8:00
This show was divided into groups, thank god. Had the blue, green, and dusty gray patchwork graphic tees come down the runway any longer than they did I would have been seriously tempted to vacate my front row seat and walk out.
Thankfully, the next—longer—portion of the show was more inspiring, with patchwork suits and knits, reminiscent of preloved coming down the runway. The pieces were a little more bohemian than those of preloved, but there are some very nice, creative pieces, like a white sweater dress paired with an over-sized patchwork knit scarf.
For some reason, these models dressed in colourful, cozy-up-at-the-ski-lodge knits were carrying military paraphernalia as accessories. Like whips, swords, a bow, a helmet, a shield; the themes conflict, but the weaponry does stop the show from getting monotonous.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Montreal Fashion Week: DINH BA DESIGN
7:00
The first thing I notice when I try to find my seat is the plastic runway. The second thing I notice is that there is no swag. Disappointing.
I had gotten used to the glossy dark-wood runway of Toronto fashion week, and this seems particularly unusual because the plastic isn’t even smooth. I’m surprised the models don’t trip. My concerns are addressed as soon as the lights dim and the show begins; the plastic cover is pulled away, revealing a white runway.
From this first collection I see that Montreal fashion is distinct from Toronto fashion. Not many of the elements I saw in show after show in Toronto are visible.
The suits are edgy, but distinctly feminine. The first few pieces are done up in a silver tweed, with a wide, black, buckled belt cinched at the waist. The collection starts strong, with the same silver tweed fabric done in dresses and skirts, mixed with voluminous, gathered black shrugs and collars. The show begins to disintegrate from here, with the incorporation of tribal graphic prints and the same suits as before done up in a silvery-pink tweed. Some things were just meant to be pink.
The first thing I notice when I try to find my seat is the plastic runway. The second thing I notice is that there is no swag. Disappointing.
I had gotten used to the glossy dark-wood runway of Toronto fashion week, and this seems particularly unusual because the plastic isn’t even smooth. I’m surprised the models don’t trip. My concerns are addressed as soon as the lights dim and the show begins; the plastic cover is pulled away, revealing a white runway.
From this first collection I see that Montreal fashion is distinct from Toronto fashion. Not many of the elements I saw in show after show in Toronto are visible.
The suits are edgy, but distinctly feminine. The first few pieces are done up in a silver tweed, with a wide, black, buckled belt cinched at the waist. The collection starts strong, with the same silver tweed fabric done in dresses and skirts, mixed with voluminous, gathered black shrugs and collars. The show begins to disintegrate from here, with the incorporation of tribal graphic prints and the same suits as before done up in a silvery-pink tweed. Some things were just meant to be pink.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Part-time teachers vote to strike
Part-time strike update
by Karen Fournier
Concordia part-time teachers voted to begin striking Monday. Maria Peluso, president of the part-time faculty association, announced today at a press conference that 25 classes will be cancelled starting next week. The number of cancelled classes will increase progressively.
Concordia University has just announced the strike will not affect students’ winter term. They are still expected to attend classes.
“If the professor does not appear for the course, it is nonetheless the student’s responsibility to turn in any work due for the course to the department office responsible for the course immediately,” reads a statement issued by Concordia University.
Concordia’s 900 part-time faculty members teach 40 per cent of classes. They are asking for better wages and improved job security. They have been without a contract for six years.
The Concordia Student Union and other student associations have vowed to support the part-time teachers’ negotiations.
- Karen Fournier.
by Karen Fournier
Concordia part-time teachers voted to begin striking Monday. Maria Peluso, president of the part-time faculty association, announced today at a press conference that 25 classes will be cancelled starting next week. The number of cancelled classes will increase progressively.
Concordia University has just announced the strike will not affect students’ winter term. They are still expected to attend classes.
“If the professor does not appear for the course, it is nonetheless the student’s responsibility to turn in any work due for the course to the department office responsible for the course immediately,” reads a statement issued by Concordia University.
Concordia’s 900 part-time faculty members teach 40 per cent of classes. They are asking for better wages and improved job security. They have been without a contract for six years.
The Concordia Student Union and other student associations have vowed to support the part-time teachers’ negotiations.
- Karen Fournier.
Monday, March 24, 2008
L'Oreal Fashion Week: Evan & Dean
3:00
In the press release for Evan & Dean it states that the designers, Raymond Boutet and Lyle Reimer, “create architectural garments ideal for the young professional woman looking to add serious edge to her wardrobe.” As cute a design and life couple these two make, I have to disagree. The clothes are tacky, some are ill-fitting even on the model, and they seem to have taken their 70s and 80s inspiration too far, styling their models with brown-orange contour make-up smeared from cheekbone to temple.
Model selection was also a contributing factor to the retro effect. As the man next to me accurately remarked of one model, “she’s an old lady.” Old models plus old clothes plus old make-up makes for a stale show.
In the press release for Evan & Dean it states that the designers, Raymond Boutet and Lyle Reimer, “create architectural garments ideal for the young professional woman looking to add serious edge to her wardrobe.” As cute a design and life couple these two make, I have to disagree. The clothes are tacky, some are ill-fitting even on the model, and they seem to have taken their 70s and 80s inspiration too far, styling their models with brown-orange contour make-up smeared from cheekbone to temple.
Model selection was also a contributing factor to the retro effect. As the man next to me accurately remarked of one model, “she’s an old lady.” Old models plus old clothes plus old make-up makes for a stale show.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
L'Oreal Fashion Week: preloved
2:00
I’m sitting in the back of this show nervously eyeing the mittens and cookies resting on the vacant front row seats. I’m lamenting my unimportance, underscored by my back row placement, as I sit on the edge of my chair, waiting for the announcement: “please move down into the front rows,” that accompanies shows that don’t fill up. The announcement comes, and I make it to the front row, to the cookies, but someone has already snagged the mittens from my chair. My jealousy of those with mittens only deepens as the show starts and I see the most beautiful and innovative clothing I’ve seen yet this week come down the runway.
Preloved is a Toronto based clothing line that recycles fabrics from old clothes to make new suits, knit-ware, jumpers, and jackets. Though this line incorporates trends from last fall—preppy, ski-lodge inspired knit-ware; opaque tights in bright colours; and school-girl-style jumpers—the recycling aspect of the design process results in imaginative layers and unexpected embellishments.
Preloved, is by far my favourite collection so far, and has redeemed fashion week for me when I was beginning to think the best part of the whole event was free stuff.
I’m sitting in the back of this show nervously eyeing the mittens and cookies resting on the vacant front row seats. I’m lamenting my unimportance, underscored by my back row placement, as I sit on the edge of my chair, waiting for the announcement: “please move down into the front rows,” that accompanies shows that don’t fill up. The announcement comes, and I make it to the front row, to the cookies, but someone has already snagged the mittens from my chair. My jealousy of those with mittens only deepens as the show starts and I see the most beautiful and innovative clothing I’ve seen yet this week come down the runway.
Preloved is a Toronto based clothing line that recycles fabrics from old clothes to make new suits, knit-ware, jumpers, and jackets. Though this line incorporates trends from last fall—preppy, ski-lodge inspired knit-ware; opaque tights in bright colours; and school-girl-style jumpers—the recycling aspect of the design process results in imaginative layers and unexpected embellishments.
