The Nerve Magazine - September 2007

SEPTEMBER 25 PACIFIC COLISEUM CONCERT BOWL VANCOUVER TICKETS ALSO AT SCRAPE

SEPTEMBER 27 REXALL PLACE CONCERT BOWL EDMONTON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29 MTS CENTRE WINNIPEG

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THE NEW ALBUM CODE PIE

The Most Trusted Name In Yous "This band is bursting at the musical seams, so now is a good time to take notice of their amazing bag of tricks."

- Exclaim

"...16 songs that fly freely through friendly skies."

- The Montreal Gazette

"...likely to blow minds and rock parties in cities near you."

- The Spill Magazine

For tour info, and to find out more: www.codepie.com/yous

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Volume 8, Number 9, Issue #75

CONTENTS

508 - 825 Granville St., Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1K9 604.734.1611 www.thenervemagazine.com contact@thenervemagazine.com

Features 18 Animal Collective

The Don (a/k/a Editor-In-Chief and Publisher) Bradley “Gone Solo” Damsgaard editor@thenervemagazine.com

Wiseguy (a/k/a Music Editor) Adrian “Paying the Mortgage” Mack mack@thenervemagazine.com

A deep woods encounter leaves us shaken and

possibly very sore

- Ed Dinsley

Shotgun (a/k/a Film Editor) Michael “Wanna Touch Tips?” Mann mann@thenervemagazine.com

12 Besnard Lakes

Launderer (a/k/a Book Editor) Devon “Wedding Planner” Cody cody@thenervemagazine.com

The band that could finally put Montreal on the map

- Cameron Gordon

15 Okkervil River

The Henchmen (a/k/a Design & Graphics) Kristy Sutor, Laura Jeffries,Toby Bannister

The Nerve gets all ‘hyper-literate’ with Will Sheff

- Jeff Topham

Weapons Cleaner (a/k/a Article Editor) Jon Azpiri, Terry Cox

10 Sunset Rubdown

Surveillance Team (a/k/a Photographers) Femke Van Delfte, Miss Toby Marie,

Rubdown? Does it come with a ‘Happy Ending’?

Twelve pumps!

- Nathan Pike

The Muscle (a/k/a Staff Writers) AD MADGRAS, Cowboy TexAss, Chris Walter, Stephanie Heney, Adam Simpkins, Carl Spackler, David Bertrand, Waltergeist, Ferdy Belland, Dave Von Bentley, Devon Cody, Dale De Ruiter, Johnny Kroll, Andrew Molloy, Cameron Gordon, Brock Thiessen, Filmore Mescalito Holmes, Jon Braun, Jenny C, Will Pedley, Allan MacInnis, Jeff Topham, TC Shaw, Robyn Dugas, Steven Evans

14 The Black Dahlia Murder

11 9 7 7 6

Plaster Caster (a/k/a Cover Design) Toby Bannister toby@thenervemagazine.com cover photo: Toby Bannister Fire Insurance (a/k/a Advertising) Brad Damsgaard advertise@thenervemagazine.com The Kids (a/k/a The Interns) Internship available, dudes welcome now. contact editor@thenervemagazine.com Out-of-town Connections (a/k/a Distro & Street Team) Toronto: Brayden Jones et. al.

Montreal: Douglas Ko Calgary: Mike Taylor Edmonton: Freecloud Records, Bob Prodor Winnipeg: Margo Voncook Regina: Shane Grass Vancouver: Mr. Plow, Stiff Josh Victoria/Whistler: Jono Jak, Lindsay The Nerve is published monthly by The Nerve Magazine Ltd. The opinions expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect those of The Nerve Magazine’s publisher or its editors. The Nerve does not accept responsibility for content in advertisements.

The Nerve reserves the right to refuse any advertisement or submission and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

Printed in Canada. All content © Copyright The Nerve Magazine 2007.

Est. 1999

That’s a tasteful name for a band - Jon Braun

Mike Watt Cara Luft Sick City Apocalypse The 3 Tards

Sections 06 21 25 19 27 28 30 31

Cheap Shotz Live Reviews Album Reviews Film DVD Books Crossword Comics The Nerve September 2007 Page 5

Cheap Shotz

FURIOUS FRINGE FEST FUN!

Nerve Nerve

Nerve Legal Update

Astronomers have discovered a huge hole in space, some 100 Brazilian light years in all directions, totally devoid of EVERYTHING – even the mysterious dark matter that theoretically fills in all the gaps between all the other crap we can’t see. A puzzled science community has named this enormous an all-consuming vacuum HB001-XVR-7a, or, as it’s more familiarly known, “Mairead Ashe”.

In other Nerve-lawsuit related news, Transport Canada has issued a stern verbal warning against The Nerve, due to the unfortunate use of the Aquabus in our Rock n’ Roll Boat Cruise posters. As seen here, The Nerve’s poster depicts a flaming Aquabus disappearing into the briny depths, while a pirate attempts to board the Abitibi.

The Nerve has been asked by Transport Canada to clarify that the poster does not depict an actual event, but is a work of imagination designed to inspire good natured, ribtickling fun. We offer a sincere apology to anybody who has been upset or frightened by the poster, and also to the owners of Aquabus, who have endured a severe blow to the company’s reputation. For the record, we would like to clarify that the Aquabus currently boasts a perfect safety record, even for those passengers who can only afford to travel in steerage, and to date, the Aquabus has never caught fire, sunk, been torpedoed, run aground, been lost in a ‘Perfect Storm’, been attacked by pirates or a giant squid, or quarantined due to the Norwalk Virus. We encourage all Vancouverites to continue using the Aquabus. It’s seriously your best travel option after swimming.

LABEL SPOTLiGHT Arclight Records Clawing its way up from out of the heterogeneous Austin scene in March 2003, modest heavy-hitters Arclight Records started out small, as a way to just get some good local music heard. Longtime fixture Mauro Arrambide formed the label along with business partner Davis Elizondo, with the intent of showcasing local bands that otherwise weren’t getting the attention they deserved. Says Arrambide, “[We wanted to] put out music we dig, and help out a lot of local bands around town who are friends of ours that never really got the help to get their stuff out.” Mauro’s own band, Speedloader, also needed a label at the time, so…

Hey, as the saying goes, you want a job done right, do it ya’ damn self, no?

Of course, right off the bat, Arclight was tagged with the whole ‘stoner-metal’ label, due to early releases from bands like Super Heavy Goat Ass and Southern Gun Culture, but Arrambide insists Arclight ain’t no one-trick pony. “From the beginning, we didn’t want to get caught out as a ‘genre’ label.

[We both] have lots of different tastes; we both like a lot of the hard-rock stuff, but that’s not all we like. And I think the label kinda reflects this as well.”

Indeed, the addition to the roster of an alt-country band like Phonograph (whose self-titled debut came out on the label earlier this year), or a post-punk band like Freshkills (with their debut, Creeps and Lovers) definitely proves there’s no pigeonholing Arclight as a ‘genre’ label.

And while the label also was originally intended to showcase local talent, it quickly grew beyond its South-Central Texas roots. “Well yeah, a lot of it was that the first bands on the label were made up of friends of ours from here. But I got to know a lot of bands in New York from touring there. And friends of mine in other bands introduced me to the guys in Players Club, same for Book of Knots [both recent additions]”. From making fast friends with other bands on the road, so the Arclight family grew.

Continuing to focus on eclecticism as much as quality-over-quantity, Arclight just released the EP Heaven/Hell by infamous Texas sludge-burners Tia Carrera (no, not the actress), and coming up is a full-length by retro-psych-heads Amplified Heat, titled How Do You Like the Sound of That?! The label got a real boost when the ‘Heat were thrown a bone by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke earlier this year, when he wrote that they “knocked him out” at this year’s SXSW. Finally, November will see the last release of

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2007 for Arclight, the debut from Austin band Magnet School, whom Arrambide describes as having a “‘90s alternative-rock feel, but poppy.” I’m told the band’s doing a Swervedriver cover on the record, so that definitely hints at their sound and where they’re coming from, and will prove to further cement Arclight’s reputation as eclectic. Hopefully, 2008 will see Arclight continuing to put out solid stuff from all over the genre-map.

- Kyle Harcott

Von Bentley’s

Monthly Weather Watch

Cock. Cock. Cock. Cock.

Voted Vancouver’s best arts festival for five years running by the Georgia Straight, the Vancouver International Fringe Festival runs Sept. 6th-23rd at the Waterfront Theatre and Performance Works on Granville Island. This is British Columbia’s largest theatre festival, so get with it, you filthy, uncultured visigoths. Get your ass to www.vancouverfringe.com and realize that “art” is more than the last three letters in “fart.”

Darkest of the Hillsaide Thickets CD Release Party… and Thor!!!

Can’t get enough of watching towheaded musclemen bending microphone stands into steel pretzels? Does your idea of a good time involve five crazy art-rockers from the ‘burbs thrashing about onstage in a series of bizarre costumes while singing the praises of He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named? If the answer to these questions is yes, then look no further than the Nerve’s old friends the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, and their CD release party at the Media Club, Saturday, September 1st. We fucking DARE you to attend another show quite like it.

WHO GiVES A FRiG?

This month, Chris Walterobsessive John Tard, of the 3Tards What album is currently in your stereo?

It’s a Misfits greatest hits thingy. Fox Tard made it for me years ago.

I love driving to the Misfits.

What book are you currently reading or have most recently read?

I never read, but I did finish reading a book about a year ago called Mosquitos and Whiskey. I have no idea who the author was, though.

What was the last movie you watched?

I watched the new Simpsons movie last night. I bought a bootleg of it for $2 in New York last week. Boy am I glad I never spent theatre money on it. It was giggly but not funny. No appearance by the original Mr. Plow… sad really!

Name one album, book, or movie that you consistently recommend to a friend.

Crystal Balls by the 3Tards, cuz I want to eat Steak for a change not KD anymore. I Was a Punk Before You Were a Punk... forgot the author. Anchorman - quite possibly the greatest movie of our time.

Name one album, book, or movie that you would recommend to an enemy.

Album - Crystal Balls by the 3Tards, cuz any enemy of mine would most certainly hate our music. Book - anything not written by Chris Walter. Movie - American Pie 2,3,4,5,6 What is a recent guilty pleasure?

Listening to Duran Duran on my radio in my car and totally getting “Hungry like a Wolf”. That stuff rocked! Simon forever!!

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Washrooms with turning doorknobs. We must collectively ban them... gross!!!

Name one bad habit you’re extremely proud of.

Candy! Especially anything made by Maynards. Those gummy berries with the juicy centers are to die for.

If you could hang out with any one person throughout history, who would it be?

Terry Fox... not even a close second. My eyes well up everytime I see him on TV. I watched him run when I was a child and I consider him a true hero. Why dont we have a Terry Fox holiday? If he was American, they would have most certainly honoured him with a holiday.

What is the one thing you want to get done before you die?

You have a writer out west named Chris Walter. Big scary punk rock guy. I have started a workout regimen and my goal is to one day be big and strong enough to totally kick his ass in the Octagon.

I am currently practicing my takedowns and submission holds, but I would prefer to take him down with my striking speed and power.

Combinations to the head followed by a crushing knee to the face.

I am actually doing crunches as I write this. One word at a time. I must, I must, I must increase my bust. Get your dancin’ shoes on Chris. This Tard’s got his sights on ya!!!

Sick City

Burton Cummings Pee Pee Pants

By Adrian Mack

M

ixing emo and post-hardcore with a healthy curiosity about Burton Cummings, Winnipeg’s Sick City might be a band to watch. Or it is according to vocalist Josh Youngman, at any rate. I’ve never seen ‘em, so how the fuck should I know?

But Youngman, calling The Nerve from somewhere in that great city we call Winnipeg, has a theory about why his band suddenly went from zeros-toheroes faster than a Salisbury steak rockets through the digestive system of the average drunk piano player in the Guess Who. “We’re all good musicians in our own right,” he insists, “and I think it’s evident when we play, and we put on a good show.”

M’kay, no reason to assume that Mr.Youngman would lie about that, and there’s certainly some compelling circumstantial evidence to support his contention. Firstly, the band’s debut album Nightlife is no rinky dink cry-baby wankstain-on-the-wall soundtrack like most of the EEEEMMMOOOO toss that makes its way into this office – there’s some actual bull’s blood and man-balls in there, if I may direct your attention to the songs “Antoinette” and especially “Killing Ourselves to Feel”, what with its big gang vocal part in the middle.

Plus,Youngman inadvertently admits that Sick City might actually have some concerns about such antiquated notions as ‘quality’, mentioning that he almost didn’t join because he “wasn’t sure about the

songs.” But then the drummer in his old band the Novella decided to become Billy Talent’s drum tech.

“I was the last piece of the puzzle, so we got together and it kind of worked. Then it seemed to just blow up, which none of us were used to in our other bands.” Those other bands were, namely, the Recovery, which provided bassist TJ Stevenson, and skate-punks Fast Track, former home of drummer Joel Neufeld, and guitarists Dorian Paszkowski, and Dave Grabowski. Between those three local warhorses, a cumulative buzz enveloped the new act.

“We didn’t even have a CD out,” Youngman recalls, “but we had this EP release at the Ramada, and it sold out. There was like 700 people there.”

That was 2005.

Now signed to Trustkill in the US and the ever-dependable Smallman at home, Sick City went to Tree Sound studios in Atlanta to record Nightlife.

“It was a BIG studio,” says Youngman, who is still audibly amazed at the band’s sudden and unexpected, high-stakes adventures. “Just to put it in perspective,” he continues, “we were sharing a lounge with Collective Soul at the time, and Juvenile was recording down the hall. And I recorded ‘City Lights’ on a piano Elton John recorded an album on. And I

was sitting outside having a cigarette one day, and Lil’ Bow Wow pulled up. It was surreal, recording down the hall from Bow Wow.” More surreal than that, however, is the fact that this studio had a rock climbing wall in it. Presumably built for Dave Lee Roth. “And unlimited free beer on tap,” adds Youngman. “I don’t think you’re supposed to mix the two. It doesn’t seem right.”

Here’s another surreal thing, since we’re on topic: last time I was in Winnipeg, I swear I saw Burton Cummings rolling around in an alley with a homeless guy, drunker than fuck, and I think he’d pissed his pants.Youngman tells me I wasn’t seeing things.

“Oh,” he states, firmly. “That was Burton Cummings.” n

Sick City’s Nightlife is released on September 25. Sick City will open for Boys Night Out at the Lucky Bar, in Victoria, on September 20, the Plaza Club in Vancouver on September 23, the Underground in Calgary on September 26, the Starlite in Edmonton on September 27, the Exchange in Regina on September 28, and the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg on September 30

THE ABCs OF

APOCALYPSE

By Bill Mullan

C

is for chaos, confusion, catastrophe and all manner of calamitous claptrap, but also, occasionally, clarity. “There’s two kinds of people in the world,” notes Philip Random, “Those who get it and those who don’t. It being the central paradox of apocalypse.” Then he quotes Leonard Cohen from a decades old interview. “We do live in several worlds. A world that’s mundane, a world that’s apocalyptic, a world of order and a world that knows no order. We’re continually juggling these worlds, entering and leaving them. I’ve always had the sense that this apocalyptic reality is with us. It’s not something that’s coming.”

This is a worldview that the Clash obviously had no problem buying into, and with gusto. Take their discography, 1977-80. No less than five albums, including a double and a triple. That’s 16 sides of long playing vinyl released in less than four years (not including singles and b-sides). And while Sandinista may not have been “the best” Clash album, it was certainly the climax in terms of sheer apocalyptic overload. Its six sides are fueled by an angry, playful, chaotic gumbo of punk rock, dub, blues, good ole rock and roll, soul, gospel, reggae, calypso, noise collage, even a couple of children’s songs. Obsessed

with impending doom (but never gloom), it doesn’t just make a strong case for the inevitable end of the world, it actually manages to sound like the Whole Damned World ending. And you can dance to it.

Apparently if you were in western Europe in May 1968, the world did actually come to an end (philosophically at least). Paris got most of the headlines but the Communist-Anarchist-Nihilist hordes were doing their worst (best?) all over. Can started out as the house band for a lot of this insurrection.

Comprised of four overeducated German weirdos and an American singer (who went mad and got replaced by a Japanese busker who was probably already mad), they fused the endless grooves of James Brown with the endless drones of the Velvet Underground, applied a dollop of their own fierce experimentalism and proceeded to scare the shit out of straights (and hippies) all over the continent for better part of a decade.

Unfortunately they never got to the Americas, so our version of the great hippy revolution had to make-do with the likes of Captain Beefheart, whose 1969 tour-de-freak Trout Mask Replica is still driving decent people mad. “Trout Mask is the record to play when music itself seems to have failed,” notes

“I’ve seen the future, and it’s murder...”

Philip Random. “This I discovered one cold night in the late ‘70s while way too high on LSD in some evil suburban rec-room. Some asshole put on David Crosby’s Almost Cut My Hair and I promptly lost all hope and reason, reality itself disintegrating into a

trillion tiny shards… until some genius threw on the Captain musing dada-like with the voice of a crow about mascara snakes, octafish and those heavy, heavy Dachau blues. I was still atomized, of course, but at least I had a proper soundtrack.” n

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Cara Luft

Tripping (and Touring)

the Light Fantastic

By Ferdy Belland

Cara dressed in the HEIGHT of Calgary summer fashion

“

I didn’t know I’d actually be playing,” says Cara Luft, on her surprise two-song interlude set between Peter Yarrow and the Compadres at this year’s Canmore Folk Festival. “I showed up, and I knew all the folks doing the stage managing because they’re all Calgary people. They said, ‘Hey! Wanna do a ‘tweener?’ and I said ‘OK!’ It was a nice surprise.”

A nice surprise for those bored stiff by Peter Yarrow, hacking his geriatric way through “Puff, the Magic Fucking Dragon” for the trillionth time; but what’s no surprise at all is the budding international acclaim Luft’s receiving for her new album The

Light Fantastic. This is Luft’s first full-length, written, recorded and released since her departure from the Wailin’ Jennies in 2004, but she’s ridden out any repercussions for daring to turn her back on the Juno Award-winning Winnipeg folk-supergroup. Truthfully, the ex-Calgarian was an established solo artist years before the Jennies formed, and the frustrations of her individual identity being eclipsed by the shadow of the trio were no small part of her painful decision to leave.

“I had a nightmare about my gig,” confides Cara, in regards to her upcoming Vancouver appearance

– one of a series of West Coast dates following her recent Alberta shows with folk-rock legend Joan Armatrading. “The venue had suddenly changed to somewhere in the Okanagan, in a very weird, scary bar… in Vernon! I had never been there before, and suddenly no one else showed up for the gig! It was a very weird, very stressful dream. I woke up and said: whew…”

Although one’s heart pounds with protectiveness when picturing the comely Ms. Luft, eyes wide in terror and knuckles gripped white on the handle of her guitar case, trapped in a gloomy, godforsaken indoor redneck purgatory bedecked with all things backwoodsily hellish - one has to know that Cara Luft has been no stranger to dives throughout her colourful decade as one of Canada’s most beloved young folk songwriters.

“I’m lucky to be touring a lot, and touring with [musical partner] Hugh [McMillan of Spirit of the West],” Luft shares. “I toured England earlier this year. I found the English audiences to be very warm and receiving. I have such a love for Brit-trad stuff, and the folk-club audiences really like hearing different renditions of songs which are a long part of their history.”

Luft was known as the ‘rocker chick’ of the Wailin’ Jennies, and it’s easy to see why: her singing

has a saucy quaver somewhat reminiscent of her early hero Ani DiFranco, but there’s also a lot of Sandy Denny in there. As a guitarist, she’s adept at alternate tunings, rapid-fire fingerpicking, and slide.

