ION MAGAZINE
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originalpenguin.com
CONTENTS
VOLUME 9 NUMBER 2 ISSUE 71
FEATURES
20. Ed Ou: Worth the risk.
34. Leave Them Kids Alone: Photography by Alan Chan and styling by Deanna Palkowski.
42. The Raveonettes: Famously out of fashion.
DEPARTMENTS
CULTURE
MUSIC
24. n+1: Literary magnates.
48. Louise Burns: Alone Again Or.
54. Kisses: Now with tongue!
26. Focus: Hana Pesut
52. Smith Westerns: The kids are uptight.
56. Album Reviews 57. SelectION Running up that hill.
32. Lush: Tag! You’re shit!
REGULARS 12. Editor’s Letter: What do the Buffalo Bills and having the flu have in common? O.J.! 16. ION Style 17. ION The Prize: Tretorn Boots for Him'N'Her.
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16. Of The Month: Parties and sleuths. 58. ION the Web: Ninety six tears in my ninety six eyes.
59. Horoscopes: Maxwell Maxwell and the Hooded Fang. 60. Comics
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ION
IONMAGAZINE.CA
MAGAZINE
Publisher/Fashion Director Editor in Chief/Music Editor Creative Director Arts and Culture Editor Office Manager Fashion Stylist at Large
Vanessa Leigh vanessa@ionmagazine.ca Trevor Risk trevor@ionmagazine.ca Tyler Quarles tyler@ionmagazine.ca Douglas Haddow douglas@ionmagazine.ca Natasha Neale natasha@ionmagazine.ca Toyo Tsuchiya toyo@ionmagazine.ca
Writers RJ Basinillo, JJ Brewis, Stefana Fratila, Maxwell Maxwell, Natasha Neale, Kellen Powell, Emma Ruthnum, Sutherland604, Ian Urbanski, Nathan Wood Photographers and Artists Alan Chan, Emily Cheng, Justin Tyler Close, Gillian Damborg, Asa Fox, Jenny Kanavaros, Patrick Kyle, James Muscles, Ed Ou, Deanna Palkowski, Hana Pesut, Blair Petty, Andrea Tiller, Jeremy 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 Š Copyright ION Magazine 2011 Hey PR people, publicists, brand managers and label friends, send us stuff. Youtube album art teasers are making too much e-waste, time-waste, and brain-waste. We prefer getting actual stuff. Butter our biscuits with: band t-shirts, PS3s, the Criterion collection edition of Hail Ceasar, CDs, vinyl, Giorgio Moroder bedspreads, Blu-Rays, dish towels, video games, smoked horse meat, and iPads can be sent to the address below. #303, 505 Hamilton Street. Vancouver, BC, Canada. V6B 2R1 Office 604.696.9466 Fax: 604.696.9411 feedback@ionmagazine.ca www.ionmagazine.ca | www.facebook.com/ionmagazine @ionmagazine | www.issuu.com/ionmagazine Advertising enquiries can be directed to sales@ionmagazine.ca COVER: The Ravenoettes Photography: Jeremy Williams [photojw.com], Photo Assistant: John Klukas, Makeup and hair: Jenny Kanavaros, TRESemmÊ Hair Care/judyinc.com
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@ionmagazine facebook.com/ionmagazine ionmagazine.tumblr.com issuu.com/ionmagazine
CONTRIBUTORS PHOTOGRAPHER [James Muscles]
WRITER [JJ Brewis]
ILLUSTRATOR [Patrick Kyle]
MAKEUP + HAIR [Jenny Kanavaros]
James lives the life of sophisticated vodka beverages in the west end of Vancouver. He is a strong believer in swag and photography and shot Kisses for this issue. James can be found editing pictures or dancing the night away. This self taught photographer is taking a go at art school at the moment and is confident that he will never have to work in the Sears portrait studio. He hopes to shoot OFWGKTA this year (and is very available).
JJ Brewis wrote about Louise Burns for this issue. JJ is the Art Director for the Capilano Courier in North Vancouver, and is a freelance illustrator and writer. As a young boy in Trail, BC, JJ had big dreams of being a professional WWF wrestler, but got intimidated when he saw how strong Chyna was. As vocalist for the recently re-formed electronic outfit Girl Impressor, JJ gets a chance to justify all that whiny poetry he's been saving up over the last half decade. Known for his questionable fashion (see 50 Cent's jewelry box meets Christopher Robin's short-shorts drawer), he can be seen pounding the pavement in grossly underrated New Westminster, BC. He also enjoys face paint, baby deer, peppermint tea, trinkets, Disney's The Jungle Book, and White Magic hair bleach, not necessarily at the same time though.
Patrick Kyle is an artist and illustrator living in Toronto, Canada and did the artwork for this issue’s SelectION. His work has been exhibited in Europe, The United States, Australia and Canada. In addition to being the co-founder and editor of Wowee Zonk (a contemporary comic book anthology featuring upcoming narrative artists from Toronto) Patrick frequently collaborates with Wowee Zonk cohorts, Ginette Lapalme and Chris Kuzma.
New York-based makeup artist Jenny Kanavaros did the hair and makeup for this issue's fashion editorial. A Vancouver native, Jenny's work has been featured in Vogue Nippon, Nylon, Spin, and on Dazed Digital. She feels lucky to have been able to work with talented, innovative new designers and photographers, and looks forward to many more exciting collaborations.
[twitter.com/jamesmuscles]
[tinycastles.tumblr.com]
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[patrickkyle.com]
EDITOR’S LETTER Photo: Gillian Damborg "Pillow Talk"
OH
my God, I should have got that flu shot. I remember when they were around town for the taking. All my friends with real jobs were getting them. Weren’t they expensive? Wait, were they free? I remember considering getting one but I also remember thinking that having the flu had its advantages. The flu? Sweet! I’m gonna lie in bed drinking hot lemon water and watching three whole seasons of Red Dwarf! I love that episode with a young, coked up Craig Ferguson. Flu shot? Nah! My girlfriend will totally pat my head and wipe my brow while wearing a cheerleader outfit. Jesus, was I delusional then or is my brain bleached right now? Remember when you would go home from school and watch The Littlest Hobo while your mum made you a grilled cheese? Now all I get is a scratched up DVD of Jacob’s Ladder with a visit from my neighbour. “Hey bra! Do you know
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that you can get hillbilly high off of this Neo Citran? Yeah, it’s got DXM in it. I mean, I’ll trip with you if you want.” Wait, is that Lewis Black tending to Tim Robbins as his doctor? Eriq La Salle is about to lose it, and Jason Alexander is no help. This legal, rural ecstasy is toying with me. I want a heroic German Shepherd. How about getting a total of two hours sleep, sandwiched by cold sweats and nightmares about Robert Pollard? Those damn high kicks of his hurt, and he’s especially frightening when he has tattoo needles for teeth and can’t stop singing about blowfish. Wait, did GBV do “Postal Blowfish”? Yeah they probably did. I should get up and listen to that. Uh oh, turns out my skeleton is trying to escape my body. This hurts all over. I’m glad The Exorcist is on television. That was a weird nap. I wish I didn’t watch The Exorcist. Well Trevor, nut up. Now it’s time to interview The Raveonettes, just YOUR
FAVOURITE BAND IN THE WORLD. Imagine if tall, dreamy Sharin Foo could see you now; sweating and wrapped in a blanket and hoodie, drinking hot water out of a confederate flag mug. I look like a casually racist and heroinravaged Queen Amidala. I hope Sharin wasn’t hoping for an engaging telephone conversation. I feel like Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. Me: “Remember that time you had that song with Ronnie Spector?” Beautiful, Danish siren: “Yeah” Me: “That was awesome.” Me: “Remember when you sang the line ‘Boys who rape should all be destroyed’?” Her: “Yeah” Me: “Is that true?” Seems like only yesterday I was jumping up and down to the idea of daylight saving time. Now every time I look out the window the sun makes me feel like my eyes are going to fall out, like when you pick up a guinea pig by its tail. Wait, do guinea pigs have tails? Is Guinea pig kosher? It’ll be at least another week before I can listen to all those springtime songs from our SelectION section. The thought of M83’s quadruple-time kick drums pounding my head right now makes me want to puke and cry and run away, in that order. I feel like Bruce Smith. American, black,
wealthy… wait, that metaphor is falling apart. I remember the Bills’ defensive end having to sit out a 1996 playoff game against a Pittsburgh Steelers team because he was the only one on the team who didn’t get that flu shot early in the season, and his team suffered a crushing loss. Bam Morris is plowing into my stomach from the I formation. If I don’t crush the second half of The Ravonettes interview with Sune Rose Wagner, I’m going to be known as the Buffalo Bills of magazine editing; strong and talented but ultimately a miserable failure and disgrace to the city. So my girlfriend has to work, “London” the German shepherd is dead by now, and my mum is across the country looking after her Lhasa Apso instead of me. If I called her she’d just tell me to quit smoking anyhow. Buried underneath a pile of facial tissue, painkillers and Thai soup containers, I lie back and wonder if the drug store delivers. Wait, did I write all this or am I actually dead? Jacob Singer probably knows the answer. -Trevor Risk Editor in Chief
VERSION 2.0
MAY 2011
196 KINGSWAY
VANCOUVER
ION STYLE
Watch: Vestal Shoes: Keds (Little Burgundy)
Shoes: Native
Photography: Alan Chan | Styling: Deanna Palkowski @ Liz Bell | Makeup and Hair: Andrea Tiller for NOBASURA using TRESemmé Haircare Models: Chlöe and Kristy J @Rad Kids for NOBASURA
Backpack: Marc by Marc Jacobs (Holt Renfrew)
Chlöe Dress: H&M T-shirt: Lifetime Sweater: G Star Pants: American Apparel Kristy J Jacket: Comune Top: H&M Skirt: Lifetime
