Cass McCombs – Humor Risk

Known for taking anarchy to his own terms, Cass McCombs’ newest album Humor Risk is the storytelling after the storm. His lyrically driven style ascends with an airy, streamlined musicality to reveal the artist in a state of well-found retrospect. In comparison to McCombs earlier 2011 release, Wit’s End, the album takes a rosier disposition: the dusty strums of “Robin Egg Blue” or the moveable rhythms in “The Same Thing”. Slow haunts of tracks like “Every Man His Chimera” and “Mariah” provide a detached dose of tragic narrative. A collection of songs that, perhaps, takes McCombs to a more mainstream terrain, Humor Risk is an honest rendering by a voice comparable to some of music history’s best storytellers.

- Laura Phillips

Devon Williams – Euphoria

Devon Williams couldn’t have titled his latest full length with any more accuracy. From the first track “Revelations”, the listener is immediately swept into a world where raindrops are glockenspiel notes and the rainbows that follow sweep overhead with three part string sections. Devon Williams has been receiving that blessed kiss of approval from not only critics, but several noteworthy artists. If your name is on the lips of fans, critics, and fellow musicians, you’d better pucker up and be prepared to get mono.

- Trevor Risk

Justice – Audio, Video, Disco

In a recent interview Xavier de Rosnay stated “We don’t feel like we are making rock and roll anyway, or what rock and roll is in 2011.” Hey guys, have you listened to your record?  The song “Canon” is essentially classic metal riffs smothered in every electronic gadget they have collected over the last eight years.  It was like they were crushing beers listening to Maiden as they were writing the ascending, epic, and triumphant scales.  A cameo by a nutless Deaner of Fubar would have been the perfect soprano vocal topper. The majority of the record is filler that sounds like a “no guts no glory” movie score with a couple killer harmonies. I think Justice has insane talent when it comes to re-mixing and may just be one of the best of this decade. That said, this record comes off like it was created to prove that these two can make their own music rather than just supe up tracks by other artists. The problem with that is there are teenagers logging twelve hour days in front of their Macs, using every plug-in they could hack to create music of the same caliber.

- Adrienne Pady

Shiny Disco Club – Millenium Disco Vol. 2

It’s pretty cool when you can refer to a record label in the same way you anticipate a release from your favorite band. I was expecting Shiny Disco Club’s Millenium Disco Vol. 1 to be a one-off but jumped at the news of Vol. 2. This compilation gleams with artists like nu-disco wonder-kid Louis La Roche, Go Go Bizkitt, and Kartell. La Roche’s “Fake Tan” splashes into a bright guitar, rolling bass, and congas that tease you to throw a beach party in the middle of autumn. Cherokee’s “Do It Again” laces a wicked horn section and a clever vocal sample sent with a kick drum through your chest. Shiny Disco Club compiles the best of soul, disco, funk, and house and if you tried to make it any shinier, you’d burn your retinas out and set your iPod and ears on fire.

- Phil David

MACHO MEN

NewVillager is reaching to blend their brand from the pop world into the art world and back again.

Historically, this rarely sits well with music critics, and is ignored by art critics. Tell this to NewVillager and they’ll ignore you; not because they’re deflecting criticism, but because they’re too busy sitting under their emblematic wigwam, plotting their next extravagant display. As evidenced by seeing fans in homemade t-shirts while the band is on tour supporting Metronomy, NewVillager mean a tonne to the special few, and in the end isn’t cult status more satisfying than fame?

What’s NewVillager’s relationship between digital and analog sounds?

Ross Simonini: We love what happens when acoustic sounds and digital sounds are married. If you take, say, an electronic kick and fuse it with a real kick, or an orchestral tom, you can get that isolated power of digital while getting the nice inconsistencies of acoustic. A digital snare repeated over and over can be good sometimes, but other times, the repetitive quality can make the ear get a tired, whereas, with an acoustic snare, every hit is just a little different – different force, angle, etc. – so the ear hears something subtly different each time.

We do this combo live and on recordings. We try to maintain a balance all the time. Live, Collin (our drummer) pretty much always hits a real drum with a sample. It’s funny, people consider acoustic sounds to be more ‘human,’ but really, cats can walk on pianos, wind can blow through chimes, so it’s digital sounds, with all the complexities behind their creation that are the most human. Humans are the only ones who’d ever think of making those sounds.

Is there a certain mythological or spiritual element to your music?

‘Mythological,’ yes. We have read about mythologies throughout history and tried to model a lot of our ideas and structures around them. We think of  the word ‘mythology’ like the word ‘art’ as a fundamental undercurrent in everything we make. Mythology is one of the most international, commonplace methods of communication on earth, so it just seemed to go hand in hand with pop music, which is all about mass communication. It’s not about self-expression, it’s more about trying to get at the basic human ideas.

‘Spiritual,’ on the other hand, is a word I don’t fully understand. I mean, I understand all its uses and I know the words that generally surround that word, but I’m not sure what it really means. I’ve always thought that ‘spiritual’ was a bit of a negative word, in the sense that it only points to the things that it’s not. It’s not physical. It’s not scientific. It’s not anything, really.

It points away, not toward. It’s the ‘other.’ All religions and new-age ideas all fall under the spirituality umbrella, because they all try to convey something ineffable. It’s something that needs to be conveyed, but, to me that word ‘spirituality’ has always felt like a reductive way for describing the least reductive aspects of human experience.

Your website has photos of what looks like Inuksuks that you put up around the country in places like hotel lobbies. What do they signify?

Through all our installations and shows, and studio time, we’ve built up a collection of materials. As much as possible, we bring them with us on tour, usually in a big bin. We make different things with them every day -  on stage, in hotels, in galleries, in fields, on the side of the road. At shows, sometimes we have a fourth member, Eric Lister, who uses them as a sort of ritual garb and moves around the room with them. Sometimes it’s more of an installation. Sometimes we throw them into the audience. Whenever we use them, we’re always trying to express some aspect of the mythology. There are different postures and shapes for different stages in the mythology.

Part of your tour merchandise is a series of symbols on separate buttons. What do they each signify?

Each one is a stage in the mythology. There are ten of them. Ten songs. Ten roles. Ten rooms.

You recently holed up in an art gallery in Los Angeles for an installation entitled Temporary Culture. What is Temporary Culture and how was it performed?

Temporary Culture was a 10 day installation in the Human Resources Gallery. We built a shanty town with materials we gathered from the area and we brought 10 artists to live and sleep in the space. The idea was to get at that word ‘culture.’ Mythologies come out of culture. Get a bunch of people together, set up a township, and mythologies just start to emerge. We had a radio station. We built beds. We held parties. Different musicians performed every night, and we performed on the final night, tearing the whole thing down during the final song of our set.

When NewVillager performs, there is no backing tracks or canned samples. Is it important to you to perform every sound and percussive stroke when in front of an audience?

This comes back to the digital/analog ideas. If we’re using a sample or digital sound, we like to infuse that sound with a more organic performance, both on recordings and live. So we play all digital sounds or samples. We like people to be able to see a movement – a drum hit, a key stroke – for every sound they hear.

There are two distinct voices on your songs; one falsetto and one deep and earthy. What does this create for your listener or for NewVillager?

Partly, it’s just the way that we sing. But that low/high duality is definitely something we thought about. We recorded the album as a duo and that sort of binary talk (low/high, analog/digital, etc) was pretty essential to us in the writing process. Ben has a natural falsetto and I naturally sing a little deeper. But we also both switch it up. Ben goes low. I go high. On the record we came up with a full cast of voices that we’d use. They all connected to the mythos. Different ones expressed different ideas about masculinity or femininity or neutrality, just like the symbols and roles do.

NewVillager is not only a musical endeavor, but also a feast for the eyes. Artists like Leonard Cohen have blended visual art with words and music before, but do you find it any more difficult to appeal on such a prolific output? Is the most difficult aspect the time it requires, the vision, dealing with crossover critics, or is it natural?

On the one hand, It’s pretty natural. We started blending all the art and music because that’s what naturally happened when we wrote music. We drew and talked about videos. We imagined fictional people singing the songs, like Bob Dylan or Tom Waits does. We thought about the lyrics as something other than personal emoting, as a way of telling timeless stories. So the creative side was all pretty obvious for us.

The other side of things – the press, etc. – can get more complicated. We talk a lot about ideas and history, and while art critics are pretty interested in that, some rock critics can be allergic to this sort of discursive thinking. ‘Pretentious’ is a word that I don’t think art critics would ever use.

They like work that tries to go deep with concept, or work that pushes against boundaries, and I think, if anything, shallowness would be a more common criticism in the art world. But pop music has a history of being more intuitive and from-the-gut, so, if an artist has interest in bigger ideas, that word ‘pretentious’ gets whipped out pretty quickly. It’s good, though. Checks and balances are always needed.

But ultimately, we like art and ideas, and we also like big candy-coated pop music with simple chord progressions. Maybe it’s a contradiction, but it’s just the way we are. I know there are other people who feel the same way, but for those that don’t, maybe they can still enjoy one aspect of what we’re doing. Ultimately, I hope the songs stand on their own as good songs.

Do people find your music surprising (or surprisingly catchy) when they’ve read about you before they’ve heard you?

When people hear about the ideas first, they tend to think we’re some wildly experimental sounding noise group. Or black metal. These sorts of genres have been linked to ideas and art-making. But we really like the way pop music and mythology seems to have a tension. In some ways they don’t go together at all. But, like I was saying above, they do go together in other ways. In my mind, I still can’t imagine any more mythological artists than Michael Jackson or The Beatles. In a weird way, they occupy the same spot in my brain as Robin Hood and Kali.

Just listening to NewVillager’s songs make a listener feel like you are very collaborative people. How does collaboration affect your art?

Almost everything we do is collaborative. Initially, there were just two of us, so trying to do anything on our own was pretty difficult. Our shows used to involve using all four limbs simultaneously. It was too much. So we’ve added a drummer and brought on a fourth member to help with art. In order to make the videos and installations and such we’ve needed to bring people into what we’re doing and let them get deeply involved.

The mythology has been a useful tool for that. It allows everyone to get on the same page and to go deep into ideas, to get specific, very quickly. A lot of the basic structure and context is already laid out in the mythos, so a director or a costume designer can get creative quickly. It’s the same with live shows. If we just provide the right scenario, people get involved in all sorts of ways. Recently, audiences have jumped on stage, worn our mask, swiped gloves from the stage, and interacted with our human sculpture in ways we never expected.

Words: Trevor Risk  Photography: Owen Ellis

TENNESSEE ROSE

When you’re a touring musician, you have to accept that some nights are going to be worse than others. Such was the case for Caitlin Rose and her band when they showed up in Vancouver on Oct. 8 on tour with Americana icon, Justin Townes Earle, at the Rio Theatre.

Visibly worn from travelling, Rose is makeup-less, donning a pair of blue jeans and some tattered TOMS shoes. She speaks in a soft, low voice and her big eyes seem as though they’re about to fill up with tears at any moment. Leaving behind a pedal-steel guitarist at the border, the southern belle has been in the country for just a few hours and already “The Great White North” hasn’t been great to her.

The petite songstress is answering to an angered show-promoter, her band, and a crew of ION magazine staff demanding of her time, as she frenziedly runs around the Broadway Street theatre.

“We’re kind of haphazard and stressed right now,” Rose says. “It’s a visa thing. He probably could have gotten in but it was just the risk of having someone be deported in the middle of a tour run. I think he was stressed, and I don’t want anyone to be stressed.”

A tall, lanky, gristly man firmly tells her she has less than 20 minutes to interview and photo-shoot before soundcheck, and he’s already pissed that one-fifth of the band is missing. Rose couldn’t be more gracious about the immediate stress of the situation, but the tension is exhausting. And it’s wearing on her.

“I’ve been travelling for two years now. We signed a deal with Names a while ago, and then I started going over there a lot,” she says of the European record label. “Then I think the record got released here in September, and now there’s a re-release so we’re doing a couple more tours on that and then we’re chilling for a minute.”

While Rose might seem overwhelmed and as if she’s about to break into almost-certain tears, she maintains that touring is second-nature to her.

“The only overwhelming part is watching two years of your life go by and not really remembering where you were,” she says in her lilting southern accent. “I don’t feel overwhelmed. When you’re on the move, you’re on the move and when you’re home you just have to take it for what it is.”

Like all things music, she seems to come by it naturally. Being the offspring of country singer-songwriter Liz Rose—whose writing can be credited to penning several of country-pop star Taylor Swift’s songs—and Johnny B Rose, VP for sales and Marketing at Capitol Records Nashville, it seems Rose was born into talent.

But she doesn’t quite see it that way.

“My parents work in the mainstream, Nashville Music Row kind of field,” she says, rejecting any idea that her success in part to them. “I would say I avoided country music until I was about 17. It’s a newer thing for me.”

Her initial musical induction was singing and writing in the Nashville indie band Save Macaulay—often mislabelled as a punk band. The misinformed idea that she was in a “punk band” makes the country starlet chuckle.

“It wasn’t a real punk band,” Rose interjects, laughing. “We just called it a punk band so we could open for other punk bands in Nashville that I liked. It was more of an anti-folk thing, which is based in country and folk for the most part.”

The band’s limited catalogue of songs draw a likeness to anti-folk heroes The Moldy Peaches—like “One Speed Confessional,” a quick-paced acoustic ditty with quirky lyrics about stalking crushes.