Preloved, is by far my favourite collection so far, and has redeemed fashion week for me when I was beginning to think the best part of the whole event was free stuff.
L'Oreal Fashion Week: LEWD
1:00
The first fashion show of the day, and poorly attended, probably because of the early afternoon start time—some fashionistas actually have jobs. It could also be because LEWD delivers a lack-luster collection, sending grey sparkly sweatshirts and striped leggings down the runway, as if designing what everyone is already wearing makes you deserve your own show. The clothes are all things I did not need to leave Montreal in order to see.
The clothing line is Quebec based, and it looks like the designers picked up clothes right off the streets of Montreal. I suppose there is something to be said for wear-ability when it comes to fashion—and Canadian fashion is notoriously practical—but this line offers nothing new, except the incorporation of bows into the backs of the dresses and shirts. These are the first of many bow embellishments to come.
The first fashion show of the day, and poorly attended, probably because of the early afternoon start time—some fashionistas actually have jobs. It could also be because LEWD delivers a lack-luster collection, sending grey sparkly sweatshirts and striped leggings down the runway, as if designing what everyone is already wearing makes you deserve your own show. The clothes are all things I did not need to leave Montreal in order to see.
The clothing line is Quebec based, and it looks like the designers picked up clothes right off the streets of Montreal. I suppose there is something to be said for wear-ability when it comes to fashion—and Canadian fashion is notoriously practical—but this line offers nothing new, except the incorporation of bows into the backs of the dresses and shirts. These are the first of many bow embellishments to come.
L'Oreal Fashion Week: Press Conference
Tuesday March 18
My day starts with a press conference—my first ever—featuring the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller; the head of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, and the Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC). They announce a new program to help further fashion design in Canada—bursaries for promising Toronto design students to study at design institutions in Milan. In addition to the bursaries, the city of Milan will provide approximately 12,600 dollars to the chosen graduates to cover their living expenses while in Milan.
These bursaries could have a very positive impact on fashion design in Canada, a point stressed in my mind as I discover later in the day that I’m a traitor to Canadian fashion—more on that later.
My day starts with a press conference—my first ever—featuring the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller; the head of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, and the Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC). They announce a new program to help further fashion design in Canada—bursaries for promising Toronto design students to study at design institutions in Milan. In addition to the bursaries, the city of Milan will provide approximately 12,600 dollars to the chosen graduates to cover their living expenses while in Milan.
These bursaries could have a very positive impact on fashion design in Canada, a point stressed in my mind as I discover later in the day that I’m a traitor to Canadian fashion—more on that later.
L'Oreal Fashion Week: Denis Gagnon
I can see tears in the model’s eyes as she walks into the blinding flashes of white light at the end of the runway. She is wearing a black, asymmetrically tiered knit dress, silver jewelry and black leggings that go over immensely tall platform shoes, the kind generally reserved for the pole dancing set. A cinched black belt defines her waist.
This is one of the first looks Québécois designer Denis Gagnon sends down the runway for his 2008 fall fashion collection; something that smacks of last season. 2007 fall fashion was dominated by the sweater dress, chunky knits and waist defining belts, looks Gagnon echoes. Fortunately, the tiers and pleats in the fine-knit dress offer something slightly new—a dress that is thick with layers without being bulky.
As the show continues, many of the looks begin to incorporate leather. A pair of leather pants, sewn in winding strips up the model's legs and over her hips, coupled with a sheer top, shows the rocker-chic edge the designer was going for. This look has been seen before—juxtaposing leather with feminine sheers, but the detailing on the pants makes it fresh.
Spring looks are incorporated into the fall line, with the swing dress redone in leather, this time sewn in bands of concentric circles. It’s an interesting piece, but the show gets a little monotonous. It’s an almost entirely black collection—the other colours included are white and brown.
The designer seems pleased with it though, sprinting down the runway with arms outstretched as the show concludes.
This is one of the first looks Québécois designer Denis Gagnon sends down the runway for his 2008 fall fashion collection; something that smacks of last season. 2007 fall fashion was dominated by the sweater dress, chunky knits and waist defining belts, looks Gagnon echoes. Fortunately, the tiers and pleats in the fine-knit dress offer something slightly new—a dress that is thick with layers without being bulky.
As the show continues, many of the looks begin to incorporate leather. A pair of leather pants, sewn in winding strips up the model's legs and over her hips, coupled with a sheer top, shows the rocker-chic edge the designer was going for. This look has been seen before—juxtaposing leather with feminine sheers, but the detailing on the pants makes it fresh.
Spring looks are incorporated into the fall line, with the swing dress redone in leather, this time sewn in bands of concentric circles. It’s an interesting piece, but the show gets a little monotonous. It’s an almost entirely black collection—the other colours included are white and brown.
The designer seems pleased with it though, sprinting down the runway with arms outstretched as the show concludes.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Interview with the United Steel Workers
Here's the full transcription...or almost full transcription of our interview with the United Steel Workers of Montreal.
The United Steelworkers of Montreal have come a long way since they started playing at Lucien-L’Allier metro station around six years ago. We met up with Gern f. (vocals/guitar) and Matt Watson (electric guitar) at the Silver Dollar in Toronto a couple of hours before their showcase at Canadian Music Week.
When did the Steelworkers form?
Matt: We were playing together a little bit with this guy Sean Moore and then we played in the metro a bit.
Gern: sort of a weekly metro jam session at Lucien-L’Allier metro…I did it for about four or five months, to greater or lesser degrees of success. It took us like two years to get to the lineup that we have, we went through a whole bunch of people at the beginning.
Matt: We went through an average of one every two weeks.
(The bands’ website has a list of 14 of these “dead members”).
How did you make the switch from playing in the metro to playing in bars?
Gern: That’s when we started losing members, as soon as we started saying ‘well let’s have rehearsals,’ with the end with the end to be playing live shows. So as soon as we started planning stuff we lost a lot of guys right there, they were like, ‘oh sounds like that’s going to be work.’
When was that?
Gern: A little over five years, our first show was Halloween…I wasn’t even at the first show. A great deal of planning went into it and then I had to go to the hospital for two months or something like that.
Matt: Derek Skeie, who used to play mandolin with us, stole one of those gowns from the hospital.
Gern: that set off the tradition of our Grumpy’s Halloween extravaganza.
What is that?
Gern: well we’ve been doing it for about five years and it’s just a big old costume party and it’s a lot of fun and we all dress up…its literally been packed every year.
Matt: We tried to do it on a weekday night this year and it didn’t work out, but still people came out.
Gern: It was still packed, we were nose to nose with the crowd. Six people on the stage at Grumpy’s is a bit of tight squeeze, we’ve had more, but it’s still a tight squeeze.
What’s the songwriting process? Do you write individually or as a group?
Gern: We tried writing together and that ended up almost like a cage match. Everybody brings song to the band and says ‘hey let’s try this one’ and if it sticks on the wall, then it’s a song.
Matt: Somebody will bring a song to the table and we’ll practice it for a little while.
Gern: The band has a lot of take on the arrangements, some of my songs really became real songs, just from introducing them to the band. And it’s like ‘no the bridge should go here,’ or ‘let’s double up that chorus up’
Matt: and then you start working on the harmonies and then you start working on the solos.
