Q&A with Sloan’s Jay Ferguson

In 1992, Sloan became poster boys for a booming Halifax music scene. The band’s fuzzed-out guitars and melodic vocal hooks seemed poised to take on the world and made them one of the few bands whose “next Nirvana” tag actually seemed appropriate. But like so many groups from the period, things didn’t go entirely as planned. Now, 14 years later, Sloan is still standing due to the band mates’ ability and willingness to constantly reinvent themselves. Each of the group’s four members—Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott—left Halifax for Toronto throughout the ’90s. They return August 3 for a hometown gig at the Marquee in support of their eighth full-length original album, Never Hear the End of It. Ian Gormely spoke with Jay Ferguson about the new record, watching The Police bicker, and Sloan’s return to Halifax.

A lot of people here will always consider you a Halifax band but do you still consider Halifax home?

 

I guess so. We’ve lived here in Toronto for quite a while, but I don’t feel like I’m from here, or that our band is from here at all. I always think of us as a Halifax band, for sure.

 

Will you be spending any time here or are you just in town for the gig?

 

I don’t know, I haven’t sorted that out yet. We usually do. Some people in the band are going to be down there in July to visit relatives.

 

Is there anything you usually like to do in town other than visiting with friends and relatives?

 

Everything’s changed. I don’t even know what’s there any more. I guess I would go to…oh, where do I like to go? What’s the place that’s called? Is it the Wooden Monkey on Argyle Street? Yeah, that’s my favourite restaurant. I think it’s awesome.

 

When you play in town do you approach the gig differently than you normally would?

 

No, not really. We just sort of do what we’ve been doing. It doesn’t really make that big a difference. I don’t think we really change our set list or anything like that. We haven’t played a proper show for this latest album in Halifax. The only show that we’ve played was with the Stones. I think it’ll probably be a typical set from this tour.

 

Do you normally throw in any old favourite songs like “Stood Up?”

 

No, we barely ever play that, to be honest—although I love it. I wish we were doing that, I think it’s a really great track. We still play old songs throughout the set but the new album is sort of more predominant.

 

Never Hear the End of It was released last fall and was hailed as a return to form by many fans disappointed with the band’s last two records. Sloan is often thought of as a singles band but the new album eschews expectations of three-minute pop tunes, delivering 30 tracks, many under a minute long, that flow into one another creating mini suites throughout. Though it seems somewhat daunting upon first listen, listeners find subsequent plays rewarding as the individual songs reveal themselves.

 

 

What was the mood going into the studio? Was there a plan in place?

 

It was all done over the course of almost six months. Chris and I in particular had always fantasized about doing a really long record, like a White Album-style record mixed with the second side of Abbey Road, which is little songs connected to each other. We talked a lot about that before we went in. I had a couple of short songs, Chris had some that he was willing to not develop into full songs and just use them as little snippets, such as “You Know What It’s About,” or “Someone I Can Be True With.” Songs that he probably would’ve fleshed out further, but just left them as little snippets that we could use in a larger suite. A bunch of songs connected together. Then Andrew came in, and he had a bunch of regular-length songs. Then all of a sudden, within a week or so, he had all these really great little short songs that we went and knocked off the bed tracks to in one night. We did five of them in one night! That was really exiting and it made the idea of doing short songs and a little song cycle into a reality because he had so many of those little short ones as well.

 

I think Patrick was a bit taken aback by it because he wasn’t in on it as much. He was sort of working on his own songs, kind of at a different studio, to be honest. We were working away at our practice space on these short songs wanting to make a really long album. I think it’s a good eclectic album. It’s a bit of a reaction to the previous album, Action Pact, which was a bit more unidirectional. Sort of just a live, off-the-floor kind of rock record. But this one has a bit more variety.

 

This record seems to have a lot more self-confidence and seems more purposeful than the last one.

 

There was a purpose behind Action Pact for sure, but it was almost like someone else’s purpose. We recorded it in Los Angeles with a guy named Tom Rothrock. It was kind of an experiment in working with a producer. We just sort of said, “Hey, here’s 25 songs. What do you think are the best 12 that go together?” He wanted to make a really streamlined rock record so we said, OK let’s just go with it and see what happens, letting someone else call the shots. I think some people really like the record and some people didn’t think it really represented our band that well because it has no Andrew songs. To be honest, Andrew didn’t have a lot going into the sessions, anyhow. It’s definitely a different kind of Sloan record. I think this new one definitely had a purpose as well. Chris and I definitely had a bit of an idea of how we imagined the record. Luckily Patrick came in with some really different sounding songs and Andrew came in with all those crazy short songs. Chris and I maybe had the idea but everybody helped realize it.