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ION THE PRIZE TRETORN Spring is here and so is the crazy spring weather. You know what I am talking about, sun one minute, rain the next. To help you navigate the changes in weather the kind folks over at Tretorn have given us two pairs of Wellies, one for guys and one for girls. Want to win? Go to ionmagazine.ca and comment on the prize to enter. To enter visit [www.facebook.com/ionmagazine]
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OF THE MONTH
MIKE DETECTIVE Mike Detective, unlicensed and uninsured private eye, tries to save 14-year old twin sisters Tawny and Stephanie Client from his nemesis Kelsey Grammer, in a noir serial format. If that sounds like something you might be interested in, it’s because you probably share a sense of humour with writer Scott Aukerman (Comedy Death-Ray, Mr. Show), and lead performer Rob Huebel (Human Giant, Children’s Hospital). Occasional guests so far have included Jon Hamm, Rob Corddry and Zach Galifianakis. New episodes come out on Tuesdays and clock in well under 10 minutes, making it easy to catch up on the joke-dense adventure. To find it, just search ‘Mike Detective’ in iTunes. —Ian Urbanski
SOMEWHERE ON DVD Let’s talk about Sophia Coppola. Say whatever you want about the woman, there is one thing she absolutely nails; spoiled rich people. Lost in Translation was good, Marie Antoinette was, uhm, experimental… but they were both essentially about the existential pain of the rich and famous. Somewhere has solidified that topic as being her wheel-house. The film is about a fading action star trying to reconnect with his daughter. It’s not exactly ground-breaking for Coppola, but it’s a world that she knows well and she presents it with a cinematic subtlety that’s become her trademark. —Kellen Powell
TRON: LEGACY The problem with putting base-jumping, light-cycles, spirituality, genocide, multiple Jeff Bridges, Daft Punk, vague theories about A.I., disc fighting, alternate realities, babes, lasers, father issues and business ethics all into a 3D lightshow, is that those things don’t all exactly go together. I had a hard time understanding what exactly I was supposed to care about when I watched TRON: Legacy, but you should probably watch it anyway, just so you believe me that those things are all in the same Disney 3D movie. —Kellen Powell
STUSSY x DICKIES Stussy has teamed up with the iconic American workwear label Dickies to produce a collaborative capsule collection for Spring/Summer 2011. Two of Dickies’ classic items, the 574 workpant and workshirt, have been subtly tweaked by Stussy with new fabrication and the addition of graphic elements, bringing a new vibe to the traditional workwear. Available at all Stussy stores in April.
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OF THE MONTH
AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE AN ION PARTY! This April we will be celebrating our 8th anniversary and we would love to have you join us. If you are going to be in Vancouver on April 30th and would like to come, just follow us on twitter and Facebook as we announce the details.
Yohji Yamamoto Recognized internationally for his radical innovations and craftsmanship, Yamamoto is a visionary. This is all captured as director, Theo Stanley follows Yamamoto and his team around New York City, Paris and Tokyo, creating an intimate documentary showing the designer going from the early to the final stages of putting together Y-3's Spring/ Summer 2010 collection. Yohji Yamamoto: This Is My Dream will be presented at small screenings around the world this Spring and the DVD will be available at all Y-3 stores and online at www.Y-3.com View the trailer at thisismydreamthefilm.com —Natasha Neale
Girls Making Gun Sounds For any of you guys who grew up with a brother, you know that brothers do terrible shit to each other; whether it’s getting kicked down the stairs, or having your pants pulled down at your birthday party. We also know that we did worse things to our sisters. We ignored them. Girls Making Gun Sounds reminds us that we were correct to exclude the weaker siblings. Why would I make a blanket fort with somebody who thinks an HK MP7 sounds like a kitten sneezing up a tribble?
Norm MacDonald on Twitter Norm MacDonald was always too smart and self-aware to succeed on network television. After he got the boot from SNL and his solo sitcom was self-sabotaged by ABC execs, it looked like he’d get fat off the celebrity game show circuit and never deliver another dead pan cold opening again. But after establishing himself as a Twitter virtuoso by upstaging the Oscars with tweets like “oh finally. an old british guy”, Norm is back at doing what he does best: enraging idiots and making the rest of us snicker.
[girlsmakinggunsounds.com]
[@normmacdonald]
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CULTURE ED OU
DEEP COVERAGE Words: Douglas Haddow
It’s 2:46 AM here in downtown Vancouver. The last of the bars have closed and the streets are silent and cold. I’m talking to Ed Ou, a 24year old Canadian photojournalist who has been bouncing around the Middle East and taking some the best photographs to emerge from the conflicts, protests and revolts of 2011’s “Arab Spring.” Ou is something of an accidental wunderkind. When he was 18 he was studying international relations and Arabic in Jordan when the Israel-Hezbollah conflict broke out in Southern Lebanon. He went to Beirut, started taking photos, and soon after landed a gig with the Associated Press. He’s been running around the Middle East and Africa ever since. Right now he’s standing on the street in Cairo, and I can hear the city blast through my scratchy iPhone speaker as he talks over the mid-day urban chorus, describing what he’s been up to over the last week... a hectic week, no doubt. Events in North Africa have started to accelerate at such a velocity that nothing stays the same for more than 24 hours, and there’s a realistic chance that by the time you read this interview, the political landscape of the Middle East will have become unrecognizable from what it is today. Where are you now? I’m in Cairo. I just got out of Libya a few days ago. How was Libya? Libya was pretty, uh, I’m not sure what the word is. It was a pretty dynamic experience. I was part of a team, working on a feature on non-conflict related stuff and I got to see a pretty interesting side of Libya, a side that most journalists didn’t get to see. It was really
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really stressful, and also really tiring. I just spent the month before covering Cairo, and then before that I was in Vancouver shooting the Downtown Eastside. Libya was intense because there were a lot of strange dangers that would pop up for journalists. We were one of the first going into the country and there was a lot of uncertainty as to what we were covering. It’s been really intense, but also really boring. The situation keeps on changing. Four of my colleagues went missing and only yesterday did they get released. So is that something you’re worried about – being abducted or arrested or worse? Well actually, there was a funny time when Gaddafi’s forces were advancing on Benghazi. There was another desert road they could have taken called Tobruk, and if they had done that we would have been totally cut off, we wouldn’t have been able to leave Benghazi. It was that day when our colleagues had also turned out missing, and so The Times editor just told me to leave and go back to Cairo. Given the experience, specifically of The New York Times, of the four people that went missing, I don’t think The Times is in a rush to send anyone back, which is unfortunate but at the same time understandable. Yesterday, or two days ago, three more journalists went missing; two AFP (Agency France Presse) reporters and a Getty Images photographer. So there’s a lot of risks involved in covering this story, but we never expected this to last a month, and it remains to be seen how long this conflict will go on for. We thought that it would be like Cairo or Tunisia, but months later
it’s still going on and it doesn’t look like things are going to end any time soon. It looks like the situation over there has become more complicated rather quickly. And the other thing too is that, comparatively, the experience in Cairo and Tunisia was relatively, not to say that no one was injured or killed, but it wasn’t at all a war. Egypt in itself had its own insane complications and difficulties involving people tracking down journalists, beating us up, roughing us up, stealing our equipment, that kind of stuff. But at the same time, weapons weren’t involved. So did you get out of Libya before the allied coalition started to attack? I left right before the no-fly zone. We didn’t know if it would be in effect, so most journalists left the same day or right before I did, because it seemed imminent that Gaddafi’s forces would advance on to Benghazi, which actually was the case until the no fly zone came into sight. It was a really uncertain time, and so I guess our news organizations decided to be more conservative in covering it. It’s hard because you want to be here to cover the story, but you are at the mercy of what the desk tells you. Sometimes people can make more informed decisions than you can when they’re out of it. They can see the larger picture for what it is. How far is Benghazi from Cairo? Are you driving back and forth? It’s a sixteen hour drive. And what are you covering now? We’re covering post-resolution stuff. We’re taking it day by day, trying to figure out what to do next, where to go next and what not. How has the tone shifted in Cairo over the last couple weeks?