Gern: it goes from being lyrics and chords to being a whole song with the band.
What inspires the songs?
Gern: (he pauses for a moment) the biggest one would probably be alcoholism (Matt laughs) ... Certainly the blue-collar aspect of it, living in Montreal. Most of us live in the South-West; the Point, Verdun, St. Henri, Little Burgundy. My stuff comes out of the history of those neighbourhoods, a lot of it has a blue collar theme to it, we all come out of blue collar neightbourhoods, blue collar families. There’s certainly a very long line of crappy jobs, you start breaking down every member of the band and every crappy job they’ve had, it leads into it a lot. And your standard horrible relationships are real good, you know, fruit to pick from the tree.
A lot of the songs seem like they’re set in the past … (before I finish asking Matt answers)
Matt: We have a healthy respect for history, that’s for sure.
Where do those ideas come from?
Matt: Everybody in the band likes old-style music and from that you can start looking around you and start appreciating the history around you.
Gern: If you’re from Montreal a lot of people don’t notice it, but the city is dripping with history. It’s still a city that maintains the history of its architecture, it’s cityscape from a hundred years ago. Most of my songs with a historical bent on them, it’s just literally walk around the point on a sunny afternoon in the middle of summer and the stuff hits you.
In the new video (Émile Bertrand) there’s a lot of shots of the old Griffintown what do you think about the re-development?
Gern: (disgusted) oh god…one of the things that makes montreal a really great city to live in is that it’s a livable city and it’s livable because it was planned to be medium density housing, and condos are maximum density. All those towers are maximum density especially in the northern part of Griffintown. You’re throwing the whole thing out of whack. It’s what has been cool about living in Montreal for the last hundred years, was the fact that it had neighbourhoods. Everybody shopped in their neighbourhood, if you lived in St. Henri you shopped on Notre Dame, if you lived in the Point you shopped on Center street, if you lived in the Plateau you shopped on St. Laurent; that’s how it works. The condos come in as maximum density and there’s no shopping. Everybody owns a car and they just start shopping at Price Club and Wal-mart.
Matt: We like our bicycles in Montreal.
Gern: and the reason we do is because the neighbourhoods are connected. Bicycles don’t work as well in Toronto, because Toronto is a low-density city, most of the architecture here is low density, you hop on your bike and it’s an hour ride to where you want to go. In Montreal it’s an eight-minute ride. And consistently throughout the entire city, wherever you live there’s shopping, there’s theaters, there’s bars, there’s life going on. So what’s happening in Griffintown is just appalling, what they’ve already done there, the amount of condos they’ve already put in, and what they’re planning on doing. The reason they can do it is because it’s a vacant part of town because they got rid of residential building permits back in the fifties, supposedly to clean up the blight, the ‘urban blight’ of it, there was too much drugs and too much drinking and prostitution. They wouldn’t come right out and say it, but there was too many immigrants, so they decided what they would do is just put a freeze on it. So that’s why that part of town has been empty and it’s right in the heart of Montreal proper, and they just emptied the whole god damn city out for thirty years and now they’re ball parting it up. It’s Drapeau he’s a fucking maniac, if you need any more examples just look around the city: Ville Marie expressway, Decarie, the Turcott Yards, the toilet bowl on the edge of town, got rid of the streetcars. All the stuff that we’re all learned by now, or should have learned by now, was all stupid. And this new project is the same thing again, it’s like ‘well we’ve learned and now we’re going to do it again.’ There’s some decent properties down there, there are actually some cool buildings. I know the part they’re hoping to develop is probably not of the nicest stuff, it’s the really industrial stuff. It’s just crazy, doing something at this density and they’re not putting in pools and they’re not putting in CLSCs and they’re not putting in schools, so there’s no community that’s going to be created, it’s just going to be 5,000 people plunked down in the middle of it, 15 stories in the air. They’re saying it’s going to be over-top of commercial stores and stuff like that but it’s not going to work, it’s gonna suck.
Matt: we’re not for it
Gern: thanks for summing that up. (turning back to me) You’re gonna get me started on it, I’m gonna wear out your tape machine
You sing a lot about Montreal, how do people outside of Montreal receive the songs?
Gern: I think there’s a lot of romance behind them; everybody likes romance.
Matt: Shawn writes a lot of songs about Ontario as well.
Gern: I think they’re more songs about Montreal if you’re from Montreal. I think when we play “Place St. Henri” in Saskatchewan, that could be ethereally anywhere in Quebec as far as they’re concerned. So I don’t think we shoot ourselves in the foot about it, and that said, there’s a bunch of stuff in there, I draw a lot from growing up in southern Ontario and stuff like that. Gus’s are a lot of the time, more worldly tunes.
Matt (laughing): About three feet away from him.
Gern: we certainly like to write about montreal and we don’t apologize for it but I don’t think that excludes anybody, although maybe we’ve cause a whole pile of more people to move to montreal and that’s why your rent is doubled in price now, you can blame us for that.
Matt: I blame Arcade Fire for that.
Gern: Yes, it’s Arcade Fire’s fault that we all now pay $900 a month for an apartment that used to go for 250.
Do you tour a lot? Have you been touring a lot?
Gern: A lot this year.
Matt: A lot for us.
Gern: Yeah a lot for us. Nobody’s putting us in a tour bus and working everything out for us. Everything we do we do on our own, with a fair amount of help from Weewerk records, our label down here in Toronto, but for us doing it a lot is probably one-tenth of what people consider to be a ‘touring band’ sort of thing. But we made it to the west coast this year, we made it out to the east coast three times this year; numerous, numerous trips down to southern ontartio, to do three or four shows at a time and we leave Sunday for Austin Texas for South by Southwest.
Is that a big step?
Gern: Yeah, South by Southwest is one of those you’re supposed to do. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of monetary commitment for us to all get down there; but you get the invite, you go. We all said that when it first came up a few months ago, ‘we have to go, it’s South by Southwest, it’s the big granddaddy of all these festivals.
Matt: and it’s warm
Gern: Yeah, had it been in Salmon Arm, maybe not so much. I don’t know how big of a step, we’ll all see how big of a step. We know tons of bands who’ve done it before and they all said, ‘go it’s totally worth it.’ If nothing happens, you know, professionally it’s still completely worth it on eight different levels and pretty much everybody we’ve talked to said professionally it always helped, it’s certainly a good thing to have on your calendar, like up on the website and people take you that three per cent more seriously than they did before they saw that.
Do you like playing festivals like this?
Gern: yeah.
Matt: I guess so.
Gern: They’re a rush.
Matt: It’s really fast, you only get a 40 minute set, then you got to be up and off and you’ve got to move around other people’s equipment and stuff like that. I kinda like playing Peterborough, you know when you’re playing in a bar to the locals, that’s fun for me. But these festival things, they’re good, I suppose.
Gern: This year CMW was scaled back for us, because we’re heading for South by Southwest, like last year for CMW, we did four shows in four days. It was just nuts! Like literally you were just carrying gear for four days, I think we got drunk maybe once. It was a complete run.
Matt: first Canada music week was big for us, we played at the Rivoli and after that people started taking us a bit more seriously.
