwriter business. Two Horses demonstrates the quick growth that Cornfield has undergone since the release of the aforementioned EPs, and though the wit and lyricism remains, Cornfield’s development is obvious.
“I think the songwriting has come a long way,” Cornfield explains. “This is my first full-length, so it’s a cohesive thing. It’s a story in itself. The ten songs weave together into something. I think the songs are stronger than the older songs and the lyrics are better.” Cornfield goes on to say, “I also never used to consider myself a singer until I started doing my own thing. And even then it took a while to gain more confidence. The more time I spent in front of people singing and practising singing, the more I fell into my voice.”
This development and confidence heard throughout Two Horses also reflects the man behind the production of the album, Ryan Granville Martin, who was also Cornfield’s drum teacher as a child.
“For me, it was really important to work with someone who I had a relationship with, who I knew I could bounce ideas off of and I could trust,” she says. “They are really emotionally intense songs, so being able to work with someone who I was comfortable with was really important in that process,” maintains Cornfield.
Despite these intense personal moments scattered throughout the record, Cornfield has no hesitations with the release of the album. “I learned a long time ago to let things go in my songwriting and that in order to have the freedom of expression that I wanted, I had to bear it all in songs,” she explains.
The songwriting feels way beyond what is typically found on a debut album and the musical arrangements of Two Horses is also impressive. In addition to Granville Martin’s production skills, he helped out with instrumentation along with Cornfield’s friends, Kathryn Palumbo (upright bass), Sam Rosenberg (backing vocals and percussion), Johnny Spence (keys), and many more. “Everyone has such different backgrounds but when they all come together, it’s like this explosion of sounds,” states Cornfield.
“Versatility is something I really value in musicians. I think that when musicians are playing with people who don’t necessarily have the same background, that’s when really exciting, crazy stuff happens,” she says.
With the release of Two Horses under her belt, Cornfield praises her friends and family for their constant support – something that is certain to continue growing. “My family has been unfailingly supportive of me my entire life and I could have never done what I’ve done without their support.”
– Laura Stanley
Quantic Perceptions, An Interview with Will Holland of Quantic
“If we think in fashion, the polar capitals are London, Paris, Tokyo, Milan. In music it’s New York, Los Angeles or whatever… let’s think about the others, the alternative capitals of musical culture. Let’s think about places like Cali and Colombia, let’s think about Brazil, try and think about Ethiopia and yeah, try to think about it differently.”
That statement couldn’t be any more true.
Producer, musician and DJ, Will Holland (better known as Quantic) has been travelling for quite some time. Not only sharing his music with listeners around the world, but taking the time to delve into the culture and musical aspects of other countries and cities – like the small town of Cali, Colombia where he now resides.
Over time the ‘Meccas’ of music and fashion have been defined by popular tourist attractions, Pop culture, and in some cases by the origins of certain music genres. But what about the places that aren’t necessarily advertised on TV? The places that may not be where a certain genre originated from, but still provides its own flare in sound? What about the cities and towns of developing countries that holds such rich music and culture?
“That was one reason why I moved to Cali,” Holland explains. “One of the main reasons, or the sole purposes of why I moved to Cali – to start to think of the world outside of the polar capitals.”
“I Moved to Colombia about five years ago,”he continues. “I was working a lot in Puerto Rico and then I visited Colombia and Panama to do some recording.”
Holland is originally from Westchester, England but moved to Brighton where he spent about four years recording before leaving for South America.
“I guess I probably got into the cycle of travelling a lot and I was touring a hell of a lot and was pretty much never at home. And when you start living on the road, you start to kind of see ideas of other places to live in, rather than your home town.”
“So I visited Cali to look for records,”he continues.“I was looking for certain records and Cali is a big record city. It’s a place where you can find a lot of music and I just really liked it, I thought I should get more involved with recording there.”
While in Colombia there was a pianist whom Holland wanted to collaborate with. That collaboration is what then initiated the thought of possibly staying in Cali for a few months to make the record.
“I really wanted to record with him but I never got the chance to so. I thought if I came to live here for four or five months, I could make a record and then yeah… five years later and I haven’t left,”he realizes laughing.
“The thing about Cali,”Will continues, “is it’s really hard to describe if you haven’t been there. But basically, it’s such an easy lifestyle, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, what I mean is it’s – the weather is perfect, it’s a place that’s not too hot, not too cold, you don’t really need a jacket and there’s really good quality food. Like fresh mangos, avocados… But at the same time, it’s not like I’m living in some kind of Caribbean paradise, it’s a very urban city. It’s quite an ugly place; it’s not really a tourist destination.”
If you’re unfamiliar with Holland’s music, this would be the perfect introduction.
Under the name Quantic, Holland has been creating music since the age of 16, going on to form five projects (aside from his solo work, which makes it six) where he’s been the driving force. There’s the Quantic Soul Orchestra, Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro, The Limp Twins, Spanky Wilson and Flowering Inferno.
The thing is, up until our initial conversation, I was under the impression that Holland was working on these projects simultaneously. And I couldn’t wait for the chance to ask him how he did it.
“Six projects I’m not currently involved in, but have been involved in – not sure if I could do that all at the same time,” he clarifies laughing. “The first thing to come out was Quantic, my first record for Breaking Bread records, it was a 45 and that was the first Quantic release. After that I had a DJ who was one of my best friends, Russell Porter, and we formed the Limp Twins together. It’s a duo, weonly madeone record. We haven’t made one since,”he says laughing,“but somehow that stuck. Then after a while, I started getting involved with Funk and Soul and got really interested in breaks and sounds of ‘60s Soul and Funk kind of things,” he continues.“So I started with the Quantic Soul Orchestra and started playing shows with that band, and it was that sort of sound, and we did like four records and when I moved to Colombia, the last record, Tropidelico, kind of became the Combo Bárbaro, which is the project I started doing recently in Colombia, which is more like a strong Funk-Soul element, but has also a Cumbia, Salsa element.”
Similar to times in the ‘60s where you’d have the same artists/musicians under different names and associated with different acts, Holland has taken a similar approach with his own musical involvements.
“It’s almost like making films right? And just trying different things. I liked the concepts and trying different things.”
Holland grew up in a musical family, where his parents were both musicians. It’s only natural that he would eventually begin his own creations.
“My first and foremost inspirations would be my mother and father. My father, he was in his youth a Folk musician, he played guitar – he was from Wales and he played a lot of traditional music, like Welsh music and he was quite successful in a small level. Then he became obsessed with banjo and Bluegrass kind of stuff, I grew up in a house with a lot of music.”
As Holland grew older and began hearing other styles of music, his sources of inspiration grew as well, although there’s never been any single person or sound that’s propelled him throughout.
“For me, most of my key influences have been quite obscure, in the sense that I’ve been into record collecting and it’s not like it’s been one key person who’s been guiding me, I’ve just been getting into different music. But I guess to start, people like James Brown were really influential for me. Like that sound was very aesthetic, and Fela Kuti, and I guess all of those big heavy weight people – King Tubby from Jamaica… yeah.”
When you listen to a Quantic record, regardless of the band name he may be under at that given moment, one aspect always remains consistent – Holland’s thoroughness in sound. There’s always such a deep-rooted sense in his music.
Recently Holland released his Best of Quantic album, which featured a project running 32-tracks deep of music spanning from his very first album, The 5th Exotic, to now, incorporating music from all six of his music associations. Listening to the album from track to track, you really get a sense of that solid consistency.
Eager to get a chance to learn how some of Quantic’s songs came about, Holland and I play a little game of “Name that Tune,” or maybe more of a “Describe that Tune” segment as I asked him to shed light on three of my personal favourites.
Name that Tune, with Quantic
“Long Road Ahead” – Quantic (5th Exotic)
Will Holland: “I think I made that when I was 18 or 19 and yeah, that’s like some very head-noddy, go on a trip… I guess it’s Trip-Hop (laughing). That’s a song I probably haven’t heard myself in like… seven or eight years, so I should probably listen to it!
“I think most of the songs I made on the 5th Exotic were songs I made when I was 16 to 19 years old, and now I’m 31 so… (laughing) I guess I don’t hear too much of it these days, sounds bad doesn’t it? But I would be a pretty boring person if I just listened to my own records all the time!