 

A lot of critics have said that “this is Sloan’s best album since…” and then insert their favourite Sloan record. Does it ever bother you that people dismiss certain albums of yours?

 

Sometimes, yeah. I can see some people’s reasons and sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I really strongly disagree. There are some people that don’t like Pretty Together and I think it’s a bit of a slicker-sounding record, but I think it has some of our best songs. I love “A Long Goodbye.” It’s one of my favourites by Chris. It does kind of bother you when all people say, “It’s no Twice Removed.” I liked Twice Removed a lot, but I also think we’ve made other really good records.

 

I think a lot of fans, but also critics too, when they get into something specifically at one time, a record can mean more to them than the actual music contained on it. It’s almost nostalgic in a way. I think a lot of people get hung up on that—I definitely do. The other day I was listening to Evol and Sister, two records by Sonic Youth, and I hadn’t listened to them in a long time. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing I would get into now. But I really enjoyed listening to them. I still get off on [Sonic Youth guitarist] Thurston Moore, I think he’s an awesome rock star, and I really enjoy the records. But I think it was also very nostalgic for me because it totally made me think of Grade 12. I think that’s a big thing with records. With our records, some people do judge them fairly but I think some people really do hold One Chord to Another dear to their hearts because of when it came out. I think it’s a strong record, I think it had lots of good songs. But I think there’s probably a lot of people who probably won’t listen to our new record because they think, “It’s their eighth album, I don’t really follow them any more.” But to me, it’s equal to One Chord to Another.

 

Sometimes I think it’s almost easier to get into a band that had a really limited career. I think if The Smiths were still going today, even if they were making albums as good as The Queen is Dead or Meat is Murder, people would still think The Queen is Dead was their best record of all time. The same with the Velvet Underground—if they kept going and made shitty records, then they wouldn’t be as revered as they are. With a limited life span I think you can sit and judge their records more evenly as well, without the taint of what they might have become.

 

How much collaboration goes on in the studio?

 

It really depends. Andrew plays every instrument on some of his songs on this record. We would hear the song when it was done—we didn’t even hear it beforehand. Other songs are more collaborative. On some songs Chris will play drums, on others Andrew will. It depends on the songs. Sometimes there are ones where someone will have a verse but not really a good chorus, and someone else will have a chorus and you’ll strengthen the song by melding the two parts together. For this record it was sort of all over the place. Some songs were set in stone before anybody heard them and some were a bit more flexible.

 

Have the four of you ever sat down and written a song together?

 

We tried that with Tom Rothrock for Action Pact. He came here and rehearsed with us for a week or so. He had a drum machine hooked up and he would play a tempo and get Andrew to play along with that. He was trying to get us to write songs live off the floor. The song we made up was a piece of crap, as far as I was concerned. I just thought it was lame and boring and Rothrock was really excited by it. I was like, “Jesus, every other song we’ve written is 10 times better than this.” The act of it was fun, but it’s kind of hard for us. We don’t often get together and write like that—everybody tends to write on their own.

 

Do you ultimately all get held to account for the lyrics that one person in the band writes? For example, the song “Fading Into Obscurity” has a lot of parallels with the band, but Chris wrote it.

 

I guess we all end up held to account for everybody’s songs. Maybe not everybody in the band is concerned about what other people are writing, but I think it’s nice when they show interest. I would sort of agree with the sentiment in that song. I think if someone ever came to us and said, “What did you mean by this lyric?” I’d say, “Chris wrote it.” Or sometimes we may know—“Oh yeah, I know what he means by that”—and we can explain it. “Fading Into Obscurity” definitely has some parallels. There are parts about our career, for sure. The song of mine on the record called “Right or Wrong,” the first verse is basically about our band. We tend to write about our band or our lives. That’s obviously going to creep in.

 

Do you ever get sick of the “cult band” tag that you get in the ”U.S. and in other parts of the world? Every review you read from the States calls Sloan, “the best band you’ve never heard.

 

I’d be happy if more people had our records, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m happy making good records. We’re lucky, we’ve been doing this for 16 years and we can still make a living at it and it’s fun. Sometimes it can be frustrating but we’re aware of the mechanics of the music business. It’s not like, “How come this album’s not number one?” It’s not like we’re unaware of how things work. A lot of it is about money, and also we’re an older band now. I’m fine with the way everything is. It’s good being a cult band. It’s nice having a following whether it’s underground or not. And I feel like we’re still making good records. I still feel confident.

 

The new record came out on the Yep Roc Label in the U.S. Is that relationship working out well?

