ION MAGAZINE
#56 FREE
skate photo: chami lifestyle: mikendo
LOUIE BARLETTA LOUIE BARLETTA • STU GRAHAM • JOEY PEPPER
RANDY PLOESSER • DEREK FUKUHARA • JOHN LUPFER • ROBERT LIM www.ezekielusa.com/skate
CONTENTS
GET ION MAGAZINE ANYWHERE
Volume 7 Number 3 Issue 56 10 14 16 47 48
Editor’s Letter Where’s my Hoverboard! ION the Street Be Spectacled. Of The Month Movies about vampires, video games that take place in a zone where you kill, our music editor is the best DJ in town and a cat with laser eyes. Horoscopes Sara Hennessey is a gypsy. Don’t know if that means she’ll do a great job with the horoscopes. However, it does mean she’s homeless and you should send her money. Cartoons
CULTURE 18 20
Mr. Scruff Artist/musician/teamaker and the new nickname for our Music Editor. Ronan Boyle Ronan makes the perfect art for concrete lofts. Too bad all those lofts are empty now.
MOVIES 22
I Love You Phillip Morris None of our staff found true love or hooked up with a famous person when we were all in prison.
FASHION 26 28
Put Some Bling On It Jewelry from Alex + Chloe, Love Medals and Toodlebunny. Up The Wals The ION Xtreme Dance Team poses for our fashion editorial this month, which is shot by Hubert Kang.
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This year ION is introducing a fun new mobile component that will help enhance your experience with the magazine. Keep your eyes peeled for the ION Mobile Flag on pages where there is further mobile content available. For music-related mobile content, simply text IONMUSIC to 82442. You’ll immediately receive a text with a link to a mobile website. If your phone is compatible with iTunes, you’ll be able to preview and purchase all the music featured in the current issue of ION. In future issues, we’ll start recommending a few choice tracks you should consider purchasing. For fashion related mobile content, text IONFASHION to 82442. You’ll be directed to a website that lists where you can purchase all the clothing featured in the current issue. To make it easy for you, there will be Google Map links for all the stores. This is still all really new for us so expect a lot of exciting new mobile features to be added in the future. And apologies in advance, we don’t plan on accommodating people who still only own a pager.
MUSIC 36 38 42 44 46
Buraka Som Sistema It’ll be a miracle if we don’t spell these guys’ names wrong at least once in this issue. Handsome Furs We think it’s time to start referring to Wolf Parade as a Handsome Furs side project. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead Another band whose name is a real pain in the ass to write out. Album Reviews Poster Art: Robe Let’s open up the Robe and have a look.
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We thought this whole internet thing was a quick passing fad. Turns out we were wrong. So we went and made ourselves a pretty new website.As awesome as a physical magaze is, there are certain constraints to it. On the new ION website, not only is all the magazine’s content on there, you’ll also find lots of web exclusive content and contests. Be sure to check out www.ionmagazine.ca
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Publisher/Fashion Director
Vanessa Leigh vanessa@ionmagazine.ca
Editor in Chief Creative Director Art Director Music Editor Fashion Editor Designer Copy Editor Editorial Intern Design Intern
Michael Mann editor@ionmagazine.ca Danny Fazio danny@ionmagazine.ca Tyler Quarles tyler@ionmagazine.ca Trevor Risk trevor@ionmagazine.ca Toyo Tsuchiya toyo@ionmagazine.ca Leslie Ma leslie@ionmagazine.ca Steven Evans Patricia Matos Samantha Langdorf
Office Manager Advertising
Natasha Neale natasha@ionmagazine.ca Jenny Goodman jenny@ionmagazine.ca
ABOUT OUR COVER PERSONALITY Thunderheist
On the cover this month are Isis and Grahm Zilla, aka Thunderheist. This dance-rap duo from Montreal just released their first full-length on Big Dada, but they’ve been killing it on the blogs and in the clubs for ages with a sound that reminds us of a disco-fied Missy Elliot. We don’t like to throw out hyperboles too often around here but blowin’ the fuck up is all you can really say about them. Their new album is phenomenally danceable in a club, your apartment, the bus, with a mouse, in a house, there or anywhere. They’ve played festivals and shows around the world and one of their most recent stops was in Hollywood, where Isis appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show with MSTRKRFT and rap legend N.O.R.E. Sure they’re a Canadian band, but at the rate things are going for them, they may actually be able to afford Patron and then pop it like Isis commands in their song “Cruise Low.” Until then, they’ll have to settle for Cuervo.
Writers Bix Brecht, Steven Evans, Stefana Fratila, Sara Hennessey, Zia Hirji, Sharon Ko, Shallom Johnson, Peter Knegt, Jules Moore, Kellen Powell, Adam Sabla, Valerie Tiu Photographers and Artists Toby Marie Bannister, Taylor Borris, Claire Edmondson, Kyla Hammelgarn, Toby Hudson, Jenny Kanavaros, Krista Seller, Hubert Kang, Geoffrey Knott, Mr. Scruff, Mahsa Pazouh, Ryan Rey, Jesse Williams 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 2009 Hey PR people, publicists, brand managers and label friends, send us stuff. High-resolution jpegs are nifty and all, but they’re no substitute for the real thing. Clothing, liquor, PS3s, CDs, vinyl, DVDs, video games, and an iPhone can be sent to the address below. New Address #303, 505 Hamilton Street. Vancouver, BC, Canada. V6B 2R1 Office 604.696.9466 Fax: 604.696.9411 feedback@ionmagazine.ca
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Thunderheist’s self-titled debut is out now on Big Dada. [www.thunderheist.com] Cover Credits Photography: Geoffrey Knott Styling: Claire Edmondson Hair and Makeup: Taylor Borris Clothing Credits: [ISIS] Jacket - Franny Vintage Blouse - Rodebjer Jean Shorts - 69 Vintage Shoes - Top Shop Jewellery & Sunglasses - Isis’s own [Grahm] Grahm’s Own
www.firetrap.com For store info: 1.866.240.2808
CONTRIBUTORS
PHOTOGRAPHER [TOBY HUDSON]
TOBY HUDSON TRAVIS COLLIER
[p.36] [ELI HORN PHOTO]
PETER KNEGT
Toby Hudson shot Buraka Som Sistema for us. He was born in England in 1978 and grew up in Bath, Somerset with a healthy diet of hip hop and skateboarding. He first got into photography when he was about 14 playing around with his Dad’s camera. Some of his friends were in bands and he always loved music but had never been able to play anything, so he became the band photographer. He eventually moved to London at age 19 where he started assisting fashion and advertising photographers before branching out on his own and shooting for glossy magazines like Elle and the Sunday Times Style. When asked to do some gig shots for ION magazine Toby was at first hesitant because “I’m unseasoned in the chaos of shooting from the pit. But when I found out it was Buraka Som Sistema live at the Scala, I jumped at the chance. I knew it would be an amazing atmosphere and a great fun trying to capture the spirit of the gig. There was literally sweat dripping off the walls in there.” [www.tobyhudson.com]
ILLUSTRATOR [TRAVIS COLLIER]
[p.42]
Travis Collier illustrated the article for ...The Trail Of Dead. He is a designer/Illustrator currently living and working in Vancouver, Canada. He currently works at St. Bernadine Mission Communications [a Vancouver design agency], and spends most of his off hours freelancing for various brands and designing for international shows. Spending the last eight years traveling and competing as a pro BMX rider has given Travis a rare and unique perspective in art and design. His years leading a double life of design and BMX have taught him a great deal about the importance of going your own way in whatever you do. [www.traviscollier.com]
WRITER [PETER KNEGT]
[p.22]
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Peter Knegt interviewed the directors of I Love You Phillip Morris for us. He devotes most of his energy to his job as Associate Editor of indieWIRE.com, an online magazine based out of New York, and also occasionally contributes to Variety, Xtra!, Playback, Exclaim, and Hitfix. com. Most of his work is either film-oriented or queer issue-oriented, or both. He would like to eventually break out beyond this pigeon hole, but is certainly happy to be getting any work at all. Additionally, since finishing grad school at Concordia University last summer, he has attempted to weather the recession by adopting a life of homelessness. He has not paid rent in over eight months, instead mooching floors, couches and spare bedrooms at a variety of cities across North America, most consistently New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Montreal. This has resulted in him paying off approximately 5% of his student loans, and annoying a geographically diverse mix of friends and family. He is expected to remain homeless through 2010. [blogs.indiewire.com/thelostboy]
EDITOR’S LETTER
Save Us by Toby Marie Bannister
MICHAeL MANN We have now been printing for six years. Man, are we old. Up until recently we were still talking about how long the magazine had been around for in months. It was only last year we stopped having week-a-versaries. We’ve come a long way from a magazine that you wouldn’t take home even after 12 beers. True story, I used to interview trance and techno DJs for those early issues. Trance DJs like Tiesto for fuck’s sake. Don’t mistake me writing about trance DJs as something that people just did six years ago. It was as lame back then as it is now. I wasn’t editor at the time so I’d like to say, “It’s not my fault I was just following orders.” But we all know who used that as a defense. If you’re lucky enough to have one of those issues kicking around, you could probably