Proof in the pudding: Bert Jansch’s “Blackwaterside” has long been a live staple of Luft’s and now appears on The Light Fantastic.

“I think we did a spectacular job all around,” Luft remarks. “We had good musicians and good engineers sculpting out the songs with us and laying them down. We laughed and drank port every night.

It was very relaxed. This was a nice breath of fresh air, people were into the ‘three takes or no takes!’ approach, capturing the essence of the song in its pure form. Neil [Osbourne] hammered home the concept of being in the moment and capturing the song’s natural performance. It was cool working with someone who wasn’t in the folk world. I needed to go to someone who truly respected what I’m doing, but who had a totally fresh perspective and not with preconceived notions of what a “folk” record should sound like.” n

We laughed and drank port every night. It was very relaxed.

Cara Luft and Hugh McMillan perform live (with the Gentle Infidels)at the Media Club,Vancouver BC, Sunday September 9th.

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MUSIC

Sunset Rubdown A Sort of Concept

Carbon footprint: 2 horse muffins. You?

By Nathan Pike

I

was surfing the listening posts at Zulu Records in Vancouver about a year ago, looking to spice up my music collection, when I first came across Sunset Rubdown. I don’t even remember if I listened to it there or at home, I just remember that on first blush it was clear that I was on to something very different. With their catchy and twisted prog-pop sensibilities, creepy charm, and singer/songwriter Spencer Krug’s impassioned and emotive vocal style, Sunset Rubdown has since managed to find its way in an ever-expanding sea of one-off hipster band wannabes. It defies comparison, aside from a possible curt nod to the Decemberists or Neutral Milk Hotel.

There’s an unnatural beauty about this band and its music that makes me giddy, like I’m in on some weird, exciting little secret that nobody else can know. In other words, I ended up really fucking digging Sunset Rubdown, so it was with a sweet but nervous childlike excitement that I dragged my sleep-deprived carcass down to The Nerve office to have a friendly chat with Spencer Krug about Random Spirit Lover, the band’s upcoming third album (release-date Sept. 12). Okay, so I have never interviewed anyone before, let alone some pseudo-quasisuccessful music type guy whose band I make love to. Maybe I interviewed someone at some random stupid job I might have been manager at, but you get the picture. I’m green. But Krug was good to me; him hanging out at his place in Montreal the day before he goes on a month long tour with his other little outfit, Wolf Parade, smoking cigarettes and waiting for his friend to show up, and me asking about the new album and the weird sort of glue that binds the songs together, about playing music, and other stuff.

“We recorded at Breakglass studios in Montreal

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at the beginning of January ’07 over three weeks,” Krug explains. “We all knew the album’s track order going in to record each day, so I knew exactly what the record was going to be in terms of the songs and how they were going to be structured. We did that for a few reasons, the main one being about the idea of blending the songs in and out of each other; being able to record beginnings from the ending of the song before it. I wanted it to all run together with no gaps, no silence in between songs, except for near the end, to get that feeling of continuity but with each song being its own song.

We tried our best, and for the most part succeeded in finishing a song completely before moving on to the next, and in that way were able to record the next song in concordance with that.

It’s sort of a concept record I guess.”

And for virgin ears, how to describe a band’s music when it pretty much goes beyond comparison? That’s no easy task. Even Krug has some trouble describing the sound they make. “Weird, progressive rock,” he offers. “Twisted glam pop. I like to take pop sensibilities and twist them up, and I like the surprise of having easy listening beauty followed by full on rock

followed by glam. I like wailing guitars, synths and stuff like that. Sunset Rubdown is, in a way, paying tribute to all of that glam, goth, and rock music I grew up with, but in an absurd kind of way. And the lyrics and imagery you hear is me getting stuff off my chest; symbols and metaphors I just wanted to get out. It’s very cathartic music for me, much more so than Wolf Parade.”

Well, it works. Random Spirit Lover is a confident and self-assured piece of work that builds on the success of last year’s Shut Up I Am Dreaming, which was Rubdown’s hallmark album to a lot of people’s ears. That’s when folk started coming out to see Sunset Rubdown, the band, as opposed to Krug’s Wolf Parade ‘side project’. With the slightly bigger sounding, and more polished Sunset Rubdown of Random Spirit Lover, does Krug wonder if he has, indeed, finally shed the Wolves clothing…

“I was surprised that anyone cared, really,” he says, with a laugh, “I mean, that first album, its response had a lot to do with Wolf Parade. I wish I could pretend it didn’t, but I’m no dummy. On the first tour we’d get shouts for Wolf Parade songs, and

The response to the first album had a lot to do with Wolf Parade.

I wish I could pretend it didn’t, but I’m no dummy

we’d have to tell them that it wasn’t very nice for the band. I mean, I don’t care personally, but I care personally about the band. I don’t want them to feel like they’re a part of some sideshow. They’ve worked really hard at it. But it had to happen because the first Sunset Rubdown record was tagged as a Wolf Parade side project. Then, by Shut Up…, we started to get noticed as our own band and people were listening, hearing Sunset Rubdown, so hopefully with the new album we’ll go all the way.”

Damned straight, I say, because here’s a nice hard working guy making a LOT of damned music and making it well. And he CARES about the folks that he plays music with. He tells me he’s really happy with how the band has gelled together and that he genuinely likes his band mates. “At first it was just me, and I tried playing a couple of shows by myself, but they were pretty bad shows,” Krug recalls with a laugh, “so I asked Mike Doerksen and Jordan Robson Cramer to come play first as a three piece. But it didn’t really fit, and then I brought in Camilla Wynne Ingr. It worked nicely and it’s still the same four. It just happened really smoothly. They’re all good, kind people who want to play music.”

I thank the stars that bands like this exist; the ones that play for the love of playing, and the ones that are doing something different. The future of strange music is in good hands, it seems. n Sunset Rubdown plays at the Crocodile Café in Seattle, October 24, the Plaza Club in Vancouver on October, 25, Logan’s in Victoria, October 26, Broken City in Calgary, October 28, the Velvet Underground in Edmonton, October 29, Amigos in Saskatoon, October 30, and the Royal Albert Arms in Winnipeg, October, 31.

Mike Watt ’ n i s u o Sidem

By Allan MacInnis

I

MUSIC

the Stooges

dunno how it is for you, but for me, the Stooges So that’s what I wore in Seattle.” Watt admits that it Wright, “opening up with recruiting Mike Watt to tour with them is like was plenty hot onstage, but adds, “I was thinkin’ of his solo Mister Wrong set.

God Himself manifesting His Divine Presence Townshend in them white ones during the WoodIt was righteous.” Watt is and announcing publicly, so there can be no further stock days. Me and D. Boon were way into Townshalso a fan of DOA: “Me and debate, that the deities of a relatively neglected cult end, so that’s cool. To let go for something like that, D. Boon loved that band!” (that I happen to belong to) are in fact the correct it’s no big deal. I get my way in my own bands, you (imitating Joey Shithead): ones, and that everyone else must heretofore pay know, so if I have to wear different clothes, it’s no “‘You’re fucked up Ronheed. As attentive Nerve readers will know, tho’, real affront to me.You can’t learn everything, always nie!’ Great, great songs, when I saw the Stooges in Seattle a few months ago, bein’ the boss, and probably the same with bein’ a great band, great energy I couldn’t escape my sense of disbelief long enough sidemouse, but there’s important lessons to each on that level. It’s like, ‘You to really enter the experience: watching a 60 year old that you can learn only by doin’ those different gigs, know what’s on my mind?

Iggy Pop in total command and fine physical form you know?”

I’m gonna let you know,’ bellowing, with complete conviction, “Do you feel A couple of Vancouver bands get mentioned in y’know? ‘How is the power it when you FUCK me?” and leaping, writhing, into our talk. Watt on Nomeansno: “Excellent band, the bein’ divvied up?’” the audience fit far enough outside the framework Wright brothers... I have a lot of respect for that I ask Watt if he feels of consensus reality that I might as well have seen band, man, In the old days, I thought them and a that punk has lost a lot a fuckin’ UFO. Watt, rapturously workin’ the bass, Dutch band called the Ex were like, the closest to of its edge since the old was really all I could grok – though the audience, Minutemen.” Watt shares with Nomeansno bassist days. “I think part of it came from being little and but they don’t want to hear it, because there’s all mostly in their 20’s, didn’t seem to be havin’ such a Rob Wright a love for James Joyce’s Ulysses, which stomped down. It was not a popular thing, so a lot this myth... See, to us, the music was the big thing. hard time. fans more literate of self-reliance was Everything else was secondary. It’s hard to fuckin’ “You’ve gotta give a lot of credit to young people, than I will already built up, and a lot of fire people up with that.You gotta get kinda bit by for bein’ that open-minded, and not sayin’ ‘Hey, you have seen in his questioning: ‘Why are the bug, I don’t know. Shit, I’ve tried to talk people fuckin’ old shit!’” Watt says by phone. “Like, when lyrics. “There’s like things the way they blue in the face about it. Some of ‘em are born with I was a teenager, you wouldn’t listen to music five ten songs on Double are?’ Now you got a this incredible talent – they don’t have to keep years old. So I give a lot of credit! I think it’s a trip Nickels that are good lookin’ young workin’ on it, like a thug like me. They’re born with – ‘cos rock and roll was always marketed on a youth totally from Ulysses,” man with tattoos it and stuff, but they just don’t have this fire, I don’t thing – to see a man 60 years old stage diving. He Watt says. “There’s and he’s a star – it’s know. Maybe it comes too easily, maybe that’s the invented the stage dive and he’s still doin’ it. I think, one called ‘June 16th,’ hard for him to write problem.” fuck the marketing, this guy has got it in his blood. And which is Bloomsday, songs about that.”

Future projects by Watt will include a third opera, you know what, maybe you’ll be 60 one day. Maybe. when it happens. But Watt laughs, then with compositions based on the weird little creaAnd it just gets rid of all those fuckin’ phony things there’s all kinds of archly adds, “You tures in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. “I found that don’t have anything to do with anything except it, like, ‘The World know, unless there’s a out that those things were all symbolic of proverbs sellin’ you shit. So a lot of respect to the audiences, According to Nouns,’ market for it.” Watt’s and shit – but like, 500 year old Dutch, Flemish, and to the cats watchin’ Stooges.” and ‘My Heart and former label, ColumI don’t know any of that, so I made up my own. But Didn’t Iggy seem kind of otherworldly – a God the Real World’ and bia, would call him in basically, it’s like there was a mirror in my head and descended – even to Watt, though?

‘It’s Expected I’m sometimes as a coach it broke up into a bunch of pieces. So there’s 39 of “They’re ‘60s guys,” Watt replies. “I think the Gone,’ ‘Retreat,’ “The for their younger them. In some ways, it’s me goin’ back to the old whole country, everything was in a different place.

Big Foist” – there’s bands. “They wanted days, ‘cos they’re little songs.” The recording will be My Missingmen’s drummer Raoul is 20 years youngjust a lot of ‘em. That me to talk to a lot of the first with Watt’s new unit, the Missingmen. “Tom er than me, and I’m only ten years younger than Iggy, book was really profound on me. And then I read them about touring, because man, they don’t come Watson, he’s from Slovenly, he’s from a late ‘80s SST but I’m much closer to Raoul. Things changed after it again in my 40’s and it was way different, but just from the old punk scene. Everyone wants to be stars band, and so he’s kind of the middle ground, a conpunk. I can even rap with a teenager at a Warped as strong. Just different. Which is a trip, because the and be fuckin’ catered to, you know? You hear them nection, and Raoul’s the younger man from hardcore, Tour gig and be closer than to these guys, because words didn’t change. Obviously I did.” cry later about bein’ puppets and shit, but you don’t gettin’ taught this strange music from this strange it was a different scene. They’re very interesting Watt got to play the Starfish Room with Rob see ‘em tyin’ on the strings! Sure, I’ll talk to them, man... I haven’t had time to work with them yet, but gentlemen, though” – (!) – “and it’s one after Stooges stop in September, I’m of the only times when I’ve played the gonna have time, and teach it to them, little brother, y’know? Suddenly I’m the tour it first, and then record it.” youngest guy in the band. That never Also upcoming: Watt will be joined fuckin’ happens. I mean, in all senses,

by Nels Cline, Petra Haden, and Chad I’m the little brother, even though I’ve Smith for a cover version of the Blue done tons of gigs, probably more than, Oyster Cult’s “Burnin’ for You,” on the y’know? It’s just different.”

Guilt by Association compilation of cover Watt is pleased when I tell him he tunes. The song is NOT the BOC’s seemed totally in-the-zone in Seattle. finest moment (“it’s, like, kind of their His tour diaries – which, if you’ll parJourney period,” Watt quips.) Still, it has don me, are a hoot to read – make lyrics by Richard Meltzer, and Watt is a him seem like he’s constantly worryin’ huge fan, as am I. Homework: go read he’ll slip up. “But there’s a huge legacy.

Meltzer’s essay on the Minutemen in A I don’t think there’d be a punk scene Whore Just Like the Rest – the single best without the Stooges, so that weighs on title ever given to a book of rock writme!” Watt gives an understated little ing – and while you’re at it, if you want laugh. to piss yourself laughing, read his essay The really important question, on Springsteen, too, “One Commie though, and God help me if this sounds Wrong about Bruce.” like tabloid journalism: why isn’t Watt Speaking of Meltzer, who currently allowed to wear his customary flannel resides in Portland, another future onstage? “I think it’s that Ig wants me project will be a recording with him to look like I’m with them. Although, entitled Spielgusher. “He gave me 53 you know, I got the idea (of flannel) spoken word pieces and I’m puttin’ from John Fogerty; it’s not really my music to’em. Ten of ‘em are actual songs idea. I just thought he had the neatest he wrote when he was gonna collaborock shirts. I didn’t know they were rate with the Minutemen, but we didn’t farmer’s shirts! I grew up in Navy housget to record with him – D. Boon had ing” (Watt’s Dad was in the military, the fuckin’ lyrics in the fuckin’ van ride which informs the theme of his second he got killed on.Yeah. So Richard did solo CD, Contemplating the Engine Room those 10 and 43 others, so there’s 53 ) “so I didn’t really understand so much little spiels and I’m puttin’ music behind about it. But now – at the beginning it, and to me, y’know, it’s a tribute to of the year, [Iggy] called me up and Richard, because I love the man much, said ‘Mike, I got an idea, what about and to get to collaborate with him – to jumpsuits, boilersuits?’ So that’s what be a part of the same piece of art, man I’ve been wearing, this year. And he says, – to me, it’s one of the biggest things ‘Get a blue one, for that nautical look.’ ever in your life.” n Add their ages up and you get the 14th number in the Fibonacci sequence. SCIENCE!

Iggy called me up and said, ‘Mike, I got an idea, what about boilersuits?’

So that’s what I’ve been wearing this year

The Nerve September 2007 Page 11

The Dark Horse of Polaris

The very last picture of the Besnard Lakes, before their showdown with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in Waco

By Cameron Gordon

W

ith Montreal getting so much bandwidth amid press, posers and other scumbags in recent years, it is difficult to see how a band like the Besnard Lakes could slip below the radar. Even though the Lakes’ music has nowhere near the mainstream appeal of Sam Roberts or the Arcade Fire, it does spill out with a spat of honesty that should appeal at least somewhat to anyone who has ever turned on FM radio.

The Lakes’ music is subtle to the touch and yet far from sucky. It manages to keep calm on the surface while stirring and swirling mere layers beneath, recalling Pink Floyd, Slowdive, the Heavy Blinkers and a few other names you’ll have to pick out yourself.

The vocals are there somewhere. The guitars are treated. And it is up to the listener to figure out the rest.

The summer of 2007 was a veritable whirlwind for the Besnard Lakes, as they hit both North America and Europe like a mofo, spellbinding audiences and lengthening Montreal’s rep with every miasmic chord. They rocked the festival circuit from Hillside to Pukkelpop, floored audiences at Glasgow’s legendary King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and toured the American heartland alongside such indie heavyweights as Les Savy Fav and the Handsome Furs. The sun was hot, the flesh was parched and the season was a definite coming out party for the outfit as the band themselves admit that the hipster goodwill for their hometown was still very much in abundance.

“Everyone is still very curious about Montreal,” confirms leading Lake Jace Lasek during a recent sitdown with The Nerve. “I think the curiosity stems from the press’s absolute inability to pigeonhole a ‘Montreal sound’ and having a band like us around makes things that much harder for the media to nail down.”

Lasek formed the Besnard Lakes earlier this

The Nerve September 2007 Page 12

decade alongside Olga Goreas, whom he fancied both as a bassist… and a wife. The dashing duo soon drafted a bevy of musical friends around Montreal and before long, the Lakes were making girls and sissies swoon with a sound that was equal parts romantic and oblique.

The Lakes’ debut full-length Volume 1 came out quietly in 2004 and while the band slowly twiddled their way around Montreal, seeds of a masterstroke were starting to sprout. Leafing their way through a set of communal connections, Lasek and Goreas soon enlisted a number of “playas” from the community to help out on a sophomore Lakes release. With guest stars ranging from Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Zion), Chris Seligman (Stars) and Jonathan Cummins (the Doughboys, Bionic), the Lakes hit their stride through a common view and in early 2007, birthed The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse. The album hit publicly in mid-February and the band has been coasting in its wake ever since.

A record of stunning detail and unmitigated ambition, Dark Horse turned more than a few heads and set the Lakes on course for the adventures alluded to 250 words ago. The album is best exemplified by seven-plus minutes of “And You Lied To Me”, an

opus that sounds like a strange cross between the Cocteau Twins and the Smashing Pumpkins, without the ego or annoyance of either. It’s a stunning piece of work overall and a testament to the talent that this band brings to the table.

Dark Horse was recently nominated for the prestigious (though often shat upon) Polaris Prize and the Besnard Lakes find themselves up against such superstars as Feist, Joel Plaskett and the Dears in this knockkneed race for the prize. Regardless of whether the Lakes prevail (the winner will be announced September 24, bookmakers!), Lasek says he and his bandmates were authentically thrilled just for the consideration.

“Of course, we were all pretty honoured when the word came down. It doesn’t really matter who says it or the rationale behind it; you have to feel some sense of appreciation when someone enjoys your record.

If nothing else, it’s nice to know there are people paying attention. I can’t understand if you actually care about your music how you could feel indifferent about someone’s appreciation for it.”

Dark Horse was distributed by Outside Music in Canada and Jagjaguwar everywhere else, the latter label shared with fellow Canuck rockers Black Mountain, Sunset Rubdown and fellow Polaris

Everyone is still very curious about Montreal, and having a band like us around makes things that much harder for the media to nail down

nominee Julie Doiron. International distribution meant notoriety worldwide and while the equation was neither that simple nor that lame, the deal did aid the Lakes in their travels abroad and ensure their product was in stores across the planet. The hookup was routine but the outcomes were anything but.

“We sent a record to them, they listened to it and they liked it,” says Lasek quite matter-of-factly about the means by which the band connected with the Jagjaguwar family. “I had originally thought there was a more of a synchronicity happening when the deal was struck, but I found out a couple weeks ago we got actually got signed the old fashioned way. Not quite as exciting.”

The remainder of 2007 will see continued touring, supporting and if all goes according to plans, some sketching and scheming with regards to another Besnard Lakes’ full-length, hopefully due before the end of 2008. But in the meantime, look for the Casino Nanaimo 12” coming this September and a new slate of Canadian and American tour dates with fellow Montreal goofballs Starvin’ Hungry along for the ride.

