... Raveonettes @ The Phoenix (October 22, 2009)

There are many interesting things about Lou Reed. The first of which is that he's Lou FRACKIN' Reed, but the one that I love is that Lou was an in-house songwriter at Pickwick Records, basically one of the big songwriting factories that still exist in different forms today: Write a pop song, get some session men together, record it, it can be on the street in a week. The label felt is had one minor hit with one of his songs called "The Ostrich", a silly little dance number like many others done by girl groups at the time. A band was put together where Lou met some little Welsh guy named John Cale. The rest, as they say, is rock and roll.

But that wasn't the only band born that day. There's a straight line from them to The Raveonettes, a Dutch duo who performed at the Phoenix in support of their new album In and Out of Control. Their sound has its roots in early 60s girl groups and the Everly Brothers and also answers the question "What would happen if Phil Spector produced The Jesus and Mary Chain?". If they didn't exist, David Lynch would have to invent them (He kind of did - think of the Julee Cruise scenes in Twin Peaks).

The set list and stage for The Raveonettes can both be summed up as economical - the two principals of the group on guitar and vocals, a bass player, and a percussionist. I hesitate to call him a drummer not because of talent but because his set up is a snare, a tambourine and a high-hat all played while standing. The sound is augmented by a sequencer that manages to make their sound more authentic as it creates that little bit of distance, of air, that their songs require. The stage itself is sparsely lit, the lights serving more to cast shadows than illuminate, though from time to time their rave-ups are accentuated by strobes.

Other bands can keep their big movable screens and three-stage set-up with bridges (you, too, know who I'm talking about), because The Raveonettes set-up perfectly fits their sound and aesthetic. For the whole of the 75 minute set their songs hovered in that little area just above your head, like a waking dream that at any minute could become a nightmare were it not for the light voice calling you back, reminding you that this is really happening. Both Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have sweet airy voices that play nicely together and on their own. They also don't waste time with a lot of superfluous stage chatter - Thank you Toronto, We have a new album, thank you opening act and that's about it, and it's not because of a language barrier as their English both spoken and sung is note perfect.

Opening were the Black Angels. We only got to see a couple of their songs, but they seemed pretty good. However, their sound was similar to that of The Raveonettes. I personally believe that the opening act should compliment the headliner, but provide something very different. It's why as much as I loved Soul Coughing and Beck, the thought of one opening for the other always seemed a little redundant. (Your mileage will vary on that analogy.)

The Phoenix itself is one of my fave venues in Toronto. It has great sight lines, a good set up for getting out (Wow, check that out Kool Haus: Multiple exits). Getting in is a little weird as you kind of walk around the room to get to it, but on the other hand it also means that there is a nice room for merch. It was a 19+ show and I didn't get carded, which always breaks my heart a little bit.

The Raveonettes are primarily a cult act here, so the crowd was mostly True Believers though there was a pretty high Hipster-to-Mortal ratio. My favourite people in the crowd though were the couple dancing next to us. Remember in Ghostbusters when Rick Moranis senses the party for his clients is dying and so he asks Jean Casem to dance with him? It was exactly like that! But they respected their space and the people around them, so they get the G Valentino Gold Star for Concert-going with Large Cash Prize (note: There is no cash prize).

As we left the theater and drove off into the dark night, I though of that novelty song that Lou wrote and what it lead to. As the streetlights phased in and out like distant stars it occurred to me: The Raveonettes are you driving on a two-lane highway picking up in the static between AM stations the echoes of songs you think you know.

... listing Canadians that ROCK!

I know I've spent a lot of time discussing Canadian things, and I realised that a lot of this might make me sound like that oddest of all creatures: The Self-Loathing Canadian. While there are some things that are considered distinctly Canadian that I actually do hate (hockey, maple glazed donuts, the compulsion to have to list all the reasons to be proud to be Canadian which often ends with the same two items : Humility, and the lack of a need to have to list of reasons to be proud to be Canadian), all that that really means is that there are some things I like, and some things I don't like.

