March 2003

In Support of Living
In Silent Code
Jim Guthrie
Brian Borcherdt
Building Castles Out of Matchsticks
Christiana
The Bar Mitzvah Brothers
Heidi Hazelton
One Candle Power
Mean Red Spiders
Edgar Breau
DJs

IN SUPPORT OF LIVING
WAVELENGTH 152
Sunday March 2, 11pm
Purveyors of: Beats, drones and life
www.mp3.com/In_Support_of_Living

Brad Ketchen, we’ve never met. I’m sitting here at my terminal listening to “Porta Mento” and wondering what’s going on. I’m sure most people aren’t as ignorant as I am, but supposing they are, what would would you tell the people about yourself and your projects? Who is In Support of Living?

In Support of Living is a new project featuring myself (I also have a band called Hollowphonic), Nathan Athay (a Hollowphonic alumnus) and our friend James (James and Nathan both played together off and on in a band called Watercolour). Nathan and I played briefly with Joachim Toelke (Southpacific) in a band called Summerside and we just met and jammed with a flute player from Ottawa named Rozalind. We plan to expand the group to as many hands as possible.

The song “Porta Mento” makes me think both of floating and scraping at the same time. This sonic battle works very well with the strong melodic elements. Is this a conciously constructed contradiction or a more innocent sublimation?

It’s basically one of the first songs I put together with the computer and a Casio keyboard. It kinda grew from there. I think personally when I put together a song it always has that positive-vs.-negative, melodic-vs.-brooding kind of feel. I don’t like music when it is too one-dimensional. However, I don’t really think when I’m creating music, it just flows-- usually the first thing I do is the last. So I think it is unconsciously created, but always seems to make sense when it’s done.

What does your label Pharmasound recommend for its audience before an In Support of Living show? I mean, is the Pharma a cause or a cure?

I think it is up to the individual to decide how they want to feel the music we create, which tends to have a moody, widescreen type of feel. But we weren’t born in the 60’s so I’ve never felt the need to create “psychedelic” or drug influenced music to prove a point musically, it’s just reflective of intense emotions, I guess, and the kind of music we listen to.

Can you let us in on your creative process? (i.e. how is your music constructed/deconstructed? improvisation, composition, random computer generation?)

There really isn’t a set rule or standard of how we do things. It first started with James and I creating tracks separately and creating sounds live on top of them. Soon Nathan came along and we were bringing the drum kit out of storage and more live instruments were being added to the mix. For us, it’s “anything goes” within the parameters of the mood we are going for. If someone brings a bassoon and makes it work within the context of the music, then all the better.

What makes you make music? Are you compelled or contracted?

Ha, both. What’s the saying, one man’s passion is another man’s curse. I really enjoy creating music, but I think anyone in the creative field can feel busted up by their own art. That’s why I’ve learned to let it be when it gets to that point and do something else — or jam with someone else. I think that’s why we started doing In Support of Living.
— interview by Brad Crowe

IN SILENT CODE
WAVELENGTH 152
Sunday March 2, 10pm
…And you will know their hometown by the trails of smoke
www.insilentcode.com

Buddy of the Pines couldn’t get out of bed to interview earnest, anthemic Hamilton rockers In Silent Code, so he passed it off to his kid sister’s friend The Legendary Jokic, because he thought it would be in the boy’s interests to do an interview for a zine before he graduates high school. Here’s what transpired:

First question, for those that don’t know--who are you, and where do you come from?

We are Dan, Ben, Ryan, and Shawn. And we are from Hamilton.

When did you guys start up?

Shawn, Ben and I have been jamming, writing, and recording shitty four track tapes since ’95, I can’t remember. Ryan took the drumming helm around ‘98. We formed In Silent Code in the summer of 2002.

You were once known as Snoozer. Why the decision to become In Silent Code?

Our old drummer [Steve Sullivan] made up the name Snoozer in a haze because we literally had two hours to come up with a name to coincide with the production of hundreds of posters for one of those shitty Battle of the Bands back in ‘95. We kept the name even after he left. None of us ever really liked the name, so when we made a full-length record, the decision was made to unify our music collectively through a name we all could relate to.

What bands/artists do you think have been the biggest influence on the music you write and play?