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blackmail us with it. But hold off doing that for a second. Place the issue in your hands now next to one of the issues with the trance DJ interviews (there were a few). Gently touch them. Wow, wasn’t that awesome what just happened? For those of you that don’t have an old issue, an implosion took place that resembled what happened when Ron Silver got pushed into his past self in the Jean-Claude Van Damme masterpiece Timecop. That’s what happens when matter and anti-matter collide. Or, if you will, when shitty and awesome collide. This cosmic reaction highlights our ongoing commitment to constantly improving and reinventing this magazine to remain relevant. It’s what keeps us afloat, that and the magical angel feather that Jesus gave to our publisher. A lot of magazines these days are clinging
to their old ways and holding on for dear life despite being decimated by the internet and the economy (“We’ve been in business for a long time. No need to change.”) Or trying to reinvent themselves in a half-assed way (“A new font, a Facebook group and a Twitter account will save the day!”) The reality is most of these magazines will go out of business. They serve no purpose other than being “kind of like this other magazine, only not as good.” This isn’t just limited to magazines though. There are a lot of businesses still kicking around that probably shouldn’t. Example: Porno Video Stores. Who in their right mind wants to go out for pornography these days? Have these people not heard of the internet? All the most disgusting and depraved porn you want, instantaneously. You don’t even need to get dressed.
The Yellow Pages (or whatever the hell it’s called now). Pizza and Restaurant are separate categories. What section do I flip to if I want to order pizza from a restaurant? I usually end up getting so frustrated with this dilemma that I just rip the Yellow Pages in half in a fit of rage. Then I look online and realize I could have found the phone number, reviews and viral videos about the pizza restaurant infinitely faster. Angel feather permitting, we won’t be going the way of Red Hot video stores, the Yellow Pages or the majority of other magazines out there. I’m sure the difference between this issue and the issue you’ll be looking at in another six years will be dramatic. Hopefully, though, the comparison won’t be as embarrassing… and we’ll finally be reviewing hoverboards. Thanks for reading.
ION THE PRIZE Covet ION wishes you a Happy Earth Day on April 22nd, which makes this month’s prize so fabulously green-tastic. Green is chic, so “covet” this: an amazing organic collection of lustrous and delicate fabrics that will have you tree-hugging in no time. No brown potato sacks and plain Ts here. So go ahead, stand tall, reduce your waste and make your life a little greener. The Earth says, “Thank you. You look hot.”
Photographer: Kyla Hemmelgarn Stylist: Toyo Tsuchiya Hair/makeup Krista Seller @ Liz Bell Model: Janice @ Lizbell
To enter text IONTHEPRIZE to 82442 or visit www.ionmagazine.ca
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ION THE STREET [2]
Photography: Hubert Kang. Stylist: Toyo Tsuchiya. Hair and Makeup: Krista Seller Models: Toban and Chloe
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BE SPECTACLED Eyewear is the new fashion accessory for your pretty head that will make you fresh faced for Spring. You can find colourful, different sized, plastic or metal eyewear that will match any cute spring outfit you have. Also if you favour the vintage look go to your local vintage shop and pick up a brand name pair and pop your lenses in them for that Annie Hall look. Remember that you will no longer be called four eyes but a fashion nerd! [1] Mykita - Walter courtesy of Bruce Eyewear [2] Vintage Pierre Cardin courtesy of True Value Vintage [3] Cutler And Gross - Preppy [4] l.a. Eyeworks - Hedgehog [5] Persol - 2891V
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OF THE MONTH Twitter Tough Economic Times Tips [DVD] Vinyan] [DVD] Let The Right One In [1]
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[1] Twitter How often do you Twitter? We’re on there all day, every day sucking in factoids, details about what you had for dinner and how Shaq is doing. Please add us when you get a moment. It’s an amazing way to keep abreast of ION-related activities and contests. [www.twitter.com/ionmagazine] [2] Tough Economic Times Tips Hey, has the economy gotten better yet? No, it hasn’t. It’s gotten worse. Much, much worse. Thanks for asking, asshole. Before one of you stockbrokers takes a flying leap out of your office building (a lot of stockbrokers read ION), maybe you should check out page 18 of this issue. We got Ninja Tune’s Mr. Scruff to do a whole cartoon with some money saving tips for these tough economic times. Turn your stretch limo into a bus to earn some extra cash? Genius! [3] DVD—Vinyan Okay, let’s get a little bit weird. If you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and watch Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire aka The Ordeal. It’s one of the best horror movies of this young millennium. It took a while, but this brilliant Belgian has finally followed it up with Vinyan. Predictably, the subject matter is unnerving. A couple’s child dies in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Months later, at a fundraiser for Burmese children, the wife believes she sees her son in some grainy footage of the Burmese jungle. So the couple hire some shady folks to take them on a mission to Burma to find their son who likely isn’t
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there. Insanity, violence, obsession, thieves and gangs of wild children who like to bury people alive in mud. Vinyan is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness meets Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. [4] DVD—Let The Right One In Serious and artistic filmmakers tend to get hung up on issues like, say, human rights, or drug abuse when they choose which stories to tell. Well, Let the Right One In is for people who enjoy those sorts of of smart, contemplative, beautifully lensed dramas, but who also want to see a vampire scale a hospital building and tear someone’s throat out. Taking place in a snowy early Eighties Stockholm, the film focuses on lonely only-child Oskar and his friendship with a young girl, Eli. The two both appear to be 12-years old and for the most part do what 12-year-olds do. They play in the snow, make secret codes, hug and have a perfectly adorable boy-girl friendship. The catch is that Eli also has this thing where she’s immortal and has to kill people so she can drink their blood. Through her friendship and guidance, Oskar learns to deal with the violent problems in his life by tackling them head-on rather than passively accepting the actions of his tormentors. The film uses gore and special effects sparingly, instead choosing to focus on the relationship between the two. It plays out more interestingly as a result. - Kellen Powell
OF THE MONTH [Pets] Alu Motor Gobi [Store] Super Bored [Game] Killzone 2 Shameless Self Promotion [Art Show] The New Photographers [5]
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[5] Pet—Alu Motor Gobi Are there any better cats than tabby cats? We think not. We’re sure there’s a very interesting story behind Alu Motor Gobi’s name. More interesting is her eyes though. She looks likes she’s charging them up so she can fire lasers out of them at you. It’s probably time for you to feed her. Send cute pictures to pet@ionmagazine.ca to have your pet immortalized in print. [6] Store—Super Bored Remember back in September ‘08 when we were bitching that you can’t find Wrongwroks clothing anywhere in Vancouver? Until quite recently, we had to hop a plane to Japan, where you can find it in pretty much every store going. And that’s exactly what we did (okay, maybe buying it online would have been smarter). But we digress, our prayers have been answered! Tony from Wrongwroks has opened up his own store in Kitsilano and you should go check it out. Not only can you find Wrongwroks clothing, but lines like Stay Real, Shadowgraph, Outerspace and Fever as well. Super Bored, 1701 West 4th Ave [www.superbored.wordpress.com] [7] Game—Killzone 2 What can be said about Killzone 2 that hasn’t already been said about futuristic interplanetary warfare? A shitload. So we’ve been playing this game for about two weeks now and it has melted our faces exactly seven times. The in-game graphics are the same as the cut scenes, which illustrates how visually amazing it is. The game play is fast-paced and smoother than a ride in your uncle’s Rolls. Killzone 2 really excels when you have been playing it for
