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Sadies Weekend In Toronto

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fuck that's a good lineup. wish i woulda known the whole thing. maybe they'll tour like that.

looking to get the new andre eithier album tonight from zunior. i've heard one track and it's good (as always). getting into bob dylan territory.

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The Sadies' Homecoming Season

Toronto group's new album shows their musical evolution during a decade of touring

Nov 01, 2007 04:30 AM

GREG QUILL

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST

"From (The Mekons') Jon Langford I learned: Get the money and don't leave anything behind," Dallas Good of The Sadies says, yawning into his tea.

It's nearly 6 o'clock on a dull and rainy October afternoon. He's hunched over a cup in the back room of Alternative Grounds, an aromatic, rustic coffee house in Toronto's west end, just around the corner from his apartment. He hasn't been home for a couple of months. His long black forelocks roll across his eyes and a two-day fuzz crowds his jowls. Good is fighting off the sleep he has held at bay for 5,000 rugged van kilometres, from San Francisco to Vancouver and across the mountains and plains to Winnipeg.

This is a rare gigless day in a relentless performance schedule that has earned The Sadies big points as one of the hardest working bands in the business. They've been promoting their new studio album, New Seasons, and their latest evolution in sound.

Dallas Good and his guitar-thrashing brother Travis and their long-time musical compadres, drummer Mike Belitsky and stand-up bassist Sean Dean, will be whipping up their distinctive brand of cinematic cowpunk and psychedelic surfer country rock for Toronto devotees again soon enough – at Lee's Palace tomorrow and The Horseshoe Saturday.

For now, Dallas Good's mind is still on the road as he recounts the lessons learned from numerous artists he and the band have performed with and admired over the past 10 or 12 years.

"From Neko Case I learned to be patient, to come to terms with the waiting process," he mutters. "Ronnie Hawkins taught me the big time's just around the corner. From my mother and father I learned never to break two laws at one time ... " There are other lessons he has learned, he says, particularly about the process that yielded The Sadies' fourth studio album, New Seasons, released earlier this month in the U.S. on the Yep Roc label, and in Canada by Outside Music. Produced in Spain and Blue Rodeo's Danforth Ave. studio by Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, the album provides evidence of substantial growth in songwriting, confidence, singing and production techniques.

While the characteristic swirling guitar twang and grind are still at the core – along with Belitsky's powerful drumming and the visceral thwack of Dean's fingers on the slap bass's spine – there are more complete songs on this Sadies effort than instrumentals, and a lot more vocal harmony work, thanks to Louris's insistence that the brothers Good step up to the microphone instead of working their peculiar magic back in the line on their trademark Gretsch Tennessean and Fender Telecaster guitars.

"I'd be the last person on Earth to know if this is progress," Dallas says. "Everything we do sounds good to me. We do what we do ... I leave it up to others to put it in perspective."

He does concede that over the past two years, while the band wrote and recorded the instrumental soundtrack for Canadian documentary-maker Ron Mann's Tales Of The Rat Fink (the wildly inventive biography of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, who made an impact on mid-20th century culture with his customized cars, "monster" T-shirts and an animated rodent), and then recorded and mixed their In Concert Volume 1 album, "we've been behind the console a lot more, instead of in front of the microphone."

"We've moved from documentation to experimentation. Our sound hasn't changed, but the process has. We've been doing this for 10 years – I'd like to think we've picked up a few tricks."

Earlier in the day, drummer Belitsky had shared that The Sadies are stepping up their Canadian schedule now that they have a way of reaching home audiences with their recordings, previously available only as imports.

However, while the quartet has developed its own distinct culture after 10 years on the road, their musical tastes vary wildly, he says.

"We never listen to music together ... we travel with iPods, because it's no use inflicting MC5 on someone who's in a George Jones mood, or Johnny Cash if someone else wants The Nuggets."

Belitsky's own primal influences are 1960s and '70s California country rockers The Byrds, Gram Parsons, The Dillards and Gene Clark ... "and psychedelia and punk – that's what we all have in common. It was the easiest music to play when we were starting out."

New Seasons is a long way from where The Sadies began, but even Belitsky is hard-pressed to define how The Sadies have evolved over the years.

"We've never tried to come up with a new sound. I think that's just about impossible – everything's been done, everything sounds like something else if you take it apart. That's never been our concern.

"But if there's something different about New Seasons, I think that it's because this is a much more collaborative effort. We all worked on these songs before and during the recording, and everyone in the band had a hand in shaping the songs – Gary Louris as well."

For his part, Dallas, an avid collector of vintage country and rock 'n' roll vinyl, noticed a change in productivity "when we dropped bourbon from our rider."

"There's a comfort level now we've never had in the past, a sense that the struggle is not in vain.

"We live in a rolling cage. It's been that way for 10 years. We enjoy each other's company. We enjoy the music we make. We respect each other's space. I guess that's all you can ask for."

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I went on Saturday and it rocked. Hmm, not sure what to say though besides that. Another great show by Canada's greatest band. It was a full house. The new tunes are coming along nicely. Sadies shows are pretty predictable - you are always sure to hear songs like Flash, Within A Stone, Northumberland West, and they always close with Tiger Tiger. Uncle Larry (or possibly the other Good) came out for a few tunes. Rick White was up there for a few tunes too. Dallas was particlarly on fire on Saturday.

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I went on Friday @ Lee's and it was awesome. Ian Blurton got up for a Hawkwind cover w/ the Sadies. Andre Ehtier got up as well for a song or two. Fantastic show and it was a real treat to have Andre Ethier (one of my favourites) open the show, followed by Rick White, pre-Sadies.

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i think you mean 'not exactly' there brad. it reads like a negative review to me.

shain's fact checking ain't all that great in at least one place here. howe gelb isn't involved "extensively" here - he plays piano on one track. i don't hear any Giant Sand in this album.

it's not their best album, but i don't think it's all as bad as shain writes. the line 'it could be so much more' has me scratching my head.

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