Shawn and I grew up on a steady diet of Sonic Youth and Archers of Loaf. Ryan and Ben have always leaned towards the more rhythmically challenging artists like Tool and Rush, and that definitely shines through in our rhythm section. We were all big Hum and Swervedriver fans back in the mid-‘90s as well. Lately, bands like Trail of Dead, Sparta and Royal City have been in my record player.

You released Wash Days Blues in 2002. How successful has it been? And where would you like to see it go?

We released Wash Days Blues last fall without the help of a label. The reviews were all great, which has been overwhelming, and the record has been doing good at shows and has been getting steady rotation in Canada. I would like to see the record goes as far as the music will take it, not the hype.

Are there plans for a new record in the near future? A cross-country tour?

In support of our album, we are doing a cross-Canada tour in May — Vancouver and back. I think we will start writing new material for a possible EP in the summer.

Who would win a fight: Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton?

Well, Laura would probaby get her Dad to declare a War on her to win. (um, dude, Laura is George Dubya’s wife, not daughter — Electra complex ed.)

Alright, just a little word association...I’ll say a word, and you tell me the first thing that comes to your head:

ROCK: Sweat.
ALBUM: Pet Sounds.
AVRIL: isn’t that french for April?
BEER: Mmmmm.
HYPOTHERMOALLERGENIC: Still thinking about Beer.

Anything else you want the readers to know?

Thank you for your time, it was great talking to ya, and good luck in the future.

JIM GUTHRIE
WAVELENGTH 153
Sunday March 9, 11:45pm
Purveyor of: 'round-the-clock bedroom pop
www.threegutrecords.com

The marker-stencilled bedsheet poster may no longer hang from Rotate’s front window, and The New Music may have long driven back across the street in their swank Pathfinder, but that sure don’t mean that The People ain’t achin’ for a little more Jimmy. Craig Fraid arranged to meet Jim in an unspecified region of the no-fire zone between TGR and ChumCity HQs:

Lyrically, maybe moreso on Morning Noon Night than on your first album, you seem to take a fantastic view of everyday things, sort of mythologizing the mundane events of everyday life...

What you see as that might not even dawn on me, though...
Well, as lame as it may be to refer to the first song on the new album in the first question, there’s that jousting image in “Evil Thoughts”, for one...

A lot of it comes down to just having fun with what you’re talking about, though, and realizing that one line leads to the next.

It’s funny, though, how then on “Turn Musician,” it’s the opposite approach, where you’re in this fantasy land, but the animals are made real because they’re flawed...

Well, that song was based on an Aesop fable, so I wanted to actually almost keep it word-for-word...
Did you pair the string-bass sample on that up with the tale? I mean, did the sample lend itself to going along really well with a fairy tale?

The loop and drum beat that I played live along to it were both recorded around four or five years ago...

What was the chronology there, though, ‘cuz I know that Noah23’s crew used it in a song of theirs...

It was them who I made it for. I’ve always loved it, so it was pretty inevitable that I’d use it myself too — it was just the first thing I found on one of my old tapes of loops and song ideas from my stockpile of four-track stuff.

I remember you brought a bunch of those DATs into Ryerson when Royal City were recording there last year.

Well, I just had to organize them after a certain point, because I go through spurts where I’ll just have so much stuff that if I don’t find some way of indexing it all, even if it isn’t that fully-formed, I’ll lose an idea that might turn into something good. I just keep going back — I mean, I have songs that I’ve been working on for the last eight years!

Do a lot of your instrumental tracks turn into instrumentals because you can’t come up with a vocal line to put over top, or is it more that once you’re done adding parts on top of each other, there just isn’t any more room sometimes, so you just figure it’ll make a good instrumental?

I think it’s a matter of whether or not I can see that a certain melody line is a kind of sentence of its own, and so it doesn’t need any words; that if I sang anything else over top of what was already going on, it’d just be overkill.

There’s a good instance of that during the instrumental coda at the end of the second-last song, right before “1901,” where that gurgly tone-oscillator takes up the space that your voice normally sits in.
Yeah, that’s just it — I couldn’t make room for words there, because it was sounding so rich to begin with!