If there is one issues that even the most self-involved and the most self-loathing of Canadians can find common ground, though, it's popular/rock music. We have a complex relationship with it. Part of that is attributed to the CanCon legislation and the belief (ill founded, but I won't get into that) that it encourages mediocrity. Part of it is cultural defensiveness - you can probably count in your head the amount of Canadians that have gone on to pop/rock stardom in the U.S. I believe, for reasons I won't go into here, that there are people that rock and people that don't rock (or try too hard), and Canada is a little more in the latter category than the former. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the way it is. I also think that Canada's constant need to define something as "Canadian" is limiting, and creates horrible situations where a band way way WAY past any semblance of cultural or artistic relevance continues to put out disappointing album after disappointing album and lackluster tour after lackluster tour but they're so Canadian, damnit, that no one can say that the emperor has no clothes (See Hip, Tragically, tragically).

But I digress.

There are "CanCon" bands, for lack of a better word, that are very very VERY good on any scale, that are not self-indulgent or alienating in their need to be "different" for the sake of being "the other". And yes, I'll list a few here.

Sam Roberts
Sam Roberts does have a pretty good sized following in the States, possibly approaching cult sized. What's different is that in Canada his audience appears to be shrinking, at least from my standpoint. This is because each of his three albums has been a little more different than the one before without really changing their style. We Were Born in a Flame was Rock with a capital AWK, but also tossed in folky moments that made him beloved by the No Depression crowd. Chemical City picked up a lot of AWK moments, but really delved deep into them. It reminded me a lot of 1970's albums that would have two or three 3 minutes singles, and then the other 5 songs on the album would be 7 minute jams (Traffic is probably he band I'm thinking of here). Love at the End of the World picked this up, but dropped a lot of the idealistic vibe of its predecessor for something a little darker. All three albums, however, a real growers.



Blue Rodeo
Uncle Tupelo. Everyone talks about Uncle Tupelo starting No Depression, or at least being the ones who popularized it. Nay, I say, nay nay. This is one time where I will grab the labels of your vintage sportscoat and say "This, THIS is an authentically Canadian music, and I'm not talking about The Band" and then will sit you down with Outskirts, one of the best and most haunting debut albums of all time. Blue Rodeo were the first ones since probably The Eagles (man that hurts) to really bridge country and rock in the post Johnny Cash era. Some said when Bob Wiseman left they would lose some of the abandon that really made their sound, but instead a simple demo would become quite possibly one of the most heartbreaking songs of all time.



(And they might be the only artists not named Dylan to put "transfixed" into a pop song.)

The Pursuit of Happiness
Taking their name from one of the most distinctive American documents of all time, there's part of me that thinks that The Pursuit of Happiness is one of the great lost Canadian bands. Their first album was a hit and they opened for Guns 'n' Roses, but their second came out during the great Rock-to-Grunge shift and despite the fact that they had the chops and cleverness needed, their irony was just a little too sharp for even those times. The best way to describe The Pursuit of Happiness is to imagine that Elvis Costello was born in Edmonton and never had access to a thesaurus. Moe Berg is still around and is a type of elder statesman of Canadian Indie, but I still get the feeling that in an alternate universe they are the biggest band in the world.



Rush
Yeah, I said it. If there's anything I love more bombastic rock, it's really loud bombastic rock. Almost enough to make me overlook the libertarian and Ayn Rand poppycock that is in most of the songs. Almost enough. Geddy Lee, however, is a fan of the beloved Jays and has worn a Strong Bad hat, so they get a pass.


Dream Warriors
Before The Fugees, The Roots, Digable Planets and Lucas there were Dream Warriors. They managed to merge jazzy sounds, Carribean rhythms, a laid back style and sly references to Star Wars, role playing games and old game shows into music and never sound forced. It was a type of music that was adventurous and new that everyone could listen to, as I pretty much did with a dubbed copy of their album that one summer. Sadly, they fell to the second album curse of the early 90s, which was partially (1) taking too long to record it (2) watching the music styles change while recording it and (3) how many hip hop acts had a good second album at that time?



Mobile
As I've written in other places, the latest indie rock from the UK comes in a very danceable variety with Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand et al. Canada has this also, and the best at it are Mobile, tangentially part of the Montreal scene. Tomorrow Starts Today is a great album, once you get past the really unfortunate title (memories of Memories of Now on "Parks and Recreation"). It rocks, it's danceable, and its passionate. Sadly, because they don't have an attractive pretty lead girly singer who overshadows the rest of the band and is so self involved and craven that only defense she has for losing an award no one gave them a chance to win is petulant and inaccurate name calling (defining a band this way shall be considered measuring them on the Metric system) Mobile has lost some traction. But I think like The Stills (another great Montreal band) they have the potential to come back hard.

They've disabled embedding, so check out "Dusting Down the Stars" the old fashioned way.

