Robert J. Wiersema

My interview with author Robert J. Wiersema about his new book Walk Like a Man: a memoir/Bruce Springsteen mixtape.

Walk Like A Man marks author Robert J. Wiersema’s first foray into non-fiction.

Credit: Supplied

Life lessons from the Boss

Posted By: Andrea Warner

If writing about music is, in fact, akin to dancing about architecture, Robert J. Wiersema might have a two-step in his future. With Walk Like A Man, the Victoria-based novelist (The Bedtime Story, Before I Wake) ventures into previously uncharted territory: non-fiction, with a music nerd twist, thanks to the ever-present role that rock’s working class hero, Bruce Springsteen, has played in Wiersema’s life. Using the venerable icon’s lengthy discography, Wiersema has crafted the ultimate memoir mixtape, with enought wit and honesty to convince even the haters to give the Boss a second chance.

There are a ton of other rock stars who resonate with other guys. Why was it Springsteen for you?
I think it was his integrity, and his sincerity.  There’s very little irony to Springsteen’s music, and there’s a recognition that “ordinary” people — working people — are important, that they matter and that their stories matter. That’s the principle underpinning Walk Like a Man — we all have songs we relate to, we all have stories, and they should be told.

You’ve melded music and biography — what prompted that combination?
Simply put?  It’s been done. Springsteen is one of the most written-about figures of the rock age; There are so many biographies, you have no idea. Practically every stone had been turned, and repeatedly, so the only way for me to write about him was to make it personal and subjective. To look at my life through the lens of Springsteen’s music, and at Springsteen’s music through the lens of my life.

You’ve likened this book to liner notes for a mix tape: were there some songs you wanted to write about but didn’t end up including?
It was a gruelling culling process, I have to tell you. I would have loved to have written about “Incident on 57th Street,” say, one of my favourite Springsteen songs. Or “Thunder Road,” another of my favourites. But the nature of the book required that I write about songs that resonated for me, that brought stories and memories to mind. As a result, I ended up writing about “My Hometown,” for example, a song that I don’t particularly like, because it evokes what it was like growing up in Agassiz, and that feeling of childhood coming to an end. That being said, there are about six more songs that I could have written about, tracks that ended up as mental b-sides. “Spirit in the Night,” for example, conjures what being a teenager was like in a small town. And “Radio Nowhere,” that’s all about loneliness and desolation... I was just as happy not to write that chapter, frankly.

This is your first foray into non-fiction. Was it a natural transition, or did it take some mental coaxing?
Coaxing is a polite way to put it. Overly polite. It’s a completely different process, a completely different set of muscles. It’s akin to an experienced long-distance runner jumping into a lake and expecting to swim the same distance he can run: the stamina is there, but damned if I didn’t almost drown more than once.

The five essential songs for people wanting to begin a Springsteen education?
Oh, jeez... Off the top of my head, for the complete novice? “Thunder Road,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River,”  “Born in the USA” (acoustic) and “The Rising.” But ask me again in five minutes and the list will be completely different.

Walk Like a Man is published by Greystone Books and available at your local bookstore or online for $21.95.

Feist Exclaim cover

My interview with Feist is also Exclaim's October cover!



"I didn't want to play music anymore. I needed to think maybe I was gonna open a bookstore or learn how to surf and never come back."

It was 2008 and Leslie Feist, Canada's indie pop darling (and occasional Broken Social Scenester) was ready to quit being Feist. For seven years the road was her home, thanks to non-stop touring in support of back-to-back platinum-selling albums Let It Die and The Reminder. During that time, she taught Elmo her famed "1234" song on Sesame Street, provided a soundtrack to the great iPod explosion of 2007, and won a Grammy (as part of Stephen Colbert's 2008 A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All).

"I just wanted to stop and be in one place for more than a day," Feist says. "It's like the way some people take a vacation and travelling to them is a novelty. They cram all their curiosity into seeing something they've never seen, or unwinding and laying still or whatever you seek out in your vacation. To me, coming home and trying to be domestic was equally alien. I still haven't figured it out. I just came back from France and I was home for about two weeks before I noticed, like, why is there no food in my house, why are there are no groceries? There are spiders in the sink. I still don't know how to live in a place even when I'm living in it."

She didn't become a homemaking goddess during her self-imposed exile, but Feist managed to achieve a certain domestic bliss: she sewed, harvested and devoured at least one crop of tomatoes, and adopted two dogs so she could bask in the warmth of "furry love crawling all over" her. Though she eschewed the road, she indulged in periodic side projects: a documentary about the making of The Reminder called Look At What the Light Did Now, recordings with Wilco and Beck, and an experimental choral piece using puppets with visual artist Clea Minaker for Casteliers, Montreal's contemporary puppet festival. Despite the soil on her fingertips and the bounty of distractions, she also found herself engaged in a lengthy staring contest with her guitar, which sat perched in the corner of her room.

The guitar won.

Metals, Feist's fourth album, hits stores October 4. Some of its influences sound familiar, but there are dramatic forays into thumping beats, shouted choruses, and punched-up rock riffs. This is what her time off wrought: a fresh start.

"When I first got off the road, it was of the mindset that I don't care about the future, I just care that today I am not on tour anymore," Feist says. "I'm not picking up that guitar over there and it's sort of squinting at me and I'm going to squint back at it but I'm not going to play it. It's not that I hated music – I wanted to do other things, some normal stuff. I took enough time off that there was a fresh, mental clean slate. That guitar I was squinting at, eventually I picked it up. Eventually I got curious about it again. And then not only was I curious but I got completely ignited and I was back."

Feist wrote the album last fall, locking herself inside a derelict garage in her own backyard. She soundproofed the space and covered up the windows, creating her own deprivation tank in which she erected a little altar decorated with postcards alongside her piano, a floor tom and a broken, vintage Sears Roebuck guitar and amp. It was a guitar she didn't know very well, but after years of treading water – revisiting the same music, songs, and her beloved Guild Starfire – she felt it was time for a new conversation.

It was in the autumn that I really started, in September or October 2010, when the film [Look At What the Light Did Now] was done," Feist says. "I was so sick of looking at the past, via that film, that I really was much more curious about looking into the future, which I've never done. I'm pretty nostalgic. I've never been interested in the future, but I just got whiplash from too much looking back."

For some artists, moving forward means working with new producers and collaborators, creating new conversations with actual people, not just guitars. But, when one's long-time collaborators and friends are the chameleon-like musicians/producers Chilly Gonzales and Mocky, vocal shorthand can spark a much wilder reinvention.

Of all the people on the planet, I knew they were the last two on earth that would want me to recreate Reminder-type tones," Feist says. "Like, 'Yeah, The Reminder, that was ten seconds in the total story, so why would we?' I knew there was going to be the chance to really begin again. This record is not about recreating a past or reacting to it, too much."

Metals definitely indicates a forward momentum. Sonically, it represents the connective tissue between Feist's past and present, with echoes of whisper-light whimsical pop and jazz, and achingly beautiful moments of piano threaded with crunchier guitars, throbbingly sexy drums, and twinkles of flute.

Gonzales has nothing but praise for the ways in which his old friend has grown as a musician. In an email from his home base in Paris, he offered his analysis of Metals: "The songwriting is less conventional than before. She's being much bolder about getting away from default song structures than I could probably ever be. The songs sound simple but are actually more complex than one would think. She would play me a sketch, and I would feel as if I had understood the song – but when I tried to play along, I noticed a lot of counter-intuitive details. Her singing and guitar playing are just off the charts now since she toured so much. Having so-called 'credibility' – my fingers can hardly type the words – and big success is a huge boost to her confidence. Between the first two albums she went far into 'owning' every note of the album and was rewarded by all that love – so the leap between [The Reminder] and [Metals] is a bigger and more sure-footed leap. The wind is at her back now."

The only person who might not know that is Feist herself. After all, this success is still relatively new. And worldwide name recognition can't eliminate the inescapable truth that creativity is a tempestuous mistress and she never knows when, or if, inspiration will strike.

Every song I write I think is going to be the last one," Feist admits, laughing. "It's as if I'm of ten minds and I'm standing in a circle and each of me takes a tiny baby step closer to the centre of the circle and each of me is holding something in their hands until we all get to the very centre and we all converge and it's sort of hard to know what the hell is going on. Sonically, thematically or a little totem, an oracular totem that I kind of superstitiously fill with meaning – all the things that sort of converge to become a song, are weirdly, totally unknown. Of my minds, it sort of seems to be a collective process in terms of the way I – I'm totally alone, but it's not a quiet, calm place when I'm alone. There's a lot of ruckus in there."

Occasionally the din is coupled with old-fashioned self-esteem issues, which surface even when she's working with two of her closest friends.