 

It’s been good. They have a lot of good artists on the label but also they’ve been really proactive about promoting it in the States. A lot of radio airplay where we wouldn’t have gotten it before, like on NPR, National Public Radio, and WFMU which is a huge independent station out of New Jersey. They’ve been really helpful with stuff like that, getting us into places we hadn’t really tapped into before.

 

How was the opening gig for The Police in Edmonton?

 

It was fine. When you’re opening for a huge band like that, there are people there who know us and some people who are there to just see The Police. Anytime you’re opening for somebody that big, the show itself is whatever. The event is more fun. I thought we went over well—it was fun. But watching The Police, it was a drag because they were playing to a click track, so [drummer] Stewart Copeland seemed really reigned in, especially on the more energetic songs from the first album. But I thought that Sting sounded great. I thought it was a good show. I enjoyed seeing them, it was pretty thrilling. But the most fun was watching their three-hour sound check rehearsal and watching them argue. Sort of debating tempos and chords like, [does his best Sting impression] “Yeah Andy, I don’t know if that’s C9 there. I think you should just play a C major, I think it’ll be fine. I don’t think we can play that tempo. It’s basically fucked if we play it at that tempo.” It was all this stuff. Or like Sting telling Stewart to get a teleprompter so he knows where he is in the songs and Stewart’s like, “I think I know where I am in the song.” I had goose bumps watching them argue.

 

What’s it like playing gigs with your heroes?

 

When I found out we were playing with the Stones, I freaked out. That was pretty exciting. That was more exciting to me than The Police. I loved The Police growing up, but the Rolling Stones were a bit more dear to my heart. That was pretty thrilling. We got to meet the Stones, I had my picture taken and everything like that. It’s an odd feeling, it’s a bit surreal. But once you’re there and doing it, it’s fine. Meeting them was the most outrageous—they’re almost caricatures of themselves because you’ve already built up this image of them and they’re even more exaggerated than what you’ve built up. Like Keith Richards is ambling down the hall with blood-shot eyes, and Mick Jagger is very business-like, and Charlie Watts is sort of the proper English gentleman. All the clichés you built up in your mind about them were true in a way. But they were lovely gentlemen. I really want to play with The Who now, for the collection.

 

Have you ever had the star-struck thing happen to you from the opening bands you play with?

 

It sounds obnoxious to say, “Yeah, of course.” But there are bands that we have met or played with. Sometimes they don’t show it but they’ll say it at the end after they’ve had a couple drinks. We just got back from Australia and there was a kid who played in the band that opened for us [The Hovercrafts] and there was a band called The Wellingtons that he was in and I think they were huge Sloan fans. I think they were pretty psyched to play with us. They knew all about our music. One of the girls in his band got up and sang “I Can Feel It,” from Twice Removed with us and she did the harmonies perfectly without any direction. That was kind of nice. There are bands who are doing well now who grew up with our records and have been very complimentary. People like Kevin [Drew] and Justin [Peroff] in Broken Social Scene and members of Arcade Fire. I was talking to Sebastien [Grainger] who was in Death From Above 1979 and he was like, “I don’t know if you know this but I went to your video shoot for “Lines You Amend” in 1996 and I was in the audience.” I don’t think you can really hear Sloan necessarily in Death From Above, but I think a lot of people in those bands were in high school or maybe junior high when Smeared came out. They’ve all been very flattering and very nice to say good things about our band. It’s nice to hear and it’s nice to know that you’ve left some sort of impression on people.

 

I’ve been reading a lot over the past year or so about the “death of the album” or the concept of the album no longer existing with the Internet. As a fairly serious record collector, what are your impressions?

 

I think our album is basically the antithesis of the death of the album. I like singles culture. I like the idea of almost disposable pop songs. I like the idea of a single being good. But I’m also very slanted towards albums. Now with iTunes you can just go and download your favourite four songs from an album and then the album doesn’t really exist. I’m interested in still making full albums, so I’m happy to do it. It would be interesting to see if you could get by without making albums, just making singles. Putting three singles out a year, but still being able to tour on that. I think you still need an album technically to be able to substantiate a tour or else you’re just going to be doing the same songs over and over. That’s probably motive enough for us to keep making records, but I think it would be fun to try to just be a singles band. But I’m still pretty die hard into albums and I like albums now, especially with someone like Joel Plaskett who just put out Ashtray Rock which is technically sort of a concept record. I’m glad that he stepped up and did something like that. It makes you want to hear the whole album and I think that’s kind of what we tried to do with our album—a lot of songs are kind of linked together. I like having a purpose behind an album, giving a context. I think it would be cool if more bands did that. Not necessarily concept records, but really pushing the boundaries of what an album can be to make it more of an album instead of just a collection of 12 songs. Otherwise just make singles—we don’t need any more boring albums.