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It’s interesting because on one hand things have changed and it’s pretty hopeful. I guess you could say it’s the first taste of what democracy might be like, the elections and the referendum. The polling was very orderly. There were no thugs standing around telling you what to do. There was some controversy but then again I think there will always be controversy when it comes to any democratic movement. It will be interesting to see, but that said, there’s a lot of signs that nothing much has changed. There are still reports that the military is illegally detaining, arresting and torturing people, and armed thugs have still been attacking people. It’s hard to gauge what’s changed and what hasn’t. As a photographer, it’s still difficult to work here. There’s still this xenophobia when it comes to foreign media. It’s strange. We’re all trying to figure out what the situation in post-Mubarak Egypt is. You’ve been in the Middle East for a few years off and on? I came here in 2007. The last place I officially paid rent in was in Israel/ Palestine. That was three years ago. The last while I’ve been working a lot in the Middle East, mainly in Yemen, Israel/Palestine, Egypt. I’ve also been working and based out of East Africa in Nairobi, covering Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, and then during that same time I’ve been slightly based out of Istanbul covering Central Asia, mainly Kazakhstan,
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Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. So… I don’t actually live anywhere. Nice. It’s really random where I get sent. For example, three months ago I was in Vancouver and I got sent there via New York. What was it like to come back to Vancouver after being in the Middle East and Africa? When I did the story on the safe injection site it was really the first time I worked back home as a photographer. I left in high school and I hadn’t really been back since. In that way it’s interesting to see the country where I grew up with fresh eyes and to see it in the context of being a photographer. On one hand you’d think it would be a lot easier because you know what to expect, how to talk to people, et cetera, and it was actually kind of a relief. It was sort of my first time working in an English-speaking country which is really refreshing. But on the other hand, it’s strange when you’re bringing your professional life into your home. I was seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a long time and picking up pieces of a life that I had left. In the meantime I’m working on a dynamic, long-term story, so, it was strange, but I’m really glad I did it. Well, you have a novel, somehow alternative take on the issues and events you cover; for example, the “Getting into Cairo’s By-Ways” story. Why did you choose that approach, or how did that come about?
In most of the things that I do, I try to cover the news in a way that goes a bit deeper than what the expected news picture is supposed to be. Whether it’s Cairo or Libya, I think it’s important for people to understand that what we see is accurate, but, there are these universal emotions and truths that are relevant whether we’re in the Middle East or East Africa or Vancouver, Canada, … and I’m trying to find that as much as I can. I’m trying to find these universal emotions that link someone to Vancouver to someone in Benghazi; sadness, grief, frustration, or anger. I think they’re not always in the places you’d expect, like on the front lines, and I think sometimes it’s easier to find them in these wider areas. I try to get off the beaten path to find those different photos. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a very difficult balance to try to find these news stories that convey the information of what happened that day, and to also try to find your own angle. You describe yourself as culturally ambiguous, what does that mean? It’s kind of an inside joke. I’m Taiwanese Canadian. I spent all my life in Vancouver, but during this time, at least in the Middle East or anywhere outside Europe or North America, people really can’t seem to grasp the fact that I’m Canadian. People will just refuse to believe that. They’ll insist that I have to be Chinese, or have to be Korean, and I think in
CULTURE
that way, there’s this ambiguity to who I am, which actually works out pretty conveniently. I can be a total westerner, or I can be from the east, or I can be Chinese. It’s kind of dumb but it helps the way I work. For example, yesterday we were photographing these labour protests and I was with a colleague of mine from The New York Times, a big white guy, and people would refuse to talk to him, because you know ‘foreign western media’ but meanwhile they’re like ‘Oh! You’re Chinese. You must be a Filipino migrant worker!’ and so I’m like ‘I’ll get this.’ Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s nice because at least here people see Asian as relatively benign. So it works out, even though on paper I’m totally Canadian. How much gear do you usually haul around? Because I haven’t really had a home, or any proper place that I live, I try to travel with as little stuff as possible. The interesting thing about working for an organization like The Times, is that they have resources everywhere you go, so a bunch of my stuff is in Nairobi, a bunch is in New York, a bunch of my stuff is here in Cairo, so that way I’m able to travel around really lightly knowing that there’s equipment somewhere else if I need it. So that’s really convenient. Also I wear the same clothes everyday, so that helps. Sandals and cotton pants?
Yeah, something like that. Over time you just get really good at finding the lightest way to pack. Most times you’ll be able to find a toothbrush and toothpaste everywhere you go. The stuff I carry around is the stuff I can’t get where I am. So cameras and all that, but that’s about it. It’s amazing how lightly you can travel. We have to carry around satellite transmission devices to get internet everywhere I go. It seems heavy but it’s not, and some of the time we have to carry around a bullet-proof vest. And that actually screws up the way I travel, because it’s one of those really heavy things that we almost never wear but need to have with us. So if there’s some gunfire, you’ll strap it on? Yeah, we use it in very specific places. For example, when I go to Somalia we use it. We brought it to Libya, but sometimes having body armour might draw a lot more attention. It’s always a constant calculation you have to make – will having body armour make you stand out in a bad way or will it not matter, and having body armour also makes it harder to run around. You’re always calculating the cost benefit – is this photo worth the risk? Is going here worth the risk? Should we just leave? Should we not leave? Sometimes you make good decisions, sometimes you make bad decisions. For example, that day that I left [Libya] I was kind of upset. I was like ‘No. I’m leaving a
story in the middle of everything that’s happening’ and then three hours later it turns out my colleagues went missing. You’re always stressed about whether you’re missing something, pushing it too far or not pushing it enough. You’re constantly stressed out over whether you’re in the right place at the right time. It sucks, it’s horrible. And how do you forecast that? You don’t. I haven’t been doing this that long, but I’ve been told that the longer you’ve been doing this the better you get at being able to assess where you should be, what story you should rush to, and what can wait. I’m still figuring that out as I go. Right now I’ve been working for four to five months straight and I really would want to take a break but I just know that if I, let’s say, go to I dunno, Iceland for a nice vacation, I’ll be sitting around watching TV, anxious that I’m not back in the Middle East, but yet I’m in the Middle East right now and I’m really tired. What’s the rest of your day looking like? I have no idea. The writer is doing an interview and I’m hanging out in the street. [adventureswithlight.net]
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CULTURE N+1
THE PROVOCATEURS Words: RJ Basinillo
What could the world possibly owe four hyper-educated, IvyLeague white males in their late 30’s? A readership, perhaps. At least that’s the case with Marco Roth, Benjamin Kunkel, Keith Gessen and Mark Greif, the founders and editors of n+1, the literary journal that’s positioning itself at the forefront of contemporary critical thought. Modeled on journals like T.S. Eliot's Criterion, The Partisan Review, and Dissent, n+1 attempts to channel the critical fortitude of patron saints like Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling and Alfred Kazin. Noteworthy admirers like Jonathan Franzen and Mary Carr praise the magazine to such heights as to call it "the best goddamn literary magazine in America," while detractors often allege intellectual-posturing, and mere sophistry. A 2006 article in The New Criterion once called n+1 the “must-have accessory of the self-styled smart set” and predicted a quick demise, but it’s been 5 years since and it’s long outlived that prediction and found a stability (both financially and in its convictions) that hints that n+1 is climbing in the first stages of a vast, upward trajectory. Conversation with founder and co-editor, Mark Greif, is an intense experience; answering questions in whole, breathless paragraphs with erudition and care; treating both low and highbrow subjects with equal inquisitiveness. Greif wrote a lauded essay on Radiohead ("Radiohead and the Philosophy of Pop") and during our conversation wondered aloud about the details of Canadian tax code -- talking to him is, at least in inclination and wordcount, akin to reading the magazine itself.
