Ion Magazine issue 42

Vol 5 Issue 42 • FREE

FALL FASHION THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS THE GO! TEAM NICHOLAS GUREWITCH WE ARE WOLVES

IN COPENHAGEN

M AT INI Q U E .CO M

1 - 8 0 0 -463 - 8127

TABLE OF CONTENTS 18

20 22

p.26

Editor’s Letter Take fashion advice from a clueless slob who chooses his outfit everyday based on whatever has the fewest coffee stains on it.

ION the Prize Of the Month Video games that take place in underwater dystopias, a whole lot of subtitled movies, coffee table books about art, dogs that smell your butt and our BC Fashion Week Party.

58 Tales of Ordinary Madness More made up stories about Sam getting a date.

Like that’ll ever happen.

59 Horoscopes Vancouver fashion designer Christina Culver throws down the needle and thread and looks at the stars to give you this month’s horoscopes.

When that didn’t work out she rented Mommie Dearest.

60 The Perry Bible Fellowship

CULTURE 26 N icholas Gurewitch All your questions about the genius who does the comics at the back of the magazine are finally answered.

FASHION 28 The Slums of Beverly Hills Get ready for some LA Trash with this fashion edito rial shot by Odette Sugarman.

36 Flight Club A gravity defying fashion editorial shot by Kate Szatmari.

MUSIC 44 We Are Wolves An article on a Montreal Wolf Band and no, you aren’t reading an issue of ION from 2005.

48 The Go! Team You know the scene in Merry Christmas Charlie Brown when Snoopy and the Peanuts gang are all dancing? You can play every Go! Team song and it’ll sync up perfectly.

50 The New Pornographers We swear we requested to speak to the drummer.

54 Poster Art: Jeremy Wilson It was only a matter of time before Caturday hit the telephone poles of Toronto.

56 Album Reviews 57 Five to One: Thomas Bangalter Shamefully, we are dorky enough to spot the guys from Daft Punk when they’re not in their robot costumes

p.28

p.44

Volume 5 Number 7 Issue 42 Publisher Editor in Chief Fashion Editor Film Editor Music Editor Copy Editor Editorial Intern Photo Editor Art Director Associate Art Director Design Assistant

Vanessa Leigh vanessa@ionmagazine.ca Michael Mann editor@ionmagazine.ca Vanessa Leigh fashion@ionmagazine.ca Michael Mann film@ionmagazine.ca Trevor Risk trevor@ionmagazine.ca Jessica Grajczyk, Sam Kerr Patricia Matos Fiona Garden photos@ionmagazine.ca Danny Fazio danny@ionmagazine.ca Erin Ashenhurst erin@ionmagazine.ca Leslie Ma leslie@ionmagazine.ca

Advertising Jenny Goodman jenny@ionmagazine.ca Advertising Accounts Manager Natasha Neale natasha@ionmagazine.ca Contributing Writers: Nojan Aminosharei, Chad R. Buchholz, Christina Culver, Joseph Delamar, Amanda Farrell, Jessica Gracjczyk, Filmore Mescalito Holmes, Sam Kerr, Patricia Matos, Clayton Pierrot, Dr. Ian Super, Natalie Vermeer Contributing Photographers and Graphic Designers: Toby Marie Bannister, Elise Beneteau, Nicholas Gurewitch, Kris Krüg, Jason Lang, Marianne Larochelle, Tyler Quarles, Odette Sugarman, Ollie Smith, Lester Smolenski, Kate Szatmari ION is printed 10 times a year by the ION Publishing Group. No parts of ION Magazine may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written consent from the publisher. ION welcomes submissions but accepts no responsibility for the return of unsolicited materials. All content © Copyright ION Magazine 2007 Hey PR people, publicists, brand managers and label friends, send us stuff.

High-resolution jpegs are nifty and all, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.

Clothing, liquor, Wiis, CDs, vinyl, DVDs, video games, and an iPhone can be sent to the address below. Hey wait, do they even sell iPhones in Canada yet?

We don’t care. Just make it happen.

3rd Floor, 300 Water Street. Vancouver, BC, Canada. V6B 1B6 Office 604.696.9466 Fax: 604.696.9411 www.ionmagazine.ca feedback@ionmagazine.ca Cover: Photo - Fiona Garden for NOBASURA, Art Direction - Danny Fazio, Illustration - Elise Beneteau, Styling - Leila Bani for THEYrep.com, Makeup Caitlin Callahan for NOBASURA using M.A.C, Model - Xylia at Liz Bell Agency Xylia is Wearing: Grillz courtesy of Martini at Dipt, Necklace -Noir @ Blue Ruby, Crystal Hoop Earrings - Elsa Corsi @ Jeweliette, Rings @ Jeweliette, Bangle @ Blue Ruby, Tank Top @ Bang-On

EDITOR’S LETTER ION THE PRIZE OF THE MONTH ION MAGAZINE 18

STYLERONY Words Michael Mann Photography Toby Marie Bannister You’re sitting quietly eating dinner with you partner. Engaging in some polite conversation about the weather with your partner. Then smash! An elite fighting force of sharply dressed men bust through your door and windows. You’ve just been busted by the fashion police. What do you do hotshot? What do you do? Well it’s fall, so for a lot of us that means hitting the pavement for a fashion forward style. But allow me to suggest something else: looking back to last year’s Halloween for an ironic new trend.

I don’t give a shit about the guy in the ironic heavy metal shirt and cheap sunglasses. Same goes for the girl with feathered hair in American Apparel shorts and a shirt that has some inane saying in big letters on the front. You too guy who spends 12 hours a week scavenging vintage stores for your outfits. White girl ironically embracing hip hop fashion especially.

People who are unintentionally ironic are a different story though. I do care about this one guy who wears a handmade hemp net over his clothes. If you saw this guy on the street and you might mistake him for a homeless person but he’s not—I’m pretty sure he isn’t even a hippy. He’s just likes wearing a net and has been doing so for years. He carries himself well and for that I salute him. He might have the best style in the country.

You might be spot a bunch of frat boys and catch yourself saying “Why haven’t the fashion police sniper squad taken these losers out with headshots already?” The reason is frat boys have great style if you look at it as an ironic statement.

With their “Canada Kicks Ass” shirts, sandals and tribal arm band tattoos. Take these people out of the Tragically Hip concert and put them in a different setting and they’re the coolest dressed people in the room. If they only knew how wonderfully ironic their outfits were.

Irony can be your friend too if you’re mindful not to look like a try-hard. How about dressing as a Medieval bar wench chic? Roman eunuch? A bride on her wedding day? Goth, hippie, Shriner, or carnie? If you don’t fit into any of those groups,

merely getting a tattoo on your face would work nicely as well. There are a thousand great new looks out there if you just put your mind to it. Just be careful not to take it too far or you’re asking for trouble. Allow me to cite Prince Harry and that time he dressed up like a Nazi for a laugh. A bit closer to home, I know a guy who picked a fight with another guy in a wheelchair because he thought it was some lame attempt at irony (the guy needed the wheelchair but that’s beside the point).

The next time fashion police come a knock knocking, answer the door wearing pants for a shirt, a shirt for pants and accessorize with shoes on your hands. Ironic fashion is the way to go, you just need to be clever. Some say sarcasm is the lowest form of humour. I say people who say that are boring to hang out with. That’s the only style lesson I can impart on you. That and Uggs are hella comfortable and you only make fun of them ‘cause you’re jealous. Jealous!

www.blackxs.com

Available at Sears

The new fragrance

EDITOR’S LETTER ION THE PRIZE OF THE MONTH ION MAGAZINE 20

Lady dutch Photography Ollie Smith The prize this month is a selection of clothing from Lady Dutch. This relatively young, Montreal-based brand has quickly become a favourite among celebrity stylists. The Fall 2007 collection features an eclectic combination of contemporary, retro and Napoleonic influences, accented with feminine embellishments, rich textures and multiple prints. With such modern, chic and affordable pieces to choose from, a girl has one less thing to worry about while plotting world domination.