“A lot of that album was stuff that I started making when I was 16. I just collected all that stuff for years and that was what made up the first album. Songs like, “Time Is The Enemy,” which has become probably one of the most popular things I’ve done, which is funny because it’s something I made when I was very young. It’s kind of strange.”
“Sunday Driver” – The Limp Twins (Tales From Beyond the Groove)
Will Holland: “That song is more Russell Porter than me, that’s my friend. Porter wrote that with me and he’s the singer on that record. We grew up together, we went to college together, and he use to drive over on a Sunday afternoon with an organ on the backseat of his car. A quite heavy organ that we’d lift up the stairs. And then we’d record, and with a large supply of cups of tea and digestive biscuits, we got to a lot of recording.
“I think we did like a summer together just kind of every weekend recording little bits, and that was one of the songs that came out of that. I remember I liked that time. That was before I moved away from home and stuff so it was nice. It was quite primitive, but yeah, that was probably again when I was 19, when we were both 19 years old, yeah.”
“Un Canto A Mi Tierra” – Quantic & His Combo Bárbaro (Tradition in Transition)
Will Holland: “The title means, ‘A song for my land’. ‘Tierra’ is like, ‘My Place’.“Yeah, that’s a song that basically was one of the first songs I did with Nidia Gongora. That’s a song we did together, that was the first song she wrote for me. I gave her the track, I recorded the track with my band, I sent her the track and she wrote it for me and I really like that song. Actually that’s one of my personal favourites because I think it’s very well written, she did a really good job.
“She did the vocals, and it’s a really nice sentiment. Also, I don’t know if you understand the words but it’s, umm, it’s a very nice sentiment from the point that she’s talking about where she came from to where she lives – she lives in Cali but she’s talking about, in a slightly melancholic way but also proudly, about where she came from. It’s like, I can relate to that when I go home, like you know, when you go home to where you’re from and having that experience. It’s cool that she wrote that song. She lives in an open place now, but she grew up in this little Afro-Colombian town next to the river in the pit of the coast, so it’s cool that she made a song devoted to that.”
“Don’t trust anybody – Not even your own Mother!”
Looking at the actual process of record making and collaborating with the different musicians, you come to wonder from listening to Holland’s music if he ever has difficulty translating the ideas in his mind to the instruments in his hands, or the people he’s working with. But as Holland explains, it’s not so much the music itself that’s a challenge, but the time in which he has to put it together.
“At the moment, I’ve been trying to finish a Quantic record,”he says. “I started a Quantic record with more beats, but it has a lot of different elements in it and I’ve been trying to finish that record for the last year. It’s been pretty intense. I don’t really have the time to do it. Definitely the time is the problem…”he says laughing.
Quantic was recently in Toronto for our Small World Music Festival where he performed at Dundas Square. Holland explains that he was hoping to do more of a live show with that particular performance.
“I play regularly in Toronto. Actually, before I came to the U.S. I travelled to Canada. I’ve had a long time relationship with Toronto,” he laughs. “The thing is, once you get up on a stage, it’s just… I play a lot with my band too. And when I DJ, it’s like, I gotta give something more, like I can’t just play other people’s records, I have to get a bit more animated so I’ll do a live set if I can.”
Now as Toronto leaves the summer behind and enter into a new season, I asked Holland what his plans were for the new season – completely forgetting about our difference in climate.
“See, I have the luxury of living in a place that does not have seasons,” he reminds me laughing. “But see the thing is, where I spent most of my childhood life in England. In miserable rainy autumns, cold winters, and springs that should be better, and summers where the sun never shined. But it is rainy season coming up now, so I’ll try to be productive,” he continues. “I’m just about to do a recording session, and then for the new year we have a record planned. I just finished a record with Alice Russell who’s a singer I’ve worked with a lot from the UK, but we kind of had a pause. We worked together a lot when I first started making records, but we haven’t for a while so this is the new record. That’s going to be good.”
Growth and learning is a huge factor in life, regardless of your profession, but for someone who began to create his own music at such a young age, and still continues to do so now, it’s always interesting to look back on things you’ve come to realize and understand.
Looking back on his own path, Holland explains one thing he’s learnt:
“Don’t trust anybody! Not even your own mother!”
Ha!
“No, no,” he says laughing, “I guess one of the things I’ve learnt is that you can do things independently. You don’t necessarily have to rely on a big organization, or a big major label or something like that to get by. That’s certainly what working with the label Tru Thoughts has shown me; you can get by like that.”
“Also,” he continues, “that you don’t have to like, sell out, so to speak. You don’t have to necessarily do something wholeheartedly Pop-y, but you can do something you want to do and make a living from it.”
It was a pleasure getting the opportunity to speak to Quantic and gain some new perspectives on our outlook on music culture, and if there’s anything to take away from Will Holland’s words, it’s definitely the idea of taking the chance to try new things – whether it be moving to a new city, learning about a new culture, or simply taking on a new project.
“I think I’ve changed a lot over the years and evolved a lot and tried diff’ things, and sometimes that can be scary for artists, trying things differently. But to keep moving like that, it’s been good to keep moving like that.”
– Xolisa Jerome
The End of Emm Gryner? An interview with Emm Gryner
Throughout her career, Canadian singer-songwriter Emm Gryner has always been in charge of her own destiny.
While on Mercury Records, and following the release of her third album, Public (1998), she was dropped from the label; something she feels only benefited her career.
“I was happy when I was dropped, only because I didn’t like the atmosphere that I found myself in, where everyone I worked with was fired already and I don’t think that a lot of people understood why I had been signed,” said Gryner. “It’s not encouraging for any artist to have to wait around to know when to make the next record or where to tour. I prefer to be in charge of my own decisions.”
She found her dismissal from Mercury as an opportunity to return to her own label, Dead Daisy Records, a label she founded in 1996, to release not only her own material, but artists that needed a nurturing musical home.
“I’ve learned that you have to be a very flexible person to do music full-time into your thirties, because as you get older you have responsibilities and you need to approach everything that you do with the same professionalism as would use if you were selling millions of records,” said Gryner. “You have to be proud of what you’re doing and be good at it, no matter which level you’re at.”
Gryner admits the label hasn’t really evolved over the years since its founding, and that it’s merely a stepping stone for up-and-coming artists.
“There was a small peak when I signed bands like Royal Wood, and last year when I re-released Colleen Brown’s albums, but it’s more of a stepping-stone for artists,” Gryner says. “I like connecting people with other people, and if someone needs a video director, photographer or a manager, I try to recommend the right people.”
At its peak, Dead Daisy’s roster included the likes of Colleen Brown, John Southworth and Daniel Ledwell. Gryner asserts that artists signed to the label don’t have the same luxuries as they would on another independent label and most of the work rests on their shoulders. “[Because its] just me and some helpers, the artists themselves have to be really hands-on,” Gryner smiles.
With Dead Daisy’s talented roster, both past and present, Gryner says that the selection of artists on her label is an extension of her broad taste in music.
“Everyone [on the label] are really great songwriters,” she says. “[Everyone’s] music is very different record to record, but to me everything starts with the song so it has to have strong songwriting behind it,” Gryner adds.
“The internet has put the power back into the hands of the artist”
Now Emm Gryner is releasing her 13th album, Northern Gospel, which was recorded in producer Stuart Brawley’s (Don Henley, *NSYNC, Michael Jackson), Sault Ste. Mariecottage. Gryner felt more at home recording in Canada, compared to her previous album Gem And I (2010), which was recorded in Los Angeles.
“I think being in Canada made me feel more at home,” said Gryner. “I made my previous record in L.A. and you always feel like when you’re in a proper studio, you can get overwhelmed by the gear and everything, and we had lots of gear at the cottage but it gave me more of a homey vibe,” she said.
Gryner describes the Canadian music scene as having “a real camaraderie among bands and artists,” and that “the Internet has put the power back into the hands of the artist.” What’s most exciting to Gryner about music today is the vast availability of a variety of radio stations on the Internet and good music being just a click away.
“The fact that if you want to find good music it’s really easy now, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that commercial radio and corporations often don’t choose the most exciting or inspiring music,” said Gryner. “It opens up the entire world to you for inspiration. It makes you feel like anything is possible,” she said.
When asked about pirating music, Gryner reminisces about when she would “sit around and wait for my favourite song to come on the radio and I’d tape it and that’s how I would hear it.” She adds, “I don’t believe that people should work for free, but unfortunately the minute my record came out, it was all over the Internet. For me, I see it as a way for people to hear my music. I do think that some legislation should be involved, but I don’t know what that should be and how that is at this point.”