I don't know music theory," she says. "Mocky and Gonzo both have degrees in music and they would roll their eyes if they were to read this – I mean, I know what both have achieved has nothing to do with the fact that they know theory – but as someone who's never learned it, it's an intimidating skill to not have in a room full of people who have it, even if they aren't consciously accessing that stuff. Say I'm showing them 'Graveyard,' a song I wrote alone in the room, they have their interpretive conference like, 'Yeah, on the B minor we should probably not have the F sharp because that will make it too major,' where all I can contribute is, 'Wait that resolves it too much, no, no, that sounds like an unfinished thought, this has to still be a question by the end!'"

She laughs as she says this, but Gonzales insists that Feist's intuitive approach to songwriting is a credit, not a detriment.

Leslie has a huge part of her creativity that is feeling-based so she pushes me to get to that emotional intensity," he offers. "She was the A&R for Solo Piano, what we called 'PrePro RepCon' for pre-production repertoire consultant. She helped choose the songs, which takes of the songs, and the album order. The whole thing was strongly under her influence and it's my best-loved album, I think, and that's largely to her credit."

Feist calls it speaking in purples and mauves, and she's grateful to have this shorthand between them. She believes that while she may write the songs, they're really just a starting point, a common ground for the three of them before they begin arranging.

It's why I credit the arrangement, because between the writing and the producing there is that part of things," Feist explains. "When you're a solo artist, you're bringing people in who don't normally play with you, so those decisions on what the bass is going to do and how the drums are going to interact, all of that stuff, is kind of a much more conscious effort of arrangement. Not in a write-it-down-on-musical-staff or something, but it's definitely a conscious part of the equation. That's inventing the landscape, which we did together."

After arranging in January, Feist, Gonzales, Mocky, percussionist Dean Stone and keyboardist Brian LeBarto holed up in Big Sur, California, and recorded the album in a little over two weeks. From embracing music again to wrapping Metals, it took just five months – a privileged position for any musician. And Feist's good fortune is not lost on her. Her gratitude and delight at making another record is genuine: 15 years ago, she didn't know if she would ever sing again due to major vocal cord strain from her five years touring with all-girl punk band Placebo.

"Other singers, we roll our eyes about it all the time because there isn't a formula to make it all work out: You have to take flights, you have to sleep in the wrong kinds of environments, you have to maybe not sleep at all sometimes," she says. But instead of lingering on the what-ifs, she clings to a realization she arrived at many years ago on the road. "I was in Manchester, that drench-y, cold place, sick and unhappy and playing a solo show at some university. I remember having the conscious thought that there's nothing I can do right now except use whatever's left and use it with the same intention, which isn't necessarily about hitting notes. It was just a moment of freeing myself from any type of precision-chasing."

But, that threat to her livelihood and her main creative outlet remains a very real ghost that – fresh start or not – lingers over every decision she makes to this day.

I think about that a lot [not being able to sing]," Feist admits. "There's a kind of helplessness you feel, like why do you wake up one Tuesday where I just can't [sing], I don't have it. I'm exhausted or been in an air-conditioned room and I'm just rendered completely hobbled. It has so little to do with what I can control. It's made me obsessively into guitar tone because you can touch something and move a knob and you can control it with your hands. It's just a freedom. I always say to people in my band that they can go out and have a conversation and drinks or whatever and I'm kind of like the maimed, lonely singer, drinking tons of water, watching some movie in the bus, because it is something I have to be careful about. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't [sing]." 

Kaitlin Fontana

My interview with Kaitlin Fontana about her debut book Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records is in this week's WE.

Kaitlin Fontana is the author of Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records.

Credit: Supplied

Music in Mint condition

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Kaitlin Fontana has been juggling the multi-hyphenate life of a working artist for years: Improv actor-comedian-student-freelance writer (full disclosure: her work appears semi-regularly in WE). Now she adds author to the list with Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records. It’s an illuminating and thorough flashback examining the hard work and dumb luck of one of the most important periods in Vancouver’s music history. Mint gave the world the New Pornographers, Neko Case and established itself as a major player in the emerging, soon-to-be-thriving, indie-rock scene.

Helping Fontana tell Mint’s story are a bevy of famous names including the New Pornographer’s Carl Newman, the Evaporators’ Nardwuar the Human Serviette, the Smugglers’ Grant Lawrence and cub’s Lisa Marr. Fresh at Twenty recounts the perfect storm of talent and hubris, friendships and rivalries that made Mint what it is today, reaffirming its place in history as the little label that could. Fontana spoke with WE about the New Pornographers, missing Neko Case and how ‘90s punk band Gob became the villain of her book.

Did Mint’s roster play a role in your music education?
Definitely the New Pornographers. Mass Romantic came out just before I moved here and it was still a big deal, still something that was talked about by the indie-rock nerds I was meeting at school, and I became a big fan of theirs because of that record. It’s still probably my favourite record Mint has released, though some of the Pack a.d. stuff is up there. That record had a crazy effect on me. I wasn’t really into that kind of music at that point. I grew up listening to straight-forward, classic rock. Being a small-town kid, that’s what you get on the radio and it’s what I was raised with.

Whenever I put on a New Pornographers’ album, no matter what the weather, the sun seems to start shining. It’s magic candy.
It’s candy, but it’s also that secret candy that has vitamins in it. I feel like it’s the kind of pop music that only a band that’s lived in a climate like this could make in that it’s sunny but there’s sort of a darkness behind that disposition. You sense that to get to the sunny, some shit had to be slogged through. I feel that way about cub and a lot of the other bands that landed on Mint.

Some bloody ink is spilled in Gob’s direction. Have you had any feedback?
I’m sure I’ll hear from them. I tried to interview them. I told their management that there were some stories about them in the book. At first I just said I’d like to talk to the guys because they had a brief history with Mint and it would be nice to have their voices in there, and it was like, “Yeah, we’ll get them on the horn for you or whatever.” Then some time elapsed and I [reached out] and it had flipped: “No, no, no, never mind. We don’t want to talk to you anymore.” That happened a few times throughout this process. I do think it’s that barrier where people start to think about it too much. It’s their youth and there’s a lot of youthful energy that made Mint what it was, [Mint founders] Bill [Baker] and Randy’s [Iwata] included.

Neko Case didn’t participate, but she’s well-represented as this shining light of Mint. She sort of gets the folk hero treatment in the book.
I kind of just let details accumulate. Some of them are telling of her level of maturity at the time and some are a bit mythical because she serves as that. Bill’s direct quote is “Neko was the phoenix.” They were about to collapse as a label and she sort of swooped in and saved them, not intentionally — she just wanted to put out a record and she wanted to do it her way and she knew these guys would listen to her. I think that’s an ethos about how she lives her life as an artist: she wants to do things her way and she doesn’t want someone else to have the reins at all.

The Fresh at Twenty book launch takes place Oct. 6 at W2 (111 E. Hastings), 8-11pm with bands, special guests and DJ Cam Reed (aka Babe Rainbow). Free admission. Info: TheMintBook.ca.

VIFF PICKS, week 1

My picks for must-sees at VIFF is in this week's WE

Japan's Tatsumi is one of our VIFF picks

Credit: Supplied

MOVIES: VIFF Picks

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Put on your popcorn-eating pants: It’s VIFF. The beloved film festival celebrates its 30th anniversary with more movies than most people can possibly see. So, over the 17 days of VIFF’s run, WE will provide our picks, previews and reviews of the films that thrill us the most.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN

Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya
Directed by Pedro Almódovar
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almódovar specializes in crafting soap-y, enthralling melodrama with more twists and turns than a corn maze. His latest, a loose adaptation of  Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula, is a psycho-sexual horror film that returns Banderas to his native tongue as a plastic surgeon holding a young woman captive, which, oddly, is the least disturbing bit of the film. Sept. 29 (7:00) and Sept. 30 (1:30) at Vogue Theatre.

CLOUDBURST

Starring Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker
Directed by Thom Fitzgerald
Canada comes out strong with this flick about 80-year-old lesbians forced to flee Maine for Nova Scotia after vulgar, fiery Stella (a feisty Dukakis) springs her lover of 30 years, sweet, blind Dot (Fricker), from an old-folks home. It’s funny, heartfelt and full of foul language — and indeed a story everyone needs to see. Oct. 1 (6:45pm) and Oct. 2 (4pm) at Empire Granville 7.

