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By Mikey B - The Lonesome Stranger - 02/19/2005

After a few years of hearing just how good Tegan and Sara are, I finally got a chance to see for myself whether or not they were worth the hype. This happened on Saturday when I busted my ass to get to “La Tulipe”. Actually, I got a lift to the show, but I assure you that this place is still pretty out of the way. Luckily my friend Franck’s apartment is three blocks from the place, so he ended up being my date for the night. He and his ex Amelie are the ones that have been raving about T&S to me for years, so it was nice to go to the show with a big fan. Even though I’ve been to most every concert venue in Montreal, I did rather enjoy the coziness of La Tulipe. Small, intimate and as a walked in, I had just noticed the way the stage lights blended in perfectly with the second hand smoke. Very pretty.

Opening for the duo was a three-piece from Toronto named Lindy. Simply put, they were a breath of fresh air from the usual mediocre opening acts. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a sweet set of pipes, frontman Lindy Vopnfjord serenaded the crowd for a good 45 minutes of sweet organic folk rock. If Thom Yorke had a 7-foot tall Swedish cousin, it’d be this guy. Their voices and vocal ranges are very similar, but yeah, let’s not compare Lindy to Radiohead here. Anyways, for future reference, these guys are definitely worth checking out.

During the break, my friends and I basically just waited on the floor for Tegan and Sara to come out. These are the moments that seem to last forever, although this time it went by pretty quickly. Usually, clubs will play music during intermissions and most of the time it’s pretty lousy (although the Metropolis does play the Clash a lot). Anyways, I was able to listen to some great songs, most notably by the Flaming Lips, the Sounds and the Weakerthans. Finally, after a long wait, surrounded by short girls who wouldn’t find me attractive, those crazy Thompson Twins took to the stage. Hey, the real Thompson Twins weren’t even twins; they were three people who look creepy as all hell. Yes, I know, the Thompson Twins reference is completely unjustified, my bad.

Now, like most bands out promoting a new CD, Tegan & Sara’s setlist was comprised mostly of songs from their new highly acclaimed album So Jealous. Pity for me, and like many of the people there, So Jealous was the first album I’ve listened to in its entirety. I was pretty impressed; there’s a real vulnerability in their songs that’s just so sweet and encompassing. They mesh great love songs, with a sort of general insecurity about themselves, which is revealing and at the same time truly genuine. Seeing them up on stage, one gets the feeling of true authenticity with this band. They just seem like two real sisters that love to joke around and play music. There was a lot of great onstage banter between the sisters and the audience. Sara now lives in Montreal, and she had been telling us about her party that no one came to. The sisters were also busy pimping off other members of the band (Chris Carlson, Rob Chursinoff and Ted Gowans) and when they weren’t doing that, they were making fun of each other.

Before hearing their new record, I’d heard a couple of songs off their earlier records: “If It Was You” and “This Business Called Art”. They didn’t play too much from either album, but I wasn’t all that disappointed. If I were a longtime T&S fan, I think I might’ve been a little frustrated with the lack of oldies. My buddy Franck, who hadn’t listened to the new album, was a little downtrodden. I had asked him to help me out with the setlist since I didn’t know the band all that well. He was able to name 2 or 3 songs, and this guy has seen them at least 10 times over the last few years! Personal faves that were played were “I Bet It Stung”, “Where Does The Good Go” and “So Jealous”. The song “Monday, Monday, Monday” drew a pretty good response from the crowd, and well, it was one of the only earlier recordings I was able to decipher. During the encore, the sisters played an absolutely sparkling version of “Dancing In The Dark”, which capped off a terrific show.

[Mikey co-hosts The Lonesome Stranger on CJLO with Spanky G every Tuesday noon-2pm]

By Mikey B - The Lonesome Stranger - 02/12/2005

I can specifically remember working on a crisp late summer day in Fairview. It’s those kinds of days where the slightest thing would piss you off… People who know me best know that it takes a lot to piss me off. I can take most physical and verbal abuse and still have a pseudo-smile on my face. This particular day at HMV, however, just killed my spirit. Not because of co-workers, and surprisingly not because of jerk-off customers, but because of the store playlist.