Throughout November Gryner will be on a “mini-tour” with Colleen Brown to promote Northern Gospel, reaching Toronto, Guelph, Hamilton, Collingwood and London, Ontario.
“I am so excited for people to see Colleen [because] she is mind-blowing and I am going to be playing songs from the new record and all of the hits from the past, the hits that never were,” Gryner says while laughs.
As for what the future holds, the singer-songwriter plans to scale-down her solo career and collaborate on a new, and as-of-yet, unnamed project with a new backing band.
“I am going to put the brakes on the Emm Gryner world and there may be a few more records, but I am going to start a new project, [where] I am basically starting a new band and it’s going to kick ass,” said Gryner. “I think Northern Gospel is going to be the last Emm Gryner solo record for a while,” she said.
– Curtis Sindrey
What’s Old Is New Again, An interview with 54-40’s Neil Osbourne
Much like in the early days of 54-40’s career, the band got back to the basics to record their 14th studio album, Lost In The City.
Recording in Toronto’s Mushroom Studios (after the studio moved east from Vancouver), the band slowly evolved several songs written during off-days between shows. According to lead singer and guitarist Neil Osbourne, the goal was to keep the process as lively as possible.
“We wrote through being on the road and having a lot of days off in between shows,” said Osbourne. “We rented rehearsal spaces and started jamming and doing it the old school way like we used to do by recording the ideas and evolving them over a couple of months.”
Osbourne compares the creation of 54-40’s last album, 2008’s Northern Soul, to the new record, “This album is simpler and not as produced as Northern Soul, and its more direct with [only a] couple of guitars.”
Osbourne acknowledges the inevitability of music pirating and with that, the paycheck not being what it used to be. “You look at the fact that major record companies, especially in Canada, have all died, so the income from records isn’t what it used to be as say in the early to mid-nineties,” said Osbourne. “It’s just part of reality now, you don’t need to buy a record,” he said.
54-40 has been touring in support of Lost In The City for the better part of 2011, touching nearly every corner of Canada in the process. Aside from extensively touring throughout their home province of British Columbia this year, the tour has them travelling to Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nova Scotia, and several upcoming shows in Ontario including Barrie, on Nov. 3, Sarnia on Nov. 5 and Toronto on Nov. 10.
“We’re going to feature a lot from the Lost In The City record, but we’re also going to be doing some different arrangements of older hits and also do the “true-blue” versions of some other hits so its kind of a mixed bag,” Osbourne says. “If you were a fan of the band from the beginning you won’t be disappointed,” he adds.
54-40’s near future contains a lot more touring, and it’s likely the band already have ideas for a Lost In The City follow-up album.
“We’ll probably continue to tour into the new-year, I think starting in February or March and then we’ll look at how and what we want to write for our next record,” said Osbourne.
– Curtis Sindrey
The New Noise Live Showcase#2 An Interview with Volcano Playground
The second showcase by The New Noise Live will be taking place this Thursday, October 13, 2011 at The Garrison. The double-headline show will be featuring Volcano Playground and Mausoleum, with guests Ostrich Tuning.
Jakub Hladik of Volcano Playground was at the DVD store in Whitby, where he and band-mate Jackie Game work, when I called him. Being surrounded in the sounds of the store, he tells me, opens them up to musical inspiration they might not have otherwise come in contact with. This explains influences listed on their website – very lengthy and entirely significant – consisting of Joy Division, Caribou and Fleet Foxes to name very few.
Jakub, Jackie, and Mark and Pete Pilshewsky, having met through the tiny Oshawa/Whitby music scene, started playing together in 2008 as a result of their various bands’ simultaneous break-ups, and created Volcano Playground. The group writers and multi-instrumentalists wrote on whatever instruments the song came to them on, figuring out who would play what part later. Their 5-song EP, Waiting (2009) – recorded in Pete’s bedroom – showcased a sound reminiscent of Broken Social Scene and Wolf Parade.
But if you are listening to what they recorded in 2009, don’t rely on their sound to remain unchanged – a lot has happened since then. Their dreamlike shoe-gaze post-Punk has taken on a darker mood, a sound that has always driven Jackie and Jakub – apparent in on-line Demos “Tension” and “Be That As It May.” With Pete no longer in the band, their manager, Steve Reble, has taken over as live drummer – and Jakub mentions even their name might soon become a thing of the past.
With all these changes Volcano Playground has still had time to become involved with many projects – including a compilation album with other bands such as The Most Serene Republic and Grounders and with Broken Social Scene Producer David Newfeld. The Record that includes a re-done “Waiting,” by VP should be out in the New Year. They also plan on having a full-length album out in six months. Currently unsigned, Jakub says they are considering the DIY recording model, wanting to focus on the music and approach labels afterwards.
Their un-fixed nature may seem unpredictable but with a focus on incessant creativity through constant inspiration the irregular becomes the constant here. Their swirling dark wistful energy is a melding of sounds not meant to re-hash the past by recreating a sound – but is meant to create something new through what older sounds arouse.
This Thursday October 13, 2011 Volcano Playground will be at The Garrison taking part in a showcase of selected rising talent by The New Noise Live. The kind of band that, even if you’ve heard them before, you know it will be different so cannot be missed.
The New Noise Live Showcase#2 Mausoleum & Volcano Playground
@ The Garrison, Toronto Thursday October 13, 2011
The New Noise Live, a project by the people of Live Nation in Toronto, will be presenting its second of a monthly showcase on Thursday October 13, 2011 at The Garrison. The showcase aims to promote emerging Canadian musicians, and this months’ show features a double headline with Mausoleum and Volcano Playground.
Through a muffled speakerphone conference call I spoke with Joe Elaschuk (guitarist/multi-instrumentalist) and Rich Forbes (vocalist/bassist), who started Mausoleum – a name they came up with while thinking of places where the ultra rich and powerful were buried, ie: pyramids, secret caves...
Friends since high school, Forbes was playing with different Punk bands and with Elaschuk in Toronto-band Foxfire. When their time freed up, they took advantage of Elaschuk’s studio, merged their interests, and founded Mausoleums’ sound. The name may bring the mind to dark places – and yes a random Internet search might find a Death Metal band by the same name. But keep looking, because this Mausoleumbrings you somewhere else. To a place where ‘70s New York meets ‘80s Manchester, where New Wave mixes with post-Punk – and the result is a sound that’s brand new.
The two-piece expanded to three when Sean Dunal, also of Foxfire, was added on drums. Over 20 songs were written and in February a three-song cassette tape was released. Cassettes might seem like a throwback to the time that inspired their sound, but really it is about cost and distribution – cassettes are cheap and fast – and these guys really want to get their music out there.
Hosting many DIY shows, they emphasize what they like about putting together their own events. They get to involve bands they like and can keep the cover charges low. They also help create a community of like-minded musicians, a community that will only get stronger as their sounds mature.
A fourth member to the band was also added. Having written much of the music with synth-parts in mind, Eric Farber (currently residing in Boston) joined the band, taking on Mausoleum’s synthesizer.
Now with over 30 songs, the four-piece is looking forward to as many releases as they can get out, continuously making cassettes for EP releases, they will be pressing vinyl for their LP, out in the New Year.
For now they have a lot of plans. There will be a tour to Boston, New York, Chicago and Kansas City in early 2012. They are also planning a DIY show in December for a five-track EP release, and look forward to playing at The Garrison next Thursday. Not a DIY show, the things they like about shows they plan themselves will hold true. The New Noise Live, having hand selected incredible new talent, is creating a community of musicians and is giving them a platform for growth… and it’s only $6.
Mausoleum is co-headlining and will be there will cassette-tapes. The $5, four-song EP features a bonus track that is not included in the digital download, so go find your tape players now cause you are going to want to re-listen as soon as you get home.
