Brokedown Social Scene

[kung]

I had what might be called a profound thought about our 'scene' last night that goes something like this. It requires that we get past for a moment the quibble over what's better 'jam' or 'indy'. Given how quality the music my girl and I have been listening to as of late (Broken Social Scene, Metric, Polyphonic Spree...) she kind of laughed when I went to Jerry's BDay. That said once there it was a powerful event and as someone else mentioned it reminded me of the impact this man and group of people has had on me. That can never be taken away. Likewise Phish has obviously had a profound effect on all of us. Despite how hot the sets they've been playing as of late I can't help but think that bands like BSS and Polyphonic Spree represent the music of-the-moment. As my girlfriend said it may be a whole new movement in music, very large groups where everyone plays frontman. So you can debate whether it's superior music or not, at very least it's superior in terms of being totally current and timeless, but it's hard to debate that the theatrics, drama, comedy and tragedy is superior. It's no suprise that the Spree, Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips and Tortoise found their way on the Bonarroo bill. Doesn't anyone consider that there's a reason these are the bands that the musician's want to hear? I guess in a roundabout way I'm putting up a cautionary warning that if we don't put an honous on ourselves to broaden our scope and embrace craftsmanship we will become an afterthought. What we've got that every other scene, except electronic/dance, is that we participate in the shows by raging out. I love that about our scene but it usually comes at the cost of lacking authenticity and respect from the broader music community. So how can we unite the best elements of theatricality and craft into our scene in the spirit of say the Flaming Lips?

[secondtube]

i think i'd also see some eastern/world beat introduced into our 'local music' or maybe some more jazzier bands, less jam.

but i'm not really into the 'indy' rock bands....just not my thing...

Flaming lips bored me to tears.

but anytime our scene gets even more diverse...i'm a happy camper.

[MK]

"So how can we unite the best elements of theatricality and craft into our scene in the spirit of say the Flaming Lips?"

Maybe with creativity and stage presence - the same thing that the electroinc/dance scene lacks.

[Silky Juice]

you know...the only reason these bands aren't in our 'scene' is because so many flaky hippies are too busy following a band around for 10 shows in a summer tour while they could always take a few days out of their busy party schedule to fit in some other shows of some new bands that they've heard about or read about...anyone ever see microbunny?? i'm sure that if you haven't you'd certainly like to. they're 'indie'. but that just means 'cool but artsy not hippy' right? whatever.

sure phish and hookah and the dead and panic are cool...but you could always get a copy of that show you were going to see because it just fit into your travel plans...it's so easy to be ultra nerdy when it's accepted practice.

note to all showgoing phish heads...you're likely headier than me...and of course...i'd be singing a different tune if i'd have actually seen phish...and the lot scene...and the energy...

same thing about the border issue. if we were busy actually getting into our scene we'd already know that the top notch players in canada are generally playing jazz and folk/classical/bluegrass. there's killer music around if we'd just turn on the CBC or local campus radio instead of a bootleg of that show where some guy did the maddest enema solo. i mean he shit himself and everything!

but seriously...we've got the talent and music up here. we've got it everywhere but we just don't seem to find it all the time...think about why and you'll likely agree with me. some of the best music i've heard has been made for a hippy audience but when we genrefy the music that we find it so hard to concisely describe then we're making it stale...because if saying 'jazzy bluegrass with some dub and feedback' ever gets so tedious that we just say 'jamband' or whatever you want to call it then it's at least a day old and we've forgotten the meaning of description and everything that goes with it - including the awe. Kung...great minds think alike.

[Velvet]

Somebody said to me the other day that "jam" as a label describes not the bands, but the audience.

When you listen to Ben Harper, or The Dead, or Drums & Tuba, the similarities are scarce, but if you go to a show you'll see that the audiences have that community look/feel.

Just thought I'd throw that out.

[kung]

I would like to see more input on this topic and thought I'd add this in. It was really seeing the Lips performance of Do You Realize? complete with SARS mask tossing and confetti, fuzzy animals etc. that got me on this line. I do remember thinking how fitting a song choice that was given what we were processing as a nation. It reminded me of something Gord Downie said once about playing Wheat Kings in Saskatchewan with David Milgaard in the wings backstage, he realized effectively that songs are not solid things that they are organic and change with situations. I wonder to what extent it takes an incredibly well crafted song to morph like this to meet a new demand placed on it.

quote:

---

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face

Do You Realize - we're floating in space -

Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry

Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know

You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh

Do You Realize - that everyone you know

Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know

You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face

Do You Realize

---

[kung]

Wait I think it was Race For The Prize that seemed superbly fitted but obviously Do You Realize? works well as does Fight Test (the three they played). And oh the drum sound! If anyone can get a Flaming Lips sound off of their kit they've won the game.

quote:

