Monthly Archives: October 2005

Ted Leo

shocked and appalled

Review By Julie Colero

Interviewing Ted Leo is a lot more complicated than you might think – what’s the point in asking someone questions when their life is already well-documented on the web? Being as outspoken as he is, Ted seemed willing to do more talking, and I did my best to catch it all on tape. During the process of transcription, however, it became clear to me that Mr. Leo’s a bit of a rambler, which is every interviewer’s worst nightmare and wettest dream rolled into one. Here’s an attempt to sort through the 30-minute long, September 2nd ramblings of one Ted Theodore (oh no, wait, that’s from a movie) Leo,
rock star and dissenting American.

I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I showed up at Richard’s that fateful night, but I did have high hopes of not hyperventilating. Ted Leo makes incredibly catchy mod-pop-punk music, akin to not much of anything at the moment, and it seems as though he’s got a lot to say. Much of it is packed into his songs, with lyrics often expanding past rhythmic borders and listeners’ vocabularies. Ted also keeps in touch with his fans via email and a
regular blog on his band’s website. He’s a real people person, I guess, and even though he shows up a couple of hours later than planned and has a guitar to re-string, he’s still willing to sit down with me for a real live interview. Why? “I consider it part of the job,” says Ted, guitar on his lap and goldeny glass of booze on the table in front of him. “But also, they are usually pretty good for me to do. Not necessarily to talk about yourself, but to talk about the process and your ideas helps you to order them. It helps you keep your head straight. When you hear yourself saying stupid things, which sometimes you do… Sometimes I’ll think that I have an idea about something, and over the course of a rambling interview answer —like this one—I’ll either reinforce it or change my mind. Artists tend often to think about what they do a little too much, and I think there is a real value to examining your life, if that’s not too grandiose, and interviews are a perfect opportunity to do that. Sometimes it ends up being the same old … basic stuff … but it’s good to do them, too, because then you can get real concise about it.” He did say, though, “I like to make special concessions for Canadian brethren and sistren.” Right on!

So the basic stuff you can look up on the net or get from me – Ted’s from New Jersey, his early teenage years were spent hanging out at hip hop shows, he then made the switch to hardcore, and got to playing pretty darn early. He was in Chisel; they toured and were semi-popular. He produced a record by the Secret Stars that was good for its day. And then he went solo and called himself the Pharmacists. “The truth is that [Chisel], when it got too late for us to change our name, realized what a stupid fucking band name that was, so we were sitting around, thinking about what we would change the name to, if we could change the name, and Pharmacists came up, and I vowed, at that moment, that I would have a band named Pharmacists, and that’s the truth. When I started playing under my own name, I wanted to avoid the singer-songwriter tag, and so, even when I was playing alone, I would play as ted leo-slash-pharmacists.” Ted had revolving musical help, but got some keepers when he found Dave Lerner and Chris Wilson. They’re nice dudes who let Ted do his bandleader thing. It’s like a one-man show, but with two other guys. The band is busy jet-setting all over the place, touring like madmen, and I got to see them in Europe this past spring, which was pretty hot. I asked Ted a bit about his Euro-travels, and he had stories to tell about road trips past and resent-er:
“I had a conversation with someone a few years earlier about racism in the States and we were talking about the legacy of slavery, which is certainly a legitimate thing to talk about, aside from the fact that it ended 140 years ago, or whatever, and when I brought up Germany under the third Reich, he actually
said, ‘No, that’s ancient history.’ I was just like, ‘Alright, I’m done with this conversation!’ I was actually surprised, in the past … alright, here’s the thing – that particular trip was like, 1997 – I was surprised at the amount of fl ak that I got from people for being American back then, because it has always been pretty obvious that I am a dissenting American. It’s pretty explicit in my song-writing. More and more, since the Bush presidency, basically, I won’t even break it down to the September 11th attacks or the war in Iraq, it’s just kind of the larger issue of the Bush presidency, I’ve actually found Europeans to be
more sympathetic … to me, but, by extension, to Americans like me. At this point, I think that they do understand, as everybody should about every country, that every people in every country are not as monolithic as everybody wants to make them out to be. Whereas in the past I felt there was an understandable but annoying conscious decision to ignore that fact, these days I fi nd that you get a little bit more benefi t of the doubt. If you’re a punk band, the people know you obviously didn’t vote for Bush.”

As we got to the hot topics fairly quickly, me and Teddy did. I’m sadly not so well-versed in these things, so I just let him go off. You don’t need to hear all about it, do you? If so, I’ll send you the tapes, man, to make of it what you will. Ted did rant a bit about American kids in Prague (who I think are lame, too! Yeah!), saying “I did fi nd, in Prague for example, that [American kids] completely took over the show, and it was really annoying. They’d be yelling songs, and I actually said ‘I’ll play any song you guys want to hear, if any one of you can ask for it in Czech.’ And of course, none of them could.

“I mean, even if you’re on a vacation, you don’t even learn a couple of words, like do a frigging web search and learn how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? Not to be too moralistic or whatever, but I was shocked, yes, I say shocked and appalled. It was really, really disturbing.

Now what we were talking about, with the Europeans possibly giving you the benefi t of the doubt because you are a punk band. Now what, In the name of God, makes someone think that we’re going to be cool with that? Can’t you do a little bit of extrapolating and think that maybe a band like us might appreciate a little humility in our American audience, you know what I mean?”
So Ted’s about humility and other intelligent things. He does, however, sometimes dabble in cheese, like when he busked the five worst pop songs ever (including tunes by Rick James and Bette Midler) for Blender, and when he covers a Kelly Clarkson song (which he THANK GOD did not do at our show). He’s got a sense of humour. I just didn’t really get it.