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To tell the story of the conception of n+1, Greif assesses the state of politics and literary criticism back in the year 2004. Politically, on the heels of Bush II and in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he had to look no further than the shallow dialogue of the public sphere. “You looked around at the time and there was this illusion, or at least people would say it out loud in the media, 'We're having a discussion about the coming war in Iraq',” continuing, “you see people on TV and they're saying, ‘We have orange here, and orange is disagreeing with red, but thank god we've got a lively debate going here with the whole spectrum of opinion and belief’ -- incidentally it doesn't really matter because the cruise missiles should be hitting right about now, and any sane person had to say to himself, this is a discussion? It was demented.” For English scholars like the founders of n+1, where they once would hope to find intellectual solidarity -- they were only met with further frustration. Greif and his friends saw problems coming from all angles, exemplified in certain publications. So in their first issue they drew out polemics against these magazines; The New Republic for being literary Luddites in their bitter and dismissive reviews, McSweeney’s and The Believer for being precious, sentimental, infantile and ultimately hocking a “regressive avant-garde,” and the conservative The Weekly Standard for outright lying. “We wrote up all these things that we thought should drive everybody crazy, and then we waited to see who would respond,” Greif says. This kind of provocation is
natural in the journals insistence of the importance of argument and dialogue. In an interview with Brian Lehrer in 2006, Greif, in a defense of literary postmodernism said, “it's very important to say we are great fans of postmodernism, of the youth culture, and of sexual liberation, and if anything, we should go too far -- you know, we believe the sexual revolution should have been carried all the way and the family destroyed and civilization started on a new foundation.” It’s a semi-facetious comment, but it’s an example of how even digressive lines of thought are outsized in their affronts, and no doubt these guys possess the argumentative firepower to make it a convincing proposition. Greif explains a simple philosophy behind this gamesmanship, “literary culture, if it moves on, does so because people are arguing and learning from each other, and loving and hating what other people do, and you have to believe it comes to some higher synthesis.” These agitations have seen results, soliciting responses from a range of public figures. James Wood, arguably the foremost literary critic in the world, came in defense of himself and The New Republic, issuing a letter n+1 printed in its pages. “That letter turned out to be a pretty great essay. Of course he was still wrong about everything, but, as I said, he's for real, always was.” Just recently, as n+1 editors published a surfeit of essays on the sociology of the hipster in the New York Times and New York Magazine, Gavin McInnes tweeted his desire to punch the n+1 editors in the face. Ultimately it’s this sentiment, lobbed
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from the former Vice Magazine mensch nonetheless, that signals n+1’s ascendance into cultural primacy. That McInnes and his old institution’s ethics of provocation, steeped in frivolity, irony, thoughtlessness -- the empty gestures of controversy and attention-seeking -- are finally laid to rest in favor of n+1’s methods of academic rigor, creative enthusiasm, intellectual engagement, all in the unending pursuit of "The New". As Greif puts it, “people always seemed to be finishing stuff up. This is dead, that is dead, this is done, etc. Not true. I've got an Emersonian streak -- each time somebody's born, they start
the whole world from scratch. So the idea was just, in every art, and every endeavor, all we have to do is indicate that, you know, there's another step. Nothing's over.” It’s probably worth it to note that James Wood made the pretty incisive observation that n+1 so far, has not itself established what exactly "The New" is, or should be. There’s plenty of time. With only 10 issues under their belt, the magazine can be considered just out of its infancy, although it still retains the attitude of the brash new kid. Just recently upping their production from two to three issues a year, and with a host of
projects in the pipeline for their “n+1 Research Branch” small books series, n+1 is in great shape for the future. While other magazines atrophy in a narrowness of idea or aesthetic, n+1 takes on a more mercurial existence granted in the belief that the argument and the question are the most arduous forms of thought. And if they ever do lose their vivacity, their curiosity and passion? Greif answers, “We would need a younger magazine to kick our asses, right away.” [nplusonemag.com]
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FOCUS HANA PESUT
CHECK OUT MORE AT [SINCERELYHANA.COM]
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Friend of ION, DJ, and photographer Hana Pesut recently returned from a trip to Japan. The next few pages are a sample of her experiences in the land of the rising sun.
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LUSH
TRASH NEXUS Words: Douglas Haddow
Earlier this year Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press settled their two-year legal dispute over the status of the Barack Obama “Hope” campaign poster. Their decision: to split the merchandising profits and to collaborate on an AP/Obey product line. This incident illustrates just how mundane and institutionalized street art has become. Street art’s passage into the mainstream has been, save for a few novel and notable works, been incredibly disappointing and predictable. Meanwhile, street art’s delinquent cousin, graffiti, suffers from the orthodoxy of tradition and the corrupting force of consumer culture. Pre-packaged graf kits are always a mouseclick away for any bored suburban yob with a credit card, all of which are looking for a b-line to become the world’s next Banksy rip-off. It is in these dark days of disillusioned drudgery that we look to Lush, Melbourne’s premier perverted aerosol provocateur, for some answers. Recently on the run from the local police force for his crimes against decency, he answered our questions
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concerning the state of public art via Flickr. How's Melbourne these days? Full of toys, whiney, whingy cunts and myself. Are you still in hiding? If so, what's the gist - do you wear a disguise, avoid certain places, and so on? I just got a new set of breasts, double D's. I can put my drink in between them. I also wear a silver spice girls wig. I don’t go to the Polo Mansion as much or to the Nautica factory direct to get my gear as much or check out skip hop gigs. Why do so many graffiti artists despise street art? Because "street artists" are interested in making a dollar much more so then just getting out there and just getting up for the sheer fun of it. Street art just seems like some kind of formula to gain notoriety before you launch yourself into some kind of gallery career. A lot of "writers" are hip to this kind of shit and are now trying to cash in too, good on them I guess you gotta eat in the end.
And why is street art more appealing to most people? Because the general public can understand the chase for a buck. Also street art is targeted towards the general public obviously. Who else needs to buy shitty stencil canvases of 101 Dalmatians to impress Jill and Jacob Honeypants next door? It'll die out like any trend and graffiti taggering losers like myself will still be doing the same old shit we have been doing since the dawn of time, but because it’s the future we will have cybernetic graffiti enhancements for better can control. Any chance we'll see weaponized aerosol in the near future? If someone can make money of it, they'll make it. How would you describe the current state of graffiti culture? Its on the crux of becoming some kind of fucking skateboarding type shit, sponsors, endorsements, fucking ice cream flavors. Soon some of these guys will be selling their own fragrance, "Le' Aerosoule alla lame". I hardly see anything that impresses me anymore. I guess I'm like one of those grumpy old men that's gotta shit on everything anyways. Graffiti is too safe and in some
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kind of box, only a handful of people are breaking out of it. But in the end its just a formula, you gotta try get over that shit and break out. So, if graffiti has become too safe, what's the antidote? Lose the "Graffiti Formula TM" and create some new ones or take that "Graffiti Formula TM" and just kick it the fuck up a notch. I'm gonna stop using cans anyways soon and only use chainsaws/sledgehammers/oxy torches to fuck shit up, cut out my letters in the gate with the oxy, take the chainsaw to fences, sledge hammer out my name in brick and concrete. Whilst naked. I think I just gave away a video I'm working on there. Oops. Do you have any intentions with your work? You go for a walk say, and you see all this boring fucking generic hippity hop graffiti and then there is a huge gushing cunt by me. What are you going to spend the most time looking at or just being confused about? If I wasn't painting I'd be a serial killer. So It also helps curb the urge to mutilate prostitutes and put my
dick in their viscera. Do you think graffiti culture is a receptacle for unsavoury characters who would otherwise be directly terrorizing innocent civilians? It’s a receptacle for pieces of turd mostly. I can hardly count on my hand the amount of semi normal people I've met. I think someone said it best before me, but I loved graffiti until I met other writers. Should there be more sex on the streets? I think there should just be more balls. People are too fucking safe. What are you afraid of? That you wont sell as many t-shirts because you offended someone or fucking graffiti grandmaster 88 will call you out for it? There is plenty of sex, it’s just butt sex. What's the future of graffiti? More jail time, Cope2 funeral plans, and dental floss. More repetition of the same old shit over and over till someone divides by zero. Do you plan to do more gallery/product work? Only if I can take the piss. I'm trying to avoid painting Bearbricks
or pairs of Vans for shitty product launch parties. I do want to make a mold of my cock so you and just about anyone else can just sit on it. BUY NOW! Lush's Hard Cock only $9.99 A lot of writers hate on getting up on the Internet, any thoughts on this phenomenon? They are craggy old people usually, or toys who look up to those senior graffiti citizens, or just people who secretly want to shine but don’t have the nads to go out and get it. They cut down those who are hungry enough to do whatever it takes to get that fucking graffiti perfume line. What's your next move? Some shit that involves pornstars perhaps. I'll keep it vague. I may or may not be in the U.K. , U.S. and Asia this year. [flickr.com/photos/mercyfulfate]
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LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE PHOTOGRAPHY: Alan Chan CREATIVE DIRECTION: Vanessa Leigh
STYLIST: Deanna Palkowski @ Lizbell Agency STYLIST ASSISTANT: Asa Fox MAKEUP AND HAIR: Jenny Kanavaros, using Shu Uemera makeup and TRESemmé Hair Care/judyinc.com MAKEUP AND HAIR ASSISTANCE: Emily Cheng MODELS: Alicia K @ Lizbell Agengy | Geordy @ Richards Model Management Thanks to CaJe Creative Group for the location. [cajecreative.com]
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Geordy: Shirt- Original Penguin Jacket-Boxfresh Pants-Ben Sherman Belt and Hat-Zanerobe Shoes-Vans
Alicia: Top-Dace Tank and Shorts-Mink Pink Shoes-Vans Sunglasses-Von Zipper Socks-American Apparel
Geordy: Shirt-Markus Lupfer @ Gravity Pope Tailored Goods Jeans-Vans
Geordy: Shirt-Zanerobe Sweater-Robert Geller Jeans-Boxfresh Shoes-Vans Sunglasses-Von Zipper Alicia: Jean jacket-Ragwear Skirt and socks-American Apparel
Geordy: Shirt-Levi's Jacket-Ragwear Shorts-Zanerobe
Alicia: Top-Dace Shorts-Myne Ashley Anne @ One of a Few Bracelets-Hilliard Design
Geordy: Sweatpants-American Apparel Shirt-Ben Sherman Alicia: Sweater-Rag & Bone @ Gravity Pope Tailored Goods Jeans-Vans Shoes-Dolce Vita @ One of a Few
Alicia: Jacket and Shorts-Cacharel @ Gravity Pope Tailored Goods Shirt-Local Celebrity Ring-Sleep Standing Up Ring-Hilliard Design
MUSIC THE RAVEONETTES
RAVE ON... AND ON... AND ON Words: Trevor Risk
Photography: Jeremy Williams
