Glamorous Indie Rock n' Roll

So You're Thinking of Starting a Promising Local Band? Why?

"Let's make it yeah, we'll cause a scene
It's Indie rock'n'roll for me" (Brandon Flowers)

I have been fortunate to live in a number of beautiful cities in my life, from coast to coast here in Canada. I've even had a couple stints in Europe. Every place I've lived has had it's own energy, it's own history, it's own culture, it's own breath and shape and allure. Every city has also had every shape of try-hard local band that expects me to actually pay money to see them live out their childhood fantasy. Bands that have bought into the 'ethic' of starting and managing a band, being the coolest thing to do and to tell friends about. They beam self-congratulatory excitement when their parents and girlfriends attend the shows. They plug other indie bands while they themselves plug away, year after year, wondering why on earth they aren't being recognized for their ability to get on stage with instruments and try really really hard.

"Tonight, I'm a rock n' roll star" (Noel Gallagher)

Yes, the local try-hard indie band. You've seen them. They wear tight Kiss t-shirts, dirty jeans and chain wallets. Some actually still wear trucker hats. They think they know a lot about music until you quizz them outside of their top five bands, which invariably include Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Modest Mouse, and Neil Diamond (just to show that it's hip to be square). They will spam your email inbox with their myspace address and upcoming shows. They will practice until all hours - the intro, the outro, the timing, the scales. They will not practice writing songs. They will not try to be honest. Honesty, you see, has nothing to do with being cool. You will hear more cliches than at a Hallmark office party. You will hear barre chords. You will hear amusing solos. You might even hear some start/stop punk maneuveurs. You will hear not singing but yelling. Punk rock yelling. You will see some girlfriends.

And then you will go home and scratch your head. Where do these people find the bravado to perform something as expressive as music without really understanding it? Or themselves? Why does their past-time become my Tuesday night? It doesn't anymore. If anyone tells you to support your local indie scene, ask them how many bands support the listeners scene? That's the scene of people who are assumed to be automatons and are forced to suffer fools gladly. Not anymore.

So if you're thinking of starting a band, please don't do it for yourself - do it for what you can share with others that no one else can. Do it as a way to express who you really are. Do it honestly. I would rather see a band struggle with their instruments and arrangements, but honestly make the effort to craft songs and honestly put themselves out there.

"We care a damn lot about music...so what if you mess up a couple of chords? Big deal. The point is you tried, and that's what counts" (Johnny Rotten)

That's how you'll connect with real people. By honestly trying to express who you are, even if the hardest thing in the world to do is to explore what makes you tick.

There will always be people who treat music as a lifestyle, the same way people desperately seek trophy wives or fancy cars. Don't be one of them. Instead, be 'rock n' roll'. Have arrogance and bravado because you spent a month perfecting the lyrics to your second verse, and the following month rehearsing something that means the world to you.

Luke Doucet's Set

Luke Doucet w. Melissa McLelland (Zaphods, November 24, 2006)

If you've never been to Zaphod's, it's quite a weird place. It's like an awkward Mod Club, for anyone out there from Toronto. Tables surround a dancing area, and there's a big pillar standing on the dance floor, whose dance moves you could easily mistake for mine. I managed to find some standing room just behind the pillar so that it resembled one of the guys on stage - a sort of darkened and uncarved statue, unmoving and unemotional in its detachment. As the concert went on, the pillar seemed to fade out of my perspective - it wasn't so much the music that did it as it was the peformance.

Luke Doucet, you see, is a guitar magi. And not in an Yngwie Maalmsteen kind of way. More like in a blues kind of way. He is an accomplished musician and performer. He plays naturally. He sings naturally. He chats to the audience naturally. He makes it look easy. He's one of those guys who could walk into a bar anywhere in the world, grab a guitar, and get a crowd formed around him. He breathes music. He commands attention through his talent. He has no pretensions.

The music itself however could best be described as traditionalist. Blues and broken hearts, a style and theme as ubiquitous as the pillar hiding my view. To see a band as talented as this one revel in those traditions is both impressive and wanting. They do what they love and love what they do, but it is the band's vision that loses focus in the set. Songs bleed into one another, buoyed and balanced only by the creative guitar and subtle arrangement alterations. Songs about booze and heartache, hope, redemption, unrequited love and loss. Should I expect anything more? Perhaps commiseration is their perspective, not rock stardom. Perhaps I'm just supposed to listen.