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seven hours and it’s about two in the morning and a giant tank charges at you out of nowhere and you scream loud enough to wake up your entire family… or maybe that’s just us. Either way, get this game and prepare to kiss your social life goodbye. - Zia Hirji [8] Shameless Self Promotion Our music editor Trevor Risk was recently named number one DJ in Vancouver by the Westender, the eighth most popular free newspaper in Vancouver. Congratulations, Trevor, but don’t get cocky. You have a long way to come before you’ll top our editor in chief’s accomplishment of being named Best Busser in Vancouver (2005) by Clubvibes.com, the second most popular webforum for club-related discussion in Vancouver. [9] Art Show—The New Photographers Oh great, another art show. They better have alcohol. Not so fast! The New Photographers show is not to be missed. It features past and present ION contributors Fiona Garden and Jody Rogac, as well as a few other rising talents like Cedric Bomford, Lila Bujold, Jeff Otto O’Brien and Jeff Petry. Be sure to make it on down to the opening on April 3 at 8pm at Gallery Atsui on 602 East Hastings (the show runs until April 29 in case you can’t make it). Not sold? Well fine then, there’ll be booze too. [www.galleryatsui.com]
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CULTURE MR. SCRUFF
WHEN TIMES GET HARD, GRAB A CUP OF TEA Words: Steven Evans
Mr. Scruff is a DJ, music producer, tea salesman and cartoonist out of Manchester, England. Suffice to say, your mother is already more proud of him than she is of you. Though Scruff’s childlike cartoons mainly appear on his record artwork, posters and website (“I don’t really do cartoons to illustrate anything other than my music”), he was kind enough to send ION our very own cartoon, featuring recession-busting tips designed to save us from bankruptcy and ruin. We recently spoke with this man of many talents from somewhere in England. Could you describe your particular cartoon style for readers? I haven’t got a clue, really. It’s just kind of like a five-year-old’s potato style. I suppose it’s just very simple with a lot of quite eccentric English humour. I suppose a combination of sort of Monty Python-type stuff and just a lot of crazy sort of kids’ animation that used to be on TV in the seventies — a lot of it was quite surreal so it’s obviously left quite a lasting and damaging effect on me.
When did you start drawing potatoes? Probably in my early teens. They’ve looked exactly the same for the last 15, 16, 17 years. Once I hit a style it didn’t really change, which is quite nice because after so much time with the music and the DJing, it’s nice for the doodles to be a sort of stress-free experience. So your cartoons haven’t developed over the years? Very, very slowly … once you have kind of an outline of legs, arms, eyes and a mouth, you can’t really simplify it anymore. Have you ever published your cartoons in a collection? No. I’ve been asked, and I’m sure I’ll get around to it one day. But I think doing a book or something like that is kind of a serious undertaking. And if I’m having a headache doing, like, a one-page cartoon for a magazine, then I’m not sure I’m cut out for a full-length book … I’ll work myself up to maybe try a double-spread first and then see how I go. Is the economy really as bad as everyone says over there? Because I get the feeling that everyone still makes way more than us. I think
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a burger costs us three hours wages when we travel. Umm, I think it’s especially bad if you eat burgers, yeah. But I think with the recession stuff, we’re kind of six months behind North America … I think when it was really kind of going pretty bad in America, we were sort of like, “Oh, what’s the fuss?” But six months later it’s like, “Oh, okay. Now we get it.” Has the tea industry been affected? Not at all, actually … Tea is a stable part of the diet, as much as water is. So I think when people are having a hard time or finding things a bit tough, then you need those little creature comforts. Tea is definitely one of those. Are you the only DJ that you know of with his own tea company, or is that a British thing we don’t really know about in Canada? Well, I think I’m the only DJ that sells tea at his club nights … I heard that Moby used to have a teashop in New York, so I think there’s two of us. But I think he set out with his girlfriend and they’ve split up now, so I don’t think that he’s involved with it anymore. So the moral there is don’t let your girlfriend get
involved in your tea company? I reckon … well, my wife doesn’t even drink tea, so I’m safe there. Your first recession-busting tip is to reuse tea bags. Don’t you think that sort of conservation could wind up hurting your business? Umm … not really. I’d say if you took any of those tips seriously you could wind up in some kind of trouble anyway. With the recession going on and everybody having less money, why should people buy your album? Because hopefully you’ll still be listening to it in five years time, so, I think that’s a pretty good investment, I’d say … I don’t know … I’m not a very good salesman. Have a listen if you like. I think that should be for you to say, actually. That’s a journalist’s job, I think (laughing). Mr. Scruff’s latest album, Ninja Tuna, is available on Ninja Tune. His website is [www. mrscruff.com] and tea company’s website is [www.makeusabrew.com]
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CULTURE
Ronan Boyle
WALL AND PEACE Words: Shallom Johnson
From spending his childhood in wealthy West Vancouver to years battling addiction on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside streets, Ronan Boyle’s life has been one of duality—of seeing and existing in two very different worlds in one urban landscape. An Irish landed immigrant, Ronan moved to Canada at age three with his family. His start as an artist began after a high school career he describes as “short-lived.” (He quit during grade 10 after “experimenting a lot with drugs.”) At eighteen, after a stint in a Texas rehab centre, he was settled and making his first pieces of art. It was during this time that he met the mother of his child, spending the next seven years relatively clean and sober. His first public art exhibitions took place during these years. His work showed in cafes and restaurants: first in 1992 at Cafe du Soleil on Commercial Drive, then at the Soho in Yaletown. By 1994 Ronan was living back on the streets and using drugs but still making art out of whatever he could find. A stack of hand-drawn, collaged postcards sent back and forth between
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himself and a friend in New York provides an epic documentation of these years, and provides a first glimpse at the aesthetic that he has developed and refined in his more recent work. Around 2000, he got clean, entered treatment, and once again put pen and paintbrush to paper. After considering art school, Ronan turned to the decorative arts, undergoing a period of training with master decorators. Soon after this, he participated in annual group shows at Blakes as well as solo shows at Cassis in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007. After meeting Realtor Thu Watson in 2004—a woman to whom he credits much of his success, and the subject of his previous Lucky series—his next few years were spent back among the wealthy, traveling and painting commissioned decorative abstracts for showrooms and real estate. “It was such a contrast to the years before sleeping in abandoned buildings, vehicles and stairwells,” he says. The faded and discoloured concrete walls of his street environment had been replaced by the artfully distressed concrete walls of the highend real estate market. Both manifestations have
given rise to his most recent body of work, aptly titled Concrete. Inspired by the ongoing clash between establishment and voices of dissent, this series of panels investigates the dialogue between property owner and street artist: two perspectives that collide and leave their traces in the layers of paper and paint that pervade much of our urban space. Ronan describes this body of work as “more about the whole than the parts.” His is a gestalt philosophy that maintains each component is less about its singular meaning and more about its relationship to all the others. Stencils, posters, markers and the art of the buff. Torn paper, rust marks, shapes and scribbles worn away by weather and decay and human intervention—Ronan’s Concrete series takes all of these elements out of their natural context. Hanging them in concretecoated reclaimed wood panels on the gallery wall acts as a study in re-contextualization, helping viewers see the beauty and value in what normally goes unnoticed on the street. The first five months of creation were spent
painstakingly researching to find the mixture of materials that would best suit his needs. Ronan spent long hours studying the concrete wall on its own and experimenting with different types of paint, plaster and methods of distressing. When the time came to add imagery to a rather intimidating studio full of empty concrete panels, he steered clear of obvious political statements. “Words make things smaller,” he says. “I wanted to make more room for different interpretations of the work.” To this effect, he chose fragmented warnings from what he calls the “systems of order” layered underneath chaotic responses from those vying for what has become a highly contested venue of public expression. After celebrating eight years clean in January, gaining representation from grace-gallery and presenting his first gallery-based solo show, Ronan says that for him, 2009 “feels like a bit of an arrival.” He has persevered through the best and the worst that his world had to offer, and has come out on top—with clear eyes, a humble heart and a sharp, creative and inquiring mind.