It’s an enviable position to be in, having the pull to bring your friends and fellow Montrealers out on the road as support. And yet for a band that leans on its community as much as the Besnard Lakes do, it’s assumed they are only too happy to return the favours and then some. n

The Besnard Lakes play at Nectar, in Seattle on September 26, Richard’s on Richards in Vancouver on September 27, Lucky Bar in Victoria on September 28, the Legion in Tofino on September 29, Broken City in Calgary on October 4, O’Hanlon’s in Regina on October 5, the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg on October 6, and the Osheaga Festival in Montreal on October 9

Punk Rock Riot in East Van (or more

By Chris Walter

W

)

accurately

Something to Read While You Take a Dump

hat do you get when you get three notorious punk bands together and ask them all the same dumb questions? How the fuck would I know? Does it really matter? No, of course not - the point of this story is to make your BM more enjoyable, not to fill your head with useless factoids about people that you’d probably cross the street to avoid.

Let’s get straight to it, shall we? Let the readin’ and the dumpin’ begin!

The China Creeps have a brand new 7” inch so they get to go first. Let’s be clear on this: CD’s are cool but not as cool as vinyl and everyone knows it. But rather than talk about records, I ask how much beer Wendy gives them when the play the Cobalt. “Thirteen Red Cap stubbies!” rants Baxter (guitar). “That’s on our rider, along with a handful of change for pinball.” Moving right along, I ask the Creeps if they really skate or if they’re just trying to be cool. Matt (vocals) has to think about this for a minute. “We used to skate every day but now we just sit in front of our typewriters writing fictional skateboard novels.” Are they taking a cheap shot at me? Surely they’re not sophisticated enough for such a thing, so instead of crushing their skulls, I ask if the City of Vancouver should put up a statue of Ashtrey (of Neo Nasties infamy) in Pigeon Park. “Yes!” enthuses Neil E. Dee (bass). “We are currently building a skateable concrete statue of Ashtrey that, when finished, will replace the Terry Fox Memorial Statue.” Now

that we’re on the subject, I ask what East Van really needs. “Less hippies, potholes, fake bike messengers and more burritos, Molotov’s, boards, and balaclavas,” says Baxter, looking as if he could use a few burritos. As fate would have it, this coincides neatly with my next question when I ask if they’re enjoying our garbage strike. “Yes, we’re eating better than ever!” smiles Matt licking his lips. Getting serious now, I ask what they’d do if a major label gave them a huge advance to make a record. This one is easy for Neil.

“We already have our own crappy 7” out (available now at a store near you) so we’d spend the money bringing Dreamland Crew up here to pour us a concrete left-handed kidney pool behind the Cobalt with rat skulls as coping.”

What did GG Allin have that no one else did, I ask, checking my imaginary wristwatch. “His brother Merle as a Hitler-‘stashed handjob helper,” chuckles Matt. Are the China Creeps looking forward to the 2010 Olympics? “Yes, we can’t wait to bomb the bobsled and luge runs before winter on our rattedout Bill Danforth and Duane Peters decks,” says Neil. What, I ask, makes the China Creeps better than, say, the Pink Mountaintops?

Baxter scratches his head. “Pink Mountaintops is a band? I thought they were an overdue video from Larry’s XXX Rentals.” If the world was ending tomorrow the China Creeps would…. “Skate, drink, piss, puke!” shouts Matt as I slip out the door before they can hit me up for beer money. One down, two to go.

Q: Are you enjoying the garbage strike?

A: Yes, we’re eating better than ever!

Y

of Lynn’s blueberry pie!” shouts Bronie lighting a joint of BC’s finest shake. “A cure for herpes,” says Jersh, scratching his balls. “I play guitar!” yelps Al, falling off his chair. I ask if they’re enjoying the garbage strike but Bronie says he’s been away and missed it. I don’t bother to point out that the strike isn’t over yet. “No. I live beside China Creek and it stinks enough already,” says Jersh. Al, however, is very pleased. “Hell, yeah,” says the wasted guitarist.

“I found my guitar in the garbage!” I want to know what Ovary Action would do if a major label gave them a huge advance to make a record. Bronie sneers bitterly. “Do it, fuck it up, then get drunk on the 10 bucks leftover.

Jersh would take the money and run to the beer store. Al says, “Two words: crack and hookers and beer.” Math, apparently, isn’t one of his strong points. Surprisingly, when I ask the band why they get out of bed in the mornings, only Al’s answer is worth repeating “To go to bed at night... think about it,” he grins, showing us a deeper side of himself that has, until now, remained hidden. Then he barfs all over the floor and the interview is over. Just one interview left.

Skateboarding is so gay,” says Jersh. “If I wanted to look cool I would rollerblade around the sea wall to pick up dudes.”

ou must be almost finished your together,” says Billy. Cuntface, the smartass, dump, with just enough time to read asks when the garbage went on strike, and about the Creeping Hand if you don’t Steve Straight claims to like the smell. Why rush. The Creeping Hand have a brand-new do you get out of bed in the morning? I ask, CD, which I have reviewed very objectively wondering if hari-kari hurts as much as I elsewhere in this magazine. Now, on with the think it would. “’Cause I’m an hour late for BM… work!” says Billy, as if he really has a job.

How much beer does Wendy 13 give you Cuntface says that it’s hard to be creeping when you play the Cobalt? I ask, wearying when you’re sleeping. Steve wants to get up of my own stupid questions. “Wendy gives and die. I’m thinking that’s not such a bad free beer?” asks Billy Clorox (bass). “Those idea but instead of falling on a sword, I ask assholes lied to me!” says drummer Cuntface, what GG Allin had that no one else did? “Piz“I honestly don’t remember, I was way too zaass!” says Billy. “His own spot in the Punk drunk.” “Too much,” burps Evil Steve (vocals).

Hall of Fame,” says Cuntface. “Balls,” says Evil Do you guys really skate or are you just trySteve, but I’m not sure if it’s in response to ing to be cool, I ask, noticing that the singer my question. Are the Creeping Hand looking is drooling on himself. “Half the forward to the 2010 Olympics? band skates, but I skate well,” says “Oh yeah,” says Billy. “Where can Billy, taking my question seriously.

I buy a sniper rifle?” “Not when “Skating is cool,” agrees Cuntface. it’s financed on the backs of the “People are still jocks though,” poor,” says Steve, not realizing he adds somewhat mysteriously. that I’m baiting him. I’m with Guitarist Steve Straight rides a bike and isn’t Billy when it comes to the Olympics. If the worried about being cool. I sigh deeply and world was ending tomorrow, the Creepask if they think the City of Vancouver should ing Hand would… “Join a doomsday cult erect a statue of Ashtrey in Pigeon Park. and party!” says Billy. “Not do a damn thing “Absolutely not!” declares Billy. “They should different,” says Cuntface, putting an end to put up a statue of Evil Steve.” Cuntface dismy marathon interview. I’m done with these agrees and thinks a statue of Ashtrey would gutter punks. be more appropriate, while Steve Straight Your shit, like this story, is over. Now wipe thinks they should put up a statue of East up and get down the record store to pick up Van Dan. What does East Van really need? I these stellar releases. AND DON’T FORGET ask, wishing desperately for a pound of crack TO WASH YOUR HANDS! to get me through this interview. “To become THE CREEPING HAND the new centre of punk and attract corporate sellouts then wither and die,” says Billy. “Rebuild the community! More furniture at China Creek,” says Cuntface, semi-seriously. Evil Steve just grunts. “An enema.”

After an awkward silence, we move on and I ask, for the third time today, if the band is enjoying the garbage strike. “Oh yes. It brings people and garbage

Balls!

PHOTO: JEN DODDS

OVARY ACTION

PHOTO: JEN DODDS

Y

ou should be well into your BM by now, so let the reading and shitting continue with Ovary Action. If you aren’t already familiar with this legendary punk band then there’s no hope for you, really.

No hope at all.

The sweetish stink of alcohol fills the room as I sit down with Ovary Action for the interview. They’ve been drinking heavily, obviously, showing a marked lack of respect for my hard-won sobriety. In fact, the bastards are still drinking “How much beer does Wendy 13 give you guys when you play the Cobalt?” I ask, trying to hold my breath. Air guitarist Al E Trash’s feet smell bad, right through his battered combat boots.

“We get beer!” cheers Bronie James Dio (basshead), failing to answer the question. “I don’t remember. A hundred maybe?” says Jersh (throat), who at least understands what it is I’m talking about. Al finishes a Red Cat and smashes the empty bottle against the wall.

“I play guitar––yeeeooowwww!” He reminds me of Cat from Red Dwarf but drunker. I quickly ask my next question. “Do you guys skate or are you just trying to be cool?” “It’s always about being cool,” says Bronie, again failing to answer the question. “Skateboarding is so gay,” says Jersh. “If I wanted to look cool I would rollerblade around the sea wall to pick up dudes.” Al opens another Red Cat and laughs drunkenly.

“Yeahh... coool...hee hee!” I breathe through my mouth and continue.

Should the City of Vancouver erect a statue of Ashtrey in Pigeon Park? “I don’t care,” says Bronie, looking around to make sure the unpredictable frontman isn’t lurking nearby. “They should have a statue of his wife giving birth, whatever...” Jersh doesn’t think so, but he does believe that they should have a poster of Ashtrey at all the walk-in clinics. Al misunderstands the question completely and mutters something about the homeless. What does East Van really need? I ask, rushing onwards. “A better fucking scene. And more

The Nerve September 2007 Page 13

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A dark t-shirt will camoflage your mantits. SCIENCE!

Jon Braun

“

Overall the scene is in a different state over what metal mags and fanzines call a blended form here,” says vocalist Trevor Stnrad, talking to of Swedish and American style death metal. On its the Nerve minutes before Black Dahlia’s next latest album, Nocturnal, set to be released on Sept. show in London, U.K. “Like, metal is always present.

18, BDM doesn’t exactly break new ground for It hasn’t really waned in popularity like it did in the death metal, thematically speaking, literally pounding States.” on such familiar issues as corpses, tombstones, and To Stnrad’s mind, there was about a 10 year walking dead people, though it does drift sideways hiatus for the metal for a second into a song culture on his home turf. about the Castlevania It’s the British kids who Nintendo game series. receive them best now, Stnrad sees Nocturnal as he reckons, showing up to less “At the Gates”, than BDM’s performances and 2001’s What a Horrible acting like true fans of the Night to Have a Curse, and genre; making a strong repoints out that there is surgence for death musicconsiderably less “carcass mongers. But it was the worship” this time round, 2007 Wacken Open Air but it’s in the musical and that really floored Stnrad, technical department that who realized his band the album really prevails. had reached a pinnacle Seven years into its game, moment in its career.

BDM has taken more than More than 60,000 pierced a couple leaps forward. and tattooed mosh pit “Now we’re comfortmaniacs from around able in the studio and the world attended the everyone in the band weekend metal music takes their playing more campout. seriously,” notes Stnrad, “It was just one of and it shows. Instead of those things,” he says. “One of those moments in sounding like fingernails scratching a chalkboard, the band where we were like, ‘goddamn dude, this is Black Dahlia has developed into something closer to awesome’.” a guitar virtuoso and a banshee at the tail end of puFor BDM, this was confirmation that the Deberty. Which would make the new album a Nocturnal troit-bred five-piece had really honed its skill for emission, I guess. n creating monster mashes of screeching, moaning and hyper-ized guitar scale masturbation.

“We played first, on the second day, at 11 o’clock, and there were still thousands of people checking it out,” says Stnrad of the concert, which boasted other names even regular folk might recognize, like Dimmu Borgir, Cannibal Corpse and Grave Digger… (wait, that’s a monster truck, isn’t it?).

“Just kinda checking out the magnitude of the fest is pretty awesome, too,” continues Stnrad. “It’s fucking huge.” e.

This was the first time for Chia Pet past r playing with te BDM at Wacken, brandishing af , nd ba e The sam

“It was just one of those things,” he says. “One of those moments in the band where we were like, ‘goddamn dude, this is awesome’.”

The Nerve September 2007 Page 14

MUSIC

e m i t y r o t withOkkervil River S

Legal analysts predict that Okkervil River’s lawsuit against Opti-Grab could strip flamboyant millionaire Navin R. Johnson of his entire fortune

By Jeff Topham What gives this mess some grace unless it’s kicks, man unless it’s fiction, unless it’s sweat or it’s songs? - “Unless it Kicks”, from The Stage Names, by Okkervil River

H

ere’s the story, see. I wanted to take a train to Austin, Texas and meet Okkervil River lead singer Will Sheff at an alligator farm, but my editor said it wasn’t in the budget. Instead I had to do the interview on my smoke break on the lunchroom payphone. I put on some Wilco and a fancy cowboy shirt, cracked a longneck Budweiser and made the call.

It’s a road-kill roasting 35 degrees in Austin, on the day of the nationwide release of the new Okkervil album The Stage Names. I imagine Sheff hiding out in a beat-up roadside bar outside Austin city limits lining up tequila shots. The payphone in the corner by the jukebox rings. Will Sheff sounds understandably distracted.

Nerve: Yeah, man. So like, what happens on the day of a release?

Sheff: Well, if you’re Jack White, you probably just sit around listening to old 78s and smoking a pipe. But if you’re like us, you’re trying to update the mailing list to let people know that the album’s out. I’m currently editing the punctuation on the new version of the blog.

Huh? Shit. That’s not gonna work. Will Sheff will understand if I add some whiskey and hookers and a gunfight here.

Sheff knows that good storytelling is all about setting a scene - and then making life sound interesting.

It’s what he does best. It’s why Okkervil’s critically acclaimed 2005 release Black Sheep Boy made top 10 lists across the continent. And it’s what his new record The Stage Names is all about: nine perfect sonic scenes exploring the meaning, and manufacturing, of life. Sheff understands the power (and deceptive nature) of the story.

“People bring up somebody’s story as if it represents something that’s true - but a story is not really a real thing to begin with. It’s a bunch of words put together about someone. It’s just somebody’s life thrown into relief with all the turning points emphasized. And the turning points are often artificial anyway. It’s all really very interesting.”

Sheff’s wordplay is a big reason he’s a current darling of music scribes. It’s why the adjective hyperliterate* is often found beside Okkervil River. (*see also the Decemberists, the Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes).

His poetics and literary devices offer room for endless interpretation, providing us a purpose for our mostly useless English degrees. We secretly hope guys like Sheff will read our reviews and make songs from them. i.e. Stylus Magazine says: “There’s still a little darkness, a little significance, but maybe it just matters less now. Maybe after all that ramshackle and flinging of hurt, the fight comes down to the playfulness between rounds, the pause in the argument or the swimsuit girl with the card that says ‘3’.”

But words without music are just poems, and poems don’t pack clubs or sell records. Clever lyrics aren’t the only reason these guys are touring Europe, opening for Lou Reed, and playing the Conan O’Brien show.

As Tony Danza once famously remarked, “It’s always about the music.” And Sheff and his talented band have got the music working for them too. This current version of Okkervil River rocks. i.e.The Nerve Magazine says: With The Stage Names, Okkervil River bends sharply from 2005’s Black Sheep Boy. Will Sheff has seemingly emerged from the dark but enchanted woods of heartbreak and self-discovery, and bought a ticket to a sad

carnival of life in a hard-working town. On the surface it might sound like a happy awakening, but the inevitable weight of life soon soaks through.

The message seems to be: be inventive with your life where and while you can. The soulful groove on tracks like “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene” and “You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man” will make you feel like you’re in a Texan version of The Commitments...

Seriously, that shit’s hard to write. Let’s just say The Stage Names is poppier and groovier than Black Sheep Boy, while retaining some of that existential angst the hipsters love. And while the gear change might throw some people off, the rev-up will definitely earn Okkervil River some new riders. Sheff relishes the shift.

“Repeating myself is not something I’m particularly into doing. I want to continue to try new things every time.

I felt because Black Sheep Boy had received more attention than anything we had ever done, it seemed even more interesting to try to kick away all the things that made people like that record, and see if we could still succeed without them.”

So far it seems to be working. And the critics have responded with the hyper-literate, master’s degree-worthy reviews you would expect. i.e. PopMatters says: “Okkervil River’s albums lend themselves so well to interpretation as a narrative continuum... impart(ing) to the listener the sense that they are privy to a vital revelation, though the immediate meaning of the words may remain a mystery. It’s one of the year’s essential albums.”

But the catch is that the guys at the bar don’t ask me about Sheff’s narrative continuum. They want to

All I ask is that you don’t say that I howl...

know what kind of music it is. (And what’s up with the name?) They’re the questions that make the artist groan. Well, Okkervil River was pulled from a story by Russian writer Tatanya Tolstaya. (Of course it was.) And I’ll let Sheff himself eye-roll over the comparisons.

“People will say ‘Oh, they’re like the Decemberists” or “Oh, they’re like Arcade Fire’. I just think that’s lazy. That annoys me more than the weird, really out-there comparisons. I read this negative review of when we opened for Lou Reed; they said we sounded like ‘a bad band playing at a prom.’

Those kinds of comparisons always make me smile.

I was like, ‘that sounds so nice! I wish there was a band playing at my prom...’ But I’m not that spoiled that I’m going to let it bother me that much. All I ask is that you don’t say that I howl...”

If sometimes he does howl, it’s because the guy’s singing his heart out, and the heart doesn’t always hit the right notes. Love it or hate it, Sheff’s voice is filled with the excitement and pain that comes with buying a ticket to life’s carnival. Sometimes it’s hard to deal with the facts amidst the fiction. Howls are the sign of a good storyteller.

“I live in this world. I’m not a hermit. And there’s something very beautiful about having so much faith in entertainment and being so hypnotized by it. But basically, it’s not real, it’s not true and here’s something treacherous about that. I wanted to get that across on this record. But I don’t want to point any fingers or make moral lectures, because I’m no different than anyone else. It’s a slippery slope - and I’ve fallen just as far down into it as anyone.”

THE END n

Okkervil River plays at Richard’s on Richards in Vancouver, on September 9, Neumos in Seattle on September 10, Lee’s Palace in Toronto on September 21, and La Sala Rossa in Montreal on September 23.

The Nerve September 2007 Page 15

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The Nerve September 2007 Page 17

Animal Collective Of Pandas and Paw Prints

EAT THE PLACENTA. Don’t rub it on your faces, stupid.

By Edward Dinsley

T

hey aren’t aware of it, but Animal Collective sort of helped save my hide this month. If not for their all-is-right-with-the-world aesthetic and psychedelic sounds, it might have been a lot harder to get through. Allow me to explain.

I’m a writhing nest of neuroses on a good day. It’s not that I’m a complete basket case - it’s just that I never really learned to relax and let things be. I suspect that my base brain has something to do with it, but I can’t say for sure. Thankfully, there are folks out there (and Pandas) who have a unique way of putting things back into perspective.

It all started when I came across a bizarre photograph of the four members of Baltimore, Maryland’s Animal Collective. Initially, it struck me as being one of the weirdest things I had ever seen. It’s shot in black and white and arranged with each member’s head stacked one atop the other. In the photo, all are adorned with offbeat masks that appear oddly tribal (in a post-Halloween bargain basement kind of way).

The image had me absolutely transfixed. I studied the masks for a few minutes longer, but couldn’t quite get over how something so creepy could radiate such charm. I needed to understand who or what was behind this oddity affectionately known as Animal Collective.

Josh Dibb (aka Deakin) is currently driving around Baltimore and has just passed the old high school that he attended with David Portner (aka Avey Tare) and Brian Weitz (aka Geologist). His relaxed disposition puts me instantly at ease as he prepares to share a portion of his story.