To enter, go to www.ionmagazine.ca

Hair & Make-up Maya Goldenberg Model Megan Jones

EDITOR’S LETTER ION THE PRIZE OF THE MONTH ION MAGAZINE 22

DVD The Page Turner

DVD Black Book

DVD The Lives of Others

If ever there were an award for an actress who can scare the shit out of you, give you a boner, and yet somehow make you feel totally at ease all in one moment without ever saying a word or moving a muscle, Deborah Francois would win hands down. In The Page Turner, Francois plays Melanie, a butcher’s daughter and once-aspiring young pianist whose dreams are crushed as a child when she fails an important exam at the hands of a thoughtless juror – famous pianist Madame Fouchecourt (Catherine Frot). Flash forward to Melanie as a demure adolescent who slinks her (unrecognized) way into the home of Fouchecourt as a nanny and takes us on a thrilling journey as she subtly hints at how she will avenge the death of her young piano career. Will she merely drown the pianist’s son in the family pool? The end result implies a more intricate plan than one could imagine and sheds light on the utter devastation that young Melanie must have experienced to inspire such malice. She is revealed as a master manipulator, whose victim hurtles almost willingly into her own ultimate demise.

Subtlety has never been a strong point for director Paul Verhoeven. Namely because there’s been absolutely nothing subtle about any of his amazing and memorable films like Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers and Showgirls (Yeah, that’s right, we love Showgirls. Got a problem with it?). Every one of his films takes you into a hyper-real world where actions, attitudes and emotions are exaggerated tenfold. So it only seems fitting that Verhoeven would tackle the most ruthless event of the 20th Century: WW2.

Rachel Stein—played by the stunning Carice van Houten who is slated to be the next Bond girl— is a Jewish singer hiding from the Gestapo in Nazi occupied Holland. When things heat up she plans an escape to allied occupied territory that goes horribly wrong and sees her wind up in the arms of the Resistance. Before she knows it she’s working undercover for then and seducing the leader of the Dutch SD, Himmler’s intelligence organization. But then they fall in love and, after a series of mysterious betrayals, the Nazis and the Resistance are after both of them. For all its action and intrigue, the only thing Black Book is missing is a crazy pool sex scene.

Ulrich Mühe had an uncanny Kevin-Spacey-like ability to portray utter inner death. In this Oscarwinning German film, Mühe (having recently passed away in July due to stomach cancer) plays Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, a surveillance expert working for the State Secret Police in East Germany just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Wiesler, an obsessed protector of the State, is ordered to surveil playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) when a corrupt and perverted old government official suddenly feels the need to unearth incriminating evidence (he just happens to be doing the writer’s flaky actress girlfriend). As the surveillance commences, Wiesler’s love for the State quickly dwindles as he begins to live vicariously through the passionate lives of artists whose careers are being strangled to death by State blacklisting. Weisler’s awakening from his robot-like dedication to exposing traitors against Socialism is tear-jerking and wonderful to watch.

Perhaps Mühe’s outstanding performance in this film speaks to his real-life experience as an East German theatre actor who experienced Stasi surveillance first-hand.

Store Three Monkeys

Pet Bud

Oh hey it’s 1960 and welcome to the city of Rapture. It’s a pretty normal place. Well okay, it’s underwater. I guess it should also be noted that it houses all world’s greatest minds. See they got tired of saps like you and me so they built themselves an underwater libertarian utopia where they could hang out and not have to deal with the government and scientists wouldn’t be bound by petty morality. Oh, and all these people then went insane and started killing each other. Oh, and there are little girls who go around scavenging all the bodies of the dead that are protected by big clunky robots. Oh , and there are kiosks where you can get your body modified. But instead of getting the fat sucked out of your thighs and injected your lips, your genes get rewritten so you can shoot fireballs, electricity and bees out of your hand. But aside from the setting for this amazing new first person shooter, Rapture is a pretty normal place.

This Montreal boutique recently celebrated three years of bringing fresh, independent local designs and carefully selected global brands to their limited-edition-streetwear-loving clientele. Located in the trendy shopping center, Les Cours Mont Royal, Three Monkeys boasts the widest selection of local designers Valerie Dumaine, Travis Taddeo, and Lydia Lukidis, alongside international lines like Artful Dodger and Boxfresh. The boutique is always on the lookout for fresh new talent to add to their inventory and build on their reputation for being the place to pick up exclusive pieces not available on a mass scale at your local clothing chain. The latest addition to their inventory is Insight, a fashion-forward surf wear line out of Australia.

Some people prefer small dogs because they are incapable of the full-steam-ahead-nose-diveinto-the-crotch-region type greeting that most big dogs are fond of. But then again, some people don’t mind that. Take Bud’s owner for example, who seems to be getting the best of both worlds.

It’s a win-win situation, really. Bud is the envy of all his little dog friends since he always gets the best seat in the house, and camo-dude gets some insulated baby-maker protection. Now that’s a trusting relationship. Send your animal pictures to pet@ionmagazine.ca. If we use them, we’ll give you a prize that pales in comparison to having your pet immortalized in print.

1455 Peel. Suite 217. Les Cours Mont Royal 514.284.1333 www.threemonkeys.ca

ION MAGAZINE

Game Bioshock

23

EDITOR’S LETTER ION THE PRIZE OF THE MONTH ION MAGAZINE 24

BOOK Ice Cream

Contributor Patricia Matos

Party WE LOVE FASHION

This is not just a shiny, pretty book, but the latest in a series (Cream, Fresh Cream and Cream 3) from world-renown art book publisher, Phaidon, aiming to expose the best of emerging contemporary artists. Phaidon chose 10 internationally esteemed curators to nominate 10 artists as the stars and trendsetters of tomorrow. Each curator also selected one source artist from the past who made inspirational impact on both the featured artists and the curators themselves. The result is an exercise in cross-examination of influence and innovation spanning over 25 countries as well as generations (artist ages range from 27 to 89), with an overwhelming theme of cultural globalization. Look for Vancouver based artists Brian Jungen—whose Nike Airs turned Native masks we’ve recently seen at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Tim Lee—whose humourous photo and video installations feature himself doing things like experimenting with levitation and banging out Public Enemy beats on a drum kit to near physical exhaustion. Not only is this book neat to look at on the inside and out, but it will also make you sound like you’ve really got your finger on the pulse of the contemporary art world.

It’s been less than six months since this freshfaced journalism grad stepped into ION’s office as an intern. Now she contributes regularly to both the magazine, and a ravenous prescription drug habit. The latter is totally unrelated, she swears.

They’re free, all right? Ask her anything, and she will come up with not only an answer, but useless supplementary information that will no doubt leave you wondering why you even bothered to ask what she thinks of Stevie Wonder because she just acted out 10 minutes of High Fidelity.

Patricia likes collecting records and not letting people touch them, flat-faced kittens and making kickass music mixes. If she suddenly disappears, please contact the Canadian embassy in Hong Kong.

Covet and Redken Urban Experiment present “We Love FashION,” our annual party to wrap up BC Fashion Week which runs from September 24 to 29. The party take place on Saturday, September 29 and will go from 9 till the cops shut us down or everyone lapses into a fun-induced coma. So put on your nicest outfit, your best pair of dancing shoes and prepare to have them completely wrecked in an orgy of alcohol, dancing and frivolity. You better fix up and look sharp because there’s a strict no slobs allowed and we will be checking to make sure you’re manicured at the door. Check the ION website for details.

Photography by Kris Krüg

www.bcfashionweek.com www.covetthis.com www.urbanexperiment.com

CULTURE FASHION

FILM MUSIC ION MAGAZINE 26

PeRRY BIBLE STUDIES

Nicholas Gurewitch Words Patricia Matos A weird thing happens when you read a Perry Bible Fellowship comic. Panel after brilliant panel leads the mind to a mildly obsessive state where one strip isn’t enough. The reader must have more, a perverse reaction to the succinct manner in which it’s created. Similarly, the same occurs when speaking to its creator, Nicholas Gurewitch. Sometimes his soft voice is like talking to a lucid Crispin Glover, but with a far saner head on his shoulders, and it should come as no surprise that Gurewitch is actually quite funny. You want to know more, and he obliges, often coursing the conversation to colourful areas. With a new book called The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories (Dark Horse) being released this fall, 25-year-old Gurewitch is poised to take on a new audience with his collection of comics old and new, each one as differently crafted as the one before it. So what makes a man like Gurewitch tick? Is he a crazed, holed-up artist, or just a regular guy? Well, he’s neither. But this works in his favour.