Melissa McLelland, wife and rhythm guitar, added slow and smoky vocals, and a much needed change in the set dynamics. Though she played sparsely tonight, as an acoustic guitarist she is fantastic. I saw her open alone on stage to a packed club in Toronto, her and a skirt and an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. Impressive.

Luke Doucet and Melissa McLelland may not help you change the world, but they'll give you something to strive for along the way - talent. 7.5/10

Wintersleep, Perchance to Dream...That This Set Will Soon End

Wintersleep @ Barrymores (Ottawa), with Brian Borcherdt, Dog Day

Do you know a band called Wintersleep? Don't worry, you probably won't. They've been lauded by indie music magazines, which is usually the death knell for commercial success on this continent.

Music reviewers, you see, tend to come from two basic camps. The first camp is of the 'promote anything' variety, desperate to make contacts and friends in the hip and cool music scene taking place around them. Can't be in a band? Then be their ink groupie, publishing their press releases as music reviews - FoxNews to their Republican Administration, if you will.

The 'promote anything' variety has ths warped notion that positive reviews get noticed. These reviewers want to be the first to have trumped a band, to have contributed to their success, to have lived a life beyond their laptop and bag of cheesies next to the mouse. They want to show how they can compare Yo La Tengo to anything - a piece of fruit, a forlorn look in an empty cafe, or the new Weezer album.

For some reason, as we cross the Atlantic and land in the Kingdom we call United, things begin to change. It's as if all that salty water between us has been rubbed in our wounds and now we're ready to take it out on any artist so long as it improves our career. Unless their American. Brits love American music, and love America. It's weird - all popular American bands get a pass over there. Brits? Not so much. This is why NME can rip that Oasis album 'What's the Story (Morning Glory)', and then when the album becomes huge (you might know some of the songs - Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger, Champagne Supernova, Some Might Say, Cast No Shadow, She's Electric) NME recants the original review, and REreviews the album. Fantastic. Ahhh, to be a reviewer. To contribute nothing to society.

So it is with a heavy heart that I offer a partial and impartial review of this Wintersleep concert, of which I didn't stay to the very end, but stayed long enough.

There were two artists who preceded Wintersleep, and they were Brian Borcherdt and Dog Day. Apparently all these guys are from Nova Scotia, a province that has produced TONS of indie music, none of it good. Thrush Hermit, Sloan, Joel Plaskett, Superfriendz, Eric' Trip. A veritable who's who of exhaustingly uncreative and mediocre indie music. It's not even mediocre, it's just...it exists.

The Brian Borcherdt set was him and an acoustic guitar, and was really quiet. You couldn't really hear much of the guitar, and he wasn't singing very forcefully. A fairly wimpy set. A set probably more conducive to Second Cup than to Barrymores. I simply don't understand emo, and I don't understand why it maintains a semblance of popularity. How do we as a culture laugh at people like Celine Dion, yet give emo a pass? Have we simply stopped progressing?! Derivative music is the worst music in the world, and derivative music often takes the shape of a band or musician who is desperately trying not to be derivative. Sook-Yin Lee for example, is one of the most predictably off-the-wall derivatively uncreative artists in Canada. I can only assume Rolling Stone loves her.

Yeah, so I'm finding it hard to focus on writing about this concert, and admittedly I found it hard to focus during the concert as well. Brian Borcherdt. Where angels fear to tread.

The second band was called Dog Day, which immediately reminded me of Dog Day Afternoon. I haven't seen that movie, so I was then actually reminded of what dogs do in the afternoon - sleep their asses off. So this is what I did during this set. Well, I listened for a bit but I didn't recall hearing one verse or one chorus. Or any change in dynamics. Or any pulse. Or any creativity. Or any originality. I would rather they just put up a screen and we could watch the third period of the hockey game. Dog Day was actually reversing the enjoyment or 'utility' as economists would say.