“Basically, the area where I grew up was kind of on the outskirts of the city, which really means a lot of trees and country roads. Our high school was up in, like, the middle of the woods. I spent a lot of time in environments like that.You’d just sort of meet up at somebody’s house and come up with stuff to do with yourselves.”

The Nerve September 2007 Page 18

Having grown up in a smallish town myself, I can relate to the necessity for spontaneous creativity.

It was in the second grade that Deakin first met Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) and it wasn’t long before the pair began spending most of their free time writing and recording music.

“I think we were about 12 or 13 when we both got guitars. Then Noah, his brother, and his Dad really got into recording with a cassette 8-track.

That really quickly became an activity in and of itself.

So, it went from ‘do you want to come over to my house for whatever…’ to just kind of knowing that we’d be making music.”

David Portner and Brian Weitz came onto the scene when Deakin started grade eight at the progressive Park School of Baltimore.

“We were given periods of time during the day where you didn’t have class.You could go take a walk in the woods, or do whatever you wanted to do. Dave and I were both involved in doing theatre. We ended up meeting by doing plays together, but then we realized that we were both doing music as well.”

As it turned out, Portner had been playing in a band with Weitz under the banner, Automine. The band had figured out how to record a seven-inch which ultimately found its way into the hands of Deakin. Meanwhile, Lennox, who had decamped to Pennsylavania for a spell, was also keeping busy making four-track recordings in his bedroom. It wasn’t long before tapes started circulating between

Lennox and his friends back home.

“Noah and I made music together and I would share that with Dave and Brian. Dave made music on his own, and he also made music with Brian.

They would share that with me and I’d share it with Noah. It became the music I would listen to more than anything else. It just became the way of us connecting, and I think we just became more and more aware of each other’s interests.”

Since Deakin had already started a record label to put out Panda Bear’s early work, the idea to expand the brand did not seem that far off.

With Avey Tare and Geologist now officially on board, the ‘Animal’ label was created.

“We all felt pretty serious about what we were doing. We wanted to start this record label to put out all of the things that we wanted to put out.

We were very aware of the fact that we always tried new things and we didn’t feel like starting a band. We really wanted to be able to do this project and just let it be what it was, and then do that project and let that be what that was.”

And thus, Animal’s first (and only) formal release, Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, was presented... as an album by Avey Tare and Panda Bear.

Eventually, the foursome “saw the advantage of putting everything under this one umbrella called Animal Collective.”

Animal Collective went on to release six full-

I think we all wanted Strawberry Jam to feel like it was pushing in a very different direction

length albums over four years on four separate labels. Its eighth offering, Strawberry Jam, is due out early next month on Domino. This record takes a hard left turn away from the familiar psych-folk of Feels and just keeps pouncing farther afield. To me, Strawberry Jam is a bold testament to Animal Collective’s integrity. This is not a band afraid to evolve and take risks.

“I think we all wanted Strawberry Jam to feel like it was pushing in a very different direction, and I think all of us are pushing to make more electronic sounds in general. Dave was spending a lot less time playing guitar and a lot of times he would come in with a song idea that was based around a sample loop. For example, that sort of underlying electronic pulse throughout ‘Peacebone’ is actually something that Dave did on a keyboard. It was pre-recorded and effected, and it turned into the basis for the song. I think we were all pushing for those things.”

I’m curious as to how comfortable Deakin feels as a guitar player around all of this electronic experimentation.

“I definitely made a really strong effort to figure out ways that I could push both my guitar playing and the ways I was effecting or using it. There’s a lot of things on the record that you probably have no idea are guitars but are, and then there’s sometimes stuff without them.”

Animal Collective’s combined eclectic energy is often most tangible in the spaces between the spaces. Their strange blend of the surreal and the sublime is an anomaly best suited to those with broadened sensibilities. Myself, I’m grateful for stumbling across that weird little photograph a few weeks ago. It led me to discover a new breed of music that I otherwise may not have allowed myself to hear.

My inner child spied a set of bear sized paw prints ambling next to mine this afternoon. I think I have a pretty good idea how they got there…

Short Ends Grindhouse, Robocops, Aliens and Elvis. Uh huh.

Movie Pick of the Month

Bubba Ho-Tep: Hail to the King Limited Edition Dir: Don Coscarelli

Robocop: 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Dir: Paul Verhoeven I saw this movie in the theater when I was in elementary school and I fucking flipped for it. I knew as soon the ED-209 accidentally turned that OCP board member into swiss cheese with its machine guns that I was watching something special. What about the scene where Robocop saves a woman by shooting through her dress to take off the perp’s nuts?

Or when the bad guy gets covered in toxic waste, turns into a mutant then explodes when he gets hit by a car. So many memorable scenes. I still can’t believe my dad took me out of school to catch a weekday matinee.

Why wasn’t he working? He knew I needed braces.

Sure the ED-209 doesn’t look as amazing as it did when I was young, but there’s no arguing that the violence holds up well. There’s none of this someone says ‘fuck’ twice and they slap an R-rating on it bullshit going on here. Even by today’s standards, Robocop is still an extremely hard R. But it’s not just the hyper-violence that makes this one a classic, as an added brilliant bonus,Verhoeven throws down one of many sly critiques on US capitalism. In the hands of a lesser director, Robocop could have easily been one of the most tepid b-movies ever produced. Instead, for my money,Verhoeven made the best sci-fi movie of all time.

With the 20th anniversary edition you get the original version, which was slapped with an X-rating at the time.You don’t get a whole lot more with this cut except a far more gruesome scene of Clarence Boddicker shooting the hell out Murphy before he’s turned into Robocop. Along with that, this edition has some great ‘making of’ featurettes where you learn stuff like Kurtwood Smith (Red from That 70’s Show) was cast as Clarence Boddicker because Verhoeven thought he resembled Heinrich Himmler. And that Verhoeven, who had a poor command of the English language, referred to some of the women on set as bitches because that’s what the script called them.

True, there are about a dozen versions of this movie out there, but the special features loaded on this two disc set in an elegant metal casing make it the definitive one on the market. I’d buy that for a doll... err ... suggested retail price of $19.95.

-Michael Mann

Ridiculous. Absolutely goddamn ridiculous. This “new” edition of Bubba Ho-Tep is identical in every way to 2004’s Collector’s Edition, except instead of a 12-page scrapbook we get a fucking faux leather “Elvis in Vegas” slipcase! It’s the same as that Grease DVD with the T-Bird leather jacket—a terrible, cheap gimmick that looks awful on the shelf. What’s the justification here? The 30th anniversary since Elvis shat his fatal coil...?

Bubba Ho-Tep was 2003’s pre-marketed-as-such “cult” film by Don “Phantasm” Coscarelli. Our hero is a still living, bed-shitting, senior citizen Elvis Presley, played with aplomb by legendary ham king Bruce Campbell. Elvis swaggers awkwardly into battle against a soul-eating, 3000 year-old Egyptian mummy who’s been coughing up victims near the Shady Rest retirement home. Aiding Presley is a wheelchairbound (well, sorta... he walks when it’s convenient for the script) delusional black man who thinks he’s JFK.

Not as much of a comedy as you think, Bubba Ho-Tep is another weirdo horror-comedy-characterstudy-tangentially-meandering Coscarelli mix-mash.

A moderate sensation with the film geek crowd, it’s worth a look (despite its many detractors). Solid special features include a commentary by Bruce in character as “The King.” But again: This DVD has been available for years, it just now wears a silly fucking nudie suit. A fresh coat of paint and selling it as new. Shame MGM. . . shame.

- David Bertrand

The Dark Backward (1991) Dir: Adam Rifkin With a title like The Dark Backward, you’d think the film was one of those by-the-numbers legal dramas with young, sexy lawyers Ryan Gosling and Jessica Alba fighting against the clock (and let’s say… Big Pharma) to free a wrongly-imprisoned Bruce Willis before his execution date.

Surprisingly, the actual film is even less interesting! It takes place in grimy, colourful underworld reminiscent of Eraserhead combined with that one

Batman with all the gay subtext. Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is a sweaty, nervous garbageman who’s trying to make it in the cutthroat world of stand-up comedy. Marty’s failing miserably, until he grows a third arm on his back for no reason whatsoever and slimy agent Jackie Chrome (Wayne Newton with a drawn-on moustache!) figures a three-armed Neil Hamburger type is just what the ‘biz needs. Along for the ride is Marty’s cohort Gus, an accordion-playing, mildly necrophiliac chubby chaser played by Bill Paxton. (Between this and Weird Science, hasn’t Paxton earned enough bizarro cred to be distinguished from Bill Pullman?)

The film is a series of bizarre vignettes about Marty’s struggles to/with fame and there’s probably a commentary on the nature of show business in there too, if one looks hard enough past the cartoonish production design and “freaky” circus music soundtrack. Despite a great cast with the likes of James Caan, Lara Flynn Boyle and a delightful Rob Lowe, the “odd for odd’s sake” movie suffers under the weight of its own weirdness. I’d give it three thumbs down, but the pun’s too good to waste on The Dark Backward.

- Robyn Dugas

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Dir: Philip Kaufman I spout hard for horror flicks with community conspiracies—The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby, Dead & Buried—friends and loved ones increasingly “not quite right,” leaving a cracked protagonist horribly isolated until inevitably rewired into “one of them” . . . it resonates deep in the gut for a kid from Bible Belt Abbotsford, British Columbia.

Don Siegel’s original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a gloriously paranoiac, stilted Cold War masterpiece. Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake transfers the Earth invasion via parasitic, body-replicating alien pods from Small Town USA to bustling San Francisco (that ominous Transamerica Pyramid is everywhere!).

Humanity’s demise spews forth from America’s home of liberalism, love, and progressive thought. It’s unnerving.

Alien spores float to Earth, attach to plant leaves (neat FX!!), and grow into festering giant pods that spawn perfect human dopplegangers. These replacements gain life while their human “twins” sleep - the real ones slowly crumble to dust. To avoid this fate, you’ve gotta stay awake, forever. Meanwhile, alien peeps harvest more pods and duplicate more people.

Everything about it gets under your skin. Micheal Chapman’s cinematography leaps from hard Noir shadows, to cold debilitating long shot, to swooping forced POV, to a lifetime’s supply of ultracreepy slow zooms. Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt thumps endless organic-cum-mechanical nuances into the mix, heartbeats and bells and spooky Texas Chainsaw minimalism. When alien persons spot real persons, they make awful screechy dying pig howls—that now-clichéd stock noise slapped into every alien movie since!

Donald Sutherland sports a most marvelous mustache. Brooke Adams is gorgeous, smiley, tender, stirring and perfectly cast as the female lead. Why wasn’t she a big star? A really young Jeff Goldblum plays a great Jeff Goldblum. Leonard Nimoy annoys constantly as an arrogant pop-star psychiatrist, toler-

ated far too long by the rest of the cast. Sutherland and Adams share what is probably sci-fi’s saddest kiss.

Then there’s that five-second shot of the man-faced dog... what the fuck is that? Invasion is probably the only mainstream 70’s horror classic I’d never seen ‘till now. And for that I am ashamed. BUY! - David Bertrand

Welcome to the Grindhouse: Black Candles (1982) Dir: José Ramón Larraz;

Evil Eye (1974) Dir: Mario Siciliano

Navarre has recently started releasing lesser-known exploitation films in all their sleazy glory, in a fun and cheap double bill package that allows you to a watch double bill complete with trailers and an intermission.

If you’ve ever watched one of Synapse Entertainment’s 42nd Street Forever Grindhouse trailer DVDs you’ll love these, as a lot of the titles being released have been featured on those.

Black Candles is best defined as soft-corror and I feel dirty for having watched it. It’s a sleazy and less coherent Rosemary’s Baby that’s dubbed, has atrocious acting, sex every five minutes and isn’t directed by a pedophile. So get ready for a lot of Satanist lesbos quivering, moaning, writhing and finding any excuse to expose themselves. Let’s throw a little disclaimer out there and state that this film is from the early ‘80’s, was produced by Europeans and there’s a ton of full frontal nudity … -infer what you will about the grooming habits of the females in Back Candles. The film opens with a balding man and a woman having sex. But then the man has a heart attack and dies. It isn’t from going at it like a champ though, it’s because his wife Fiona is into witchcraft and killed him with a spell. After getting the news, his sister Carol and her husband Robert travel to England, presumably to attend a funeral, which we never see or hear about.

After this we’re bombarded with sex scenes and murder. Some highlights include: Fiona masturbating after watching Carol and Robert jamming, Carol having a dream about screwing her brother, Robert cheating on Carol with Fiona and doing reverse cowgirl, Robert anally raping Carol then calmly having a smoke together afterwards like it was no big deal, and a fat Italian plumber having his ass cheeks parted by the Satanists who then kill him by shoving a sword up there. The piece de resistance in Black Candles is, and I hope this isn’t spoiling too much for you, a lengthy scene where a woman fucks a goat and enjoys it. Will Carol alert the authorities? Or will she be drugged, stripped, oiled up by lesbians, pinned down and pounded by the grand dragon of the Satanists?

Watch and find out! (Ironically, that’s the same way we initiate our interns. Positions available! Email editor@thenervemagazine.com! No dudes! [Dudes are actually ok, ED.]).

After the intermission, it’s Evil Eye time. Oh no!

It’s dark out and some Satanists are getting ready for a ritual. Then a bunch of naked people are howling like banshees and walking towards the camera. Then Peter Crane, who enjoys hosting orgies at his palatial estate, wakes up. Thank God, it was only a dream. But Peter is haunted by these naked people and has lucid dreams where he’s murdering people. Then the people in his dreams really start dying. So is the charming and handsome playboy - who can sleep with a woman by merely showing off the massive mange he has on chest - really a murderer or the victim of something more diabolical? Oh and Peter Crane also has telekinetic powers that randomly manifest and don’t affect the completely incoherent plot whatsoever. This movie is so difficult to follow the director must have been dyslexic or it was completely re-edited by someone who was dyslexic. Once again we have horrible acting, cornball sex scenes and a piss poor dub job. . . but who cares? You can take what this movie is on the surface, a slow moving, C-grade Giallo that doesn’t make sense at all. Or you can read way too much into it like me and say all the scenes are intentionally disjointed and Evil Eye is like Fellini’s La Dolce Vita with murder, tits and telekinesis.

No diamonds in the rough on this disc and neither movie demands a repeat viewing but they’re still a fun watch. The Welcome to the Grindhouse series is releasing a whackload more of these double-bills so stay tuned for more reviews in coming issues.

- Michael Mann

The Nerve September 2007 Page 19

The Nerve September 2007 Page 20

LIVE REVIEWS

Historic Fort York, Toronto, ON Sunday, July 29, 2007

As a baby of the ‘80s who only discovered the savage sincerity of punk once it had been discredited, and who developed a love of reggae after Bob Marley was long dead, I can scarcely express my sense of profound privilege to finally see the legendary Bad Brains live and in the flesh. And though I would have been more than stoked to see a Stealth performance (psycho-hop lyrics of NYC’s G-Pace with Daryl Jenifer’s badass beat-yourheart out bass), to see the original punkreggae gurus in their original form is more than any fan could hope for.

The Brains were playing the all-day Roger’s Picnic in Toronto, and of the seven other bands on the bill, they were sandwiched between Tegan and Sara, and Bedouin Soundclash – WHAT?! Why weren’t they the direct openers for headliners, the (selfproclaimed) Legendary Roots Crew? Well, I suppose it is true that commercial success has never really been a part of the Brains’ story, it’d been five years between the last album and the new one, and hardly anyone in the crowd had ever heard of them. And I guess it’s also true that D. Jenifer’s magic touch played no small part in the success of young guns, Bedouin Soundclash, since he produced their hit 2004 album (and their upcoming one).

Speaking of which, I guess Soundclash was okay. Bassist Eon Sinclair is pretty sweet, but is no Jenifer to be sure. Anyway, after being there from about 11am, sitting through five mediocre to kinda good bands, I was giddy with raging excitement for the show. Grinning

stupidly, I made my way to the conspicuous gaggle of real fans to enjoy the hardcore roots movement I slept through as a kid. The feel of the performance paralleled the Brains’ latest release, Build a Nation, with its positive vibes and rub-a-dub feel. The band was tight, heavy, and organic – a reminder that its a brotherhood based on love first, with music running a close second. HR was on point all show, but it was his own idiosyncratic point for sure; totally in his own world, calm and unphased by the heavy instrumentals backing him, peace signs in the air and smiles to the sky, Jah love, and ATTITUDE. Fuck yea.

- Kristen Mark

The Dishrags / The Furies

Richard’s on Richards,Vancouver, BC Saturday, August 18, 2007

Anyone at the Vancouver Complication CD release gig a few years back will tell you that the Dishrags stole the show. In an extremely abbreviated performance, they ripped through their two best songs, “I Don’t Love You” and “Bullshit,” a Ramones cover, and maybe one other tune. The set was a bullet-like projectile that tore from the stage and resonated well beyond the confines of the evening: BANG!

Their 30th anniversary double bill with the Furies, with whom they inaugurated the idea of punk in Vancouver, wasn’t quite as razor-lean, and frankly, not all of their songs are quite on a par with those world-class, ferocious epistles of pissed off girldom previously mentioned: 15 minutes of Dishrags may well trump half an hour, unless/until they write a few NEW songs (which is unlikely). Still, the crowd – evenly divided between old fart

THE FURIES

PHOTO: Femke Van Delfte

Bad Brains / Bedouin Soundclash

Clutch / Year Long Disaster / Backyard Tire Fire Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC Tuesday, August 14, 2007 I’ve always had a theory about Clutch fans. I believe they’re grease monkeys that go into a record store, see the name Clutch, and say to themselves, “A clutch is part of a car, so I’m going to get this record.” They listen to it, realize its far better than their REO Speewagon and Billy Squire cds, and the end result: Clutch becomes the be all and end of all of rock. I can prove it with a simple math equation: 1/4 of Clutch fans look like Fred Durst with their fitted baseball caps and date rapists attitudes.

Then 1/4 of these fuck jobs look exactly like Neil Fallon, minus the grit and adding the job at Budget, Break, and Muffler. The most unfortunate part of this equation is the quarter of the crowd made up of tight cunted, perfect rumped women accompanying aforementioned Manpons (aka bloody fucks). The last quarter is a dumbfounded crew out to hear some good music but uncomfortable with the atmosphere of jerk-off mist that envelopes them for four hours.

By now you probably want to fight me. Well, a Clutch fan already tried that, my frazzled friends. This douchebag claimed I was in a reserved area, I wouldn’t leave, so the Napoleon complex turd sat there staring at me. He finally gave up when he realized I wasn’t interested in gogo-plating his schmuck.

He told me, “Have a good show”. I ignored him and eventually moved with my friends to the table in front of us. Then the poor bastard who took my spot had this same cum-stained vagina harass him and the bastard lost his cool.

Fisticuffs flew, drinks were spilt, and the girls trying to stop the fight took some blows to the face. And I’m not talking mushroom slaps people; I’m talking full on, liquid courage-fueled swings across their mugs. Fuck climate change – this is our true downfall right here at the Commodore on August 14th. After security broke up this melee, that Mickey Rooney looka-like was far more pumped to see Clutch, throwing his fist in the air like some Barbarian Hun after killing the women and children of his enemy. I was sickened to my core.

So, the vibes around me didn’t bode well.

Luckily, the bartender had some fantastic T&A, the beer calmed my nerves, and the music on the stage that night was enough to make me

forget about mankind’s plight, starting with Chitown’s Backyard Tire Fire. The bass player had a five-string, but their Tom Petty music (I believe one of their songs was actually called “Tom Petty”) definitely lifted my spirits. Sadly,Year Long Disaster (who ironically dressed as if they were in a year long disaster) were a boring Kyuss rip-off without time changes. It dragged on, though a cool final song almost made up for the eight or nine boring stoner boners that came first.