“We have a hot day here. I must admit I sweat when I don’t do much,” says Gurewitch over the phone from his Rochester, NY home. Right off the bat you know he’s either going to be unabashed and candid, or take you for a ride. Being that many know little about him, surely he’s done both during the course of this conversation.

Gurewitch has been doing art for years, and has only recently launched a permanent PBF website, the previous one hosted on that of a friend’s. Since then the PBF—he insists on “the”—has been featured in magazines and papers all over the world, including this shiny little number.

It’s been said that Gurewitch prefers Nick rather than Nicholas, except when it comes to women, “Nicholas is my name, but for the sake of brevity, Nick works. I think I dig [Nicholas] ‘cause it’s a sign you’re savouring the moment if you’re not rushing things.” Taking things slowly is something Gurewitch seems oft to do, especially when creat-

ing his strips. Despite an archive spanning some few years, he claims to have just under 240 comics, hardly enough for a desk calendar.

He even takes time out of each day to “dip into” the 4,000-some-odd books he inherited from his grandfather Morton Gurewitch, perhaps best known for his books on satire. “I’m not sure if he’s famous, but lots of people look up to him because he’s written a lot about satire and comedy. He’s got a lot of different theories on how comedy operates.”

The Syracuse University film grad is lucky to have had the PBF work out so well, as he doesn’t have a day job and just recently moved out of his family’s house, “I occasionally do illustrations for my local newspaper. But other than that I don’t really reach out to do other things. I have a hard enough time drawing one comic each week.” This doesn’t mean Gurewitch bides his time working solely on the PBF, “There are lots of priorities that override the comic, or override doing advertisements for people. I’ll do a poster for my buddy who’s putting on a concert or something. I guess it’s not commercial in the true sense of the term because he doesn’t pay me.”

That’s pretty nice of him. Surely his generosity and mad art skills rake in the ladies, “Does it?

Maybe you could tell me.” I wouldn’t be unhappy if this was a line, but cheekiness aside I tell Gurewitch if the artist is good, then yes. “I guess if you’re bad, or if you’re not successful, maybe it has a whole bunch of really bad connotations,” says Gurewitch. “I notice a lot of people aren’t really impressed when I tell them I do comics. But if you tell them that it’s published in a magazine that they know, their eyebrows will raise and they’ll kind of get into it.The word ‘comic’ doesn’t evoke a lot of excitement for people.”

Fans of the PBF are always excited for his often-weekly installments, and they don’t even mind it when Gurewitch gets “occasionally” dirty, though this disturbs him a little. Still, he loves to

see his imagination pour onto a page even if it doesn’t always translate, “Occasionally something will make me laugh my ass off, and then I’ll try to find a way to do it, or I’ll do it and I’ll look at it later and it’s just not quite coming across,” he says. “I love watercolours. I like watching the water do a lot of the work… It’s not always what you intend, but it gives you the opportunity to work with surprises a lot more.”

And it is no surprise Gurewitch has such an intense imagination; two of his favourite comics are Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side. Pinned together in a prison fight, who would win? “I think Bill Watterson has a stronger imagination, so I have a feeling he’d probably use his environment to outwit Gary Larson, who I assume to be slow and perhaps Neanderthal-like in his motions.

Only because of his comics,” Gurewitch muses.

“Maybe Larson could take a victory if it got down to using his fingernails and teeth. ‘Cause I think he knows a lot about animals and he seems like a pretty wild guy.”

“It’d be awesome to draw Calvin’s imagination,” Gurewitch says. “I’d love to visit his imagination and draw some more dinosaurs. I haven’t done a dinosaur comic in a while.” He also hasn’t done a film short in a while. Not long ago Gurewitch was slated to do an internet short called The Daisy Garden Story Time, but the deal fell through. “I guess the program was crafted to be eight minutes. They called the installments ‘webisodes’ or something funny like that…then the guys told me it had to be five minutes, and then they told me it had to be three. Then eventually they said the preferable time span for the program had to be between one and two minutes,” he says. “I really couldn’t get into that ‘cause I think it needed to be longer.”

That’s not to say he won’t delve into “webisodes” in the future, but for now Gurewitch is busy enough with his first book on the horizon. The PBF should be a book of life lessons. Children would be all the better for it. “There are a lot of lessons

ably the ones you should listen to the least. In most cases.”

When he’s not on the Internet or drawing his comics, Gurewitch has hobbies just like you and I. His favourite film is 2001: A Space Odyssey, and counts Harry Belafonte and Patsy Cline among his favourite musicians. His most shameful CD is called Wizards, “There’s four really dorky-looking people on the cover and they play classical instruments.

And it’s completely embarrassing but it’s actually all right.” I press him further.“Truly bad albums? I guess I like all my CDs.” Damn.

Gurewitch likes red wine on occasion, can grow a full beard in about a month’s time and loves meeting strangers, “And sometimes harassing or doing surprising things with them. That’s probably going to sound terrible. I love saying hello to

strangers, let’s just say that.”

This may or may not include some of his fans, of which he describes as weird kids, “I got a letter the other day by what seemed like a young’un. He seemed to appreciate the comics about aliens. But I think he was sci-fi oriented. He sounded like a normal kid, but maybe he had a little bit of an affinity for the bizarre,” Gurewitch says. “I think that’s what the bizarre quality is of the comic; it’s what gets people interested in it internationally. There are a lot of weird people out there. They need art, too.”

And on this drippingly hot August day in Rochester, which PBF comic would be suitable? “I think it’s the type of day for the comic about the guy who goes after the gopher, [An End to Gopher Trouble].

Just because, I don’t know, it’s a severe day.”

ION MAGAZINE

in the comics that I think would have a lot of corrective effects on a child’s growth, but some of them I think would be too confusing to be worth their time,” says Gurewitch of the suggestion. He’s just being hard on himself. But the only real criticism he takes about his work is what’s useful, “I suppose when someone says it’s not funny. That makes me want to try harder.”

Gurewitch even checks on one of his several online communities once in a while, though he says the “comments are mostly negative.” He’s not wary of the Internet, but understands the difference between online popularity versus real-world popularity, “I think there’s a distinct type of person that feels the need to broadcast their feelings online. And the more I think, those people who want to make their opinions known, or who shout the loudest, are prob-

27

THE SLUMS OF

Beverly

Hills Photography Odette Sugarman for theyrep.com Produced by Sage Seb Styling by Leila Bani for theyrep.com Makeup Elaine Offers for amgmt.com Hair Jeremy Clark for amgmt.com Model Bar Pally for visionlosangeles.com Photography assistant Robb Epifano Prop stylist John Geary GrAPHICS Lester Smolenski

OPENING PAGE: Bodysuit, Christina Darling; Leggings, American Apparel; Bracelets, Elsa Corsi at Jeweliette; Shoes, Terry De Havilland PREVIOUS PAGE: Jumpsuit, Charlotte Solnickip; Belt, Tresje; Boots, Hermes.THIS PAGE,LEFT: Dress, D&G; Gloves, Holt Renfrew Private Label RIGHT: Leggings, Beckerman; Jacket, Charlotte Solnicki; Boots, Terry De Havilland; Gloves, Holt Renfrew Private Label. FOLLOWING PAGE: Coat, Beckerman; Booties, Terry De Havilland.

Photography Kate Szatmari www.kateszphoto.com Makeup/Hair Sylvie Mazerolle at Judy Inc www.judyinc.com Styling by Annie Lam at Plutino Group www.plutinogroup.com Models Gregory, Peter at Elmer Olsen www.elmerolsenmodels.com Cameron, Josh at Elite www.elitemodels.com Photography Assistant Daryl Makeup/Hair Assistant Brandi

PREVIOUS SPREAD: LEFT Shirt, J Lindeberg; Sweater, Junk de Luxe; Pants, Ben Sherman; Shoes, Lacoste.