TATSUMI

Starring Bessho Tetsuya, Tatsumi Yoshihiro
Directed by Eric Khoo
Part celebration, part ode, Eric Khoo makes his directorial debut with this animated feature, a tribute to the work of famed artist Tatsumi Yoshihiro, the man who invented gekiga in 1957. Gekiga is a style of manga that fuses darkness and realism, and essentially gave grown-ups permission to view manga as high art instead of kids’ stuff. The film’s base is Yoshihiro’s own award-winning manga autobiography, A Drifting Life, fleshed out by adaptations of five of the artist’s most famous short stories. It’s a visual feast. If you think animation is just for the little ones, see this and get the snob slapped out of you. Oct. 2 (2:45pm) and Oct. 4 (9:30pm) at Empire Granville.

Andrew Bird Fever Year

My VIFF cover story for WE features an interview with Xan Aranda, director of Andrew Bird: Fever Year.

Despite years of friendship, it took filmmaker Xan Aranda plenty of coaxing to go behind the scenes with reclusive musician Andrew Bird.

Credit: Supplied

‘Fever Year’ marks directorial debut, Bird in hand

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Welcome to the biggest week of Xan Aranda’s life. Her directorial debut Andrew Bird: Fever Year, a concert documentary about the reclusive indie-rock violin virtuoso, makes its international premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival on Oct. 8. That’s just five days after it makes its world premiere at the New York Film Festival. Excuse her if she’s freaking out just a little bit.

“The first festival to take it was Vancouver,” Aranda says, over the phone from her home base in Chicago, where Bird also resides. “Before [VIFF] and the New York Film Festival came along, I was just wigging out, thinking we would work so hard on this film that we like, but that people would be like, ‘Oh man, another music doc.’ I really hoped to make something that would pull outside of that.”

It does.

Fans of Bird know little about the man himself, other than what they glimpse through his carefully constructed, lush folk-rock songs. Since 2003, he’s released four solo albums and several live records, amassing a devoted cult following that grew in legion as chamber pop and his practice of violin looping caught on with the more mainstream indie rock crowd. His live shows reveal a genius-like approach to detail, both sonically and visually. But Bird’s not an accessible, knowable musician like his peer Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy). Interviews are rare (he declined to participate in this story) and he’s not big on social media. His identity as an artist is carefully controlled. On the surface, it’s not a lot to work with when crafting a documentary.

But Aranda isn’t just any filmmaker. She’s been a friend of Bird’s for almost a decade, working with him on a variety of short film and music video projects over the years. When he came to her for a consultation about filming his final two concerts of 2009, Aranda saw the potential for something more.

“There’s no point in doing a concert capture,” she says. “That’s only for the fans and they’ll watch it once and put it on the shelf. I really wanted to make a film that — I don’t know if I captured his essence, but gives you a chance to be with him. He’s a very private person and I don’t think that this film really tells you who he is, but you do get the chance to be with him and that was a goal. I very much wanted this to be story with music and music with story and for you to kinda not realize when one is happening and then the other, just the next thing you know 80 minutes went by... I know he’d talked to a lot more directors who were more experienced and famous than I am, and ultimately he said he wasn’t comfortable with that.”

Admittedly, as Aranda discovered, Bird wasn’t always comfortable with her approach either. He proved reticent throughout about the documentary aspect to Fever Year, but Aranda kept pushing.

“It took a lot of coaxing,” she laughs. “Andrew would be very happy to only have the on-stage be what he shares... It was very collaborative, but lots of reluctance. We tried one direction for a while, but ultimately we both watched it and were like, ‘This is so stilted!’ I’m 100-per-cent a fan of verite. I told him I wanted to shoot more with him. I’d call him and be like, ‘Hey, what are you doing today?’ And he’d say, ‘Oh, I’m recording.’ We’d say we want to come with you and he’d be like, ‘Okay, you can come by between two and three.’ And I’d be like, ‘Well, when are you getting there?’ And he’d say, ‘Nine.’ And I’d be like, ‘Ok, I’m going to meet you at your house.’ That was hard for him. He’s so focused. He doesn’t want his recording messed up, either... My first and foremost concern was that it honor his pace as a human. Imagine an MTV version of Fever Year. Andrew is really deliberate, he’s really thoughtful, he’s very careful in everything he does. It wasn’t hard to just look at who he is and honour that; and, it’s the style of film I wanted to make, so it wasn’t a stretch for me either.”
Fever Year takes its name from the unidentified illness that daunted Bird throughout his tour in 2009. In the film he estimates he had a fever of about 103 degrees at least 150 days out of the year. He also ends up on crutches at one point. Aranda immediately says “No,” when asked if she was worried about her subject and friend, then laughs.

“It sounds really callous, but I wasn’t worried about him, because I knew it was cresting soon, I knew what his schedule was,” she explains. “I always describe him as a frog in hot water. When you tour, you just take it moment-by-moment. It’s not until later you realize, holy shit, I just had a fever for 150 days. He was alarmed and towards the end of the year he saw some doctors, but there’s so much frenzy involved, you don’t even realize. But he does say in the film that he’s only not had a fever for three or four shows, and I like that he’s laughing when he tells you that. I wasn’t worried. He’s fundamentally very strong. But, I know what it’s like even in my own work — it really does take one to know one.”
For both the filmmaker and her subject, Fever Year is the culmination of over a decade of hard work, seizing every opportunity with dogged determination.

“I know what it’s like — and this does bring me both pause and calm — to be at a heyday that’s a result of 10 years of really hard work, and knowing that you have to respond regardless of what your physical resources are,” Aranda says. “And there’s a tragedy to it. Because if you didn’t take a bite out of every pie, you would be okay, but it’s everything you’ve worked for. I’ve been a producer for 10 years. I’ve worked my fucking ass off,” she laughs. “I was busy when Fever Year came around. I was tired and broke. It wasn’t the best idea for me, but I had to do it and I’ve never been sorry.”

Andrew Bird: Fever Year screens at VIFF Oct. 8, 10, 14. Tickets and showtimes: VIFF.org.

Drawn Ship

My interview with Drawn Ship appeared in last week's WE.

Drawn Ship

Credit: supplied

Drawn Ship embarks on its maiden voyage

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Most people emerge from a break-up 10 pounds heavier or lighter, depending on which side of the dump/dumpee divide one falls on. Lyn Heinemann, formerly of indie jazz outfit Portico, came out on the other side with a new band and a new album. Drawn Ship is Heinemann’s collaboration with ex-Hinterland drummer Gregg Steffensen, but the bruised-and-beautiful songs on the duo’s debut, Low Domestic, are her own. The album is part break-up record and partly inspired by Heinemann’s emotionally gruelling work as an addictions counsellor in the Downtown Eastside. WE spoke with Heinemann in advance of the band’s CD release party, Sept. 24 at Artbank.

I’ve been listening to the album a lot and it makes me want to cry, both because of its beauty and its deep sadness.
People keep saying that. I guess I didn’t notice when I was writing it. When I started I knew I was making a break-up album, which isn’t always happy, but I didn’t know it was going to turn out to be so down. It’s pretty dark in the end, hey?

It is... Writing it all down and having people on the other side say, ‘hey this is dark’ would be a bit of a surprise.
It’s kind of like going to work and your boss says, “oh, you look really tired” and you’re like, “thanks, I actually slept all right.” (Laughs)

Can you provide some insight into the different breakup stages you went in the writing process?
I didn’t really start writing a lot of the songs until the break-up was more or less over. It was in the early I hate you / don’t talk to me / we need space stages. I’d never really had a bad break-up before; it was always kind of amicable. This is the first time it was really shitty, and obviously it really bugged me. Most of the break-up songs on the record aren’t about my own direct experience, but it just got me thinking about all the shitty ways that two people can part. So a lot of them are totally fictional and don’t have anything to do with my own particular circumstance. Lots of adultery and wife-beating, that kind of thing, on the record, not in my life! (Laughs)

Does the narrative structure give you the necessary separation to be an observer?
Totally. And more than that, I feel like it’s a bit more interesting. Telling your own story over and over, for me that would be really hard to do over 13 tracks. My life isn’t all that interesting.

You work with people who need a lot of help. How has that bled into your creative process?
My job — it affects me a lot. It can be pretty tough day-to-day. There’s tons of light moments and really amazing things that happen. It’s not all bad, that’s for sure, or I couldn’t do it. But I guess in the last couple years there’s been some really hard stuff. I’ve lost three clients to overdose or drug-related illness, so a lot of that had to come out in a way. My own feelings towards my job are pretty mixed. This is maybe a longer answer than you want. (Laughs). It’s just tough. I’m part of a system, right, and ultimately I’m working, I’m being paid to help these kids that need so much more than what I can provide, or even what the system can provide. They need a family, they need a home, they need a mom. And at the end of the day, I go home. There are boundaries set up for a reason. I’m grateful for those boundaries, but then in writing those songs on this album that are about my job or about the clients, it’s kind of a way to excuse myself a bit from being part of a system that’s doing something, but it ultimately falling a way short, I think, no matter how much the individuals care about each other.