True innovators are never in style. To carry culture’s musical flag it’s important to be just ahead of the double helix that is popularity versus critical adoration. The Ravonettes have made rock and roll when guitars were scarce; mysterious ballads when ecstasy-soaked house beats were the rage, and have abandoned their clap along beat just as bands they’ve influenced have begun to explode on the scene. On their new effort Raven In The Grave, Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo look like they won’t ever run out of hooks, beautiful words, or ways to make us swoon. In fact, they may even be just honing their sound now. You’ve been known to have dark lyrical content but very catchy, happy music. By making a record without your signature surf beat were you worried about alienating a certain section of your fan base, or losing that juxtaposition that makes the Raveonettes sound? Sharin: Not really actually. We really didn’t worry about that
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when we made the record. It’s not too much about whoever is on the receiving end. We initially just try and make ourselves happy. Lots of our albums have been very different from one another. It’s kind of like each album is a reaction to the previous one and is a departure in some ways. To me they’re all very Raveonettes and also pretty different from one another. It wasn’t a conscious decision. There wasn’t a discussion about how it’s going to turn out. It’s just the creative process where you’re trying to find a direction of a record. Instead of a record that has the tension that we’ve been known for and the juxtaposition with the noise and sweetness, this record still has that but just less so than before. It’s got more of a purified ambience, melancholy darkness and tenderness. Sune: We never worry about anything when we do albums because we’re just pleasing ourselves really. We just want to do whatever we feel is the right thing to do at any given time. We actually never thought about it until afterwards. I realized ‘Wow
that’s weird. We didn’t use any surf beat’. It wasn’t a conscious decision not to use it. When you say you only want to please yourself, have you done that with all your records, or is that something you learned over time? Sune: I think all our albums have been trying to do that. We’ve always been lucky in the sense that we never really had an A & R guy work for us or a label that wanted to hear demos. We’ve always just been given freedom with whatever we wanted to do. It’s a great position to be in. The songwriting on Raven In The Grave is definitely different. Is it going to be the direction going forward on future records? Sharin: That’s a good question. I don’t have a good answer to that. I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. We just do one record at a time. I have to say that it reminds me a lot of the first record, but it’s much more celebratory. It has a feel to it that reminds me of our first record although it’s much
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MUSIC more intimate. It’s inspirational and encouraging the same way that Whip It On was to me. Sune: I don’t know. It’s hard to say. The album is different because most of the music was composed on piano and not a guitar. It’s definitely got different arrangements and different tones. We’re always up for trying something. It’s hard to say what we want to do next really. What’s your favourite moment on the new album? Sharin: I have a lot of favourite moments. I love the very subtle dance feel that it has. It’s not a very outgoing dance-y feel but it has that underlying heartbeat and I love that. It’s got that house beat and some cinematic moments on the intros to songs like on “War In Heaven”. I also love the vocal harmonies that are extremely old fashioned. There’s some very nostalgic melodies. Sune: I have so many because the album is quite new and it’s really quite new to us too because it was sort of just done and then mastered. I actually don’t know the album that well yet because we don’t do demos for our songs. We just get an idea and do it. We haven’t listened to these songs a lot. Well do you have a favourite song you’ve ever written? Sune: I like the words for “Recharge and Revolt” because it really was the first time that I captured what it was that I wanted to say. It was a big, epic feeling of being on the road in America and all the emotions and thoughts that go through your mind when you travel such a vast country. It’s a beautiful love song and it really hit home with me. Musically, I think there’s a lot of great music on this new album. I think “Summer Moon” is a beautiful song and I really like the music for “Apparitions”. When making a Raveonettes record, how do you decide what’s a digital sound (drums, synths) and what’s more organic and analog? Sharin: In a way we’re very not organic. We definitely embrace technology very much and we’re very lo-fi in a way. We don’t even have amps on this record. Actually we haven’t had amps on very many records, except for maybe Pretty In Black. We just always end up liking the electronic approach. Somehow that just sounds right to us.
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Sune: Even on Pretty In Black we didn’t use amplifiers for all the songs. There are certain elements where we used amplifiers like the solo for “Love In A Trashcan”, but most of the stuff on that album was done straight into the computer. It’s just a sound I always liked. I don’t want to spend too much time finding sounds because I’m really not that interested in it. I kind of know what I want, I feel I know what the song needs. I’ve been doing music for so many years so I know how to get certain sounds really fast. In regards to drum programming and guitar tones I know exactly what works for our music. We never used any live drums on our albums really either except for some stuff on Pretty In Black and a few things on this album. Like the beat for “Recharge and Revolt” was recorded in our studio and it’s just a pattern that we then looped throughout the song, and the same thing for “Forget That You’re Young”. Can you take me through the Raveonettes’ writing process then? Sharin: Sune is the one who starts the composition for the Raveonettes. The way it typically works is that he’ll put down some ideas in the studio. He’ll start recording them straight into a session. Sometimes it’s just recording an acoustic guitar and vocals and sometimes it’s just putting down a beat. I will say that it’s very rare that Sune sits at home on his guitar and writes a song. It’s mainly just sitting in the studio and just putting down little ideas or little guitar parts and then we go through it together and start navigating the ideas. We also live on different coasts so there’s lots of emailing files back and forth and having a creative conversation like that. Sune: We have a studio in New York so most of the songs are basically little snippets that I try out to see if we can find a tone or a vibe or a sound for the album. I compose everything at home and then I go out to the studio and I record certain little things. For instance, that song “Forget That You’re Young” was one of those little experiments that sounded really good. I didn’t need to re-record it for the album. It already sounded great the way it sounded. It was sloppily played and the drum sound is not the best drum sound in the world but it had a certain charm to it that we didn’t want to change. You write a riff like that and then loop
it for as long as Sharin wants to sing on it and then we end it. It’s very simple music but we don’t care about traditional forms and arrangements and we don’t care about choruses or anything like that. We do whatever we feel is right for any song. What’s going to be the advantage of having two drummers on stage? Sharin: Well we’re still to find out. We wanted to incorporate the electronic elements of our music which we didn’t do on the previous record. We toured without samples. It’s about having the drummer trigger a lot of sounds. It was also an attempt to have a very cyclical element to the live experience. It’s not like the signature surf beat, it’s almost sort of tribal marching drum beats. Maybe it’s going to be a disaster. As far as I know they’re pretty good drummers. We played with Adrian (Aurelius) the one drummer on tour for the last year and a half so we can count on him for sure. Sune: When we started the Raveonettes that was actually the setup that we wanted. We got thrown into tours so we didn’t have any time to rehearse with two drummers. After so many years now we finally had a little time off so I said to Sharin ‘Why don’t we go back and try to do the original lineup?’ Our music is so incredibly simple but it’s very beat driven. To have two drummers playing beats will really emphasize the beats that we have and I think it will suit our music really well. They’ll trigger certain samples and different sounds and sometimes one of the drummers will play guitar as well. Sometimes we won’t have any drums, we’ll just have a looped drum pattern and then we’ll all play. We have so many different things we can do with this setup to make it really interesting for us and hopefully for the viewer. Six years ago you worked with Ronnie Spector and Moe Tucker. Why the sparseness on collaborations since then? Sune: We just can’t really find anyone we want to collaborate with. I think the only person right now that I feel would be great to work with, and I think we’re going to ask him because we’re friends with him, would be Martin Gore from Depeche Mode. He’s a totally fifties/sixties fanatic. He knows ten times more songs from that period than I do. When we toured with them he would
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sing songs into my ear into the wee hours of the morning. I know he has love for that type of music and at the same time he has a love for everything that’s programmed and digital, and I feel like that’s what we have. We like older music and we love making beats and using computers. We’re in no way an analog band because it’s something about time. We just like to work fast. Actually, the more I learn about the Raveonettes the more it reminds me of Depeche Mode. They wrote all their songs on an acoustic guitar but the band was just four keyboards. Sune: I think that’s great and I think if he would be up for it maybe he could produce an album for us or maybe we could write some songs together. It’ll be something we’ll have to discuss at some point. That’s just the only person I could think of. Whip It On was released right around the time of a rock and roll resurgence. Since then the popular state of radio in most countries is very electronic sounding and house music oriented. On the eve of another rock and roll movement, you’re ready to lead again. Have you had any struggles remaining popular and relevant between these ice ages? Sharin: I’ll say that we’re not too concerned when we’re writing or recording a record but obviously we would like a lot of people to enjoy our music. Yeah, sometimes we do get frustrated
because we would like a lot of people to enjoy the Raveonettes but it’s not a struggle. We have a certain flair for being out of fashion, except for maybe right when we started off. So yeah, we’re famously out of fashion all the time, and it’s okay. Sune: We just never really cared about it. We knew when we made Whip It On that a lot of people were really going to dig that album because it’s a great album. We also knew that we weren’t going to play stadiums with this type of music. We really don’t think about anything like that. We have such a great fan base and we cater to them because they’re the ones that we’re playing for and we’ll do anything for them. That’s really the most important thing for us is to communicate directly with our fans. We don’t need a lot of people for us to do what we do. We’re just our own brand. We control our own albums and we just go from album to album and no one questions anything. I couldn’t think of a better position to be in. The final two bars in the chorus of “Ignite” are beautiful and kind of function as a the tipping point of the song and even the entire record. Was it instinctual or did it take hours of finding the right move? Sharin: That song was a very natural composition for the Raveonettes, and it’s probably the one that people will recognize
the most in terms of sounding like the Raveonettes. That was in many ways a very easy song, like production wise. It was writing itself and recording itself. Now you’re in a position where you inspire a lot of younger bands. When did you first see that developing and how does it make you feel? Sune: I guess there’s a certain sound that people like. It’s like surf music and girl group stuff and Sonic Youth noise. It’s just something that I’ve always been fond of and I think a lot of people are fond of it. When we started the Raveonettes no one was really doing it at that time. It felt very natural for us to make music in that vein. I’m sure a lot of people had thought about it but no one was really doing it. I thought we could make an impact if we made the music that we really loved. Then it died down a little bit and it came up again with the lo-fi resurgence in some of the early demos I heard from Best Coast and some Dum Dum Girls stuff and certainly the first Glasvegas album. It’s flattering that some of those people realize that. I’m friends with most of these people now and that’s probably because of the music and the mutual respect we have for one another and the music that we love and adore.