RIGHT Shirt, Lacoste; Sweater Vest, Ringspun; Pants, Ringspun; Shoes, J Lindeberg. THIS SPREAD: LEFT TO RIGHT 1.Short Sleeve Shirt, Elvis Jesus; Long Sleeve Shirt, Energie; Pants, J Lindeberg; Belt, Energie; Shoes. Lacoste.

2.Shirt, Energie; Sweater, Junk de Luxe; Pants, Energie; Belt, Energie; Boots, J Lindeberg. 3.Shirt, Energie; Blazer, Ringspun; Pants, Energie; Shoes, Prada at Brown’s Shoes. 4.Shirt, J Lindeberg; Dress Shirt and Jacket, Penguin; Jeans, Monarchy; Belt, Energie; Shoes, Prada at Brown’s Shoes.

LEFT TO RIGHT 1.Shirt, Energie; Jacket, Ben Sherman; Pants, Energie; Belt, Energie; Shoes, Prada at Brown’s Shoes.

2.Shirt, House of the Gods; Jeans, GSUS; Suspenders, Belt and Shoes, J Lindeberg. 3.Shirt, Hoodie, Pants and Belt, Energie; Boots, J Lindeberg. 4.Shirt, Monarchy; Hoodie, Energie; Jeans, Jet Lag; Belt, Energie; Shoes, Lacoste.

LEFT TO RIGHT 1.Shirt, GSUS; Jacket, Ben Sherman; Pants, J Lindeberg; Shoes, Prada at Brown’s Shoes. 2.Shirt, Monarchy; Vest, Ringspun; Pants, GSUS; Belt, Energie; Shoes, Prada at Brown’s Shoes. 3.Shirt, GSUS; Tie, Energie; Pants, Ben Sherman; Belt, J Lindeberg; Shoes, Cesare Paciotti at Brown’s Shoes. 4.Shirt, Lacoste; Hoodie, Monarchy; Jeans, Lacoste; Belt, Energie; Shoes, Lacoste.

CULTURE FASHION

FILM MUSIC ION MAGAZINE 44

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIQUE?

WE ARE WOLVES

Words Michael Mann Photography Marianne Larochelle There are a lot of reasons why one could shrug off We Are Wolves without ever listening to them.

There’s no denying they are a trendy and arty wolf band from Montreal. Yes, we all got pulled aside at some point last year by some astute observer of culture who said you might not be aware of this but there are quite a few bands with “wolf” in their name out there these days. As off-putting as this may be, there are a lot more reasons why you should embrace Les Loupes and their spazzy, dance floor friendly electro-rock.

Consisting of Alexander Ortiz on lead vocals and bass, Vincent Levesque on keyboards and Antonin Marquis on Drums, the band formed when they met in an arts program after high school. Despite their strong involvement in film and the visual arts, Marquis is quick to dismiss that the band started off as some ironic art school joke. “We never took ourselves seriously but we never took it as a joke. We formed around the year 2000 but we didn’t have a name until 2004. We weren’t playing any shows either. We just learned to play our instruments and changed lineups a lot. I used to play guitar, then bass, now drums. We’ve settled down now. For four years it was really a work in progress and a creative process. It had no vocals either. It was really artsy.

More than it is now. Now it’s artsy rock.”

The trio released their 2005 debut Non Stop Je Te Plie en Deux on Fat Possum, a Mississippibased blues label, of all places. If that sounds like an odd fit you’re not alone. “We couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t be represented by a Montreal based label at first. No Canadian labels were interested in the band. We knew about Fat Possum but we never would have thought of sending them a record. But the owner was really enthusiastic about the project so we thought okay, lets do it.” Despite the label’s enthusiasm, Marquis acknowledges their debut had a few shortcomings. “For us it was really like a demo.

It’s all the songs we had at the point. It’s a tutti

frutti electro-rock record. . . We were very critical about the first record. We were unsatisfied with a lot of things. Like how come there weren’t more emotional songs on the first record. It’s all the same tempo. So we knew what we didn’t want for the second record.”

All in all, the band’s experience on Fat Possum was a positive one but they have since found a new label a bit closer to home. This fall the trio are set to release their sophomore album, Total Magique on Montreal’s Dare to Care Records, the home of Malajube and the recently broken up Les Georges Leningrad, “We feel more comfortable now. The bands on the roster at Dare to Care are more like us. It feels more like a family.”

Though their debut may have under-performed sales wise, the band has built a solid fan base through their live shows and have a rep for being one of Canada’s best live acts. Marquis says the trick for delivering a blistering set night in and night out is simple. “I don’t look at the audience.

I’m just really into my music. We have this old story on our first tour, which was with And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and The (International) Noise Conspiracy. We were on our way to meet them in Colorado. We had like two or three gigs before that. One of them was in Iowa City and we were totally unknown and played there for one guy. I’m not kidding and I’m pretty sure we put on the same show for 500 people in Montreal.

Maybe it sounds banal, but we’re really into rock ‘n’ roll. We believe in energy. For all the technical aspects that we’re lacking, we’re putting all our energy into the live performance.” Energy might be an understatement to describe The Wolves’ live show, especially Marquis, who plays drums standing up.“Rocking the dance floor. I love that,” he exclaims.“That’s always been our dilemma as far as this band is concerned. At some point one of the guys will listen to too much rock ‘n’ roll and it’s like ‘we’re too much rock.’ Then the Justice record comes out and ‘we’re not electro enough.’”

Regardless if one would classify them as electro-rock or rock-electro, the biggest struggle for the band has been bringing the energy from their live sets into the studio, and Marquis worries if this is something they were even able to do on Total Magique. “We Are Wolves live sounds a certain way. I’m always wondering when people buy our record after the show like what the hell are they going to think when they get home.” It’s a safe bet there won’t be many disappointed fans, longtime or newly converted, who throw on Total Magique after a live show. Far more palatable album than their debut—which was laden with arty and experimental instrumental tracks that didn’t lend itself well for home listening—the new disc is also far more lyrical. Some of songs, like “Walk Away Walk” are borderline radio friendly. “We definitely wanted to be more poppy. We listen to pop music all the time. We all love Justin Timberlake. Whatever, man.”

With We Are Wolves’ terrific new album and live show, the only thing stopping you from joining the pack is, well, that they’re a wolf band. The refreshingly ego free Antonin Marquis, though a little sick of getting asked about the band’s ubiquitous lupine moniker, is happy to point out that “We’ve had that name since 2004 so that was before the other wolves that you guys know and are big like Wolf Parade and Wolfmother. We got the name before that. But who wants to know that? And who cares? We’re in a wolf band so we get that question all the time because we’re not so famous. ‘Oh they’re just trying to get into the trend.’ It’s such a funny thing. At that point we knew of Guitar Wolf and that’s it. No other wolves.

Then all those wolf bands exploded and we were like ‘We’re fucked.’ We even thought about changing the name and stuff but in the end it’s us and it’s just a coincidence so what can we do? Now, I don’t really care anymore.” And neither should you.

ION MAGAZINE 45

CULTURE

FASHION

FILM

MUSIC

ION MAGAZINE

46

ION MAGAZINE 47

CULTURE FASHION

FILM MUSIC ION MAGAZINE 48

YOUNG EMCEES

The Go! Team

Words Natalie Vermeer Illustration Elise Beneteau The Go! Team is a team that always wins. When they aren’t making you clap and cheer with a b-girl stance, they’re lulling you into a tropical holiday dream. Their new album, Proof of Youth, delivers no less variety and excitement than their amazing debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. This new album is like one of those clever mix tapes where you don’t need to skip any songs since you have a happy mix of all sorts and no songs drag. The mix includes everything from Stereolab to Spice Girls to Chuck D—who actually makes a guest appearance on Proof of Youth. His vocals aren’t as up front in the mix as you’d expect as he was given the Go! Team treatment, says lead emcee, Ninja—which basically means his vocals are fuzzy with lots of layers of other stuff going on at the same time.