---

Two scientists were racing

For the good of all mankind

Both of them side by side

So Determined

Locked in heated battle

For the cure that is their prize

But it's so dangerous

But they're determined

Theirs is to win

If it kills them

They're just humans

With wives and children

Upwards to the vanguard

Where the pressure is too high

Under the microscope

Hope against hope

Forging for the future

But to sarcrifice their lives

Both of them side by side

So determined

Theirs is to win

If it kills them

They're just humans

With wives and children

Theirs is to win

It will kill them

They're just humans

With wives and children

---

[MarcO]

Interesting. I like what Velvet mentioned, about how the “jam” label applies more to the audience than the bands. The last few years have seen the already-wide-open “jamband” scene extend itself exponentially outward, so that now, indeed, bands such as Tortoise or Polyphonic Spree share bills with The Dead and such-like. Whether this suggests a superiority to these indie acts is so subjective as to negate it’s own worth as a premise to start from. More generally, we can say that the jamband scene is the largest of all indie scenes, that they’re not any longer separate, but revealed to be closer than first thought. Both scenes exist outside accepted mainstream outlets (there will always be exceptions to this, of course) and have their own systems of networks, of promotion, their own festivals, multi-act bills, tours, websites, and both are so undefined as to adapt to new influences and forms. The biggest difference of course is that the jamband scene strives for a sense of legacy, therefore The Dead headlining Bonnarroo, and continuity, hence post-hiatus Phish whereas I think the indie scene is more prone to celebrate more sporadic examples of brilliance, artists that may make one or two great albums and then fade out to the deep fringes for the rest of their careers. Also, there’s financial issues. Personally, I can’t afford to buy a lot of CDs, so I have to pick those relatively carefully. And sometimes it’s a case of foregoing the, say the Polyphonic Spree CD, so I can pick up 20 blanks at less cost and start collecting Phish Summer Tour. More hours of listening, a safe choice.

Not sure what you’re trying to say about theatricality. Care to elaborate kung?

[ratski]

okay okay its indie rock indie rock

as in when sebadoh sang just gimmie indie rock- on a strange side note has anyone noticed the similarity between popular ottawa indie rock band the wooden stars and grand theft bus or also in the same way the wooden stars and teh slip- the wooden stars being the band that won a juno while backing julie dorion of erics trip fame---

kung a good point on jam band or hippies not supporting live music as well as fans of othe rgenres- true true a big band comes to peterborough ie pocketdwellers the place is packed but a lesser well known band comes like even a nero and many of the same kids that sit in a car for 7 hours to see mmw in montreal either dont come to the show stay at home wtahing tv or complain to me at the door abot the huge 5$ cover charge.

[kung]

I am really glad this thread got picked up as I was about to resign from the board. This is not as you may sense a usual case of hippy baiting. I'm really trying to understand what is happening right now in music and any input would be appreciated. I think it comes down to the fact that it used to be a given that jam live shows were/are superior- now with say BSS or Flaming Lips it seems evident that not only is the live show superior in terms of intensity and theatrics/stage presence but the product(album/songs) is superior as well. That doesn't leave me much excuse to go to jam shows anymore, although the drugs are admittedly quite good.

What do I mean by theatrics? Could be a number of things, an entourage of stuffed animals/leaf blower/giant balloons/confetti/SARS mask tossing seems a poignant recent example. At Hillside everyone of the Broken Scene were rockstars, that's ten plus frontman and attitudes to boot. Just ask MK what a little rockstar in hotpants Leslie Feist was. Even Cuff The Duke's co-frontman Wayne was doing the occasional high kick rockstar pose- but authentically as opposed to lamely. It's the combination then of very high calibre material and the animated stage presence/personality that makes 'indy' exceptional these days. Jerry Joseph who wrote WSP's Climb To Safety among others had this to say about a reggae/jamband he used to be in after seeing bands like Nirvana in small clubs in their infancy:

quote:

---

I was making music that's populist for the sake of...not as an inditement of a lot of bands because I don’t think they are really that conscious of it, but I just remember then the whole hippie thing that was around us, it wasn't called "Jam Bands" back then, but suddenly we get up to the north west and it's "Poison Idea" and "Nirvana" and "Mother Love Bone" and it fukin' mattered. It seemed like it to us. Especially for us being 30 looking at these kids 21, 22, and being like, "this is so on the money," and sooo viable artistically, and we'd kinda turn around and look back at our peers and we were like, "this is a lot of fat guys playing guitar solo's."