By now, people were ready to go apeshit.

Finally the lights went down and the crowd took a shit and cried for more before it even started. This went on for another 10 fucking minutes for some reason (I heard Jean PaulGaster’s backwards baseball cap wasn’t fitting the way he liked it, so it took time to adjust it for the perfect rapist look). Just as the Viagra finally kicked in, so did these jam rock masters, batting our anticipation-blistered cocks off with “Who Wants to Rock”. The pit went nuts and my friend Monica was elbowed in the eye socket without remorse by some sweaty bearded fuck. No one’s asshole was spared and Clutch just fueled the fire when they jammed on “Cypress Grove” with Eric Oblander, who came out to blow a mean harp solo. It was classy jam after classy jam; minor solos not taking the emphasis away from the overall sound-collage (five band members but at times there were seven dudes on stage).

When “Electric Worry” finished the night, I was relieved that I survived the sick swine that surrounded me. Clutch proved to me when the chips are down and there’s seconds left in the big game, they are the clutch players I need… get it? Oh God, I’m lonely.

- Dave Von Bentley

Daft Punk

WaMu Theater, Seattle, Washington Sunday, July 29, 2007

Just say that Daft Punk was playing at my house.

And just say that Sarah’s girlfriend was working the door. If that had been the case, well, I would have enforced a strict “No Ravers” policy and anyone without good jeans on would not be allowed in.

Unfortunately, Sarah’s girlfriend was not working the door and Daft Punk was not even playing close to my house; it was actually in another country altogether (albeit, a country filled with yummy smokes and cheap Rolling Rocks). Me and 10 friends all made the trip down, and many exciting things happened – including a few games of Excitebike – but no one wants to hear about me fighting with my girlfriend, or Russ and Shadi hooking up, or the dance contests, or the guy that got hammered by the police for having a squirt gun at the bar… so I’ll just get to the show (if you wouldn’t mind… Music Ed.)

We missed the Rapture (yeah) and also SebastiAn Kavinsky (boo) and showed up drunk and smoking. The venue was the size of the Commodore (It was actually the size of an airplane hangar - Film Ed.), but with 10 times the people and they were a vicious mob of out-oftown ravers or Vancouver socialites working on their look. When the two Daft Punks came on stage, they said nothing, they were dressed like robots (like good robots should be) and you couldn’t see what, if anything, they were doing. I believe they were playing chess.

The whole theme of the night was triangles, and as everyone who knows me knows, I just love those little fucking triangles to death. Daft Punk played long and fast and everything was great, but I had to hang at

the back with the old folks because I am an old folk. My friend Jimi lost his shoe and had to watch the show shoeless, like Joe Jackson. Jimi now has aids.

Show good. Crowd gay.

- Wally!

Femi Kuti and Postive Force The Commodore,Vancouver, BC Thursday, July 26, 2007

While the world scrambles to adopt kids and buy jeans to save Africa, Nigerian afrobeat superstar Femi Kuti and his 13-piece musical juggernaut offer refreshing proof that not all Africans need to be saved. It’s a side of the continent we need to see more of.

There was no scruffy-faced NGO worker in a khaki vest recruiting donors at the door of the Commodore tonight. Bono was not on the guest list. This band is authentically inc(RED)ible. A horn section tighter than James Brown’s pants. Drummers that make Neil Peart look like Meg White. And a keyboardist that played like Stevie Wonder with his eyes open.

All your favourite music originated from Africa and Positive Force played like they invented it, blasting through a non-stop two-and-a-half hour reel-to-reel ‘70s style African party-mix of high-life, rock, rap, funk, jazz, blues, and even a whisper of disco. And even though each of the musicians on stage packed enough charisma to warrant their own show (especially the stunning trio of singer/dancers who shook it like a Hasselblad picture all night long), it was main man Femi Kuti who owned the crowd.

“Take your mind to Nigeria!” he exclaimed, before maniacally whipping himself and the crowd into yet another frenzy. If we weren’t so distracted by the groove, we might have imagined how powerful and important his songs of safe sex, anti-corruption, truth and democracy might be on his home turf in Lagos - a city consistently in the bottom five of the UN’s most unlivable places. We might even wonder on the symbolism of a West African man in complete control over a crowd of 1000 rich white North Americans. But tonight in Vancouver, Kuti’s politics were easily drowned out by sound and rhythm. And when it was all over, a small sweaty gang of Nigerians armed with trumpets and saxophones walked straight out the front door (laughing past a pack of fighting Roxy goons) into a hot summer night in the UN’s most livable city on the planet.

- Jeff Topham

Pelican / Gargantula / Clouds Richard’s on Richards, Vancouver, BC Wednesday, August 15, 2007

I guess sometimes being familiar with a band’s material is a pretty crucial factor. Gargantula played well, but I can’t say I enjoyed it, really. I appreciated a few interesting guitar riffs, and the frontman had a compelling stage presence, but I really can’t say much more than that. The last song was by far the best.

I’ll happily admit that Clouds was the main reason I wanted to cover this show. I’ve been a fan of Adam McGrath’s other band, Cave In, for a long time, and I’ve also managed to completely fuck up every opportunity I’ve ever had to see them. So, getting to watch Clouds play was – while being almost entirely, if not quite completely – a very different thing, it was still something.

I’d already heard the album, and liked

CLOUDS

PHOTO: SIMON ILLROTE

PHOTO: JAZMIN FILLION

BAD BRAINS

survivors of their Japanese Hall days and young punks with a sense of history (or perhaps familial ties to the people onstage) – stayed happy and dancing throughout, and the band had a great stage presence: Dale Powers, in particular, looked like she’d been cryogenically frozen in 1979 and recently thawed. Something about island livin’ keeps people young, I guess.

Since future performances are unlikely, fans who missed the show can take consolation in the fact that there’s a new Dishrags reissue EP, on the newly created JEM Records imprint, including a live version of “High Society Snob,” an excellent, faster tune of theirs that doesn’t seem to exist in a studio version. There’s also a different live take on the invaluable All Your Ears Can Hear CD/ book anthology of early Victoria punk (also featuring rare early Nomeansno, Infamous Scientists, the House of Commons, Dayglo Abortions, and many, many more: www. allyourearscanhear.com). It’s great – I had no idea the Victoria scene was THIS varied or exciting.

Oddly, the medium-sized crowd thinned out after the Dishrags’ performance, which is kinda a shame, because the Furies’ Chris Arnett is a fuckin’ great guy to watch live.

Arnett is as close to Iggy Pop as Vancouver will ever produce, all sinew and muscle and gristle and sneer; with veins bulging from his neck and biceps, he pumps out some pretty goddamn enjoyable solos, his guitar thrust out from his crotch like a cock with frets. He kept his shades on throughout the show, even after he’d taken off his “No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land” t-shirt. They did most of the new CD (see the review elsewhere) and “What Do You Want Me to Be,” the Furies’ one previously extant recording, off Zulu’s Last Call compilation. Earlier in the night, he’d joined the sexy-blonde-fronted Duvallstar for a cover of Rocket From the Tombs’/ Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer,” which is one of those songs that can simply never be worn out. The last song of the night was also a cover of sorts;“Vancouver is Like a Graveyard,” a song relocated from NYC, the original target of the Moldy Peaches’ attack.

References to “tombstone skyscrapers” could not have been more appropriate: it’s good to know the Furies are on our side.

- Allan MacInnis

The Nerve September 2007 Page 21

LIVE REVIEWS that it was upstaged by its touring partner, Daughters.

I was completely expecting the same thing to happen after Clouds’ mindblowing set, but guess what? Pelican completely held its own. The more cohesive structure of the newer songs, employing far less repetition, does wonders for a live show that’s become increasingly impressive, resulting in the same melodic but crushing heaviness expected, but with enough twists and turns to keep the audience engaged. I don’t know how many other instrumental bands I could actually say that about.

- Simon Illrote

BLACK MOUNTAIN

Under the Volcano

PHOTO: Femke Van Delfte

Cates Park, North Vancouver, BC Sunday, August 12, 2007

the way Clouds explore an element I always knew was there in Cave In’s multiple, genre-defying compositions, and its approach in putting that dirty rock ‘n’ roll right at its forefront. In spite of this, I honestly didn’t expect these guys to rock so fucking hard. No amount of studio expertise can ever capture the energy these guys displayed onstage, and this in the face of technical difficulties that delayed the start of their set by close to 15 minutes. If you like music, just go see these guys already.You’ll thank me.

The last time I saw Pelican, I essentially stated

The Nerve September 2007 Page 22

painful as hell, and made worse by the fact that the duo are rushing through it so that, yes, a bunch of white kids can take the stage.

Which brings us to Black Mountain. They play mostly new material, and I am filled with suspicion and uncertainty, because, say what you will, Black Mountain is part of the dreaded phenomenon of the 1970s resurgence that leads me to dis Pearl Jam and Mike Patton to freak out about Wolfmother. Hawkwind fans would dig this music, and a cover of “Inna Gadda da Vida” would have been entirely in keeping. All of this needs to be taken into account, as does – to quote an anonymous noise musician in the crowd – the distastefulness of the “hipster trash that follow them around.” Filled with resentment at the stage they stole from Pura Fe, I really kinda want, at that moment, to dislike Black Mountain... but I just fuckin’ can’t. From Amber’s narcotic crooning to the trippy guitar/synth interplay to the heavy Sabbath stoner ritual music, I am sucked in, and by the final, massive song – the only lyric of which seems to be “Bright Light,” repeated over and over – I am somewhat awed. I’d damnsure rather Vancouver be known for McBean and co. than the friggin’ Olympics.

What else? When I wasn’t wandering the grounds, grooving on the echoes rising ghostly through the trees, breathing the odd mix of fresh air and incense, I found I really enjoyed the performances. Sarah MacDougall, despite a couple of glitches, sounded more confident than when I saw her with the Black Crow Project at the Cultch awhile back. Cascabella, who woulda thunk, actually merited the Fugazi comparison in the program, and is a band to watch, unlike, say, the Martyr Index, who, despite political lyrical content, reminded me way too much of AC/DC musically (and I personally don’t need to hear Thin Lizzy covers from anyone ever, thanks). Big Bass Theory made me glad I brought a special cookie to nibble, and managed to abundantly fuck me up with at least one massive tempo shift that I still can’t be sure wasn’t all in my head.

I really hope the UTV organizers broke even (which, the MCs informed us, they still hadn’t by around 6PM): this festival is an extraordinary deal, well worth the $20 price of admission.You might even learn something while you’re there, if you’re open to it. I’m glad I went.

- Allan MacInnis

a high level of musical professionalism and a by-all-means sincere devotion to pleasin’ their fans. There was nothing whatsoever (pretension, egomania, falsity, what-have-you) to offend me in their presentation (though I generally don’t use the term “inoffensive” as a compliment); while I realize certain factions are hoping I will savagely assault them and rant about how overrated they are, they’re just too fuckin’ nice to deserve it.

True, Jeff Tweedy’s not a great songwriter. I mean, you’d think, having spent over two hours listening to Wilco play their best-loved tunes, I’d come away with one memorable chorus lodged in my head, one song I could hum. Nada.

The only line that stays with me is the lyric, “She lifted up her shirt at the Battle of the Bands,” and that only because I scribbled it down after Nerve photographer Femke burst into laughter, thinking it sounded like the sort of inane thing one might overhear teenaged girls talking about on their cellphones. I actually think it’s a clever line, a nice, writerly, slice-of-life detail, which Wilco’s lyrics, in fact, appear to be full of. “The ashtray says you were up all night” – hey, that’s pretty good too! The real problem is the absence of strong central hooky/ interesting / assertive choruses, which leaves their songs all sounding kind of samey. Maybe if you work with ’em, they grow on you, but hell, I wasn’t even sure what the titles of most of ’em were.

Whatever: I was there to see Nels. A shaggy, drawn, and unshaven Nels, recovering from a knock-you-down bout of adult chickenpox that spawned jokes from the stage about contagion, and which kept him from accompanying the band on their hike up Grouse the day before (Tweedy: “That’s a helluva walk!”). Nels did three solos in “Handshake Drugs” alone – two angular, jagged, sputtering things that jammed white-hot jiggling spears of sound between the notes a conventional solo would follow, before the band swung right-on-the-money back into the tune, pulsing happily along; then a third, where, facing Tweedy, the two pushed the envelope, Nels laying down rapidly-strummed sheets of noise and texture over Tweedy and co’s theme, building up to a final explosion and cheers all around. Any band that gives Nels Cline that much space to be himself in is okay by me, and it was fun to see him rock out! He danced, clapped, swung his hips, and – tho’ he appeared perhaps a tad delirious from illness - obviously had a great time, even crafting a couple of entirely conventional ROCK GUITAR SOLOS – not noise or jazz or Sonic-Youthy weirdness of any sort, but classic! rock! solos! – which were really fun to hear and right-in-keeping.

Wilco’s subsequent shows in Washington State apparently featured Bill Frisell sitting in for interpretations of unfinished Woody Guthrie tunes: now THAT would have been a show to see.

- Allan MacInnis

LIVE

I’m lying on the grass chatting when the sound of potent words coming from the main stage catches my attention.

A young First Nations woman is praying, in a violently sincere manner, for torrential rains to wash the 2010 Olympics away – invoking deities of wind and water to help.

“Everyone else has a homeland – this is OUR homeland, the indigenous peoples! Canada is going to GO DOWN! Every empire crumbles, every empire has its turn!” She ends with a warlike ululation that gets taken up by a sister somewhere in the back of the park, and then again by another.

Hm. I had never much thought of Canada as an empire before. I scan the Cates Park (Whey-Ah-Wichen) main field. It’s beautiful land, with hundreds of (mostly) privileged, (mostly) white kids lying on it, come to blissfully consume; with her declamation, the tone shifts, as the awareness ripples through the audience that the most of us are the descendents of people who despoiled this lovely continent and decimated the cultures present. It’s uncomfortable to realize, sprawled on Native land, that you’ve been allowing yourself to comfortably forget this for quite some time.

This sliver of consciousness-raising is underscored by the next act: Pura Fe. The Tuscarora Nation woman and winner of the Female Artist of the Year at the 2006 Native American music awards, she plays slide guitar beautifully, and the combination of the blues and a First Nations perspective is pretty potent. We’re enfolded by Pura’s powerful, passionate voice, intense slidework, and soaring, glowing solos by Seattle’s Danny Godinez. They’re the treat of the festival, but take awhile to tune up, and are visibly shocked and disappointed when they’re told 15 minutes in that they have to clear the stage for the next act. Pura protests, saying it’s a really long drive from Seattle, but she has no choice. “Well, it’ll have to be ‘You Still Take,’ then,” she says to Danny. Entirely appropriate, the lyrics reference our ongoing erasure of First Nations people, with the singer guessing she’s a “non-existent race”. For all its beauty, it’s

Wilco

Malkin Bowl,Vancouver, BC Monday, August 20, 2007

Okay, I finally get the Wilco thing. Kinda country, kinda ‘70s, kinda bouncy, kinda sweet – a band that Moms can bring their teenage daughters to and not be worried about, with

The Nerve September 2007 Page 23

The Nerve September 2007 Page 24

ALBUM REVIEWS

CD SPOTLIGHT Meat Puppets Rise to Your Knees Anodyne Let’s be ruthless: the Meat Puppets, to now, have put out exactly TWO truly great albums, Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun (and okay, Meat Puppets I has greatness in it, for all its sludgy singular sputter, but...). These recordings are vital human culture, raw and authentic and heartfelt and worthy o’ the attentions of a 22nd century Harry Smith. All subsequent releases have been, at best, the mighta-shoulda-coulda-been FM radio fodder of yore; Ain’t Love Grand compared to Wild Gift, or, sigh, Three Way Tie to Double Nickels.

Not toxic, but not nearly equal to those first few precious slabs.

Until, mebbe, now. My great joy that Cris Kirkwood has cleaned up and reunited with his brother PROBABLY colours my judgment, BUT it sure seems like these (Bostromless) Pups have actually LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCE – a joyous but impossibly painful thing, as anyone who has “risen to their knees” will affirm - and have decided they really don’t give a fuck about that everpromised commercial breakthrough (the “stupid stars” that kept getting in their eyes, as Curt sings, wearing his heart a bit closer to his sleeve than his crypto-mystical lyrical tendencies usually would allow). Rise to Your Knees is the Pups rawest slab since Huevos, Ace of Clubs Benefist First Cask Ace of Clubs is the newest project from Luke Vibert, the inarguable genius who brought you Plug, Wagon Christ, Kerrier District, Amen Andrews, Spac Hand Luke, and probably a hundred others he’s just too busy to take credit for. Next to his buddy Aphex Twin, he’s about the biggest name and quality producer in the UK. As such, it’s never a question of whether his new album is good, but is the style for me (personally, I don’t much care for the disco-y Kerrier District stuff). The Ace of Clubs debut long player is a bouncy romp through the acid synth fields, touching base on mutant breakbeat and tweaked house with his signature punchy, round bass in check.

Granted, there ain’t much to be found in the way of variety and new, innovating sounds, but it’s Vibert we’re talking about here. That’s all I really need to say. There’s no confusing his sound for anyone else’s. He invented that shit.

Analog or bust, baby. Respect.

- filmore mescalito holmes

but with better sound and songs. The lyrics have that Blakean quality that sometimes taps so deep it makes you wanna weep (“you’re the grass, you’re the trees/ you’re the thing that makes the wind/ you’re the roots of the sky, you’re an island”), and the solos are spacey, psyched-out, desert-scorched journeys, soundin’ like somethin’ you might hear comin’ out of Mescalito’s ghetto blaster as he cruises the Mojave on the back of a strange prehistoric bird with its genitals out.

Kinda melancholy, infused with gratitude, and, really, a beautiful disc. Thanks, guys.

It’d be a happy irony if THIS were their breakthrough, eh?

- Allan MacInnis a bit of an acquired taste and this recording could prove to be taxing to all but the well versed. Fortunately, it takes hardly any time at all to grow into the group’s recent collection of psychedelic meanderings. Strawberry Jam opens like a pouncing puma with the ridiculously catchy “Peacebone”, and then - shaken listener sufficiently subdued - Panda Bear et al proceed to gnaw and grab with songs like “For Reverend Green” and the inspirational “Winter Wonderland”. I don’t throw the word “love” around much these days, but these adorable bastards just reached in and yanked it right the fuck out of me. Thanks.

- Edward Dinsley

dance number that finds Bird gasping like one of the brothers Gibb and the rest of the band trying their best to reproduce Grandmaster Flash’s “Scorpio”. Seriously, this album would be incredibly grating for most of The Nerve’s readership and would likely only worsen with successive listens, potentially leading to sugarborn ailments such as acne and/or “the trots”.

But if you’ve got the stomach for this sort of thing (and potential hipster obligations), Places Like This is probably for you.

- Cameron Gordon Ash Twilight of the Innocents Infectious With the debut of Ash’s first LP, 1977 (in 1996) and its five corresponding hit singles that followed, initial cries of “the next Nirvana” didn’t seem that absurd after all. But with the addition of a second guitarist a year later (Charlotte Hatherley) and a string of spotty albums to follow, the once-promising Northern Irish crew seemed to be fading fast; down, but not completely out. After 2004’s pop-metal heavy Meltown, Hatherley bowed out from the boys’ club and the group was whittled down to three for its rumoured final “official” album.