I spoke with Ninja recently when she was enjoying a day off from summer festivals in the UK. Though the band has traveled all over the world, bringing Go! Team shows to the masses, what I most wondered about were the travels of their songs. Tracks from their last album have been used in everything from a Honda Civic commercial to the teen drama One Tree Hill to the BBC in their coverage of the 2004 Olympics.

“I don’t know; I have no idea”, Ninja asserts, “In England, we hear our songs on gardening shows and cooking shows and stuff and they’ve got nothing to do with us! When the song comes on TV, we have no control over it whatsoever. We get nothing from it! Literally pennies! I have no idea how they appear and as for films, I haven’t heard of any yet. I think Tarantino would love us, so we should definitely make a movie and base it around The Go! Team album. And afterwards, we’ll all go to his house for tea and biscuits,” she says with a laugh.

It’s funny that a band that had to re-release their first album, without the samples that they couldn’t clear, have the same trouble of people using their songs without permission. For Proof of Youth, there are more samples created by the

Brighton six-piece band itself. Band leader Ian Parton writes the structures for songs and the rest of the band fills them in with all the sounds and vocals they can create. The song styles change from track to track, which Ninja can relate to her own life.

“I moved loads when I was little,” she recalls, “so I got used to living in a different house every two years or something so I quite like the way The Go! Team is very unexpected. And being in the band, you can’t have any kind of routines so it works quite well for me!”

Not knowing what will happen next works best for Ninja.“I never look ahead,” she claims,“I never find out what we’re doing the next week or the next month or anything like that ‘cause it makes me anxious and it’s either there are so many things lined up or I’ll know that I have nothing lined up for awhile. I probably watch too much TV but I don’t care ‘cause I like watching TV! And I love watching comedy shows. Actually I was just watching “[The] King of Queens,” the always jovial Ninja laughs again. “Yeah, I like not having to do anything so I can just watch TV and read magazines.”

All or nothing: which also applies to the band’s degree of fan mania for Sonic Youth, a band they toured with last year. The single, “Grip Like a Vice,” from The Go! Team’s forthcoming album was recently released with a few different bsides, including a cover of Sonic Youth’s “Bull in the Heather”. It’s very true to the original, yet has the perfect dose of The Go! Team’s pep rally fashion. It doesn’t seem possible that the two bands’ ideas could combine into one song. Parton picked the song: “it was just a song he figured he could [give] The Go! Team treatment,” explains Ninja, “I don’t really know Sonic Youth, I come from a more hip hop background, so I had never heard of them, even until now, I’ve never heard of them!

Apart from the fact that we’ve toured with them!

But everyone else in the band is a really big fan of Sonic Youth and especially Ian: probably one of

their biggest fans!”

The Go! Team is currently getting ready to hit up America for a few weeks of touring. Ninja is excited to get back out here as she can purchase things for cheaper and see the culture she’s exposed to on TV in the real. “I quite like going over there,” she says, “It’s a bit of a weird place. L.A. is the strangest place! It’s exactly what you see on TV! It’s exactly what you think it is! Everyone walking about: ‘What do you do? Who do you know?’

It’s very strange to see it for real! It’s just weird; you can’t find anything to eat that’s not going to give you a heart attack! I find it pretty difficult to find food over there; the portions are huuuuuuge! Like four times as much as you get in England. And they put butter on everything!”

You’d be correct if you can’t believe it’s just butter that gives Ninja culture shock; some of the people are hard to get used to too. “There are people there who didn’t know there [are] black people in England!” she claims in disbelief, “England is a really multicultural country! There were people who were like, ‘Omigod! There are sistahs in London? I can’t believe there are sistahs in London!’”

But just as she seemed to shock some Americans, some of them shocked her.“[In] Miami,” she recalls, “you could feel completely comfortable with yourself and then go over there and feel really self-conscious ‘cause everybody is made for walking down the street in a bikini. I’d be thinking ‘I’m fine, I’m normal’ and then you’d go to Miami and you’re like,‘Oh my gosh! These people got too much time on their hands.’ It takes getting used to.

It’s a strange place! But I feel like going there.”

Hopefully The Go! Team will feel like hitting a few more Canadian cities during their upcoming North American tour which so far only includes a stop at the Opera House in Toronto on October 31.

Otherwise, you’ll just have to be content to pick up Proof of Youth on September 11 and try pass it off as your latest mix!

ION MAGAZINE 49

CULTURE FASHION

FILM MUSIC ION MAGAZINE 50

A PORNOGRAPHIC MEMORY

Kurt Dahle OF The New Pornographers Words Trevor Risk Kurt Dahle hates me. This is an umbrella statement I’ve completely decided upon before I even talk to the virtuoso drummer of contemporary pop outfit The New Pornographers. The first reason for my self deprecating gut feeling is that my telephone interview is scheduled for three o’clock Friday afternoon and I have to call back three times and be pleasantly told by his wife Coco that he’s not around, and that maybe he completely forgot. I finally talk to Kurt from his home telephone (Coco told me that they are not a mobile telephone family) at his freshly purchased farm in the scarcely populated Canadian prairies, but this little cross-country telephone tag just adds some collar-tugging nervousness to my previous experience with him.

Last year at a New Pornos performance, my friends and I (fueled by what may be more than an acceptable level of bourbon) heckled Kurt in a positive light the entire show. “Kurt Dahle is the best drummer in rock music!” we would exclaim with bombast during song breaks. After a rendition of Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home” during the encore, frontman Carl (A.C.) Newman politely asked the audience what the last song should be. In the obvious indie-rocker practice, the crowd belted out an early hit single that the band is probably not too keen on playing ever again. In my heartiest bellow, I demanded they play the (barely) later single “All For Swinging You Around,” and Kurt (sporting his quasi controversial “Chaplin” moustache) retorted at me with “We’ll play that song for you, you little (expletive) but you owe me lunch!”. Then they played it, and it was more satisfying than any amount of pre-show bourbon guzzling.

When I finally get him on the telephone he predictably doesn’t remember the incident. “I must’ve been really drunk,” he chuckles. “You learn to adapt when you’re an alcoholic.” Later he reassures me that he is in fact not an alcoholic.

“Funny, I don’t drink that much at all, just for some

reason that band is just a bad influence.”

We are apparently supposed to be running over the minutiae of his band’s fourth LP, Challengers, but he seems to know very little about the finished product. When I ask him about the lack of drums on the record he tells me that it’s better for the record and the band in general. “Actually I haven’t really heard it that much. I didn’t really have a copy for a while. I did my parts and sort of passed it on to the next guy.” He’s equally surprised to the current legal debate over the leaking of a New Pornographers bonus track on the internet. “Really eh? See, you know more than I do. I download music sometimes, I mean I don’t really know how. I’m really busy and it takes too much patience. I also buy records though. I buy Shins records when they come out.”

Males seem to have a responsibility to buy records by bands they enjoy, so I take the moment to assure him that I purchase his band’s records in addition to every Belle & Sebastian album that’s released, despite the fact that I obtained the yet to be released Challengers in a less than virtuous way. I WILL purchase the record when it hits stores, but for the purpose of the interview I had to obtain it with a bit of shady practice.

The New Pornographers are generally tagged as a 70’s AM radio revivalist band. I bring this up and he says he’s guilty as charged. “We all listened to AM radio as kids. I think probably we all know every AM radio hit from the 60’s and 70’s. I still love The Poppy Family and stuff like that.” Lying, (I download. Don’t judge me.) I tell him that I recently purchased a Stevie Nicks record after a pretty waitress suggested that I need to hear her hit “Stand Back.”“Stevie Nicks? You like Fleetwood Mac?” Dahle asks.

“Well, when I was younger,” I backpedal, continuing,“I don’t like Stevie as an icon. I think she’s made more than one generation of women dress like crystal-gripping hippie witches, and I don’t see why these women think she’s a positive fe-

male role model. I mean, she probably had Peter Frampton’s dick in her mouth more than Peter Frampton had that talking guitar tube thing in his.”

“I like the Fleetwood Mac albums before Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham in the 60’s with Peter Green,” he states in that “do-your-homework” kind of statement that makes me feel like I need to bone up on my Rock ‘n’ Roll Jeopardy.