 

 

Jay Ferguson’s 5 Best Records You’ve Never Heard

Squirrel Bait Skag Heaven

“It was kind of in the era of Husker Dü or Dinosaur Jr. but some of the members went on to be in a band called Slint.”

 The Organ Grab That Gun

 “I think people do know about them, a lot of people probably heard it, but I think they only sold about 1,000 copies in Canada.”

 The Hudson Brothers Ba-Fa

 “They’re a band from the ’70s. They had a kids’ TV show, but they sounded like Paul McCartney, like Wings. They’re fantastic, a completely underrated sort of pop-rock band from the early ’70s.”

 Wings Back to the Egg

 “I was reading an interview with Paul McCartney the other day and he said that this album kind of bombed when it came out and I was surprised. I think it was one of their least-selling albums. I’m going to stick up for that even though Wings and McCartney are huge. Nobody really bought it but it’s fantastic, it’s really great.”

 Any Trouble Wheels in Motion

 “They’re from the early ’80s. They were on Stiff Records in England, part of that Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello kind of thing.”

 

This interview originally appeared on Halifax Magazine’s website in August of 2007.

Q&A with Metric’s Josh Winstead

Four years ago, Metric burst onto the indie music scene along with a slew of young Canadian bands no longer content to be another Can-Rock clone (big in Canada, unheard of anywhere else). Like the Arcade Fire, Death From Above 1979, and anyone remotely associated with Broken Social Scene, Metric took the indie world by storm. This past year has been one for Metric side projects like lead singer Emily Haines’ beautifully morose record, Knives Don’t Have Your Back, and the hard-rocking, Best Friends In Love, by bassist Josh Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key under their Bang Lime guise. Metric recently reconvened to begin writing their hotly anticipated new record and are going back on tour to road test the new tracks. They return to Halifax September 14 for a show at The Cunard Centre. Ian Gormely spoke with Josh Winstead in late August.

 

 

IG:Are you in Toronto right now?

JW: No, we’re in New York City.

 

IG: What are you doing down there?

JW: Joules and I are playing in Bang Lime and we had a Brooklyn show last night. We have a Manhattan show today.

 

IG: How are the Bang Lime shows going?

JW: They’re going really well. Last night was so much fun, I can’t even believe it. It was mind-blowingly fun.

 

IG: Is Bang Lime headlining its own tour?

JW: Sometimes. Some places nobody knows who the hell we are. But last night was our show. Tonight’s…we’re not headlining tonight.

 

IG: What made the Brooklyn show so great?

JW: The vibe was just really great. The place was beautiful and the people that came out were really fun. We’re living here and there were a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time. There were some people that didn’t even know we were playing that just showed up and didn’t know it was us. All the guys from TV on the Radio were in the other room and they were listening through the walls. And they were like, “Let’s go check out this band, they’re really good.” And then they were like, “Hey, wait a minute. I know those guys!” It was really fun and it was a nice surprise because we’ve known them for a long time. It’s been good to watch each other grow with different projects. It was just one of those nights that I’ve been waiting for, for a long time. You write music and you’re excited to play for your friends and strangers. Brooklyn’s such a musical town that the people who didn’t know us were really great and the people that did know us were great also.

 

IG: How did the Bang Lime project come about?

JW: Joules and I have played together for a huge number of years, so we’ve played in every band together. There was a need to let out some ’60s rock-driven stuff. When there’s down time I’m always writing music. I was like, “Look, I’ve got all these songs. Let’s make this happen.”

 

IG: Will that ’60s rock vibe come out on the new Metric album?

JW: I don’t think so. We were doing this thing for a while and we were just taking influences from places. Maybe it will a little bit, but not the heavier side of it, more the songwriter’s side. The new Metric stuff is really exciting. The four of us have been writing a lot together. We each pull in different directions. We actually verbally do it: “Think about this time in music. Let’s mix it with another one and push it towards the future.” The writing’s been really fun.

 

IG: Is the album going to be self-produced again? [Guitarist James Shaw recorded and produced Metric’s last album Live It Out in his own studio]

JW: I don’t think so. We were demoing tracks and giving people options if they want to hear it. I don’t really know yet. We haven’t reached that stage of finalizing that idea.

 

IG: How far into the recording process are you?

JW: Nothing’s recorded. We demoed it so we’d remember what the hell we were doing. There’s so much stuff going on in everyone’s lives that it’s really good to remember it and you can sit back and listen to it. But nothing’s recorded in the sense of finalized tracks. We try to record demos in the highest quality we can so if we do want to use it we can, but nothing’s finalized in that way either. There are a lot of songs written, let’s put it that way.