Many compliments and positive adjectives have already been used to describe Bruce Peninsula – many of which I wholeheartedly agree with. Words like ‘epic’, ‘bombastic’ and ‘unique’ to name a few. But after interviewing lead vocalist Neil Haverty, I have a couple more adjectives to throw into the pot: ‘generous’ and ‘supportive’. When I called Haverty on his cellphone, he and his bandmates were stuffed in a van on their way to Kingston, Ontario, where they were playing a show that night. At first I couldn’t hear Haverty over the roar of the wind (it sounded like he was talking to me with his head hanging outside the window). He said he would call me back and hung up, so I planted my head on my desk, initially expecting to wait for a very long time. Thirty seconds later the phone rang and it was Haverty. “Sorry about that,” he said, “we were driving along this beautiful country road on our way to Kingston with the windows down, so we pulled over so I could talk to you.”
What great guys I thought to myself. And it was marvelously typical for them to be driving along the type of scenic countryside and rural roads present in their music when I called them. “Driving along these roads and looking at the scenery, it’s all similar to our memories of the Bruce Peninsula,” Haverty said. The way he tells it, it would seem that the entire band shares a collective experience of visiting the Bruce peninsula as children to go camping and escape into nature. “It’s a place that is very influential, especially on our first album [A Mountain is a Mouth (2009)],” he said, “It’s a part of Ontario to be proud of, and calling the band Bruce Peninsula makes the band hard to find on Google, and that makes us mysterious – we like that.” Just as Bruce Peninsula, Ontario is grand and something salient to behold, so too is the band who borrowed its name.
It seems almost unimaginable that the band once consisted of merely two members (Matt Culley and Misha Bower), but that was the make-up of Bruce Peninsula when Haverty decided he wanted to be part of the band. “We both like the idea of group-singing, so we knew we would like to add more voices to mix,” he said, “and it became really clear to us New Year’s Eve 2008 when a few of us were celebrating together, and we started all singing together through the night and during the countdown, and it just sounded so right to us.” Although it may seem like a dizzying prospect, playing with ten musicians in a Rock band, but having those musical perspectives collaborating together has clearly benefitted the band. “We all come from diverse musical backgrounds and it helps push us to play different styles and explore music,” Haverty said, “we don’t want to be a revival band, like something you’ve already heard.” I like to think that Haverty and his band members can proudly say that they achieved that, he seemed to appreciate what I said while gushing (after about ten minutes of restraining myself from doing so) about how refreshing their sound is and how they continue to be innovative on their new album.
Their new album, Open Flames, which comes out October 4th, continues their musical journey right where they left off. But upon completing the album in late 2010, the band’s journey derailed when Haverty discovered he had Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. The band decided to take a hiatus while Haverty dealt with his medical issues. Thankfully, in late spring of this year, Neil learned that he was in remission and soon reconvened with his band. “After the hiatus, we actually went to Bruce Peninsula and rented a cottage in the woods to re-familiarize ourselves with the songs on Open Flames before releasing the album and going on tour.” It seemed very fitting for the band to return to the roots of their collective history to reacquaint themselves with their music before they once again started their musical adventure.
– Joe F.
Rock & Roll’s Second Coming
Part 1:
Neil Young once said – upon first hearing Nirvana – that “every once and a while a wave comes along that’s so unbelievable and every one goes, did you feel that?” To which I want to say: old man take a look at my life I’m nothing like you – I’m aching to feel that. Grunge was really the last time the world was hit with a wave of rock & roll that powerful and those of us from generation Y were either too young to remember, or missed it completely.
If your wondering where all the good rock & roll bands are, don’t worry they’re on their way. With the state of the music industry today looking much like it did in the mid 1950’s – when the tug-of-war between major and independent labels first ensued – we have finally come full circle.
This is the glorious golden age of digital technology. Sure we live in an oversaturated, media ridden, desensitized to everything world, but this is an incredible time to be alive because the Internet has given indie artists the world over an unprecedented kind of power over their craft, and we are starting to see a new generation rise to the occasion.
In the 1950’s, it was the independent labels not the majors that ultimately thrust rock & roll into mainstream American consciousness. At the time the major labels were still pushing the pop crooner’s who had carried them through the war years, but the problem was that post-war America was a much different place than the one that they remembered. People had developed new interests, attitudes and ideas about life, and with most busy starting the families that they had put on hold for so long, the music simply not longer fit.
The Baby Boom of the late 40’s to mid 50’s brought about the rise of the teenager as brand new category of consumer. With uniquely potent tastes and incredible buying power, this was a generation growing up and trying to find their identity in the aftermath of the most catastrophic war in world history. These kids didn’t want to share anything with their parent’s generation; they wanted something new that they could relate to, and something that strictly belonged to them.
At the time, tensions surrounding racial awareness in America were at an all time high. Rhythm and blues, which was typically regarded as being black music, and country and western music, which was typically regarded as being lower class white, were still considered “marginal” sounds. Like the people who fell into these categories, the mainstream regarded this type of music as belonging on the outside. However, the independent labels – many of which had originally sprung up during the twenties but fell to the waste side during the depression years – quickly began to recognize a budding interest from youth audiences in this new sound and were able to visualize a cross between the two.
The independent labels of the 1950’s had the creative vision, the necessary foresight, and the gut-instinct to jump in just as things began to gain momentum. With teenagers curiously compelled to partake in the new sound, look, and dance crazes that followed, what became termed “rock ‘n’ roll” quickly took over the airwaves and took on a life of its own.
Today, some 60 years later, we are again verging on a similar situation in terms of the power independent labels and artists have over influencing the sound of popular music. For the past twenty years or so, we have been witnessing the steady decline of the “old music business model.” This of course refers to a business that essentially maintains control over everything from the production and distribution of an artist’s music, to the marketing and promotion of the artist itself. Today, that model no longer exists in the same capacity because the inception and integration of the Internet into every inch of our daily lives is slowly putting the power back where it started, into the hands of independent artists.
Today, as we stand in the midst of yet another generational shift, we can see that independent artists have more power over their craft than ever before. The Internet is the new vehicle of the masses, and indie artists coming up right now have the ability to control almost all traditional facets of the music industry from behind the comfort of their home computer. The game has changed, and while things are still very much in a state of flux, we are absolutely coming up on a new age in popular music.
Part 2:
Part of the downfall of the traditional music business model has been the lack of money fronted by major labels as investments for the development of potential long-term artists. In recent years, we have begun to see the market flooded with disposable pop music that generally targets the tween (9-12) and young teen (13-16) audiences. Due to things like the decline of the CD, labels are no longer making the same kind of money they used to and tend to play it safe by putting their money down on artists that they know will generate a quick return on their buck. Whether that is at the cost of “quality” is a matter of opinion.
What has happened over the past couple of years is that everything has become pop music and pop music has become multi-generational (I.e. both teenagers and their parents are now listening to the Tiao Cruz’s of the world). While this makes for both a strange musical atmosphere and market place, it certainly isn’t the first time in history that pop music has crossed generations this way. The good news is that it tends to eventually generate such an extreme sense of boredom and frustration from the youth generation that it sparks a wild and fiery moment of revolt and release. That is exactly what happened in the 1970’s to eventually
spawn the punk movement.
By the time 1975 hit, the spirit of the 60’s was already over a half-decade-old, and what was left over was merely residue of a former time. Kids growing up in the 70’s – who were to young to participate or be influenced by the hippie movement and the psychedelia of the 1960’s – were still waiting for a sound that was distinctly theirs. Perhaps both the industry and the fans were confused as to where to go next after the 60’s happened, but what came as a result was more and more hokey pop music. As Jon Savage notes in his article “We Have Lift Off,” in the September issue of MOJO Magazine, the pop came tied in with the disco era stuff, and the chart toppers of the time were greatest hits albums from artists who had made their name a decade before. Pop was extremely multi-generational during the early-mid 70’s, and with almost no surviving counter culture or underground movement taking place in the U.S. or U.K. at the time, “real-time teens felt disenfranchised, restless and disengaged.”
It took some time to bubble up from the underground, but tensions finally mounted in ‘76 and the world was slapped in the face with punk rock. Bands like The Ramones out of the New York CBGB scene and The Sex Pistols out of the U.K., epitomized a new generation of disillusioned and pissed off youth, who longed to belong and who were ready to shake things up by making the rock & roll music they wanted to make.
Punk was really the ultimate in DIY expression, and paved the way for countless other independent movements in the years that followed. Fast-forward to today and we are seeing a musical atmosphere strikingly similar to that of the mid 70’s, only this time we are seeing a whole new crop of young Independent musicians rising up and using the Internet as a tool to reclaim rock & roll as their own.