---

Sound familiar? Not to extend this thought to death but a tune just popped on randomly that seems to capture much of the spirit of what we're talking about. It's a Metric tune called Combat Baby and the forcefulness of the lyrics is wedded and perfectly matched to the instrumentation. This song seems to be fairly self-referential to their craft as does the album title Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? Life does not resolve itself within the confines of a pop song or ever seemingly but pop songs seem to be the greatest way I know of to capture the paradoxes that inhabit our world. If they are written exceedingly well, as with all forms of writing, they radiate on many levels:

quote:

---

....Ever since you have been gone

it's all caffeine free

faux punk fatigue

said it all before

they try to kick it their feet fall asleep

got no harm done

none of them want to fight me

Combat Baby Comeback Baby

Fight off the lethargy

don't go quietly

Combat Baby

said you will never give up easy

Combat Baby Comeback

You get back in town

I want to paint it black

I want to get around

easy living crowd so flat

said it all before

they try to kick it their feet fall asleep

I want to be wrong

but no one here wants to fight me like you do

Combat Baby Comeback Baby

fight off the lethargy

don't go quietly....

---

[MarcO]

I see what you're saying.... I think. There aren't very many jambands that are fun to look at, although Ms Huxtable is one exception that comes to mind. Mostly some beer-bellied, bearded stoner dudes hunched over their instruments endlessly trying to create a jam as red-hot as their eyeballs. I mean, I don't want to see guys like me when I go see a band. Yuck. But then, look at Bob Weir these days. Where's the style and sexiness? Good lord!

"What's wrong with being sexy?" - Nigel Tufnel

I'm kidding, kinda, but, yes, it is fun to watch a musician behave like a rock star when they take the stage, but they gotta do it with grace and style. There's one jamband I won't name that plays around with a rather over-excited frontperson. I find them very hard to go see because of this, it's kind of hard to watch.

Thing is, kung, you seem to leaning towards an either/or dilemma when it comes to your recent musical experiences as opposed to your jammy past experiences. You can have it all and maybe - just maybe - there's a band out there, that isn't String Cheese, heh heh, that brings it all together.

[spacecowboy]

Dead disco,

Dead Funk,

Dead Rock n Roll,

Remodel! everything has been done

na na na na na

[Raven_Space]

Diversity in a scene is a good thing, as is exploring musical genres and directions. I used to just be Dead Dead Dead 24/7 until about 1992 and I couldn't take it anymore. I suffocated inside the music I had listened to almost exclusively since 1986. I'm not that old now, I am 31, and in some ways I love the Dead more than ever along with a few of the newer jam bands - Widespread Panic for one - but I think there is a lot of music that is great that people on here might be missing for not taking chances. Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips and those bands are just the tip.

There is a Montreal band called Soft Canyon that just released their debut album that is really amazing. Mix of Badfinger, Quicksilver messenger Service, early Pink Floyd and, um, Sloan. Yeah, believe it. They even have free mp3s on their site at www.softcanyon.org

Lots of great trippy bands right now in and around the area, like a northern chorus from Hamilton. They are like mixing godspeed you black emperor with early 90s stuff like My Bloody Valentine (easily the loudest band I have ever seen), Ride and Slowdive.

[kung]

Soft Canyon is exactly what I'm talking about. Talk about the perfect band to wed the indy and jam spirits. To respond to an earlier point I think it is a bit of an either/or. What are we talking about but authenticity? If new music comes along, blows you away, seems effortlessly credible are you going to drift back to vacuous middling for just the music's sake. I go to alot of these shows for other reasons obviously, to see our friends, to be among the tribe. At very least one can hope that the artists are receptive enough to what is going on around them that they will already have absorbed what you are intuiting. If Nero goes Soft Canyon on our asses I'll lose it- in a good way.

[Raven_Space]

I think Soft Canyon is a band a lot of people would like. They are touring cross-Canada in August according to Exclaim Magazine.

Also, same goes for that Guelph band Beautiful Senseless. Kinda like Wilco meets DMB meets a northern chorus or something.

I understand there's a connection between that band and Diesel Dog - Simcoe area originally according to my friend, the much hated-in-these-parts music critic Sean Palmerston (Gov't Mule live review in Exclaim - remember?), also a Simcoe boy and former deadhead extaordinaire.

[B & Z]

It seem to me that the members of this scene are generally more educated about art and music than most and more open to different styles. For example, most know of the Trailer Park Boys and John Coltrane. Very diverse forms of art but both very entertaining.

The other scenes seems to have settled on post-Nirvana retread and raunch and don't seem to go farther than music and rock star worship.

Don't worry though, the Punks are comming to blow all this good feeling hippy shit away, just like they always do, every time. Then it will grow back ... then get blown away ... etc.

My 2C from outside,

Steve

[kung]

You did just put the Trailer Park Boys in the same sentence as Coltrane didn't you? Hell why not put Simon & Simon up against Bird. I do agree that we're a knowledgable scene, often I'm stunned that someone who's a self-professed cheesehead actually has sophisticated tastes. That said we don't seem to go out and actually support a wide range of bands, we make our choices out of the spectrum and usually they don't fall far from the 'jam' tree (Robert Randolph and the Gourds for instance). I for one would like to see our scene make themselves felt across the spectrum. What every scene needs is a few frothy heads to do combat baby.