You also have a minor obsession with Louis Riel?
He’s such a compelling character. There’s so much drama in his life and his story. The man was kind of half-insane. My friend [singer/songwriter] Lee Abramson, she and I came up with this plan to write a musical biography of Louis Riel’s life. I don’t know why, we were just hanging around and thought that’s a great idea! So we did. Collectively we have 10 or 11 songs, we totally chronicle his life. Maybe someday we’ll put it all together, but we’ve just been typical slack musicians and haven’t done that project yet. She’s released a couple songs from that Riel series and so have I. There’s one on our last Portico record and one on this one. I’m hoping one day we can get our act together and record and release it all.

Next to Normal

My review of the Arts Club's Next to Normal, on now.

Warren Kimmel and Caitriona Murphy battle their demons in Arts Club's production of Next to Normal.

Credit: Supplied

STAGE REVIEW: Next to Normal

Posted By: Andrea Warner

In 2009, New York theatre-goers found themselves slapped in the face with something rarely glimpsed on Broadway’s staid, old stages: mental illness, pharmaceuticals and an abundance of F-bombs. Next to Normal proved anything but with a catchy, pop-inspired score, dark humour and a careful balance on the razor-thin line between melo- and drama. That it went on to win two Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize only solidifies what audiences had already learned: Like, Rent, Next to Normal stands to become a defining musical for a generation.

Creators Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey recognize that a picture-perfect family is an intangible, Rockwell-ian dream for most people. Next to Normal’s characters feel that pain — and then some. Diana (Caitriona Murphy) is bipolar and unhinged by grief, while husband Dan (Warren Kimmel) struggles to live happily-ever-in-denial. Meanwhile, their overachiever daughter Natalie (Jennie Neumann) fears she’s turning into her mother.

Done right, Next to Normal is powerful and riveting, digging deep inside you right from the opening number and wreaking havoc on your heart and mind well beyond the final curtain. This Arts Club production applies a glossy Desperate Housewives-like veneer over what should be a more nuanced production, like, say A Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Where there should be tension, ferocity and bleak humour, here there’s a mostly flat anger. This is particularly true of the relationship between Diana and Natalie where the bittersweet parallels between mother and daughter never transcend the songs.

This isn’t to fault Murphy or Neumann’s portrayals (both acquit themselves well), but, oddly, the female characters are relegated to supporting status here rather than the leads. Through either Bill Millerd’s direction or Kimmel’s commanding performance (or a combination of both), Dan becomes the focal point. His emotional reckoning is Normal’s sole cathartic climax rather than another aspect of the devastating collateral damage wrought by spiraling mental illness and long-buried grief.

This production’s massive shift in focus reveals new layers to a husband’s stubborn, possibly selfish, devotion, but it does so at the expense of the story’s larger themes: what is mental illness; the efficacy of psychiatry; and survival. But, thanks to strong source material and Kimmel’s award-worthy turn, this trade-off only dilutes Normal’s powerful message rather than diminish it entirely.

Next to Normal runs to Oct. 9 at Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, 8pm (Wed-Sat), 7:30pm (Tues). Matinees: Wed, Sat-Sun, 2pm. $29-$65 from 604-687-1644 ArtsClub.com.

The Pack ad

My interview with the Pack a.d. is in this week's WE.

The Pack a.d. to rock the roof at Olio

Posted By: Andrea Warner

The last time Becky Black and Maya Miller, the two halves of garage-rock whole the Pack a.d., were driving along the Oregon coast, it was all sun, sand and um, a dead walrus. This time around, Black is more hopeful. She and Miller are en route to Arcada, Calif. on the eve of the release of their fourth album, Unpersons (in stores Sept. 13). It’s a blazing, bruising collection of emotionally charged rock ’n’ roll, with deviations into blues and punk. It’s the East Van pair’s best offering to date and we’ll get our first taste when they make their Olio Festival debut Sept. 24.

You’re driving on the Oregon coast. Did you stop at the Sea Lion Caves?
Becky Black: No, but one time we stopped at the beach and there was a dead walrus. It was such a beautiful day and then there’s a not very beautiful smell happening. Live seals, that would be better.

They smell bad, too, even the live ones. Those caves just smell like poop for miles.
Well, they’re just sitting on rocks, sunbathing and pooping all day long.

Are you two trying to kill yourselves, releasing so quickly?
Is it that quick? When was the last one? Last year, yeah. We release every year. For us it’s not that hard to come up with songs and do an album. It’s almost better because then we can start playing new songs and dump the old ones. We have ADD; the older songs get boring after a while. Is that kinda soon? I guess.

Many bands take two or three years between records.
Yeah, that’s true. I guess we just shit them out like seals.

Are you writing together?
It’s split pretty 50/50. But quite often I’ll write and song and not finish it. I don’t really finish a lot of things in my life, so it’s good to have a partner who can help me finish things. That happens with the songwriting, too. I’ll have the first verse or the chorus and Maya will fill in the rest. Or, she’ll write a whole song, it’ll be like a poem, and we’ll write the song around it. We kind of had a theme going with animals and — actually, well, things that aren’t human, ghosts and demons, and then a few break-up songs.

What’s the most personal song?
Maybe “Pieces.” That song’s just kind of about me. Some songs we’ll write a story about a break up but it didn’t actually happen in real life, like it sounds personal and everyone can relate to that.

Unpersons sounds more confident, more polished. This sounds condescending somehow.
No, it’s good. Everyone hopes to improve over time. Yeah, we feel more [confident]. When we started this, neither of us had spent years in other bands trying to figure out what we really wanted to do. We just started this band on a whim, kinda, and recorded an album pretty soon after that. So, every year after it’s just been all the touring and album after album, it’s just been a learning curve. We’ve just naturally, hopefully, improved.

What is rock ’n’ roll to you?
It’s not really about the getting wasted and fucked up and being that kind of — I mean, I know that’s the epitome of being a rock star and people kind of idolize people or look up to them even though they’re messed up. I don’t know what it is. Maybe people just like to watch a train wreck — that makes a person more interesting if they’re unwieldy and messed up. I prefer to just enjoy the music part of it.

Have you played the Olio Festival before?
We’ve never played Olio before and I think it will be cool. I think we’re playing on the rooftop of a clothing store. It seems like we barely ever play Vancouver. I always enjoy hometown gigs.

The Pack a.d. plays the Olio Festival on Sept. 24. Tickets and full schedule: 2011.OlioFestival.com.

Yukon Blonde to Pleasure Cruise: Local faves

My recommendations for five local acts this fall in WE this week.



Last week, I looked ahead at the autumn concert scene and offered my five picks from the slew of visiting acts — tho ones not already sold out! — headed this way. But I cheated, see, because there’s a veritable treasure trove of local bands playing hometown shows this fall. Herewith, my picks for this season’s best home-grown talent. YVRocks, anyone?

THE PACK A.D.

This year’s Olio Festival features that crazy guy who made The Room and some of the best indie rock bands in Canada, but nothing has me as excited as seeing The Pack a.d. back in action. The East Van rock duo eviscerates exes of all sorts on their new album, Unpersons, a fiery mix of punk, blues and garage-rock sounds that takes aim right at the jugular. Olio Festival runs Sept. 22-25 at various venues. The Pack a.d. play Sept. 23 at No Limits (68 W. 5th), 12am. Free with $25 day pass from OlioFestival.com.

PLEASURE CRUISE

Vancouver’s newest super group Pleasure Cruise is comprised of some of the city’s finest musicians: singer/songwriter Jody Glenham, drummer Dustin John Bromley, guitarist Quinn Omori and bassist Kyle Bourcier. The indie-pop band makes its debut as part of the Biltmore’s new monthly party night, Junior High. Sept. 29 at the Biltmore (391 Kingsway), 9pm. $5 cover at the door.

THE RUFFLED FEATHERS / THE BELLE GAME

The Belle Game were one of those sought-after festival revelations, a happy accident one hopes to stumble upon at a sprawling music fest. This double bill with The Ruffled Feathers essentially offers two-for-one chamber pop at one of the best venues in town. Tickets have yet to go on sale, so I don’t even know how much the show costs, and frankly I don’t care. Gimme some of that. Oct. 20 at the Railway. Info: TheRailwayClub.com.

YUKON BLONDE

The easy-going indie rock band (pictured) has been hard at work putting the finishing touches on their new EP, Fire // Water, a hook-heavy, harmony rich, four-song ride under a sunny sky. Their music is the perfect blend of pop and personality. Nov. 10 at Biltmore (391 Kingsway), 8pm. $12 from Red Cat Records, Scratch, Highlife and TicketWeb.ca.