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MOVIES
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS
FRIENDS OF DOROTHY RETURN TO OZ Words: Peter Knegt
“We have no distributor as of yet,” Glenn Ficarra and John Requa said on stage after the world premiere of I Love You Phillip Morris at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. “Who’s buying?” So far, no one. Months after the festival came to a close, its most star-studded selection remains distributor-free. The film found a uniquely divisive response among critics and the public alike at Sundance. While many critics championed its originality, others found it uneven. Some screenings were reported as “crowd-pleasing,” others “quiet.” People aren’t quite sure what to make of Phillip Morris, the directorial debut of Glenn and John
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Illustration: Jesse Williams
(who had previously worked as screenwriters on films like Bad Santa). Perhaps that’s because there’s never really been a film like it. A darkly (and occasionally wildly) comic, totally true gay love story set mostly in a prison, directed by a straight male filmmaking team and starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, two of the biggest stars out there, Morris is in a league of its own. The film follows Steve Russell (Carrey), a Virginia Beach police officer who, after nearly dying in a car accident, decides to come out, leave his wife (Leslie Mann), and move to Miami in search of beaches and boys. Finding his new
lifestyle “really expensive,” Russell resorts to credit card fraud to keep up with the gay Joneses. This winds him up in prison, where he meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (McGregor). After nesting up in a jail cell for a few months (Russell uses his con man skills to manipulate the prison social system and give him and Morris a lovely little existence), the two are separated when Morris gets released. This begins Russell’s lifelong mission (so far, at least… the real Russell continues to serve a 144 year sentence in a Texas prison today) to ensure they remain together. He escapes from prison multiple times (and always on Friday the 13th) by impersonating
a doctor, a lawyer, and most astonishingly, a dying AIDS patient. Think Catch Me If You Can meets Brokeback Mountain meets, well, something that’s never been made before. ION Magazine got a chance to sit down with Glenn and John after one of the film’s screenings at Sundance, and learned a bit about how this distinctive project came together. So how did you guys meet? And did you careers evolve together the way they did? Glenn: John and I met in film school, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. We became friends, and we quickly started working together, graduated together,
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moved out to LA together, made short films together… And eventually, we got professional work together. We’d worked on a short film, and we met some actor who was a writer on an animated show. He got us a job, and that was our first paying gig. Meanwhile, we continued to make shorts and then pitched out first feature, Cats and Dogs, which we sold to Warner Brothers in like 1999. John: 1998, 1999… A long time ago… We’ve been paid screenwriters for like 10 years. What were the challenges of transitioning to this, you’re first gig as feature directors? Glenn: It was an interesting evolution… We’d written several features. And the idea was, when you write your first [script] you’re like directing it on the page and doing all these things. But then when you become a professional writer, you’re giving it up to a director and letting them do what they want to it. And you learn a tremendous amount. You learn that less is more. And that, no matter what, you can bring stuff to the table. So by the time we got around to this, we had already absorbed the process from so many people. But in this case you weren’t handing over anything. You got to keep the control. John: It’s extremely rare. We were given unprecedented control for first-time directors. We were given unprecedented control for fifth-time directors. We were really left alone… [The film’s executive producer] Luc Besson came in after the film was already put together. And obviously getting notes from Luc Besson is a pleasure. Having a great filmmaker like him help you make your movie better is a very good thing. Glenn: Yeah, it’s a big difference… getting notes from a filmmaker instead of a studio. So how did the project come to you? Glenn: Producer Andrew Lazar got a book proposal based on a series of articles about this guy and he sent
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it to us. The proposal was called I Love You Phillip Morris. We took a look at it and just immediately it was like, these are kind of characters we do. John: A lot of writers—screenwriters—are offered, you know, “Write this cheap and you’ll get to direct it.” And we never taken it too seriously. But once we had finally written it, we said, you know, we really want to direct this. This film really blends a lot of tones. From darkly comic to more conventionally dramatic tones… I’d imagine this was quite challenging. Could you speak to what you wanted to achieve, and how you approached this? Glenn: The tone was a big challenge. It was always a concern from the moment we started writing. John: But we were attracted to the material because it was full of challenges. It just pushed all our buttons. It contained so many things we had never done before. I mean, we were adapting a book. We’d never done that before. We were doing a love story. We’d never done that before… We took it on as a challenge. And we never really even thought it would get made. We said… “We need to grow as writers.” We were kind of getting pigeonholed into certain kinds of movies. And we needed to get a new skill set. So we took it as an exercise to write the script. To really take on a number of tasks we hadn’t before. It was a test. What we found—and it took us a year to write it, for free, so we almost went completely bankrupt, much to the chagrin of our representation—was that the test became a passion. So, in a way, I’m not gonna wax poetic or anything but it really is a true passion project. How long was this process? Glenn: Maybe four years? John: I think it took us about five years. Glenn: It took us a long time to get started. It took a long time to secure the rights. We were also coming up with a lot of projects. It took us
about a year to write it. But once we got there, the production came together pretty quickly. With regard to the gay themes… Did either of you ever feel like you were limited in what you could bring to the project because of your heterosexuality? John: You know, I guess there was some apprehension. But we never treated it that way, that was the thing. The whole thing going in was that we were just telling a love story. Glenn: It wanted to transcend that issue. We didn’t want it to be an issue movie. And it’s not an issue movie. John: And we really set out to do that. We had a lot of response from our crew members who agreed to do the movie thinking we were two gay guys. Because it was written so nonchalantly. Glenn: Well, I mean, you could say only Nixon could go to China. John: [Laughs] Well, you know, from the time we started writing together in college. I mean, our mentor was gay and we dedicated the film to him. Part of why we took this on is that we wanted to show… You know, [we were in college] in the late Eighties in New York and it was really in the wake of the AIDS crisis. And he lost almost all of his friends. He was suffered more than anybody I’d ever known. And it struck me as like… I’ve known a lot of gay people in my life. They’re survivors. And they rise above, you know. We wanted to write a character who was a survivor. Glenn: And also if it was an issue movie, I’d feel kind of like a fraud because I have no experience with that. What I have experience with is love. And that’s how we wrote it. I definitely found that this film wasn’t about victimization at all. Which is really rare in mainstream films about gay issues. Glenn: Well, yeah, I mean you had Brokeback Mountain, which I think is an excellent movie. But it was still like things hadn’t moved. It’s like, being gay is a
disease that we have to suffer and tragically die. Well, aren’t we beyond that? John: We wanted to use that perception of gay cinema to turn the audience on their head. And we won’t say more than that… We wanted to move on. The way we think about it, we wanted the world to think about it.