When I had first started working at HMV over two years ago, rules over the playlist were pretty fair. We could play anything we had in the store, provided that there were five copies of it in the store, and there was no extreme profanity… not too shabby. A few months went by, and the rules became slightly stricter. No shorts and no hats allowed, but most importantly, we had no control over what we could listen to in the store. HMV bigwigs would start sending us various compilation CDs: Rap, Pop Rock, Francophone, Adult Contemporary crap… it was all on about four CDs that we listened to NON FUCKING STOP day in and day out. Along with those comps, we also had the choice of playing a cd from a pre-selected group of 20. Most of those CDs would be things like:

• Les Cowboys Fringants
• The Killers
• Black Eyed Peas
• Avril Lavigne
• Hilary Duff

On this particular day, I lost it. And I lost it when I heard what I thought was a Travis song. It was Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know“ and not only did it sound like a Travis song, it sounded like an OLD Travis song! I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I figured these guys basically ripped off a melody from Travis’ 1999 album, The Man Who. Which song though !?!? Goddamn it, I’m listening to the album right now and I still can’t figure it out, so why did this piss me off? I don’t know. You tend to lose it at the worst, most unexplainable time. Like when an old lady asks for directions to the nearest pay phone or when your neighbor’s daughter knocks at your door cause she’s selling BATTERIES for smoke detectors so she can raise money for Girl Guides. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THOSE SHITTY FUCKING COOKIES !?!?!

What’s really unusual about this all, is that I actually really do enjoy Keane’s music. Although my first encounter with them was overly hostile, I’ve managed to get past it. My second encounter with them was when the lovely Miss Ginger offered me six tickets to see the show. This was back when I had only heard that one song, and I referred to them as “the band that sounds like Travis”. Super sweet! There’s nothing more awesome than being able to treat your friends to see a live show, at least that’s the way I see things. I love spending a Saturday night in Montreal at the Metropolis hangin’ out with a bunch of music geeks. Holy shit, there was a LOT of them!

Accompanying me to the show was Pointe Claire’s own hardcore drunk rocker Kevin, decked out in his Slayer T-shirt. We then met up with our sexy friend Amelie, who was most definetly turning some heads that night due to her high hotness factor. Kevin and I gauged our arrival time pretty well, since we caught most of the second opening band called The Zutons. These guys were from Liverpool and put on a reasonably good show. It’s tough to classify them under, well, any genre. There were songs that had a great stripped-down indie sound, mixed in with some funkyness and a little bit of ska upstrokes (which worked… sometimes), and heck, there was even a song that would’ve been perfect as the theme to a game show! These guys were pretty good, and I can see that musically, they have yet to find a particular style that fits them comfortably, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… they’re young.

Right after the Zutons set, people flooded the floor to get ready to see Keane. It was pretty weird, having been used to going to see punk bands. You can usually just make it to the front of the stage whenever you want by just pushing through people. Well, I didn’t plan on doing that tonight. WAY TOO MANY BIG TOUGH GUYS that you’d expect to be hangin’ out at The Dôme picking up 17-year-olds. I swear, I must’ve smelled 20 different colognes in the same night! It was, for the most part, a very GQ crowd. I’m guessing the last show most of these people saw was Sting a couple months back…. yeccchh !

So is Keane the new “In” band for the thirtysomethings ? Well, the fourtysomethings have Michael Buble and Josh Groban and all senile old fogies seem to love that Daniel O’Donnell guy (I mean, no wonder… he has a PBS special just about every goddamn week!). Keane is catering well to a wide array of demographics, but I see them having more of an impact with the late 20’s, early 30’s music fans.

All demographics and comparisons aside, Keane’s performance was one that made the night just that much brighter. In the past few years, we’ve been exposed to minimalistic bands like The White Stripes, The Black Keys and Death From Above 1979, two-pieces that come out with a sound that defies all logic. Keane manage to do just the same with three members: one pianist, one overly eccentric drummer and one babyfaced vocalist. You wouldn’t know it if you listened to their album or if you were at the show with a blindfold on.

Usually, the live performance (for me) is what makes or breaks my total impression of a band. I saw The Vines play this year and they were by far the worst live performance I’ve ever seen. Keane was one of the most comforting live shows I’ve seen in the last 12 months. Aside from being cast as Coldplay/Radiohead wannabees, these guys provide the perfect soundtrack to a makeout session or an episode of The O.C. Songs like “We Might As Well Be Strangers” and “Everybody’s Changing” were two of the hard hitters while “Somewhere Only We Know” provided the only real sing-along of the night. When they played their song “Your Eyes Open”, I could’ve sworn that they borrowed their entire piano melody from Radiohead’s 2004 single “There There”. Give ’em both a listen and tell me I’m not crazy.