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LOUISE BURNS
LET IT BURN Words: JJ Brewis
Photography: Justin Tyler Close
Everything about Louise Burns is polarizing. Despite never meeting her before our conversation, I was shocked how much she revealed to me, while also displaying a side so mysterious that even her revelations are a wonder unto themselves. Sure, she comes off extremely well-read, but Burns’ fascinations reveal a more childlike nature - colour, space, the dark. After being in and out of the studio for two years at work on her debut solo album Mellow Drama, Louise is ready to unveil it to the world, despite how post-partum it might feel. “I’ve been calling it a child, my little moon baby,” she laughs. “It’s a relief, this is a chapter I struggled with through the years.” Although only in her mid-twenties, Louise invokes old-soul status. She calculates everything, and the end of this chapter is no exception. “This is what I intended to do to move on,” she says. “It feels very precise. I can close the book, now I can move on.” And to add to the idea of being an old soul, she mutters quietly to herself, “Chapter 362.” Mellow Drama is the type of album only Louise could have made. Exposed to most of the world through her impressionable teens as part of major-label pop outfit Lillix (“We did the whole meat grinder music industry thing”), she strays far from the grounds of Lillix’s early achievements, but keeps much of her lessons from that era of her life in tow. “I’m so grateful for that, oh my God,” she says. “I learned a lot about the world while I was very young; about personal issues, drama, even problem solving and logic. Not to say I’m great at any of those things.” Departing Lillix around the time the band’s label, Maverick, folded, Louise found herself in Vancouver playing in a handful of other local acts (Luna Riot, The Blue Violets). Soon, Burns decided to turn her longtime passion of crafting off-kilter pop songs into its own project.
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Makeup and hair: Blair Petty, TRESemmé Hair Care and MAC Cosmetics/judyinc.com
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MUSIC “What I enjoy most about playing music is the songwriting aspect,” she says. Performing them live, however, is another story. “I feel a bit weird about performing because I don't like attention,” she says. “I didn't have a specific feeling to break out on my own. The fact that I created this on my own feels natural.” Though musically turning a quick 180 from her childhood band, Louise sees the pop sensibilities as still important. “I love writing pop songs,” she says. “I grew up on that, it’s in my cells.” Burns describes herself as a childhood loner (“I got lost in my own head, not in a tragic sense”) who still finds comfort in being alone. “I’m pretty independent,” she says. “I can’t work if I live with somebody. Being alone is efficient for me.” In terms with her solidarity, Burns brought that element to the album. Playing most of the instruments on the record herself - down to the mandolin and ukulele - Louise feels the album is “very much a creation of my own mind.” Despite not considering herself a pro on the guitar, she did it herself in a calculated move. “I played all the music intentionally because I wanted to give it more of a raw feel.” She finds that doing it herself, rather than leaning on a professional, adds to the charm of the album. “It’s pop music. It can be overly produced quite easily. I wanted to focus more on feel and songwriting. This is more honest.” With a full pallet of influences ranging from Nick Cave and Buddy Holly to the Shangri-La’s and Neil Young, Burns’ biggest inspiration for her debut solo record, Mellow Drama may come across a bit off-beat. “I’m pretty influenced by night time. I write a lot about night time imagery: stars and moons,” she explains. “There’s this thing ‘saudade’, that’s the Portugese word for it. What it essentially describes is the emotion of nostalgic sadness, yearning for something but you don't know why.” Describing it as a “beautiful sadness,” Burns takes this concept seriously, filling Mellow Drama’s tracks with songwriting techniques that invoke this unexplainable sadness in her lyrics, paired with an upbeat core. Looking to songwriters like Robert Smith before her, Burns wrote a batch of songs that express conflicting emotions, writing somber lyrics into an upbeat melody. “What I love about The Cure are their happy sad songs, where they sound happy, but lyrically
are in fact quite the opposite.” On her own “Street Walking,” a mid-tempo beat drives the song through, while underneath, Burns hums “Goodbye to feeling fine.” The combination is classic, and Burns revels in its artfulness. “It sounds so light and happy, but it's really about death and destruction and sadness,” she says, half-joking. This songwriting technique comes naturally to Louise in that, despite the unexplainable nature of it, the sadness is as much a concept as a mindset. But that’s the thing about Burns, she sits with poise and exposes a hearty laugh that show no sign of real sadness, yet she doesn’t seem to front. So where does this affinity with the sadness come from? Perhaps so deep in thought, she is somehow figuring out where she herself stands between personal triumph and the storytelling elements laced into her own material. It's half disconnect, half self-inquisition. After a listen through the album, it’s clear Burns has made something that comes off very natural, but carries a separate layer of calculated decisions. For Louise, the melding of personal material and the art of music-savvy storytelling is a careful blend that even she’s not sure the balance of. “I hate to admit it but it is quite personal. In a way, it’s an existential reflection of my early 20s, of figuring stuff out,” she says. But getting personal is neither something she’s proud of nor intends to elaborate on. “I don't ever want to be earnest or sincere in my music. I find that completely abrasive and fake.” After noticing some tracks were a bit too personally charged for her liking, Louise added specific verses in some songs to balance them out. “It appeals to me because it leaves grey area, leaves some interpretation,” she says. “I don't ever want to be too confessional. That stuff is gross to me.” On the opposite end, just to show both sides, Louise says her song “Island Vacation” is a musical narrative, but the song only felt ready when she added in some personal material. “The second verse is about being filmed while I was sleeping. That actually happened. I threw that in just to balance it out.” The lead single “What Do You Want To Do” is a perfect blend of self-exposure, and dynamic storytelling in a pop track. A cross-section between Patsy Cline’s narrative style and Burns’ own tendency to go on night walks, exploring the city and tapping
her own mind simultaneously. “With a song like ‘Walking After Midnight’, I can really identify with that feeling of sadness but feeling comfortable,” she says, adding that layering a fictitious narrative into a mostly-personal number helps keep her comfort in check, adding she knows a song is ready when it feels “A bit more distant, and not as earnest. Distance is important to me.” Even in terms of visual elements, which Burns is just as focused on, she finds some relief in keeping things a bit unclear, a definite correlation to the album’s material. “I’m a big fan of saturated colour, and vintage looking photographs,” she says. “I’m pretty influenced by colours as well. I’m about creating that way. For this record it was important to make it sunset colours. Yellows, and deep blues.” Burns is far more in tap with herself than even she seems to admit. On the topic of music and art being cohesive, (“Music and art are absolutely related. I do not see a difference when I see and hear art.”) she segues into the topic of synesthesia, a human condition in which one sense signals the others without direct stimulation to that sense. For Burns, the mood and feeling associated to hearing music creates a visual representation of colour. “I know what colours appeal and don't appeal to me,” she says. “I could obsess about this for hours. Every note has a colour, every song I’ve ever written has a colour.” When bringing this concept to the studio, Louise laughs about explaining the hues of her tracks to people she’s working with. “When I say 'make it more sparkly' I actually mean 'Can you give me more kick drum?’ It really makes sense to me, and it makes it interesting.” But like everything else Burns says, it comes off completely legitimate, not an oddball fascination just for the sake of it. It’s just another testament to her album feeling like an actual body part that happened to fall off her frame. “Some people, after they work with me for a while, realize I’m serious,” she explains. “I’m not being eccentric, this is just what makes sense to me.”