We were given unprecedented control for first-time directors. We were given unprecedented control for fifth-time directors. ION 27
FASHION
ALEX + CHLOE LOVE MEDALS TOODLEBUNNY
PUT SOME BLING ON IT Words: Valerie Tiu
Photography: Kyla Hammelgarn
Sparkly, shiny, loud and in your face. These are just a few of the terms that have come to define the bling wrapped around our necks, hanging off our ears, and even gleaming from our teeth. Bling tends to conjure up images of big-time celebs like Lil’ Wayne and Beyonce. But for most of us, the “ice” around our necks tends to fall short by a couple of karats. Luckily, some jewelry designers have come to the rescue. L.A.’s Alex and Chloe has offered up unisex pieces for people seeking fun and innovative items with a minimalist aesthetic since 2004. The company has received huge response from its necklaces, earrings, brooches and eyewear made from acrylics, metals, gold and diamonds. Alex and Chloe’s brand new collection, called “TAR,” takes cues from “objects found in the depths of the earth and sea.” One piece, a rabbit’s foot pendant, appears to be blackened in tar, but is tempered by a clean and simple antique-like chain.
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Styling: Toyo Tsuchiya
The future sees the designers taking it a step further with the release of a leather goods line. For the compassionate, imaginative accessory enthusiast comes Vancouver’s own Love Medals. Worn on a lapel, around the neck, or as a bracelet, the pieces are reminiscent of war medals made from sterling silver and quality ribbon from Japan. “Fashion-wise, there are small Love Medals for those who appreciate subtle accents to their outfit,” says designer Talia Alexander. “Then there are very bold pieces for those who want to make a statement… worn by Love Soldiers.” Her latest collection features delicate heart lockets, chains, semi-precious stone beads, and Eastern- and Western-inspired charms. A high-end line and a project in support of peace in the Middle East are also in the works for Love Medals. Meanwhile, Toodlebunny, who are also from Vancouver, offer an alternative approach to jewelry design. The collection features
delicate, asymmetrical pieces with clean lines made out of 14karat gold, hand-selected semiprecious stones and Swarovski crystals “Asymmetry, yet balance, is one of the key elements of my design,” explains designer Trudy Wynans. “I love the challenge of designing asymmetrical necklaces as well as complimentary ‘mismatched’ earrings using the same disparate elements… When combined with each other they tell another story.” Check out Alex and Chloe online and at various retailers around the world. Love Medals is available online and at boutiques in BC. Find Toodlebunny at various boutiques in Western Canada. [www.alexandchloe.com] [www.lovemedals.com] [www.toodlebunny.com]
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Photographer: Kyla Hemmelgarn. Styling: Toyo Tsuchiya. Alex & Chloe courtesy of The Block.
FASHION
UP THE WALLS
Windbreaker - Superdry, Tee - Be Ethic, Jeans Domino Jeans, Sneakers - DVS
NG PH OTO G RAPHY BY H U B ERT KA SA LE IG H ES FASH IO N D IR ECTI O N BY VAN STYLIN G BY TOYO TSU C H IYA ouh Styling Assistant: Mahsa Pazh K YOU CAN DAN CE?] 200 8 CTV’s [SO YOU THIN Models: Miles Faber Finalist
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Vest - Fenchurch, Shirt - Emerica, Tee - Domino
Jeans, Jeans - Domino Jeans, Sneakers -
DVS
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Jacket - Parasuco, Tee -
Fenchurch, Jeans - Mat
ix Marc Johnson, Sne
akers - DVS
rch, Shi Sweater - Fenchu
rt - LRG, Jeans -
rs - DVS Altamont, Sneake
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Shirt - Dusty, Jeans - Altamont, Sneakers - DVS
Jacket - Humor, Tee - Superdry, Jeans - Parasuco, Sneakers - DVS
MUSIC Buraka Som Sistema
DANCE LIKE HELL Words: Zia Hirji
Photography: Toby Hudson
Rolling African plains, herds of galloping Zebras heading towards a watering hole, chants of the Massai in the distance. What does this have to do with Buraka Som Sistema? Absolutely nothing. Buraka Som Sistema are the first wave of Kuduro producers to gain worldwide notoriety. Hailing from Lisbon and Angola, the foursome have picked up some loyal and high profile followers like Diplo, Switch, Hot Chip and M.I.A. who count themselves among the legion of BSS fans. MTV Europe Award nomination… CHECK! Acclaim from a number of highly regarded music magazines …CHECK! A live show that you have to see to believe… CHECK! With all this critical praise, the question has to be asked: what the hell is Kuduro anyways? First off, let’s get one thing straight: Kuduro is not what one would traditionally define as “World Music.” You wont find Kuduro playing at Starbucks while ordering your daily latte. Kuduro was born out of the ghettos of Angola with roots in the late Eighties. Producers based out of Luanda, Angola’s capital city, heavily influenced by American- and European-based electronic music, started incorporating new sounds and techniques into their tribal African percussiondriven beats, creating music known as Batinda. Now different people will tell you two different stories of how Kuduro came to be. One group will say it began with a guy name Sebem who
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started rapping over Batinda—many credit him with starting the genre. A second group of people will tell you Kuduro, which means “hard bottom” in Portuguese (Angola’s national language), came from the name of a dance that people were doing to this music. Either way the genre was born and people were dancing. As Angolans started to immigrate to Portugal, their music did too. Which is how Kuduro made it to Europe. Thanks in part to Buraka Som Sistema, the sounds of Kuduro have been disseminated to hard drives of tastemakers worldwide. But who are the people behind this production crew? According to one of the group’s MCs, Kalaf, the crew consists of him, Riot, Lil John (not Lil’ Jon), and Conductor. The crew started to form when Lil John and Riot were in high school together. They played in a series of bands but got tired of practice, so they “decided to pick up some second-hand samples and jump into the production of electronic music.” Kalaf came into the picture through a series of collaborations. From this, the trio decided to start a record label called Enchufada and they linked up with Conductor who was making similar music. The group was born. BSS cut their teeth on a series of club nights they threw, “which later became the foundation of Buraka Som Sistema,” Kalaf says. “On those nights we had a bunch of dancers and MCs jumping on stage and rocking with us. Our
parties were gaining notoriety for being totally off the hook. It was a reflection of the rising Lisbon music scene.” It was at one of these parties that they realized how big Kuduro could be. “A few years ago, back in 2005, we did some huge crazy parties with all the artists of our label, Enchufada. One at Lux in Lisbon and the other one at Casa da Musica in Porto. We finished both events with a huge sound system—loads of people up on stage going for it. At that time we already had some Kuduro re-edits and when we dropped those tunes people went mental. After a few months the club shut down but there was a strong demand for continuation of those nights, that’s when we decided to form the group and start touring.” The name Buraka Som Sistema came about in a very similar manner. At one of these parties ”we started rhyming off the names of Lisbon suburbs to make connections for people and the music. I think Lil John was on the mic at that moment and he said ‘This is the sound from Buraca’—one of the 11 areas of Amadora, which is the fourth most populated city in Portugal, and where Lil John and Riot grew up. Buraca is mainly known for the high number of African immigrants living in that area. Next day, all the party reviews in the newspapers mentioned the fact that we brought the music of the suburbs to the biggest stages in Portugal. After that, we decided to pick up one of those city names and we ended up taking
Buraka because it sounded the coolest, and from those 11 areas of Amadora, it’s the one with the worst reputation.” So what strategy do they plan on using to prevent Kuduro from going the way of other highly anticipated upcoming music genres before it? “The only plan we have is to keep making good music. We cannot control what people want to hear. That was the idea behind this project since the very beginning and we believe it won’t change. Kuduro will probably melt into one big genre, which is dance music. If in the future we listen someone from another part of the world picking up a Kuduro loop and mixing it with some other techno, dubstep, house or new kind of beats, that will keep Kuduro alive.” With their first EP, Black Diamond, slated to drop in early April, the group is ready to take over the ghetto global funk game. The title track, “Sounds of Kuduro,” which features M.I.A. and Kuduro visionary Dj Znobia, has already been blowing up dance floors worldwide. Expect an album filled with tracks that are going to make you freak out in the club, with an intensity that can only be compared to being tasered eight times consecutively, or as MC Kalaf puts it “make people dance like hell, sweat like hell and scream like hell.