So there's a little sampling, and there are others. There's The Stills, and The Arkells have some promise though I'm not sold yet. Hey Rosetta! have won me over with their first album, mostly for being the first band in ages from Newfoundland whose main goal wasn't to sound like a band from Newfoundland.

I'm sure someone will say "Yes, but what about Arcade Fire". See, it gets complicated - the band has as much of a Texas influence as a Canadian one. Also, it just seems too easy.

Now, bring me the head of Chad Kroeger. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

... telling Kanye the answer is actually "Sledgehammer"

Okay, so we're now about a month away from the Kanye Incident, where the pulled an ODB and jumped up on stage at the MTV VMA to defend the wife of his BFF by saying that "Single Ladies" was the best video of all time, by default making it better than the winning video by Taylor Swift. While most people tusk-tusked and shook their heads at his behavior, it did go on to win Video of the Year meaning that he actually did have the inkling of a point (Which is interesting considering that it wasn't the best video made by a woman, but it was the best video of the whole year...but that's something other than else).

(Sidebar: Have you seen those "literal videos" where they re-dub the video and make it sound like the singer is singing about what it going on in the video. Sure you do. You could not do that for the Taylor Swift video, because it pretty much is that already.)

Now, I've come to terms with the ridiculously short half-life that both pop music and its history have in recent times. I've also come to terms that what passes for a great, award winning video these days is pretty lame (Seriously, "Cryin'" by Aerosmith over "Sabotage", "Heart Shaped Box" and "Everybody Hurts"? Most people don't even remember which video "Cryin'" was. It's the other one with Alicia Silverstone. No not that one, the other one.). What did bewilder me a little bit was that a lot of people came to Swifts' defense that it was a rude thing, but no one actually took Kanye up on this statement that "Single Ladies" was the best video of all time. ALL! TIME!

Before I go too deep into this, I do want to say that "Single Ladies" is a good video. It's not unpleasing to the eye, and actually does tie into the song's subject matter nicely. It's not exactly an original work though. It's a copy of a Bob Fosse routine, and that rarely gets mentioned. And I won't get into the fact that Beyonce's dancing is like David Fincher's film making - technically perfect, but in the end leaves me unmoved. I admire it more for the execution than the passion.

So...let's answer the question that hung in the air that no one really wanted to answer: The greatest video of all time (ALL! TIME!) is....



It seems almost trite, doesn't it? A lot of people will say "Of course it is. That shows no insight."

THAT'S just how good this video is!

Let's forget the claymation and the special effects and file them under "Fincher" since I've dismissed above the idea that technique trumps passion. "Sledgehammer" itself is one of Gabriel's most overtly sexual songs. It's one long double entendre set to a funky combination of American and African rhythms that pretty much should just be called "sexy". It would have been easy to push the envelope and make a titillating little video and call it a day, which is what he would do later with "Steam" and "Kiss that Frog".

What the video does is extrapolate the ideas of the song onto a larger canvas. Yes, men (in this case, The Man) are (is) driven by sex and the pursuit of it, and as a species we're also fixated on sexual images and sounds (for lack of a better term). The video puts the come-on of "Sledgehammer" into a universal context, starting with sperm and egg, creating a person who then dreams of trains, planes, and once he masters those he dreams of entertainments (notice - train + airplane leads to roller coaster - a flying train. The bumper cars and blue and pink, traditionally associated with male and female). It is after all of this that The Man turns his mind to those elemental pursuits (water..fire...ice) which are all subdued, smashed by the sledgehammer.

Now it gets interesting. Because now that The Man has taken over his environment and has sexualized it, he now starts thinking of why - and the video and song starts using the images of evolution as the components sexual proposition. The video and song now have more natural images in them (fruit, honey bees, and one of the starting points of evolution in the fish that swim around Gabriel). Even as he considers that he is just a part of nature, the sledgehammer comes back in, building around him as well as destroying those walls - creative destruction, if you will.

If I have to tell you what the sledgehammer is then you might not be my target market.

The instrumental contains what has to be the most striking image of the whole video - the chicken and egg vaudeville routine. To me, this is where it all comes together. Evolution, reproduction, and desire all come together in a song and dance that mirrors the chicken-and-egg debate. The video is summing up its main argument - is love and desire driven by evolution, or is evolution driven by love and desire.