Since you’re so often harmonizing or doing doubled-unison vocals with yourself on record, it was especially neat to hear all your friends providing an ad-hoc Three Gut choir on “Communication” as a contrast to the usual way your songs get done...

Well, for that song in particular, because of what I’m singing about, because it’s about loneliness and trying to reach out to people, I just knew I had to have a big chorus there to contrast with the theme —
But also in keeping with it, because they’re the voice of reassurance.

Yeah, it’s weird how it’s only after doing something like that that you can look and see that you ended up hitting the nail on the head way better than you expected to. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to get that sort of atmosphere when I started making songs!

Are other people singing with you live now? Has Simon [Osbourne, also bass in Royal City] or anyone else started to do more vocal harmonies when backing you up?

We’ve gotten into that more, but it’s just a matter of what the song calls for. When there’s room for it, we definitely try and make it a part of what we do.

I was also wondering if there was any chance of your backing band soldifying into more of the kind of situation that Aaron found himself with Royal City, not that it’s that comparable at all, but I just mean in terms of the band gelling into more of a collaborative situation...

You mean with Evan [Clarke, drums] and Mike [Olsen] and Owen [Pallett, both strings]? Well, Owen and Mike have been really good at tweaking my ideas, ‘cuz their arrangements are so smart. Owen’s actually helping me with string arrangements for my next record, which I started working on this past weekend at The House of Miracles, ‘cuz I just got a grant for it. It’s going to be half old songs, half new ones. It’s great getting to use strings, though, having grown up with them your whole life in movie and TV soundtracks, and listening to oldies on the radio. I’m pretty excited about it!

BRIAN BORCHERDT
WAVELENGTH 153
Sunday March 9, 10:45pm
Purveyor of: Divinely righteous tunage, guy
www.dependentmusic.com

Those of you lucky enough to have picked up a copy of Brian Borcherdt’s self-titled EP on his own Dependent Music imprint — you know the one with the moth on the cover he’s been known to give away for free? What a big-hearted dude! — know how achingly gorgeous his pop songcraft can be. After January’s Hot Carl/Holy Fuck goodtimes shindig, B-squared presents the more “serious” side of his musical persona, with back-up from his pals in BDR.

For those who don’t know, you stylishly wear a lot of hats: By Divine Right rocker, super lovely solo singer/songwriter Brian Borcherdt, raunchy Hot Carl, 35mm film synchronizer geek Holy Fuck. How do you pull it off?

No day job, bouts of anxiety, a lot of hangovers.

If you are cutting it up to Michael Jackson — what song would you play?

Oh yes, drunken dance parties. You may have witnessed me cutting it up to the whole greatest hits album. I mean, I hated it all when I was a kid, but I get it now, even the shitty new stuff. I’d just let the whole album play, and if I felt like getting intimate I wouldn’t even skip the sensitive stuff.

So you started Dependent Records when you were 17... Your role in it at the get-go and now?

Hearing that statement said back to me makes me feel like I’m fooling people. I recorded a cassette with my band when I was 17. We intended to stick on a logo, called D-pression, which featured a pair of dangling boots, the sort of typical teenager suicide fascination. We then pulled the logo from the artwork ‘cuz we were afraid our association with a fake label would stop us from getting signed to a real label; we were pretty naive. I later changed the name to Dependent, as in anti-independent, in reaction to the East Coast music scene that wouldn’t have anything to do with us at the time. It didn’t really represent our kind of music anyway. I originally just wanted to start something in order to feel part of something. Our home town of Yarmouth was a typical small-minded town, before the World Wide Web or “nu-metal” made being in a band and screaming at your neighbours cool. With Dependent I tried to encourage my friends to play their music for people outside of our jam rooms. We were always more of a collective than a label, though, and the new bands involved are doing a much better job than I ever did.

Is there anything different about making music out east vs. here? How did you end up in Toronna?

Rehearsal spaces, or basements, barns, and garages turned into rehearsal spaces seem to be easier to find in smaller towns. Getting together with friends and making up cool riffs for pure pleasure seems easier as well. I personally just needed to move on to something more challenging as a person, not as a musician. Toranna is great, though, especially for a bigger city. I mean, it seemed really bleak a couple years ago — just drugs and DJs, but that’s just probably how it looked at the time to a sniffling kid with dirty pants and a transit map.