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MUSIC The Handsome Furs
I’D RATHER GO NAKED Words: Jillian Ennis
“The way this record is presented is more honest as what we are as a band,” says Dan Boeckner of The Handsome Furs’ latest album Face Control. Dan, who also co-fronts Wolf Parade, and music/life partner Alexei Perry’s personas and music stand out from their indie-rock comrades. Face Control, their follow-up to 2007’s Plague Park, is a brusque force. Their inspiration, drawn from Russian techno and their travels across Eastern Europe is evident in every aspect of Face Control. “I really only feel totally alive when I’m either playing music or traveling,” states Dan. “With this record, writing about Eastern Europe, and this more emotional reportage of my emotional state while I was there and then working in some political observation—it’s easier for me to do that than to lock myself in a closet and be precious about my art and try to construct some fantasy. I need some kind of stimulus to make something.” While creating Face Control, the Handsome Furs were wholly certain of the direction they desired their sophomore album to take. “We wanted to make it more like a live show,” explains Alexei. “We sort of figured out how to play our instruments and how to play together for Plague
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Photographs: Klee Larson
Park, and then we did a lot of touring and realized we liked things to be a little louder and a little more aggressive and a little more dancey.” “Not to denigrate Plague Park,” begins Dan, “I mean I love the way that record sounds, but by the time we started touring Plague Park, sonically the band was so different than how we recorded it, that, actually, the record didn’t make sense to me as a representation of the live band. As we were writing sounds for this one, I wanted it to be more of a representation of what we were like live... I’ve played enough shows with this band and with Wolf Parade to know that it takes the indie-rock kids a little more. If you’re Justice or Daft Punk you’re going to get a bunch of kids in their early 20’s high as balls off of coke and ecstasy.” Face Control is rock ‘n’ roll at its finest with a mélange of brooding reflection and a confident prowess to lure you in. This is an autobiography of what the Handsome Furs experienced while writing their album—right down to their personal photographs of their journey in the CD jacket. “What was really important for me as a kid was getting some sense of the human behind the music that I loved,” reflects Alexei. “So for things
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like the album art and having pictures in there, even if it was mundane events in our lives, meant a lot to me as a kid looking at photos of the people that I really loved and wanted to get to know and feel some kind of kinship with. I wanted to do that. If you can take down any barriers you have control over I think you should.” Knocking down barriers is something the band has had to do since their first album. “We’re finally a band and getting out of the shadows of the first record and being the ‘side project’ of Wolf Parade,” says Alexei. “We don’t have those constrictions to work with. I don’t feel that anymore.” The Handsome Furs understand music and their approach to Face Control speaks volumes about the band’s confidence. “Musically, it’s like ‘fuck it’, layer on the white noise,” laughs Dan. “It felt really liberating to make a record like that. I just felt like we could do whatever we wanted.” “It just felt really intensely like ourselves doing this,” adds Alexei. “I think when you don’t have anything to prove, it’s when you prove yourself more.”
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MUSIC The Handsome Furs
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“Musically, it’s like fuck it, layer on the white noise.”
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MUSIC ...TRAIL OF DEAD
MISTAKES & REGRETS Words: Trevor Risk
Everyone likes …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. If you like indie music, you like them. If you like metal, you like them. If you like radio-friendly music, you like them. So if everybody likes them, why aren’t they on North American FM airwaves? Sometimes those in charge have no clue as to how to market a band with potential and a massive following. If you’ve got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and Trail of Dead are a white hot rivet, holding up a futuristic ivory tower full of music’s fist pumpers and noblemen. As the industry becomes more artist controlled and accessible, newer bands have a wealth of new starting point options while the bands that paved the new way have been fighting like Kimbo Slice to get out of contracts and direct their own cash flow and career path. According to their press release, Trail of Dead have “emancipated” from Interscope and have returned to the form of their hit album Source Tags and Codes. Sit down with frontman Conrad Keely and he will dispute the notion. “This is the first press release that I didn’t write. Usually I write really cryptic and bizarre essays for our releases but our manager suggested we go with someone who’s a writer so we went with some writer from New York City and she put in a whole fucking ‘return to form’ thing, which I hate because I don’t think this is us returning to anything. We always forge ahead with what we
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Illustration: Travis Collier
do. I think that we’re still in some ways trying to achieve ideas that we were striving for on the first record. If we had the same budget for the last couple of records that we had for the first record they might have sounded a lot more similar. I also don’t think of Source Tags and Codes as a benchmark for me.” Adding to the curiosity of new album, The Century of Self, being touted as something of a self-referencing, revisionist record, is the fact that this is the first ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead album not recorded with Mike McCarthy. This time around, the band opted for the more forward-thinking Chris Coady (TV On The Radio, Cass McCombs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). “We fired our previous producer,” Conrad says, bluntly. “I hadn’t been listening to [Chris Coady] but I’d been hanging out with him as a friend and we shared a common interest in software synthesizers. And one thing for me that has always been important to Trail of Dead is really keeping abreast of technology and bringing into it everything that’s current with musical technology. That was something that we really diverged from with our previous producer who is a complete Luddite when it comes to music. He refuses to learn Pro Tools... Chris Coady was someone who could sit down and talk to me about native instrument software...and I knew that was going to be something really important to me with
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recording this record and something that I was trying to do. So he was the logical choice. And plus, we were just friends at this point.” It appears that as the world of recorded music becomes dominated by younger people and records are viewed less as property, artists are choosing to opt out of contracts with major labels and moving towards narrowcasting to more appropriate audiences, thus bypassing the need for record men to do all the work and take all the cheddar. The byproducts of this practice are the rumours that start about bad blood between the parties. Are Trail of Dead archrivals with Interscope now? “Let me dispel that”, begins Conrad. “I don’t feel bitter towards Interscope at all. I think they did a great job at putting us out and signing us in the first place. They just did a really bad job at promoting the last two records. I have no problems with the last two records, in fact they’re two of my favourite records we’ve ever done, especially the last one because for me it represented total freedom. Interscope never controlled anything we ever did artistically. We had complete freedom. What they failed to do was promote us because they didn’t know how to market what we were doing,.. We made a studio record that was one hundred percent for our own personal satisfaction, and the consequences for that were that it had a very mixed reception from our fans. But I don’t’