TED: The experiment was for me to busk the top fi ve and see which one scored the most change. It was really fun, actually. It was a week of constant ROTFL.
Blank look from ME.

TED: That was kind of a joke. ME: I missed it totally.

TED: That’s good! You’re not as much of a nerd as I am. It was a joke. I don’t actually speak like that.

ME: But you do, kind of.

TED: I don’t. It was a joke. Let’s move on. I shouldn’t drink while we’re doing interviews.

And that’s sort of how things wrapped themselves on up. I still think Ted’s rad, even if he schooled me repeatedly. He’s all about being a dissenting American, sticking put to stick it to the man. (“I can’t fathom the idea of deserting. I feel like I have a duty as a citizen to either go somewhere else, like not go AWAY from something, or stay and slug it out.”) He used big words because he can, (“I wouldn’t use it if I wasn’t pretty confi dent about how I was using it. Do you think I’ve misused something?”) and he puts on amazing rock shows, inspiring much awe in his fans, even the lame ones like myself. So there you
go. Ted Leo.

Life-Force Warriors

AIDS Wolf & Seripop aren’t afraid to get in the van.

Review By Saelan Twerdy

seripop ddm
Serigraphie Populaire (aka Seripop) is to graphic design what Lightning Bolt is to noise rock. Which is to say that, in the field of
gleeful, day-glo violence, they reign supreme. The two-headed Montreal-based team of Chloe Lum and her partner, Yannick Desranleau,
produce up to four or five illustrations and gig posters every week, and since they work mainly for freaked-out punk and art-rock bands (Oneida, Acid
Mothers Temple, the Unicorns, and Wolf Eyes have all been recent clients), no one complains when the finished product is a nearly illegible riot of acidneon
colour palettes, trippy patterns, melting monsters, and scribbled, nonlinear text. Having first gained a reputation for the posters they designed for
their old band, The Electric End, they’re now the poster artists of choice for virtually every group that inhabits the weirder limits of the rock spectrum,
and their increasing visibility has started to earn them illustration gigs for trendy publications like Tokion, XLR8R, and The Drama.

Seripop are hardly the glossy-magazine type of designers, though. They do all their work by hand with silkscreens and acrylic ink and they
describe their designs with words like “crappy,” “messy,” and “obsessive.” They attribute their eye-burning aesthetic to “mental illness” and, while
they’re happy to make a living from what they do, they admit that they’re still dirt-poor, sick, and crazy. Self-proclaimed “freaks and dorks,” Chloe
and Yannick rarely have time to actually go see the shows they promote. Instead, they spend their time running between their house and the library,
working non-stop, and getting in the van with their band, AIDS Wolf, who recently completed a grueling cross-Canada tour, spreading the gospel of
Freedom Summer. Said gospel endorses growing your hair, listening to metal and prog, playing bongos, and not wearing pants. No hacky-sack bullshit,
though. Chloe took time during AIDS Wolf’s West Coast tour to answer a few of my questions about her music, her art, and the struggles of being a
life-force warrior.

Discorder: How long have you been doing AIDS Wolf?
Chloe: For a little over two years now.

How about Seripop?
A little over four years.

Did you go to art school?
Yeah, but my partner and I dropped out.

Where were you going? Concordia?
Yeah.

What didn’t you like about it?
I found the atmosphere really stifling. I felt really frustrated by having so much
class time devoted to critiques of people’s work. The only reason we were
really staying was for the facilities, but at some point we just decided, fuck
it, let’s get our own gear and just get out of here.

Is there anybody you look up to, as artists?
Well, we’re both really into Vittorio Fiorucci. He’s originally from Italy—he
immigrated to Canada in the 50s—but he’s been doing posters in Montreal
since the 60s: lots of bright colours, sort of weird, demonic characters. He got
kind of famous for designing the Just for Laughs logo. Some other people
that have influenced us are Saul Steinberg, Milton Glaser, Simon Bosè, Mike
Diana, Mark Beyer, Savage Pencil, Bob Gill, Gary Panter, Henriette Valium,
Seymore Chawst, Niklaus Troxler…outsider art in general, Archie comics,
candy packaging, MAD magazine, New Yorker comics, garden gnomes…

Do you do work aside from posters?
Yeah, we do editorial illustrations. We do all kinds of design and illustration. Gig
posters and album art just happen to be the biggest thing we do because
we’re so involved with the music scene.

Are you interested in branching out into I guess what you’d call “gallery
art?”
Well, we’ve done a couple of shows of our posters, and we’ve got a couple of
shows in October, after we’re done touring. The one we have coming up is
a joint show with our pal Gun Sho (otherwise known as James Quigley) from
Providence, Rhode Island. The show is called Masters of Panick and will run
one month at the Madame Edgar Gallery in Montreal (www.madamedgar.
com), October 20th to November 20th, and it will hopefully travel afterwards.
So we’re building these pretty massive silk-screened paper sculptures for it,
like these big wasp’s nest sort of things. We’re also doing another series of
art prints, 2-D foam characters, shirts, monoprints and making masks. James
is doing a series of 300-plus drawings on cardboard and a bunch of art
prints and shirts. Hopefully there will be a book to accompany the show.

Some of your press releases refer to you as “life-force warriors.” What do you
mean by that?
It just means that you devote your entire life energies to what you create.

Do you consider your music life-affirming?
I think so, yeah.

Do you think there’s a connection between violent energy in music and
positivity in life?
Yes. I think catharsis is really important. You need to put your aggression
somewhere.

What do you want the AIDS Wolf experience to be like when people come
see you?
I like it when people join us on the same level as us. I don’t like being an
entertainer. I don’t like being on a different level than people that are there
to see the show.