INVASIVES / BEEKEEPER

Power punk is alive and well in the frenzied, fairly-named Invasives, a blistering, body-jerking band who have crafted a sound that surely incites crowd surfing. It’s a fitting double bill with post-pop band Beekeeper, whose cleverly controlled rock scarcely contains the blissful chaos at the heart of every song. Nov. 26 at the Media Club (690 Cambie), 8pm. Tickets TBA.

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.

Our Idiot Brother

My review of Our Idiot Brother is in WE this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUR IDIOT BROTHER

Starring Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks
Directed by Jesse Peretz
Tired of summer comedies that rely solely on flying feces, projectile vomit or other bodily functions? Our Idiot Brother is the quintessential R-rated comedy for the art-house set: smart, emotional and truly funny — with occasional punctuation marks of witty vulgarity.

Ned (Paul Rudd) is a happy-go-hempy organic farmer who’s tricked into selling pot to a uniformed police officer. A few years later, Ned gets out of prison only to discover his dreadlocked girlfriend, Janet (a brilliant supporting turn from Kathryn Hahn), has moved on. So, he wears out his welcome at the homes of his three sisters: hipster Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), aspiring journalist Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) and harried stay-at-home mom Liz (Emily Mortimer). Ned’s idealist ways throw his sisters’ secretly messed-up lives into total disarray but, of course, since Ned is more idiot savant than idiot, they eventually realize he’s a help, not a hindrance.

Herein, seemingly, lies Our Idiot Brother’s one drawback: Rudd is so affable and charming as Ned, more often than not the sisters are the ones who actually seem like idiots. But, thanks to the deft skills of scriptwriters Evegenia Peretz (the director’s sister) and David Schisgall, the film becomes a sort of  Rorschach test, depending on which character you identify with. That is, of course, if you can stop laughing.

Our Idiot Brother proves edgy comedy gold is possible with nary a staple-gunned scrotum or loose bowel movement. All you need is a great script with fully realized characters and a charming, quirky cast. In other words, Hollywood’s Holy Grail. —Andrea Warner

Wilson Phillips

My interview with Wilson Phillips is in this week's WE.

Wilson Phillips reaps ‘Bridesmaids’ rewards

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Privileged daughters of rock royalty reaping the benefits of nepotism or three talented women crafting the most feel good, guilty-pleasure pop mantra of a generation? This is the great divide separating Wilson Phillips’ detractors and fans, of which both are legion. But suddenly, the band that disappeared quietly into karaoke obscurity is back with a vengeance thanks to the blockbuster comedy Bridesmaids, which features a cameo from Wendy and Carnie Wilson (daughters of troubled Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson) and Chynna Phillips (daughter of troubled The Mamas & The Papas leader John Phillips and singer Michelle Phillips), performing their infamous hit single “Hold On.” Now, for the first time since 1990, the year they became famous, the trio is back in Vancouver, performing at the PNE on September 1. WE spoke with the longtime friends over a conference call about their new reality show, their fathers’ musical legacy and their return to the spotlight.

WE: How does it feel to be “back,” as it were?
Carnie: It feels great. I was thinking about this the other day. God, I remember when I used to do things on my own, whether it was promoting a TV show or something, and I thought, I love doing this. It’s fun. But there was always a little part of my heart that felt sad, like I wanted Wendy and Chynna next to me, you know? And now all of a sudden we’re doing it again, and it really made me happy last night [at the Do Something Awards].
Chynna: Yeah, I got the same feeling, too. It was just really nice to hear them all saying, “Hey Wilson Phillips! Chynna, Carnie, Wendy!” And looking over, having our picture taken with our arms around each other. It’s just a warm feeling to be back in the groove, doing what we love, back in our element and our fans being able to see us again. There’s so much synchronicity going on right now.

Were you surprised to get the Bridesmaids call?
Wendy: Yes, we were. We’d never been in a movie together. We were so excited because we knew that Judd Apatow was a part of it and the girls from Saturday Night Live. We had no idea what kind of a movie it was, what script and we just went in blindly and just went for it. But it was such a great thing that we did it. We’re happy it was a big hit and it gave us a lot of publicity, which is great.

“Hold On” seems to be the rallying theme of BFFs. Do you remember the first time you heard it fully produced? Did you have an idea of what it would mean to people?
Chynna: The first time I heard “Hold On” on the radio, we were driving in Chicago in a van on our way to a radio station and it was my 22nd birthday. I just remember how excited I was that the first time I heard it on the radio was my birthday. I remember that it sounded really good; exactly how I thought it was going to sound coming out of those little speakers. The first time we heard it from beginning to end at the studio, we all just kind of looked at each other and giggled because we knew we had a hit on our hands. You just kind of know. How could a lot of people not like this song? (Laughs) It’s just a positive, feel-good, good rhythm, hooky chorus — we knew we had something special on our hands. But we didn’t know it was going to go viral the way it did. It just struck a chord really deep in people.

There are all sorts of rumours about what’s coming up next, including a new album and a reality show.
Wendy: True and true. We’re about to start a reality show. We’re nervous, yet excited about it. We can’t really say much about it except it’s sort of based on our relationships with each other.
Carnie: It’s also sort of following the reunion and the resurgence. The making of the next record, what it’s like to be with us on the road and our lives, the way that they’re strangely intertwined in that we’ve known each other forever, but we have such separate lives. We’re connected through music, but we have nine children between us, so the show is not going to be focused just on us. It will be more how we integrate this career that is blossoming again with our personal lives. And recording the next record.
Wendy: This record we’re doing right now is not an originals record. It’s a cover record of all of our parents’ greatest music. It’s different for us.
Chynna: It’s very exciting, too.
Carnie: We’ve been performing some Beach Boys and Mamas & Papas now in concert for a couple of years and the response from the crowd is really, really positive. It was actually Sony [Music’s] idea to do this. And it’s not that we were hesitant but we were so anxious to get in the studio and write and partner up with Glen Ballard again — which we know will happen but this was Sony’s idea. We’ve never done it and we almost feel like we have to do it at some point, because it’s such a natural thing. And as we were doing it, we realized just how classic these songs are and how much of a fan base there is out there. Two generations back and then this generation. I think it’s really going to appeal to a lot of people.

Could each of you tell me what your father taught you about music?
Wendy: Even though our mother taught us how to sing harmony, I think just that inherent love of harmony would be from our dad. He taught us how beautiful it is. That’s one thing the Beach Boys and Wilson Phillips have in common: the sound, the voices blending together. It makes it so magical and that’s something that makes us stand out from other people.
Carnie: I definitely think that’s a strong thing that’s been passed down, that it’s in the family. Dad sang with his brothers and Wendy and I sing together and it’s almost like Chynna’s a sister anyways, we’ve known each other our whole lives and when we do sing together, it’s so meant to be, it feels like family. I would say the ability to have an ear, to really hear pitch and harmonies and notes and the blend of it.
Chynna: My dad taught me that when you write a song, write about something that is universal and that people can identify with. Whenever I sit down to write, I always try to think, okay, is this way too personal? Is it something that only a handful of people will be able to understand? I think that’s one of the reasons “Hold On” went viral. So many people struggle and so many people have a difficult time getting through the day. If they can just hold on for this one day and things are going to start going your way, everyone can hold on for just one day. That was a really universal message.
Wilson Phillips perform Sept.1 at PNE Concert Stage, 8pm. Free with PNE admission

Girl Talk

Last week's WE cover story: My interview with Girl Talk!'

Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk

Credit: Supplied

A LITTLE GIRL TALK

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Gregg Gillis is used to being the epicentre of sweaty, writhing masses. For the last 10 years, the 29-year-old former engineer has been performing as Girl Talk, the hype-worthy mad maestro who has elevated mash-ups and digital sampling to an almost scientific art — hearing, segmenting and remastering pieces of other peoples’ songs into something new. Hence, he’s also no stranger to copyright controversy: Gillis has released five albums — all for free — featuring thousands of samples from mostly mainstream pop, rock and Top 40 songs. Even though Gillis’ music has come under scrutiny, he’s built an untouchable reputation as the number one party-starter, playing everything from small club gigs to massive festivals. He’s won over legions of fans thanks to his all-consuming performances wherein he crafts entire hour-long shows on his laptop, live, often using as many as 400 samples. Gillis spoke with WE in preparation for his slot at the Live at Squamish music festival, bringing his trademark dance party up the mountain.