The atmosphere of a digital world is fast paced and oversaturated. Things are naturally here today and gone tomorrow, and that has become the digital life cycle. Being a reflection of the times, pop music has taken over the airwaves in a whole new way. There is an incredible void in rock & roll music right now, and everyone can feel it. But, there will be more rock & roll bands because while a lot of people think Gen Y is a lost generation – and who knows maybe we are – we are also believers with a fire in our bones.
We are a generation yearning for the kind of music that speaks to and for us, and that has the power to move people. We want rock & roll with that barebones essence that creeps up on you, sends chills up your spine, and reminds you that you’re still alive.
Rock & roll has finally come full circle, and we are on the brink of something spectacular here. We have returned to a time where independent artists hold the conch, and that means something. Rock & Roll isn’t dead, this is its second coming, and we are about to see a whole new generation of musicians refocus our attention on the human experience of rock & roll and slap us in the face with the weight of our own emotions.
The Good Stuff What Will Become of Our Grunge Era Obessions?
So a friend of mine recently put me on to this incredible article written by Jon Savage for the September 2011 issue of MOJO Magazine, which is about the history punk rock and what sparked this incredible movement. The article really got me going, and I haven’t had that experience with a piece of music journalism in a while. Figures, with the state of the music industry being what it is right now, and the serious lack of real deal rock & roll bands, today’s musical atmosphere is strangely tense.
While reading through the article I couldn’t help but notice the clear similarities between the musical atmosphere in the early to mid 70’s right before punk broke, and that which we are experiencing today. In both cases pop music is multi-generational and has completely taken over the airwaves.
In the mid 70’s things started to brew when a sub-group of teenagers became obsessed with the mid 60’s sound and the simplicity and directness of the music. Savage notes that it was as if these teens were seeking “a direct link with pop before the hippie explosion.” Fully a wash in pop music and the stale lingering sent of the hippie movement, teens in the 70’s were searching for a sound that was distinctly theirs. They felt as though they had nothing to connect with but they were attracted to the simplicity and directness of the mid 60’s sound. It was overt and sexy in a rough around the edges sort of way, and many teenagers who were to young to connect with the ideals of the hippie movement saw what came before it as real musical gold.
A lot of that simplicity and directness was channeled into what became punk rock. Today we are seeing something similar with Generation Y, as many of us are still very much obsessed with the grunge era bands of the early 90’s. The general feeling I’m getting is that when the musical landscape gets so foggy that the youth generation can’t pin point their own identity, that generation naturally tends to revert their search back to what’s considered the “good stuff” from one-generation prior. (i.e. teens in the mid 70’s looked to the simplicity, directness, and overt sexuality of the mid-60’s, while the current generation maintains a continued interest in the sound of the early 90’s because the general consensus is that grunge was the last time something really big happened in new rock music.
So as we come up upon the twentieth anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” or the PJ20 festivities that just happened this past summer, it makes me wonder, if the youth of the 70’s were compelled to turn their mid-60’s influences into the sound we now know as punk rock, what is this generation going to draw out of our grunge era obsessions?
The stage is already set, and tensions are mounting. The airwaves are once again being flooded with so much pop music that there is barely a dividing line between the music that the youth and their parents are listening to. The heart of rock & roll music is the teenage generation, and history has shown us that you can’t stop an entire generation from believing – that’s a fact. Just like they couldn’t stop the baby boomers from taking back their voice in the 60’s, or the Punks from taking a stand in the 70’s, whatever is bubbling up from the underground right now is about to be something incredible for new rock music.
The Swedish-based Teddybears, who rose from the ashes of Grindcore group Skull, and evolved into a danceable Pop-music trio, have risen to become one of the best bands you’ve never heard of.
Consisting of brothers Joakim and Klas Ċhlund and Patrik Arve, it was with their third album, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (2000), that they first incorporated electronic elements into their music. With tracks like “Yours To Keep” and “Automatic Lover,” they broke the mold of their metal past for good.
“We are doing music that is a blend of what we are currently listening to. It is just a natural evolution that reflects the contents of our vinyl crates,” said the band.
Their name, Teddybears, was selected to be an antithesis to names that littered the Swedish Grindcore scene.
“We made a deal with the devil and it came out in our favour,” the band quips.
Since 2006, audiences have become accustomed to seeing Teddybears in three oversized bear masks. With all the elaborate stage attire, there are pros and cons.
“There are several advantages, using masks. Mainly it’s about looks, if you ever saw one certain Teddymember without the mask (no names mentioned) you would understand what I'm talking about. Another positive thing wearing a mask is that you can have whoever free at the time doing Teddybears work,” the band said.
Typically, the band’s themes in their lyrics are as diverse as their collaborators. From Robyn and drug use, to Ce-Lo Green and the enigma that is women, their music incorporates them all.
“[Our themes revolve around] the guy downstairs, voodoo, how to approach the opposite sex, the meaning of life, how to take care of children, ultra rare space disco, and Werner Herzog,” said the band.
Beyond the release of their latest EP (released this past July), No More Michael Jackson, Teddybears plan to release new material sooner rather than later. “Soon,” says the band, “[our fans] will not be hungry for much longer.”
Teddybears concluded their U.S tour on Sept. 16 in San Francisco.
– Curtis Sindrey
Blink-182: The Art of Disappearing
"This band is about to do something that no other band before it has done for a particular genre of music; defined it, disappeared, and then been in a position to do it all over again."
For many of you out there, this article will be of little immediate interest. But, I can assure you that by the time the last word falls off the tip of your brain you’ll be a convert, or appreciative at the very least. Not of me for pointing out the obvious, but rather of a band that is inconspicuously one of the most important functioning pieces of the history of new music. That band is Blink-182.
Relax, don’t go sounding the alarms just yet. Whether or not you were ever a fan of their music is irrelevant, because what we have here is a band that by virtue of their own “stupidity” has brought into existence a perpetually nourishing relationship with their fans that is unlike anything the rock & roll world has ever seen before.
In their prime, Blink was about embodying the spirit of the teenage experience. They were the musical counterpoint to teen angst, punk rock puppy love, and pop rebellion. For an entire generation of kids, their music put into words all those feelings that we tend to arrive at as we come crashing into life for the first time one summer when were 15.
The thing about Blink was their antics and that’s what drew the kids in. But it was their ability to pin point that feeling of being a recklessly free teenager bobbing along in the middle of a shit storm of hormones and happiness that really made us connect. They stayed long enough to define the pop punk sound, and then they broke up.
In retrospect I think it happened at exactly the right time, in a moment when the fans had hit that age that comes right after bewildering discovery and right before bewildering disappointment. I think they call it “growing up.” But, without even knowing it, the dynamic of the relationship that formed between this band and their fans honestly mirrored the nature of teenage life. The music became the soundtrack to their youth, and that made it possible for them to grow together over time. And that’s the thing about rock & roll music, it’s a social entity – one that both reflects life and simultaneously dictates it.
So, now in 2011 as fans eagerly await the release of a new Blink record, it is this strange and wonderful relationship that is going to make it possible for Blink to step outside the boundaries of their previous existence, and avoid the musical equivalent of typecasting themselves as that same band that began their career telling dick jokes and running around bare-assed wearing nothing but tube socks and converse sneakers.
Never before have we seen a musical relationship of this nature and that is the key component to making this sort of a reinstatement possible for a band at this point in their career. The timing is just right, and it’s a weird thing but like old friends – the kind you can pick up with exactly where you left off no matter what’s happened in between – both the band and the fans seem ready and willing to go all in to let this thing breathe again.
Generally after a band breaks up what people want is a nostalgia act, something to provide a gateway back into their memories of that time. In this case, fans don’t expect the same Blink they connected with when they were 15 because they know they can’t connect with them in the same way anymore. These are not stupid people, even the diehards don’t want to listen to a 35-year-old man sing about fucking pirates and how he’ll never talk to you again unless your mom will touch his cock. But, maybe that’s a testament to the outlook of Blink fans and to this generation in general because while we will always want to hear the classics, we’re not looking to recover a connection with a time already past, what we want now is to connect with this band on a whole new level.