Do you ever try to involve the audience in a show?
I don’t believe in trying to involve the audience. I believe that if the audience
wants to involve themselves, they will. I don’t want people to feel that they
have to behave in a certain way at our shows. I want people to participate
because they want to, not because they feel like they should or they’re
being pressured to. I’ve always been really put off by going to see bands or
playing with bands who tell the audience to react a certain way.

About Freedom Summer—what happens when the summer is over?
We’re gonna have to cross that bridge when it comes. We didn’t know it was
Freedom Summer until Freedom Summer started. When Freedom Summer
is over, the next era starts.

You just have to wait for the world to unveil itself again.
Exactly.

What are your plans after the tour is over?
Well, we’re going to be leaving again to go play CMJ, and after that we have
several different releases coming out: a split with The Fugue on Blood of the
Drash, our debut album on Lovepump United, a split with dmonstrations
from San Diego, and possibly a split with the Flying Luttenbachers.

When did you guys come up with name AIDS Wolf?
My partner and I were on a road trip in Ohio, and it just came to us. It was
a universal message. It’s a combination of our spirit peers in An Albatross
(animal) and The Sick Lipstick (R.I.P.) (illness). It fits, because we’re a little
bit no-wave and a little bit hardcore, like each of those bands. It’s also a
message that we as humans must take care for our animal siblings as their
health is a barometer of our own survival.

Do you consider yourselves healthy people?
Yeah! Well, we try. We’re all into swimming and eating vegetarian. We’re
very wholesome.

Do you have any advice for aspiring designers?
Don’t do it! Be an organic farmer or something. Everyone is a designer these
days, it doesn’t mean anything. I feel like most design now is just hacky-sack
bullshit.

Define hacky sack bullshit.
Hacky-sack bullshit is anything that’s not thought out, that has nothing behind
it: no purpose, no spirit.

You talk a lot about “getting in the van.” What does it mean?
Have you ever read Henry Rollins’ book, Get In the Van? You should. That’s
where we got the whole concept of “getting in the van.” It’s not just about
being in a band. It’s about anything from being a gardener to being a writer.
It’s just about not wussing out. It’s about doing what you do on the level you
want it to be at, no matter if no one else likes it. It’s about spending all your
time on it. So many people say they’re a certain thing, but they’re not,
because they only spend 5% of their life doing it! To me, that is the definition
of hacky-sack bullshit. Like, someone who says they’re a filmmaker, but they
don’t make films. Or they’ll make one 20-minute film and then going around
telling everyone that they’re a filmmaker. If you’re committed, you have to
breathe it. Being an artist or a musician or a yoga master or an athlete, you
have to do it every single day. You don’t take days off. You don’t take days
off from sleeping! You don’t take days off from going to the bathroom! Like,
get in the van means that whatever you do, you take it as seriously as you
take breathing and eating and taking a shit. It’s basically life or death.
You should also get, from the same publishing house, Rock and the Pop
Narcotic by Joe Carducci who used to work for SST records. I think it’s a
really important critique of rock culture in general, both mainstream and
underground. This is a book that me and all the other guys in the band have
read multiple times. And Get In the Van is seriously a big influence on what
we do. Like, you have the story of all of Black Flag’s grueling tours, and how
they keep their focus on their plan and how they want the band to evolve
despite the fact that all their fans just want them to be a hardcore band.
They’re just getting hassled all the time, but they end up succeeding in the
face of that. The ending words of the book are Henry Rollins talking about
how he’s just an average guy, not especially smart or talented, and I think
that’s a really important idea to think about. A lot of people still think of
artists or musicians as these mystical unicorn-type creatures and feel that
they can’t do that. It’s all a matter of having a good work ethic and having
some ideas.

Seripop would like you to check out rad art by Keith Herzik, The Little
Friends of Printmaking, Bongout, Jelle Crama, Zeeloot, Matt Moroz, Keith
Jones, Monsters in Diguise, and Mike Deforge. They also recommend the
bands An Albatross, Athletic Automaton, and The USAISAMONSTER, all of
whom are “total long-haired freedom warriors.”
For more info about Seripop and AIDS Wolf, check out:
www.seripop.com
www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=26758
www.myspace.com/aidswolf
seripop oneida kinski

Four Tet

Four Tet shops for rude shirts, sets an interviewer straight about jam.

Review By Caroline Walker

Starting out with the post-rock outfit Fridge while still a teen, getting his first Four Tet album, Dialogue, released at just 21 and recently starting his own label, Text Records, Kieran Hebden (AKA Four Tet) is one busy dude. I got a chance to speak with him just as he was in midst of being late for a sound-check in Atlanta due to one of the seven American wonders: the outlet store.

Where are you right now?
Oh, you don’t even want to know. We’re in a place called Clothing Carnival, a factory outlet store somewhere in Georgia.

So what brings you to Clothing Carnival?
We just found a t-shirt with a naked woman on it, and on the back it says “Nothing is finer than sewing your hopes at the crack of dawn” and there’s another one with a picture of a naked woman with a gun and it says “Nothing is finer than hunting.”

(laughing) Well, as I happen to be Canadian, I have to ask you about Dan Snaith (AKA Caribou). I understand that you are friends, this is true?

Yeah I’ve been friends with Dan for ages; I met him at a festival in England ages ago. He wasn’t even doing music or anything. He was just hanging out at the festival; he arranged for me to come over and DJ at a night he was doing in Toronto. So I came over and we got on well, met a whole load of people and made some good friends. He played me some CDs while I was there. And he was like, “I’ve started making music as well,’ and that was the first Manitoba
stuff I guess.

Do you two communicate about your music?
Yeah, he lives just down the road from me. And we often both work on albums at similar times and we’ll get together and play each other what we’re working on and tell each other if we’re doing something good or bad.