I think of your work as a little like Dr. Frankenstein, piecing together disparate bits to craft a new whole. How do you view what you do?
Greg Gillis: I can see it as that, but it’s sort of rooted in many things, so I’ve never thought of it in terms of that because I grew up listening to hip hop and like, Public Enemy records which were a big collage of sound. Then, moving on to stuff like Negative Land. The reference points for me were that music and very precise electronica, where precision is an important part of it being cut up, so I like that collage of pop music. I try to reach all around and part of the fun is having source material that seems all over the place. Perhaps Frankenstein-like is more interesting than if it was just all rock songs or all pop songs. I try to sample from as wide a variety of pop music as I listen to.

Do you remember when you first started experimenting with that dismantling and rebuilding process?
I was kind of doing it a little bit prior to even the start of calling it Girl Talk. I started doing Girl Talk in 2000 and I was in a band prior to that in high school. It was a more avant-garde noise band and it was just me and my friends, a bratty take on noise music. Very invasive and no real traditional song structure, but we used to sample music in a real bratty way — like show up at a show and turn on the pop radio station and then make noise over top of it, or do a show where it’s just 20 skipping CDs playing at once while we’re smashing televisions. All of that definitely laid the groundwork and I love that dichotomy between pop and noise... I think the whole Girl Talk thing is just a more refined version of stuff I was doing with my band in high school.

You typically use songs that fall in the pop or rock genres. Are there other genres you want to incorporate?
It’s more like, not necessarily genres, but it is exciting to maybe sample more obscure things, like that music would maybe have different intentions. Right now, I’ve been kind of on a cycle of every few years I put out another album and when I finish, I start working on new music immediately because I want to do stuff for the shows that relates to that album. When I make music on a daily basis, I’m always thinking about the next weekend, and the next weekend might be a festival where I’m going to be in front of 10,000 people. Or, it might be a club where 500 people paid to see the show. So, in those cases I want to make something that I enjoy and a progression of the evolution of what I’ve done beforehand. But definitely something that relates to that music. I’m in it all the time and I play so many shows, it’s hard to find time to branch out outside of that. But occasionally I’ll sit around and sample something more obscure, or a hip hop beat, just for my own enjoyment. At some point I’m definitely looking forward to the shows slowing down, just because I haven’t really stopped touring in four or five years now. At some point I would expect that I’ll make the decision to stop or there will be a year where I’ll only do 20 shows, that would really impact my life. If I had a month in front of me where I wasn’t expected to make an album or didn’t have to prepare for a show, I’d be really excited to just sample other stuff in music or even sample pop music but maybe do it differently. There’s just so many ways you can work a sample, whether you play the melody straight up or chop it up to a point where it’s unrecognizable — there’s many places to go.

Tons of people sample other peoples’ work, but it’s fallen to you a lot to talk about copyright.
Fair use allows you to use samples without asking for permission, if it falls under certain criteria. That, in itself, is a really positive thing. But the details surrounding it are a little ambiguous and what qualifies under it may be a little strict. I’m not anti-copyright. I don’t believe you should be able to buy a CD and burn it 10 times and go on the street and sell it, I don’t believe in that. I believe in copyright and it stands for a reason, I don’t believe in anarchy in that system, but I do believe that you can take something previously existing and make something new out of it in such a way that it’s not negatively impacting the source material or hurting the sales or debasing the artist. If it’s not a competition, I think you should be able to present that as a new work and sell it. When you’re in my position and you make music and you want to put it out, you put it out there and it just falls into that grey area. You don’t truly know whether a judge thinks it would fall under fair use or not. I think the general perspective of the world is shifting a bit, just in the general sense of intellectual property and ownership of ideas. And being attached to the internet has really changed everything. It’s like, I’ve been doing this for 10 years now and people have been sampling forever, but I do think at the beginning of this project, that doing an unsolicited pop remix was fairly unusual. It happened, but it wasn’t that common. Now, the same day every new Lady Gaga song comes out, immediately hundreds of remixes and fan-made videos come out. Everyone is constantly interacting with the media that they consume. I think artists and fans and everyone understands that and a lot of it is not necessarily hurting those sales, it’s just widening the audience. With my particular case, it seemed like the discussion five or 10 years ago was, ‘When am I going to have a problem?’ But now I hear from so many A&R people and labels and I get so many promos, I think people are seeing eye-to-eye on it. It’s not an issue. People really see that if I was to sample one of their artists, it’s not going to negatively impact them. It could potentially lead to a few new people hearing about it.

You’re putting everything together live when you DJ.
That’s why I’ve never even considered it DJ-ing. I’ve always thought of it more as live electronica music. It’s not a slight against DJs or anything, but that’s something where it’s all loop-based samples and in the 10 years of doing this, I’ve never played someone’s track unaltered, which to me is sort of the definition of a DJ, you’re playing other peoples’ music... I always played as a live electronica musician, it was always framed in that way from the get-go. The kind of technology I started using in the early days is still what I use now. It’s a program where there’s a bunch of loops and everything is very isolated and through the course of an hour-long show, I may go through 400 samples or something like that and I trigger everything by hand. It’s definitely the sort of thing where the sets are practiced beforehand and rehearsed. I have an idea how to play it, but everything is live. If I want to skip over something or I feel like changing something up or repeating something twice, I can do that. A lot of times I’m figuring stuff out on the fly, or I might make a small mistake and have to figure out how to transition in or out of that or what the sound system and audience are like will really determine certain details.

The mash-up has become a vital component of mainstream pop culture. Glee has really taken that over. How do you feel about that?
It’s fun. To me the word mash-up describes a tiny piece of sample-based electronic music, but the idea has existed for many years prior. It’s been fun to watch that word exist and grow.  It’s thrown around everywhere and I think the idea’s been around for a while. It goes back to like, Stars on 45 and medleys from the ’60s and ’70s and going back to classical music and sharing motifs. Seeing it have that mainstream exposure just highlights how it’s a fundamental part of the creative process. It’s always a little weird to me when people draw those clear-cut lines between sample-based music and playing in bands, because to me there are so many parallels. You can hear any band and really piece apart their influences and you can tell where it’s coming from. What I’m doing is a more physical version of that. Like I said before, the general world perspective on intellectual property is changing and people are seeing all these examples of taking something and very blatantly putting a new spin on it. Things like Glee are very healthy, just so people can understand that you can take something that previously exists and make it new by putting it in a new context. That idea’s been around since the dawn of time and it’s just becoming more apparent. Like, it’s something you don’t even have to explain to a 10-year-old kid anymore, they’re so surrounded by remix culture. I think that’s a positive thing. Songwriting is all about self-expression. That just gets so icky and narcissistic. If it is about self-expression, then you’ve got to have a lot of craft and a lot of skill to pull it off so it doesn’t just turn into a navel-gazing thing, you know? Someone who really has true discipline, who has worked on their skill and has a way around a back beat.

Live At Squamish runs Aug. 20-21 in Squamish at the Logger Sports Grounds. Girl Talk plays Saturday on the main stage at 9:40pm. $90-$149 from LiveAtSquamish.com.

Bare: A Pop Opera

My WE cover story this week is about Fighting Chance Productions' 20th show, Bare: A Pop Opera and its relevance to gay youth.

Baring It All

Posted By: Andrea Warner

For the first time in weeks, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and — oh, there’s a used condom not three feet from the door of the building I’m about to enter. The respite from Vancouver’s dismal summer seems somewhat incongruous with this area of Vancouver, known mostly for its rundown warehouses, hookers and sketchy dudes cruising in rusted-out beaters. But in the middle of these shady surroundings, up two short flights of stairs, a crew of young actors are singing, dancing and sweating their way through a 10-hour rehearsal of Bare: A Pop Opera, Fighting Chance Productions’ 20th show in just four years.

Braedon Cox is in the middle of performing a powerful, gut-wrenching number. It’s his first show with the flourishing, volunteer-based theatre company, after recently returning from a scholarship stint in Los Angeles at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, nods and begins again, his voice soaring over the keyboard. As the rest of the cast joins in, the small room is suddenly packed with emotion, the harmonies drowning out the rev of motorcycles in the distance. Nothing matters except this moment, witnessing Cox and crew establish so clearly Bare’s central theme: the fresh hell that is being a teenager — more specifically, a gay teenager who believes in God.

Bare was first staged in 2000, eventually making its way to off-Broadway for a short run in 2004. Musically it follows in the spirit of Rent and Spring Awakening — rock heavy, with occasional detours into gospel and soul — but story-wise, it takes its cues from Shakespeare and Degrassi, with plenty of emotional torment, betrayal, sex and drugs. Cox plays Peter, a 17-year-old boy who has been having a secret affair with his roommate and best friend, Jason (Lucas Blaney) for years. After much soul searching, Peter’s ready to come out of the closet, despite his conservative surroundings. Jason has no desire to come out the closet and gives in to wild, pretty Ivy (Lena Dabrusin), with tragic results.