Gern: We got really lucky, we got on the big sort of alt. county show on the Friday night and we were the opener, and we were like ‘oh I don’t know, we’re playing the opener.’ But we were on the same show with Justin Rutlige, Luc Ducet, Great Lake Swimmers. It was really a nice introduction to Toronto and that’s where our label came out of. He was actually the one who booked us in to it. Now he didn’t even actually see us play if I remember correctly, he just came down and walked around the room and everybody was talking about our opening set. But he’s a pretty intuitive guy. He’s got a really neat eclectic taste, a lot of bands ask me, “should we be pitching at the label you guys are on?”
And I’m like, I don’t know what his criteria is when he signs bands but as soon as he signs one I go, yup of course that’s a Weewerk band. I can never really tell what he’s going to put his hooks into, but after they’re signed you’re always like, of course. He’s got really good taste. He builds a show like nobody I’ve ever seen…anytime Phil Kleego has set us up in Toronto it’s always been stellar. And he built us a pretty decent following here, we do almost as good in Toronto as we’re doing in Montreal.
Is your following growing?
Yeah, in the last year or two. Even in Montreal, about a year ago it really started taking off. We went from 100, 150 people depending on what room we were playing, what day of the week it was, how much we yelled, screamed, waved flyers and stuff like that and made a really big jump in the past year or two. Where suddenly a lot of people come out to see us play and a lot of francophones. We’re finally starting to make that crossover to the east side of town and that’s cool. You don’t want there to be that line in the music scene but there is. Everybody should be trying to break that down and we’re doing what we can. It’s really neat when you start getting 20 per cent of your audience or 30 per cent of your audience are all francophones.
You’re still working day jobs, is that something you’re trying to get out of?
Matt: it’d be nice…the more time we spend touring and the less time we spend working, it’ll come to a point where we’re going to have to jump…we’re all pretty old too, we’re not in our early twenties so quitting a day job is pretty difficult, we can’t live on tuna sandwiches on a coach for three months at a time.
Gern: Right now we could probably all quit and just book [shows], right now we’re playing as many shows as we possibly can without our lives falling apart, we did 53 shows last year and I was turning down two or three opportunities a week. I’m not saying anybody was paying us like a thousand bucks do a show, just offers, this band wants to hook up a show in this town sort of thing. We could double, we could triple what we’re as far as the interest goes but it also would mean we’d all have to decide we want to live in a 20 year old van, on the road. So that’s the rub, everybody has to make that jump at some point, and it’s just a matter of pushing it along until there’s a comfort level to be able to do that.
Matt: and monetary level as well
Gern: well that’s the comfort level, I wasn’t waiting for there to be comfortable beds to sleep in.
So what’s next after SXSW?
We’re hoping to shake some European hands down at South by Southwest because we’re looking at maybe going over to Europe in September, October. We’re hoping we can find a booking agent, or maybe some management guys or a record label who’s just interested in supporting us a little bit, just to make the European thing a little easier. Europe is interesting. Most of the guys we know who’ve gone over, who play similar stuff to us they’re saying Europe just eats that stuff up.
Where are you planning to record the third album?
There’s a possibility of house of miracles out of London, Ontario. The guy who runs it, Andy, and I’m not even going to try and pronounce his last name because I always get it wrong. He’s the front-man for Two Minute Miracles, he’s done all their albums; he’s done the last Bar-mitzvah [Brothers], the last Jenny Omnichord, he did Cuff the Duke, he did Constantines. He’s a pretty swift guy. And his band is on the same label as us, so it’ll be nice to keep it in the family. As well it’ll be the first album that we’re doing outside of our own studio and without doing our own self-production. We’re looking at this one to see what someone else can do with our stuff. We’ve hung on for the first two albums, trying to get it to sound specifically the way we want it to. Now we’re hoping with the next one to see if somebody can not change us at all but just texture us a little bit differently, that’d be cool. And it would also be cool to just go in, record and not have to do all the insanity that our first two albums required, which was taking six months evenings and weekends, doing this track and then that track and really standing on one leg. The studio back at my place, it’s project studio, it’s a little bit better than rudimentary. It would be nice to go in some place that they actually had good mics that you didn’t have to turn just such a way and the guy has to stand in just such a way, it would be nice if somebody else was worrying about that and we weren’t. So we’re going to see if that actually happens, if that doesn’t happen
Matt: (interrupting) we’ll do it ourselves again.
Gern: we’ll do it ourselves again, probably at Lucien L’allier metro.
The United Steelworkers of Montreal Play their next Montreal show at Cabaret March 22 with Cuff the Duke.
The United Steelworkers of Montreal have come a long way since they started playing at Lucien-L’Allier metro station around six years ago. We met up with Gern f. (vocals/guitar) and Matt Watson (electric guitar) at the Silver Dollar in Toronto a couple of hours before their showcase at Canadian Music Week.
When did the Steelworkers form?
Matt: We were playing together a little bit with this guy Sean Moore and then we played in the metro a bit.
Gern: sort of a weekly metro jam session at Lucien-L’Allier metro…I did it for about four or five months, to greater or lesser degrees of success. It took us like two years to get to the lineup that we have, we went through a whole bunch of people at the beginning.
Matt: We went through an average of one every two weeks.
(The bands’ website has a list of 14 of these “dead members”).
How did you make the switch from playing in the metro to playing in bars?
Gern: That’s when we started losing members, as soon as we started saying ‘well let’s have rehearsals,’ with the end with the end to be playing live shows. So as soon as we started planning stuff we lost a lot of guys right there, they were like, ‘oh sounds like that’s going to be work.’
When was that?
Gern: A little over five years, our first show was Halloween…I wasn’t even at the first show. A great deal of planning went into it and then I had to go to the hospital for two months or something like that.
Matt: Derek Skeie, who used to play mandolin with us, stole one of those gowns from the hospital.
Gern: that set off the tradition of our Grumpy’s Halloween extravaganza.
What is that?
Gern: well we’ve been doing it for about five years and it’s just a big old costume party and it’s a lot of fun and we all dress up…its literally been packed every year.
Matt: We tried to do it on a weekday night this year and it didn’t work out, but still people came out.
Gern: It was still packed, we were nose to nose with the crowd. Six people on the stage at Grumpy’s is a bit of tight squeeze, we’ve had more, but it’s still a tight squeeze.
What’s the songwriting process? Do you write individually or as a group?
Gern: We tried writing together and that ended up almost like a cage match. Everybody brings song to the band and says ‘hey let’s try this one’ and if it sticks on the wall, then it’s a song.
Matt: Somebody will bring a song to the table and we’ll practice it for a little while.
Gern: The band has a lot of take on the arrangements, some of my songs really became real songs, just from introducing them to the band. And it’s like ‘no the bridge should go here,’ or ‘let’s double up that chorus up’
Matt: and then you start working on the harmonies and then you start working on the solos.
Gern: it goes from being lyrics and chords to being a whole song with the band.
What inspires the songs?
Gern: (he pauses for a moment) the biggest one would probably be alcoholism (Matt laughs) ... Certainly the blue-collar aspect of it, living in Montreal. Most of us live in the South-West; the Point, Verdun, St. Henri, Little Burgundy. My stuff comes out of the history of those neighbourhoods, a lot of it has a blue collar theme to it, we all come out of blue collar neightbourhoods, blue collar families. There’s certainly a very long line of crappy jobs, you start breaking down every member of the band and every crappy job they’ve had, it leads into it a lot. And your standard horrible relationships are real good, you know, fruit to pick from the tree.