With everyone living in London, do you go out for tea and have expensive jams and stuff?
(silence) Ah, expensive jams?

Yeah, well, that was one of my only London experiences. At Heathrow Airport I had to pay a lot of money for toast and jam. Toast I understand
is universally affordable so the high price must’ve been due to the jam.
Well, I don’t really do a lot of my shopping at Heathrow.

Wise. You’ve mentioned in other interviews that you found the Riot Grrrl movement to be quite influential.
Yeah, totally.

So what was it like for a young Brit lad to be into these third-wave women from Olympia, WA?
It was good, you know. I must have been about fifteen or something and I remember going to see bands like Bikini Kill and Team Dresch and all this sort of stuff. It was exciting for me because all these records were coming out, especially stuff on Kill Rock Stars and K where the whole attitude was just have the confidence; anyone can make a record, anyone can put a band together, record something and release it, it doesn’t have to be done in a big studio and it doesn’t need some old guy in a suit telling you it’s all right. I think that gave me the confidence to think it was fine to make music and release it.

Did that influence your starting your own record label (Text Records)?
Yeah, I think because I grew up with this whole low-fi scene going on. It’s a constant thing, I come back to the mentality behind it—bands like Fugazi and stuff, I love the attitude behind what they do—the whole DIY way of recording your own things. With the label, I wanted the experience of putting my own record out, not having it run through any big company. We did the artwork ourselves, everything, recorded it ourselves and produced it ourselves. I remember selling CDs at shows and thinking, no one else had been involved in this. We didn’t have to go through any big company in order to do our thing.

You’re speaking of you and Fridge?
Yeah, but even ‘til this day. Because of the time when I got into music, the whole way of thinking, I don’t have a manager. I work on my own terms in quite a unique way. I mainly do shows with independent promoters. In the UK I do these tours that are booked almost entirely just from kids emailing my website asking if they can put a show on.

So have you played some pretty strange venues coming out of that?
Loads! I’ve done lots of shows where the people putting on the show have never put a show on before but were just really excited about the idea.

The first person you signed to Text Records happens to be Canadian: Koushik, who will be supporting you at the beginning stages of your tour. So is it through Dan that you met each other?
Koushik is actually standing right in front of me and he’s just found a t-shirt that has Southern Comfort on it and it’s got some American guy with a sword chasing some Arab guy on a camel. It’s really tasteful, we’re really in quite an amazing shop. He’s a friend of Dan’s, and grew up with Dan; when I went over and met Dan I met a whole ton of people and I met the guys that ended up being in Dan’s band as well. And then Koushik played me the stuff he’d been recording and I really, really loved it so I put out the 7-inch when I had the idea of getting a label going. Then we gave copies to Stone’s Throw Records and they’re really into it now. He’s signed to Stone’s Throw and he’s done some EPs and he has a compilation of his EPs out at the moment. He hopes to have an album out next year.

Your tour schedule is pretty packed,
Yeah it is, something like 25 shows.

How do you handle it?
I’m quite used to it but this is quite long for me. Normally I only do two or three weeks. I was thinking about it; it’s something like my seventh American tour.

The kind of music you make just being you and your laptop, I imagine is largely produced in solitude. But then to bring an audience into this
relationship – does it create a strange dynamic?
Not really, I think a lot of the music comes about through what I do live. Live music is often the backbone of what I’m trying to do, really. Doing live shows isn’t just about going out and promoting the album for me. It’s a musical statement in itself. I see it as a chance for me to put forward my musical ideas and show people where I’m at that time.

So what’s next? Every album has had a different feel. Is there anything in the works that you would like to share?
I’ve got two albums coming out next year that I’ve recorded with this drummer, Steve Reid. He’s a jazz drummer and it’s albums of improvised music, jazz and electronics. He used to play with Sun Ra and James Brown and all these people; he’s an incredible musician. Domino will be putting them out next year.

Thank you for talking with me, and I hope you enjoy the Southern Comfort t-shirt.
I don’t think we’re going to buy it.

604 Hip Hop Expo

45s and Flow

Review By Zach Goelman

Popular culture is flooded by a dizzying amount of hip hop. As light reflected through a prism, the multitude of colours and expressions can be overwhelming, and by attempting to view everything at once, the myriad blends together into a uniform whiteness, monolithic and uninteresting. Yet by studying hip hop as a whole, the individual facets of the art form become more apparent: the cut of this crystal contains song, poetry, dance, turn-tabling, graphic art, and more. Much of the hip hop we hear is an amalgam of these different specializations, blended just enough that the final product can be sold, usually wrapped in an exciting package of sex and violence. Credit to Sean Lala and the people at Spectrum Events, then, for creating the 604 Hip Hop Expo, an event that celebrated the artistic differences within hip hop.

Rooted in the depths of musical expression, hip hop emerged as a celebration of urban and modern art. From the greatest talents of jazz, be-bop, and scat, the pioneers of hip hop drew the method of improvising on a single arrangement, gospel rhythms, soulful funk bass lines and much of the introspective
retrospective of blues musicians. The children of the baby-boom, the first generation of hip hop, were the first generation to grow up with libraries of
contemporary music in the household.

By rooting through record collections, hip hop was conceived and expressed from atop the art of earlier musicians. This was displayed by the Expo’s first event, an eve of turn-tabling by deejays J-Rocc and Peanut Butter Wolf. Both acclaimed producers (J-Rocc of the Beat Junkies, and P.B. Wolf of Stone’s Throw Records) were billed under a specific challenge: they would play only 45’s. By limiting themselves to 7” vinyl, they displayed their nimble-fingered skill in mixing in fast-moving singles, which they did tirelessly. Foremost, however, their choice of vinyl harked back to the first recordings to Atlantis was filled with 70’s T.V. series theme songs that cut into heavy horns and James Brown samples thick with suspenseful pitch.