It’s been about six years since her days in Save Macaulay, and the 24-year-old singer recently released her second album, Own Side Now, on Sept. 27 in North America. The 11-track record is a sombre and genuine approach to traditional American music, with an abundance of pedal-steel guitar slides, simple chord progressions and minimal, rhythmic percussion. There’s no mistaking that the songs on Own Side Now are starkly neater and more polished than on her previous solo EP Dead Flowers.

Rose humbly agrees that her songwriting has tightened up over the course of the album.

“It’s more… not a pop-style thing, but more of a structured song idea. When I used to write, it was a little more haphazard, more fun. I think I started to get a little more concentrated with my writing,” she reveals, noting that she writes the bulk of her songs alone.

“I do a little writing with Jeremy and Spencer on the road,” she admits. “We’ve been on tour for so long now, though, we haven’t finished anything because we get so distracted.”

Speaking of distractions, an increasingly ticked show promoter looms around Rose, putting pressure on her to wrap up the interview and photo shoot. The singing sweetheart apologetically spits out, “If the show sucks, the next one will be better!” and runs off to “do a little cleaning up.”

When Rose hits the stage in a leather mini-dress and black heels later in the evening, she is stoic—unlike the frazzled girl in the tour-van duds just an hour earlier. The southern chanteuse has got a set of pipes so loud and country-clear that one would hardly assume that her lungs have an infamous love affair with nicotine, even as she deftly croons through “Shanghai Cigarettes”. Her perfected western purr and heartbreaking lyrics suggest that her several comparisons to a certain coalminer’s daughter are well-deserved.

Rose ends with an emotional version of “For The Rabbits” to an entranced audience, proving that she’s the kind of chick that can captivate a room with her voice—no steel guitar needed.

Words: Kristi Alexandra  Photography: Jan Snarski

WELCOME TO THE PTERODOME

Apparently in the dinosaur “scene” there’s no such creature as a “pterodactyl.” Paleontologists prefer the term “pterosaur” to described the various species of prehistoric winged reptiles. In the Brooklyn rock scene however, Pterodactyl is very real.

As fantastic as a flying thunder lizard, the New York three piece (guitarist/vocalist Joe Kremer, bassist/vocalist Jesse Hodges and drummer/vocalist Matt Marlin) are known for kicking out sweaty, squealing art rock stomps that are equal parts virtuoso playing and punk rock fury. On their new album Spills Out, they expand their sound adding experiments with Wurlitzers, ukuleles and a bevy of guest musicians.

It’s an ambitious effort to say the least and with few (if any) of their contemporaries creating this exact rock blend, one might even say ahead of it’s time. With a forward thinking band such as Pterodactyl, what better way to start off the interview than by talking about the future.

The future is now.

I’m driving a flying car actually right now. (Laughs)

The thing that always bothered me the most about Back to the Future 2 was that they could foresee flying cars but they couldn’t imagine cell phones. Marty McFly gets fired by fax!

Yeah. Their vision of holographic entertainment also hasn’t come to fruition.

What do you think about the future that we’re in?

I’m pretty into it. But I have to say there are many moments when I would appreciate not living in a world of constant communication. We’re preparing for this tour and we have so much shit going on, it would be really nice to have an excuse like, ‘Oh I was away from home so I didn’t get your phone call or email.’ It’s not always good to have the capabilities that we have. We don’t have as good excuses!

Before and during your time in Pterodactyl you were a high school physics teacher?

Yeah, that’s right.

We’ll see about that. Physics pop quiz! Do heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects?

In the absence of air resistance definitely, but it becomes more complicated with objects of different size and different mass. If you drop a big Styrofoam ball with the same mass as a tiny ball bearing the ball bearing will definitely hit first.

Question 2. Do heavier songs rock harder than lighter songs?

(Laughs) I’m not so sure actually. Five years ago I would have said definitely but these days I fell like Pterodactyl is all about this juxtaposition of hard and light. There’s way more power in shifts and contrast than there is in just BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!

What was it like quitting your day job for rock?!

In the beginning, I quit to spend less time on any one thing in particular; to read some books, to go on some nice long bike rides and camping trips. About a year ago that totally flew out the window because this record became the sole focus of our lives, which is great and really a struggle.

Like, it can’t be really good without being really challenging some of the time. It was like coming face to face with the reality of doing music for a living which was definitely not paying the bills. At least not yet. Maybe you guys [ION] can help with that! (Laughs)

On your new album Spills Out, I hear a little Chavez (amazing Matador band) mixed with lots of lo-fi fun and sixties psychedelic pop… and a whole lot of something I can’t relate to any other act!

We would like to think so! I don’t think that’s of much value in today’s market but we wouldn’t know how to do it any other way.

This album seems a little darker than anything you’ve done before.

Definitely. I feel like Worldwild (Pterodactyl’s 2009 release) has this kind of constructed optimism to it like it’s trying really hard to be sunny all the time, which I think was good for that time but this one is way more honest. We leave for tour in less than a week and there are still songs that we plan to play live that we still haven’t figured out yet so it’s still a very fresh experience.

In the same way that many have tried to sync Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon up with The Wizard of Oz, have you ever tried to sync one of your albums up to the 2005 movie Pterodactyl starring Coolio?

(Laughs) I wouldn’t try to suggest that our music holds a candle artistically to that film. It falls in a long and proud tradition of crappy almost horror movies.

Okay, what movie WOULD you try to sync your new album with?

We have a music video that we’re working on where we remade the first scene from the first Superman movie; the scene where Marlon Brando is putting these three villains on trial. I guess that’s as good an answer as any: the first Superman movie!

Words: Jay Brown Photography: Emir Eralp

THE BURDZ AND THE KEYZ

The only other thug I know who got expelled from elementary school is my cousin Andrea. She got busted for bullying some of the girls in her kindergarten class, which brings me to Toronto, ahem, Markham-based hip-hop producer, Burd & Keyz. Burd, real name Andrew Liburd, was persuaded to abandon elementary school while he was still in Grade 7, along with co-conspirator and childhood friend, Durty Keyz. It speaks volumes about an education system which systemically abandons it students, uprooting and displacing them into foreign environments. Hell, my cousin never did recover, nor did she learn to leave her snubnose back at the crib.

Burd & Keyz intend to drop their (well, his, since Keyz is now deceased) premiere anthology of hip-hop-influenced jams in mid-November. I write “hip-hop-influenced” because Burd handles all genres of production, from R&B and reggae to dance and SouthSide-esque (note, SouthSide reigns over Lex Luger, according to Burd) trap n**** beats. Keyz of Life, a sixteen-record mixtape/album, to be distributed for free via Burd’s blog, includes collaborations with established Canadian emcees like Kardinal Offishall, as well as with younger T.O. cats, T-Minus, Luu Breeze, and Rich Kidd, among others.

You’re releasing Keyz of Life in November. What’s the exact date?

We’re still trying to fine-tune the date. We’re trying to make the promo on-point, so when we release it everyone knows about it. But it’ll probably be in the middle of November, like the 20th or something like that.

What does the project mean to you? What’s its significance?

It’s something [Keyz and I] promised each other a long time ago. One day we were riding in a car together, coming home from work at Enterprise. We worked at the same place. We were talking about our game and we were like, ‘We got to put out our own project before we go,’ because no one knows how talented you are until you put something out, you know? Keyz agreed, but we were too busy making singles for other people, working on other people’s projects, that we couldn’t really focus on our own shit. Now and then, we’d stash away a couple beats for our own shit though. Like, ‘Yo, that was a special one.’

What were some of the projects you were working on?

We were working closely with Luu Breeze, making sure his shit was coming out good, trying to get him established. He was already doing big things. I was mostly working on my own music too, trying to get records placed, market myself.

And the album, Keyz of Life, it’s like a tribute, right?

Yeah, for sure. Some songs are a tribute, some songs are just in the spirit of what we’re trying to convey on the whole album, which is overcoming situations, reminiscing, trying to stay positive and move forward. Not all of them are mushy, there’s many different vibes. There’s some unexpected genres.

Like what, reggae?

There’s reggae influences, there’s dance influences.

I know there’s R&B and hip-hop.

R&B, some East Coast influenced hip-hop records, and some Southern beats too.

The beats are pretty diverse. On one hand you’re sampling J Dilla, and then you’ve got records that sound like Lex Luger. Where are you trying to take your sound?

I’m definitely trying to tap into different categories. R&B smashes, dance smashes, everything.

I guess that makes you available to a lot of different artists.

Exactly, spread the network.

Can you share a classic Keyz story with us?

Umm, well, we both got kicked out of elementary school. [laughs] We were in school together from kindergarten to grade 7, and then he got kicked out. Me and him were just causing too much ruckus in the school. The teachers were complaining so much.

What grade was this in?

Grade 6 or 7. Going into grade 7, Keyz just disappeared. He didn’t even tell me when he was dipping. I ended up looking for him, like, ‘Where the fuck is this guy?’ [laughs] Three weeks go by and I still don’t see him. Then I see him at church, and I’m like, ‘Yo, bro, where you been, bro?’ He’s like, ‘I transferred to this school at Bathurst and Finch.’ So then one day in class I threw an eraser and hit some girl in the eye, the girl started crying, I get kicked out like Dennis Rodman. [laughs] Straight ejected out the fucking classroom.

I didn’t know it was permitted to get kicked out of elementary school.

The school came to my parents with a suggestion, like, ‘Maybe you should think about transferring and get out of here… because your kid’s retarded.’ [laughs]

That’s hilarious.

So then I got transferred to the same school Keyz did. Our parents’ goal was to separate us, but they didn’t communicate that with each other, and they sent me to the same school. When I got there, I’m getting introduced as a new guy in class, I walk in the classroom and I see Keyz right there, looking at me like, ‘What the fuck?’ [laughs] He’s sitting there wearing a cardigan and a turtleneck. I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ He was wearing like a church band insignia. The colors of the uniform were so gay; burgundy, gray, and white. And so we used to watch wrestling a lot, and there was this kid who always wanted to be our guinea pig and get experimented on. One time we gave him a 3D, you know what a 3D is?

No.

One guy lifts him up, and the other guy gives him like a ‘Stone Cold Stunner’ up top, and slams him on the ground. We did it to the kid and he wasn’t moving. They had to call the ambulance.

At school?

Yeah.

The new one? [laughs]

Yeah, I got suspended for like a day. [laughs] That school went into high school. I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to keep going to this school in high school.’ I was like, ‘There’s too many honeys up in Markham.’

Which school in Markham?

Father Michael McGivney.

Is that in the same area you grew up?

Yeah, like 14th and Macauley.

Back to the mixtape for a minute. You got Kardinal, Luu Breeze, who worked with Game, Rich Kidd, T-Minus. These are big names in Canada, as well as in the States. How did you develop these contacts?

Through mutual respect. We see each other out at different events. We try to link up with each other, collaborate. Over time you build contacts, you know? So when the time came to do a project, I just asked Rich Kidd and he was like, ‘Send me the beat.’ I sent him the beat, and he banged it out. T-Minus, same thing. I hollered at him. Everyone was down for the cause, what it was I was trying to do. They all understood.

Did I miss anyone with those names?

A-Game, Divine Brown, she’s amazing, Nickelus F. There’s a lot of good people, man. I was trying to get Andreena Mill on there last minute, see if she can make the cut.

What’s your favorite record on the project?

I think my favorite one is this song called ‘Losing My Best Friend’. ‘R.N.T.’ too. It’s gangster. It’s so hood. Raekwon needs to jump on there. [laughs]

He’s got the Canadian connection now.

I know, only a phone call away.

How many tracks on the project?

Sixteen, with the interludes and all that. It’s grande.

Will there be a hard copy?

Yeah, we’ll print some hard copies for sure. Test the streets with like 2000 or something.

And you wrote the hook on, ‘Keyz of Life’, the record. Did you do any other writing, or perform any other roles on the project, rapping, or even writing for other people?

Writing for other people a little bit. I need to try doing that more. I’m just too busy working on my beat game right now. I feel like I’m going to do that when I get more millions. [laughs] When I have more time, you know? Sit back and just Babyface the game.

Were you classically trained? Do you play any instruments?

Most of the time I get session players. I direct them on how I want it to sound like. Or I’ll do some of it, then invite someone in to fill in the gaps, explain to them how I want it. I was trained in music for like a year or two. I can read piano, but when I’m on Fruityloops I can make it look like I play, just by the notes. Keyz was like a level 7 classical piano player.

How many levels are there?

I don’t, between 8 and 12 maybe. Yeah, one more and Keyz could have been teaching.

Where do you work, a studio, or what?

I work out of the crib. My setup is sick now. I’m happy with it. I’m about to go in.

What’s your equipment?

Fruityloops 9. Yorkville Monitors, 12”.

Can you tell us about The Stockyards restaurant? Your friend was raving about it.

[laughs] I didn’t get to try it myself. We were on a mission to find it but we got lost.

You’ve never been there?

My boy was talking about it. He was going off about it. He said it’s like the illest sandwich ever.

What’s the plan for releasing the project, any more videos, listening events, concerts, etc.?

Yeah, we’re planning a concert right now for the winter, probably in December, like 16th or 19th. We’re booking the date now. We still need to confirm it. We’re collaborating with Tika Simone on that, making it for charity. Keyz’ parents have different charities they’re affiliated with. We’re going to have performances by some of the people on the album, maybe some other surprises.

And what about after the project?

Pushing the project, and then I have my own project. My version of Keyz of Life called Burd’s Eye View.