 

IG: In the collaboration process, you’re actually writing face to face in the studio?

JW: Yeah.

 

IG: Do you find it intimidating?

JW: Oh no. We’ve played together so many times, and been in so many weird situations. We’ve seen each other so high and so low. If we’re going to try and bust each other now and try to hurt each other’s feelings, we should know that now so this thing can end. But it’s not like that at all. Everyone’s really supportive of each other.

 

IG: Is Metric hitting the road again to try out some of the new songs in a live setting?

JW: Absolutely. That’s exactly why we’re doing it. We want to let the kids tell us what they think. We’ve never had this opportunity before, of being able to do this in between the recording and the touring. Before it was always like, record and we’re playing the last album and we’re not playing the new stuff and nothing’s finished. Now we’ve got this large amount of time that we’ve been given and we’re using it to see what they think.

 

IG: Do you gauge it on audience reaction or do you get the opportunity to get out and talk to fans?

JW: Both, absolutely. Everyone’s always recording things on cell phones—there’s a few things that ended up on YouTube already. So you get to see the reaction from stuff like that. You get to watch them react and see if it becomes introspective or if they start dancing and stuff like that. And then afterwards, we’re always hanging out. We’re not the hardest band to find. You wait around 20 minutes and then all of a sudden, there we are. It’s a little hard for Emily because people tend to mob her a little bit. It’s kind of a bummer because she really likes hanging out with people, but there’s just getting to be too many of them. She has to hide away a little bit until it cools down. But for me, Joules, and Jimmy, it’s really easy to go out. Everyone’s always like, “Where’s Emily?” It’s like, “Oh yeah, she has to hide.” It’s a sad thing actually.

 

IG: Do you enjoy the level of recognition you’re at? People who recognize you are most likely fans of the band whereas Emily is more recognizable outside of Metric.

JW: Right, you can see her in magazines. She’s really beautiful as well so everyone’s always photographing her. I’ve never had any other type of recognition, so I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d like to be stared at all the time if I was a super-famous person, that doesn’t sound like a good deal. But it’s fun.

 

IG: As the new tracks are right now, is there a unifying theme or vibe to the record?

JW: Yeah. Like a futuristic space. We’re trying to add a space element to the past. But that’s only in a few dancey songs we’ve got going on. Again it’s got a wide range of places that it’s going.

 

IG: In the past Metric has said that it really wants to grow as a band. Is this album a step forward for the group?

JW: Absolutely. But everyone’s doing that all the time. That’s another reason Emily did the Soft Skeleton [Haine’s backing band on her solo record Knives Don’t Have Your Back] stuff and Joules and I are doing Bang Lime and Jimmy’s producing people now. We really do not want to be a one-trick pony. It’s not even about being successful, it’s about being happy, about being proud of the things you’ve done in your life because that’s what we’re doing—we’re living.

 

IG: Various members have said that they really want Metric to appeal to the masses. Where does this desire come from?

JW: I think that’s the things about being able to communicate, and understanding people and understanding yourself. If you’re having a conversation with somebody and they don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s a one-sided conversation. It might be because you know things that they don’t know, and you have to bring them up to speed. Or it might be because you’re talking gibberish and people don’t want to listen to what you’re saying. It’s not that not being understood is a bad thing. There’s something interesting in an ability to look at what you’re involved in, who you’re involved with, and try to figure out how to communicate with them. Music is called the beta language, verbal speaking is the alpha language. It’s about communication and being able to relate.

 

IG: Is there a band or musician that you look to as having the ideal career?

JW: No, not really. Not just one person. There are too many amazing musicians out there. It’s just musicians in general and artists in general. It could be anybody at all.

 

IG: Metric just re-released its first album, Grow Up and Blow Away, which was recorded before you and Joules joined the band. Will you be playing any of those songs live?

JW: We’ve been playing a couple tracks live already. After Bang Lime finishes, we’re going to go and have a couple days rehearsal and see what songs we all want to play. We had the idea of letting people vote on what they want to hear. We’ll give them a choice. Hopefully that’s still happening, because I really like the idea of getting people to vote on what they want to hear. We’ll see. We were trying to figure out how to do that on the Web.

 

IG: Is there any aspect of the band that gets overlooked when people talk about Metric?

JW: Not really. With the four members, everyone always gets their due. In fact, everyone always talks about how great Emily is, how great Jimmy is, how great Joules and I are, the rhythm section. That’s kind of lame saying how great we are. I’m just talking about in terms of praise; obviously people have issues with us as well—they don’t like certain things. But on the praise side of things, it seems like everyone gets their dues and musically, everything’s really represented. It seems really balanced.