How did you hook up with Jose and the fine folks of BDR?

A cunning bit of trickery — I was friends with Jonny and Dill. I invited them to a party where I donned a sweaty American flag shirt and cranked a Casio through huge speakers. They said “You’re in”, I said “I’ll think about it”, you know, just like that old Heinz Ketchup commercial.

At your old place of employment, the Outside Music warehouse, surrounding the shelves of CD’s there are VERY creative murals and art installations that boldly mock and fuck with images of celebrity, fame and the music biz. Did you contribute to this or were you diligently packing boxes?

Those collages are burned into my brain. I wonder if they still have “B2’s band-name box”, a box they made as an attempted solution to my ongoing inability to make up good band names. They would put new names in daily and check them at the end of the week. “The Very First Microwaves”, “No Shirt and the Jewelry” — classics! Of course I diligently packed boxes...amidst Stooges debates.

What are your plans for your music this year? Will you be taking your show(s) on the road?
So far I’ve been pretty busy with recording the new BDR record as well as Hot Carl and Holy Fuck. I just want to make something real with all the stuff that’s sat in my head for years. I just want to get it out of me so I can move on. I definitely want to get out on the road, and get out of Toronto.

How are you surviving the winter?

I make a lot of lists, get drunk, and sleep in. Sometimes when I can’t get out of bed I just rely on the privacy of my own room and a healthy imagination. Next thing you know I’m ready to start the day with a new and gloriously false sense of determination.
— interview by Ms Dakota

BUILDING CASTLES OUT OF MATCHSTICKS
WAVELENGTH 153
Sunday March 9, 9:45pm
Sounds like: '80s electro, playful composition
www.room101.net/buildingcastles, www.worthyrecords.com

Anne Sulikowski: Psychosomatic Climax Machine, Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks, Worthy Records, Loathing Robots, CFBU, Earshot, Wavelength, collaborations with Andrew Duke, DJ-ing, oh my... Where to start? What have we missed?

Psychosomatic Climax Machine and Building Castles Out Of Matachsticks are my main music projects, the main difference being that the PSCM music project involves no computers or sequencers, and the BCOM does. I am also behind the music of Proximal:Distal and occasionally play live with The Phases. Loathing Robots is a improv group involving mainly Matt Bourassa and myself. Worthy Records is my non-profit label. It really isn’t a label in the traditional sense, it is more like a music collective. There are no weird business plans or stupid contracts involved. Stars From Worthy Skies is the newest compilation. It features Andrew Duke, The Phases, Aidan Baker and others. I like to write about music, hence my involvement with mags/zines like Freq (RIP) and Wavelength. I have recently become the new editor of Earshot! CFBU was the St. Catharines community stationo that was recently shut down by the Brock University student union. I was the program director there for three years and did an experimental/electronic show called Psychosomatic Climax Machine. That station pretty much was my life. After shutdown, I joined the Board of Directors to help get the station back on air. After an eight month battle, we are now working towards hiring new staff and are preparing for our on-air return date. I will be doing another show called Screaming Fields of Sonic Love. I also DJ at McMaster community radio, the show is called Bleeps and Hums. I met Andrew by email two years ago. I was doing a profile on him for Freq magazine. We have both very similar music interests and decided collaborating would be cool. We had plans to get together in person but those fell through. Our collaboration began with me sending him soundfiles of loops and stuff I did on synths over ICQ — thank God for the internet!.

Would it be fair to call Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks an “ambient” project? How would you define it? Where does this music fit in the grand scheme of things? How is it different from your other projects?
Sure, you could call the music ambient because at times it is. I do cross over many genres, from noise to synth-pop, but on average the music is very fuzzy and more quiet. This project is different from the others because it is one that involves a wide variety of sounds that I manipulate and recreate with my computer to arrange a whole different level of sound. Stuff like doing entire songs with my voice, or using the sound of trains on tracks instead of traditional sequenced beats. Sometimes you will hear good old-fashioned Fruity Loop beats strangely composed and drenched with shortwave radios or other stuff. I guess it depends on the day.