“I had people at school in Los Angeles who were quite successful in the film industry tell me never come out of the closet, you’ll always be typecast, you’ll never be taken seriously, blah blah blah,” Cox recalls. “I never agreed with them. What does it have to do with anything? If I’m a gay actor, I’m a gay actor. I don’t let being gay define me and it shouldn’t define who I am as an actor.”

Outside Waterfront Theatre, just 30 minutes after opening night comes to a close amidst thunderous applause, Cox is visibly exhilerated. At 21, the star of the show is himself barely out of his teens. He remembers his own angst well enough to identify with and convey Peter’s beautifully, though there’s a world of difference between himself and his character. Cox has left Peter’s awkward body language and hurt confusion on stage where it belongs. Here, he’s smiling and joking, speaking with the kind of clarity and peace typically reserved for those decades older. But, in spite of his confidence, Bare reflects a reality Cox knows all too well: the culture of shame and confusion that surrounds teens and homosexuality.

Messages like that make Cox grateful that shows like Bare exist, particularly in the current cultural climate. The last few years have seen religious beliefs crushing marriage equality in the U.S., not to forget our own Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s well-publicized belief that same-sex marriage is not a human right. Adding to the devastation: the recent influx of headlines about bullied gay youth committing suicide — which prompted Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project. Though it was written over a decade ago, Bare’s subject matter has, sadly, perhaps never been more relevant.

“It’s so important for us to do shows like this, to stick people in there and say, ‘Hey, you can’t look away.This is what’s happening. People are killing themselves,’” Cox says. “[Teens need to be told] just be yourself. Nobody has all the answers. Don’t look to a religion to help you out in these matters, look within yourself. There’s life beyond the walls of your high school or church or family’s house. You can live a fulfilling relationship with someone who really loves you and love them back, someone who will walk through life with you.”

It’s a powerful message that Cox is happy and proud to help deliver with each performance of Bare. He’s hopeful that people will take a chance on the gritty, controversial subject matter and see it as an opportunity to better understand the reality facing gay and questioning teens.

“I’ve had people in the cast tell me, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to invite my dad because he’s not really into this kind of thing’ and I’m like, no, these are the types of people you need to invite,” Cox says. “You need to get them in the theatre. The way being gay is portrayed in the media and magazines is completely far off, so many things that are not defining who we truly are as people and Bare gets so much deeper than that. It really analyzes the heart and soul of homosexuals’ minds. It’s not just waving flags and Britney Spears.”

In fact, the experience has meant so much to him, he’s calling on the LGBTQ community to join him in reaching out to teens.

“As an accepted gay person, we owe it to go back to the teenagers and help them through the struggling phase,” Cox says. “It can be so traumatizing. Everyone in the community should come together helping these kids. We don’t need anymore deaths on our hands.”

Bare: A Pop Opera runs to Aug. 13 at Waterfront Theatre, 8pm. $20-$30 from Tickets Tonight.

Imelda May

My WE music feature this week: Imelda May!

Imelda May

Credit: Supplied

The ‘Mayhem’ and magic of Imelda May

Posted By: Andrea Warner

If you’re a sucker for an accent, singer/songwriter Imelda May’s adorable Irish lilt is as stick-to-your-ribs satisfying as a Guinness stew. It’s just a few weeks before she returns to Vancouver for the Burnaby Blues & Roots Festival, sharing a bill with Canadian icon k.d. lang, but she’s already celebrating: her second studio album, Mayhem, has just come out in Canada following a staggered release in Europe then the U.S.A. After a slow burn, it shot up the charts thanks to an audience hungry for May’s unique blend of rockabilly chic, sexy blues and vintage Irish influences. It’s been a triumphant year for May, who got her start singing in clubs when she was just 16: she wowed millions during her Grammy appearance with Jeff Beck, toured with Meat Loaf and is proving something of a pioneer in the industry as one of a handful of women producing their own albums.

WE: Do you remember the first song you sang where you felt you’d really found your voice?
May: Ooh, I was maybe 16 or 17. When I was 16, I started playing in clubs. God, what was the song? I sang all the time. I can’t remember the name of it! I used to call it me anthem, I used to end every set with it. People would shout for it at the end of every gig. It’s on the tip of me tongue. Oh! “Bring It On Home!” That’s what I sang all the time. It’s an old number, I’d toy with it, change it each time. I got to play with it a lot.

How would you change it?
Do you know, I’ve never told anybody this before, but when I was a kid — thinking of it now, I was so obsessed with music early on I used to listen to records, with my ear to the speaker, so I could hear every single thing. I remember when I was 17 or 18, singing in these rootsy clubs, the blues, jazz, country, and traditional Irish of course, and rockabilly, I remember I used to just pick any song, like “Happy Birthday” or anything at all, and I used to sit as if I was day dreaming and I’d try to sing it in as many different styles as I could. I suppose I was learning without realizing it. I’d do a gospel version, you know [sings a few phrases of “Happy Birthday”] or you might do a rock ‘n’ roll [sings a totally different, snarling version] and I would do that with any kind of song.

How have your songs evolved?
I don’t know. As a writer, hopefully you try and get better all the time. That’s natural, as I’m sure for you too, you try to improve constantly. The influences have stayed the same, still with the chunk of rockabilly and blues and jazz and a bit of post-punk, with a bit of traditional Irish. I tried to evolve on the production more than anything else. With Love Tattoo, I had a record deal and they said they wanted it turned up a notch, they wanted it more produced, let’s call a big producer in and I said, no, no, I’ll do it. And they were like, “Wha?!” They were having heart attacks and fighting me against it, and I said, no, I’m producin’ me own album. It’s what I do. They said, “We want this to be moved on a bit.” Me too, I said. They tried to get me to meet producers, which I did, but then I went into the studio without telling anybody and I decided to record the album and produce it without anybody knowing. I played them what I’d come up with and they were happy! I wanted this album to be a little bit more pushed along without losing the charm of the first two. I wanted to be a little more creative on it and I had a little bit more time. Not much more, but for instance, I wanted to put backup vocals on it, so I generated me backup vocals, I just do that myself. I have a great band who are very talented and play many different instruments.

Your label trusts you more as a producer, I assume.
They do now. Initially they thought I’d produce the same album, they wanted a little bit more from it, but once they heard I wanted the same, I think they were still nervous. It’s not the usual thing, usually you get a big shot producer, but I really didn’t want that. I can hear me own stuff and I love producing and I knew exactly what I wanted the album to sound like. I wanted to get me teeth into it, really. Once I got going on it, they were very supportive and they backed off.

It doesn’t seem like there are many women producing their own work. Am I wrong?
No, I don’t think there are many. I think a lot of people will maybe doubt themselves and get a producer in, but I love that side of it. I’ve been in studios for years... Maybe it’s confidence, I don’t know, all I know is that I know how me own music should sound. I don’t want anybody else’s take on it. It’s in my head, I can hear it when I’m writing it... As weird as this sounds, I like sitting there listening to seven drum takes.

You’re pretty well known in Ireland and the U.K., but not as well this side of the Atlantic. Is there pressure on you to become a hit?
No, no. I do my thing and hopefully it works. I love doing it and so far it’s doing well. I was surprised — the album just came out in Canada — it’s come out in staggered amounts and it started off slow but then went crazy, to like number seven or something in the charts, so I never expected, I suppose, my career to even go this well when I made my first album. I wasn’t signed to a record label and I was expecting to just live out of my suitcase, that’s what I’d been doing before. I love it, I don’t feel pressure. If it goes well, great, and if it doesn’t, well I get to do what I love.

You appeared on the Grammys with Jeff Beck. Was that a surreal experience?
Yes. Completely surreal. It was a very weird and great day. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very strange to be standing in a queue for photos with all the press. Course, nobody knew who I was. They knew I was with Jeff Beck. You do interviews beforehand and then you do the photos, then the performance and then more interviews after. Before we were walking up and everyone’s calling, like “Alice Cooper!” — he was beside me —  “John Legend, we want an interview! Pink, we want an interview!” And I’m just walking around and some girl has my name on a placcard walking in front of me, which made me laugh my head off, and somebody else is going, “do you want to interview her?” [meaning me] and they’re like, “Who? No.” Then I ended up in a queue for the photos between Pink and Mary J. Blige and then the Jonas Brothers and Nicole Kidman skipped the queue and then we went off and I did the photos, did the performance, and when I came out it was completely different! They were shouting “Imelda! Come talk to us! Imelda! Imelda!” Within a couple of hours or so, it was fun. It felt like a dream! We go there, did the performance and then we were on the plane straight back home and me and my husband woke up in bed and I just looked at him and said, “Did that really happen?” It was so funny and great.