A lot of the songs seem like they’re set in the past … (before I finish asking Matt answers)
Matt: We have a healthy respect for history, that’s for sure.
Where do those ideas come from?
Matt: Everybody in the band likes old-style music and from that you can start looking around you and start appreciating the history around you.
Gern: If you’re from Montreal a lot of people don’t notice it, but the city is dripping with history. It’s still a city that maintains the history of its architecture, it’s cityscape from a hundred years ago. Most of my songs with a historical bent on them, it’s just literally walk around the point on a sunny afternoon in the middle of summer and the stuff hits you.
In the new video (Émile Bertrand) there’s a lot of shots of the old Griffintown what do you think about the re-development?
Gern: (disgusted) oh god…one of the things that makes montreal a really great city to live in is that it’s a livable city and it’s livable because it was planned to be medium density housing, and condos are maximum density. All those towers are maximum density especially in the northern part of Griffintown. You’re throwing the whole thing out of whack. It’s what has been cool about living in Montreal for the last hundred years, was the fact that it had neighbourhoods. Everybody shopped in their neighbourhood, if you lived in St. Henri you shopped on Notre Dame, if you lived in the Point you shopped on Center street, if you lived in the Plateau you shopped on St. Laurent; that’s how it works. The condos come in as maximum density and there’s no shopping. Everybody owns a car and they just start shopping at Price Club and Wal-mart.
Matt: We like our bicycles in Montreal.
Gern: and the reason we do is because the neighbourhoods are connected. Bicycles don’t work as well in Toronto, because Toronto is a low-density city, most of the architecture here is low density, you hop on your bike and it’s an hour ride to where you want to go. In Montreal it’s an eight-minute ride. And consistently throughout the entire city, wherever you live there’s shopping, there’s theaters, there’s bars, there’s life going on. So what’s happening in Griffintown is just appalling, what they’ve already done there, the amount of condos they’ve already put in, and what they’re planning on doing. The reason they can do it is because it’s a vacant part of town because they got rid of residential building permits back in the fifties, supposedly to clean up the blight, the ‘urban blight’ of it, there was too much drugs and too much drinking and prostitution. They wouldn’t come right out and say it, but there was too many immigrants, so they decided what they would do is just put a freeze on it. So that’s why that part of town has been empty and it’s right in the heart of Montreal proper, and they just emptied the whole god damn city out for thirty years and now they’re ball parting it up. It’s Drapeau he’s a fucking maniac, if you need any more examples just look around the city: Ville Marie expressway, Decarie, the Turcott Yards, the toilet bowl on the edge of town, got rid of the streetcars. All the stuff that we’re all learned by now, or should have learned by now, was all stupid. And this new project is the same thing again, it’s like ‘well we’ve learned and now we’re going to do it again.’ There’s some decent properties down there, there are actually some cool buildings. I know the part they’re hoping to develop is probably not of the nicest stuff, it’s the really industrial stuff. It’s just crazy, doing something at this density and they’re not putting in pools and they’re not putting in CLSCs and they’re not putting in schools, so there’s no community that’s going to be created, it’s just going to be 5,000 people plunked down in the middle of it, 15 stories in the air. They’re saying it’s going to be over-top of commercial stores and stuff like that but it’s not going to work, it’s gonna suck.
Matt: we’re not for it
Gern: thanks for summing that up. (turning back to me) You’re gonna get me started on it, I’m gonna wear out your tape machine
You sing a lot about Montreal, how do people outside of Montreal receive the songs?
Gern: I think there’s a lot of romance behind them; everybody likes romance.
Matt: Shawn writes a lot of songs about Ontario as well.
Gern: I think they’re more songs about Montreal if you’re from Montreal. I think when we play “Place St. Henri” in Saskatchewan, that could be ethereally anywhere in Quebec as far as they’re concerned. So I don’t think we shoot ourselves in the foot about it, and that said, there’s a bunch of stuff in there, I draw a lot from growing up in southern Ontario and stuff like that. Gus’s are a lot of the time, more worldly tunes.
Matt (laughing): About three feet away from him.
Gern: we certainly like to write about montreal and we don’t apologize for it but I don’t think that excludes anybody, although maybe we’ve cause a whole pile of more people to move to montreal and that’s why your rent is doubled in price now, you can blame us for that.
Matt: I blame Arcade Fire for that.
Gern: Yes, it’s Arcade Fire’s fault that we all now pay $900 a month for an apartment that used to go for 250.
Do you tour a lot? Have you been touring a lot?
Gern: A lot this year.
Matt: A lot for us.
Gern: Yeah a lot for us. Nobody’s putting us in a tour bus and working everything out for us. Everything we do we do on our own, with a fair amount of help from Weewerk records, our label down here in Toronto, but for us doing it a lot is probably one-tenth of what people consider to be a ‘touring band’ sort of thing. But we made it to the west coast this year, we made it out to the east coast three times this year; numerous, numerous trips down to southern ontartio, to do three or four shows at a time and we leave Sunday for Austin Texas for South by Southwest.
Is that a big step?
Gern: Yeah, South by Southwest is one of those you’re supposed to do. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of monetary commitment for us to all get down there; but you get the invite, you go. We all said that when it first came up a few months ago, ‘we have to go, it’s South by Southwest, it’s the big granddaddy of all these festivals.
Matt: and it’s warm
Gern: Yeah, had it been in Salmon Arm, maybe not so much. I don’t know how big of a step, we’ll all see how big of a step. We know tons of bands who’ve done it before and they all said, ‘go it’s totally worth it.’ If nothing happens, you know, professionally it’s still completely worth it on eight different levels and pretty much everybody we’ve talked to said professionally it always helped, it’s certainly a good thing to have on your calendar, like up on the website and people take you that three per cent more seriously than they did before they saw that.
Do you like playing festivals like this?
Gern: yeah.
Matt: I guess so.
Gern: They’re a rush.
Matt: It’s really fast, you only get a 40 minute set, then you got to be up and off and you’ve got to move around other people’s equipment and stuff like that. I kinda like playing Peterborough, you know when you’re playing in a bar to the locals, that’s fun for me. But these festival things, they’re good, I suppose.
Gern: This year CMW was scaled back for us, because we’re heading for South by Southwest, like last year for CMW, we did four shows in four days. It was just nuts! Like literally you were just carrying gear for four days, I think we got drunk maybe once. It was a complete run.
Matt: first Canada music week was big for us, we played at the Rivoli and after that people started taking us a bit more seriously.
Gern: We got really lucky, we got on the big sort of alt. county show on the Friday night and we were the opener, and we were like ‘oh I don’t know, we’re playing the opener.’ But we were on the same show with Justin Rutlige, Luc Ducet, Great Lake Swimmers. It was really a nice introduction to Toronto and that’s where our label came out of. He was actually the one who booked us in to it. Now he didn’t even actually see us play if I remember correctly, he just came down and walked around the room and everybody was talking about our opening set. But he’s a pretty intuitive guy. He’s got a really neat eclectic taste, a lot of bands ask me, “should we be pitching at the label you guys are on?”