Now only having one CD under their belt, most of the set list was pretty much predictable, aside from some new song that sent the crowd into hysteria. I can recall some girls yelling out, “we want to have your babies, Tom!”. That’s something that’s always hilarious to hear. Hey, remember what used to be hilarious? Yelling out “Freebird”. Nowadays, I swear, the next jock idiot that yells out “Freebird” during a show is gonna get a face full of knuckles and a crotch full of converse. Anyway, it was during their song “Bedshaped” that the Metropolis became eerily quiet; you could’ve heard people blinking! All eyes focused squarely on Tom Choplin as he swayed back ‘n forth. Now, lucky for me, Amelie happened to know the owner of the Metropolis, and he led us backstage to watch most of Keane’s performance. In fact, we got to sit up in that VIP balcony. It was at that particular moment that I turned to Amelie and said “here come the cell phones…”. And there I was, looking down on a virtual sea of neon blue and green lights being waved in the air by a buncha yuppies. I was tempted to throw pennies from the balcony, but decided not to ruin this moment of glowing tranquility. I know smoking is unpopular, but can’t we have lighters at shows instead? If it means taking up smoking, I’m all up for it.

I enjoyed the last few songs of the night by the bar in the back of the venue. Talked to a few record company reps which happened to be at the show, jazzed it up with my friends Meg & Mel and then got a lift home with my friend Dave. No partying for me, I was working at 8am, jacking up the cost of CDs and whatnot. I hate Sundays. Still, that day I ended up buying the Keane CD and it’s well worth it.

[Mikey co-hosts The Lonesome Stranger on CJLO with Spanky G every Tuesday noon-2pm]

By Jordan-na - Canadian Invasion - 02/12/2005

Sometimes you just want to rock out. Fuck the deep meaning and weird synth sounds. Leave the violin and accordion at home. Lose a few band members and strip down the sound to the three basic elements of rock: guitar, bass and drum. Unfortunately, Montreal is hardly the place to find this type of bare bones rock, as we’re infatuated with our own trendy art rock music scene.

Saturday night delivered the cure to the art rock overload with The Video Sound Tour. There were groupies, there was beer chugging and there was dancing on the bar but most of all there was rock. The tour was to promote the debut album of Winnipeg’s The Waking Eyes who are headlining this cross-Canada tour with The Marble Index and Boy. The three up-and-coming bands rolled into The Main Hall and played a great show to a less than stellar showing. Perhaps they were competing with UK band Keane who were headlining a show at Metropolis that same night. Montrealers just weren’t interested and that was unfortunate, because despite the poor turnout, each band put on a solid performance.

Boy was first up, hailing from various Canadian provinces, resembling a cross between The Hives and The Strokes. They generated interest from the get go with an atmospheric, instrumental intro before delving into their two-album repertoire. The small crowd was up and dancing (albeit some shy swaying in the back) including two attention-starved groupies who would occasionally go into their faux lesbian act, sometimes on-stage. Boy delivered decent, danceable rock but really it was all about the image. This group of five precocious, underfed, stylishly shaggy haired boys were more about being in a rock band then actually playing in a rock band. Oddly enough, this worked to Boy’s advantage, which can only be explained by the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.” Their rock star posing suggested that they could deliver the goods and the audience believed them. They are sonically satisfying, catchy, and easy to sing along to. They managed to warm the stage nicely for The Marble Index, awakening an appetite for more sweaty tunes.

Hamilton, Ontario’s The Marble Index picked it up were Boy left off and kicked it up a few notches. As a trio, they generate a thicker, richer sound than Boy could produce with two more members. Their fierce, pounding rock sometimes growled, and occasionally purred, giving the ear and body a nice palate of sounds to experience. Each member of The Marble Index knew his role and played it well. Lead singer Brad Germain has a great voice with a gravelly tone, perhaps the only advantage of too many cigarettes. It suited Adam Knickle’s pounding drum beats, and Ryan Tweedle’s fierce guitar riffs, the perfect, solid foundation to Germain’s wild man ways. Germain dropped into the audience and started a dance competition that spurred on the aforementioned bar dancing. The Marble Index drew you in and spat you out, and left you begging for more.