When Blink announced that they were getting back together the first thing they did was go on tour. They didn’t jump right into making another record because they recognized the necessity in going out on the road and learning how to play as a unit again. Being in a rock & roll band is about finding and forging an honest connection with both the music and with the people who experience it. Blink hadn’t been a functioning unit for 5 years by the time they got back together, so releasing a record right out of the gate wouldn’t have been anything real. The fact that this band was asked to headline the 2010 Reading & Leeds Festivals in the UK and that they made a conscious decision to bring their separate experiences to the table, get their feet wet by reconnecting with the fans and figuring out how to make it work again before they ever recorded a single note, says two things; the first is that this band has grown just as much as the fans have and the second is that I’m not the only one who can see that rock & roll is on the cusp of discovering something spectacular in Blink-182.
I think that in the beginning there were a lot of people who didn’t want to take Blink seriously as a rock band but then didn’t some skinny, old, English guy say, “you can’t always get what you want.” The crux of rock & roll music is the teenage generation and that’s what makes the Blink story such an incredible one. Prior to this moment in time, there has never been another rock & roll band whose entire existence has been so literally tangled with the lives of their fans. This is a social fucking phenomenon we’re talking about here, a true example of art imitating life and life imitating art. I mean the relationship between this band and their fans is made of something completely honest, and when do we as human beings feel more honestly than in our youths? This band is about to do something that no other band before it has done for a particular genre of music; defined it, disappeared, and then been in a position to do it all over again.
Raising the Barr, An Interview with Brad Barr of The Barr Brothers
Montreal-based band The Barr Brothers have been getting a lot of attention thanks to their hit first single, “Beggars In the Morning” and have already been hailed “one of the best live acts in Montreal.”
Made up of brothers Brad and Andrew Barr, with Miles Perkin on bass, Sarah Pagé on harp, and multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial, the band is set to re-release their debut album, The Barr Brothers, on the well-respected Montreal record label Secret City Records.
“From the moment we finished [the record] we knew we wanted to work with Secret City,” says lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist Brad Barr during a phone interview, a day before his band would be opening for another successful Montreal act, Karkwa, in Toronto.
Moving to Montreal from Rhode Island in 2005 proved to be “a welcoming change” for the brothers. “My brother [Andrew] met his wife when we were gigging up there [Montreal]. He moved there to be with her and I moved there to be with him and also to be with this city that I saw so much potential in,” says Barr.
Recorded in a boiler room and pairing musical-stylings with intricate songwriting, The Barr Brothers’ record is filled with a warmth that’s certainly appealing. “We just happened to find this room in Montreal. To say boiler room would be giving it way to much credit. It was a dungeon,” Barr describes.
Although recording in a transformed “dungeon” isn’t the typical way to make a record, Barr explains, “We were in no position to go into a recording studio or anything. We didn’t even think we were making a record. We just wanted to have a place where we could experiment and kind of learn.”
“It [the boiler room] also had a lot of creaks and noises that a lot of recording studios try to shut and block out and we just let it come in, letting our space show up on the record a bit,” continues Barr.
With songs ranging from quiet, acoustic tracks to heavier, retro-Blues songs, The Barr Brothers is a diverse recording.
“We weren’t considering these diverging styles and how they would be paired side by side on the same record. It’s also owed a lot to the fact that the record took three years for us to make, so because of that, a lot of songs come from different places,” Barr says about the varying styles found on the disc.
Although there are different music styles on the album, the songs are still able to flow together with ease. “It made sense that they could live together because they are all coming from a personal place,” explains Barr.
Despite fall tour dates opening for such big indie acts as Patrick Watson, Timber Timbre, and Karkwa, Barr says with ease how comfortable he is on stage, “Before I knew how to make records I knew that you had to give it your all in a show.”
“We’ve known these guys and these bands, we’re all really close. In the last six years, these guys have become some of my closest friends and all of them are such great musicians and songwriters,” he adds.
Finally, when asked what the band is hoping to take away from going on tour with such great acts, Barr laughs and says, “Some of their fans!”
The Barr Brothers will be released September 27 and will be having two album release shows, one in Toronto, on October 12, and one in Montreal, October 18.
Two Titles, No Boundaries An interview with Ursula 1000
“DJ.”
“Producer.”
The very first thing that comes to mind when I hear these titles is the image of someone who has a huge mental, and without a doubt, physical, music collection – and that’s being said of those titles on their own.
“Totally,” Alex Gimeno says laughing at the thought of his own musical library, “In my case totally.”
Fuse those titles together and you’re left to only imagine the mass amount of music that occupies the mind of DJ/Producer, Alex Gimeno – the man behind the sounds of his musical entity, Ursula 1000.
Gimeno recently released his album, Mondo Beyondo, which nonchalantly bounces, dives and skims from genre to genre, producing a dynamic project that is really easy to take in and have fun with.
“I love connecting the dots,” Alex says excitedly. “I can see influences from Chuck Berry to punk rock so you know, it’s fun to connect those dots and see what influenced what and what inspired what. And then it’s even more fun to make crazy experiments where you’ll mix things that people would not normally think go together like, ‘well wow, can Surf Rock and Electro breaks be in the same room together?’”
“My first couple of records had a very ‘60s kind of sound,” Alex explains about his earlier releases, “a ‘60s sound mixed with modern beats and stuff and you know, since I tour as a DJ, I have this kind of dual-life where I’m a studio musician doing my own original music but then I tour as DJ playing clubs and playing much more banging sets,” he laughs.
“Of Course I Still Love Electro and Hip Hop”
Incorporating elements from his DJ life, Alex explains that his third and fourth albums had more of a club influence where with Mondo Beyondo he went back to his original inspirations.
“I think with this new one, not that I’m going back to the beginning, but I just went back to some of my roots and to some of the stuff that inspires me and not so much the kind of stuff that I DJ. More of the stuff I listen to at home and the stuff that inspired me to produce music from the get go. That’s a lot of retro kind of stuff like ‘60s Garage Rock and soundtrack kind of instrumental music also from ‘60s and ‘70s – Psychedelic kind of music. And of course I still love Electro and Hip Hop, so those elements are still in there, but I think a lot of the roots is kind of going back to more of my original kind of retro sound.”
Alex had originally begun collecting music and DJing, and though it’s not uncommon for DJ’s to get their hands into production at some point within their work, the reason why Gimeno took his step into the arena is pretty inspiring.
“I think what happened was – and this is when I was living in Miami at the time – I was doing a party in Miami that was very much this kind of vibe – it was groovy, kinda James Bond kind of stuff and almost like Austin Powers-y, it had that kind of vibe. At the same time, I was DJing drum and bass and completely cutting edge-brand new Electronic music that was happening. I started hearing some artists, some Japanese artists like this band called Pizzicato Five who were starting to blend a little bit of the old, and some of the new. And there was this guy in France, Dimitri From Paris, he was doing that kind of stuff too. I was just noticing that I wanted to hear more and more of this kind of sound, but no one in the US was producing anything like this. After going to the record store back in the day and looking for this kind of sound I was like, ‘Man, I should just start doing this myself.’ And I started experimenting with some demos and some sounds. I had played drums and guitar and stuff like that in the past, so I started fooling around with drum machines and samplers, and eventually started creating a sound that became my sound now.”
It’s great when you hear of individuals who after realizing there’s a lack of something in their environment, whether it be a product, a type of service or in this case, a certain type music, they take matters into their own hands and work to bring it to life.
Along with his own masterpieces, Gimeno has also produced for others. Though mainly remixes, he does plan on doing more work with full production pieces for other artists.
“Well I’ve done remixes for other people. I produced for one other girl on the Record, Natalia Cravelier, she also sings for Thievery Corporation – the guys that run the label that I’m on. And I produced an EP for her earlier this year. Remixes are a little bit like that, but you’re still kind of doing your version of somebodies existing song. I think when you’re producing for somebody, there’s more of a collaboration… I think that could be interesting.”
If you’ve ever heard Gimeno’s music, there’s probably a point when you wonder how he even began to piece the sounds he creates together.
“Gosh, it can go really anywhere,” he says trying to explain the process. “It could go from some weird kind of title that I wrote down on my phone, and then I kind of build off just words. Sometimes it’ll be something where I’ll be going through some phase of listening to something, and like you were saying before, I have this constant, crazy library in my head also, there’s always sounds floating in there.”
He continues, “A lot of times it’s just things kind of being slapped on top of each other. I’ll be thinking, ‘Hmm, I wonder how this would sound with this kind of a thing laying under it or on top of it.’ Everything was performed on the record, but it was made to sound like it was sampled or taken from an old existing record.”