Do you have a process you follow to create music? Does it change from time to time or thing to thing? How is music made for Building Castles?

My music process is actually quite simple, it involves focusing more on small variations to produce larger ones upon completion. I like layers and raw, rich sounds. That’s what this project is all about. Me building layer upon layer to create something that sounds big, even if it is quiet. I also like exploring strange barely noticeable microtones and I like to manipulate them. Usually I start with one sound, whether it is a sample of ducks, my synth, a radio or my voice, and I’ll begin to work with that. Sometimes I’ll add a beat and other times I’ll try different things to get a new sound altogether. When I play sets with this project live, it involves me adding the final touches and live lead synth lines to the existing music with pedals, radios and other stuff, making the songs complete.

What is your philosophy toward the creating and distributing of music? Do you think you will always think this way about music?

My philosophy is simple. If you have recorded your music you obviously want it to be heard. It may not be for everybody, but it will touch somebody, that is for sure. The probability of music being made that no one will enjoy is quite small, if any. So what I say is “get your music out there so people can hear it!” With Worthy Records, it’s all about making sure that bedroom bands get out of the bedrooms long enough to be heard by others, even if they would not suit many… I am not opposed to profit-oriented labels. If someone like Matador gave me money to put out music that I do for free anyway, I would jump at the opportunity ‘cuz, why not? I am doing music on a daily basis anyway, whether I get paid or not, so what really would be the difference? I am not, however, willing to change my music approach or sounds so it’s easier for someone else to put a price tag on my tunes. I create music because I like being able to transfer emotion and thought into soundwaves. I think through music and feel through music. Will I ever change? I would say not. I am always interested in showcasing more artists on Worthy Records and am looking for more collaboration projects of any sort.
— interview by Paddy O’Donnell

Clockwise from top L:
Dave Rodgers, Jonny Dovercourt,
Paul Boddum, Andrew McAllister

CHRISTIANA
WAVELENGTH 153
Sunday March 16, 11pm
Purveyors of: Jam-econo power trio as AM radio fodder
www.highschoolchampion.com

What will 10 years do to a band? Since forming as Neck in the summer of ’93, Christiana have gone through a lot, losing a founding member (Alastair MacLeod), gaining two in the aftermath (Andrew McAllister, Jonny Dovercourt), playing the very first Wavelength (yes, there was a number one), changing names and shifting labels. Then after releasing Fatigue Kills, one of their most solid albums, in 2002 on High School Champion, up and vanishes guitarist/vocalist McAllister. All in all, their ethos is surprisingly still the same, creating short and even shorter pop-noise gems. I had a chance to question the remaining members that are left on this continent, Paul Boddum, Dave Rodgers and Jonny D.

It’s been a long time since your last show in Toronto... will this be the imminent return of Andrew McAllister? What’s up with that guy?

Dave: Andrew is in England being educated. We really miss him because he has the best hair of all of us and is the least hesitant to tell me to fuck off — I love that about him! He should be back this fall, hopefully ready to work on a new album.
Jonny: My hair will fight Andrew’s hair any day! Petty rivalries aside, I miss Andrew immensely — with him gone, I have to be the rowdy one. We are doing the best to get by without his singing and guitar playing. For those who missed Al MacLeod’s 40th birthday party and our set opening for Plus Minus back in the fall (which would be virtually everyone), here’s your chance to catch Christiana as a loose and limber Minutemen-style power-trio — nothing like the lumbering rock beast captured on Fatigue Kills. Dave and I are doing our best to do justice to Andrew’s songs vocal-wise; hopefully they don’t come off like “Christioke.”
Paul: www.andrewmcallister.ca!! He’s at a famous English art college to soak up some more “art” to add to his “punk.” He was here over the holidays and we had a great jam session; he’s still in touch all the time and the former A.V. boy is contributing and maintaining the HSC website.

In the 10 years of the band’s existence, how have things changed? Has your outlook on music changed at all, in this time? What keeps you guys going?