The only falsehood propagated in the flier for the J-Rocc/P.B Wolf show was that it was “deejay battle.” If only conflict was always so cooperative. The duo
were collaborating to fuel the crowd’s appreciation, taking turns on the tables, tapping each other out when one felt he had the perfect track to follow the
current song. P.B. Wolf added his love of Blue Note jazz recordings to the mix. Then sliding the fader between Hancock and Motown, seemingly for the
benefit of the crowd, they included many of the original songs that top-40’s hip hop samples in its hooks and choruses, allowing many in the audience to “recognize” their favourite hits in the work of artists 30 years ago. The atmosphere of the party only grew in intimacy, until the deejays pulled out what is arguably the greatest crowd pleaser: the reggae, reminding all the fans of their favourite moments of bud, beanbags, reeds, and Ché. The partystarting
hosts pushed the dancers past 1:30 on a Sunday night for an incredible opening to the Expo.

Richard’s on Richards hosted the next night’s activities. If Monday’s performance illustrated hip hop’s roots from the bottom of the record stack, Tuesday’s display promoted the art form’s present from the top of the stage. Hip hop as a vocal performing art begins with a mouth, a mind, and a microphone; the
end is to both interest and entertain a crowd. The vocal style of rapping, with its quick pace and emphasis on wordplay, makes it difficult to display to audiences of thousands, but ideal for the intimate atmosphere of a club like Richard’s on Richards. Emcees Aceyalone, One Be Lo, and Bokue One rallied the crowd, delivering intelligent, playful performances without the image-heavy promotion associated with more glamorous names. By first mixing with the crowd and then taking to the stage, the night felt like one of collaboration. These emcees in particular are known for their creativity and lyrical mastery, having participated in many different collectives and projects. Aceyalone has to his name both Project Blowed and Haiku D’Etat along with his solo work. All are highly credited, and he truly swayed the Vancouver fans.

The hip hop Expo went from turntablists to emcees and back to DJ’s as Richard’s on Richards was followed the next night by DJ ?uestlove. Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson is known as the bandleader and co-producer of The Roots, hip hop’s darlings of originality and authenticity. In between working with The Roots and producing songs by many different artists (from John Mayer to Christina Aguilera), ?uestlove tours as a solo DJ famous for playing crowdpleasing
party jams. As ?uest took to the booth with his signature afro, he plugged his turntables into his iBook. The glowing apple and the white plastic frame
radiated in the black lights of Atlantis, giving the laptop an almost divine glow as Thompson queued songs up on the screen and then mixed them manually out onto the dance floor. The crowd was drawn largely because of ?uestlove’s status as one of the key architects of the legendary roots crew, a veritable Guggenheim of contemporary music. Beginning with Ray Charles’ “I Got a Woman” and mixing it into Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” ?uest set up his formula for the evening: original soul sample into popular hit song. Additionally, he seemed focused on reminding the crowd of when they first fell in love with
hip hop, spinning the Beastie Boys and the Fugees. He lingered on a few bands, namely A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Outkast, and the Beatnuts. The crowd not only felt entertained, they almost felt honoured: longtime favourites such as the Native Tongues were finally getting played on the dance floor. Ultimately, ?uestlove was tying together the roots planted on Sunday with the lyrical display seen at Richard’s on Richards.

Hip hop wanes and waxes in this Pacific Northwest town. Larger acts blow into town, eclipsing the slim crescent of local talent that rises at weekly venues
like Lamplighter’s Monday Night Live. The shows at Lamplighter, while vibrant, are fickle like this autumn weather: sometimes beautiful, sometimes miserable, a blend that Vancouverites have learned to endure and even enjoy. In the cycle between the local regular shows and the large, GM Place concerts, truly midrange hip hop brings a strong attraction to lovers of the art form. This “mid-range,” a category lacking a lustrous name, encompasses all the music that has risen above the underground yet remains hidden just beyond the radio hits and MTV. Those who broke into this mid-range reside on the dark side of the moon, just beyond the spotlight, occasionally peeking out to feature on a bigger star’s album or even, as The Roots did in 1999, to win a Grammy. The music produced by this group of artists (who are grouped here only by their level of fame, and not necessarily anything but) is widely celebrated by the aficionados who follow threads of talent back to the source, and are generally unsatisfied with the mainstream material produced by much of the industry. Thanks to the people at Spectrum Events, Vancouver receives the quality talents of this diverse and vibrant group of artists.

Do it your own damned self from the Seam Rippers Craft Collective

Review By Gaile Anderson

This month we are proposing a very practical project called DIYI, Do It Yourself IKEA I am sure most of you have moved once or twice in your life, and some of you are chronic, so you are familiar with that endless pile of boxes waiting to be thrown out. Stop. Do not throw this ingenious material out just yet. Put it to good use by turning it into foldable chairs for your impromptudinner guests. Cardboard has been around since the 15th century and invented by the Chinese as a packing material. The official cardboard box was patented by an American, of course and improved upon in 1890 by another American who added a waving middle layer between two liner sheets on both sides. This is the corrugated cardboard that we know and love today.

In my search to find the best design for this project, I tested a few Internet finds made by a bunch of international designers. However, the winner comes from a book called Nomadic Furniture, by James Hennessey and Victor Papanek . It can be found in the Vancouver Public Library or in the “You Say You Want a Revolution” 60s and 70s exhibit in the Vancouver Museum.

This chair is completely collapsible, does NOT employ any glue, nails, or fasteners, and is NOT held together by sheer will; although, you may need some to get started.

Choosing cardboard that is big enough for this project might be hard. This is where big IKEA boxes come in handy. If you do not have any at hand then maybe your neighbour has some left over from their shopping spree that you could offer to “recycle” or you could purchase some, but that goes against the whole notion.