Let me explain this 'utility' concept one step further. So you want some ice cream. You have a bowl, and it's awesome!! So you have a second bowl. It's great, but not as good as that first bowl. Then you have a third bowl. It's alright, but you're getting pretty stuffed. A fourth bowl. Boy, that's a lot of ice cream. Not feeling too good. Fifth bowl. Okay, seriously, I've had enough. This is called the law of diminishing returns, where each bowl adds value but to a lesser degree than the previous one. Bands like Dog Day however have confounded economists who must now come up with a way of explaining a new law - the law of immediately reversed magnified returns. So it's like this - you want to hear music, and Dog Day comes up. You immediately hate music and want to leave.

Wintersleep finally took the stage sometime after 10pm I believe, and people had already been angling their way near the stage where they could be unimpressed but with a much better view. Optimists!!

What to say about Wintersleep. Well, they actually weren't bad. It all essentially sounds the same except for one of the songs which was called 'Orca'. Amazingly it's the only song that people in the audience really knew and cheered for. There must be a correlation there somewhere. It's a good song. And during the set, one of the people I was with gave me the 'yay or nay' symbol to see where I stood on the Ebert/Roeper rating system. I actually said 'yay', and not due to peer pressure! The concert was okay. Unenthusiastically okay, though I may have been reeling from the anger effect brought on by the first two bands. It's like the logic of being in a group chased by a bear; you only have to be faster than the slowest guy! Hence go on tour with shitty bands. All of a sudden Wintersleep looks like Paul McCartney!

Any goodwill I had towards Wintersleep however was dashed when they broke out into a Phish-like four-chord jam for 15 minutes. How's that for alliteration!! I remember looking at my buddy Jeff, and asking 'Why?' There are many things about the cosmos that I don't understand - relativity, ESP, girls...but there was no greater mystery to me in that moment than how a band could possibly think jamming like that on stage was interesting to anyone but themselves. And that is exactly why go-nowhere indie bands are heralded by indie mags and ignored in the mainstream. In the indie arena, confidence is the currency. In the mainstream, it is strong songwriting, and serving the servants. Wintersleep. Winter and Sleep. Guess which word I was thinking of during that jam? Listening to this infamous jam session reminded me of Thanksgiving , where you ingest tons of turkey and then immediately want to find somewhere to doze off, in the arms of Morpheus. Which is what I did. Grabbed my jacket, ventured out onto the cold Bank Street sidewalk, with the words running through my mind...

"Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.
Will the Winter never go?" (Katherine Mansfield)


Afterword - Starting a Band

It was inevitable when hearing music and a performance that you know you could better with a bit of hard work. Jeff, Jean and I have started talking about one day talking more about possibly starting a band. We're stuck on the name right now. Jeff is one of those guys that can get a conversation going about anything, and no-one knows where it is going to end up. Usually in tears and blood and anger. So if anyone wants to contribute to our band-name discussion, please feel free to follow our train of thought as we painfully decide on a name, but please remember that you will be emotionally exhausted by the end.

The name discussion started out with the understanding that there's three of us in the band already, and great, we all play guitar and sing. Awesome, we're the fucking Byrds. But The Byrds is already taken, so how about The Birds? Well, that's a Hitchcock movie. So Jeff ingeniously comes up with Da Birds. But it's too much of a cross between Pharrell Williams and that SNL sketch. Jean settled it with Das Birds. A German acoustic troubadour trio, something out of the film A Mighty Wind. That's where we are right now - how so far we have come!


Afterword 2 - A Girl Who Doesn't Know Me Now Hates Me

So one of Jean's friends, Regan, was out last night to see the bands. She's a Wintersleep fan, so after reading this review she now has a third reason to hate me.

It all started when we were near the stage and the girl in front of Regan was literally touching herself to every song. From the top of her head down to her knees, she was doing her best Divinyls impersonation. So I lean over to Jeff and say "Man, that girl in front of Regan is orgasming to every song!" Somehow Regan heard me say her name and 'orgasm'. Great. It was too loud and awkward to resolve the misunderstanding, though I did kind of give her the 'sorry about that' look.

Then later on we're talking about our new musical creation Das Birds, and I turn to Jeff just as a Wintersleep song ends, and jokingly yell too loudly "...and we'll dress up like Nazis when we play!" This time Regan and a whole bunch of people heard me!! So now Regan thinks I talk to Jeff about her and Nazi orgasms. Nein!!!