 

IG: Last fall Metric played their first ever show in Halifax. How did it go?

JW: I’m really excited to come up there. I really enjoyed it last time. We had a really fun time.

 

IG: People here tend to really appreciate it when bands come through town.

JW: It’s something about living far away from a major city. It’s weird because most bands are like, “I don’t want to go there, the people are weird…” No. You go there, people are amazing and they’re really respectful. And they’re appreciative that you’re there and that you took the time to come out there.

This interview originally appeared on Halifax Magazine’s website in September of 2007.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can’t put your arms around a memory

 

First off, this story about johnny thunders is one hundred percent true. In fact, there are pictures from the show and a conversation about this very story in the new last year’s “Nardwaur the Human Serviette vs. Bev Davies 2007 Punk Rock Calendar” (which you should all buy). Second, Carey Ott’s (the guy mentioned at the end of the profile) CD came out on tuesday  last year.  It’s really good and you should also buy it too (plus i got a shout out in the thank yous in the liner notes).

Boom, THAP Boom Boom THAP, Boom Boom Boom THAP … “LET’S GO!”

It’s 1964 and Gary Taylor is hammering out the beat on his drums. His band the Classics are the house band on the appropriately titled Let’s Go, the Vancouver segment of Music Hop, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s American Bandstand rip. As house band the Classics, a crack group of musicians, learned the latest tunes on the Top 40 to back up musicians appearing on the program or cover other artists hits for the kids watching at home.

For Taylor, the Classics offered him his first opportunity to help out other bands on their paths to either stardom, or the spaces between the footnotes of rock and roll history. It’s a role Gary relished and continues to play in his career.

Fast forward 40 years or so and Talyor no longer sits behind a drum kit. Instead he spends his time behind a large dark desk under a single light suspended from the low ceiling in his basement apartment in Coquitlam, British Columbia. A drum kit is one of the few things that can’t be found amongst the organized clutter that makes up Taylor’s office and home. Surrounded by stacks of papers, unopened cds, and remnants and relics from his club days, he sits, almost always, slightly reclined in his desk chair, his laptop computer in his, well, lap. He answers the phone abruptly, using short, curt phrases:
“GT here…hold on a minute (he quickly disposes of whoever is on the other line)…what’s going on my man?”

Music has been a constant for this tall imposing man whose built physique and energy level make people half his age jealous. He was inspired by the sports heroes he read about in Sports Illustrated as a young boy growing up with three brothers in Vancouver. Only a limp when he walks, the result of years spent playing various sports, betrays his 65 years.

He’s spent four plus decades in the music industry, as a musician, club owner and now artist’s manager. He’s clawed to the top and he’s fallen hard to the bottom, but it’s the fast paced back slapping/stabbing nature of the industry and his ability to bob and weave his way through for the glory of both his clients and himself that motivates him.

A more reasonable person, a more (but not completely) sane person, would argue that there are far more stable ways to run a career in the music business than Taylor has. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he ran Gary Taylor’s Rock Room on Hornby Street in downtown Vancouver. The main floor hosted touring international acts and up and coming locals while the downstairs had strippers (Wilt Chamberlain famously put in an appearance in the downstairs portion of the bar). He managed blues legend Long John Baldry after he was institutionalized for mental health problems. In the late 1980s he moved to Madison, Wisconsin and ran The Paramount, the city’s premier live music venue until violence in the club forced its closure. Now he manages small undiscovered artists in the Chicago and Nashville areas

Taylor remembers the time proto-punk legend and professional fuck-up Johnny Thunders was booked to play a pair of shows at the club in 1981. He had been detained at the US-Canada border after failing to display anything more substantial than a New York City library card for ID. Taylor made the 45-minute drive from the Rock Room down Highway 99, through what were then rural suburbs to the border crossing. He used what he calls “the GT charm” to convince customs officials to let the ex-New York Dolls guitarist into the country. Once back in town Taylor dropped Thunders at a hotel. When he returned several hours later he found Thunders lying in the hotel room bath tub with a needle puncturing his arm, blood spilling out onto his clothes and a journalist sitting next to him outside of the tub desperately trying to extract an interview from this shambolic mess of a man.

Why would Taylor put himself through antics like this? Because he thrives off the chase and believes in the artists and musicians he deals with (although, in the case of Thunders, the thought of telling an angry room of punk rockers that their hero would not be putting in an appearance was almost certainly a motivating factor as well). He thrives of the creative energies his clients feed him.

“Every time they write a new song it’s like a new baby,” he says.