Cut out the pattern from single corrugated cardboard. Score the board along the —–x—–x—–x—-, but don’t cut all the way through. The scoring will help you get cleaner folds. All the slots are as wide as the cardboard is thick, and are 9” in length.

At this point you may want to add some personal touches by cutting out the shaded area into a shape or covering it with wrapping paper or adding a doily. Do whatever you want, but remember: if you want to hide the chair under your bed and reuse it at some point, keep it simple. Follow the pictures below to assemble. Fold part A in thirds and insert part B into the slots. Fold part C in half and lay on top of A and B. Add a cushion for comfort. Voilá!

Don’t forget to join us for our Diorama-rama
exhibition at the Seamrippers Space. October 8th
till 29th. 436 West Pender.

Bumbershoot Festival

September 02-05 @ Seattle Center

Review By Natalie Vermeer

AnnaOxygen at Bumbershoot by NatalieVermeerMy only complaint about the massive music and arts festival that is Seattle’s annual Bumbershoot (now in its 35th year!) is that it’s impossible to see and do it all. Everything else is PERFECT!

Friday I was lucky to catch Anna Oxygen joined by two jumpsuited dancers. All sounds were supplied by her laptop, keytar and beautiful voice. Cuteness was supplied by her owl head (for new song nervousness) and the colourful screen stories behind her. Smoosh came after and were brilliant for 11 and 13-year-old girls. The slurred sugar-pop vocals of the elder Smoosh, Asya, became a bit much halfway through, though maybe it was actually the little kids climbing on me to see, or the 14-year-olds continuously yelling for “Rad”.

Saturday I experienced Carolyn Mark for the first time. She was instantly loveable, explaining that she was “already tarnished” as she had stained her dress the night before. Writer Daniel Handler explained that alter-ego Lemony Snicket “could not make it because of an unfortunate accident,” the monologue that followed was definitive of the dark, self-deprecating Series of Unfortunate Events Snicket is famous for. He shared moral lessons including 1) never raise your hand (or you risk your armpit to the mercy of crocodile-like creatures like the one that attacked Snicket) and 2) if you see Count Olaf, scream and run away (one of the most important lessons in Western Literature). The twelfth book of his series comes out October 18th. Later that night, for some reason, instead of catching Minus the Bear, Digable Planets and a Seattle benefit featuring a Death Cab appearance (covering “Hungry Like a Wolf”), we caught some films in a collection called “The Best Sex Ever”. I loved The Big Empty, as well as Lady Like, which featured a bowl of alphabet soup that spelled its own words and prophecies.

Sunday began with Math & Physics Club. The band’s melodies were quite Smiths-ish and I was charmed by the band’s grace and sweetness (and violin). I checked out some rock’n’roll history with cute chuckler Bo Diddley afterwards. However, sitting down and hearing ten minute bluesy jam songs put my rocking head to sleep. I was stoked to experience The Locust’s latest album Safety Second, Body Last live, though curiously enough, their noise brutality was still too much for some who quickly left, frightened, with hands over their ears! Juana Molina looked crabby and anxious but it turned out her keyboard didn’t download her sounds properly. Rather than delay her performance furthe,r and despite looking like she was having the worst night ever, she sang some songs with her guitar only. When a new keyboard arrived, she shrieked with delight and continued to sing gorgeously in her Argentinian accent with keyboard-noodling sounds in the background.

Monday seemed to to be everyone’s favourite. I started with the growly-bluesy-rawk of Post-Stardom Depression. My friend said singer Jeff’s voice was especially rough that day. Aren’t holiday Mondays glorious? Next I caught the end of The Decemberists. I was captured by their last song, “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”, when the crowd was instructed to scream like we were being swallowed by a whale. I don’t think many people actually appreciate the art of screaming. I sat on the grass, alone, with teeth chattering, for two hours in anticipation of Okkervil River and it was well worth it. I was mighty impressed that they played all of my favourite songs of the weeks before: “Kansas City”, “Song of Our So-Called Friend”, “Lady Liberty”, “Westfall” and “The Latest Toughs”. I am counting down the days until October 27 when I (and hopefully you) will see them at The Media Club. I then stuck around for Tegan and Sara. They covered “Dancing in the Dark” and I was sad when they finished, as I didn’t hear my favourite “Time Running”. But then they came back and played it. Good old mind bullets. Afterwards, I rushed out to catch the end of Michael Franti & Spearhead and it was a wonderful pick-me-up party time. Perhaps it was a little cheesy during “Everyone Deserves Music” but it was happy and fun and perfect for the family music festival. I caught the very end of The Stooges’ set. And I’m okay with that. Iggy’s low pants left little to the imagination, but I was impressed with how much energy and presence he had, even after all these years. And apparently I missed 50-200 (depends on the degree of exaggeration efforts of those who told me) people on stage with the band at the beginning of the set, much to security’s dismay of course. I saw them play “I Wanna Be Your Dog” so I’m okay.

It was hard to leave Monday night but I don’t think I really could’ve handled more than four days, as much as I love shows and art and comedy and Seattle. Still, I can’t help but be excited and wonder who will be at next year’s festival!

Strut Fret and Flicker

Review By Flick Harrison

With a special relentless trundle, the Vancouver International Film Festival crawls once again from the woodwork of the universe spreading its cinemagic. This year’s biggest news is the spanking new Vancouver International Film Centre with its Vancity Cinema, a welcome addition to downtown after years of shutting-down screens.