[scottieking]

This is a great thread. I'll start by saying that I consider myself to be a fan of music, wherever and however it exists. I was never an all jamband kind of guy. Broken Social Scene of late, but also groups like Mercury Rev, Bright Eyes, and the Flaming Lips have been a key part of my musical world. This board has demostrated to me that there are others like me who can listen to Beck in the morning, Zappa by noon and study Sigur Ros by evening. I have always relished my role as a sort of musical explorer. I have waded into the pits of NIN concert. Attended festivals large and small, genres all. I haev been from raves to unattended Twilight Dub Circus shows. And while it is true that it appears that my main tribe as you put it, Kung is the "jamband scene" (lord how I loathe that moniker) walking between the worlds has given me this perspective.

So here's the news flash. The jamband scene will never embrace the art rock fully. And art rock (again, another label that stinks) will never have 70,000 show up just for them. You see, I kind of like things the way they are(that's not true actually but that's a completely different thread) I love knowing about the secret tunnel that leads under all the mainstream crap and to the land of original music, because truly this is where the first divider lies for all of us. Then once you are down there you realize that there is no "better". It's like trying to compare Indian food and Thai. Both are diverse, original, and tasty and on any given day I can like both equally, but eventually you have to choose between two good things. I would never want to see what a Tikka/Pad Thai mix would look like because while interesting it would weaken what makes both amazing.

I found it interesting too that you acknowledge the jambands wide berth of musical tastes as well. I guess I'm just content in knowing that a band like moe. listens to and loves the Flaming Lips enough to cover "Yoshimi" and once again have that "guy in the know" feeling when everyone around goes 'what's this?'. I have faith that the bands appreciation of this music will alter on a good day the way they play, but the fact of the matter is that they will never change the core of what made them popular. I guess you're only hope is that someone out there is schemeing a fusion ala the New Deal - how to fuse the zeitgeist with the tried tested and true formula. The problem is that once you've got it figured out, the zeitgeist has moved on; you can never really catch it.

I guess what I'm saying is that while I encourage all jambands to experiment, mix it up and yes, evolve, it's not a urgent need of mine. I'll just wander to where there is that music and pray that there is no end to this secret tunnel (or the scary and interesting people like you folks I meet down here)

[Guest]

Now, this is an interesting conversation. Discussions on music such as this thread show that there is something worth noting happening in music right now. Like many other people on this board I too have at one point or another suffered the fate of locking myself into a certain type of thing, I was younger then and didn't really realize that I had slapped the blinders on. In the past 6 years the eyes have openned again, and what I realized is that I was missing out on a great deal of good music...slowdive, mojave 3, grandaddy, wilco, flamiing lips, low, blonde redhead, tortoise, isotope...and many others....and now a new wave of great bands is upon us like so many of you have mentioned, Broken Social Scene, the Stars, Soft Canyon (formerly the tricky woo) and others. I find that most of these bands incorporate everything that I ever loved in "Jam" music, but like Kung, would have to say I find it more relevent, a bit more progressive and exploratory...and bottom line the songwriting is amazing.

[kung]

Play Funkin' Shoes!!!

[appalachainjane]

Hey, I wonder if the Lips will be doing Dead or Phish covers any time soon?

Probably not very likely, eh?

Wonder why that is...

[elemeno]

great topic ...variety(lots of band who play the same music) is good but diversity(a band that has ten different sounds ex folk country rock blues) is great.. just don't let your stage antics, costumes, smashing of instruments or light show be your only thing. ultimately people come for the music.. if your just gonna sample and mix 80's tracks into your show then you missed the boat 20 years ago, go get some talent of your own. i like my music the same as i like my nugs ....fresh ,tasty and never filling!!!

stop being that geek who collects every phish show just cause another ones available!!

[Booche]

Dear Abby,

I joined the Navy so I could see the world. I've seen it. Now, how do I get out?

(This thread is off the hook, brah!)

[Mr. Musicface]

quote:

---

They have each played with Genesis and UK (?). Or, if not UK, King Crimson?

---

Actually, I sorta messed up asking the question, I mean could you name two bands that each individual has played with. But damn, your guesses were really good!

For the record, Hackett was in Genesis & GTR, Wetton was in King Crimson, UK, Asia, Roxy Music and Uriah Heap, McDonald was in King Crimson & Foreigner and Chester Thompson was in Genesis, Weather Report & like a zillion other bands.

quote:

---

Damn, those progressive rock family trees are insane. Dude, I'm trying to make up for making fun of Rush in an earlier post today....

---

You ALMOST made up for it...

- M.

[MarcO]

I'm sorry, I just can't help myself....

(ps- Ian McDonald was in Foreigner?!?!? )