In the House - Question Period!

Today I headed down to Question Period in the House of Commons, to be dazzled by the oratorical wizardry of Canada's best spin wizards- our 308 MPs. Actually, there was probably closer to 108 this session, mostly the conservative group (and maybe NDPs - they were hidden below me). It was a great chance to hear our honourary members of parliament indignantly ask loaded questions to conservatives, who then would instantly forget the question and just say whatever they wanted to say...angrily of course...and proudly getting a round of applause from their brethren for the response. Good job all around!! An exhausting 45-minutes of getting nothing done. This is government after all!

Here are some more observations from the day -


Was today a holiday in Quebec, the only province in the country that thinks it's unique? The only uniqueness about is it that it gets a lot more federal money than anyone else. Now that's unique!! Yeah, not many Bloc Quebecois were in town today. A lot of green in their section. The members who were there had a lot of face time though - it seemed like each Bloc member had the opportunity to fire off a question in French in order to have it painfully replied in beginners French by MP Michael Chong (C). What was even stranger was that Chong was reading his answers off a sheet! I don't know who I felt worse for - Chong, or passé composé.


Ahh, the NDP. The purveyors of social equality, looking out for the little guy, asking questions of social conscience dreamed up by nine-year-olds across this fair dominion. Why are there poor people? Let's stop having poor people! Why is there pollution? Let's stop having pollution! These razor-sharp solutions to complex problems are pretty much why the NDP is relegated to the sidelines of political will and power in this country. Except provincially, where they notably held power in Ontario and British Columbia, and...well, I'll let you investigate the results of those two experiments. Rest assured that a graphical representation of poor people and pollution did not change during those tumultuous years.

As for the NDP performance today, it was actually quite subdued and effective. Jack Layton came across quite strongly - he's on the 'pollution' tip, asking questions that conservatives are simply not able to answer. MP Rona Ambrose (C) wasn't around to field the questions, but I don't really think she knows what's going on either (she's only Minister of the Environment!?). Conservatives are in trouble in this area, and I think the NDP have done well in focusing on it.

But just as I began nodding my head in what seemed to be the first actual group of questions that were of an honest and progressive nature, out comes Olivia Chow (NDP) with her classic child poverty question that sounded a little something like this -

"Families across this country are telling me that they are two pay cheques away from being poor, where their children go hungry. Just how much child poverty is Mr. Harper willing to accept in Canada?"

The moral high ground. In fairness to Olivia Chow, in her seat-winning acceptance speech she did mention her plan to make child poverty history. Man, that is a promise!! No politician has ever taken such a daring stance! Is Olivia not worried about alienating voters?? There sure are some hard truths out there, and Olivia is not afraid to get up on that podium and tell it like it is!! Children are going hungry!! Let's stop it forever!! My Little Pony!!


So now it's the Liberals turn. I have come to the conclusion that the Liberal Party of Canada is indeed the natural ruling party in this country. Not because they're the best party, not because they're the most progressive party, and not because they're the smartest policy-makers in this country. The reason is that they understand politics. They understand selective moral outrage, and how to feign emotions like indignance, anger, frustration, and surprise. They know how to funnel money illegally into Quebec ridings, they know how to lie, they know how to pretend that they're the best party. They play the part. They are confident. They are politicians. And they don't make horribly rash decisions like changing income trust regulation overnight. Instead, they illegally leak mention of income trust changes to the bank (nod to Scott Brison), and generally prepare the markets and general public for the idea that income trust regulation will change. In doing so, they don't make rash decisions that destroy financial portfolios overnight. The morally right thing to do? Not really. The politically right thing to do? Yeah.

The income trust decision, the glaring definitive proof that the Liberal party may slowly suffocate this country when in power, but will at least do it with your willing permission along the way. Don't like the GST? "It's gone!" said Chretien. Sponsorship scandal? Well, it didn't really affect you personally, did it? Life goes on. Income trusts will not, and thus describes the fate of the current minority conservative government.


Bill Graham (L-Hon.)
The MP from Toronto Centre who gives Canadians yet another reason to loathe the self-described centre of the universe known affectionately as T dot O dot.