Great titles. Will ever you become just Burd, rather than Burd & Keyz?

I don’t know. I think it’s ride or die with it. Burd & Keyz is pretty smooth.

Words: Peter Marrack Photography: Neil Champagne

POP-O-MATIC

Eleven nights into their first touring experience I met with the band before their final Canadian show. We talked Mitch Easter, discussed “urban nut” –whatever the fuck that means – brushed upon purchasing pornography, and delved into the band’s tongue-in-cheek fantasies of working with one Brian Setzer, during which I learned to keep personal observations to myself and enjoy the aloof idiosyncrasies of a young band.

Big Troubles are up-and-coming, catchy, and purposefully hard to gauge. Recently signed to Slumberland Records, their second full-length Romantic Comedy came out this fall to mixed reactions. And in Van, in a van with Jersey plates I got to know the stranger side of what has become an increasingly polarizing act.

How would you describe your sound to someone who’d never heard a Big Troubles song?

Sam Franklin: Pop-Rock.

Alex Craig: That’s what we’ve finally settled on. At first we would just say rock, or alternative; sometimes even indie-rock. But now we just say pop-rock. That makes the most sense to people.

After your first Canadian shows – Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and soon to be Vancouver – what’s the initial opinion of the Great White North?

S: It’s better than the American Midwest.

A: We really liked Calgary, because we found that it was kind of stuck culturally. It seemed like we had walked into some sort of time machine and popped up in 1999.

S: Actually, I take it back; it’s on par with the American Midwest.

Luka Usmiani: But Vancouver’s been fantastic. Nicest of the four. The drive in was nice; long, but nice.

So you bought a porno today? Tell us about that.

A: Yeah, we went to Fantasy Factory just down the street. I was a little disappointed with my purchase. It was wrapped in shrink wrap, so I couldn’t really check it out. I was going off of the cover picture alone, which the rest of the issue didn’t really live up to. It was pretty raunchy though.

Ian Drennan: We can show it to you later.

I look forward to that. What are you guys most proud of on Romantic Comedy?

I: I think just the experience of working with Mitch Easter.

And how was it working with a guy who has produced bands like REM and Pavement?

S: He was down to earth, a very nice guy. Eventually it got to the point where we were all very much speaking the same language. As in, we were speaking nonsense and he had learned how to speak it as well.

A: We do speak nonsense, and we weren’t sure if he thought that was funny at all. But by the end, he was chiming in with our jokes.

L: We started calling guitar takes ‘urban nut’; describing them as ‘urban nut.’
Urban Nut?

A: Yeah, the concept of ‘urban nut’ was really big for the album.
L: It flows throughout the entire album, we think.

A: We’d be doing takes and saying, ‘Oh yeah, that’s urban nut.’ And I was thinking Mitch probably just thinks we’re retarded. But then there was this moment where someone was tracking, and he turns to the other three members of the band and goes, ‘You think that was urban nut?’

L: Things would also be ‘Hollywood’ or ‘boyfriend’.

A: If we thought we were singing our vocals too effeminately we’d ask if that was too ‘boyfriend’.

L: We may have gone too ‘boyfriend’.

A: And ‘Hollywood’ is if it sounded appropriately slick.

I: ‘Hollywood’ approved.

A: When we wanted all the takes to be really slick – if it achieved that high slickness – then it was ‘Hollywood.’ Overall, it was pretty ‘Hollywood’; and ‘boyfriend’, but not too ‘boyfriend’.

L: Almost all the time though, Mitch knew exactly what we wanted. It was a real pleasure.

On initial listens I couldn’t help but note similarities to The Jesus and Mary Chain. Do you guys get that a lot? And how much do you appreciate being compared to a seminal act like that?

S: We got it a lot, especially early in the Big Troubles career, and after about the fifth comparison to the Jesus and Mary Chain I just kind of wanted to rip my own head off. And I’m not sure that any of us ever really listened to them.

A: When you start, some people pick up on some older things that influenced you and you think, ‘Yeah, that’s great. They hear that.’ But the novelty of that wears off really quickly, and eventually it’s just obnoxious. But, more recently there have been some really unwarranted comparisons to contemporary bands, and that made me realize that I’d take a comparison to an older band over that any day.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. Have a great show and enjoy the rest of the tour.

A: I think we should just riff for a minute. We could talk about some of the future plans for Big Troubles moving forwards.

L: I think it should be a secret.

A: No, the fake ones.

L: Oh, the fake future, yeah.

A: The swing revival revival. I’m not sure I should say this; I don’t know if it’s really ready to be printed. But I’ve had some emails back and forth with Brian Setzer, of the Brian Setzer Orchestra, and he seems pretty interested in working with us on our next record.

Okay. Thanks guys, really. How about one final thought?

A: We’ve made sort of an alienating record with our second record, because people wanted to hear the lo-fi shoegaze of Worry and they’re disappointed with this new album.

L: But the third time around we’re not going to give them a record, we’re going to give them a swing revival restaurant.

A: We’re changing mediums altogether. Every LP comes with a download card to open your own restaurant. Our third record will come with a meal coupon to the Brian Setzer Restaurant by Big Troubles

Words: Mike Wardlaw Photography: Jan Snarski

THIS BRIGHT FLASH

A film can tell a story effectively because of its use of audio and visuals. For a musician to pull off a work that fully emotes that of the silver screen, the artist must connect to its audience based on the quality of the journey. For M83’s Anthony Gonzalez, this is the case with his albums, part of a body of work that feels cinematic in its truest essence.

On his newest, Hurry Up I’m Dreaming, Gonzalez builds off the ouevre of a career heavily steeped in a chaotic medley of sharp twists of a severe emotional overdrive. The blend feels entirely visual, altogether highlighted in the group’s live show: Gonzalez now dons a folklore-ready beast mask at the beginning of the set, triumphantly raising his paws in the air before his band joins him onstage for the actual musical component of the set.

It’s all very disconnected, a strange melee of uncharted samples, wailing guitars, somber synths, and chamber-ready percussion. The combinations sound jarring, and they certainly can be in any other context. But it’s also undoubtedly the sound that is inexplicably soundtracking the film of many of our lives. When “Kim & Jessie” comes on, I’m taken back to my friends’ house parties and the specific moments within countless nights. The tracks hold true for some of the wildest nights of my life, but equally equate those times I’ve spent laying in my bed for hours.

Gonzalez moved to Los Angeles from his homeland of France with big dreams to score Hollywood films. He ended up in a musical project that is now into its sixth record, and embarking into its second decade. Clearly he’s done something right, and despite never moving into actual films, one could argue that listening to an M83 record is a performance that engages all the scenes, colours, and feelings that you’d have during a movie theatre screening. What’s actually laid down in a track and what’s read by the listener are completely unrelated, but generally certain threads carry an artist through, and are universally interpreted.

The childlike wonder found within these songs is intriguing, from the images of youth laid into the album jackets, to the distorted John Hughes-era sounding voices buried into the albums’ choruses. The entire project wafts of distorted childhood, whether a missed opportunity, or a chance at never growing old, like a musical voyage over London and straight on to Neverland. The neo-gothisms are cleaned up with neon lights and down-tempo synths, but the dark side in all of us looks to music like M83 to release us.

If misery loves company, then the answer is clear. “I want to be part of it, invisible even to the night,” says “Graveyard Girl”, a relatively new but now classic M83 track, paced in today’s standards. The young blood in all of us will always keep searching, and as long as Anthony Gonzalez keeps supplying the musical backdrop for life’s moments, both rare and banal, we’ll all be just fine.

Words: JJ Brewis Photography: Jess Baumung

CLAPTRAP

Just because you disappear into a studio for two years to make a record doesn’t mean your band broke up. It seems that, in the age of twit-mediacy, any sort of “radio silence” conjures such speculation.

This was the case for the Brooklyn/Philly indie rock band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Formed in 2004, the band quickly built a dedicated following, and by 2005 they were playing to sizeable crowds in New York; crowds that sometimes included David Bowie.  Bowie must blog or something because the next thing you know they’re America’s new shit hot indie darling buzz band.

Then, a couple of years ago, they took some time off and went to work writing and recording their third album Hysterical, produced by studio vet John Congleton (Modest Mouse, Walkmen, David Byrne). Imagine frontman Alec Ounsworth’s surprise when he emerged from the studio, after laboring over what is arguably their finest collection of songs, only to find the blogosphere abuzz with rumour that his band no longer existed. 

He must’ve felt a little like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. The guy triumphs over nature after being lost on a desert island and makes his way back home against all odds, only to find he’s been given up for dead and his wife is married to his dentist! Of course in the end he meets a woman who’s hotter than his wife (PS- his wife is played by Helen Hunt.) In CYHSY’s case, how sweet it must be to put rumours to rest and reintroduce yourself to the world with a wonderful new piece of work like Hysterical – it’s hotter than Helen Hunt.

Nowadays if you take a couple years off in between albums people think your band broke up.

(Laughs) You’re suddenly a reunion band.

Are you ever afraid that if you don’t put out a new song every five minutes, like Ryan Adams, you might be forgotten?

No, I mean I’m relatively old fashioned in that I don’t pay attention to it. I don’t believe in going into a studio to make a record without being really passionate and determined to do something that you’re honest about. Maybe Ryan Adams can be inspired and sustain the momentum and that’s great. As far as we’re concerned, it served us well to come back and be honestly passionate about [making music] by virtue of taking some time off.

But you never broke up.

No, no. There was a point where we were struggling to figure out where we wanted to go at that particular time in terms of sense of direction. As far as I was concerned the options at that time were to do a record because we were supposed to do it or to venture out on our own for a little bit and then come back when the time was right. It just so happens that it took that amount of time.

The new album is called Hysterical. Have you ever had fans go annoying-teenager-Beatlemania-hysterical on you?

I wouldn’t call it annoying, but you know here and there we’ve had a couple of instances. I remember a long time ago, before we went on any serious tour, people trying to jump into cars with us, which I found humorous and maybe sometimes people take it a little too far. Especially at that time, a lot of what happened around the first record was why we needed a break. It was just so much, so quickly. I felt like we needed more of a gestation period so we had to manufacture our own in a way.  At the beginning, there were certain fans who were enthusiastic, not exactly in the way I would be, but I’m not going to discredit them for that.

There’s the title track “Hysterical” and another song on the album called “Maniac”. Did someone go nuts while you were making this record?

Not so directly. I mean, I feel like everyone’s a little bit crazy. A lot of these songs are positioned in a specific way and kind of go towards the same theme. The whole idea is it’s inevitable that you are going to be who you are. I know that sounds sort of rhetorical, but I think finally there are certain things you can’t avoid, so all of those weaknesses, all of those crazy, maniacal tendencies are going to exhibit themselves in one way or another. As long as they don’t directly hurt others, I think people have to resign themselves to who they are, and a lot of this [record] has to do with people not being comfortable with that fact. I know it sounds pretty general.

No man! You just dropped some serious wisdom! I think you should open your own church.

(Laughs) Yeah right. Maybe that’s my calling.

I wouldn’t be a good Canadian if I didn’t reference The Guess Who and ask, Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, have you or will you ever “Clap for the Wolfman”?

(Laughs) Clap for the wolfman? That’s a very odd question.

It’s a Guess Who song.

I feel like I know that song. Can you sing a little?

(Singing. Poorly.) Clap for the wolfman/You gonna dig him til the day you die

More, more, more! (Laughs) I don’t know the song.

Maybe I inspired you to go listen to a classic Canadian band after this interview?

Yeah, I ‘m going to have to go figure out if I should ‘Clap for the Wolfman’, but I can’t in good conscience do it now.

Words: Jay Brown Illustration: Alan Ganev

SUPER DUPER MARIO

Being a revisionist isn’t new. In fact, today one can be a revisionist inspired by revisionists of decades past. Mario Hernandez of Kids On A Crime Spree isn’t just a revisionist, he’s an originalist. Hit over the head with a copy of the Phil Spector box set Back to Mono while in Sweden, this Oakland songsmith has made a perfect record for anybody sick of digital interpretations of arch top classics. He explained to ION not just why he made his new album We Love You So Bad, but how he made it with the help of one mic and one Mike.

You’re from Oakland and have been in the scene there for a long time. Do you know legendary zine writer Aaron Cometbus?

My ex-girlfriend, who I adorably refer to as ‘Pigface’, and Aaron were friends. He gave her his old dreadlocks so she could Super Glue them to her scalp. Every time I ran my hands through her hair it would be super rough and would creep me out because I knew I was touching Aaron’s hair.

Apart from the music, what’s the greatest difference between this band and your previous bands Ciao Bella or From Bubblegum To Sky?

I really love these songs. I hate saying these things because it’s cliché, but sometimes you have to shed things that you really believe in in order to assert yourself as a songwriter. I think that’s what I kind of did. The songs in Ciao Bella and From Bubblegum To Sky, that’s the way I naturally write songs, but these other songs that I was writing are more kind of like a less-is-more approach. I was trying to write really good, ballady, really simple chord progressions and record them well.

I stopped writing how I naturally write and tried to write in a different way. It was a little harder for me, but I enjoy these songs much more than I do the older ones even though the older ones are great, it’s just that they’re much more immediate and more fun to play on stage. You can jump up and down when you play them because you’re inspired to do that, whereas Ciao Bella and From Bubblegum To Sky were just more thought out or something. It didn’t have the same sort of energy.

Do you worry about running out of gas as you get older?