“More Introspective and Experimental”
Out of all the styles he dabbles in, Gimeno explains that his favorite period of music was the late ‘60s.
“1966 to 1968 or something, if you wanna be specific,” he says laughing. “I think at that time there seemed to be a lot of change happening politically. A lot of psychedelics were happening at the time, both here in the U.S and in England. I think music was getting very experimental and bands were starting to use the studio as an instrument. Obviously you see that with The Beatles with Revolver and Sgt. Pepper and all that kind of stuff. Before that bands were very much like ‘We’re a band, and then we’re going to go on tour and play live and that’s going to be our thing.’ I think now they’re starting to get a little more introspective and experimental. I look at that era for inspiration, I always gravitate towards that.”
With the seasons changing and the days of fall and winter close upon us, Gimeno has a few things planned for listeners around the world, including for us here in Canada.
“Well I’m doing some touring here in the states and in Europe,” he explains.“It’s not like one big tour per say. One weekend I’ll be in Germany, and the next week I’ll be in Texas…” he explains as we laugh at the contrast of the locations. “That’s happening and one thing that I’m trying to experiment with, something I’ve wanted to do for a while, is trying to do a live version of the Ursula 1000 thing. The pieces of the puzzle are finally starting to kinda come into play, so I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, but it might be sometime by the end of this year – a beta version of this thing,” he says laughing, “I think that would be fun.”
Alex has creatively built a solid library of his sound throughout the years but regardless of what your journey may be about, you can’t build without learning a few things in the process. For Alex, he’s come to recognize the change in people’s acceptance for different music styles, especially when they’re all blended together.
“There’s so much that’s happening now” he says, “especially with the web and just people’s attention spans being shorter now. But they’re also taking in so much information that for artists like me, working with throwing a lot in the record, people are kind of more along for the ride now. Back say ten, fifteen years ago if you did a record that was super eclectic where one track was very booty bass, and another track was kind of a spaghetti-western soundtrack,” he says laughing, “then, I don’t think people would’ve been able to process it. But now it’s gotten to a point where you really can throw people a lot of information. For me it’s great because I love playing with different genre’s and sounds.”
We most definitely have reached a point where people are more accepting of sounds that are different, that are blended, patched and melded together and that don’t necessarily maintain a consistent hold on a genre. So what better time than now to get familiar with the various sounds of Alex Gimeno – whether it be through his production or DJ performances. Happy listening!
– Xolisa Jerome
Mad June Not Another Girl Band
When Montreal-based quartet Mad June formed in 2005, three best friends came together with the ultimate goal of playing music and writing songs they loved.
“I know bands say that all the time but I’ve been in other bands where the ultimate goal was success, but this band’s goal is to simply play music and write songs that we love,” said Vanessa McLean, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Mad June.
Their debut album, We’re Not Strangers, was released on Oct. 26, 2009, with their first single following in May 2011 called “November 2011.”
“It was the lowest high budget we could manage. [Laughs] It was the highest quality with the lowest budget. For us at the time, it wasn’t a demo because our point was to put out a debut album but looking back we call it a demo because we’re at a different place in our recording career,” said McLean.
The band is currently writing their second album in Montreal with producer Jeff Dalziel.
“With our producer, he is pushing us to become better songwriters. It’s like a writing boot camp where he gets together a number of different songwriters and we’re locked in a room for hours and hammer out songs to get out of that comfort zone where you’re always writing with the same people,” said McLean.
In many of the songs from We’re Not Strangers, like “Corporate Convict,” which condemns modern corporations, the band takes a defiant stance on pressing issues. But there's a fine line they try not to cross when writing lyrics.
“We try not to impose our ideas or values on our fans. Even though, like corporations, what inspired us was the documentary The Corporation, but our lyrics are exposing reality but it’s not dictating how the listener should react to it, they can make their own opinions,” said Pascale St-Onge, bassist for Mad June.
However, the band is aware of the effect their strong lyrical voice may have on listeners.
“Music should be honest. But it can become a double-edged sword because if you begin to criticize people for not having the same beliefs, [it’s like] you’re saying your opinion is right and theirs isn’t,” added McLean.
Let’s face it; all-women bands aren’t the newest thing in music. But there is unfortunately still a stigma that they can’t sing or play as well as bands with men. But without looking at a publicity shot or seeing them live, does music really have a gender?
“We didn’t start this band because we’re all women, but because we’re all friends. When you listen to music and you haven’t seen the faces of the musicians, I don’t know if music has a gender. Can you really tell if it’s an all-girl band just by listening to the music?” asked St-Onge.
In the case of Mad June, the stigma takes a back seat to a mutual respect between musicians.
“It has never been that big of a deal. Most people have always treated us with respect and haven’t treated us any differently because we’re an all-girl band. I wouldn’t mind being called an all-girl band but I don’t know what that is, like I don’t know what we’re supposed to sound like. I don’t know what would be expected of us if we were an ‘all-girl band’,” said McLean.
Before Mad June was founded, McLean was a solo musician playing acoustic guitar with a backing band. She was hesitant to be a bandleader, preferring a democratic approach to making music.
“I started out by playing Folk/Rock music and [Mad June] was an unusual transition for me because I already had some songs written. And with the three musicians I was playing with before, I didn’t want to be a bandleader and tell them what to do, but because we started Mad June together, we were on the same level. We only used one of my old songs. All of the other songs we wrote were completely together and because we built up those songs as a band, that was a whole different experience because there wasn’t a need to have a bandleader because it wasn’t ‘mine’, it was ‘ours’,” said McLean.
Mad June started as three women wanting to write and perform the best songs they could. With the addition of their current drummer Lydia (Champagne), they felt it was a natural fit because of their strong friendship with her prior to her permanent role in the band.
“When the band started there were only three of us, we had two guitarists, bass, vocals and a drum machine [Laughs]. I played with Lydia on several different projects before and when we started the band we wanted Lydia to be our drummer but she was just getting out of school. But when our temporary drummer left, we again asked Lydia to join us. It was a very natural transition,” said McLean.
Mad June will be performing at Cherry Cola's Rock N' Rolla Cabaret Lounge as part of Indie Week Toronto 2011 in October.
This Lady’s No Tramp,
Sharon Van Etten started her musical journey alone, writing sparse, minimalist music. Since then, she has added a band and has opened her mind to transforming her style into something more. “I never want to record the same record,” she said, “I want to push myself every time.” Sharon has done just that with Tramp. Her admirable attitude towards growing as a musician and taking the time to learn new things is very encouraging, and the type of thing I love to see in musicians. While she has maintained the idiosyncrasies that make her an adored artist, she has opened up her style to allow more methods of expression to enter her music. Her music is evolving naturally in a way that further compliments her style. “I never thought I would have a string or a horn section,” she said, “and I didn’t know you could do it in a way that was subtle.” Although there are new textures to her music, Sharon’s voice still highlights the songs. Her voice still carries the weight of her emotions in that remarkably somber but beautifully way, to the point where she sounds like an angel with a broken wing. But now with the focus on altering the music, her music now has much colour and depth to it – and I assure fans of Sharon Van Etten that the alteration is good. I can emphatically declare that it’s not over-bearing and it doesn’t transform Sharon’s music into something it is not. It’s subtle. It’s robust. It’s elegant. It’s typical Sharon Van Etten.
Mark Sasso says “Hi”
“I have no idea. Literally. I have no idea. It’s hard. How do you quantify why people like you? We like our music and we enjoy putting it out, but there’s a lot of bands that I really like, that I think should be touring all over the world and they’re not. We bring them on tour with us and try to get them out, I don’t know. Why does one band kind of click with people while the other doesn’t… I have no real clue. There’s a lot of bands out there where I think ‘these guys should be huge,’ and they’re not. They’re struggling and they’re trying to make it. And that doesn’t take anything away from their ability to play music and to play great music. I guess its timing and people that hear you. The right people.”
Making Mothers Smile,
ot long after the band was formed, they started work on their first album, Double Negatives. “The record was successful, because it was loud and aggressive and still accessible,” Arthurs says, “and unlike other bands around at that time, me and Anthony can actually play our instruments well since we started listening to Prog Rock and Led Zeppelin.” They had a clear idea how to make music and deciding to do nosier, more avant-garde stuff worked well for them. “You see, in Toronto, and I guess everywhere else in general, people like to ‘be in a band’,” Price joins, “Unfortunately these days, you can get away with ‘being in a band’ by wearing vintage sweaters and making music that sounds like Ian Curtis moaning into a can. Everyone is extremely concerned with being anything but "normal". Why? Why is that okay? It shouldn’t be. I'm not saying we are far beyond everyone. I’m just saying that we think about life differently. There are many many bands that may be better live than us at this point. But you can practice and get better, but you can never stop being a wanker.”