Although they played well, The Waking Eyes could not deliver that final, crowd-pleasing punch. Despite being the headlining band with their popular single “Watch Your Money,” they did not rock out hard enough to satisfy the audience, ready for more frantic dancing and hair shaking. This is not to take anything away from them: The Waking Eyes are a good live band but their brand of country-influenced rock wasn’t quite the right fit for the party time vibe of the two opening bands. It was a frenzied rock ‘n roll party and The Waking Eyes were a bit too clean cut and low key. They tried to liven things up with a beer chugging contest but it just wasn’t enough to bring the show to a spectacular close. The closing number was the highlight of their set: they brought their tour mates on stage for a cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together.”

And with that the Video Sound Tour packed away their guitars and drums, drank a few beers, and left Montreal to its accordions and art rock.

[Tune in to Canadian Invasion every Friday 4pm - 6pm]

By Alex - Losing My Edge - 02/09/2005

What can you expect from a band whose 15 years of existence can be graphed into one giant downward slope? After releasing their near-perfect (too perfect?) debut album Palomine on Matador in 1992, Bettie Serveert moved away from their blend of Pretenders and third album Velvet Underground (in fact, they released a live album entirely composed of VU covers) and went on to carve themselves a nice spot in the 90's canon of forgettable but pleasant Intelligent Soft Rock (ISR? Ha!) alongside the Cardigans, Nathalie Merchant and the Sundays. However, after spending the rest of the decade comfortably releasing two-and-a-half-stars albums, they rang in the new millenium releasing a couple of albums brimming of confidence and maturity, having finally escaped the long shadow cast by Palomine. Making their return to Montreal after seven years to promote their new album Attagirl, surely they had to realize that the spotlight had moved past them a long time ago and questions abound on what can Bettie Serveert offer in 2005.

Telefauna kicked off the night with their brand of electro-pop and while owing a lot to the 80's sound of Depeche Mode, to their credit they did manage to be a bit more subversive and create interesting song structures. However, they sometimes got lost trying to write something more interesting and losing sight of the simple pure pleasure of pop music. More often than not, their peak moments were too short-lived before being lost and forgotten in the aimless mess that followed them. The mess itself wasn’t quite interesting enough to hold the attention and all goodwill built by those nice little pop instances dissipated into indifference. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, as the sound seemed to be customized for the headliners and having seen them at the 100 Sided Die a few weeks back, they were able then to harness the crowd’s energy better into a bonafide dance party and taking our focus off the songwriting.

Bettie Serveert took the stage and kicked off with the first cut off the newly released Attagirl, “Dreamaniacs”. Right away, there was no denying the commanding presence of Vancouver-born Carol van Dijk. Her vocals were strong and confident, yet without overpowering her capable band of pros. Indeed, this is a tight balancing act that not many bands can do, much less in a live setting. As hinted in Telefauna’s opening set, the sound was geared towards Bettie Serveert and it was impressive how each instrument was pitch-perfect. The first part of the show consisted of the slower material off the new album (“1-Off Deal”, “Versace”), yet infused enough energy to never create a sense of lull. In fact, while the songwriting is at best B-level, the band has mastered the art of building up to a chorus, all done with excellent musicianship. This was confirmed with Attagirl’s more rocking tracks (“Hands Off”, “Don’t Touch That Dial”) and while the small but vocal crowd wasn’t quite in power pop heaven, it was close (story of their career?).

Following the title tracks of their past two albums (Attagirl and Log 22), Bettie Serveert started to jam more and showcasing the tightness of the band. Again, the songs weren’t always there (the ill-fated blues rock number “Greyhound Song”), but the sound and musicianship made up for it, re-inforced with van Dijk’s excellent performance. A few old songs were thrown in (“John Darmy”, “Kid’s Allright”), as well as a cover of Bright Eyes’ “Lover I Don’t Have To Love” before another jam closed out the set. They came back for the encore to treat us to their finest moment “Tom Boy” (that was 1992, folks) which dissolved into a cover of Liz Phair’s “Divorce Song” and more tight jamming.

One wonders whether they could’ve competed with Rilo Kiley had they not being born too soon for the WB mainstream crossover. Of course, being an excellent live band is not so important for the O.C. set (not when they pre-record stuff for The Bait Shop), so the point is moot. What remains is a band that is able to overcome their recorded weaknesses onstage and the appreciative crowd rewarded them with the biggest ovation you’ve ever heard from 40 people. Perhaps that graph might have a little upward trajectory at the end after all.

[Tune in to Losing My Edge Sundays 12pm-2pm and Tuesdays 8pm-10pm]