This guy is painful. Your classic old-school politician. Former lawyer, of course. Put anything in front of him and he will argue aggressively about it. Actually, he'll argue around it, not about it. Once you've seen him in action for five minutes on the House floor, you will likely never be able to believe a word he says thereafter. It's all fake, all oratory. It's like watching Peter Popoff, but without the magic crystal water you get in the mail when you call to receive prayer. A modern-day Elmer Gantry. He even has the same name as a pastor for chrissake!

I've never seen a guy get so worked up about an issue, and then literally twenty seconds later be yukking it up with his cohort Ralph Goodale. Talk about taking your heart out of it. Before he even sat down he was talking with a fellow MP about todays program or something, and all of a sudden a reading taking place drew applause from the Liberals. Graham looks up with a snort towards the conservatives and cheers loudly with the 'Hear Hear' response emanating from his automatonsils. This guy is why people are disappointed with their MPs, he's the reason why the phrase 'new blood' was coined. As in, "we desperately need new blood in this party and in the House".

There really weren't any other Liberal MPs that did much during Question Period today. All the other 'stars' weren't there, like Ignatieff or Volpe or Martin or Dryden or Bryson or Coderre. Basically it was Graham and Goodale, and I don't recall Ralph addressing the speaker today, though he did argue with conservative statements regarding income trusts. Raph, I feel your pain.


My Independent rant will focus on the only well-known Indy MP out there - Mr. Garth Turner. He just recently became an Independent, after being suspended by the federal Conservative Caucus for leaking party secrets on his blog.






Garth Turner (Ind.)
What to say about this guy. Likes to consider himself a renegade in politics, someone who will stand up and indeed yell that the Emperor has no clothes, even when the Emperor actually IS wearing clothes that day. But if his constituents prefer that he hurl himself up against the proverbial wall created by the unwashed stupid masses that compose our House of Commons, well that is what he'll proudly do. He's a man of the people. He's a man who used to give investment advice without a license. He's a man who told you to buy shares in Nortel as they plummeted from $120 a share to less than a dollar, falling faster than the cloak on this Emperor he keeps pretending to yell at. Speaking of cloaks, I hope the constituents didn't choose that leather suit jacket in a blog poll. The secret, Garth, is to have each voter register an email address in order to reduce the duplicate votes given by "ViLlaGepeOPle". I know, Garth- the democratic system is broken.

This rebel MP realized quickly that feigning moral authority as a 'true representative' of his riding is much harder when you're the actual party that has the power. All of a sudden you're expected to obtain results, not just bitch about how you can't because you're not in power. Not one to reinvent the wheel, Garth just kept bitching at the party in power, which was now his party...and consequently he gets kicked out. Man of the people!! Apparently political faux-martyrdom polls well, I had no idea.

He was pretty quiet today. Read some kind of report for the first ten minutes of Question Period, then listened for about two minutes, then left. Probably to go blog about how angry he is at the system. Oh, and he didn't push in his chair on the way out. You're probably thinking "With those small desks and spaces, there's no room to push in a chair!" Yeah, but he's a backbencher, the last desk, with about six feet of space behind him. Easy to come and go, much like Garth's stance on any discernible issue.

The system needs reforming, says Garth. And the best way to do it? Bitch and moan - the two cornerstones of a successful political blogger!! Because it's important what "Jackie Chans Left Hand" says in the comment section of a Garth blog entry on democratic reform. Let's take this comment to the House!! Minus the spelling mistakes of course. Man of the people indeed.


The Conservatives. Where to start. A party that loves strategy, a party that loves being in power. Even if it's minority power, albeit in a country where one province (Quebec) essentially blocks majority power for any party save one (The Liberals). The Conservatives are like that kid in business school who wants to be class president, so signs up secretly hoping no-one else runs against him, and then miraculously wins by acclamation. Then puts CLASS PRESIDENT in 24-point font on his curriculum vitae, even overshadowing his name. Amazingly, the word 'acclaimed' doesn't make it to the C/V! And then the new leader starts running things the way they 'ought' to be run - his way! After all, he's CLASS PRESIDENT! And you're not. So shutup.

