Five fall faves from Austra to Vagabond Opera

My fall picks for visiting acts to Vancouver appeared in WE a few weeks ago. 

Austra

Credit: supplied

Posted By: Andrea Warner

It’s been over a decade since I experienced a regular school year, yet September is still more about the anxiety of fresh starts and not-forgotten failures than any drunken New Year’s Eve. If you’re like me, the sweet sounds of fall concerts should help banish those back-to-school blues (real or phantom). Skip sweating over the sold-out shows from Bon Iver, an imploding Kings of Leon, Opeth and Jay-Z/Kanye and, instead, take a chance on these five visiting acts that will help soothe even the most savaged of spirits.

TWIN SHADOW / DIAMOND RINGS

On one level, George Lewis Jr., aka Twin Shadow, is another dude crafting songs alone in his bedroom. But the Brooklyn-based beat-machine isn’t making music for the maudlin introvert — he’s all about the solo dance parties. As is his opening act, the brilliantly fun Diamond Rings, Toronto’s one-man-electronic band. Sept. 28 at Biltmore (390 Kingsway), 8pm. $17.50 from Red Cat Records, Scratch, Highlife and TicketWeb.com.

NEON INDIAN / COM TRUISE

If Neon Indian and Com Truise’s electro and synth-heavy songs are any indication, the early ’80s never actually ended — the first part of the decade just took a prolonged sojourn in outerspace wherein it bashed away at the boundaries of bleeps and blips with New Wave hammers, biding its time until the perfect storm hit: advanced sound engineering and the threat of grunge’s return. This night all but guarantees a chill-out dance party and at least one or two scrunchie sightings. Oct. 4 at Venue (881 Granville), 8pm. $20 from Red Cat Records, Scratch, Beatstreet, and Highlife.

VAGABOND OPERA

Sucker for a spectacle? The Vagabond Opera also has the talent to back it up. Featuring classically trained opera vocalists and musicians, this cabaret-inspired group takes its inspirations from pan-European bohemia: Parisian jazz to Ukranian folk-punk with heavy doses of klezmer, accordion and violin. It’s probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen this side of the Atlantic. Oct. 12 at the WISE Hall (1281 Adanac), 8pm. $15-$18 at the door or CaravanBC.com.

WILD FLAG

As two-thirds of Sleater-Kinney, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss helped put a lot of the “grrr” in the riot grrrl movement. Now they’re bringing back that much-missed vibe with their new punk rock super-group, Wild Flag, with Helium’s Mary Timony and the Minders’ Rebecca Cole. Thick, scuzzy guitars and pounding drums set against deceptively sweet vocals? Yes please. Nov. 12 at Biltmore (391 Kingsway), 8pm. $16 Red Cat Records, Scratch, Highlife and TicketWeb.com.

AUSTRA

A band’s best friends are sometimes all one needs as proof of awesomeness: indie electro-pop outfit Austra is tight with fellow Torontians Diamond Rings and Fucked Up. Need more proof? The trio’s stunning debut Feel It Break is a jarringly beautiful collision of influences and sounds — digital chamber pop that’s cinematic in scope. The album’s garnered gushing praise from major media outlets around the world and landed the band a coveted spot on the Polaris Prize shortlist. They’re a band destined for big venues. An intimate show like this will be one to remember. Nov. 16 at Electric Owl (918 Main), 8pm. $14 from Red Cat Records, Scratch, Highlife and TicketWeb.com.
Next week’s MUSIC column will focus on five local acts rocking out this fall.

Diamond Rings

 My interview with Diamond Rings (aka John O'Regan) is in this week's WE. 

MUSIC: The substance and sparkle of Diamond Rings

Posted By: Andrea Warner

03/09/2011 12:00 AM

 

Diamond Rings, also known as John O’Regan, takes WE’s call at a pit stop in Fredericksburg, Texas. He and his tour mates, Canadian indie-rockers PS I Love You, are stretching their legs outside a custom winery, en route, eventually, to their co-headlining Vancouver gig Friday, Mar. 11, at the Biltmore. “It’s hot,” he says. “Oh, with daily tastings! Maybe when we’re done, we’ll taste some wine.”