Dave: I don’t think our outlook has changed, but the landscape has. In 10 years you see an awful lot of hype and haircut bands. Personally, I think I have developed a sense of humour about our lack of fame and fortune. As Aesop said, “Slow and steady wins the race.” What keeps us going? We love doing this.
Jonny: I’ve only been in the band for 2.5 of the last 10 years, but since Dave and I started playing music together 15 (ulp!) years ago, and I was witness to Neck’s first (or was it second?) practice, my membership goes a bit deeper than just being “the new guy.” Though my taste has expanded over the years, the core of my listening is basically the same as when I was 15 — The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, Sonic Youth... And it’s funny to see all the post-punk bands that the Neck boys were into back in ‘93 (Gang of Four, Wire) suddenly become so fashionable in the last couple of years — back then, it was totally nerdy to sound so spastic. Even though our musical taste isn’t so weird anymore, it’s still surprising how much the music we make confuses some people.
Paul: We started playing noise-pop in the early/mid-’90s and that sound and style still feels like there’s plenty of room for new ideas. Good people and good musicianship, too. Everything changed dealing with the other side (business) of music in the last few years. Searching for a new label for a solid year was excruciating. Then we formed an artist-run label with Hydrofield of Myth’s release and it meant we could determine our own meaning and measures of “how to be successful.” As a band, some doubts lift as to the path you choose musically and promotion-wise, and full artistic control is easier to maintain. It’s like being self-employed: the pay may not be spectacular, but you can take as many coffee breaks as you want. What keeps us going is that we’re excited about this new album and the response it’s gotten — wow, Clint Conley of Mission of Burma said he liked it a lot, that’s gotta be enough to keep doing what we’re doing!

What would be the most memorable show played/moment?

Dave: Most memorable moment was when Bobby Wiseman offered us 100 dollars to stop practicing (August 4, 1996) — the more off-hand our refusals, the more upset he got. Also, the one time I did not regret telling an audience member to fuck off (July 8, 1995, the El Mocambo) and the time I did (August 27, 1995, Primal Scream Records).
Jonny: For some reason, the Christiana show that stands out most in my mind was a show at the Raven in Hamilton sometime in 2001 (I don’t have Dave’s calendar memory!). It must have been a combination of Andrew wearing tight black Adidas shorts on stage, having the Currently boys as roadies, and the fact that no club ever got me drunker.
Paul: I loved a show we did in Quebec City with the Mean Red Spiders during a freak mini ice storm one April. We shared a bottle of sherry to keep warm in the van. The club had ‘80s videos constantly playing on a big screen. Everyone was very “French” bohemian. Two excited dudes said “youse guys were like The Six Finger Satellite!” The before- and after-show parties had a surreal atmosphere, mixing us drunk and loud Scarberians with all this interesting “I don’t have to try, I breathe très cool” French posse in a legitimate type loft space upstairs of the club. Everyone was happy, laughing, like a show within a show.

What music is lodged in your spinner/turntable/ CD/mini-disc/tape/hard drive, etc.?

Dave: I have been listening to far too much of: Napalm Death, The High Llamas, Steve Reich, Flying Saucer Attack, King Tubby, Dr. Dre. My favourite Beach Boys record right now is Smiley Smile (especially “Little Pad”).
Jonny: The new Beans record, Heidi Hazelton’s CDR, Galaxie 500’s On Fire, the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Sidelong by Ui, Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, GI Joe Killaz MP3s, every Missy Elliott single, Solvent’s “My Radio” (whenever Derek plays it), Hilmar Jensson (NYC/Icelandic free-jazz dude, burned off Aaron Lumley), the Ramones (always).
Paul: Múm, Pedro the Lion, House Flaming, Low, The Sea and Cake, Julie Doiron, Cat Power, The New Year, and Boards of Canada is the best music to paint an apartment to.

What can we look forward to from Christiana in 2003?
Dave: More songs, shorter ones this time!!!!!
Jonny: Watch out for those three-part harmonies!
Paul: No baby danglings and a Double Live Album.
— interview by Zig Zag Wanderer

THE BAR MITZVAH BROTHERS
WAVELENGTH 154
Sunday March 16, 10pm
Purveyors of: Household objects, naps, joyful disaffection
www.barmitzvahbrothers.cjb.net

