golden dogs article

[meggo]

first things first:

GOLDEN DOGS

W/ DOUBLE PUMPERS, LOWEST OF

THE LOW, JOEL PLASKETT

MONDAY MAY 16 AT 6:15 P.M.

MAJOR'S HILL PARK

and, from the xpress...

Bone-crunching bravado

Jeremy Milks

The Golden Dogs' Dave Azzolini talks of bloody fingers and mental illness on the road to success

When people get to talking about The Golden Dogs, the conversation inevitably turns to their renowned live set. Chart Attack has called them the best live band in the country after witnessing their frenetic and chaotic show during Canadian Music Week in Toronto this past March. Singer and guitarist Dave Azzolini and his wife, keyboardist Jessica Grassia, took turns having sonic-induced freakouts to a huge and ever-growing receptive crowd. They were even described as having something akin to adult ADD.

"I don't know about the ADD," explains the surprisingly low-key Azzolini over the phone. "It's more like schizophrenia. There's lots of attention paid to details in the show and songs. But I have hurt myself up there. There's been bloody fingers for the most part. I ripped down a few light fixtures and came close to electrocuting myself. I've been pretty lucky I guess, because I've been whipping around up there lately."

While the live set has been whipping up the crowds, it's 2004's album Everything in 3 Parts that has the music press breathing a little heavier these days. Journalists are lobbing grenades in all directions, saying they are going to blow up nationally and are on the verge of becoming the next Arcade Fire, Canada's current flavour-of-the-month indie darlings. Azzolini doesn't think much of the comparison but doesn't seem at all hesitant to enter the stratosphere either.

"For one we don't sound anything like them. I guess there's the husband and wife thing and the

fact that we play pop music, but that's about it. I always try and make the best album possible and I want people to hear it, I want to tour it... I want to be the gypsy. So whatever. People in places like Ottawa are starting to come around. It always takes us a few times to play a city to prove ourselves. When we first started playing Ottawa there was all this press about us in Toronto and I think people just figured it was a lot of hype. Our road legs weren't down yet either, but with the new lineup we're ready for anything."

That new lineup came about as bassist Micah Goldstein and guitarist Michael Chambers left for various reasons after the album was finally finished.

"The split was amicable as it can be. Micah had school and he couldn't do a lot of the road stuff, and that's mostly what we've been concentrating on lately. We were playing Toronto for two years and trying to build up a following here but whenever we had to leave our comfort zone it became a little more problematic. We got really, really lucky with finding people [Carlin Nicholson on guitar and Taylor Knox on bass] who are really talented and doing music for a living already."

The album is getting a lot of radio play in Ottawa, hitting number one on CKDJ, not to mention a song culled from the record called "Yeah," being used in the feature movie Siblings. Azzolini takes a certain pride in the song being played over a vomiting scene.

"Everything's going wrong in this character's life, he's swigging from a mickey and throwing up in a toilet and I thought, 'Yah, that's about right.' It's a decent movie. Not bad."

Everything In 3 Parts comes off as a unified nugget of pop and high-strung harmonies, with Azzolini's voice often stretching to the breaking point but landing softly into Grassia's racing keyboard runs and the rock-solid backline of the rhythm section. It's broken down into two sections called "Part II" and "Part III," both produced by the band but mixed and played by a slew of names, which makes it all a little hard to keep track of. But the album is seamless, starting with the ascending power pop of "Birdsong" and ending in the bizarre but strangely endearing "Big Boy and the Masters of the Universe," a sort of marching-band-meets-arena-rock anthem that ends in a Beatles-style a cappella to usher out the record. Everything in between certainly lives up to the "hype" that surrounds them.

"The record was done in chopped-up stages. It was a real long process but we're already thinking ahead to the next one. We have a whole album's worth of new songs and we're just in the demo stages right now. Our label [True North] and our management with Bernie Finkelstein and Steve Jordan are really behind us. There's a lot going on right now."

While the Tulip Festival stage doesn't conjure up the small club intimacy that has fuelled their explosive live performances, Azzolini claims he's looking forward to playing the festival. And who knows? You might even witness a live electrocution... if you enjoy that sort of thing.

[Dr. J]

Nice article...thanks Meggo. i once saw Dave perform from atop a table at the Montreal House in Peterborough. Great stuff! Hope their show translates well to the larger stage. Dave is nothing if not a stickler for detail, so you gotta know they're gonna be ready. Will be a fun time for sure.