And I’m like, I don’t know what his criteria is when he signs bands but as soon as he signs one I go, yup of course that’s a Weewerk band. I can never really tell what he’s going to put his hooks into, but after they’re signed you’re always like, of course. He’s got really good taste. He builds a show like nobody I’ve ever seen…anytime Phil Kleego has set us up in Toronto it’s always been stellar. And he built us a pretty decent following here, we do almost as good in Toronto as we’re doing in Montreal.
Is your following growing?
Yeah, in the last year or two. Even in Montreal, about a year ago it really started taking off. We went from 100, 150 people depending on what room we were playing, what day of the week it was, how much we yelled, screamed, waved flyers and stuff like that and made a really big jump in the past year or two. Where suddenly a lot of people come out to see us play and a lot of francophones. We’re finally starting to make that crossover to the east side of town and that’s cool. You don’t want there to be that line in the music scene but there is. Everybody should be trying to break that down and we’re doing what we can. It’s really neat when you start getting 20 per cent of your audience or 30 per cent of your audience are all francophones.
You’re still working day jobs, is that something you’re trying to get out of?
Matt: it’d be nice…the more time we spend touring and the less time we spend working, it’ll come to a point where we’re going to have to jump…we’re all pretty old too, we’re not in our early twenties so quitting a day job is pretty difficult, we can’t live on tuna sandwiches on a coach for three months at a time.
Gern: Right now we could probably all quit and just book [shows], right now we’re playing as many shows as we possibly can without our lives falling apart, we did 53 shows last year and I was turning down two or three opportunities a week. I’m not saying anybody was paying us like a thousand bucks do a show, just offers, this band wants to hook up a show in this town sort of thing. We could double, we could triple what we’re as far as the interest goes but it also would mean we’d all have to decide we want to live in a 20 year old van, on the road. So that’s the rub, everybody has to make that jump at some point, and it’s just a matter of pushing it along until there’s a comfort level to be able to do that.
Matt: and monetary level as well
Gern: well that’s the comfort level, I wasn’t waiting for there to be comfortable beds to sleep in.
So what’s next after SXSW?
We’re hoping to shake some European hands down at South by Southwest because we’re looking at maybe going over to Europe in September, October. We’re hoping we can find a booking agent, or maybe some management guys or a record label who’s just interested in supporting us a little bit, just to make the European thing a little easier. Europe is interesting. Most of the guys we know who’ve gone over, who play similar stuff to us they’re saying Europe just eats that stuff up.
Where are you planning to record the third album?
There’s a possibility of house of miracles out of London, Ontario. The guy who runs it, Andy, and I’m not even going to try and pronounce his last name because I always get it wrong. He’s the front-man for Two Minute Miracles, he’s done all their albums; he’s done the last Bar-mitzvah [Brothers], the last Jenny Omnichord, he did Cuff the Duke, he did Constantines. He’s a pretty swift guy. And his band is on the same label as us, so it’ll be nice to keep it in the family. As well it’ll be the first album that we’re doing outside of our own studio and without doing our own self-production. We’re looking at this one to see what someone else can do with our stuff. We’ve hung on for the first two albums, trying to get it to sound specifically the way we want it to. Now we’re hoping with the next one to see if somebody can not change us at all but just texture us a little bit differently, that’d be cool. And it would also be cool to just go in, record and not have to do all the insanity that our first two albums required, which was taking six months evenings and weekends, doing this track and then that track and really standing on one leg. The studio back at my place, it’s project studio, it’s a little bit better than rudimentary. It would be nice to go in some place that they actually had good mics that you didn’t have to turn just such a way and the guy has to stand in just such a way, it would be nice if somebody else was worrying about that and we weren’t. So we’re going to see if that actually happens, if that doesn’t happen
Matt: (interrupting) we’ll do it ourselves again.
Gern: we’ll do it ourselves again, probably at Lucien L’allier metro.
The United Steelworkers of Montreal Play their next Montreal show at Cabaret March 22 with Cuff the Duke.
It ain't over!
Just because CMW is over doesn't mean we're done...we'll be posting more of our Toronto adventures so keep checking back!
Still to come: The full United Steelworkers interview, KRS-One and the new hip-hop buisness paradigm, more pictures and more Jim Beam soaked adventures in the magical city of Toronto...
Still to come: The full United Steelworkers interview, KRS-One and the new hip-hop buisness paradigm, more pictures and more Jim Beam soaked adventures in the magical city of Toronto...
Friday, March 7, 2008
Friday
We start the day with breakfast burritos at a little place in Kensington, they’re made by real Mexicans, which according to Cindy is a requirement for a “burrito” to be real. I decide that it’s a good time to look at the handouts they gave me when I registered yesterday. Turns out I have a schedule with performance times and a map, it had been in my bag all along. Last night we had left the Horseshoe to find out what time Sloan was playing, turns out I had the info in my bag. After breakfast we head down to the Royal York. It’s very business, very industry, there’s not many bands around and those that we meet hand us crappy CDs.
Tonight: interview with the United Steel Workers of Montreal.
Tonight: interview with the United Steel Workers of Montreal.
CMW part two: Hey CN Tower, Up Yours!
Toronto is dead at night. The streets are empty. Maybe there’s a small crowd outside some bar or another, but the distance between is barren. I walk through Kensington market. Everything is closed, gated. It smells of weed and rotting fish. A place like that should be alive at night, not a ghost town.
We start the night at the Horseshoe. It’s dark. Dim lights, black walls – rock and roll. It’s Cindy’s first time there, and she’s quite taken with the place. I think the radio is playing when we walk in but turns out it’s the Immaculate Machines. Kind of like the Smiths if they were cute instead of depressing. Three piece: guitar, keyboards, drums; well rehearsed thee part harmonies. They’re slick, but something’s missing. You could tap your foot to it but that’s about it.
Next up is Dog Day, they’re a strange picture. On the far right the bass player looks to be about ten – no slight to her, she’s good. Especially considering she’s not much taller than the bass. They’ve got that late 90’s Canadian pre-indie sound. Sort of like that whole east coast thing, or maybe the first Treble Charger album. There are some interesting hints of keyboard at the beginning of some songs but unfortunately (for the first five songs) the rest of the instruments drown it out. The keyboard player looks like she’s about to cry but once she gets back into it she starts taking pictures of the audience without missing a note. On the whole the band has a nerdy cuteness, they’re good but nothing special.
Sloan is playing nearby so we decide to go find out what time they’re playing. There’s a thin sheet of ice on the sidewalk as we walk through the disserted Kensington market, this time it smells like weed (the next time it will smell like rotting fish). They’re not playing until 12:20 so we head back to the Horseshoe to see Plants and Animals.
“Hey CN tower, up yours!” Cindy announces on the way back. We talk about how much we hate Toronto.
We arrive just as Katie Stelmanis is finishing her set with a dark, dissonant cover of Aretha Franklin’s, “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)”. It’s noisy and the drummer mostly just pounds the toms, it’s good. I’m sorry I missed them because they seem like they might have been the most interesting band of the night. But I don’t really know.