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SMITH WESTERNS
SMIF-N-WESTERN Words: Stefana Fratila
Photography: Tyler Quarles
Smith Westerns are nice dicks. Seriously, they are kind of assholes – flipping their hair, smiling very little, and unearthing a sense of indifference. As time goes by when interviewing them, they begin to seem less dispassionate and maybe even charming; just some sweet-hearted Chicago boys who cut themselves shaving, you know? Cullen, Max, and Cameron are the core members of Smith Westerns. As I walk in to meet them they are drinking Red Bull. It is strange. They all say strange things to each other, but as soon as the interview begins it became obvious that Cullen is the most comfortable (or most interested in) answering questions. I ask him how they met. “I met Cameron in my house. We’re brothers.” Max, not genetically related to either, met the two brothers in high school. “We were the biggest assholes in high school.” I ask why. They don’t know. Their debut record, self-titled The Smith Westerns, was recorded and produced by Max in his basement. It garnered wide appeal and love from young people across North American land with its throbbing lo-fi sound. The record certainly stood out among the piles of studio-produced records coming out at the same time. “I think it’s ridiculous to say that anything was really produced on our first record… At the time, I thought it sounded great. Now, I like it for nostalgic reasons. For that same reason,
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I see it as a stepping stone, but nothing to be repeated twice.” The first album is made up of love songs, with titles like “Girl in Love”, “Boys Are Fine”, and “Be My Girl”. Wishful thinking and duck soup dreams, by which I mean “simple” dreams and straight-forward lyrics to go along. Lyricist Cullen explains, “We were searching for what we thought would be appropriate to write lyrically. I think we thought we were going against what we thought everybody else was doing at the time which was writing really cryptic lyrics. So I thought, what if we went the opposite way by writing these love songs which were still very much in the vein of how pop songs are written.” Released in January, Dye It Blonde is the second full-length album from Smith Westerns. Its production quality is completely the opposite of their first album, recorded in a studio rather than a basement. However, the songs still sound much like an echo of their first record. Max voices, “We got to decide about finding the sound that we wanted.” Listening to their albums, it is immediately clear that someone in the band listens to a lot of classic rock. “Someone” is Max, though he says “It’s not something that I worship every day by getting the blood out at seven o’clock in the morning. Our biggest interest in classic rock is when the songs get really big. That’s kind of what we want to do now.” Dye It Blonde also shows a progress from the debut record lyrically. Cullen says, “For me, a lot of the songs on the second album are me romanticizing the ideas of longing and desire and
just kind of being on the road all the time; wanting to see things, wanting to have a good show. For me, even romancing the idea of making it. Getting over the hill.” The album’s name comes from the last song on the album “Dye the World”. Partially inspired by Michael Jackson, the song is about changing things. Cullen adds, “Making things glossy, you know? That comes with dying something, like dying your hair blonde.” They are now on what they call their “Redemption Tour”. They feel like better performers. They certainly seemed like it this time around. The last time they played Vancouver, they played “a bad show” on the same night as the Oscars. This time was different, and if ladies ready to swoon and feel-good clubbers continue to come out and dance at their shows, they’ll be able to do many more things. Their ambitions for the future vary. They mentioned buying gold platters of drugs for their friends. “I want a Grammy,” Max laughs. “I want to be Arcade Fire.” Cullen says, “I’d like to be able to buy stuff and not have to worry about it.” Something anyone can relate to. His experience is very much a touring musician’s. “When I go into a gas station at a rest stop, I wanna buy stuff but then I can’t, because I have no money. Like a little knick-knack.” “You could get a honey bun,” Max chimes in. “But then I can’t.”
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MUSIC KISSES
SITTING IN A TREE Words: Emma Ruthnum
Photography: James Muscles
Sometimes there can be nothing more earnest than a kiss. No, not a sloppy, whisky-induced dance floor make out, but a real kiss; that one between two people who care about each other, and know each other’s last names. Los Angeles’ Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson make up the disco-esque duo Kisses. The couplecore band has been kicking around the blog circuit for the past year or so now, and has released an incredibly sincere debut, The Heart of the Nightlife on Saboteur Records. The band played their first ever Canadian show at The Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver in early March. The show was part of a short West Coast tour before Kisses headed off to play the South by Southwest festival in Austin. This year’s SXSW will, in a way, mark a one-year anniversary of when everything started happening for Kisses. After Kivel had finished recording a record with his other band Princeton — a project he shares with his twin brother and best friends — he wanted to record some of his own songs that he’d written. Princeton was playing the SXSW festival in 2010. “I wanted it to be a real disco record with strings and drums,” said Kivel. “I thought for some reason that I could convince someone to give me money to do that, but then I realized 'what am I thinking?' This makes no sense.”
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“Nobody else wanted to join, they just said they did,” joked Edmundson. So long-term girlfriend and music-newcomer Edmundson joined the band, and the two became Kisses. Edmundson is a writer whose portfolio includes Bon Appetit Magazine and the popular fashion blog, Refinery29. Kisses then released one single, “Bermuda,” right before SXSW. The single gained some Internet buzz, and Kivel was sought out at the Austin festival by their now manager. “We basically set everything up and then set up a show in September,” remembers Kivel. “We had already had a tour lined up in Japan before we had ever played a show.” Having played in Princeton for some time, the facility of how everything came together for Kisses was not lost on Kivel. “I’ve been in my band (Princeton) for years and I’ve always felt like whatever came to us we had to work really hard for,” he said. “Then with this project, I didn’t really do anything except make the music and all these people are e-mailing us. It’s kind of unfair when that happens. I mean, I was happy that it did, but at the same time being a musician is not really a rewards based industry. Sometimes you work at a job and you work hard and then you move up, because you’re good at your job. With musicians, there’s a lot of luck involved.”
Perhaps it is because Kisses has an, “of-the-moment” quality to them that has made them an appealing "new" band, but Kisses sees a few flaws in how their band is sometimes judged. “What I didn’t like about the way we were perceived was that we got lumped in with a lot of chillwave…” said Kivel. “Also, we would have been late on that too,” added Edmundson. “Because if we were really chillwave it would be like, why are we doing that now? It was a year ago or two years ago.” “The thing is that I think it needs to come from a pure place,” said Kivel. “I think if you set out to do something and it’s not what you want to do, but you think ‘this will work and this could be cool’ then I think that’s bogus and people will know it. Sending a direct message with what you’re doing is probably the most important thing that I wanted. The music did come first, but then an image followed that was organized.” Take a listen to, The Heart of the Nightlife, and you’ll be able to gage what Kisses was going for. The album combines romance, some contemporary synth, and a nod to the disco days of the ’60s and ’70s in Southern California. It will make you long for the days you probably weren’t alive for.