Chuck Strahl (C)
Chuck is the Minister of Agriculture, so I would be remiss if I didn't refer to him at least once as Chucky Cheese. Chucky had some spotlight time in the House today, and comes across as a solid guy. He came early, he stayed late, he listened, he spoke well, he participated, he used the words 'Mister Speaker' about sixty times in a thirty-second answer. Enough with the 'Mister Speaker'!! I think he actually hypnotised the room with this mantra during one of his answers, or maybe everyone fell asleep because they were bored. Who knows. Mister Speaker, perhaps!

John Baird (C) Almost as painful as Bill Graham, but less so only because he's younger and thus possibly more aware of how awkward, weird, and soul-destroying selective moral outrage can be.

John Baird can't answer questions. I'm not talking about taking the question and twisting to fit a presupposed answer. I'm not talking about purposefully misrepresenting the question, or even indignantly defending his party by countering that the question is invalid or can be easily answered. That would acknowledge that a question was asked! Nope. John Baird likes to play the "But look at what YOU guys did!" to any question. Problem with corruption and the conservatives? What about Gagliano and the Liberals? Baird pulls out the "If corruption was an Olympic sport, the Liberal party would get the gold medal!" Even cagey ol' Bill Graham had a wry smile on his face after that whopper. Baird has learned from the best!! Who said opposed political parties can't find common ground?! It's been there all along, in the form of stupid useless rhetoric. Way to make us proud, boys!!

So we're going from the good to the bad to the attractive. The House of Commons is in desperate need of a makeover, but these two are rockets. They get my vote!!

Josée Verner (C)
Representing the Quebec riding of Louise-Saint-Laurent, Josée is new on the MP front. She was a beneficiary of the Quebec defection from the Liberals.

Quebec, you see, had been dating the Liberals for a number of years, until there were some money issues, and some honesty issues. Quebec decided she wanted to see other people, and so has started dating the Conservatives.

It hasn't really got very serious though. It just doesn't feel right- that spark isn't there. It's that spark Quebec used to have with the Liberals, where Quebec would blather on and on about herself and about how she feels and how she often she thinks of separation from Canada; and the Liberals would nod quietly and pretend that they were interested in Quebec's problems before FINALLY bedding her.

Seems the Conservatives would rather talk about boring things with Quebec. Things like 'Canada', and how all provinces are distinct in their own way, which is what makes us such a beautiful and unified country. Blah blah blah. When are we going to talk about Quebec and Quebec's problems and Quebec's issues?!

This is when Cinderella's "Don't Know What You Got ('Til It's Gone)" starts playing, and Quebec quietly thinks about the Liberals, desperately wanting back in that dysfunctional relationship that was all about her. The Liberals will take you back, babe. They need the seats.

Josée Verner. She stood several times today to handle questions from the opposition. Unfortunately she's a one-night stand in the House of Commons.

Helena Guergis (C)
Helena is fairly new as an MP, minted in 2004. She is also addicted to her Blackberry. She spent the whole Question Period thumbing it up while those around her at least feigned some sort of interest in the proceedings by conspicuously drawing doodles in a binder or something. Someone tell Garth about this woman, maybe he'll join the party again so he can borrow it and blog from the House of Commons.

But she is definitely a woman that gets things done. She listened for exactly thirty seconds of this 45-minute question session, and in that half-minute managed to scribble something down for Diane Ablonczy to say in response to a question about income trusts. Oh yeah, I forgot about Diane Ablonczy. Have you ever tried asking your mom about income trusts? And you get that blank look, and so you hand her a sheet about income trusts and then ask her the question, and she haltingy tries to answer by both studying and speaking about the subject she knows nothing about, all at the same time? Yeah, Flaherty needs to get back to the House of Commons in a jiffy. Hearing Diane Ablonczy talk about income trusts is like listening to my grandmother talk about Nine Inch Nails. I don't know why the conservatives left her in the lurch like that. Painful to watch.

It seems like there are many more conservatives here than other parties. I'd like to think it's only because there were simply many more conservative MPs than other party MPs in the House today, and the conservatives also seemed to have more 'star' MPs present. Jason Kenney for example was there and took answers for what seemed like half the question period. McKay was around. Stockwell Day. Clement too. The two big guns though, Harper and Flaherty, were nowhere to be seen.

So that was Question Period on November 20, 2006. Look at the fun you missed!