Twilight… is similar to the band’s debut, in that the songs are crisp, overflowing with emotional angst and sing-a-long choruses, but as a whole the album lacks any stand out singles and reeks of rock clichés and overwrought drivel.

“Polaris” is pretty much unlistenable, with its emo-piano balladry and Fray-esque chorus, while “Shattered Glass” is Manics-by-thenumbers. Like the last few albums by Weezer, Twilight’s tracks all follow the same stale formula with a painfully unoriginal production.

Perhaps this Ash is finally ready to be flicked.

- Adam Simpkins

One of the most enjoyably frenzied rock’n’roll tidbits I’ve gulped down this year! Kicking down the barn doors of Seattle WA, the Bug Nasties fuse together the alltime best elements of the mid-‘60s (mod, soul, garage) and the mid-‘70s (CBGB’s punk, British pub rock) into a Stax-Volt take on the Stooges/Dolls vibe that sounds electrifying and refreshing like no other Pacific Northwest band currently worth namedropping. Ass-quiveringly catchy tunes courtesy of guitarist-vocalist Brother James Burdyshaw (former frontman for oldschool Sub Pop luminaries Cat Butt) and his rhythm-section sidekicks Rich Creamer (bass) and Donnie Hilstad (drums). If you’ve had enough of the emo-philiacs and the Kroegerians, then slip into your favorite set of courduroy hotpants and go-go boots (the girls can get in on the act, too), and shake your shagmuff haircut like there’s no more GST refunds.

- Ferdy Belland Candlemass King of the Grey Islands Nuclear Blast Candlemass is always credited with being some kind of doom metal pioneer; a post Sabbath juggernaut up there with the likes of St.Vitus, Pentagram, and Trouble. Well, I can tell you right now that I never understood that.

Their rotting cheese songs are riddled with childish themes of magic, wizards and witches, clearly taken from a Swedish story book for children. I remember as a kid trying to listen to Nightfall because all of the Swedish bands I loved would shit bricks over Candlemass, but it sounded like a Dio-Sabbath era record gone awry, where Dio took over and demanded they record inside a witch’s cauldron. That was few years and now, and I wanted to think it was me being my typical ignorant self, but listening to King of Grey Islands has only reaffirmed my belief about Candlemass. I don’t get it, I guess.

It’s not even the fact that this is a mind rotting concept album about depression and suicide in modern society blah blah. It’s not even like I prefer old singer Messiah Marcolin’s operatic vocals more than the more traditional metal vocals provided here by Rob Lowe (not the Rob Lowe who filmed himself having sex with an underage girl). It’s just been done, much better, a million times, by those bands I mentioned before.

- David Von Bentley

anyone for some time to come. There’ll be no disappointment here, I can tell you. What’s more, the melodic, uncharacteristically minimal “Irene” hints at something of a new direction under the guiding force of a cheap machine drum and melted tape ‘80s psychedelia, perhaps not fully realized yet, so keep your eyes on the horizon. I hear the Canadian Caribou Alliance is planning on suing has name again, though, so the next album may be released as ”Dicksome” Hand Caribou the Manitoba.

- filmore mescalito holmes The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets The Shadow Out of Tim Divine Industries A concept album! An amazing collection of joyously whacko rock from another new favourite Vancouver band for all of us to collapse before, weeping in abject joy. It would seem as if the deepest boroughs of the Lower Mainland (namely, Abbotsford) continue to show Vancouverites how thoughtful, whimsical, and powerful prog-pop can be, and few Canadian bands can stand up to the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets when it comes to that stuff. The album’s theme and concept deals with an unwitting marine biologist raising Lovecraftian horrors from the blackened depths of the sea... I think. The research ship gets hijacked by cultists off the coast of New Zealand, people die horribly, minds are lost to the madness of the interstellar gulfs,Yetis appear; all sorts of good shit if you ever read Clark Ashton Smith fantasies while you played Greenslade in the background. There’s even a song of Cthulu mythos (“Nyarlathotep,” of course) sung in I’m-not-kidding Middle Egyptian! Jesus. A handy glossary of unfamiliar terms caps off the lyric sheet; helpful, these Thickets. Just when I think there’s nothing left in rock, I get reawakened and hope burns anew.

And I haven’t even started in on these guys’ unparalleled live show. Enjoy this album.

- Ferdy Belland

ALBUM

Animal Collective Strawberry Jam Domino “Was that Animal Collective?” a traumatically hung-over co-worker croaked. “Yeah…” I replied with marked trepidation. I was excited to have received a copy of the Baltimore band’s latest offering and even more stoked to be playing it in our store. Erica, however, was not so impressed. “I had to turn it off. They were yelling at me.” It’s true - Animal Collective is

Architecture in Helsinki Places Like This Sonic Unyon Aussie art dorks Architecture in Helsinki continue to relax and release on Places Like This, a cute effort that is kinda fun in a meaningless sorta fashion.Vocalist Cameron Bird does his best to act like a complete wuss on this album, slinking and scatting through some tepid lyricism with plenty of sissy confidence. All the while, his bandmates mix things up to create a slight, sunny sound that recalls the more freshfaced moments of the Flaming Lips, Simon and Garfunkel or the Bicycles. There is plenty of acoustic guitar and organic percussion to be heard but make no mistake, Places Like This is a total studio product. Every second of the disc contains this oily sheen of production, which really brings the hooks and eclecticism of this music to the foreground. Perhaps the best example is the jaunty “Debbie”, a disco

Brothers of a Feather Live at the Roxy Eagle Rock Brothers of a Feather is Chris and Rich Robinson of Black Crowes making stripped down live music. Two guitars, the occasional amp, the occasional female back up singers and Chris Robinson belting out some of the strongest vocals this side of 1972. Blending bluesy southern rock and folk music in such a simple way works much better than it did with the Crowes, who I could never get into all that much. I never enjoyed Rich Robinson’s riffage, but in this setting, with more emphasis on the acoustic side, things just seems to work better than they did with a stack of Marshalls.

Plus the Crowes always felt like they were a new band trying to make old sounding music without ever really succeeding. Live at the Roxy offers a blend of the new, the old, and covers, minus, thankfully, their “big” songs (“Hard to Handle” comes to mind). A lack familiarity with the tunes adds to the freshness. The only negative on my end is it’s a bit too folk rockish for me, but it’s not enough to drive me away or anything.

- David Von Bentley Bug Nasties Which Way Ya Gonna Go? Flotation

Caribou Andorra Merge Ontario’s Dan Snaith is a national treasure, a fact only reinforced by his latest album and first for the legendary Merge. Somehow forced out of his original Manitoba moniker by some ballless prick named Handsome “Dick”, Snaith’s second proper album as Caribou suffers ever so slightly from a lack of real surprises. The throwback wish-it-was-still-the-‘60s (except Four Tet was there) ramshackle exhibited on Andorra could have easily been released as a bonus disk on 2005’s Milk of Human Kindness.

However, the growth exhibited over his first three releases – from post- acid techno producer to cut-and-paste folktronica guru – should be enough to artistically satisfy

Declan de Barra Song of A Thousand Birds Translation Loss You may have heard rumors about the death of Jeff Buckley, but they are untrue. Jeff is very much alive and living in the esophagus of Irish reformed rocker Declan de Barra. The former Clann Zu and NIL vocalist and part time guitarist has turned off the distortion, turned up the reverb, and is quietly making a bid to become a singer-songwriter’s singersongwriter. Trying to convey the social anguish and bittersweet romance of his native Isle, Declan channels pure hallelujah heartbreak Buckley with comparatively thinner, more folk based backing tracks (check “Blackbird Song”). Songs here tend to be based around very basic drumming, sparse electric patterns, and light strings, but always his overbearing voice is front row center. It’s all nice enough, if not occasionally moving, but a bit of Jeff in the throat ain’t never gonna be as good as Jeff in the flesh. I think Declan was trying to be more immediate and vivid as opposed to frozen ghost, and that’s ultimately what he needs to be more of. There’s room for improvement.

- filmore mescalito holmes

AND GUESTS

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The Nerve September 2007 Page 25

ALBUM REVIEWS

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1. St. Vincent - Marry Me 2. M.I.A. - Kala 3. Caribou - Andorra 4. Tomahawk - Anonymous 5. New Pornographers - Challengers 6. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond 7. Rick White - Memoreaper 8. The National - Boxer 9. The Aggrolites - Reggae Hit L.A. 10. Jason Isbell - Sirens Of The Ditch

Top 5 Local (Vancouver) 1 Bison - S/T 2 Doers - Gaiety 3 Lightning Dust - S/T 4 Ray Condo and his Hardrock Goners - Top Hits Party Favourites 5 Pride Tiger - The Lucky Ones

Death Breath Let It Stink Relapse Death Breath is Nicke Andersson’s retardo excuse for Old School Death Metal FUN! The joyous noise of an aging Scandinavian hoser who’s had his cake, sparked a couple entire sub-genres, tossed ‘em, then felt like a giddy 16 year-old one drunken morning and shit out an album. Opening track is “Giving Head to the Dead”! Lyrics concern a “cocksucking demon”, but are hard to decipher (as they should be!!). Stink is super groovy. Not too fast, not too slow. No drum triggers. Remember metal before drum triggers? Ugly, punky, good. Growler/guitarist Robert Pehrsson lets out a nice big puke at the clincher of “His Protoplasmic Worship”, plus a tremendous howl during the unexpectedly grandiose doom wank finale, “Twisted in Distaste”.

Andersson (drums/guitars) pretty much defines all that is correct with Sweden. He founded the Hellacopters (legends!), he founded Entombed (legends!), produced Dollhouse’s Royal Rendezvous some time back, the best “new, but ‘70s sounding” hard rock mix ever (I dare you to compare). Nicke’s rollicking stone-rock groove infests all of Let it Stink’s seven short fuck you tracks, and I love it. Look out for Bathory, G.B.H., and Discharge covers too. Weeeeeee!!!! Full marks on the Awesome Scale.

- Dave Bertrand

Henrikson / Sue McGillivray are covered here, and this album is enjoyable unto itself, and is more than a mere historical curiosity in the truly bottomless well of early Canadian punk. This is where bands like Cub and Celestial Magenta came from, although I’ll take the Dishrags over Shonen Knife any day.

- Ferdy Belland Paul Duncan Above the Trees Hometapes Third time is the charm for transplanted Brooklyn resident Paul Duncan. Finally striking an exact balance in his understated melee of subtle strings, acoustic guitar, glowing keyboards, and mournful pedal steel, Above the Trees is a rewarding work of ambient country-folk. Pulling in favors from a veritable who’s who of indie rock infamy (including members of Grizzly Bear, Tortoise, Smog, and Rhys Chatham’s Essentialist) pays off dividends exponentially, while Paul somehow manages to keep the mood laid back. Duncan’s Guy Garvey-like vocals squeeze all the bittersweet sympathy they can out of the flowing, low key jams behinds him with a grace and charm topped only by the likes of Daniel Lanois.

Provided you’re in the mood for it, you just may swoon over this lovable Texan.

- filmore mescalito holmes

just fails to make any dents in the originality department. And at a time when the world is oversaturated with music, this is often the only department that really counts. Save the compliments? Consider them saved.

- Brock Thiessen Freshkills Creeps and Lovers Arclight Its veins pulse like Jon Spencer’s, while its guitars wobble like Jehu’s. And the record, while it’s steeped in all the right post-punk influences (at times I hear a lot of late-’80s Dischord; at others I hear early …Trail of Dead), is actually surprisingly listenable. I half-expected Freshkills’ debut to just sulk through being played on my disky and then lodge itself into obscurity on my CD shelf. But I find myself enjoying it a lot, and since, for me, post-punk begins and ends with the bands on Touch & Go, this is saying a lot.

Tracks like “Hot Ex-Wife Action”, and “Is There Enough Cocaine in the World to Make You Care About Me?” - clever titles aside - throb their way along, while vocalist Zach Lipez does his best Iggy (but astoundingly it doesn’t make you want to throw shit at him). The rhythm section of Bill Miller and Jim Paradise (also of Players Club – is anyone in just ONE band anymore?) is really what make this record exemplary, and locks the whole affair down into this taut, wiry ball of ugly urban paranoia.

- Kyle Harcott The Furies s/t Independent You get the feeling the Furies would respond to the criticism that they’re all meat and potatoes by handing you a BIGGER plate of meat and potatoes and telling you to shut the fuck up.Vancouver history aside, the songs on their new disc, with its blustering guitardriven pelvic/phallic thrust, spazzing, spurting solos, and deadpanned lyrics of horny teen angst, coulda been written and recorded over a single beer-and-pot fuelled weekend in a garage in 1967 by much younger men.

The rhymes are obvious (“Remember Viet Nam/ kill Uncle Sam”), and the songs are more, um, “ruthlessly primitive” than they are original, and are more or less musically interfuckinchangeable. But that’s cool: it takes fairly large balls to offer something this stripped down and to do it credibly, and the Furies manage with enthusiasm and sperm to spare. If you don’t dig it, either you don’t really like rock music in the first place, or you take it wayyy too fuckin’ seriously. Which I do, kinda, but in this case, the Furies win.

- Allan MacInnis Hallelujah the Hills Collective Psychosis Begone Misra I must say I don’t get much out of the Misra back catalogue, but the debut release from Boston six-piece Hallelujah the Hills is just about enough to make me reevaluate the whole situation. Adding swells of cello, trumpet, organ, melodica, Moog synth, and great attention to superb underground pop riffs to well crafted modern folk lyrics highbrow enough to send some people heading for the dictionary, but ultimately reveling in the plight of the common man – with a few field recordings and samples thrown in for atmosphere – culminates in what is surely one of the greatest indie rock menagerie albums ever to come out of Massachusetts.

It’s Danielson for the less catholic party. I can’t wait to see where they go from here.

- filmore mescalito holmes

Last Step Last Step Planet Mu Aaron Funk – critically revered as Venetian Snares – is inarguably one of Canada’s most intelligent producers. It’s fairly common knowledge, though, that his amazing abilities rest more in abstract programming than creating captivating sounds. With the full-length debut of Last Step, his newest project for the infamous Planet Mu, he seems to have taken this charge as a challenge. Taking all the Roland 303, 606, 707, and Jupiter analog gear the ‘80s had to offer, Funk channels his tracker magic to create a kind of mutant electro masterpiece.

Out of the 30 odd LPs he’s released since 1999, this is by far his most easily accessible, but the unexpected, unpredictable, sometimes savage changes and child-raping moods that earned him such a dedicated fan base are still there.

He could shit on kittens for an hour and make it sound like Mozart’s dreams, and it’s about time we all faced that incontrovertible truth.

If you’re new to Snares, though, I suggest you start at 2005’s Rossz Csillag Alatt Született.

- filmore mescalito holmes The Manvils Strange Disaster EP Scratch / Sandbag Hot on the heels of their career-peak-to-date Buried Love,Vancouver’s premier hard-rock band throws in a delicious aftertaster of an EP that should do nothing but add more gold stars to Mikey Manville’s ongoing rock’n’roll report card. “Strange Disaster” and “Hang on Man” are catchy love-hammers to the ear-balls that could’ve fit in just fine on Buried Love itself, but perhaps this is also an enticing glimpse of future Manvils albums to come, with big, full production by Sho Murray and Mikey himself.

And the third song? It takes a lot of balls to record “Helter Skelter” without setting yourself up for merciless scorn and derision.

Motley Crue couldn’t pull it off to save their asshole lives, but here’s the Manvils being smart enough to not attempt to out-do the Beatles (NOT going to happen), but their version of that proto-punk commandment gets a healthy A-minus; the song is a key point in the band’s live set, and it comes across marvellously here.

The only bad thing about this EP is that by the time it’s over, the listener is just fired up and wanting more. Which might be part of Mikey Manville’s devilish plan for rock’n’roll domination.

- Ferdy Belland Mikey Manville Broken Arms Sandbag You all know The Manvils, right? A tight lil’ rock machine - probably the highest-calibre radioready rock in Vancouver, actually. Frontman Mikey Manville is charting himself a serious star path, but this solo album, his first, surprisingly isn’t riffy at all! It’s gentle, man-with-guitar stuff. Sappy, pretty, whiny and weary. Broken hearts, cushy love darts. Beatlemania looms large; lead track “My Old Days” is dragged along by gorgeous descending McCartney chord changes, immaculate back-up vox, and snappy strumming.You’d swear there’s a string orchestra too, but that’s just John Akred’s luminous production. Horns, organs, keys, pedal steel courtesy of Bob Egan (Wilco/Blue Rodeo) slippin’ in and glistenin’ out as gentle as a Durex, ultra-thin, Manville wisely stroking his instrument like a woman, not his cock, purring not pumping, making Broken Arms is own private candlelit dinner. “Happiness” is a beaut.

Almost Radiohead, a distorting drone (organ bass set on ‘cello’?) throbbin’ away, the snare sounding like a shovel of dirt, circus organ spookin’ it up. Otherwise, 13 consecutive sad crooners makes for one long haul, but get in the mood and rewards are plenty.

- Dave Bertrand

Costello, as much Smashing Pumpkins as Franz Ferdinand. Fans of one song could absolutely loathe the other. But for me, Mink has all the right ingredients.

- Devon Cody The Mohawk Lodge Wildfires White Whale It’s hard to say anything negative about the Mohawk Lodge, let alone pull yourself away from its debut album. Toasty warm like the Railway Club on a drizzly winter night, with the aural ambience of a crackin’ fireside carolling, this Vancouver quintet knows how to keep things simple and organic without falling into the typical trappings of no-frills soulful rock.

And while it sounds like a bit of a stretch, it’s not preposterous to compare the band to a less starry-eyed Coldplay (especially in the tender first few bars of “Hard Times” and the waltzy “Calm Down”). Exalted Ruler of the Lodge, Ryder Havdale also knows his way around classic-yet-effective aphorisms (“a little love can pull us through”) and how to construct anthemic choruses, but Wildfires is not all blithe and bells. The Lodge knows how to kick up the dust as well and can come across just as road weary and tested as its rowdier East Van neighbours.

- Adam Simpkins Mondo Generator Dead Planet Suburban Noize Previous albums from this band have been host to a small handful of songs that prove why Nick Olivieri was a key ingredient in creating the Queens of the Stone Age’s best material. The majority of the rest of the songs on Mondo Generator’s albums basically have the suck knob cranked right to 10. Overall, this latest album manages to turn down the suck, yes. But this is only accomplished by having it spread a little thinner over the entire album.

Rather than nice tidy nugget turds interspersed throughout the record - with the odd golden nugget waiting for those willing to sift through - Dead Planet has a thin layer of post-pilsner poo sprayed all over it, giving it just enough stink to warrant the ol’ flusharoo.

- Devon Cody Mythical Beast The Cheapest Kind of Chaos Independent You’ve all seen The Dark Crystal, right?

Remember the Skeksis – those vulture-looking things? Okay good. Imagine they’d been reared on a steady diet of Conan comics, Maiden albums, and zitty D & D marathons; now arm them with flying V’s, an endless supply of Jolt Cola and a knack for righteous jackassery.

Do images of some fearsome metal monster form within your tiny little skull? Some sort of, ahem… Mythical Beast? You bet your ass they do. Only there’s nothing imaginary about this Mythical Beast. I know. It has unleashed its metal assault upon me and I am but one casualty in its bloody path. Beware! Beware the Mythical Beast! It’s out for the eardrums of all mankind!

- Devon Cody

ALBUM REVIEWS

Dekapitator The Storm Before the Calm Relapse Dakapitator, are you serious? This is music for the Bay Area thrash metal scene back in ‘85.