This life on the road is a far cry from O’Regan’s recent stint opening for pop star Robyn, and it’s an even bigger leap from where Diamond Rings got its start: as a collection of acoustic songs O’Regan, a founding member and the lead singer of post-punk outfit the D’ubervilles, wrote while hospitalized over the summer in 2008 for Crohn’s disease. Since then, O’Regan has transitioned into his Diamond Rings persona with the same glam-adrogynous fury that made David Bowie famous, and released his debut, Special Affections, to critical acclaim, fan fervour, and plenty of speculation about his personal life.

WE: I’m fairly sure this is the best art to have ever been made from a hospital bed.
John O’Regan: [Laughs] Thanks!

How did that experience help shape the sound?
It didn’t really. I mean, I wrote some of the songs, not the whole record, when I was in the hospital and they were all acoustic. Other than ‘All Yr Songs,” which, you know, I had a shitty keyboard and a shitty guitar and the drum sound on that album is from the keyboard, it’s Casio rapman, but like I didn’t even conceptualize the songs as being electronic pop songs until later when I was out and about, living in the city, and messing with Garage Band for fun.

Was there a part of you that had always wanted to make music that sounded like that?
It was more recent. I was really into post-punk and more straight-up indie-sounding rock music when I was younger, and this is the result of listening to more music and refining my palette a little, finding a certain sensibility that I’m drawn to and trying to achieve that sonically.

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
Yeah. It wasn’t very good, but I remember every song I’ve ever written. Well, at least the ones I write down and record.

So the ones when you’re just singing about getting out of the shower...
Yeah, I don’t really... I’m always busy, I’m always working on stuff, but I’m not the kind of artist who’s churning out a track a day. I think maybe even from the background I come from, studying art formally in school, having a degree in fine art, and the program I was in in Guelph was really based in conceptual work, steeped in theory, and what we had to do as artists was learning how to critique and defend our own stuff. I have a very sensitive filter to my own ideas, and if I’m not feeling something, I generally try to cut my losses and work on something else. It’s really hard for me to finish a song and have it be a throw-away. If I get to the point where it’s all done, I’m usually really happy with it.

Your music videos support that as well. They’re DIY, but very adorable.
We’re going for what we can do, we’re having fun. I work with my friends and family, literally, and it’s just about being active and learning. Every video’s been a learning process and we’re constantly trying to critique it and refining that whole process. With Diamond Rings, we, and by we I mean myself and Colin Medley, who I live with and who’s directed a lot of my videos, we didn’t want to wait. Typically so many bands in Canada, it’s all about recording an EP and recording an album and maybe you’ll do a video if it does really well. We wanted to do the complete opposite and I think a lot of people responded to that. When the first video came out, no one even knew I’d been recording songs on my own, so it was a big surprise. [Laughs] I think that’s always awesome, especially now. You have to do a lot more in 2011 to stand out away from the pack.

You have a strong aesthetic. Would you call Diamond Rings part performance art?
I’m not going to kid myself into thinking I’m necessarily a performance artist. I am an artist, that’s what I know. I know how to mix my paints better than I know the fret board of a guitar, but I really believe in the power of music to connect people... Performance artist, that’s someone like Chris Burton nailing himself to the roof of a Volkswaggen with the engine running. [Laughs] I don’t think I’m necessarily in that realm... But, maybe now we’re seeing a delineation between a typical gallery space and the concert stage. Maybe they’re not separate entities as they were at one time. I’d like to keep putting more art into what I do, but for now I’m a pop artist.

The media seem obsessed with your identity, specifically who you do or don’t sleep with, which also lends itself to the label of performance art.
People are going to bring whatever they do or don’t want to the table. Because what I’m doing is so striking visually, it ends up being one of the talking points, like, this guy’s wearing makeup, what’s the deal? When we started, it was never really a big deal, it was just the aesthetic I wanted to cultivate. It’s important to what I do, it’s fun, it’s liberating, but that’s all.

Diamond Rings and PS I Love You perform Mar. 11 at the Biltmore, 8pm. Tickets $13 from Zulu, Red Cat Records and TicketWeb.ca.