His latest father-to-be, Carey Ott, gives birth to his debut solo album next Tuesday, January 23. Like many births it’s the culmination of a ten-year relationship between the two. Taylor began managing Ott’s old band Torben Floor in 1997.

So at 65, with most of his generation looking towards retirement, will this latest milestone be the end for Taylor? Hardly. He’s got a stable of artists in the waiting room, all ready to drop their next baby.

I *heart* 1995

This is a video called “Drugs” by Australian band Ammonia.

It’s about how drugs are boring.

For about two weeks in 1995 it was cool to wear a T-Shirt that looked like this to show that you were too cool to listen to Silverchair.

These kids were too “indie.”

I wasn’t one of them in case you were wondering. I was too busy listening to Bush X and Nickelback (who were in fact an independent band at the time).
 

Generation X…where art thou now?

So I had a great day at the usually crappy local record stores in town last week. I found the Pixies “Surfer Rosa” and “Doolittle” used on vinyl. Tres cool I know. But the weirdest thing was that when I went to take the “Surfer Rosa” record out of its sleeve, a piece of loose paper fell out with an uncredited, hand written review of the record from when it was originally released in 1988. Here it is in its entirety (typos are the writer’s):

Pixies – Surfer Rosa

The Pixies have created this new type of experimental – hillbilly – metal – disco – rock music. This is there second record and it becomes foggier and foggier of the point of each record.

“Come on Pilgrim,” the 1st record from this Boston-based band, was a collection of songs that had both little point and little credibility. The only possible advantages to it is that the album clocked a short 35 min., and the hope the the second album would be better.

It isn’t. Surfer Rosa is one of the most pointless and boring experimental albums of late. The songs are uninteresting, the themes are non-existant, the lyrics are incomprehensible, and the musicianship is nil. At the very least, this band is not together at all. I shudder at the thought of them live.

This album could have been so good for them. They have created this exciting musical style, but ruin it by their own self-indulgence into their inventions.

I’ll think you’ll find that one spin through “Surfer Rosa” will not deserve another. Let’s hope that the third album is either bettter or not created.

So there you go. “Surfer Rosa” is, apparently a piece of shit. Who knew?

Beeper

Some of you may have already seen/heard this track cause its been out for a while and linked to on like a million other blogs. But for those of you who haven’t, this is the new Count & Sinden video featuring gonna blow huge rapper Kid Sister (check out the track she did with fellow Chi-town native Kanye West here).

I think it’s yet another example of the amalgamation of dance, hip-hop and pop that has been ruling the clubs and iPods for the past couple of years – its both smart AND fun. enjoi…

 

Sleepless Walker

 

 

“I think we really have the Beatles to blame for that.”

There’s something you don’t hear every day. The Beatles are many things: influential, lauded, a cash-money machine—but rarely the subject of blame. To A.A. Wallace, lead singer and mastermind behind Halifax’s Sleepless Nights, it really is the Fab Four’s fault.

“It all comes from the way the Beatles were marketed in North America,” Wallace continues. “There was the cute one, the serious one, the stupid one…”

When Wallace started Sleepless Nights in 2003, he wanted to create a band that—in its structure—defied that marketing impulse. No matter who came and went from the group, everyone knew they were replaceable.

“The one problem that always seemed to happen was, when someone would leave they would feel you were slighting them or dissing them by continuing to play the material you had played when they were in the group,” he says. “They felt like they had some ownership over that, regardless of whether they had actually written the songs or not.”

The problem comes from attitudes in indie rock, according to Wallace. When a member of a band leaves, so goes part of a band’s identity. “That comes from marketing characters” within bands and not bands as single, unified entities, he says.

Even once-successful acts like the recently reformed Smashing Pumpkins catch flak when members leave or are excluded from reunions. This stands in stark contrast to metal bands in the ’80s, such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. These bands not only switched members, they replaced lead singers. “Even the Ramones. They’re all characters,” says Wallace. “They even changed their fucking names.”

Sleepless Nights have been home to more than 20 musicians over their five-year lifespan, Wallace estimates. The movement has been the result of differing priorities: For some band members jobs and school took precedence over music. “I don’t want to have a job or a degree. I just want to play in a rock-and-roll band.”

The revolving door of personnel and contributors has garnered Sleepless Nights frequent comparisons to Broken Social Scene, something Wallace understands but is quick to dismiss, pointing out that the groups started out at the same time but were unaware of each other. Because he’s remained the one constant, different rules perhaps apply to him. Wallace calls the shots, making Sleepless Nights less collaborative than Broken Social Scene.