I do sometimes but here’s a great example: Mike Slumberland puts out this record. He is getting older, in fact he’s a couple years older than I am, but his taste in music is getting better, or at least he still has that ability to figure out what is good. And sometimes I think writing songs is like that too. You have to have great taste. I guess if I lose that and start listening to Bob Marley, then I’m in trouble.

Is eight songs an EP? Doesn’t this count as a full length but without three songs of filler?

I don’t like recording songs I don’t believe in, so I just thought ‘These songs are good, let’s put it out,’ and I definitely wanted to do that. Mike said ‘Hey I’ll put out the record,’ and it was out three months after that.

What’s your experience so far being on Slumberland?

Because we’re both [Mike] from the same area of Oakland, even before all this I’ve liked a lot of his bands like Rocket Ship and Henry’s Dress and stuff back in the nineties and I’ve really been a fan of his label. You know when you’re a kid and you have these fantasies of being on a label that you’d like to be on and be proud of and not like you’re ‘on a label’? Slumberland is that kind of label where you’re like ‘Yeah, I’m on Slumberland’ and I know that sounds kinda weird but for me it is a point of pride.

Do Slumberland bands or sixties pop acts inspire you more?

I’m a bigger fan of his older stuff. I mean there are great bands on his label now, I just don’t listen to other people that much. I like listening to older things and try to think ‘That’s the classics I wanna be more about’ than what’s happening now. I like sixties pop more, and American pop stuff and so I really tend to like that classic songwriting. Even though I know Mike is really into Sarah Records and stuff like that, I’ve never listened to it. I’m not very inspired by British eighties stuff, which I think a lot of Slumberland bands are.

What’s the secret to Kids’ production? How do you corral those raucous sounds into a sugar sweet song?

Mostly in the past I was really into making sure everything was mic’d correctly and all this sort of stuff, but what I did with this was that with the drums I mostly recorded everything with one mic and everything was recorded from far away. I really got into the old Beatles recordings where everything is close mic’d, like every snare is close mic’d, every guitar is mic’d close with a mic right into the speaker and I did none of that on this record.

Literally I used one mic, that was my expensive mic, and I put it four feet away and just did all that far away recording reminiscent of back in the day when people would actually try to get the sound of the room instead of the sound of the guitar amp itself. That’s what I think the trick is. It was hard for me to get the right kind of distortion sound. I wanted it to sound like over-reaching amps but like back in the day when amps weren’t made very well, so when you push those amps they have a certain sound, where a new set of amps can’t do that.

They just sound clean. What I mean by ‘clean’ is ‘sterile’ and I definitely didn’t want that. I wanted everything to sound like it was older equipment and how beautiful it can sound to get that room sound and then add a little reverb. Everything was recorded in one take. I wanted to record a performance versus recording cuts like people do now. I heard some stories of big bands who when they record and are trying to sell millions of records, when they record the bass drum they get the best bass drum sound you can possibly get then they use a trigger to make that sound. So if the drummer is even a little late or didn’t hit the drum in the right volume it doesn’t matter because it’s all the same sound. Basically it’s kind of like digital recording.

To me, all those new bands, their drums and everything sound like movies; so produced that it doesn’t have any life, whereas I think me and a lot of older records, you hear some notes that are out of tune and you hear the drums jumping in and not sounding compressed. You can hear some things louder than another, and you can hear the voice flex. Today a lot of music just sounds flat, like watching a flat screen TV. It’s lifeless. I wanted to do the opposite, but I also couldn’t afford to do any of the other stuff anyway because I’m recording everything on reel to reel tape. I just wanted to make sure that it sounded like what a band might sound like, because it’s definitely not overproduced.

There are some surf elements on the album.

That’s what people have been saying.

So it wasn’t intentional?

No, not at all. I wanted it to sound like “Loco-Motion.” I wanted it to have that vibe. I was actually listening to the radio and heard Dick Dale and those guys doing a live set and when they do it live it sounds punk rock. It doesn’t sound like the recordings sound, like cheesy, but when they play live, the guitars were distorting, the guitars were pounding. At first when I heard people say it [the album] sounded surf-y, after I heard those live recordings I thought ‘Cool!’ because those recordings have guts.

Well a lot of those bands that inspire you were trying to make everything sound perfect with sessions musicians but with some of the recording artists, like the Sonics or Jerry Lee Lewis the live stuff is better. So it makes sense that you would try and capture performance rather than perfection on this record.

Absolutely, because the truth of the matter is that I’m not that great of a player anyway, and nor am I a perfectionist so I wanted to capture what I do best. What’s missing in a lot of contemporary bands is you hear the coolness of the band but you never hear the urgency of the band. There’s an urgency when you’re very desperate to prove what you’re trying to do is good and that comes across in the playing. I definitely want to record that. I want that to be displayed on the tape. I actually am a little desperate and I’m trying to do a good job.

I guess there’s a desperation when recording to a tape machine rather than a computer.

Oh my god, absolutely. The thing is people always say ‘Just punch in.’ When you start punching in you really can hear that you’re punching in. People can’t hold notes that long and I think it’s really important to try and do one take. If you compare one take to another full take then you have the best of the urgency, instead of something sterile and so square which I think happens a lot now and I can’t really get into that. Most of the time I like when the band plays live anyway, and I like their live interpretation of it.

If you’re trying to capture a performance on this record, does that mean that you’re more partial to playing live anyway? Is that what you think of when you start a band or start a record?

No not at all. I don’t particularly like playing live. Playing live isn’t my strong suit, but to capture it on recording is kinda cool. When you’re recording you have these moments where you get goose bumps because you do something beyond your ability and I like to capture that on tape for myself. When I write a song and hit a note I get this feeling that’s really special when you’re playing it on tape. I’m using the recording to write songs so I’ll put down a drum track first then I’ll put a bass track down and guitars and start figuring out what will go on top of that. I’m kind of making it up as I go along so basically as soon as I discover something, I’m putting it on tape.

That way you have the best, newest feeling, and that way I feel you can tell that it’s not something that’s practiced and has been played for twenty months. Something real is what I’m trying to go after. I used to be in bands with people who just wanted to rework stuff and it just never sounded great. Something that you have a spark for should immediately be put down and put on to tape and not worked on so much until the life flies out of it. You know what a really great example of a song is? Do you know “Common People” by Pulp, and how it speeds up? Throughout the whole song it starts slow and then it goes into this fiery, speeding crash that happens.

That’s great and it’s so real and they didn’t use click track on it because it’s speeding up and the band is rushing through. It’s almost to a point where you think they’re rushing a little too fast. But because of that, the song really works in that way, and I think that a song hasn’t been written in a while that has that sort of feeling. You can tell that the band is so inspired because it’s a great song and they want to hurry up and put it on tape. I think that’s what I’m trying to go after. Imagine the first time Carole King showed the guys ‘Hey this is my song Loco-Motion, what do you think?’ they must have gone ape shit. That’s such a great song.

So I think when you write that kind of song you wanna hurry up and get that recorded and because I record everything and write at the same time I am always trying to get that feeling onto tape. Sometimes I miss it, sometimes it’s recorded poorly, and sometimes I hit it. With this record I feel like I did that the best out of all my records.

Words: Trevor Risk  Photography: Claude Cardenas

MAJOR GAYZERS

The last time I’d heard The Gay Nineties play, it was February in a shitty little makeshift jam space, somewhere in butt-fuck nowhere East Vancouver bordering on Burnaby. I remember thinking, “Whoa, is this what the Zombies would sound like in 2011 if they weren’t doing the Casino circuit?” I spent the next five months in Berlin, oogling at photo shoots of the dapper gentlemen online, and confirming attendance for gigs I’d kept hearing about.

Back in Vancouver, I’d try to pick up where I left off. It felt like I’d left The Gay Nineties as toddlers, and come back to see them all grown up. Stranger yet, I live with two thirds of the boys, and was suddenly thrown into The Gay Nineties universe; equal parts musical analytics brought out in the deconstruction of a perfect CCR song, beer drinking on the porch, and the constant search for that perfect Serge Gainsbourg meets Bowie outfit. The Gay Nineties are Parker Bossley (Guitar & Vocals), Daniel Knowlton (Bass & Vocals), and Malcolm Holt (Drums). They work really hard, but they’ll make you laugh even harder.

A recent online forum for the band’s EP release party was greeted with 99% enthusiasm, paired with this display of aversion, “thats an annoying band name if i ever heard one.” The lack of punctuation holds to the authenticity of its author’s writing skills, while the statement itself begs the question we’ve all been wondering: what’s with the band name? Sorry to burst your defensive bubble kids, but as Malcolm explains, “The 1890’s, [were] a decade of decadence and glamour,” that went on to be criticized for it’s lavish ways once The Great Depression hit, or as he sums up, “There were all these wine orgies.” For Daniel, the band name is challenging, “It creates good conversation. The 1890’s were a formative decade, and I feel like we are going through formative years within our music scene in Vancouver right now.”

For Parker, it’s as simple as, “A band of friends trying to live out their rock ‘n’ roll fantasies,” name aside. Aware of the tongue-in-cheek nature of their name, the band welcomes negative feedback with open arms, “It makes it easier for us, because it has the word ‘gay’ in it, it helps us filter out people who are going to be offended or turned off by that,” says Malcolm, while Daniel adds, “I’m kinda surprised that we haven’t been confronted by the gay community, not in a negative way, but because I feel for some reason that I want to be challenged.” In the end, a name is just a name as Malcolm points out, “It’s kinda like the Red Hot Chili Peppers; that is a retarded name, but then it just becomes… it’s as good as the band is good.”

And the band is good. The boys’ musical scope is varied. For Parker, “Bowie’s got a lot to do with it,” lyrically and otherwise. Malcolm sees Parker’s Bowie as more of a Mark Bolan homage, while he also notes the Zombies, The Pixies, and Pavement somewhere in the mix of influences.  Daniel’s bass grooves channel Zeppelin, and he admits that unlike his band mates, The Strokes have little to do with where he’s ended up as a musician, “It’s just one of those bands that floated past my radar undetected, but that’s just because I’m obsessed with music made 40 years ago. I was probably just still listening to the Neil Young and The Beatles.”  Always clever, Malcolm adds, “You know, this little band, The Beatles, that haven’t influenced any other bands, but have totally influenced us.”

Finally, while the boys fail to point it out, if you have a listen to their track “Coming Together”, you’ll pick up on some hard-hitting Sabbath vibes. I ask the band, hypothetically, who they might hire on as a fourth member. Besides Rick James, “The person who plays the sax solo on ‘Careless Whisper’,” and a dancing James Brown, the band seems to agree that a fourth member would put a damper on their work ethic. Malcolm explains, “You’re within the confines of this box. We are a three piece, two singers, how can we make the fullest most interesting dynamic arrangements?”

Meanwhile, The Gay Nineties have been collaborating with others in Vancouver’s art and music community; from buddy band The New Values, to wing woman and brains Stacey Armstrong, to documentarian Owen Ellis, and finally artist Robert Mearns. The band’s surrounding creative synergy goes far beyond the scope of a song.  Malcolm praises Mearns, who recently created the bands EP release poster, (the boys’ faces adorned with Gay Nineties mustaches) “We just want to keep working with him as much as he will fit us into his life.” They’ll need him, as Malcolm and Parker admit they can’t grow a proper mustache, while Daniel’s claim to mustache fame ain’t nearly as bad-ass as Mearn’s portraits convey. Moreover, the band expresses thanks to Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat, who has taken The Gay Nineties under his wing. The band’s celebrated EP was recorded at Bays’ studio, TugBoat, with the help of drum technician Ian Browne.

As they continue to play shows on a weekly basis, why should people keep coming to see The Gay Nineties? Their friends and fans humble the boys, and as Parker sees it, the band is, “Writing new songs, [their] material is always changing, and [they] are always changing as well.” Malcolm believes wholeheartedly that there is something in their sound for everyone, “From moms and dads to little kids; it’s dance music, it’s rock ‘n’ roll music, it’s soul music, and I think everyone can find something that they like about it.” Daniel sees their shows as an opportunity to improve upon Vancouver’s creative community, “The shows are getting better, we’re writing more songs, but as a byproduct of that, our community is also broadening. The more people that keep coming to shows, the more juxtapositions of people becoming friends.” Parker stresses that The Gay Nineties are, “Completely open-minded to collaborating with anybody who is inspired and creative,” and wants to work with, “Everyone in Vancouver who [the band] believes in.”
Roots, influences, and community building aside, I decide to end on a lightning round of questions:

Would people in the 1890’s dig your music?
Everyone: Nooooo!
PB: We would be revolutionary!
DK: Malcolm’s dad doesn’t even dig our music, and that’s only going back 20 years.
PB: It’d be hard to plug in our instruments; I think that our sound would drastically change.
MH: But I think we’d all still be entertainers.
What would your 1890’s alter ego be?
MH: I’d probably be a tap dancer.
PB: A pianist.
DK: I think I’d probably be the shoe shiner.
Where will The Gay Nineties be 40 years down the line?
PB: Malcolm will be an interior designer, Dan will be completely belligerent, you won’t understand a single thing he says, and he’ll be rocking on a porch playing old Gay Nineties songs reliving his experiences in the suburbs of Africa. And I will be in a mental hospital weeping in the corner.
How gay are you, really?
PB: 40%
MH: Depends how much ecstasy I’ve shoved up my butt.
PB: Depends which part of my life you’re asking about. Even though we’re not completely gay, we are definitely queer as far as the queer community goes. We are into wearing women’s clothes, and we’re open to anything. We’re the most open-minded people you’ll ever really meet.
DK: It’s all just holes.