Plants and Animals come next. I’m not really sure what to say about them. I want to say, ‘they defy easy characterization” but that’s just a copout. In my notes it says:
Defy easy characterization with their
It just ends like that, I didn’t even finish the sentence. I was going to write something about their sound but I never quite figured it out. There are hints of the 60’s; some 70’s prog influences. They’re very “indie”, very “Montreal”. Not surprisingly because they are from Montreal. There’s a tongue in cheek hugeness to their sound and stage presence. They’ve got some intense rock-outs but everything’s always very melodic. The crowd cheers pretty nicely between songs but only a few people are actually moving, everyone pretty much just stands still. I don’t think it was the band, no, I think that’s just the Torontonian uptightness. In a similar move to Katie Stelmanis they end on a Nina Simone cover. It’s got a psychedelic touch and is surprisingly good. I want to interview them, but I don’t get a chance to talk to them. I want to go to the back alley and ask if we can interview them. Cindy thinks it’s a bad idea and that we should go through the proper channels, namely requesting an interview from CMW, or requesting the band, their label or p.r. directly. I figure we’ll just go ask them and do the interview right now. But they seem a little sketched out when we approach them (in the alleyway), but they’re nice and tell me to send them an email.
We head back down to the Supermarket in Kensington market, this time it smells like rotting fish (I wish it still smelled like weed). The venue is small, maybe 300 people packed in (Cindy thinks it was more like 200). We can hardly move the crowd is so thick. They start the set with a couple songs off one of their first seven-inch singles. “I don’t think we’ve played that since 1994.” Says singer/bass player Chris Murphy as the band wraps of “Starting With a Push” the second song of the night. The play “Take Good Care of the Poor Boy” off 1999’s, “Between the Bridges” before launching into a track off their upcoming ninth album. Despite the fact that half of the band has gone grey, they still rock like it was 10 years ago. But, especially on the newest songs, the band has lost much of the east-coast innocent charm that made them so enjoyable. While it’s obvious Sloan wishes they were a rock and roll band it’s never quite worked for them and while the newer songs aren’t bad they don’t stand out like the older ones.
The crowd knows it. While they cheer nicely for the new song, its nothing compared to the wild reaction to “Everything You've Done Wrong” off of 1996’s “One Chord to Another.” The song has the crowd moving, hands in the air, singing along to every word.
Sloan looks comfortable on the small stage but it’s obvious they’re used to playing much larger venues, this is their neighbourhood despite hailing from Halifax (and being known for it) the band has lived in this part of Toronto for years.
Around three quarters of the way through the set Murphy puts down his bass and drummer Andrew Scott picks up a guitar and takes over on vocals. The results are mixed. Ad then it’s over at a festival where bands are normally limited to 30 minute sets, Sloan doesn’t get much more than that, but they do get to play an encore – one of the only bands a rarity at CMW. It’s short, two songs. Singer guitar player Patrick Pentland’s vocals are a little off on “The Good in Everyone” which takes away from the song but the band, who have undoubtedly played the song thousands of times, are tight enough to prevent it from being ruined completely. They follow it up with, “She Says What She Means” they play it sloppy but they’re obviously having a good time and so is the crowd. We leave the Supermarket hot, sweaty and satisfied.
We start the night at the Horseshoe. It’s dark. Dim lights, black walls – rock and roll. It’s Cindy’s first time there, and she’s quite taken with the place. I think the radio is playing when we walk in but turns out it’s the Immaculate Machines. Kind of like the Smiths if they were cute instead of depressing. Three piece: guitar, keyboards, drums; well rehearsed thee part harmonies. They’re slick, but something’s missing. You could tap your foot to it but that’s about it.
Next up is Dog Day, they’re a strange picture. On the far right the bass player looks to be about ten – no slight to her, she’s good. Especially considering she’s not much taller than the bass. They’ve got that late 90’s Canadian pre-indie sound. Sort of like that whole east coast thing, or maybe the first Treble Charger album. There are some interesting hints of keyboard at the beginning of some songs but unfortunately (for the first five songs) the rest of the instruments drown it out. The keyboard player looks like she’s about to cry but once she gets back into it she starts taking pictures of the audience without missing a note. On the whole the band has a nerdy cuteness, they’re good but nothing special.
Sloan is playing nearby so we decide to go find out what time they’re playing. There’s a thin sheet of ice on the sidewalk as we walk through the disserted Kensington market, this time it smells like weed (the next time it will smell like rotting fish). They’re not playing until 12:20 so we head back to the Horseshoe to see Plants and Animals.
“Hey CN tower, up yours!” Cindy announces on the way back. We talk about how much we hate Toronto.
We arrive just as Katie Stelmanis is finishing her set with a dark, dissonant cover of Aretha Franklin’s, “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)”. It’s noisy and the drummer mostly just pounds the toms, it’s good. I’m sorry I missed them because they seem like they might have been the most interesting band of the night. But I don’t really know.
Plants and Animals come next. I’m not really sure what to say about them. I want to say, ‘they defy easy characterization” but that’s just a copout. In my notes it says:
Defy easy characterization with their
It just ends like that, I didn’t even finish the sentence. I was going to write something about their sound but I never quite figured it out. There are hints of the 60’s; some 70’s prog influences. They’re very “indie”, very “Montreal”. Not surprisingly because they are from Montreal. There’s a tongue in cheek hugeness to their sound and stage presence. They’ve got some intense rock-outs but everything’s always very melodic. The crowd cheers pretty nicely between songs but only a few people are actually moving, everyone pretty much just stands still. I don’t think it was the band, no, I think that’s just the Torontonian uptightness. In a similar move to Katie Stelmanis they end on a Nina Simone cover. It’s got a psychedelic touch and is surprisingly good. I want to interview them, but I don’t get a chance to talk to them. I want to go to the back alley and ask if we can interview them. Cindy thinks it’s a bad idea and that we should go through the proper channels, namely requesting an interview from CMW, or requesting the band, their label or p.r. directly. I figure we’ll just go ask them and do the interview right now. But they seem a little sketched out when we approach them (in the alleyway), but they’re nice and tell me to send them an email.
We head back down to the Supermarket in Kensington market, this time it smells like rotting fish (I wish it still smelled like weed). The venue is small, maybe 300 people packed in (Cindy thinks it was more like 200). We can hardly move the crowd is so thick. They start the set with a couple songs off one of their first seven-inch singles. “I don’t think we’ve played that since 1994.” Says singer/bass player Chris Murphy as the band wraps of “Starting With a Push” the second song of the night. The play “Take Good Care of the Poor Boy” off 1999’s, “Between the Bridges” before launching into a track off their upcoming ninth album. Despite the fact that half of the band has gone grey, they still rock like it was 10 years ago. But, especially on the newest songs, the band has lost much of the east-coast innocent charm that made them so enjoyable. While it’s obvious Sloan wishes they were a rock and roll band it’s never quite worked for them and while the newer songs aren’t bad they don’t stand out like the older ones.
The crowd knows it. While they cheer nicely for the new song, its nothing compared to the wild reaction to “Everything You've Done Wrong” off of 1996’s “One Chord to Another.” The song has the crowd moving, hands in the air, singing along to every word.
Sloan looks comfortable on the small stage but it’s obvious they’re used to playing much larger venues, this is their neighbourhood despite hailing from Halifax (and being known for it) the band has lived in this part of Toronto for years.