Metallica has literally sold out 666 times since then, and Dekapitator is still making music like this, what? I have never heard of a band outside of Vancouver opening up for the “Mighty Thor”, but apparently these guys have. Have you heard “The Toxic Waltz” by Exodus? Well that is every second of The Storm Before the Calm, but in 2007. I have been saying that even when I don’t really like a band on the Relapse roster, I still find it intriguing. Now I look like a fucking twat with a pile of cocks in my ears since Relapse has deemed Dekapitator worthy to be on the same label that helped make Mastodon the giant of progressive thrash that it is. It wasn’t even fun looking at the pictures of these jean jacket connoisseurs; it just enraged me. I used to love metal, but when I see cover art with big demons with a chopped off head in one hand and a battle axe in the other, I’m embarrassed. There is nothing here to warrant these guys having a record deal in this day and age, let alone with a quality company like Relapse. Dekapitator, chop your dicks off with a giant battle axe and stop making worthless noise for retards hoping for the new millenium thrash revival.

- David Von Bentley The Dishrags There’s No Dee Dee JEM Here we have seven songs from Victoria’s first all-female punk outfit; the band which helped shatter the sausage party of the fledgling WestCan punk scene with endearing sloppypop odes to modern relationships (“I Don’t Love You,” “Love is Shit”), lies and deception (“Bullshit”), class warfare (“High Society Snob”), and all sorts of good shit. Both the classic lineup of Scout / Jade Blade / Dale Powers and the brief lineup of Scout / Kim

Earlimart Mentor Tormentor Major Domo Earlimart has always been about progress.

From scrappy power-punk beginnings to the electronically tinged indie rock of later work, Earlimart’s sound of choice has moved upwards and onwards throughout the band’s career.

And it’s this progressive attitude that makes the group’s latest LP, Mentor Tormentor, hit a new high-watermark. On it, the Los Angeles band has adopted a lush cinematic approach - akin to Jon Brion’s soundtrack work or Elliot Smith’s Figure 8 - where songs are sonically detailed with orchestrations and inventive production touches. Also with this shift comes a more melancholic songwriting than heard in Earlimart’s previous work, with band members Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray injecting a lot of love-torn sentiments into their usual pop hooks. This record is by no means a downer, though; it’s just sophisticated, with a more adult take on rock ’n’ roll. Wrap this all up, and you have Earlimart at the top of its game and making the album of its career.

- Brock Thiessen Fjord Rowboat Save the Compliments for Morning Independent Getting through Fjord Rowboat’s Save the Compliments for Morning is tough. It’s tough because little if any distinguishing characteristics separate it from the hundreds of other shoegaze-styled records already out there. Any bases these Torontonians cover were covered long ago by bands such as Ride and Swervedriver, and again by more contemporary groups like I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness - a band that actually added something to the genre, not simply pillaged it.

Technically, perhaps the group’s reproduction of shoegazer antics and Interpol-like tactics isn’t all bad. After all, the playing could be considered “tight,” as well as the production, and the group gets some pretty big sounds out of their instruments at times; Fjord Rowboat

The Nerve September 2007 Page 26

Jenny Hoyston Isle Of Southern Erase Errata’s Jenny Hoyston has released a few solo offerings, but this is the first under just her own name. Previously her side project was called Paradise Island (she also did a duets album with William Elliot Whitmore). Isle of sounds like she’s picking up from where Liz Phair’s Whip Smart left off, but with a few more tunes, (and probably how Le Tigre will end up in about 10 years). This is all indie, mostly lo-fi guitar, with some electronica and a helping of weird experimentals. Hoyston has clearly dabbled with a drum machine but the guitar seems to be her home. A political consciousness is apparent and so is the fact that she has previously worked with Sonic Youth (I’m assuming that such an experience would stain an artist’s work for long after, because you really can tell here) and such a combination makes for a raw, emotional and complex release. Not always tune-packed but definitely a provoker.

- Stephanie Heney

Mink s/t Independent Bands like Mink are the reason for my guilt complex when I don’t show up early to a gig to catch the opening bands. I’m forever worried I might miss something mind-blowing and untainted, something totally unexpected, all for the sake of saving a few bucks on booze.

Mink sound like the kind of band that upstages headliners on a nightly basis. This self-titled debut packs a wallop that you’ll never see coming. The opening tracks “Get It Right”, “Madame Chung”, and “Talk to Me” will get the blood flowing to the silly bone quicker than you can say cream corn wrestlin’. Not since the Foo Fighters has a band come along that blends, so perfectly, raw heart with pop smarts.

Stylistically speaking, this passionately delivered mish-mash of songs could turn some people off. There’s as much Motley Crue here as Elvis

Octoberman Run From Safety White Whale Octoberman makes the kind of music that goes down better with drink - not because it’s bad, but because lonesome, sad-bastard sounds such as this are just better that way. And while it’s true the Vancouver group’s second album has its fair share of up-tempo moments, it’s still hardly a record you would consider cheery.

The project’s mastermind, Marc Morrissette, fills its 42 minutes with dejected, love-bruised songcraft, with his frail, damaged voice serving as the focus. And keeping his vocals company is a lush arrangement of horns, strings, guitars and voices, making Run from Safety much wider in scope than another singer/songwriter would be. Most tracks, such as “Elbow Room” and “Once in a Blue,” show Octoberman in fullon band mode, where Morrissette explores more complex and textured territories than in previous work; and for the most part, this approach is a successful one. With any luck, Run from Safety should extend far past Vancouver’s city limits.

- Brock Thiessen Okkervil River The Stage Names JagJaguwar Rough, ready and devoid of stupid vanities, Okkervil River has always specialized in no frills indie with a slight country tinge. The Austinbased outfit continues this trend with The Stage Names, a new full-length that combines heart and craftsmanship in a totally winning

CD / DVD REVIEWS fashion. Clocking in at a mere nine tracks, the album is a bit light on content but luckily, the band subscribes to the “quality, not quantity” philosophy and you don’t need to cut through any filler when giving listen.Vocalist Will Sheff continues to sound sleepy and his understated vocals mesh perfectly with the band’s straightup guitar/bass/drums approach. The closest parallel might be the last few Bright Eyes’ albums and yet unlike Conor Oberst and crew, the River play music that is universal and not insular. Tracks like “Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe” and “Unless It Kicks” specialize in spirit and there is definitely a bit of Springsteen in the band’s bile. Furthermore, the classic rock parallels become a lot more succinct when good chunks of the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” are lifted during “John Allyn Smith Sails”, albeit with a few additional lines thrown in for variety; something about getting drunk and having your balls removed. Testes references aside, The Stage Names is a solid listen that should age nicely, be it in five months or five years from now.

- Cameron Gordon Players Club Coextinction EP Arclight Coextinction is the seventh and latest release from the Brooklyn unit formerly known as JJ Paradise Players Club. The band features members of Unsane, Madeoutofbabies, and Book of Knots – so you’re thinking, ‘should be a slam-dunk, right?’ But no, instead, this shortslab of riffola is a pretty ham-fisted attempt at thud-noise. While the guitarists apparently (wisely) listened to a lot of Quicksand back o’the day (go figure), whoever wrote the lyrics needs a serious ass-kicking with the Subtlety boot. After all, still relying on expressions like “You’ve lost control”, and “Everything’s broken” in your lyric-hooks is so 1994-hairbagteen-angst-Doc-Martens that it’s automatically my cue for the >>| button. Still, this lack of subtlety doesn’t stop our intrepid vocalist from taking himself way too seriously - nowhere more evidently than on the comedicallyappropriate final track, “Song to Make You Hate Me”; two minutes and 21 seconds of nonsensical one-line rant-chanting over skwonky, noodly annoying-dink-riffs (but not the good kind). As for the rest of it, the riffs are passable, but really nothing to write home about and pretty much unmemorable at best.

Considering the CVs of the guys in Players Club, this EP falls way short of the mark.

- Kyle Harcott Removal If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Start a Band Remove All Despite what most of the other Nerve staffers have to sneer about Removal, this writer will always bravely find countless reasons to champion Vancouver’s criminally unsung prog-metal power trio. Besides, we don’t get paid shit to work here, so no matter what I do, they can’t fire a volunteer, right? This CD is a complete compilation of the rockingly fascinating 7” single collaborations (recorded 1999-2007) between Removal (guitarist Bill, bassist Rob, and drummer Ernie) and a notable collection of musical individuals like Peaches, Chris Hannah, Devin Townsend, Rob “Mr. Wrong” Wright,Voivod’s Snake, Mike Watt, Joe “Shithead” Keithley, Johnny Hanson (Hanson Brothers), Danko Jones, Chi Pig, and Ralph

Spite (Victim’s Family). Much like the end result of Dave Grohl’s Probot project, the musical styles veer all over the map in all the right ways. It’s worth it to track down the 7” singles for the collector’s satisfaction, but start here first just to whet the appetite.

- Ferdy Belland Sex with Strangers A Future Tragedy Two Finger The only information available about this CD was on a MySpace account, and that revealed nothing more than the flyer accompanying the CD. It seems Sex With Strangers is a Vancouver outfit, although it exists musically in a futuristic alternate reality that looks much like Bladerunner. The heroes in this scenario however want to run underground in order to dance. Hmm. Well, if a really camp Gary Newman electronica sound (yes, even camper than Gary Newman) is your dance material of choice then you’ll love this. I’m not sure if six rather long tracks constitute an album or an EP, or if it matters, but A Future Tragedy is a bizarre collection of Euro-techno Kraftwerk pastiche with poppy overtones, surrounding a great dance rock track (“Government Crimes”, which could easily break the band into the mainstream). It’s hard to tell how seriously the folks behind Sex with Strangers take themselves - possibly not very - which will make me like them a whole lot more than if they actually believe their propaganda.

- Stephanie Heney Slayer Christ Illusion (Reissued CD/DVD pack) American/Red Ink Music Here’s a reissue of an album that came out just over a year ago. The Pope will always be pissed with these guys, but so should their fans. I mean, 62,000 of the fuckers bought this record in the first few days it originally came out, and now these greasy haired skin carvers have to buy another version of it. But why? Well, Slayer has such a devout fanbase that it tends to hit a peak with all of its record sales and the nada for years. By reissuing Christ Illusion, the record company is thinking it will push Slayer over this slump... aahh, I mean hump, I’m assuming.

Just maybe, it’ll get those devoted listeners to shell out the cash for one extra song with a DVD that has about 15 minutes of material on it (which you can find of Youtube). And you know what? It will work. I know this, because about five years ago I would’ve bought this without a second thought, and would’ve been stoked because the bonus song “The Final Six” is maybe the best one on the record. But I’ve matured, and have a job that provides me with CD’s like this, so I don’t need to pay for it again. So, if you have to get everything by Slayer, then I hope you enjoy the bonus artwork and “The Final Six” - really. If you haven’t bought Christ Illusion yet, get this one because it’s actually slightly better than the version that came out last year. But if you’re sane and own this album already, then go find the mp3 of the song because you’ll need those 20 dollars for acne medication.

- David Von Bentley Speedloader Steady Hookin’ Arclight Hailing from Austin-by-way-of-Brooklyn, Speedloader’s latest, Steady Hookin’, is the sound of wiping up your own snot and blood

after a barroom brawl. This album absolutely reeks of too much cheap beer, a wrong-eyed sideward glance, “What the fuck are YOU lookin’ at, motherfucker?”, and then the requisite sucker-punch to the face. Crawling out from under whatever rock AmRep vacated around 1997, this record is pretty much all fists and no buying each other a beer after the punch-up’s over. No filler either; the shit is a pretty solid bootfuck hangover, from opener “Trickfist” right through to the untitled ninth track. Especially virulent are “Frontside” and “Virginia Bloody Knuckles”, while the band’s furious take on the Hellacopters’ “Didn’t Stop Us” basically sops the Swedes’ song in wood alcohol, lights it ablaze for kicks, then pisses it out. Splittingly-greasy guitar riffs that conjure the ghosts of Greg Ginn and/or Wino in their hash-soaked prime; choked, distorted vocals that will only serve to piss you off at best, Steady Hookin’ is the ending of Easy Rider set to music, except in this case the violent rednecks are instead meth-snorting longhairs who fuckin’ hate country music. A wholesome good time to be had by all.

- Kyle Harcott Spooky Open Spooky.uk.com In the realm of electronic music, Spooky is practically royalty. The London based duo of Charlie May and Duncan Forbes have been kicking out 4/4 beats since the formative years of Orbital and Underworld, and are now often seen touring closely with Sasha, quite possibly the biggest deejay name in the world. From the studio, they released one of the first progressive house albums in the form of 1993’s Gargantuan and co-produced Sasha’s only artist album, Airdrawndagger. They’ve been around. And yet they chose 2007 to release their masterwork, a sprawling two-disk venture simply titled Open. That is, it’s being touted as their masterwork. Sure, pieces here and there evoke ethereal e-tard atmospheres, reminding the aging raver in me of a time more innocent, but it mostly comes off as a milky re-tread of the ideas that got them to where they are.

Granted, they are good ideas, but they were fresh in ’93 and now it’s kinda like Ace of Bass meets DJ Rap happy, fluffy house showing up 10 years late for the prom. Disk two’s dub remixes change up the pace, but simply aren’t as much fun as the house CD, generally leaving you with a “meh” instead of an “oh yeah.” While it’s far from disgracing their legacy, it sure doesn’t add a whole lot to it. How’s about a new Sasha album, guys?

- filmore mescalito holmes Sunset Rubdown Random Spirit Lover JagJaguwar Debuting on a new label with its third full length, Montréal’s Sunset Rubdown wastes no time in getting its strange party started with the frantically paced “The Mending of the Gown”, a jolly sounding tune that runs circles around the listener, tussles our hair, and primes us for the next 53 minutes of good times. While not an extreme departure from previous work, this album demonstrates the requisite maturity and growing confidence you’d expect. Still present are the loopy references and oddball images that challenge you to find your own interpretation. Personally, I feel like I’m a part of some ridiculous carnival run by insane, musically gifted children when

I listen to Sunset Rubdown. There are still lots of lovely moments, and of course Random Spirit Lover rocks out, coming at you like a spider monkey with nothing to lose, and there are plenty of guitar solos, but if it’s not quite as accessible and scrappy as Shut Up I Am Dreaming, Krug and company still managed to create an infectious, punchy, and charming record that stands tall. Good work.

- Nate Pike Torngat You Could Be Alien8 Montreal’s Torngat dwells somewhere under the post-rock umbrella, which, by no means, is an easy place to be. These days, breaking new ground in the genre seems to be a challenge for even the most creative of bands. And while Torngat may fare better than many on You Could Be, the instrumental trio’s third album could hardly be considered mind blowing. With organs and horns being the main instruments of choice, the group’s orchestral brand of postrock comes from a classical school of thought - one more akin to Rachel’s than Mogwai. But unlike either of these bands, Torngat’s sound rests on the optimistic side of the spectrum, with uplifting melodies and lots of pretty bits filling in the spaces. However, as beautiful as the album sometimes gets, it all sounds a bit too familiar for comfort. Envelopes are rarely, if ever, pushed, making You Could Be little more than pleasant. And pleasant just doesn’t really cut it.

- Brock Thiessen V/A The Great Koonaklaster Speaks: a John Fahey Celebration Table of the Elements The facts of John Fahey’s death (and life) are aptly misrepresented in Rabbi Sky (Byron Coley’s?) liner notes for The Great Koonaklaster Speaks: a John Fahey Celebration. Sky claims the guitarist died in the explosion of the house at the end of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, which he’d snuck into to liberate a record collection.

This riffs off history in amusing ways – Fahey was booted from scoring the film’s desert lovemaking centerpiece and replaced with Jerry Garcia, after he got into a fistfight with Antonioni – but is undiluted chainpulling, as were the notes on many of Fahey’s own releases. Discwise, the musicians at hand (including the No Neck Blues Band) draw on Fahey’s later, more experimental ethos (best represented on TOE’s own excellent Sea Changes and Coelacanths compilation) to provide cool and shimmering original compositions, peaking with the extended wash of soothing noise that ends David Daniell’s “Crossing the Susquehanna River Bridge.” Pelt guitarist Jack Rose’s lengthy raga-tinged opener is a tad spare, and tho’ I enjoy Sir Richard Bishop’s electronica, it would have been nice to hear him pay tribute to Fahey on their common instrument; but overall, this is a pretty cool farewell to an eccentric American master.

- Allan MacInnis Year of No Light Nord Crucial Blast As a fully functioning human being, you learn new things every day. Thanks to the press release accompanying Year of No Light’s debut LP, I now know there’s a genre called “brutal shoegazer.” What’s more, thanks to

this dense, dense art-metal album, I know I quite enjoy it. Released in their native France at the end of 2006, Nord deservedly and righteously thundered across the pond to feed you all the mammoth double tracked riffs, pounding drums, nonsensical screamo vocals, and utter distortion you can handle. I know my views of the French have been coloured

by America, but if people knew the size of balls this raunchy post-hardcore quintet flops out on your forehead, a lot of shitty stand-up comedians down south would be out of work.

RAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!

- filmore mescalito holmes

WORST CD OF THE MONTH Ride the Sky New Protection Nuclear Blast So get this; every one of these CD’s that comes to The Nerve offices has a press release attached to it. These press releases are all strict propaganda, sent by record companies to hype up bands like Nailshitter or Dekapitator, as if they were God’s gift to the female clitoris (not the male clitoris).

That’s all fine and dandy in my opinion (seriously). I understand the need to sell your product and I never judge a band for the ridiculous amount of bullshit and lies that flow from these pages. In fact, I try not to mention them or make any reference to the press release since you (the common people) do not receive these literary malpractices like I do (your moral leader), and nor should you. Well, today I’m going to make an exception, since this manifesto is simply priceless. I quote: “Ride the Sky is the new SUPER group featuring current and former members of: Helloween, Masterplan, Tears of Anger, Beyond Twilight, Xavior, Dionysus, and Stormwind”. That there might be the lowest point in English literature since Mein Kampf was translated in 1933.

The fact that someone wrote those words down thinking it would actually constitute some kind of selling point is beyond all comprehension and logic. In fact, when I read it, I vomited in my mouth and laughed at the same time (sorry mom, can you clean that up?) Even though I try not to judge before listening to a band, it was already obvious I was going to be swallowing sonic garbage for 50 minutes of the worst “SUPER” group I’ve ever heard in my life, or probably ever will.

And I was right (Audioslave, you are now, ironically, #2). This is awful progressive metal at either its worst... or is it its best? Because I can’t even tell anymore, since it’s all coming from the same aborted rotting fetus. Perfect production, technically proficient guitars, a talented drummer, a bass player you can’t hear, epic symphonic keyboards, and vocals fit for a low-grade opera. All of this is done without personality, all done without an ounce of genuine emotion, and all of it lacking passion. This is fit for diehard 49 yearold Iron Maiden fans looking for new kicks ever since they got slapped with a court order forcing them to stay at least 500 feet away from children.

- David Von Bentley

DVD REVIEWS

George Jones and Friends

50th Anniversary Concert New West It’s quite surprising that George “No-Show” Jones hasn’t already checked into the Great Ryman Auditorium in the Sky, but the Possum is one jerky-toughened old silver goat. And it’s nice to see that the vast majority of unmitigated dickheads polluting the modern country world have all gathered together here to pay homage to a living legend who represents a time when country music was worth giving two shits about. A 2-disc set, the Anniversary

Concert only has a few true duets with Jones himself (granny-fucker Randy Travis joins in on “A Few Ole Country Boys;” Shelby Lynne fudges her way through “Take Me;” obsessive cellulite collector Wynonna Judd hams it in for “We’re Gonna Hold On;” but there’s actually a good one when Connie Smith comes on for “Golden Ring”), which is a pisser, since who the fuck in their right mind wants to sit through a seemingly unending parade of scrotum-sniffers like Alan Jackson, Aaron Neville, Vince Gill, Uncle Kracker, Kenny Chesney, Amy Grant, Joe Diffie, Martina McBride, and Harry Fucking Connick, Jr.? Oh, wait: of course I already know the answer to that one - meatheads from Cloverdale who can’t wait for the fucking rodeo to come around again. Silly me.