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, “It’s all just holes.” I told you they’d make you laugh.

Words: Suzy Sabla  Photography: Owen Ellis + Sydney Gregoire

FLOWERS IN THE DUSTBIN

“Hi, can I please speak to Barry Hansen?” I ask the man over the phone.
“Barry Hansen?” the attendant replies with a thick Mexican accent. “Just a moment.”

A few seconds later, Jamie Hince, one half of The Kills, is on the line sounding pleasant, but tired in his Mexico City hotel room. Since getting married to Kate Moss in July, traveling under a pseudonym has become an unfortunate reality for the British guitarist who has been tracked in his hotel room by tabloid journalists, seeking quotes for their attempts at newsgathering.

“Yeah, I’ve had tabloid journalists who knew where I was staying, call up to my room and start asking stupid questions,” he says with some embarrassment. “It’s too bad.” But aside from the rather rock-and-roll intro I have had with this man, Hince is a humble (and excited) musician who dearly adores the band and the chemistry that he shares with singer Alison Mosshart. Hince met Mosshart at a flat in London more than 10 years ago, where she was staying on the floor below while on tour from the US with her punk band, Discount. Mosshart remembers those times well.

“I was touring England quite a bit with my first band and it happened that he had two roommates who lived downstairs below him,” Mosshart recalls. “One was Ben and he drove vans for bands and worked at Southern [Records] in London. The other one, Sean, who worked at Rough Trade, he booked punk tours. So we all knew these people and they brought us over and I stayed with them on the floor. Ben drove us, Sean booked the tour and Jamie lived upstairs and always played the guitar.

He’d come down and have coffee and toast with us in the morning and we became friends that way. But I would hear him playing guitar all the time and he was just the coolest fucking person I had ever met. And he had the weirdest style of guitar playing I had ever heard. It was awesome and I loved listening to it.”

“I was making music and playing guitar all day and I didn’t know that she was sitting on the steps outside my window listening to me play,” Hince says. “She finally plucked up some courage to come talk to me and that was it.”
This spark of a relationship that ignited over music, coffee, and toast in that London apartment is obvious in their songs, but has become almost tactile in their visceral live shows, with Mosshart feverishly crooning to Hince’s bluesy, texturized riffs and the steadfast drum machine beating in the dim background.

So who wears the proverbial pants in this relationship?  “I think we share the trousers,” Hince answers diplomatically. “But in the studio, it’s definitely me. I’m a fucking nightmare in the studio. Sometimes I get brutally manic about writing songs and sometimes I’ll get really low about it. It’s pretty unhealthy stuff. But you go and watch us play and she’s definitely wearing the trousers on stage.”

Mosshart has a different answer. “It’s hard to say,” she says with a laugh. “We really complement and balance each other. Like, I’m a lot more organized than him.” This balance that they bring to their lives and their music is what makes The Kills work so well together. Mosshart is a little more spontaneous, wearing her heart and emotions on both sleeves and Hince, while genuine, seems to be more interested in the devil that’s lurking in the details, the quantifiables of day-to-day business.

“Jamie’s really secretive – he doesn’t show anyone anything that he’s written except for maybe me,” Mosshart says about songwriting. “I’m not throw-away about stuff, but I’m also not precious. He’ll hold onto a song for a really long time where I will play it for somebody.”

“He needs someone like me to be like, ‘Play me the fucking song. Please, I want to hear it,’” she continues with a laugh. “Meanwhile, he’s behind a locked door in a soundproof booth, rocking out.”

“It’s much easier with two people. I’ve been in bands with more than two people before and there’s always a case of trying to reach a consensus – I think it can water the music down,” Hince says.  “I think you have to be an anarchist in politics, but you have to be a fascist in art. When Allison comes up with a song, then the bits missing from it, I’ve always managed to have those parts. There’s times when she’s written half the song and I’ve written half and they’ve just fit together perfectly. I don’t know where it comes from. I suppose you just know when you’ve met the right person. I’m grateful for that all of the time.”

Although The Kills’ sound may not be for everyone, their songs are lacking in pretention and are accessible to almost everyone because of what inspires them. Both Hince and Mosshart have an interest in taking the normal, the taken-for-granted of everyday life and finding music in that. “Some days you walk along the street and you see pavement and chewing gum and just bits of litter,” Hince explains, “And then some days you walk along the same street and you see the chewing gum in the shape of a heart – you see beauty in all of that. That’s the thing that twists everyday things into inspiration to write something. It’s the flowers in the dustbin that inspire me.”

“I tend to write about people and their interactions with each other,” Mosshart adds. “And confusion too. Like, people not knowing what the fuck to do. That endlessly inspires me because I’m exactly the same way. I write about normal, everyday things.” On stage, the duo shares the same mindset as well.

“I lose my mind,” Hince says. “Those are my favourite gigs when I can’t really remember. It’s times when just before we go on, I’m really nervous and I start thinking, ‘What’s the second note of Heart is a Beating Drum?’ I cannot think of it. And then I get on stage with a guitar and it’s just natural – there’s just an instinct for it. My favourite gigs are when I’m not thinking about anything and I’m just lost in it.”

Mosshart echoes her bandmate’s sentiment. “I don’t really think too much on stage – it’s the last place to think. If I’m thinking on stage, something is wrong. Like, something’s breaking, something sounds bad, there’s something weird in the air or I’m really tired and I’m thinking, ‘How the fuck am I going to do this next song? I don’t know.’”

It is this conviction they have in each other and their songs that appears to be the compass in the band’s unmapped journey. It is this rooted confidence in spontaneity of music that makes their shows so exciting and even led to them to picking the moniker they now both perform under.

“We sat opposite of each other with typewriters, a dueling-typewriter thing, and we’d tap away in a stream of consciousness, coming up with different names,” Hince describes, like it happened that afternoon. “After a day of doing it, ‘The Kills’ was the last thing on the sheet of paper and I showed Allison. She said, ‘Yep, that’s it.’”  Ever since the typewriter duel, Mosshart says life has been good.

“I couldn’t live without it. I don’t want to,” says Mosshart, who also sings and plays in the Dead Weather with Jack White. “It can be really hard sometimes, really frustrating and really tiring, but it’s the most exciting, fulfilling most wonderful thing as well. Every time I go on stage or I go on a tour bus, I’m reminded that this is what I get to do with my life. It’s so cool because I have a way of expressing myself, I have a way of doing art and communicating with the world.” She pauses to think about it a little more. “That’s really hard to do – to find that thing, you know?”

Words: Gen Handley  Photography: Alan Chan

GUELPH CONCERT THEATRE

The first time Ethiopian-Canadian The Weeknd performed for his home city of Toronto, he drew a diverse crowd of hipsters, hip-hop heads, label A&Rs, Drake, and a handful of bigwig record execs, packing them all into The MOD Club on College Street, downtown.

Warner Bros. came away from that debut performance believing they were on the brink of signing a new, young and brilliant Drizzy Drake, but with a bigger voice. Sure, The Weeknd, known by his peeps as Abel Tesfaye, may have been a bit nervous that first go around, hugging the mic, trying to hide in plain sight with his camo attire, but hell, a little grooming and he’d be the next The Dream, right? Not. You know what The Weeknd did in response to Warner Bros.’ savvy offer? He made them fly the questionably-talented Rich Hil, son of fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger and personal friend of Tesfaye’s, up to Toronto for a day to ‘work on a couple of records’, which have yet to see the light of day.

A couple of days later, Rich Hil released a video of himself signing to Warners, and The Weeknd, well, he responded to Warners the same way he’s been responding to the media all along. He gave them the silent treatment, aka the middle finger. The Weeknd may be a lot of things, but all we know for sure is that he’s 1) unfit for mainstream, 2) one-of-a-kind, and 3) a monstrous tease.

As Janet and I entered the Guelph Concert Theater in downtown Guelph, a small University town in rural Ontario, the first thing Janet noticed was the decor. “Look around,” she said. “This place used to be a goddamn church.” It was true. The decor consisted of old wood paneling, brown carpets, and a merchandise booth that could have substituted for an old school confessional. Not only was the locale provocative (at least mildly ironic, considering The Weeknd’s lurid subject matter), but the show was converted at the last minute from 19+ to all-ages, so all the underage kiddies with fake IDs could secure a spot on the segregated balcony, and enjoy their fair share of melodic drug references, tales of hard sex, and trap n**** shit. The opening act that evening turned out to be a local grunge band from Toronto, who did very little to tickle the crowd, who’s only concern was whether the three security guards (who appeared curiously similar to XO crew members) intended on enforcing the ‘No Smoking’ signs plastered up on stage.

Heck, was this all some sort of elaborate set-up, an April Fool’s gimmick but in early October? Janet and I got our answer the moment The Weeknd spun onto the stage doing a version of Lil B’s ‘Cooking Dance’, along with his accompanying band, who would have passed for The Roots on a slow night at Late Night, apart from one chick guitarist. After performing an amped up version of “High For This”, The Weeknd, dressed in dark colors, Yankees warmup, XO cap, blue chinos sagging overtop Polo boxers, yanked two of the ‘No Smoking’ posters off the stage and tore them into pieces, all the while giggling maniacally at his posse. Tesfaye then perfected his label-worthy trifecta by chugging a bottle of Hennessy straight from the bottle, slowly running his fingers beneath his nose for a final drug reference.

As you may have already suspected, there were no label execs or A&R fixers in attendance at Guelph, no witnesses to Tesfaye’s ‘monstrosity’ of a sophomore performance… and the XO boys seemed to like it better that way. Hell, who said The Weeknd couldn’t sing in front of an audience? Over the course of an hour, Tesfaye blasted through a sufficiently-amped setlist, which included, “High For This”, “Life Of The Party”, “The Morning”, “The Party & The After Party”, “What You Need”, “Lonely Star”, “Wicked Games”, “The Birds Part 1”, “The Birds Part 2”, among others. However, the standout of the evening had to be, “House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls”, during which the crowd got up on their toes, bouncing and chanting, “this is a happy house, we’re happy here, in a happy house, oh this is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun…,” before the beat oozed into a bass-heavy dubstep number, over which Tesfaye half-melodizes and half-flows.

“House of Balloons/Glasses Table Girls” is clearly not a hip-hop record, yet neither is it R&B, or dance/electro. The same goes for the majority of The Weeknd’s cuts, which are often too droned-out to be hip-hop, and too hard to be traditional R&B. The Weeknd has successfully branded his own genre, which consists of hard-hitting kicks, vicious basslines, spine-tingling guitar, amidst cries of falsetto directed at his closest n***** and bitches in the stands. Tesfaye spent about one quarter of his Guelph performance directing lyrics at different members of his crew, who were piled into a VIP section stage left. Some of those present were in-house producers, Illangelo and Doc McKinney, who quite frankly, didn’t appear anything like your run-of-the-mill hip-hop producers. They both had their heads shaved, wore white tees and leather jackets, and rarely smiled.

They looked 100% basshead. Now, when you watch Drake’s most recent video for “Headlines”, isn’t it rather obvious OVOXO has carved its own unique position in the industry, with dark clothes, dark beats, and dark lyrics? The Weeknd et al. are just an extreme extension of this ethos. If Drake’s Harvey Dent in OVOXO, then Abel Tesfaye must be Two-Face. The dude says it himself on Twitter, “this [rap] game needs a villain”.

The Weeknd closed Saturday’s sold out show in Guelph with an ear-splitting performance of “The Zone”, rather fittingly, since a screen of kush smoke had accumulated under the high ceilings. As the various band members jammed to their cathartic conclusion, Tesfaye displaying all his molars, hitting those final high notes, a completely different vibe swept over the crowd. No doubt they anticipated Drake to emerge from the dark curtains backstage to perform his verse on “The Zone”. So when he didn’t, everyone stood there on the floor, dumbstruck, not sure whether to go or to stick around.

After all, didn’t The Weeknd whisper into the mic before the start of the song, “I’ve got another surprise for you”. Hell, the dude knew exactly what he was doing, and it worked, well, almost. He teased fans to the point where they actually considered going home to purchase tickets for Sunday night’s performance in London, Ontario, the second of two back-to-back shows in one sublime ‘Weeknd’. How many of the Guelph fans actually turned out for Sunday’s show, I can’t be so sure, since I headed straight home to write this.

- Peter Marrack

[1] Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Hysterical

Apparently in the age of immediacy, when you take two years to follow up an album, people think your band broke up. Such is the case for Brooklyn/Philly band CYHSY. Guess what?! They never broke up! They just took some fucking time (2 years used to be industry standard) to create a record. Sorry Professor Youtube Tweety  McFacespacer. Sorry they can’t create ART fast enough for you.  Sorry your MTV-ADD-ADHD-OCD-fake DD’s- love- for-Justin Biebs-sense-of-decorum won’t allow you to sit and wait patiently for a new body of work from an artist you used to love fifteen minutes ago… when it was cool.

Sorry not everyone can put out a new album every 30 seconds like Ryan Adams. Maybe if you stopped living life at a hysterically unsustainable pace and listened to CYHSY’s new album Hysterical you would hear how they’ve expanded their sound, incorporated lush strings, beautiful synths, and generally taken their song writing up like six notches. Slow down and listen to Hysterical as it was meant to be heard – long play, start to finish. It’s called an ALBUM.