First off, let me say that sitting through movies in the new venue is a definite pleasure. I’ve never encountered such luxuriously big drink-holders, milewide
seats, endless legroom and double armrests (yes, double! I used one as a desk! And they’re padded!). It feels like riding in business class, as one
person loudly proclaimed at a press screening. Though it’s a great venue, a few warnings: don’t sit in the front row. The super-comfy seat-back design
makes it very difficult to scrunch down while looking up, not to mention these seats are pretty close to the screen. WATCH OUT for the wooden riser at the
front of the room, three people tripped and landed face-first the first day I was there. And, though I never sat up there, the balcony is apparently much less
roomy.

The best film I’ve previewed so far is Shunichi Nagasaki’s Heart Beating in the Dark. Japanese films at VIFF tend to excel at pushing boundaries without abandoning story or substance. This one is no exception. It isn’t quite a remake of the same filmmaker’s 1982 super-8 epic of the same title (which is also playing at VIFF), made in the intense Japanese super-8 scene of the early 80’s, about a guy and gal who kill their baby and then go on the lam. The outlaw-couple genre is taken to new heights as they abuse, fuck and attack one another in grainy intensity. All the traditional questions about gender relationships and cinematic morality are exploded in punk performance here: Is screen-rape real rape? Are murderers worth characterizing? The fact that an old lady walked out of the screening during a very harsh sex scene should tell you: This is a real festival film.

All these questions, plus whether the new, higher-production-value version is a cynical cashing in on an earlier success, or an attempt to subvert the
same, are thrown into total confusion by the addition both of copious excerpts from the original film, plus the original couple playing older, more sober selves, still on the lam and separated for decades. Adding to the ambiguity are self-conscious documentary intrusions about making this new version. In them, the older actor promises to participate in the remake only if he can really punch the actor playing the younger man. “If I met him now, I’d wanna punch
him,” he says. Are these bits real or staged? There’s strong tension as the older guy looks for the slightest opportunity to punch the young actor during
rehearsal, and this plays out within the dramatic scenes as well when the four characters finally come together. But as the younger actor says, “That’s kind
of hypocritical, isn’t it? You killed your baby too?” Finally, the most disturbing thing, to me at least, was the spectacle within the documentary bits of
Japanese production assistants bowing to the actors. Hope that doesn’t catch on here!

My other favourite was This Charming Girl from Korea. Slow–paced and realistic, it’s the story of a woman facing the kind of ennui you only get from working in a post office. Many filmmakers try to evoke the desperation of modern society, the pointless repetition and social disconnects, but director Lee Yoon-Ki succeeds. The larger world outside the post office is no more than a boring problem, “What code do I punch in for special delivery to Japan?” New people only intrude with lame dramas of everyday life; “Oh my, that’s how much it costs? What other choices are there?” Somehow the nothingness of it begins to cook, and when we start to learn Jeong-Hae’s life story, we aren’t surprised or shocked by the melodramas or her attempts at resolution.

Oh-oh, there’s so much to see and so little space to inform you! I think it’s important that everyone check out The Score, which is… wait for it!… a dance musical about Huntington’s disease! Of course such a production could only emerge from Canada. Locally made by fast-rising Screen Siren
pictures and Electric Company theatre, it is one of those films which has to be seen because, well, how could it possibly work!? And if it does work, could you
ever forgive yourself for missing it?!

Don’t bother seeing Paper Moon Affair, a listless if spiffy would-be-potboiler, and unwittingly-fetishistic time-filler about a Japanese woman abandoned in the woods by her rich husband. Too many weak plotlines, cardboard-thin characters and a general lack of point will possibly be dug by the demillectual class starved for another The Piano. Produced by the gang behind Lunch With Charles (Bif Naked’s film debut), the worst thing about PMA is the dastardly attempt to set it in both America and Canada at the same time, with American money, but Canadian
mailboxes. Or maybe that’s old Canadian money, but new license plates? Subtle hypertextual engagement or simple marketing cynicism? You decide. One shouldn’t have to be distracted by such things during a film.

Other things you should check out are: Clement Virgo (Rude)’s new feature Lie With Me, and Deepa Mehta’s new Water (sequel to Fire, Earth, but not Air for some reason). C.R.A.Z.Y. is a Quebec box-offi ce
hit, and you should ALWAYS SEE Quebec boxoffice hits. See you on the other side!

Son Volt

September 05 @ Richard’s On Richards

Review By Patrick Fergusson

Perhaps it was because it was Labour Day weekend and people still hadn’t arrived back from holidays, or maybe they had spent all day at the Terminal City Block Party, or it could be they are just slow to accept the Mk II version of the band, but whatever the reason it was only a half-full Richard’s that greeted the new-look Son Volt on Labour Day.

Amid contractual disputes in late 2004, the original incarnation of the band fell apart, leaving Jay Farrar as the only survivor of the Son Volt that put out three albums of country-tinged rock in the ‘90s, from 1995’s Trace to1998’s Wide Swing Tremolo.

Touring in support of their first album of new material in seven years, Okemah and the Melody of Riot, Son Volt began the night with a brace of songs from that album, from the rollicking “Who” to the slower, more whimsical “Gramophone”, as well as the non-album track “Joe Citizen Blues”, which was so well-received, you had to wonder why they left it off in the first place. These first few songs were played with minimum fuss and little apparent enthusiasm from the band. Keyboardist Derrick DeBorja looked like a regular office-type conducting a regular day at the office, until the rolled-up sleeves on his shirt revealed a tattoo on his right forearm, while new guitarist Chris Frame looked like he would rather be anywhere but on stage, making Farrar’s assertion, “It’s good to be back” seem more than a little dubious.