Around three quarters of the way through the set Murphy puts down his bass and drummer Andrew Scott picks up a guitar and takes over on vocals. The results are mixed. Ad then it’s over at a festival where bands are normally limited to 30 minute sets, Sloan doesn’t get much more than that, but they do get to play an encore – one of the only bands a rarity at CMW. It’s short, two songs. Singer guitar player Patrick Pentland’s vocals are a little off on “The Good in Everyone” which takes away from the song but the band, who have undoubtedly played the song thousands of times, are tight enough to prevent it from being ruined completely. They follow it up with, “She Says What She Means” they play it sloppy but they’re obviously having a good time and so is the crowd. We leave the Supermarket hot, sweaty and satisfied.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
CMW part one (part two): the first show...
Day 1. Things in Toronto do end early. They start early too. I’m still on Montreal time, 11:30 is a reasonable time to arrive at a show. Apparently it doesn’t work that way in Toronto (though it is a Wednesday night and this is Toronto so everyone does have to work tomorrow) by the time I get there the last band is just going on. At first I’m a little disappointed, but I’m glad I went.
The Speaking Tongues, the last band of the night, at Tattoo play fast and loud, dirty blues crossed with garage rock and roll. They’re derivative as hell but they do it well, and after a day on the bus a little rock and roll is just what I need. A Detroit influence runs through their songs, inviting the obvious comparison to the standard bearers of the sound, the White Stripes (the fact that they’re also a two piece makes the comparison almost too obvious). But it’s not something they deny.
“Obviously the white stripes are a pretty big influence,” said drummer/singer Pete. “But then you look behind that and there’s all these other great Detroit bands like the Dirtbombs, Detroit Velvets, and Soledad Brothers and then even behind them, they’re all playing covers of these ancient delta blues musicians.” Adding, “We draw most of our style from those deeper southern blues influences.”
“It’s kinda like Detroit meets Mississippi,” said Aaron
Despite the lack of a bass player the guitar has a thick heavy sound, but singer/guitar player Aaron says it just worked out that way, he plays a used amp, which he describes as “very bassy” he only effect, “a $60 distortion pedal.”
“It’s all out of necessity,” he said. “It’s all we can afford, we just gotta make it work”
“We pretty much embrace what we have” Pete adds, “those drums I’ve had for a long time, I gave them up forever, and then I pulled them out of the closet, dusted them off…that’s the sound”
The two met at work. “We started playing together like two and a half years ago,” said Aaron “we played our first show a year and a half ago.”
“Our first show just kind of came out of jams,” adds Pete. “we snuck way our on to a list and wrote all our songs and that was it.”
“We booked our first show with one song and then we wrote five more for the show,” said Aaron, “and played for like fifteen minutes… we’d never been in a band before this.” Aaron, “we cut our chops by playing with each other, everyone else I know in a band, they’ve been playing for so long, he was the only other person that I knew, who had never been in a band before.”
The idea of working with what they have seems to be a common theme for the band.
“Originally we were going to be an instrumental band, because neither of us wanted to sing.” Pete, who sings on several songs – while playing drums. “Again [it’s] the same thing, we said there’s two of us, why don’t we make the most of this, so we both practiced singing.”
But Pete said that playing drums and singing isn’t any harder than singing while playing any other instrument. “It’s the same thing as playing guitar.”
“Most two piece bands only one person sings.” said Aaron, “it’s kind of strange when you think about it.”
The Speaking Tongues, the last band of the night, at Tattoo play fast and loud, dirty blues crossed with garage rock and roll. They’re derivative as hell but they do it well, and after a day on the bus a little rock and roll is just what I need. A Detroit influence runs through their songs, inviting the obvious comparison to the standard bearers of the sound, the White Stripes (the fact that they’re also a two piece makes the comparison almost too obvious). But it’s not something they deny.
“Obviously the white stripes are a pretty big influence,” said drummer/singer Pete. “But then you look behind that and there’s all these other great Detroit bands like the Dirtbombs, Detroit Velvets, and Soledad Brothers and then even behind them, they’re all playing covers of these ancient delta blues musicians.” Adding, “We draw most of our style from those deeper southern blues influences.”
“It’s kinda like Detroit meets Mississippi,” said Aaron
Despite the lack of a bass player the guitar has a thick heavy sound, but singer/guitar player Aaron says it just worked out that way, he plays a used amp, which he describes as “very bassy” he only effect, “a $60 distortion pedal.”
“It’s all out of necessity,” he said. “It’s all we can afford, we just gotta make it work”
“We pretty much embrace what we have” Pete adds, “those drums I’ve had for a long time, I gave them up forever, and then I pulled them out of the closet, dusted them off…that’s the sound”
The two met at work. “We started playing together like two and a half years ago,” said Aaron “we played our first show a year and a half ago.”
“Our first show just kind of came out of jams,” adds Pete. “we snuck way our on to a list and wrote all our songs and that was it.”
“We booked our first show with one song and then we wrote five more for the show,” said Aaron, “and played for like fifteen minutes… we’d never been in a band before this.” Aaron, “we cut our chops by playing with each other, everyone else I know in a band, they’ve been playing for so long, he was the only other person that I knew, who had never been in a band before.”
The idea of working with what they have seems to be a common theme for the band.
“Originally we were going to be an instrumental band, because neither of us wanted to sing.” Pete, who sings on several songs – while playing drums. “Again [it’s] the same thing, we said there’s two of us, why don’t we make the most of this, so we both practiced singing.”
But Pete said that playing drums and singing isn’t any harder than singing while playing any other instrument. “It’s the same thing as playing guitar.”
“Most two piece bands only one person sings.” said Aaron, “it’s kind of strange when you think about it.”
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
This just in
Jake and Cindy arrived in TO.
Much lies ahead.
Check back to see what our knights of derring-do get up to in the next few hours.
Much lies ahead.
Check back to see what our knights of derring-do get up to in the next few hours.
CMW part one: the night before
It’s dark when I wake up. I don’t know where I am. Outside the bus window the sign says “Cobourg.” That doesn’t help. It’s 7:43 pm. I need to be in Toronto by 8:30 to get my press pass. We’re running late.
Cars crawl along the autoroute, we’re 40 minutes behind schedule before we even get off the island. Stuck behind snow plows 70 k out of Kingston. Travel days are never good.
I get to Toronto at 9:30 and head down to the Royal Fairmount Hotel, an enormous hulking building and CMW headquarters.
The lobby shines with polish and wealth, I feel totally out of place. Media accreditation is closed so I head to the hostel...a very different sort of place. There's a show tonight I'm going to check out, Dinosaur Bones, Shitt Hottt, Little Foot Long Foot and The Speaking Tongues. It's 10:30 now and I know things in Toronto tend to end early, so hopefully I won't miss too much.
Tomorrow: Canadian music week really begins. Lots of shows.
Cars crawl along the autoroute, we’re 40 minutes behind schedule before we even get off the island. Stuck behind snow plows 70 k out of Kingston. Travel days are never good.
I get to Toronto at 9:30 and head down to the Royal Fairmount Hotel, an enormous hulking building and CMW headquarters.
The lobby shines with polish and wealth, I feel totally out of place. Media accreditation is closed so I head to the hostel...a very different sort of place. There's a show tonight I'm going to check out, Dinosaur Bones, Shitt Hottt, Little Foot Long Foot and The Speaking Tongues. It's 10:30 now and I know things in Toronto tend to end early, so hopefully I won't miss too much.
Tomorrow: Canadian music week really begins. Lots of shows.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