- Jay Brown

[2] NewVillager – S/T

So many girls I know adore Kate Bush. I like her enough, but she can be at little too ovulate-y for me sometimes. She reminds me of my girlfriend’s mum; totally cool and I am always pumped to have lunch with her, but sometimes I wanna watch Doctor Who and discuss the inner workings of time travel. NewVillager is Kate Bush for nerdy guys. Finally we boys have a band we can listen to while cloudbusting. Riding the razor’s edge between artsy fartsy and party hardy, NewVillager’s self title debut is both calming and exciting and finds an astral plane to live on next to Yeasayer and a bottle of ouzo.

- Trevor Risk

[3] The Rapture – In The Grace Of Your Love

With their new album, The Rapture have decided to dance with who brought ‘em. Returning to DFA, the band are reunited with James Murphy and Tim Goldworthy who produced their debut album Echoes. On In The Grace Of Your Love they give their fans a healthy reminder of what made them appealing to begin with. Producer Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, Chromeo) makes you recognize immediately that it’s The Rapture, which is the most a band can ask for. With a little play in the clubs hopefully we can relive those moments from 2003 when nighttimers would claw over each other to fist pump the hardest to “House of Jealous Lovers.”

- Trevor Risk

[4] Ladytron - Gravity The Seducer

On their latest album, Gravity the Seducer, Liverpudlian synthpopsters Ladytron have done the unthinkable and gotten even sadder. The ‘Tron have more or less had a lock on the angsty-yet-danceable market since the early ‘00s, but on Gravity, they largely throw away the first half of that equation and just focus on feelings.

Don’t get it twisted, Ladytron haven’t completely abandoned the dancefloor. Songs like “Ritual,” “Melting Ice” and “Ace of Hz” will definitely get waify, black-clad girls to bust a semi-ironic, noncommittal move, but the rest of the album is a marked departure from the accessible, pop-y sounds of 2008’s Velocifero.

That’s not to say Gravity is a bad album. There’s actually a lot to recommend on it. The building, atmospheric “White Gold” is a one song journey, while the skittery, minimalist “Ambulances” is a perfect example of how a band can evoke a lot of emotions with relatively little sound.

Folks who got into Ladytron because of their alt-dance anthems like “Seventeen,” “Ghosts” and “Destroy Everything You Touch” will find Gravity The Seducer a little tough to swallow, but fans of smart, deep, dark pop music will love it.

– Chris Dart

CARRY MOONBEAMS HOME IN A JAR

For years now Vancouver (and the surrounding areas of British Columbia) has been a bit of a melting pot in the Canadian musical landscape. Countless bands rehearse, record and perform in the venues in the region and every so often one of them gains popularity and they stretch beyond the “friends and family in attendance” vibe at shows. For each band that makes it big, dozens of others are on the cusp of finding success.

It is a combination of luck/timing/skill/dedication and some bands have it and some don’t. One of those bands on the rise in this region is Shimmering Stars. I had the pleasure of chatting with the guys in Shimmering Stars; Rory McClure, Andrew Dergousoff & Brent Sasaki over some drinks before their recent performance in Vancouver.

After listening to the band’s sound check it was clear that the music they listened to and were inspired by is very diverse. Rory touched on that once we sat down. “Yeah. We listened to a lot of Beach Boys and Phil Spector stuff but we were also really into indie rock like Pixies and Sonic Youth. So we kinda pull from both ends.” You can definitely notice the influence of Brian Wilson era music on their album Violent Hearts. The band is based in Vancouver but they did all the recording back in Rory’s parent’s garage (which has been dubbed “The Garage Majal”) in Kamloops. What truly interests me is where the inspiration comes from for these bands. “We get most of our writing done in a dark alley, around 3AM when Rory is near black out. We could call it parking lot-inspired music”, said drummer Andrew. “We are very economical people. Some people go to clubs or to pubs; we just spend a lot of time drinking in parks and parking lots” he continued as he took a drink of his pint. “Shows are different obviously. These beers are all free.”

We moved out to the patio of the venue to have a smoke and talk about what is up next for the band after this show in Vancouver. They were signed to the label Almost Musique out of Paris and they are getting ready to head across the pond for a tour of Europe. “We just played a show in Merritt last week and the next logical step was to go play Paris. Almost Musique has been very supportive of us since day one and they have set up this entire European tour for us.” Being a small band from Vancouver, Canada it seems weird to see that they got signed to a small indie label in Europe first. Since signing with Almost Musique they also became a part of the Hardly Art label out of Seattle

Once we got back to our table there was a plate of nachos waiting for us. “Did you order these?” asked Brent “Nah man. I ate before I came down here” I said as I looked around for a waitress. “Whatever, we can eat them” said Brent as we all sat back down. “Rory doesn’t like olives or tomatoes” said Andrew as we dug into the food. Brent forced “Worst vegetarian EVER!” through a mouthful of nachos. “A vegetarian that doesn’t like tomatoes? Isn’t the tomato like your cow?” I asked. Rory responded with saying he is “a fair weather vegetarian. It is hard on the road.” The band might not all agree on the food on the road but they all see eye to eye on the beverage of choice: Beer. “That is the one thing we are looking forward to the most, well aside from playing the shows, with this tour. Belgium has some far out flavours.”

The band also was quick to agree on who was most likely have issues getting through the international customs. “Hands down it is Rory. Tell them about how you managed to travel to the shows in Seattle, Portland and SXSW without your passport”, joked Brent. “I knew this was going to come up. We had all these shows booked in advance in Washington State through our North American label Hardly Art, including a showcase in Austin for SXSW and I managed to travel across the border and within the US using only my crumpled up birth certificate.”

Once the band makes it back to North America they are going to be focusing on their CD release party at The Waldorf in Vancouver. Rory commented “Once we are all back safe and sound from the Europe tour we are going to be releasing this album then most of our focus all goes back to school.” That being said it really all depends on how well the tour goes, and once that CD comes out, every parent of a musician’s worst nightmare might come true when they put the education on the back burner to focus on the music.

Despite having a pair of record labels representing them now, the guys in Shimmering Stars recorded their debut album independently before they signed with either label. “It was weird, ’cause we were done recording the album and we were taking our time just slowly releasing a few songs online then we were contacted. We never went out and solicited labels. These guys (Almost Musique) wanted us and that made the decision even easier to make. It was just a perfect fit for us at Hardly Art too”, noted Rory. When asked about the people at Almost Musique Andrew quipped “They are all dicks! Kidding. They came down to Austin for SXSW and they are all really cool. That helps since we will be sleeping on their floors in Europe. It was good that they came down to Austin so we’ve had some really good shared experiences with them.”

As I said, it takes a mixture of things for a band to break out of the local “scene”. With the support of Hardly Art in Seattle and Almost Musique in France, a growing fan base in Vancouver, a debut  album ready to be released and an always-appreciated matching outfits look, Shimmering Stars have all the pieces in place to make the next step.

Words: Sutherland604  Photography: James Muscles

SKA-NDINAVIAN BABES

Speaking to Razika’s lead singer, Marie Amdam, over a fuzzy phone connection to Norway, it is clear that something is amiss. Having stumbled from bed to make the early morning phone call without so much as checking the news headlines, it only becomes apparent towards the end of our call, that this day of our interview, Norway was on everyone’s lips for all the wrong reasons; a massacre which left 77 people dead – many of the same generation as Razika’s four members.

Prior to this tragedy that struck her home country, Marie believes it is the relentless rain storms and intense heavy metal scene that placed Norway on the global map. The music created by the endearing female members of Razika could be no further from the dark sounds of metal from their homeland. Their snappy, breezy, classic pop tunes are as fresh and pure as the youthful faces of the band members who have succeeded in reaching a global audience with their melodies at the tender age of 20. Their debut album Program 91 is not in reference to the year they cut their teeth on the touring circuit, nor when they lost their virginity at a drunken party. No, 1991 is the year they were born. Try not to feel as under accomplished or incompetent as I did when I spoke with the delectably sweet Marie. It is not many 14-year-olds who dedicate their entire lives outside high school to fine tuning their musical abilities. And having played the breezy sounds of their debut offering on repeat since acquiring it, I for one, am glad they made such a sacrifice.

With their catchy, high energy Norwegian and English tunes, the girls have been compared to everyone from The Specials to The Slits. Just don’t call them bubblegum pop. Marie describes their sound as a unique mix between digital pop and ska. With such a diverse sound, the lead singer and songwriter claims their shows host a wide and diverse audience from teenage boys eager to catch a glimpse of the pretty quartet rocking out on stage to one enthusiastic 60-year-old man who once proclaimed them the best band he had seen live since the swinging 60’s. Teenage heartache, romance and young love are themes most people can relate to, even if a number of their songs are sung in their native tongue. “This is something that just happened naturally,” says Marie. “We started off writing all of our songs in English, but after a while we tried to write in Norwegian and it was then that people began to notice us more.” Despite pressure from their record company to pick one language and stick to it, Marie believes it is this unique combination of languages that helps them stand out, even if they do have to constantly deal with ardent fans and journalists attempts to decipher their lyrics resulting, quite often, in a case of lost in translation. “It is so funny for us when people write to us and try to understand our lyrics by using Google Translate. Although lyrics are really important, we are proud that the music alone can work for us; that people don’t have to understand the lyrics to like our songs.”

A tight clique since their prepubescent days, the girls formed Razika in 2006. Back then, in the early days, they learned their instruments by trial and error, they didn’t play by notes and together they explored a whole catalogue of music trying everything from The Beatles to heavy punk rock in attempt to define their sound. Striking a fine balance between jamming and homework, the girls were offered their first record deal at age 18, only to turn it down. “Our manager was really into the idea of releasing an album when we were young to capture our youthful spirit, but we just didn’t feel ready,” explains Marie. “We wanted to wait until our songs were good enough and we felt more confident.” Recording the album in 2010 took longer than expected, as with schoolwork, it could sometimes be months between bouts in the studio. What has emerged is 11 heartbreakingly good tracks with a youthful naivety that transports you back to those magical days when lying in a sunny park daydreaming about falling in love was enough in life.

No matter how mature and accomplished their record may sound, however, it is hard to forget just how young the members of Razika are. Their name was taken from a secret code they used to describe a cute guy when at school, and their website gallery is scattered with photos of the foursome as kids before they adopted their current American Apparel style image. On tour last year, between giggles, Marie admits to feeling more nervous about meeting her teenage idol, Alex Turner of Arctic Monkey fame than she was about Razika playing to an audience of nearly 2000 as their support act. While Alex Turner and co. may have moved on from their days of heavy partying with female fans, Marie makes a point of not ruling out groupies. With party invitations following every show and eager male fans falling at their feet, perhaps Razika are a little less sweet and a little more ska than they convey. One thing for sure, their ambitions are anything but fluffy.

Words: Sinead Keane  Photography: Kristine Jakobsen

GUNS BLAZING

During one of several opening shows for Florence and the Machine last year, Hanni El Khatib shared a revealing moment with his drummer.

“I looked back at him and was like, ‘What the fuck are we doing here?’” says El Khatib over the phone, sounding a little weary from a video shoot and celebration the night before.

That comment was revelatory as he understood that the casual music career he led before had become something much bigger than he ever imagined as a 10-year-old, when he first picked up an old acoustic guitar his parents had lying around the house.

“I didn’t think anything would happen other than releasing a 7-inch and playing some shows in my home town. That was my goal,” says El Khatib, who will be releasing his first full-length, Will The Guns Come Out, on September 27. “Music was just something that kept me from going insane at my desk job.”

His desk job, for nearly 10 years before all of this, was not as mundane as you would think. He was a skateboard and apparel designer for a California company called HUF. During that time, El Khatib stayed productive as a musician, playing the occasional local show and festival while releasing a couple of singles – some of which have appeared in movie soundtracks and a Nike “Just Do It” commercial. But it was his whisky-fueled wails, scorching live shows with his sole bandmate and long-time friend, drummer Nicky Fleming-Yaryan as well as candid, gritty songs that gradually gained more and more attention from fans.

“The live shows are insane,” he says. “A lot of the time we’ll just wing it or make up songs on the fly. We’ve actually done that.”

Will The Guns Come Out is El Khatib’s declaration of embracing whatever life has to offer – the good and bad – with open arms, and likely a pair of middle fingers.

“It’s about never knowing what to expect every day,” he explains. “You could get fucked over by your boss or your best friend could get hit by a car. The title is an internal question.” He describes the album as “songs written for anyone who’s ever been shot or hit by a train,” – that is, for those who have gone through tough times.

The recording process of the new album was comparable to his live performances. “I had one rule,” he says about recording the album. “If it sounds fine, then leave it. It may not be perfect, but don’t worry about it. I would rather use the recording with the best emotional take rather than the one with the perfect timing or whatever.”

“I can’t even count how many mess-ups there are on the album,” the 30-year-old adds.

Hanni El Khatib finds real beauty in imperfection and in the damaged, and is a refreshing voice in a music industry so focused on the polished and pristine. In addition to a range of inspirations including The Misfits, Lou Reed, and David Bowie, El Khatib is also moved by the darker, marginalized aesthetics of 50s and 60s Americana from the likes of Bizarre Magazine and fetish illustrations of John Willie. In his bio, El Khatib describes his music as “knife fight music.” While he admittedly acknowledges that he has never been (nor would like to be) in a knife fight, his use of imagery references a certain era to which he envisions his music as a soundtrack. He maintains this theme covering his releases with colour-treated images of violent 50s car wrecks, which he admits having a strong fascination for.