“I personally wrote and arranged everything, except one song, that we’ve ever done,” he says. “Not that I feel like I own the material—people do contribute—but the thing is, the song will still exist whether they’re there or not.” For the group’s new record, Turn Into Vapour, the music took an unexpected pop turn. The album is tight, catchy and loud. “It’s being pegged as being a very upbeat kind of record but the content’s not at all.” Wallace says this came from touring the band’s last release, the Hands Up EP, and from the band wanting people to stop talking and pay attention during their sets. “Now we’re probably the loudest band in Halifax,” he says proudly.

The Sleepless Nights founder never writes with a concept or destination point, rather he puts out albums when he has enough material. Having a backyard studio helps speed the process—the next Sleepless Nights record is already completed. “We just have to wait to put it out because you can’t put out that many records at once,” Wallace says.

Despite his prolific output, he says he’s almost completely stopped listening to modern music and is, instead, looking to the past for new sounds. But what he really wants to do with his own work is to mash entire musical ideas and experiences into one mega-project, one burst of sound.

“I really want to do everything as one [big project] but it just doesn’t work right now. I wanna just make this one record that’s like ‘the album,’” he says, “but that’s a ways off yet. I don’t know how and I don’t know if anyone would like it.”

This story originally appeared in the February 28, 2008 issue of The Coast.

Black Mountain Climbs

“Bearded stoner-rock revivalists” and “heir to the throne of Led Zeppelin” are phrases often applied to Vancouver group Black Mountain. So it’s a bit of a surprise when keyboard player Jeremy Schmidt says he still holds down a day job at a department store. Picture a hairy rock god morphing into a well-groomed retail clerk in slacks and a blue vest, stocking shelves.

“[My boss] is pretty amenable to making it work,” says Schmidt of his juggled commitments. And that’s a good thing: Black Mountain released their second LP In The Future at the end of January and have plenty of touring ahead, which the band thrives on, according to Schmidt.

Black Mountain, the brainchild of singer-guitarist Stephen McBean, rose from the ashes of his former group Jerk With a Bomb. At different times, that band counted current Black Mountain members vocalist Amber Webber, bassist Matt Camirand and drummer Josh Wells among its ranks. In fact, Schmidt is the only member of the band who never played in Jerk With A Bomb. He joined Black Mountain just as the band was heading into the studio to record theirself-titled debut.

Since then, the Black Mountain Army has encompasses all the band members’ various musical side-projects, including McBean’s Pink Mountaintops, Camirand’s Blood Meridian and Wells and Webber’s Lightning Dust. But even the lines between side projects blur, as members end up on one another’s records.

The links between these groups run deep in another way: They’ve all recorded at The Hive Creative Labs in Vancouver. Schmidt says the decision to work there is an easy one. Besides being old friends, the guys that run the studio strive to record interesting and original bands. “They’ve built a repertoire on that premise,” he says. “It’s a big family [and] a family business.”

Schmidt says the intermingling of musicians is typical of Vancouver, a big city with a small, tightly woven community—much like Halifax. “There’s an affinity for one another’s music. We all just grew up listening to classic rock.”

Following the success of their first album, the band had a lot of options in front of them. They chose carefully. Tours with Coldplay and a spot on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack exposed the group to a legion of new listeners.

As a result, expectations were high for the new record. But rather than jet-setting to a fancy studio in Europe, the band returned to their old stomping grounds at the Hive. The only major extravagance they indulged in was hiring the eclectic John Congleton to mix the record at “a buddy rate.” Congleton had previously worked with Modest Mouse and Explosions in the Sky, as well as The Roots and R. Kelly.

“He approached us,” says Schmidt. “We thought it might be kind of cool to work with someone who had mixed stuff we’re not used to.”

The result is a more textured effort, in which back-up singer Webber’s voice becomes a more prominent force in the band and Schmidt’s keyboards gain a presence too, floating in and out of the songs. With In the Future, the band isn’t about to shed the Led Zeppelin comparisons that greeted them early on, but the album may well establish Black Mountain as a priority—a collective with truly equal members—rather than another vehicle for McBean’s musical vision.

According to Schmidt, this comes from the group taking a more collaborative approach to writing songs. For the debut, McBean wrote most of the material before going into the studio—leaving Schmidt, for example, little room to work in his keyboards. This time out, Schmidt says he was more assertive in the studio and tried to create “a keyboard voice for the band.”

With all the attention sent Black Mountain’s way for its debut, it stands to reason the quintet might feel the weight of expectations while creating that mythic “sophomore effort.” Not so, says Schmidt. He sees the band members’ collective experiences in other groups as a source of strength and perspective benefitting the band. “We didn’t have…wide eyes about anything.”

This story originally appeared in the February 21, 2008 issue of The Coast.