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MUSIC REVIEWS 1
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[1] Explosions In The Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care Temporary Residence Ltd. Everyone should go through an Explosions in The Sky phase. Mine was in the beginning of my second year of film school after seeing Friday Night Lights, which EITS provided the soundtrack for. I immediately decided that every movie ever from then on should be shot almost entirely handheld, punctuated by beautiful string choruses. Unfortunately, so did just about every other filmmaker and no one really did it as well after a certain point. The combination of that style of camera work and music is now a cinematic short hand for “this is emotionally compelling.” It’s worth checking out where a band can go from that. I recommend buying this actual physical CD because it plays best as atmosphere music while you’re on a long drive. —Kellen Powell [2] Girls Names - Dead To Me Slumberland At first listen, the new album Dead To Me from Irish rockers Girls Names feels like a nostalgic trip down the California coast to the days when surf rock ruled the waves. With heavy reverb on the guitars and a steady drum beat pulling the song along, the album plays through in a flow that has you surprised the disc is done. Each song is so well constructed on its own, but it is as a whole that they shine. The lead single from the album is “I Lose”. This haunting tale of self reflection and sadness builds on the guitar
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riff that leads you into the song and the choppy bridge is pulled together tightly at the end of the four minutes. If you close your eyes you can see the guitarist wailing on his guitar, head down, hair long and swaying to the music as his band rocks out alongside him. Dead To Me is psychedelic, but not trippy; reverbed, but not grungy; sounds English, but is Irish. This album is hard to categorize, but even harder to stop listening to. —Sutherland604 [3] The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong Slumberland They say you have your entire life to write your first record, but only six months to write the second. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart took a swan dive off a bridge and plunged themselves deep into the rock infested waters of the nineties for their second effort Belong by enlisting producer Flood (The Charlatans, PJ Harvey, The Smashing Pumpkins) and having the album mixed by Alan Moulder (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, My Bloody Valentine). By doing so they have satiated the desires of the band’s fan base. On top of that, frontman Kip Berman has developed his songwriting enough to carry the expectations of the sometimes overly emotional fans. The opening title track and third song “Heart In Your Heartbreak” have together finally trademarked what will soon be known as “The Pains Breakdown”, while “My Terrible Friend” finds chord progression
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simplicity can still sound new even with New Order sixteenths on the hi-hat. These songs are perfect for the springtime as an album or on a mixtape nestled between Sugar and Belle & Sebastian. —Trevor Risk [4] Yelle - Safari Disco Club My teeth hurt. Listening to the sugar-coated electro pop of French outfit Yelle’s new record has burrowed cavities into my molars. This record may not contain any original colours, flavours or preservatives, but it still tastes amazing as it deliciously dissolves in your mouth and mixes with your saliva. I can’t read the French writing on the packaging, so I have no idea what I’m consuming lyrically, but Yelle’s excited schoolgirl screams, stirred with floating beats and zooming synths have got me bouncing off the walls like I’m sure the kids in Parisian nightclubs bounce on the d-floor. Even the bubblegum queen of pop herself, Katy Perry, has been borrowing Yelle’s confectionary remixing skillz to add a certain “je ne sais quoi” to her fruity tunes. With more magical flavours than Willy Wonka could even dream of, Safari Disco Club is the kind of guilty pleasure record you can’t judge anyone for enjoying. Sure, there are a lot more “organic” electro acts exploding out of France, but where is the fun in consuming something just because everyone says it’s good for you? Give me sweet, sweet pop candy any day. —Nathan Wood
Every summer we’re cursed with the constant declarations of our hip, music obsessed friends about what the “summer jam” is. By the time the sun has come and gone and all the beach road rockets are put away you’ve sadly realized that the song that’s been rattling Toyota doors more than any other all summer is some David Guetta featuring Linkin Park track that will inevitably be performed at that winter’s Super Bowl. Well, spring is here and if you haven’t noticed already, couples are sucking face on every corner, short skirts are slowly revealing themselves, and if you’re lucky enough to live in a well kept city, flower petals are falling on you like that sexy scene in Pleasantville. Spring is the time to listen to the dreamiest, cardigan-clad tunes that will keep that permanent smile on you while you catch your breath from winter and finally remove those mittens. This spring, pop these songs on your iPod, get outside, feed the swans, and sing along.
Illustration: Patrick Kyle
SELECT[ION]
MUSIC
[1] Lilys “Claire Hates Me” – Run over a knoll and wrestle around with a Siberian Husky (or Alaskan Malamute, whatever). Bob your head from side to side to this song and yell “I’m open!” to the kids throwing around a baseball. If you breathe in you can smell all those flowers that bumble bees used to pollinate. Do not stop and think about why or how all the bumble bees are dying. [2] M83 “Teen Angst” – It was a blessing in disguise when Nicolas Fromageau left this band. Anthony Gonzalez took the retiring to mean that he was allowed to go full-Air Supply with the act. If you find anybody who will let you French them for five minutes and three seconds, consider spending the summer with him/her/both of them.
[3] Aphex Twin “Fingerbib” – In heaven, insects are actually the opposite of annoying. They tickle you in all the right spots and whisper hilarious witticisms in your ear in the voice of Richard Hammond. Until you die and experience this, Aphex Twin’s little number will have to do. [4] The Pains of Being Pure At Heart “Side Ponytail” – No matter how old you are, every once in a while it’s good to appease the teen pouting inside of you by grabbing an ice cream, sitting on a newspaper box and swinging your legs from side to side. If it’s raining, splash in puddles. If it’s snowing, leave Newfoundland.
eighteen part harmony over 8-bit harps. If you stare at the sun long enough, you’ll see those angels and they will transform you into a blind prophet. Raise a glass of Campari and toast daylight saving time! [6] Blondie “Dreaming” – Tone those thighs by running outside instead of on a treadmill at the YMCA beside rows of power bottoms watching The View. If you see a buddy on your run, whip out that secret handshake and make plans to climb the nearest telephone poll. Once up there, beatbox a Clem Burke drum pattern and proclaim hip hop to be dead. Remember, funk drumming is not for white people unless it’s in a New York rock song.
[5] New Order “Regret” – Synths over chorus pedal-soaked Bernard Sumner guitars are like Nintendo angels singing in
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ION THE WEB 9 EYES
In May, 2007, Google mounted a black cylinder outfitted with nine cameras on top of a van and began trawling the streets of major urban centres. Anything and everything that lay within the vehicle’s wake was captured in 360 degrees, the resultant images stitched together in an infinite panoramic mobius strip to create what we now know as “Google Street View”. Street view was an instant hit for its novelty alone, and has now become an important utility for all types of tasks. Researching a discount hotel in Rome and want to know if the neighbourhood is a dump? Google it and scope the block for pickpockets. Montreal-based visual artist, Jon Rafman, looked at this new mapping tool and noticed something bluntly obvious that most of us have overlooked – photography.
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9 Eyes is Rafman’s painstakingly curated collection of the Google god’s greatest snaps. The photos range in scope and style, from damning social commentary to heart achingly romantic landscapes; all shot with the same unblinking deference to the human condition that only a machine could provide. [9-eyes.com]
HOROSCOPES THIS MONTH: MAXWELL MAXWELL Maxwell Maxwell makes silly, electronic beep-boop music and sometimes he DJs at shirts-off sparkle parties around Canada and the States. He also makes songs for his friend Peter Breeze to sing, some of which are played by other DJs at shirts-off sparkle parties around the world. He likes burritos, Ace of Base, and playing Minecraft with his boyfriend. You can check out his awesome website at maxwellmaxwell.com, or follow him on Twitter @maxwellmaxwell. ARIES: Plastic surgery for your vagina and/ or butthole is a thriving niche market, and the people performing these surgeries all went to medical school for several years. When the universe shits all over you today, realize that it could be worse. TAURUS: You eat a vegan diet and avoid shampoo and deodorant for health reasons, but you smoke cigarettes and do blow. Make up your mind, stinkypits! GEMINI: For most people, heroin is a gateway to a life of suffering, exploitation, and marginalization. For you, though, it might be a great way to lose those last stubborn 15 pounds. CANCER: Don’t neglect the balls. LEO: Clean your room. Do it right now. It’s fucking disgusting. Nobody is going to sleep
with you with your room in that state. You’re almost thirty, anyways. Aren’t you a little old to have roommates? Shave that stubble off your face, too. It makes you look homeless. VIRGO: After Charlie Sheen had his big meltdown, it was briefly amusing for people to quote him in reference to whatever pedestrian fun they get up to. Visit a mid-priced strip joint with some overgrown frat boys from your work and get a lap dance from someone whose meth addiction is the only reason they're willing to talk to you? You must be #winning! Suck back four glasses of vodkalaced sugar water with your horse-faced girlfriends at your favourite chain restaurant? It's obviously the #tigerblood in your veins. Enough with the tame shit - the universe needs you to put up or shut up, people. (NOTE: disregard this advice if Charlie Sheen is currently dead)
LIBRA: “Hey, it’s me. You are so fucking hot… and I want to eat you and get crazy. I want you badly, and I know you want me. But you have to be into Betsy, because I told her you were into her. Let’s hire a hooker. Let’s get some coke. But you have to be into Betsy.” At first, you thought the voicemails that television’s Pat O’Brien keeps leaving you were funny, but they’re really starting to use up a lot of your cell phone minutes, and frankly, you’re not that into Betsy. SCORPIO: Due to the way light is bent by the immense gravitational pull of a neutron star, more than fifty percent of its surface area is visible from any angle. This information will necessitate a total redesign of the sweet airbrushed artwork on the side of your van. SAGITTARIUS: You have something in your teeth right now. Left side. No, your other left. There you go.
CAPRICORN: Gene Roddenberry made a softcore porno. Roger Ebert wrote the screenplay to Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. Even Angela Lansbury managed to release a workout tape largely made up of extended scenes of her giving herself a sensual massage while taking a bubble bath. Why, then, does YouTube keep taking down your fursuit videos? AQUARIUS: Are you an awkward, conventionally attractive young woman with a bad haircut who reads a lot of blogs and hates her father? Consider fucking Dov Charney and/or Terry Richardson. PISCES: You can buy a “wide-body” coffin on a budget at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, this is going to be the second most depressing thing you find out today.
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LUNCHBREATH
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