regret it. We learned a lot and we did exactly what we wanted to. No one stood in our way... We left Interscope because of the way they handled money. It’s just the whole idea that a corporation’s thinking that these are still the same times we lived in 10 years ago when economies were great and you could just throw money carelessly around. We are living in these more frugal times where artists should be in more control of how their money is spent. I used to think of labels as banks that you don’t pay back, but now I realize that your career’s an investment and these people might be putting up money like a bank is putting up money for a mortgage for your house, but if you’re gonna invest it poorly or not be advised on how to invest it then you’re not going to see any returns from that.” So you’re in a young band, and you wanna be huge. Listen to Conrad Keely’s advice: “If you’re a band that’s going to write mainstream pop music, absolutely sign to a major label—you’ll probably become a millionaire. But if you’re a band that’s going to be a purely artistic pursuit that is not interested in writing top 40 hits and are going to play the game purely by your own rules then you might consider being an independent artist.” Good answer. Century of Self out now on Richter Scale Records [Justice Records]
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MUSIC
REVIEWS The BPA [I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat] Casiotone For the Painfully Alone [Advance Base Battery Life] Bruce Cockburn [Slice O’ Life] Junior Boys [Begone Dull Care]
[1]
[2]
[1] The BPA I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat Southern Fried The BPA (or Brighton Port Authority) is a concept record by Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim. Mr. Cook likes his music, album titles, aliases, music videos, and conceptual albums jokey. The concept is that this “band” was only a rumour, until somebody discovered a cardboard box full of old tapes and now we have to listen to it. It seems that Fatboy has exhausted all his favours from artists and forced them to contribute to his latest record in an attempt to remain relevant. The finished product is an album that just barely reaches that goal. David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal seem to be content to live in a world made up only of guest appearances, and Iggy Pop is quickly following suit. Add in Martha Wainwright and Jamie T and we’re left to wonder if God told Norman Cook that a flood is coming and he has to gather artists for a giant chillout ark to sail around the world until he finds the new Ibiza. The Fatboy’s trippin’. -Trevor Risk [2] Casiotone For the Painfully Alone Advance Base Battery Life Tomlab Maybe you know Casiotone for the Painfully Alone as the main influence for “that guy’s” gloomy solo project or as the basis for a very memorable night of disappointing lovemaking, but it is certain that the name has left a mark on your mind at one point or another. Advance Base Battery Life is a compilation of Owen Ashworth’s past songs off limited vinyl releases and soundtracks. But this time they aren’t exclusively recorded on battery-operated electronics (like answering machines, etc) and they sound like a collection of songs meant for a basement filled with a wild populace (no visible depression here).
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Organ chord progressions are tenderly played between lo-fi electric drum beats and it sounds sweet and cute and applicable to your day. Put it on, take it off. Leave it somewhere. Listen. Listen. Listen because although there is no mention of menstrual blood this time, that woman’s absorbing voice (Jenn Herbinson) sings on the record just the same as last time (“Lesley Gore On The T.A.M.I. Show”). And, actually, as soon as you hear Hot Boyz your good memories of The Beat (back in 2003) will come streaming back, and you won’t feel weary about that thing called lalalove any longer. -Stefana Fratila [3] Bruce Cockburn Slice O’ Life Rounder After years of (presumably) being teased about his last name by all the jerks in high school, Bruce Cockburn emerged as Canada’s folk hero voice of first-wave environmentalism; save the dolphins, stop acid rain, no more Styrofoam egg containers, if a tree falls in the forest, if I had a rocket launcher… Question: If Bruce Cockburn is the mid-Eighties Canadian Bob Dylan, does that make “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” our “All Along the Watchtower”? And does it change your reaction to Stephen Page’s arrest last summer? Slice O’ Life is 25 tracks of live Bruce on two CDs that will not disappoint any fan of his work. All the recognizable songs are there and they are performed with the polite presence and understated guitar work that has made Bruce a favourite with the CBC Radio One crowd for over 20 years. Mostly, I was shocked at the revealing banter that Bruce has with the crowd, namely that he nearly gave up music to run guns to Cuba in the Sixties. In my best Stewart McLean:
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[4]
‘Dave,’ said Morley, ‘Dave I think we ought to buy this album.’ -Bix Brecht [4] Junior Boys Begone Dull Care Domino In 1949, the NFB released an experimental film titled Begone Dull Care. The filmmaker, Norman McLaren, applied paint directly on film stock, creating a visual representation of Oscar Peterson’s jazz music. It’s fabulous, like poutine for both eyes and ears. More recently, Begone Dull Care has become the title of the new Junior Boys album and, I am ashamed to admit, is the main reason I pulled the CD from Trevor Risk’s music bowl. That and the undeniably catchy character of 2006’s So This is Goodbye. Goodbye indeed. If album titles reflect even a sliver of the music inside, then perhaps the Junior Boys—Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus—would’ve been better off calling it The Neverending Story, since every song sounds like the 1984 film’s theme song by Limahl (Who? Don’t worry about it.). Heck, while we’re here, how about tossing around some more appropriate titles for this album: The Worst of Jamiroquai, The Tiny Timberlakes, Café del Blar (to name a few). Granted, there are some extremely reputable folks who disagree with me on this and that’s great… I salute them. Now excuse me, it’s time to go edit the ol’ iTunes list. -Jules Moore [5] Papa Roach Metamorphosis Interscope Papa Roach moved me in a way that I wouldn’t have predicted. I could get into how the band successfully marries militaristic drum rolls and soldiers stomping while the heady chug of guitars blasts through triple rectifiers in polyrhythmic syncopated shots. That the mix is excruciatingly well-balanced in
Papa Roach [Metamorphosis] The Prodigy [Invaders Must Die] Propagandhi [Supporting Caste] Various Artists [War Child Presents Heroes] [5]
[6]
a radio-ready, modern rock over-compressed sound. I could tell you how many fans of higher profile bands like A Simple Plan and Good Charlotte might be wondering why these guys insist on still sticking around. Frankly, I think they’re just as deserving. Really, though, the record had me thinking of a problem that’s symptomatic with local bands aiming for the Billboard charts. Many have gone through stints hanging out with entertainment lawyers, hustling $10 beers in cheesy upscale bars and blathering at length in self-referential 1000-word bios of all the other lousy bands they’ve been in, and how, really, they’re just really into writing a smart pop song. Yet they’ll slag this shit! Anyone so disingenuous as to blast a band like Papa Roach while aiming to achieve the same accolades deserves nothing more than to tend bar well into their 40s. Peace. -Adam Sabla [6] The Prodigy Invaders Must Die Cooking Vinyl At my elementary school dances we were allowed bring tapes cued to a song for the DJ to play. This DJ would usually make fun of me for having brought my Green Day tapes but would always humor me by playing one song, at which point I would play air guitar by myself in the middle of the dance floor. Since I associated mainstream dance music at that time with older kids who bullied me, I felt very righteous about these performances. In retrospect it would have been a lot cooler to just not go to the dance. In grade 7, I got Fat of the Land because I thought Keith Flint’s inverted mohawk was awesome. I was excited because it was totally alternative and aggressive but also seemed to be dance music with black people rapping. I thought for sure this was the compromise