I then admit that I have a deep love for the often criticized troubadour Donovan. “Belle & Sebastian owe him some money for sure, eh?”, he says while laughing under his breath. “When I first heard If You’re Feeling Sinister I just thought ‘This is Donovan.’”

At this point, Kurt starts interviewing me. “Have you seen that Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home?” Again, I should do more music history research and admit that I haven’t. Based on grapevinery I say I’ve heard that Donovan comes off as a dork in it. “I thought [Donovan] seemed like a really nice guy. Bob Dylan seems kind of mean, and I’ve heard other people say that too.

‘Oh Donovan seems like a dick’ but I think Bob Dylan seems like a dick. He’s just trying to sing him a song and just trying to be nice, obviously someone he respects and it’s almost as if he’s his hero, and Bob just kind of takes the guitar away and tries to upstage him. He’s a little bit arrogant.”

Sometimes talking about music is the most futile pastime, especially with fellow musicians, but I take the opportunity to throw my personal experience with Donovan into the chat. “I have a friend who once told me that if you put on Donovan’s song “Sunshine Superman” when you wake up, you’re guaranteed to have a great day.” After an extended laugh, Kurt tells me that he used to cover that song in the 80’s in a punk band. “What were you called?” I inquire.

“96 Tears.” We then both have a lengthy laugh.

“We used to cover that song too.”

ION MAGAZINE 51

CULTURE FASHION

FILM MUSIC ION MAGAZINE 52

This leaves me with a chance to be a recordgeek. “You know that in the 80’s, the two guys from Daft Punk were a three piece band with one of the guys who ended up in Phoenix, and they were called “Darlin’” and they used to cover their namesake song by The Beach Boys.”

“Daft Punk?” he asks with puzzling defiance.

“Do they still exist?”

“Yeah, they do. They’re playing some pretty big sold out shows around the world.”

“You see, that’s a side of music you have over me. I don’t know anything about it.” Again, I have yet to impress my second favourite drummer (Blondie’s Clem Burke beats him out. . . slightly).

The New Pornographers have been tagged as a supergroup, and are sometimes seen as Vancouver’s flagship band. I ask if it the title is justified. “Really? It seems that people have forgotten that we are even from there.” We start talking about how Vancouver isn’t particularly into supporting local bands that find success outside of the city. “[Vancouver’s music community] just wanted to say they discovered us and they didn’t really. We didn’t have a really big following. We sort of made it in the States first. People didn’t notice. We played Mint [Records] shows to maybe a hundred people, if that. We got good press in the States and then Vancouver started listening to us. I think it made some people mad. Maybe they thought they missed the boat.”

America is a difficult market to crack. It’s the biggest music market in the world, but it’s a duopoly. The music is either tagged as “urban” or “rock”, and the “urban” is top 40 rap music, while the “rock” is often false-anger driven guitar music covered in far too much guy-liner (like eyeliner, but for guys). I ask him how the band has cracked the code.

“We do alright. But the thing is that indie rockers are indie rockers. It’s not like we have a different audience there. It’s the same demographic. The same type of guy, same type of girl. I don’t think they listen to the radio. The radio is crap. It’s been that way since I became a teenager. I started to realize that I didn’t like what was on the radio anymore. I know people who do write for the radio.

You can tell they do. Every song that they have on there has the formula, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, because people wanna

hear Nickleback. I just won’t listen to the radio. I know people who will torture themselves. I mean, my brother (Ryan, who Kurt played in many bands with, the most noteworthy being 90’s Canadian rock act Limblifter) will drive around in his van and he’ll switch the stations saying ‘Fuck! This is terrible!’ and it’s been 20 years of him doing that.

I just want to tell him that it was terrible back then, so why do you still do it? He thinks that one of these days that the clouds are gonna part and this re-assertion is going to come true.”

Kurt lived in Vancouver’s East Side for well over a decade and since both of us are from rural environments (I’m from a small town in the Ottawa Valley of 6,000 white people), we begin on a Vancouver music scene callback. We talk more about the New Pornographers not being big in Vancouver until they had press elsewhere. I ask him what he says when people are on about the music scene in the city.

“There isn’t really a music scene there. [Small local bands] just need to cling to something. You can live where you live and just make music. You don’t need to be part of a scene or anything like that, because we weren’t. I don’t think there was a music scene when The New Pornographers started. People would argue that with us and Destroyer (which is Dan Bejar’s project that could either be a side project of The New Pornographers, or the New Pornographers could be a side project of Destroyer) that there was a music scene, but I would argue. I get interviews in Europe where they’ll ask ‘You guys and Black Mountain have a real music scene there’ but I only see Steve McBean from Black Mountain about once a year. It’s not really a music scene, we just do what we do. I’m not so sure that in that Seattle scene that any of those guys hung out. I’m sure Kurt Cobain never hung out with Soundgarden. Or in Minneapolis, I don’t think that The Replacements hung out with that Soul Asylum guy.”

Our conversation gets gently interrupted with vague animal sounds in the background over the phone, and I get a sense of Kurt’s current spacial living arrangement. “Sorry. Sorry about this.

Hold on, I gotta go see what this noise is. What’s the matter?”, he rhetorically asks his giant dogs.

“C’mere!” he orders, followed by those generic kissy noises one makes to animals with limited

comprehension. “You’re too loud!”

With the break in conversation, our interview gets reset, and Kurt coyly asks me why I asked to interview him instead of the oft-interviewed Carl Newman. “Well I’m a fan, first off.” To which he tells me that my cheque is in the mail in a jovial tone. “I guess I wanted a different perspective,” I say, coming up with a reason that isn’t fanboy-ish, “Carl gets interviewed a lot, and I’m certain he needs a break now and then.”

“Yeah, we kind of floss it off on him. I feel bad sometimes. Carl’s just really good at it. I’m not trying to pass the buck to Carl, but he has a genuine talent for doing it. I don’t mind doing it, but sometimes you get those really hard ones like ‘What’s your favorite colour?’ I don’t like talking about ‘How many records have you sold?’ or ‘What’s with this new label?’ To me I’m more interested in what kind of car they drive. Like, I see Chan [Marshall] from Cat Power quite a bit at shows, because we play a lot of the same summer festivals, and we never talk about records or playing music or anything at all. I mean, she’s an acquaintance that I see once or so a year and we talk for about five minutes and it’s always about our dogs, or where we’re living now. The stuff we’re actually interested in. I’m not that interesting of a guy,” he says, trying to justify the interview in a shy manner,“Maybe that’s why I play the drums.”

Taking the reigns of the interview, Kurt asks me if I know that Neko Case has bought herself a farm in Vermont. “We sort of discovered that we were looking at farms at the same time. She brings me copies of Hobby Farm Magazine when I see her”. I ask casually if maybe farmers are the new pop-rock image. “Well, when we were in England I read that the bassist from Blur [Alex James], who’s a rock journalist himself, is making goat cheese on a farm. I like rock biographies.”

“I’m not big on rock biographies because they’re always bit slanted,” I respond. “I prefer books that take down albums that are considered ‘seminal’—a word that should be barred from music journalism around the world—from The White Album to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”.

“I’m not a big Wilco fan,” he quickly exclaims.

“I’m really fussy. People get mad at me and ask ‘Why don’t you like them? Why don’t you like Radiohead?’”

best and I don’t think are. Do you like any of those Toronto bands?”

“No,” I defiantly stamp.“Do you?”

“Toronto’s a weird place, isn’t it?” I say that I was born there in a defective tone. “I just find that I don’t identify very well from the music that comes from there. It’s always been that way for me,” he says, reminding me that he’s a Can-Con touring veteran.

This reminds me of Leslie Feist and how I doubt I could tolerate her lazy lounge act, even in an elevator, and I tell Kurt that her music sounds like something my mother would get down to. “I don’t even think of her that way,” he says. “I mean, when I hear that music I know that it’s not something I’d ever try and listen to, but I think she’s really good for what she is. She’s probably the most professional thing

that comes out of there. It’s original. But my mom would love that record for sure.”