But this was deceptive. Farrar has never been a charismatic frontman, preferring to let his songs do the talking. And slowly but surely the band warmed to the task, and the strength of the songwriting shone through, evident in new songs like “Bandages & Scars” and “Medication”, which featured slide dulcimer from Frame that sounded remarkably like a sitar. And even though they played the entire new album, there were also many older songs such as “Caryatid Easy”, “Medicine Hat”, and the only non Son Volt song, “Damn Shame” from Farrar’s solo album Sebastopol.

By the time the encore started, the band was more relaxed, allowing themselves the odd smile as they played a trio of songs from their debut album Trace—“Tear Stained Eye”, “Windfall”, “Drown”—before ending with the new single “Afterglow 61”. The final notes rang out nearly two hours and 26 songs after it all began, the audience members getting more than their money’s worth from a band that had quietly slipped into Vancouver, played one of the most impressive concerts of the year, and quietly slipped back out again.

Oasis

September 08 @ GM Place

Review By Kimberley Day

The last time I saw Oasis was at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1998. The opening band was Cornershop, and I was too young to take the bus to Toronto by myself, so I was escorted by my brother (it was my Christmas present). Seven years, four albums and several band members later, I’m old enough to go to big concerts by myself, and Oasis hasn’t lost any of the energy they possessed at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1998. The brothers from Manchester didn’t threaten to fight with one another on stage like last time, and they were drinking bottled water instead of beer (perhaps the reason for the lack of fisticuffs), but it was the same old Oasis.

The band walked onto the stage to the instrumental “Fuckin’ in the Bushes”, which would end up being the one and only song that night from the band’s 2000 release Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (which is one more than the number of songs played from the sadly forgotten 1997 release, Be Here Now). To please the Jet fans, they then played the opening track to their latest release Don’t Believe The Truth, “Turn Up the Sun”, followed by the album’s first single “Lyla”.

Oasis didn’t waste any time; they thanked the Vancouver crowd for waiting so patiently for them to return, and got right into some of their older songs. They played “Bring It On Down”, “What’s the Story Morning Glory” and “Cigarettes and Alcohol” before returning to the new album.

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the evening was, of course, Liam Gallagher: the man with several trademarks. He didn’t hold back on any of his defining qualities: the sexy swagger, the sneering vocals, and the unexplainable poses (at one point he held the crescent-shaped tambourine in his mouth, creating a smile not unlike the demon of avarice). He sang “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” like he truly believed it, and rambled on between songs about things that nobody quite understood.

The band didn’t leave the stage until they had played nearly everything everyone wanted to hear. They dedicated the beautiful “Live Forever” to the people of New Orleans, and they brought back “Wonderwall” (the only true version of the song) after its long absence from Oasis set lists. For the encore—to the dismay of those who expected a Noel Gallagher acoustic solo set—the whole band returned to finish off the night with two new songs, followed by a powerful “Don’t Look Back In Anger” during which Noel stepped away from the microphone and let the crowd fill in the vocals. The final flare was delivered with the best cover of Oasis’ career: “My Generation” by The Who. Those who hadn’t heard the cover before, or who wouldn’t have expected Liam to pull it off were inevitably stunned by the result. The lights and the fans went crazy; “Let It Be” began playing over the loud speaker, and it was all over as if it hadn’t even begun.

Antony and the Johnsons / The Choir Practice

September 15 @ St. Andrew’s Wesley Church

Review By Caroline Walker

I arrived at St. Andrew’s just as the openers, The Choir Practice, began their set. My party was ushered to the third pew from the front, which I felt was fortunate considering the gargantuan capacity of the building. Aside from the merch table in the foyer, the church was as it would be on any Sunday, complete with bibles and offering envelopes behind each pew. Granted, the audience was entirely dissimilar from usual church-fare, but it felt like a community nonetheless, complete with my favorite server at Slickity Jim’s, Nick and Julia of P;ano, that Cuppa Joe employee, not to mention the memorable skinny kid with extraordinarily large hair.

The Choir Practice, ten women and one man with one electric guitar, were the perfect openers for both the venue and the headliner. The repetitive verses that innocently concealed lyrics of troubled relationships were welcomed warmly by the audience as well as the acoustics of the church. These voices felt more heavenly than the Christian-rock bent that my parents’ church is currently on, and I hope to catch them in future partially out of curiosity about how their sound translates in a more standard venue.

The four Johnsons entered the stage wielding a violin, cello, bass, and guitar before Antony with his wavy black locks seated himself behind the grand piano. My only complaint was that my vantage point didn’t allow for me to see his face during performances. The opening song was “My Lady Story”, and the audience was hushed with expectation. The recent Mercury Prize winner seemed slightly nervous but hit stride nicely with his third song, “Man is the Baby” with the wrenching lyric, “forgive me, let live me.” As the set continued, it was apparent that his musicians were as deeply moved as the audience. The sentiment came across in their eyes as well as their delicate playing.

Covering Moondog’s “All is Loneliness” and Leonard Cohen’s “The Guests”, Antony succeeded in making them his own. Rather minimalist with the banter between sets made him all the more charming. After the exceptional emotionality of gender bending that is “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy”, Antony simply said “Well, that was that little ditty” and continued on with the set, which included some audience participation. Antony requested that we all hum an accompaniment, but seemed less than impressed with Vancouver’s ability. Clearly, we needed more instruction with humming a note and he delivered it in the most lovely way: “Imagine there is a small storm spinning in a circle around your throat. A tornado you’re powerless over; visualize it, you’ll be fine.”
After some more songs, including my personal favourite, “Today I am a Boy”, he simply picked up his nondescript tote, said thank you and walked off. The audience rose immediately to its feet and had the pleasure of an incredible encore. “River of Sorrow” was followed by none other than a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says”. Here we were in a church, and Antony was singing lyrics based on Candy Darling’s death letter. Receiving another standing ovation, the building was a-hum with the realization that there could not possible be a more fitting end, not to mention many misty eyes.

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