“I like things that are a little fucked up,” he says, pausing for a couple of seconds. “There’s some beauty in that.”

You can hear this type of beauty in his growing list of unbridled songs. These songs could easily be categorized as punk, indie, doo-wop, garage rock, and/or jazz, yet they simultaneously show us how inconsequential and rigid these definitions actually are.

“I guess I like to keep people guessing with my music,” he says. “When people ask me what my music’s like, I say, ‘It’s kind of like this, and it’s kind of like that’, but it’s still very straightforward and not too experimental.”

This indefinable quality is clearly a product of El Khatib’s eclectic pool of inspiration and may also be the result of a culturally rich background. Raised by a Palestinian father and a Filipino mother in the Bay Area, he never identified with one group or category.

“I feel connected to both [cultures] equally and wasn’t raised in any particular way. I was raised American. My parents were pretty open-minded and my mother’s very artistic and let me try whatever,” says the San Francisco-native/LA-transplant. “I didn’t fit into a race. On forms, I would always check the ‘other’ box. I just learned to adapt into any culture. There were no lines dividing culture and race and I was taught to like and accept everybody. Maybe that is why I’m into whatever now.”

His philosophy of boundlessness not only applies to his music or the people he meets, but to basically everything else in his life as well.

“If I’m going to paint something, I don’t like to think about it. Or if I’m designing a skate deck, I’ll make a graphic that says ‘fuck you’ and not be too worried about who sees that,” he says unapologetically. “I try not to limit or restrain myself.”

This relentless, honest work ethic is what has led him to this album and to his “what-the-fuck-are-we-doing-here?” moment on stage last year. While the album has been coming together for close to two years, these are songs that El Khatib has been playing for many years before. These songs (aside from a melancholic cover of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel”) were written by a man with no intention other than to get some words off of his chest. These songs that radiate honesty are completely free of pretention and do not carry the weighty expectation to be enjoyed. This album is a form of closure for El Khatib.

“I’ve been performing and playing them for a while so it’s time for them to be released,” he says. “It’s time to move on.”

When asked what his name means, his answer is borderline ironic.

“My mom tells me it’s Middle Eastern for ‘peaceful and content,’” he says. “I don’t know if she’s making it up, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.”

Does he live up to his namesake?

“It really, really depends what day you catch me on,” he replies with a laugh.

Words: Gen Handley  Photography: Conan Thai

A REAL HORROR SHOW

An ELO record, a Prince record, and a New Order record… what do they have in common? Well, you’re extremely likely to find them sitting on the coffee table at Benjamin Plant’s home, the mastermind behind Melbourne’s four-piece electro-rock act, Miami Horror.

Originally formed as a solo project for Benjamin’s production and DJ work in 2006/2007, Miami Horror has evolved into a live band and since then their sound has progressed into a more mature, experimental sound. Recently visiting my home of Vancouver, BC for a sold out show at Fortune Sound Club, I was lucky enough to arrange a nice chat with the boys. I was joined in the downstairs lounge of Fortune by Ben Plant, Aaron Shanahan, and Dan Whitechurch. Josh Moriarty was unable to join due to the jar of honey he packed in his guitar case exploding into quite the sticky mess. Sometimes a man just has to clean!

Ben, Miami Horror started out as your personal outlet for productions and DJ mixes years back, and then your music progressed into this psyche-rock indie-dance live band project which is what it is now. What influenced this shift?

Ben: To be honest, I think it was just me getting over club music and wanting to explore something new. It was sort of a “been there done that” kind of thing. I was in that scene for years and most of the remixes were done in like 2007/2008…it’s 2011 now; time for a change in what I thought was cool. Hopefully everyone else still digs it.

But that doesn’t seem to be a forgotten element of Miami Horror. Do you still plan on keeping that side of your work alive in years to come?

Ben: Oh totally, remixing is fun and all but we just haven’t had time with the band. The band project is the main focus these days.

As far as making music today, what’s keeping you guys inspired? What are you listening to personally, as well as in the studio for influence?

Aaron: I guess everything we listen to is going to influence us in the future in one way or another. It’s all different but also similar in ways. I guess I’d say a lot of 70s stuff, or stuff that sounds like 70s era music. Lately it’s been Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Beatles, even leading up to current music like the Flaming Lips and Radiohead. It changes a lot but for personal listening that’s usually the standard for us.

So what’s next for Miami Horror?

Dan: Maybe it’ll be a 50s inspired album next (laughs). We’re going back!

Going back to the beginnings Ben, when did you decide you wanted to transform your project into a full band? Did you know the rest of the guys from before?

Ben: Yeah well we were all connected in the scene back in Melbourne. Josh and I went out a lot together to shows and all the other guys have either been band members or DJs/producers for a while before so it was an easy process to get everyone together in Miami Horror. Josh was doing vocals for me in previous projects so it was obvious to have him on board.

Aaron: You know it was a lot like American Idol! Ben was sitting there at a table and we’d all have to come audition and he’d yell at us. There were posters on the street advertising it and everything! (band laughs) But yeah, we all came together and that’s that. We haven’t really had any changes since. It’s a good crew I’d say. We’ve shared a lot of rooms in the last while and we aren’t tired of each other… yet.

I bet it’ll be refreshing to go back and play all your favorite local venues at home after this.

Ben: Actually, we kind of have by-passed all the venues and clubs we started out at and it’s a lot like the concert circuit we typically do on tour. We just have more festivals. There are a lot. There are heaps! They’re actually super fun. Even the smaller ones are crazy.

Would you guys say you’re popular at the festivals because your sound translates well to the huge summer party crowd?

Dan: That could be it. We seem to always play as the sun is going down. Have you noticed that?

Aaron: It’s kind of funny because our music usually fits in well at a night time club and the day time is a different environment completely.

Are there any newer bands that Miami Horror suggests to the people today?

Ben: Umm, there’s a band called Art vs Science who are really good. They’re from Sydney and I think they’re coming out here to Vancouver in August apparently, so check them out! I guess if we’re talking about Australian artists, there’s this singer, Kimbra, who’s awesome too. She did some vocals on our album.

Aaron: We also really enjoy Tame Impala, I’m sure you have heard of them by now.

A lot of bands don’t listen to too much music while they’re either touring or working on material. Do you guys find the time to listen to much while on the road?

Aaron: Oh we definitely do, but I can see why some bands don’t. There was a period in Europe when we would be travelling by bus, just spending so many hours driving, and we’d just share tunes the entire time. But I know what you mean and I can see why that happens.

[Words: Cooper Saver  Illustration: Tyler Quarles]

STAFF INFECTIONZ

I’ll assume anyone interested in reading about Toronto hip hop producer, J Staffz, is also interested in professional men’s tennis. In tennis, we have players like Rafael Nadal, who are not always the prettiest to watch, or the most versatile, in terms of their arsenal, yet they work hard and compete like an angry bull. Then we have players like Roger Federer, who grace us with their class and magical dynamism each and every time they step foot on the court. J Staffz is Roger Federer. Just the other night I watched him play a very expensive-looking piano – owned by Number 9 Recording Studios in Toronto – with the effortless grace of a natural-born musician. Then he shuffled over to the adjoining room and blasted eleven new beats… grimy enough to contest anything coming out of the smoking section at Lex Luger’s crib.

Yet I don’t think that’s J’s lane, per se, the Lex Luger B.M.F. style. After all, classical music, along with good wine, is J’s guilty pleasure. He seems to perform best in the studio when he’s injecting classical vibes into the heart and soul of hip hop beats. So if I were to really weigh in on this dude who spends most of his time holed up in “Mom’s basement”, massaging the keys and tweeting, whose produced for the likes of Wiz Khalifa and Tony Yayo, I’d say he’s destined to be a heavyweight in the rap game. Toronto is in good hands, heads.

So what have you been working on lately?

Just making people a lot of music, basically, and that’s about it. Working on that and working on my social networking game, working on JStaffz TV.

I guess the biggest record you’ve done is the Tony Yayo record, “Officer Ricky”, right?

It was actually called “Somebody Snitched”. It was quoted as “Officer Ricky” because he says that a lot in the chorus. I did the Wiz Khalifa record too, with Boogz Boogetz, called “Meet New People”, and then I did “Young Rock Starz” on the exact same day. It’s funny because when I went and gave them the beats to do those records, I never knew they were going to use one of the other beats for the song, and then it was so weird when the song came out, because Yung Berg was on it, and they didn’t tell me that either, so it was kind of a shock when it came out. I was like, “Hold on a second”. And then they shot the video and they didn’t tell me that either, and I was just like, “What the hell, man?”

The Wiz Khalifa video?

No, here’s the thing. When I met them, I went to the studio just because Boogz Boogetz was on Ustream, and he was like, “Hey, come out”. So I went, sat there all day, getting baked for like five hours. Before I even played any beats, we just chilled, and it was like twenty minutes before I had to leave, because my manager was with me, or at the time she was with me, my friend Vanessa, and she had to work the next day, and it was like 11 o’clock at night, and we’re four hours away from home. We’re in like St. Catharines or something.

That’s where I was born. [laughs]

That’s why it was so weird, because Wiz was just there by himself.

Wiz was in St. Catharines?

Yeah, by himself. It was like two years ago, maybe 2008, 2009, summer of 2009. We just hung out. We didn’t really do anything, and then Wiz’s like, “Play your beats”. I played three beats and I got to the one that he liked for “Meet New People”, and he’s like, “Yo, leave it on”. He’s just sitting there nodding his head, and he grabs a blank piece of paper, and a marker, and scribbles his verses. That was crazy. I just went there to hang out and play beats, and then all these records come out. Wiz ended up putting one of them on his mixtape, and then Boogz Boogetz did a mixtape hosted by DJ Khaled, and both the songs were on that. I was like, “Oh my gosh”.

And with the Tony Yayo record, how did it feel to be slotted on one side of that beef with Rick Ross?

I didn’t even care about the beef. I followed it because it got press, but when the record came out I remember people calling me up and saying like, “Yo, I’m in Atlanta and I heard the track.” That was so cool to me because at the time I only had a couple records on regular rotation in Toronto, or across Canada. I never had anything that was played in other countries that people really liked. Even when G-Unit called me in 2007 or 2006, they were like the biggest rappers. They were like Young Money now. So that was kind of a shock, going from some kid in Brampton who just makes rap beats to the biggest rapper in the world calling you.

You’re from Brampton?

Yeah, man. I’m a Bramptonite.

Where in Brampton?

Hawarden and Mayfield.

There’s a lot of talent coming out of Canada, it seems.

I think it’s just all coming out now, because there’s been a block as far as popular music goes, in Canada, for a very long time. Drake and Justin Bieber opened that up. But you got to think, who was the last big rapper we had, who was as big as Drake? Maestro?

Snow, maybe.

But that was only like shutting down malls. Maybe Maestro. That was the early 90s. Canada only gets a good rapper every ten years. That’s retarded.

When you’re producing, do you use mostly the boards?

Yeah. I don’t like sampling. I feel like I’m cheating, especially because I know how to play the piano. It’s like plagiarizing when you’re the best reader/writer in the world. Not that I’m the best.

Well, you’re obviously on the right path. Do you have a strict business plan?

Kind of. Up to a year ago I used to be this crazy money-hungry “pay-me-for-beats” kind of artist. I wanted a thousand dollars for each beat. Then I realized the artists who have a lot of money… like the world is set up so that the artists who have a rich mommy and daddy just suck. They’re not really that good. And a lot of the ones who don’t have money, they’re amazing. Like the guys you find playing on the side of the road, or in the TTC, are amazing. They’re so good, and then the guys that are like, “Hey, I got ten grand, you want a beat? Can I get a beat?” You listen to them rap and you’re like, “Dude, just keep your money.”

Who do you like to listen to now, when you’re not working?

Tyler the Creator. He’s just crazy, and he breakdances. He makes like goth hip hop music and he breakdances. He’s a sick dancer. Cory Gunz is good. He blows my mind. Probably a lot of Drake. He’s been putting out a lot of emo music, well not emo, but emotional. But that’s good. Because if you listen to So Far Gone, all those songs are stories. He’s one of the artists who’s realizing when you tell your deepest secrets in song form, people take a way more personal approach. They get connected to you. They feel like they know you. As opposed to rapping about cars, clubs, girls, and getting hammered. Rapping about that stuff is cool, but having seventeen songs about that on your album is just ridiculous. It’s not any fun. I feel like music is getting back to the point where people are talking about real things that are going on in their lives; real stories. I feel like hip hop at least is getting back there, and that’s great.

You rap too, don’t you?

I’m weird. I’m like a part-time rapper. I like doing it, but that’s only because I get free studio time, and I get free beats. I don’t really pay to do it. If I had to buy beats, and pay for studio time, I probably wouldn’t do it, because I have way more passion for making beats.

But words come with it sometimes…

The only time I really get an urge to write a rap record is when I make a beat that’s really good. Then I remember that I just don’t like rapping very much. Because I’ll do one song, and then everyone’s wondering when the next one’s coming out. And I won’t have another one. [laughs] Like, I did this mixtape called The Staff Meeting.

Right, I couldn’t find it online.