The song ends with an increasing crescendo, a climax, as Gabriel finishes his proposition. The video winds down with the sledgehammers getting combined into people, but the second real pivot point (after the chicken/egg) is in the coda. Gabriel, exhausted having gone from zygote to embryo to person all in three minutes, collapses exhausted into an easy chair. He then merges into the starscape - The Man's final step into the cosmos, echoing the line "this is the new stuff/I come dancing in".

Most people look at "Sledgehammer" as a funky, borderline dirty song. A lot of people also say it was emblematic of an age where the video could make a song a hit. That's true. But it's also like saying that "A Hard Day's Night" was only popular by virtue of its inclusion in A Hard Day's Night. Both are actually independent pieces of art that might appear trite on the surface, but actually have something to say about how we perceive our place in the world, and each take advantage of changes in the visual media to express it. "Single Ladies", which a good and striking video, never really gets beyond the level of "Look at how good and striking this video is".

So Kanye, I'm proud of you standing up for your friend, and I'ma let you finish, but "Sledgehammer" is the greatest video of all time. All! Time!

... taking Mad Men to the movies

Everything after the NEXT sentence contains spoilers for Mad Men, so read with caution. The boat sinks at the end of Titanic.

Early in this, the third series of Mad Men, Peggy shows Don a clip from Bye Bye Birdie, a film based on a popular musical. They are planning to do an ad for Patio soda based on it. Don claims to have not seen the movie. "You see everything," Peggy says.

There's actually not much evidence for that in Mad Men. Off the top of my head I can think of maybe one or two times that we've seen someone actually watch a movie. I do think there is a time in the first series when Don uses that he went to the movies as an excuse for something, so there might be a joke there.

What is interesting though is that I've found that movies play a certain important part in progressing its tale of America in the 60s, though it's almost all in the background.

Let's start with the obvious - the opening credit sequence of a falling silhouette is pretty obviously a nod to Vertigo. As well many of the scenes and wardrobes evoke Hitch's movies - it would be quite easy to see January Jones (Betty Draper) playing opposite Jimmy Stewart as the icy blond. These are quite obvious.

In the second season, however, there was a little shift. There was a scene involving Betty and her brother in a study. There was a large picture on the wall, and he walked in through a window. This was actually a deftly constructed scene from a movie popular in the early part of that era. Now, I have to admit that I can't remember the film, but I do remember reading a blog post about how that scene was constructed. If someone knows where it is I'll update this post and give you a tip of the Tigers cap. (Somehow I think it was Laura)

All that got me to thinking: Is Mad Men trying to also show the changes in America during the 60s not just in luscious set design and costumes, but also filming techniques?

This third series is giving me more and more reason to believe that. I want to look at three particular scenes that indicate the shift in tone.

The first in the fourth episode. Don and Betty go to talk to Sally's (their daughter) teacher about a fight that she was in at school. During the conversation there is a cutaway shot to Sally, face filling almost the entire screen, against a black background, wiping blood across her face. Blood is nothing new to Mad Men, but this type of cut-away shot is. Most shots on the show are long and in deep focus. This was brief, jarring and disturbing.

The second was in the sixth episode. As soon as Ken brings a lawnmower into the offices you just know something bad is going to happen. Someone getting their foot cut off is not on the top of the list. But, a shot of the blood spraying over four of the main characters IS very unexpected. It's worth noting that this scene juxtaposes two striking events: the severing of the foot, but also the blood on the clean outfits of the staff - outfits that are part of a meticulous wardrobe that the show is lauded for and it one of its trademarks. It's almost as if it were saying "Take THAT, Camelot!"

The third was the entire seventh episode, that start with at the end and then spent the hour showing how the characters got to that end - one of which involved Don meeting and being robbed by a very early prototype of the characters that Beatty and Dunaway would play in Bonnie and Clyde.

You could go into Betty's dream sequence while giving birth to baby Gene and how she starts in a Douglas Sirk like suburbia before progressing into a nightmarish proto-Lynchian universe.

So, what does this mean?

It appears that Mad Men is not going to simply tell the story of America in the 60s by just tossing around newspapers and someone turning on the TV at the right time. It's also going to show the change in visual language at the time. It was the rise of the French New Wave and American Art House films. A lot of the old rules were either being broken or willfully ignored. This, as much as the music and fashion, set the tenor of the times.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the images and storytelling of the series evolve more and more over time to reflect those changes in popular culture as well as "mainstream" culture.

Let's keep watching. Until then, bye bye birdies.