Music haters often turn from sour-faced thumbsdown criticism to comparing guitar gear, and our Feist jokes turn quickly into vintage guitar comparatives until we decided we are friends and do the telephone equivalent of a high-five sign-off. We decided to hang out when he’s in town, and he’ll guestlist me for the New Pornographers stop on the new tour. Kurt Dahle decides that I still owe him lunch, and I decide that I’m a liar.

ION MAGAZINE

“Well, why don’t you like Radiohead?” I inquire promptly.

“I don’t know, it’s too serious for me. Something too serious about them. They just don’t seem to have a sense of humor, and maybe the same with Wilco. Have you seen that [Wilco] movie?”

Deep into the interview I respond with poorly thought reactions, and lie once again and say that I have indeed seen the movie. Kurt continues on his interpretation of the Wilco movie, “[Jeff Tweedy’s] a real arsehole. (The watered down profanity might be due to his 13 year old and newborn baby lurking around the farm) I like the other guy. The guy they fired. He seems like the most interesting one of the bunch. I like some serious music, it’s just that Wilco is one of those bands that is considered the

53

FASHION

JEREMY WILSON

CULTURE

FILM

MUSIC

ION MAGAZINE

54

POSTER ART

Jeremy Wilson’s business moniker is one of those self-explaining tags that makes a promoter want to hire him even before greeting with a handshake. “Popfuel” is fueling pop music with that retro-but-not-on-purpose hand printed poster style that reminds us that the streets of Toronto can be pretty if given the chance.

“I guess my style is flexible. I really try to match the style to the band, but from looking at my designs, cats seem to be a common theme,” says 32 year old Wilson. Cats are better (and smarter) than dogs, and Cat Power posters are better (and smarter) when they involve a stretched out feline staring at what could only be a solar eclipse. Jeremy’s gig posters are made even better by the fact that he’s only been doing it for about a year. After half a decade of designing t-shirts and “other stuff,” our hero dug up the book The Art of Modern Rock, and a self-proclaimed fire was born inside him. “The rock poster scene in Canada is virtually non-existent when compared to what’s happening in the US, and I want to change that. Everyone from Vancouver to St. John’s should see the incredible beauty and genius staring back from record store windows and telephone poles all around them, and I hope some of my posters can help make that happen.”

Godspeed, Jeremy.

ION MAGAZINE 55

ART FASHION

FILM MUSIC: ALBUM REVIEWS

Strawberry Jam ANIMAL COLLECTIVE domino As far as I know, this is probably the most accessible Animal Collective album yet. It should be noted, however, that I hate structure. My apartment is all piles of disassembled shelving units and pillow stuffing, my alarm clock is set on “shuffle” and I had a faulty pacemaker installed to keep my heartbeat from getting boring. Here are the naked facts: if you like the Animal Collective you will probably not be disappointed. If you don’t like the Animal Collective I don’t really know what to tell you. As expected, this is like the kind of music little kids would make, if little kids had access to a studio and weren’t idiots. It’s not as stoney and mellow as they have been and there are a lot more vocals, but it’s still (in a lot of ways) just another Animal Collective album. Which means “great,” unless you don’t “get it,” in which case you are probably “retarded” and shouldn’t try to edit out my “excessive quotation marks.”

ION MAGAZINE 56

★★★★✩

–Clayton Pierrot

A Drink and a Quick Decision Grand National Sunday Best Grand National’s biography on their website begins with “Every so often a group comes around...” and one needs not read any further. That kind of cookie-cutting thesis statement is the print equivalent of their accompanying photo, which has two young men in tight t-shirts, one of them with a soul patch (or “flavor-saver”) looking pensive and stoic. This is their second record, and it’s even more average than the first. At least the last record had the early Police-ish swagger jam “Playing In The Distance.” A Drink and A Quick Decision has no songs of note, and reminds us that when a band’s sophomore record is a step back from the first, (in a genre that even the best albums are still only mediocre) the best a listener can hope for is “kinda sexy, sorta fun,” which this record isn’t. Grand National are the kind of guys who would show up at your house party and turn off “Walkin’ On Sunshine” and put on a record by The Knife and say “just listen to those keyboards!”

Puke.

★✩✩✩✩

Once Upon a Time in the West Hard-Fi Warner

The Shepherd’s Dog Iron and Wine Sub Pop

From what I understand, Hard-Fi’s

Sam Beam has been delivering

sophomore album The Stars of

solid indie folk with a Southern twist

CCTV—released during those heady

under the Iron and Wine moniker for

days of 2005 when the likes of Bloc

five years, and his third record, The

Party, the Arctic Monkeys, the Kaiser

Shepherd’s Dog, is his finest one yet.

Chiefs, et al. were all scrambling

The album embraces a fuller sound

over the still-twitching corpse of the

than its predecessors, proving that

Libertines to the top of the UK pop

Beam is capable of greatness beyond

charts—was something of a cel-

his delicate acoustic cover of the

ebrated rags-to-riches success story

Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights”

in dear old Blighty. Near-platinum

(Thank God. Don’t get me wrong,

status, Mercury Prize nominations, and

I liked it, but after I heard it, all his

a five-night residency (following the

music started sounding the same to

likes of The Clash, Bob Dylan, and, uh,

me). There’s a twangy tinge to the

Prodigy) came, I guess, accordingly.

record reminiscent of his previous

Now, while contemporaries like the

work (the religious imagery is still

Klaxons and the Monkeys, sensing a

present, too) but a 60’s psychedelic

sinking ship, move off into darker and

influence seems to have seeped in at

more spastic locals, Hard-Fi release

places (“Pagan Angel and a Borrowed

the insipid paean to banality that is

Car,”“White Tooth Man,”“Peace

Once Upon A Time In The West. From

Beneath the City”). There’s even one

title, to album art, to the final string

track, “House by the Sea”, that has

quiver on closer “The King”, we find a

an African-bluesy feel to it, and Beam

band reaching desperately for great-

can fill out and layer his music while

ness but grasping little beyond tepid

still penning lyrics that will break

cliché and saccharine over-production.

your heart. It doesn’t get any better

Warner’s promo team is conjuring the

than that.

ghost of “early Clash” to sell this thing,

★★★★★

but I think “British Maroon 5” probably gives you a better idea of what Once

–Trevor Risk

Upon A Time… is all about.

★✩✩✩✩ –Chad R. Buchholz

–Amanda Farrell

Exile On Mainstream Matchbox Twenty Atlantic I was at the pawnshop the other day pawning my guitars so I could fly to L.A. to pursue my rock ‘n’ roll dreams.

As I was perusing the CD rack while waiting for my appraisal I came across, Yourself Or Someone Like You by Matchbox Twenty. I laughed to myself thinking about the review I’m writing for their new Greatest Hits package titled: Exile on Mainstream.

Those old MB20 albums have created a cottage industry for pawnshops, and that is fine, because Rob Thomas has pawned his adult contemporary soul and bought a one-way ticket to rocking the enlightened airwaves of satellite radio. Enlisting U2 producer Steve Lillywhite, they have written an efficient rock track that will be around for the next decade on Sirius playlists at every Cactus Club from here to Burnaby, BC.“Let’s See How Far We’ve Come” is a solid track, but let’s leave everything else on this retrospective for the pawnshop.