Well, I didn’t want to promote myself as a rapper. Because a lot of people were like, “Hey, like what do you really rap about?” I’m just like, “I rap about making beats.” That’s like my whole thing, and there’s not that many people who can relate. I feel like if I go through something really traumatic, or say my career explodes and I become this huge producer, then that would be an opportune time to start rapping, because I can rap. I just haven’t been through enough to make a full ten to fifteen song mixtape, because ten of the songs would be about how much I hate rappers sometimes, and the rest would be about how I sit in the basement, and drink wine, and how I don’t like partying very much, and how I just watch movies. I wouldn’t be rapping about killing people, and drugs, and that stuff, because I don’t do that. I like going out to restaurants, so that’s all I would rap about.

Words: Peter Marrack Photography: Loni Schick

YOU’D BETTER GO IN DISGUISE

Phil Spector’s band was The Teddy Bears, Elvis Presley wanted to be yours, and Teddy Pendergrass had a beautiful man-beard. Today, carrying the plush Gund down the stairs by the ear is Sweden’s Teddybears. They’ve been a hardcore act, a remix project, a synth pop outfit, and currently write songs in whatever style they choose whilst recruiting the world’s top performers for collaboration. With the release of their new album Devil’s Music, Teddybears have kept their foot on the hybrid’s gas pedal without giving a thought to how they come across. Truly they are a collective who create for nobody but themselves.

It’s generally lazy to ask a band about the history behind the band’s name, but it’s interesting that Phil Spector’s first band was called The Teddy Bears, and in the last decade you’ve taken over a similar career arc to him. Teddybears’ trademark has become taking hit songs and plugging in the best pop singers in the world.

Are you the new wall of sound machine, minus the gunplay?

Joakim Åhlund: No the gunplay is definitely an integral part, only perhaps less public than in our mentor’s case.

You’ve included the 2009 song “Get Mama A House” on the new record, instead of a track like “No More Michael Jackson”. In a sped up media cycle, why the revisionist addition?

It’s a different version of “Get Mama…”. Different vocalist, different mix. The new version has B.o.B. on it instead of Desmond Foster, who was on the first version. We keep making new tracks all the time and they will sometimes come out in no particular chronology. We just like to try and keep new shit coming out as we finish it.

How have your influences changed over the last twenty years?

Not as much as one might think judging from how our own music has developed. It’s actually more a matter of us gradually getting to master different techniques more and thus being able to better explore different musical directions. We started out barely knowing how to beat on a distorted guitar and these days our music contains more studio-wizardry and things like synthesizers, sequencers, programmed beats and samples etc. But even in our humble grindcore beginnings, we were always listening to, and trying to recreate the sounds that we heard on records by Kraftwerk and the Egyptian Lover and Shabba Ranks.

The pop genre is the highest mountain to climb in your business. Were there nerves when you made the switch from hardcore to electronic-tinged hits?

We’re not trying to climb mountains or make hits, we’re just trying to make stuff that we like ourselves. It’s been a long, gradual process.

Once the international radio world finds something other than house/electronic to paint its pop stars with, do you have plans to develop into another different incarnation of Teddybears?

Yeah, we’ve already stocked up on sitars and yoga mats.

Had the B52s and Cee Lo ever met or considered working together before you married them on the track “Cho Cha”?

It was actually not even our idea but Cee Lo’s. When we got down to Atlanta to finish the track with him, we found out that he had already gone and recorded them on the track without us even knowing it. A very pleasant surprise for us indeed!

Does the climate of a venue or city have anything to do with whether or not to wear the masks? It must be hot in there sometimes, especially while also wearing a suit.

We always wear the masks. It’s crazy hot in there, but if one wants to look sharp, it’s a small price to pay.

What’s your favourite all time Teddybears song?

There’s a fantastic version of “Punkrocker” that a Swedish, progrock band named Träd Gräs och Stenar did.

The title track on Devil’s Music repeats the names of some virtuoso guitar players. How important is the guitar to the music of Teddybears? Do you write on it these days?

It definitely used to be more important to us before, when we were more of a guitar-bass-drums-turntables-type combo, but lately it has disappeared more and more from our sound. I still write mainly on the guitar, though, and then translate to synth or whatever, but the songwriting takes many different and sometimes weird paths in our case.

Which artist have you worked with that you never thought you would or had you consciously thinking “Wow, a younger version of me would have never thought this would be possible”?

Iggy Pop, Cee Lo, Wayne Coyne, Wiley, The B-52’s, Eve, Mad Cobra, remixing Daft Punk and stuff, it’s pretty heavy. All those people are our heroes… we never would’ve dared to dream. It’s all pretty amazing for us that we got the opportunity to work with such cool artists. But for me personally, I don’t mean no disrespect to any of the others, but Iggy Pop…that’s a proud moment for me.

Are Teddybears and Robyn forever linked? What’s the working relationship like? Who writes which parts?

I have only written a couple of tracks for her, with her and Klas, “Robotboy” and “Stars Forever” but it’s mainly Klas. He writes a lot for and with Robyn and he has produced most of her stuff on the last couple of records, since she got really good ha ha.

From this side of the world, it appears that Sweden is at the forefront of all genres; house, pop, garage etc. How much of that has to do with the forward thinking grant programs the government institutes?

I really wouldn’t know, but it’s a matter of tradition too I guess. We always had other good Swedish bands to get inspired by. Although we’re a small country with very few inhabitants, at the edge of the world, it never felt like it would be impossible for us to reach out with our music to the rest of the world somehow.

What’s the biggest struggle today for a pop band with so many credits under them?

For us I think the biggest struggle is that sometimes it takes forever for things to happen. I like for our music to come out as soon as it’s done, but sometimes stuff gets caught up in bureaucracy and Kafka-esque longueurs and that can be very frustrating. But that part of things has also improved a lot lately and it gets easier and easier to distribute one’s music when it’s hot off the press through blogs and stuff and not necessarily through pieces of plastic.

Words: Trevor Risk Photography: Kim Svensson

TALKING ‘BOUT MY…

For a band so rooted in decades bygone, New Orleans duo Generationals seem to not get too lost in calculating the components of their sound. On their most recent LP, 2011’s Actor-Caster, Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer seemed to have stripped down to an even more retro feel than the slightly sporadic take found on their debut. Widmer, on the phone from a break in the band’s schedule, explains that many of the band’s facets are uncalculated, yet he seems to have answers readily polished for questions. Perhaps it’s just the capabilities of a band well-trained in the media. Or maybe some of the band’s conventions are more strategic than he suggests.

Originally bandmates in a project titled The Eames Era which split in 2008, Widmer and Joyner decided to carry on as a two-piece. Of the switch, Widmer says “the recording process is almost exactly the same. The only difference is that we play almost all of the instruments between the two of us now.” Creating a full band’s sound with two people, he explains, is actually quite natural. “We just kind of found the way we work as writers. It’s the right situation for us to create the kind of record we want to.”

In studio, Joyner and Widmer create a five-person sound using multi-track overdubs, playing all the instruments themselves. But live, the guys have three additional musicians to round out the sound created on the albums. Widmer explains that the flexibility to change, and work with different concepts, pays off. “It’s definitely a tricky thing for a band like us, because we do use a lot of things in our records that are synthetic or driven by machines,” he says. “The live show definitely has a more human rock band feel. That’s the approach we’re taking with the band. The songs take on a more ragged sort of feel [live], and that turns out pretty well. We just prefer to play with people than a bunch of computers.”

Though, he’s not writing off the concept completely. “I don’t think it’s a dogmatic thing I’d say is wrong. There aren’t very many hard line rules about what’s wrong and right. It goes down to ‘do people want to watch it and buy a ticket to that show?’.”

As easy of a decision it was to continue as a duo, the band’s name also came quite naturally. “We spent a lot of 2008 recording our first record in Washington, DC, and we spent a lot of the summer watching coverage of the presidential election,” Grant explains. “People would say a certain issue would break down the ‘generational’ lines. So, we kind of kept remembering that word.” As far as words go, Grant also touches on the band’s newest album title, Actor-Caster, by shrugging off any specific depth to it. “It’s more just kind of a sound thing in that it doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “We liked the way it looked, the way it sounds. It’s not a literal reference to anything.”

Taking things literal seems to be a very weary ground in music these days. Bands like M83 have worked on the idea of ambiguity that lets the listener take a record where they want it mentally, rather than concrete lyrics telling a specific story. “I do like the idea of going the opposite way with it,” Widmer explains. “It’s not about trying to invoke any specific imagery. It’s kind of playing around with the vague sense. I think we are just trying to take it really phonetically than be really specific about a reference.”

On the other hand, a huge part of being in a band, Widmer explains, is backing up your material by “owning it.” The cover of the guys’ first album, 2009’s Con Law, is a close up photograph of their two faces, released in a time when every indie band was looking for nondescript illustrative art to front their releases. The idea, maybe, is just as much about taking the road less-travelled as it was about ownership. “I remember seeing a lot of cartoon hand drawn art with some indie hand lettered title, sort of like the way music studios try to model a movie to an indie market in making it feel homemade,” Grant explains. “Putting our pictures on it was our way of trying to do the opposite of hiding ourselves away like bands do when they put cartoons on the front. Step out front, put your face on it, own it, and let it be known that it’s your best work.” Grant sees this move similar to bygone eras, again invoking vintage records, specifically a record like Phil Collins’ Face Value. “That album cover: just super close up, no make up. You can see all the little pores and imperfections in his skin. There is kind of a therapeutic way to lay it there that it was his work, in a painfully invasive photo of his face. Just that idea was the opposite of what I thought was a really common trend a few years ago.”

On both of their albums, Generationals have a sound reminiscent of 60s era radio when pop was still really fresh and smart, before vocoder and remixes ruined people’s taste and attention span. But in staying vintage, the guys know they have to be careful not to be too kitschy. “There’s a lot of ways you could do a cool band or show without doing something that’s totally retro. Like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, a very cool band not trying to be contemporary. People like Amy Winehouse or Adele are drawing from 60’s and 70’s motifs, showing vintage stuff is big now.” Widmer explains the key to making a bygone era work in a contemporary setting is all about pulling it off in the live format, without overthinking it. “When you put a show together, you have to make it exist in a setlist. We didn’t take a hard mind about trying to eye down our band to any one thing, like a performance style.”

Widmer adds, “When people hone in on one specific thing making a decision that you’re trying to sound like one kind of form, well, we never had that conversation.” This lack of directness created albums that have varied moods and feels, created with a plethora of diverse genres in tow. “When song ideas came up, they came in the best ways they’d be developed. Sometimes that’ll be electronic, sometimes it is more of a vintage sound. We follow the songs where we think the best direction it is to go without thinking about what the record or the band is supposed to sound like.”

In a similar vein to contemporaries Peter Bjorn and John, many of Generationals’ tunes stick to your consciousness whether you intend them to or not. And like any modern act aware of their catchy capabilities, the band has given rights for several of their tracks to be used in advertisements as well as film and television. But unlike the past, it’s not seen as selling out, it’s about being wise, Widmer explains. “I don’t really hear anyone use the ’sell out’ kind of attitude,” he says. “Anyone using that should take a look at the economics of being in an independent band, unless you have an instance where a band is obviously changing something to get a big pay day.”

Despite what Widmer describes “the motivation to hit a home run with every song,” that some bands use in terms of hit-making and singles success, he finds that treating each song equally often unintentionally creates great tracks that people connect with. “With us, it’s really an attention thing in that we developed or have ideas for twice as many songs as we record,” he says. “We only make it all the way through with a song we really like a lot, ones that we think are gonna be really good.” He sees this strategy as a natural vibe that advertisers connect with. “Advertising follows pop culture, and in this era, pop music isn’t really as popular for advertising,” adding that companies turn to lesser-known bands to connect people to their product.

But creating songs that sound nothing like most of their peers come with certain tags the guys aren’t necessarily comfortable with. “I wouldn’t say timeless,” Widmer says of the band’s era-hopping albums. “None of our reference points are epic or anything,” he says. “It’s hard to write something anyone would think is timeless. I wouldn’t credit myself with that. We just don’t pay a lot of attention to what format or style should be. It’s about making the song as good as it should be.”

With such avenues as marketing and online exposure, the media outlets act like extra opportunities for exposure. Glee star Dianna Agron recently included the band’s “When They Fight, They Fight” on her instalment of Celebrity Playlists. With plugs from Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Starbucks in the bag, their fan roster is becoming quite rounded. Thus, the opportunity for future releases must be looming. But Widmer explains that, like their previous releases, they don’t have particular plans before going into the studio.

“If you’re paying a lot of attention, it’ll end up making you look really dated,” he says. On the topic of invoking certain trends, he says “If you’re not one of the first people to do something, when people look back on that song or record, it’s not going to stand the test of time.” The key, he says, is to blaze your own path, and start a new trend for other people to explore. “The only way I can figure to do it is to move in a direction you think is different than what else is popular, and if you do a good enough job, that will be your own mini trend.”

With two well-received releases in the bag, Generationals will be going for a hat trick with their next effort. But as Widmer explains, previous experience will ease the process, but not predict the result. He explains that with the experience of the first album done, the second one came easier. “We kind of walked in from day one knowing we could at least finish the record. Musically or thematically, I don’t know that it was a huge departure.” Continuing on then, will be interesting to see where the band takes it. “With the third one, whatever we record next, we don’t really feel like we need to dive into a new genre or thematically change our approach,” he says. “We’ve never consciously done that anyways. So we just write another batch, whatever we’re feeling like when we’re in there. By the time it happens, we could be really hard into metal and make a metal record.”

Words: JJ Brewis
Photography: Phil Knott