Many times people have said that music back in the ‘60s was better; the ‘60s with their Jimmy Hendrix, Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane. “The absolute worst shit, is the throwback shit,” Anthony says about music today, “Why would you want to sound like 1966? Wait. Let me correct that. Why would you want to sound like a band no one cared about from 1966? Back then everyone wanted to sound like the future and wanted to be BIG, like the Beatles, they had ambition. So, now people are doing the opposite? Why?” At this point I could not stop myself from asking the question which everyone who had listened to The Paisley Orchard would want to ask. 
Spill: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters received such great acclaim from critics and widespread buzz from fans. In fact, “Cold Days from the Birdhouse” provided the soundtrack to my own 2007. Was there ever a moment of panic when you thought “My god I have to do this all over again?”
never write a song because we have too, we only write songs when we have something to write about. 
The Tip of the Iceberg
LET ROCK ‘N’ ROLL DIE
Rock ‘n’ Roll, in whatever form we find it, is a genre bent on shaking things up. In its birth Rock ‘n’ Roll changed what music was.
Sometimes Rock ‘n’ Roll takes a while to keel over. For every Chuck Berry there’s a Paul Anka. For every Joe Strummer; Whitesnake. Talking Heads; Journey. You get the picture. The problem really isn’t Rock ‘n’ Roll dying. Rock ‘n’ Roll shakes things up, survival is contrary to what makes it so dear to us. 
Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Blank Generation (1977)
Elvis Costello & the Attractions – My Aim is True (1977)
Television – Marquee Moon (1977)
The Replacements – Tim (1985)
The Dresden Dolls – Yes, Virginia (2006)
Getting past the Dead Ends,
DRAKE: 
Morning Comes For 
“I’d never written lyrics so consistently about one theme before,” says Petti about the somewhat morose subject matter in Morning Comes. “We had a lot of songs which is why we were thinking we wanted to do some sort of double record. We decided to select the songs that all had the same theme and vibe to it so it could lead into the next record.”
A Closer Look at 
Legit Sampling?
Visual artist Kate Cox finds old paintings at yard sales, paints little cartoon images overtop, completely changing the context of a painting with the power of suggestion. It’s a brilliant idea, and if you can do that with paint, why not music?
An Interview with 
the video, the band plays atop a cliff overlooking the sea singing, “She’ll call oh oh oh, She’ll call oh, she’ll call,” along with 50 people behind them. The video ends with the band chanting the same lyrics in a crowded living room with a group of friends surrounding them. Inherent in these cherished moments are all the idiosyncrasies that make Hey Rosetta! a beloved band.
Letting Things Go,
Quantic Perceptions,
“Six projects I’m not currently involved in, but have been involved in – not sure if I could do that all at the same time,” he clarifies laughing. “The first thing to come out was Quantic, my first record for Breaking Bread records, it was a 45 and that was the first Quantic release. After that I had a DJ who was one of my best friends, Russell Porter, and we formed the Limp Twins together. It’s a duo, we only made one record. We haven’t made one since,” he says laughing, “but somehow that stuck. Then after a while, I started getting involved with Funk and Soul and got really interested in breaks and sounds of ‘60s Soul and Funk kind of things,” he continues. “So I started with the Quantic Soul Orchestra and started playing shows with that band, and it was that sort of sound, and we did like four records and when I moved to Colombia, the last record, Tropidelico, kind of became the Combo Bárbaro, which is the project I started doing recently in Colombia, which is more like a strong Funk-Soul element, but has also a Cumbia, Salsa element.”
g Tubby from Jamaica… yeah.”
“Long Road Ahead” – Quantic (5th Exotic)
“Sunday Driver” – The Limp Twins (Tales From Beyond the Groove) 
Gryner admits the label hasn’t really evolved over the years since its founding, and that it’s merely a stepping stone for up-and-coming artists.
What’s Old Is New Again,
Osbourne acknowledges the inevitability of music pirating and with that, the paycheck not being what it used to be. “You look at the fact that major record companies, especially in Canada, have all died, so the income from records isn’t what it used to be as say in the early to mid-nineties,” said Osbourne. “It’s just part of reality now, you don’t need to buy a record,” he said.
The second showcase by The New Noise Live will be taking place this Thursday, October 13, 2011 at The Garrison. The double-headline show will be featuring Volcano Playground and Mausoleum, with guests Ostrich Tuning.
Elaschuk (guitarist/multi-instrumentalist) and Rich Forbes (vocalist/bassist), who started Mausoleum – a name they came up with while thinking of places where the ultra rich and powerful were buried, ie: pyramids, secret caves...
somewhere else. To a place where ‘70s New York meets ‘80s Manchester, where New Wave mixes with post-Punk – and the result is a sound that’s brand new.
Hosting many DIY shows, they emphasize what they like about putting together their own events. They get to involve bands they like and can keep the cover charges low. They also help create a community of like-minded musicians, a community that will only get stronger as their sounds mature. 
Now with over 30 songs, the four-piece is looking forward to as many releases as they can get out, continuously making cassettes for EP releases, they will be pressing vinyl for their LP, out in the New Year.
hand selected incredible new talent, is creating a community of musicians and is giving them a platform for growth… and it’s only $6.
Bruce Peninsula,
Rock & Roll’s 
At the time, tensions surrounding racial awareness in America were at an all time high. Rhythm and blues, which was typically regarded as being black music, and country and western music, which was typically regarded as being lower class white, were still considered “marginal” sounds. Like the people who fell into these categories, the mainstream regarded this type of music as belonging on the outside. However, the independent labels – many of which had originally sprung up during the twenties but fell to the waste side during the depression years – quickly began to recognize a budding interest from youth audiences in this new sound and were able to visualize a cross between the two.
The independent labels of the 1950’s had the creative vision, the necessary foresight, and the gut-instinct to jump in just as things began to gain momentum. With teenagers curiously compelled to partake in the new sound, look, and dance crazes that followed, what became termed “rock ‘n’ roll” quickly took over the airwaves and took on a life of its own.
Part of the downfall of the traditional music business model has been the lack of money fronted by major labels as investments for the development of potential long-term artists. In recent years, we have begun to see the market flooded with disposable pop music that generally targets the tween (9-12) and young teen (13-16) audiences. Due to things like the decline of the CD, labels are no longer making the same kind of money they used to and tend to play it safe by putting their money down on artists that they know will generate a quick return on their buck. Whether that is at the cost of “quality” is a matter of opinion.
It took some time to bubble up from the underground, but tensions finally mounted in ‘76 and the world was slapped in the face with punk rock. Bands like The Ramones out of the New York CBGB scene and The Sex Pistols out of the U.K., epitomized a new generation of disillusioned and pissed off youth, who longed to belong and who were ready to shake things up by making the rock & roll music they wanted to make.
The Good Stuff
So as we come up upon the twentieth anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” or the PJ20 festivities that just happened this past summer, it makes me wonder, if the youth of the 70’s were compelled to turn their mid-60’s influences into the sound we now know as punk rock, what is this generation going to draw out of our grunge era obsessions?
“There are several advantages, using masks. Mainly it’s about looks, if you ever saw one certain Teddymember without the mask (no names mentioned) you would understand what I'm talking about. Another positive thing wearing a mask is that you can have whoever free at the time doing Teddybears work,” the band said. 
opposite sex, the meaning of life, how to take care of children, ultra rare space disco, and Werner Herzog,” said the band.
Blink-182: 
“We’ve known these guys and these bands, we’re all really close. In the last six years, these guys have become some of my closest friends and all of them are such great musicians and songwriters,” he adds.
Two Titles, No Boundaries
Mad June 
“It was the lowest high budget we could manage. [Laughs] It was the highest quality with the lowest budget. For us at the time, it wasn’t a demo because our point was to put out a debut album but looking back we call it a demo because we’re at a different place in our recording career,” said McLean.
comfort zone where you’re always writing with the same people,” said McLean.