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everyone needed to finally see how cool my taste in music was. They had pretty much the same reaction as before, but my interest in The Prodigy would eventually inspire my uncle to turn me onto PWEI and Aphex Twin. So, basically it had the exact opposite effect and led to me attending “special” high school. -Kellen Powell [7] Propagandhi Supporting Caste Smallman McCarthy, Marx, West Bank, Gaza Strip: All words that once bellowed from my self-absorbed, boy-crazy, 16-year-old mouth while pulling fishtails on the icy roads of Winnipeg. The teacher of such terms? The Canadian punk rock intelligentsia known as Propagandhi. Ten years and seven albums have passed, and it’s clear just how pathetic my understanding of their lyrics really was. Nevertheless, my friends and I memorized every word from Atheist to Zion, thus minimizing the gap between the individual and the world. Do I feel like driving around blasting Propagandhi’s new CD today? Not particularly, but I do get off knowing that others will. I also don’t feel like watching Vice write it off as “shitty punk.” That’s just lazy. It’s like a big ol’ poopy baby at dinner, crying because his music touched his politics. In order to understand social concepts— Propagandhi’s reason for howling since 1986—you sometimes have to involve thoughtful research and laborious listening. These guys have even produced albums for Noam “the mind” Chomsky! So, why not get brain-toned this summer? Even if you don’t dig ferocious, NOFXlooped punk rock, it’s still worth throwing down 15 bucks for the ingenious album art and lyric sleeve. Plus, you can always use the CD as a Frisbee on (Fat)Wreck Beach. -Jules Moore
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[8] Various Artists War Child Presents Heroes Astralwerks War Child is a non-profit organization created to help the children of war-torn countries. It’s a brilliant charity and you should buy this album to support it, or just give cash and time to them in any way you can. Heroes is a project which sees influential artists choosing young artists they admire to cover and record songs of the “hero’s” choosing. Again, the charity is important, but this is the music review section. Ergo, I have a few questions for the artists involved. John Squire, you’re the world’s fourth best guitarist. Why are you designing album covers, and why don’t you have anything better on your computer than Corel Draw? Peter Hook, you choosing Hot Chip to do a Joy Division song is a joke right? It’s a joke like your DJ tours, correct? The former is less funny than the latter. Ray Davies of The Kinks, did you not like The Fall’s cover of “Victoria”? I thought it was really great. Paul McCartney, do you like Duffy more than you like Guns ‘N Roses, or did you confuse her with Duff McKagan? Brian Ferry, did you think the Scissor Sisters were going to do any justice to your music? Did you not hear their unfortunate Pink Floyd cover from years ago? Iggy Pop, when are you going to finally ask Peaches to marry you? The Like, I’m having a party. Come nude. I know that’s not a question. -Trevor Risk
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POSTER ART Robe
Robert Edmonds (aka Robe, a name accidentally bestowed upon him by a television salesman who couldn’t understand his Australian accent) is a partner in design company Evoke International Design and part owner of delicious and stylish Vancouver restaurant The Cascade Room. He started designing posters for the Melbourne garage/thrash bands he was a member of in the mid-Eighties, and for the last 10 years has made posters a consistent part of his work. Also, he survived a childhood kangaroo attack and “escaped with only minor scars!” Here’s his story: “I had a childhood fascination with the psychedelic designs of Sixties artist Martin Sharp, and a love of album cover artwork. I had a desire to steal street posters that were more creative than the standard template format of band photo, name, date and venue. My posters always aim to be a reflection of, and relevant to, the band. A graphic simplicity, with a singular image and strong typography.” Be sure to surf: [www.robe.ca] [www.evoke.ca] [www.boutiqueempire.com]
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HOROSCOPES THIS MONTH: Sara Hennessey Sara Hennessey is an exciting comedian in Toronto. She is a member of Laugh Sabbath and is also a regular contributor on Much Music’s Video on Trial. Learn more at [www.sarahennessey.com]
Aquarius: It’s time to get real for a minute. You’re not Clair Huxtable. But you do have an extensive tennis short collection. So if that’s not something I don’t know what is. Now climb a mountain and scream your head off while wearing a puffy dress already. You’ve earned it. Pisces: Look deep inside yourself and pull out a ruby. Your soul is like One-Eyed Willy’s treasure chest... and no one can take that away from you. Not even a hot shot lawyer who wins all the cases. Take that ruby and trade it in for a huge pizza. You’re welcome. Taurus: Taurus! Lookin’ good! New shampoo? Well, something is new and it’s workin’ like a hot bitch on a Friday night. Go ahead. Give that plate of honey garlic spare ribs the finger. Then eat the fuck out of it. You’re an astronaut! Aries: Like the mysteries of the famous pyramids, you too have secret compartments you hide your favourite lamps in. Centuries
from now, all the grade seven goths are going to wonder how you got your brain out of your nostril. Tell no one. Your secrets are all there is left. Gemini: Ah, the famous split personality! You are a fish in a pond and a helicopter. It’s prime time for you to try new things. First, quit being so racist! Second, take all of your closest buddies on a fishing trip. Or get that helicopter license you’ve always wanted. Cancer: You’re not fooling anyone. You’re a beautiful person. Go to Sears Portrait Studio, find a backdrop that speaks to you, and then make love to the camera! Ask the photographer for pointers. Then ask what they’re up to later. Maybe you both have dogs. That would be neat, hey? Leo: There’s a lot of pressure being the king of the jungle. So many press conferences... everyone has a clipboard. But who are you kidding? You’re not a lion. You’re totally a
guy named Dennis. Listen up Dennis: I’ll take a grilled cheese sandwich, a green salad and chocolate milk. Virgo: Everything is cool once you toss a fresh pair of sunglasses on it. A baby wearing shades? Cool baby. Dog wearing shades? Dope dog. How about unprotected sex wearing sunglasses? Sorry Virgo, you still have herpes no matter what. Maybe join a softball league. Libra: Hey, you watch too much Law and Order. It’s time to solve your own crime. Like, why are you so alone? I bet it’s because you are unemployed and you smell of beef. Don’t give up. Quit going to raves and practice your smile in the mirror.
up with all that sweet wizard gear. Sagittarius: What are you bringing to ‘The Potluck of Life’? How about dip? You can’t really go wrong with dip. It’s a safe bet. So you bring the dip, cool? And it’ll start around nine. Thanks dude. See you Friday! Hey, you should bring Eric. He seems nice. Capricorn: The art of revenge has fizzled out. No one is casually avenging their father’s death. No one is penning threatening scrolls. When was the last time you challenged a foe to a duel? I want some fancy hatin’ from you. Send a portrait of yourself looking unimpressed to the king.
Scorpio: There sure is a lot of magic up your billowy wizard’s sleeve. Also, I can’t help but notice your mystical robe, and lengthy wizard’s beard. You have two options. One, pursue a career in wizardry. Two, tell me who hooked you
ION 49
COMICS
DINOSAUR COMICS BY RYAN NORTH
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