★✩✩✩✩

–Joseph Delamar

Our Ill Wills Shout Out Louds Merge

War Stories UNKLE Sony

Playtime Is Over Wiley Big Dada

Rosa Parks could never be my bus bud-

The third official UNKLE full-length

When you are the godfather of

dy, because I refuse to sit anywhere but

reeks of unfulfilled promise. Their

a genre named after what you

the back of the bus. The front is for old

1998 debut Psyence Fiction saw

scrape from under your nails after

people, the middle is for guys who’ll

James Lavelle rewardingly collabo-

a weeklong bender, grow some big

accidentally brush up against your

rating with DJ Shadow and names

boy testies. I mean, when you get

thigh one or seven times, and the back

as big and diverse as Thom Yorke

grime down on paper it’s supposed

is for people like me—people who

(Radiohead) and Kool G. Rap, resulting

to be rap, dnb, and euro-trance?

want to sit with the wind nipping at the

in a richly atmospheric hybrid of Mo

Canadian trance maybe? It all sounds

back of their neck, daydreaming to the

Wax house and turntablist hip-hop.

pretty good, however this offering

Shout Out Louds. The Swedish quintet’s

2003’s Shadow-less Never, Never Land

from Eskiboy (AKA Wiley) is riddled

sophomore album Our Ill Wills has all

was widely regarded as a small step

with “shut the fuck up” Wiley stylings.

the synth-pop charm of their 2005 de-

backwards, centering on Lavelle and

There is nothing grimey about this

but Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, but with Björn

his roommate Richard File. With a

shit. Wiley, stop using Zest and make

Yttling (of Peter Björn & John fame) in

less spectacular cast of contributors

an album with some teeth. It reminds

the production chair, the band has de-

and label problems, the album failed

me of this time where I had gone out

veloped a more polished sound to put

to improve on the success of the first

with a girl like, four or five times, and I

out one of the year’s best pop albums.

record. Cut to 2007 and we’ve got the

thought that it was going pretty good,

Our Ill Wills opens with the exhilarat-

same problems. Virtually no press pre-

when she tells me that she never

ingly melodic “Tonight I Have To Leave

ceded the release of War Stories and

understood why someone would buy

It” and moves steadfastly through one

it’s not surprising why. Several of the

a super soaker, pee in it, fly to England

catchy pop song to another—from

same guests appear here as did four

and shoot it in a guy named Wiley’s

the wistfully kinetic “Normandie,” call-

years ago, along indie rock b-listers

face. Wait did that happen? Or is it

ing The Cure to mind in its percussive

and QOSTA producer Chris Goss. There

going to happen? There is not one

opening, to the energetic burst of

aren’t any moments that make you

song on this disc that will ever be

Abba-inspired orchestral pop at the

think,“Wow, I’m listening to the new

near my ears again.

★✩✩✩✩

UNKLE.” There’s just nothing controversial or challenging about it. The scope

bus ride album, stretching summer’s

of these projects has gone from epic

tail with its toe-tappingly ardent pop-

grandiosity to ineffectual rock banality

rock hooks and filling the back of that

and will be forgotten as such.

bus with its vocal reverie.

★✩✩✩✩

★★★★✩ –Nojan Aminosharei

Filmore Mescalito Holmes

Welcome to Five to One, where every month we get people we like to scribble their current top five tracks plus one classic on scraps of paper. This month we have Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter who we cornered at a

–Dr. Ian Super

restaurant prior to his Seattle show.

Curiously, Bangalter’’s classic pick is from his first band, Darlin’—whom NME Magazine referred to as ‘daft punks’ in a particularly scathing review. Good luck finding it.

ION MAGAZINE

heart of “South America.” This is definitely your September album, your long

Thomas Bangalter OF DAFT PUNK

57

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS HOROSCOPES COMICS ION MAGAZINE 58

Social Engineering Words Sam Kerr Photography Jason Lang

I made a bet with a girl regarding the Turkish election. I took the socialist. Never bet on a socialist. The stakes, previously decided: The loser (me) was to pay for an entire night of the winner’s drinking.

We go to Whistler and set up shop at a hotel. Once inside the room, I ask my date for a little privacy while I call my mother. I pick up a phone, call a bar, and ask for a manager.

Once he is on the line I say, “Four years ago I met my girlfriend at your bar. Tonight I am going to ask her to marry me, and I want to do it at the same place that I met her. I know it’s sentimental, but I’ll take all the help I can get at this point. Anyway, we’re going out to dinner first, so we’ll be coming in a little late. Would it be a problem for us to skip the line?

I don’t want to get stuck out in the cold on the night that I propose to my wife, eh.” I repeat this lie to the manager of a restaurant and then to the managers of three other bars.

After all the lying, I tell my date that I need to go into the village, “I have forgotten something.” I drive to the dollar store and buy the best fake diamond ring that I can find.

Then, I go to a real jewelry store and pay the corrupt manager one hundred dollars for a little blue box.

When I return, my date and I have some casual cocktails. Around nine we order a cab and make our way down to the restaurant. Just as we arrive I grab my date’s hand and say, “I am going to trick the manager into giving us some free champagne, so just play along. None of this is real, just play along.” Intrigued by mystery and adventure, my date agrees.

After our main course I say that I am going to the toilet, but instead I get up and search for the manager.

When I find him, I remind him that I am about to pop the question.

Straight faced, I look him in the eyes and say, “From the bowels of Christ I beseech you; if my girl agrees to marry me, you must buy us a bottle of champagne.” The manager grabs me by the scruff of the neck, maintains eye contact, and nods his head.

I return to the table, wink at my date, and drop to a knee. “Roxanne Rochanbach, four years ago I took you on our first date, here to this restaurant. That was the best day of

my life. Every day since that day, I have been learning what it means to really live. It’s all because of you Roxanne,” I pull the blue box from my coat pocket and wink at my date again,“will you marry me?”

Pop goes the cork and the bubbles flow over my hand. Not the best bottle, but the price is right. We say chimo, touch glasses, and celebrate.

I get the bill and we move on to a ‘club.’

I say my name is David Feldstansi; the bouncer refers to the list and lets us in. I ask around for the manager, find him, and then repeat the lie from the restaurant. He gives me the

green light to go to the DJ booth and grab the mic. I propose to my date; this time through high-powered stereo equipment; and again the blue box fools the crowd. Drunk people line up to buy us drinks.

Unfortunately, this story is fiction. The girl to whom I lost the bet figured out my plan before I had a chance to hatch it. She saw through my social engineering to its logical endgame. What happens at the end of a date like that? Was I engineering her too? Moral of the story: Never try to pull a fast one on a girl that knows anything about Turkish elections.

HOROSCOPES: Christina Culver I would rather be here with you than anywhere else in the world. You, all of you here and everywhere, gave me this award tonight.

And I accept it from you and only you. I love all of you. Now please forgive me, good night. — VIRGO Aug 23 - Sept 23 Leo

July 23-Aug 22

Sagittarius Nov 23-Dec 21

They were thoughtless, selfish, spoiled children. Now they won’t wake you up when you need your rest.

Is this an institution of learning or a teenage brothel?

LIBRA

Nobody ever said that life was fair.

I’m bigger and I’m faster. I will always beat you.

Sept 24-Oct 23

She’s perfect. You’re perfect.

My daughter. My own daughter! I’m going to make a perfect life for you. I’m going to give you all the things I never had. My beautiful little darling! You’re a lucky girl, and very expensive. You cost me a lot of favours.

SCORPIO

Oct 24-Nov 22

AQUARIUS

Jan 21-Feb 19

You were always the shop girl who fought her way to the top, made a great success. Well, you’re not a little shop girl anymore. Now, that’s the truth, to face and deal with, if you want to survive. The truth is, you’re getting old.

PISCES

Feb 20-March 20

Hollywood royalty! Parted friends. . . everyone already knows! Box office poison! Box office poison!

Class! You’re. . . class. . . you’re. . . class. . . box office poison! Eighteen years in the business and we parted friends! Creative differences!

Christina is your Darling www.christinaculver.com

ARIES

Don’t fuck with me fellas. This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.

sexy. Now it just makes you look drunk. I should’ve known you’d know where to find the boys and the booze.

TAURUS

cancer

March 21-April 20

April 21-May 21

I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt.

GEMINI

May 22-June 21

How many drinks is that? When you were a kid that made you look

June 22-July 22

Oh yes, it was thrilling. I’m so grateful to you all. . . my Won-derful fans, who made me a star. Oh yes. It was thrilling. I’m so grateful to you all. My Won-derful fans, who made me a star. . .

Mommie?

ION MAGAZINE

You were very, very bad to wake Mommie up like that. Very naughty.

I told you, Mommie has to be beautiful today. This afternoon, she has to see Mister Mayer. Today is so important. You are thoughtless and selfish. You must learn to think about other people. You are bad, bad spoiled children.

Capricorn Dec 22-Jan 20

59

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS

HOROSCOPES

COMICS

ION MAGAZINE

60