Not that the whole DVD’s shit; there’s some warmly affectionate performances from folks like Emmylou Harris, Tanya Tucker, Sammy Kershaw, and Kris Kristofferson, but come on, already - George Jones is a fucking legend. This is a man who drove a lawn mower 10 miles to the liquor store when Tammy Wynette hid his car keys. He deserves a better celebration of his life and career than this half-assed CMT/

TNN hand-job.

- Johnny Kroll

Amon Amarth

Wrath of the Norsemen Metal Blade For those with a raging hard-on for raging death metal which deals with the timely themes of Viking assaults on Northumbrian monasteries, look no further than this truly enjoyable DVD collection from Sweden’s good old Amon Amarth. Four full-length concerts from 2004-2005 are presented in their entirety, showcasing the Amarths buzzsawing away on their pointy black guitars while whipping their nipple-length bangs around like hair propellors under thrilling strobe-light effects. Johann Hegg roars away in his delightfully Cookie Monster manner, eyes bulging dramatically behind sweaty strings of aforementioned nipple-length hair, trying to portray the presence of a Norse champion even if he really isn’t that built; the sweat glistens nicely on his man-tits, though. Every once in a while a squad of roadies clad in medieval armor will file onstage and intro a song by banging their

swords against their shields in time to the bass drum, and the frenzied German and Swedish and British teenage metalheads (no girlfriends in sight, if any) thrash about.The band plays well, the crowds love every downstroked 16-note Estring riff, every rapid-fire double-bass drumfill, every fiery flashbomb triggered at the pre-chorus, every ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH bellowed into the microphone, and the best way to watch this is with a bunch of buddies in your mom’s basement, wearing plastic horned helmets you bought at the dollar store in the Burnaby Heights. I’m calling Von Bentley right now to see what he’s up to Saturday night, after his chess match.

- Johnny Kroll

Paul Rodgers

Live in Glasgow Eagle Vision Paul Rodgers fits right in with the scene and the vibe of White Rock. He pretends that he’s still hip and with it, he wears a co-opted alternative-rock goatee, the Grecian formula keeps his hair virile and dark, he probably

drives a fucking Honda Element, and the tank tops he wears shows off the fruits of his Gold’s Gym labours - which probably drives the divorced South Surrey cougars into sopping messes at the Ocean Beach Hotel. Plus he probably hangs out with Hell’s Angels. This is a former “rock legend” who fronted Free and Bad Company, which might mean fuck all in the long run; he walked away smiling from global embarrassment with Jimmy Page’s the Firm, and now he’s baffled the world yet again by fronting the unlikeliest band ever: Queen. Queen? I could say that 100 times in a row and it still wouldn’t fail to astound me speechless. This DVD has Rodgers whipping a sports arena full of middle-aged Scots into a soccer-yob frenzy with shitty renditions of “All Right Now” and “Can’t Get Enough” and about 20 other songs you never heard unless you were cocksucker enough to admit that you liked Bad Company. He strums his guitar, he pounds on his piano, he bores me to tears.

Don’t watch this DVD. So welcome to White Rock, Paul - and stay the fuck over there. Not in my back yard.

- Johnny Kroll

The Nerve September 2007 Page 27

Dear Diary

By Lesley Arfin VICE Books The photo of a girl staring up at me from the glossy hardcover is ambiguous at first glance. Her scrunchedup nose and confused expression resembles the goofy innocence of a schoolgirl. If it weren’t for the white, blood-soaked tissue protruding from her nose, the naivety of the raven-haired girl would not be questioned. A nose bleed: a symbol of a random childhood annoyance or the ultimate sign of a junkie?

You be the judge.

In Leslie Arfin’s new novel, Dear Diary, the author reflects on a collection of her diary entries spanning the ages of 12 to 25. The 28-year-old Long Islander began as a columnist for Vice magazine and has written

Wrestling Babylon: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, and Scandal

By Irvin Huchnick ECW Press

This book, like the “sport” itself, promises more than it actually delivers. Perhaps, given the splashy title, I expected something spectacular and was mildly

The Nerve September 2007 Page 28

for such publications as Nylon and Jane. Her wellreceived Vice column “Dear Diary” has recently been adapted into this full-length novel , complete with cartoons and a time chart outlining the author’s evolution of frenemies and crushes.

Arfin examines the simplicity of a mundane adolescence juxtaposed against a life of spiraling drug abuse and domestic violence. What proves inspiring about Arfin’s storytelling is the universal nature of her angst. Arfin is capable of infusing her nostalgia with sarcasm and humour, despite the painful reality of her drug addiction. Now four years sober, her writing not only functions as a coping mechanism for the author, but as a warning to young readers.

Arfin provides context to her past thoughts by reflecting on her experiences, filling in the gaps on her own personal soap opera, and interviewing childhood friends. Arfin’s novel allows her to confront people from her past who betrayed her, broke her heart, or inspired her. Sometimes these people are guilty of all of the above. At last, Arfin gets some answers from those who left an impression on who she has become today.

Feelings of isolation pervade Arfin’s diary entries throughout her most awkward years.

What teenager never muttered the words “I hate my life” and now looks back with a smile at how simple things were back then? Arfin encourages her readers to think about their mistakes, to laugh at themselves, and eventually to make peace with the pain inflicted on them by others. “It’s the mistakes that made you who you are today,” says Arfin. The author’s journey of self-discovery is cathartic in nature, providing teens with hope for future inner peace.

Through her honest descriptions of drug abuse, Arfin inadvertently glorifies drug use. Hopefully her misadventures will act as a disclaimer to today’s impressionable youth. The author also successfully plugs “safe sex” and condones female sexuality through her extremely personal recollection of her own selfexploration.

Dear Diary celebrates our mistakes while allowing women of all ages to undergo a period of selfreflection. Arfin articulates the feelings of self-hatred that many of us have tried to forget as our memories begin to fade. Dear Diary takes us back to a place that we would sooner rather forget, but leaves us glad we took the trip.

- Anna Cipollone

disappointed that much space was wasted detailing the ongoing battle between wrestling promoters and the Federal Communications Commission.

There is also a lot of talk about steroid use that fails to shock or surprise. Professional wrestlers use steroids? You mean that Hulk Hogan didn’t get to be so massive by eating his Wheaties? Not just that, but the writing is for grownups and would lose most wrestling fans, and if the book isn’t written for the fans then who is it written for?

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that most educated folks who are familiar with words such as “mythyopoeic” or “dudgeon” don’t give an atomic knee drop that Fritz Von Eric bullied his sons into wrestling careers that ultimately killed them.

It’s difficult to tell if Irvin - whose uncle was a respected wrestling promoter (does that sound like an oxymoron?) - detests the sport, or secretly admires it. Obviously he’s interested in wrestling enough to write a book about it, so why does he go to such pains to de-mystify what few secrets are left? At times you’d almost think that Irvin is destroying what he loves because he broke his collarbone in a junior high school wrestling match and was unable to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming the next Fred Blassie. Perhaps Irvin has some other reason for exposing wrestling’s dirty little secrets, or maybe he’s simply trying to give the readers what they want.

Sure, there are tales of drug overdoses and sex scandals but they don’t come as any huge revelation.You mean that testosterone-overloaded young men with too much money and swollen egos to match their bulging biceps do stupid things? Do tell.

Don’t get me wrong, the book is worth reading, and even if you don’t know all the words, there is - depending on how much empathy you have for the pumped-up ‘roid monkeys - enough sordid behaviour and crazy shenanigans to make you either nod sagely or shake your head with disgust at the folly of it all. Still, like the fans at the last poorly attended Hulkamania event, I left the arena wanting just a little bit more.

- Chris Walter

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties

By Ian MacDonald Chicago Review Press

I’ve read my fair share of Beatles books (if not quite as many as the dude in your band with the Paul McCartney hair and the plastic slipcases on all his copies of Mojo). Revolution in the Head is justifiably viewed as one of the best - maybe even the best - in a category that has its share of inspired contributions. It’s certainly my favourite.

This is the third edition, and it includes a new preface that is significant for one hard-to-ignore reason that we’ll get to later. Author Ian MacDonald’s goal with Revolution in the Head is to place the Beatles in their social/historical context, thereby reminding us why they were so important. Indeed, MacDonald begins by arguing that the ‘60s depended on the fab four for much of its gas; something that’s easy to forget in 2007. If time has diluted the impact of the music, MacDonald’s insights and sensitivity, spread across a chronological deconstruction of every damn thing the band recorded, are trenchant enough to remind us just how revolutionary much of it really was.

The wider influence of the Beatles comes through in the incidental detail, like the seismic impact of John Lennon’s prevarication over the song “Revolution”, with its “You can count me in/out” cop-out in the chorus.

- an event that prompts just one of countless outbreaks of inspired cultural criticism by the author. MacDonald’s essay on “I Am the Walrus” alone is already one of the best Beatles books.

Equally, MacDonald’s sense of time and place is exquisite, largely because he was there. He nails the cultural parallax that makes the Beatles one thing in the North of England, and another thing everywhere else.

He’s droll about the earnest stateside perception of the band, writing, “Self-solemnity is the primary social faux-pas in the UK.” America has never understood this. MacDonald then declares Liverpool - with stunning precision, I might add – “a designated area of outstanding natural sarcasm in this regard.”

The internal mystery of the Beatles is simultaneously punctured and heightened. Much of the mythology is debunked; much is installed in its place, particularly regarding the spooky group-mind the four inhabited. Weirdly, MacDonald’s critical tools are so precise that my own feelings regarding the Beatles – that there was something divine about them – would seem to be supported by the science.

MacDonald is unsentimental about the music and the boys who made it. He’s lucid about McCartney’s irritating idiosyncrasies, while restoring important

aspects of the man’s battered reputation. He’s similarly even-handed with Lennon, who spent a good deal of his time in the band in a state of lazy delirium, and whose mythology is, in fairness, as disproportionately hagiographic as his partner’s isn’t. Harrison and Starr are both given the depth they deserve, which is to say, plenty.

The ultimate triumph of the book, however, is that it inspires new devotion in nerds like me, and curiosity in the agnostics (ie. everybody else at The Nerve). It will also have you arguing with yourself about a number of songs; MacDonald is frequently iconoclastic (look out “Helter Skelter”!!!)

The new preface has a strange tone, and notes with sadness the passing of Harrison. “…A shiver must have passed through a generation which thereby felt its mortality suddenly that bit more acutely,” writes the author. Suffering from clinical depression, MacDonald – whose grasp of that generation and its period is so essential – committed suicide shortly after the third edition was completed. It would be tasteless to speculate about the reasons, although it’s probably worth mentioning that we presently live in the anti-’60s.

We’re assaulted by that decade’s noise, but MacDonald tirelessly worked to restore the signal.

- Adrian Mack

All Your Ears Can Hear: Underground Music in Victoria, BC, 1978 – 1984 Edited by Jason Flower www.allyourearscanhear.com

All Your Ears Can Hear is a very impressive DIY book and CD set that is as visually attractive as it is well written.

At least ten people collaborated on the project but the principles appear to be Jason Flower, Ricky Long, Kev Smith, and Rick Andrews. The book is only eighty pages long, and most bands get just one page each, but a lot of information is packed into the colourful, well-designed package. From the unsung and nearly forgotten to present-day icons such as NoMeansNo and the Dayglo Abortions, no stone is left unturned. Obviously the book is a labour of love and much effort has been made to track down every underground band of the era, no matter how obscure. In fact, the editors seem delighted to unleash the quirkiest or wild bands they could find on our unsuspecting ears and the raunchier the better. Like other early scenes at the time, bands were forced to co-exist, unlike now where the groups are divided into little cliques according to genre. On All Your Ears Can Hear, you have a wide variety of bands, from hardcore punk to experimental prog and new wave, all gigging side by side, part of the same wildly dysfunctional family.

Some of the seventy-nine tracks on the two discs were recorded on a ghetto blaster at a sweaty hall show more than 20 years ago, so if sound quality is what you’re after, then I suggest you look elsewhere.

The diversity and range of not just the tracks but the bands themselves gives the reader a window into what it must have been like in those exciting days when dinosaurs still walked the earth, and a large number of the tracks are recorded and produced surprisingly well. From such stalwarts as the Dishrags, Red Tide,

and the Neos, to great bands you’ve never heard of such as the Infamous Scientists, there is something here for everyone. Like the Vancouver Complication but much wider in its scope, All Your Hears Can Hear is a time capsule that you can explore at your own leisure. I’m not sure how much interest the mainstream will show for this, but this is a must-have for anyone with a taste for punk or punk history. Five tattooed thumbs way up.

- Chris Walter

BOOKS

Pamela Des Barres Redeeming the “G” Word

By Devon Cody

I

t only takes moments on the phone with groupie-pride pioneer Pamela Des Barres to understand how she was able to sashay her way into the hearts and underpants of some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most unattainable men, and, by proudly regaling us with her stories in the memoir I’m With the Band, become something of a matriarchal figure to groupie girls and women alike. She is sweet, vivacious, charming and thoughtful, and her easy-going confidence is immediately disarming. So often we try to slot people into our preconceived categories.

In the case of the groupie, it’s usually of the ditz, bitch, slut, or victim variety. Miss Pamela is obviously none of the above.

Perhaps the greatest success of her latest book Let’s Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies is that Des Barres successfully portrays a very diverse array of women in a way that makes it difficult for the people who view them with a pompous mix of envy and pity to just plunk them into such derogatory stereotypes.

“I consider these girls feminists of the highest order, all of them, because they went out and did exactly what they wanted to do,” she professes, showing a very interesting take on Feminism. “I just wanted to uplift the groupie and show people that groupies are just like you and me. I believe everyone has someone they’d like to hang out and meet – a star. Down deep we’re all groupies. It’s not a bad word. All it means is wanting to spend time with someone who inspires you, and in this case it’s musicians.”

Even the most shameless of these women interviewed in the book- Connie Hamzy, a woman who proudly admits to having sex with 30 music men on one particular night: roadies, tech guys, you name it – is portrayed with utmost respect, despite Des Barres’ initial reservations. It leads a person to wonder if there’s any type of behaviour that the Godmother of Groupies does not approve of.

“A real groupie is a girl who loves music above anything else; wants to spend as much time with a musician as she can, be on stage, be near the band, be backstage – that is a true groupie,” she pauses for a moment to

emphasize her point. “Girls who say they’re groupies – or ‘band-aids’ or whatever name they come up with – that don’t respect girls from days gone by, like political groupies or sport groupies. They are there for a different reason, the wrong reason.”

Much like the music itself, the groupie scene of the late ‘70s shifted dramatically. With the whole peace and love movement of the ‘60s mutating into the gross over-indulgence that eventually became the ‘80s, the new generation of groupies seemed more predatory, more in interested in amassing bragging rights, than being close to the people that inspired them. Somewhere in between, the “G” word lost its innocence. Des Barres speculates that since there were more girls coming into the scene to compete over basically the same small amount of men, some girls proved willing to go further to achieve their goal, hence the Connie Hamzys, prerequisite roadie blowjobs, and worse. There is a distinctly different tone to the later groupies’ stories in Let’s Spend the Night Together. Not only are there fewer of them, they are related with much less romance, less passion. One gets a greater sense of competition and rivalry, especially considering the fact that more actresses, models and porn stars are scooping up the rock stars before the average civilian has a chance. Des Barres doesn’t foresee an era like the ‘60s and ‘70s ever returning.

“I hate to be negative and I’m not saying it in a negative way. But y’know, the artistic renaissance in Florence is never coming back either. [The ‘60s and ‘70s] was the rock ‘n’ roll renaissance. There’s no ‘scene’ today. The Stones used to just hang out at the Whiskey.You could just walk in there and catch their attention. That just doesn’t happen anymore. It’s harder for these guys to go out and about. Someone killed John Lennon and it happened, unfortunately, to be a fan. That one act changes everything. That was a catalyst, and then AIDS. That changed the groupie scene in a big way too.

You can’t trust people the way that you used to be able to.”

Is it safe to assume that the good groupies, the ones into it for the right reasons, the rock ‘n’ roll muses so to speak, are a dying breed? I respect, in fact, I revel in the stories of Des Barres and her contemporaries’ past. Unfortunately, the times they are a changin’. It’s tough to argue the same respect is warranted for the majority of the people who are passed off as groupies these days. I see a group of people who have collectively lowered their standards for the sake of bullshit bragging rights, cheap competition and self-validation. I see asshole rockstars who take advantage of this and it makes me sad. These days, I don’t see people with the same inner-strength and self-confidence as Pamela Des Barres and I think that encouraging this sort of lifestyle in people who don’t have those qualities is dangerous.Yet, I realize that everyone is entitled to do what they want to do out of their own free will and mine is not the place to pass judgement.

I realize that these girls and guys are there because they want to be there and they are wanted there by the bands. They’re not victims or villains. I just wonder if the admiration these people have for women like Pamela Des Barres is based, not on who she is, but because of who she did.

Would they have the same aspirations if she hadn’t become something of a star herself? n

I consider groupies feminists of the highest order

The Nerve September 2007 Page 29

By Dan Scum Across 1. Low Centre of Gravity 4. Hooded viper (or Stallone movie) 9. Revolutions Per Minute 12. Indigenous people of New Zealand 14. Italian fashion Mecca 15. Shorter than an epoch 16. L. Ron Hubbard’s “religion” 18. Parolee 19. I give mine in centimeters so it sounds bigger 20. Debt Certificate?

21. Popular sk8 shoes label 22. Boxing period 24. Creamy garlic and herb sauce 25. Green with envy 29. 200 fags?

30. Like Sunday morning 31. Army rank 33. Popular song 34. Koresh’s whacko’s in Waco TX 40. Slice 41. Buddy, ____, Comrade, Friend (until the end) 42. Black eyed alien race 43. Liberties guaranteed every citizen 46. Inane 48. Hurts 49. Aural assembly 51. What you actually hear when doves cry 52. ___ Kwon Do 53. One with a habit 58. Elected ones 59. Founder of the Mormons 61. Command for 62A 62. Big Japanese dog 63. What love does 64. Hammer and 900 ft Jesus Down 1. Tatted fabric 2. Quarter or dime 3. Kinnear or Ginn 4. Charlie Mike Oscar 5. Lubin’ synonym 6. 3 inches of ______ 7. Spaghetti sauce name The Nerve September 2007 Page 30

8. Any 9. Chose new actors 10. On the double 11. Helter Skelter cult leader 12. Religious denom.

13. Lead-in 17. Mind constructs 21. Mental spiral 23. Exploited 24. Complied with ransom 25. George Dubya’s brother 26. Cochlea location 27. Fit __ _ fiddle 28. Tars and feathers 29. Infantile 32. 40 winks 35. _____ like a knife 36. Sony laptop 37. Bell Coast to Coast am 38. Sodium Iodide 39. Sierra Youth Club 43. KKK’s problem 44. Symbolic 45. Spirits 47. From Ireland 49. Stakes out 50. Follows advice 52. Puff off a joint 54. Pornography 55. Grow weary 56. Scat singer James 57. Royal Horticultural Society Last issue’s answers

kingshit.ca

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