You toured with Meat Loaf. Did he give you any awesome advice you’d like to pass on?
Meat Loaf is a brilliant man. I love him to bits and he’s a wild performer. He told me “Oh, you have to love it.” And then, “I’m an actor. I’m not a singer, I’m an actor. I act my songs.” Which is exactly what he does. He gets right into character for every song. It’s amazing. He said, “I’d love you to get up and do a song with me.” And I said I’d love to, brilliant. And on the last night he said, “Would you shoot T-shirt guns at the audience?” And I said, I would, yeah! He said, “Do you know what they are?” And I said, yeah, I think so. He had a glint in his eye. And I’m up singing with him and then they come up and — I don’t know whether you want to put this in your paper, by the way, you might not want to — they strapped this thing on to me that was a giant hot dog that was supposed to look like a giant penis. (Laughs) That was the one night my family had decided to come. Out of the very top of it, a tiny little ball of a white T-shirt shot out of it. My God, I nearly died, but I laughed me head off.

Imelda May plays at 5:05pm at the Burnaby Blues & Roots Festival Aug. 13 at Deer Lake Park, $65 from Ticketmaster or $70 at the gate, 1-10pm. Info: BurnabyBluesFestival.com.

Die Roten Punkte

Totally forgot to update my site with my cover story from last week: Die Roten Punkte. You can still catch them at the Cultch until Aug. 13.

Die Roten Punkte

Credit: Supplied

The funny business of turning music into ‘Art’

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Take everything that follows with a grain of salt. Otto and Astrid Rot comprise the greatest band you’ve likely never heard of and they have quite a story to tell. Tragically, horrifically orphaned at a tender age, the German siblings were then subjected to an abusive aunt and uncle before finally fleeing for the squats of Berlin. They channeled their torment into Die Roten Punkte, “the greatest band in the world,” which got its start as a hilarious Fringe show that’s blossomed into a touring production and spawned three albums so far, including their newest record, Kunst Rock. The Rots poke with WE from a hotel room in Los Angeles, where they’re resting up before making their grand return to Vancouver, home of their beloved Banana Guards.

WE: Have you adopted an LA rock star lifestyle?
Otto: Oh yeah. Last night we were kicking by the pool, that’s how they say it here. You don’t actually do any kicking, though, that would be dangerous. Astrid is here, too.
Astrid: I just got home, so I am a little bit kooky.

Did you do the “walk of shame” home?
Astrid: There was no shame. It was a cool night.
Otto: You have to be careful with Astrid because she was in drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
Astrid: Stop it, Otto. That’s private. Shut up. I was having a great time. I went to a cabaret night last night. It was very cool. And then we went dancing later, it was very nice... You made a mistake going home so early Otto.
Otto: But the hotel has high speed Internet.

What kinds of things do you do that you require such a high speed?
Otto: Talk to friends and make videos. I have friends in bands all over the world. Also lots of straight edge friends, like people into politics and food. We’re always talking about lots of straight edge — do you know what straight edge is?

Umm, more conservative?
Astrid: No, she doesn’t want to know.
Otto: It surprises me because it’s so famous everywhere, I thought everyone knew.
Astrid: It’s boring Otto, no one cares.
Otto: In the 1980s there was a new movement of punk music and it was coming out of Washington and it was a whole lot of people listening to bands like Minor Threat. It was people who listened to hard edge rock ‘n’ roll music, but also talking about social issues in the world and caring about the world and not taking alcohol or drugs.

Like the rock version of Family Ties?
Otto: Really?

Maybe. Can you tell me a little bit about how you came together as a band?
Otto: We grew up outside Berlin in Grunewald, and then it was very sad, when we were little and on our way to the zoo, our parents they were killed by a lion. The zoo was very close by. So we had to go home with no parents —
Astrid: That’s not true at all. What happened was we were on the way to the zoo for my 12th birthday and our parents were killed by a train —
Otto: It was a lion!
Astrid: That’s completely stupid.
Otto: It was a lion!
Astrid: Andrea, you don’t believe it was a lion, right?

I respect both your versions.
Astrid: It would be a big news item: Lion escapes from a German zoo, killing two people. It was a train and afterwards when we were home we were all alone and our aunt and uncle came to stay with us and were very nasty.
Otto: They made us do cooking and chopping wood and dancing.
Astrid: Anyways, I took Otto and we ran away to Berlin and it was the late ’80s and we lived in a squat —
Otto: Do you know what a squat is? No furniture, concrete everywhere.
Astrid: Yes, she knows. There were lots of musicians everywhere in Kreutzberg and I guess it was just inevitable that we would end up in a band. I was going out to see lots of bands, but nobody seemed to want to be in a band with Otto and I, so I was like, don’t worry Otto, we will just make our own band and we’ll be the best band in the whole world. Pretty much that’s what’s come true.

You have the title of best band in the world?
Astrid: Well, we wrote the song first and have the t-shirts. The t-shirts say “I’m in a band,” but really, if you look between the lines, read the subtext, it really says “I’m in the best band in the whole world.”

Do you have peers that you feel are almost as good as you?
Astrid: There are lots of those bands, but they’re not playing so much now. David Bowie —
Otto: There are lots of bands that we love and whose energy we’d like to be like.
Astrid: I really like Blondie.
Otto: Devo, Talking Heads, B52s.
Astrid: I like Florence and the Machine and Arcade Fire.
Otto: We love Arcade Fire. I love Tegan and Sara.

They’re Vancouverites!
Otto: They live in Vancouver? No way! I wonder if we could get them to come to our concert?
Astrid: They’re probably busy, Otto. Touring somewhere in the world.
Otto: I’m going to Facebook them.
Astrid: They wouldn’t be answering their Facebook. They would have somebody else answering their Facebook. We’re the only ones who answer our own Facebook.

Tell me a bit about the new album.
Astrid: We wrote a rock opera in six parts in the middle of the show and it tells the whole story of after our parents died.

Is it a bit darker?
Otto: There are dark moments and happy moments. It’s kind of like a cross between The Who Sell Out, the mini rock opera before Tommy, and Green Day, we were really influenced by them in the last two albums as well, like with American Idiot and “Jesus of Suburbia.” So we just wanted to write our own rock opera of our own story.
Astrid: We also have a Go-Gos track called “Bad is Good.”

Is there a single for the album?
Astrid: Well, the first one is called “Burger Store Dinosaur” and the second one is called “Bananenhaus.”
Otto: That is about a Vancouver invention! Do you know the Banana Guard?
Astrid: We know them, we met them!
Otto: They’re on our t-shirts.

Die Roten Punkte perform to Aug. 13 at The Cultch (1895 Venables), 7pm. Late shows Aug. 6, 13, 10pm. $16-$25 from TheCultch.com

Crazy Stupid Love

My review of Crazy Stupid Love is online at WEVancouver.com

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

Starring Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
Directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Most romantic comedies skip over real human moments, favouring a glossy panache of formulaic plots, stereotypes in place of characters and ridiculous cliches. But now there’s Crazy, Stupid, Love, a film so full of spark, heart and bittersweet moments, it practically hugs your insides.

Cal (Steve Carell) is a chinos-and-running-shoes kind of guy facing single life after finding out his wife of 25 years, Emily (Julianne Moore), cheated on him with David, her coworker (Kevin Bacon). Cal takes up residency at a bar where Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a flashy ladies’ man, takes him under his wing. But, after successfully transforming Cal, Jacob falls for Hannah (Emma Stone) and the professor becomes the student. Sort of. Rounding out this mix is Cal and Emily’s 13-year-old son, the wise-beyond-his-years Robbie (Jonah Bobo), madly in love with his 17-year-old babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who happens to be in love with Cal.

Love has its share of “only in the movies!’ misunderstandings, but Dan Fogelman’s witty, emotionally intelligent script provides a great foundation for what is easily the best ensemble cast in recent memory. Bobo is the heart and soul of the film and Tipton, surprisingly natural, is hands down the best thing to have ever come out of America’s Next Top Model (she placed third in the 2008 cycle). Carell continues to demonstrate his understanding of the nimble line between drama and comedy, and Gosling somehow makes sleazy seem charming before skillfully transitioning to vulnerable. The two share a phenomenal rapport, with each other as well as with Stone and Moore.

It helps that no character — even the philanderers — are relegated to “villain” status. The foils are normal, everyday flaws — circumstance, confidence, time — which makes a lovely change from more traditional Hollywood fare. A romantic comedy that’s warm, funny and raw? To borrow a line from the film itself, Crazy, Stupid, Love is a game changer. —Andrea Warner