Summer 2002. This megacity girl journeys to Guelph, Ontario for the first time. Fun and hilarity ensue — basement shows, art kids, BBQs, schoolyard games in the park (think potato sack races and Red Rover), jukebox DJing at the Albion, trying to sneak into the quarry to swim without paying (but getting busted by the Ranger!), etc. The logical culmination — Hillside Festival!
July. It’s hot and hazy, JD and I are hungover and sleep-deprived. As Hillside virgins, we brace ourselves for the inevitable sandal-wearing, hand-drum-toting, hacky-sacking extravaganza. Lucky for us, first up on the bill — Guelph’s own Bar Mitzvah Brothers. My first reaction: nice! The deadpan vocal delivery of Jenny Mitchell is a perfect antidote to my festival-going anxiety. A band full of rotating multi-instrumentalists (all still in high school), hints of klezmer, audible lyrics and even a song about taking naps combine to give me a feeling of optimism about the day to come. And we manage to sneak in lots of naps between sets…

Naps. So happy you mention them in one of your songs. Do you get the recommended eight hours of sleep per night? What kind of naps do you take (power, REM, etc.) and when? Why are some people so opposed to taking naps?

I have terrible sleeping habits. Well, not terrible in my opinion, but terrible compared to suggested amounts and times. I would say on average I get about six hours of sleep a night, probably about that. It’s a hard thing to average. Last year I got into a habit of sleeping, at the most, five hours of sleep a night all week, and sometimes for only two or three, and then sleeping in until 6pm on Sunday, going out for dinner, then going back to sleep, and then re-starting the cycle. A couple of years ago I’d set my alarm for 3:55 in the morning, then go downstairs and watch Fireball XL5 (the one that was like Thunderbirds but older) and then go back to sleep and wake up again at 8. I’ve been a little better lately, but now I have this weird random nap syndrome--I have this condition where I can’t play guitar or I fall asleep. I fell asleep behind the counter at work one day while playing guitar, and one time I fell asleep at 3pm and slept all the way till the next morning! I don’t understand why people would be opposed to naps, except if they happen unintentionally at a bad time. I often avoid them simply because I just don’t have the time.

They say you watch a lot of television (the drug of the nation). What are you watching these days and why? If you could bring one show back from the past, what would it be?

If I could bring back a show, it’d be Fireball XL5. There’s something so intriguing about that show. I always found it crazy and sort of lonely in that there are only four characters and one of them is a robot and one doesn’t speak English very well. (Actually, I could be wrong about those details, speaking from memory...) I’ve broken a lot of bad TV habits lately. When I had Teletoon I’d watch Scooby-Doo all the time, and those weird late-night animated art films with the weird music. And I used to have crazy addictions to bad reality television. Lately I’ve pretty much been sticking to David Letterman, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and Road to Avonlea. Oh, and The Golden Girls is one of my favourites, but I only get to watch it during holidays, because it’s on in the middle of the day. Prime sometimes has two episodes in a row, which can be a pleasant surprise. That was a good show; the world would definitely benefit from its ressurection.

Are you guys still in high school? Are you almost done? Will you be doing post-secondary studies and, if so, where?

Yes, all of the Brothers are still in high school. John's in grade 10, Geordie's in grade 11, and I'm in OAC. I already have a diploma, and I'm just getting the last of my OACs so I get out after this semester. As for post-secondary studies, I only applied to Guelph. If I get in I'll go, probably just part-time though, two or three courses. I hope to work a bunch next year, hopefully at my Dad's store and a candy store and maybe somewhere else if I can. I'm going to try and earn money to go to hair-dressing school, which is surprisingly expensive. But I won't be leaving Guelph anytime soon.

How did your Montreal shows come about? Is your band’s love affair with Montreal culture-related or do you have lovers in the City of Love? Did you really take out an old lady tobogganing down Mount-Royal? I lived there for 10 years and, oh, how I miss the plateau.

Is Montreal the City of Love? I didn’t know that. Nope, no lovers for the Brothers. At least not so far as I know. John and Geordie could be hiding things from me... Yes, I did take out an old lady. Well, she was more “middle-aged” than old. I didn’t do her any serious harm--I would have felt really bad if she was old. I don’t want to say it was her fault, but in all honesty, she shouldn’t have been standing with her back turned at the bottom of the hill directly in front of the hay set up for toboganners to run into. And French or not, when someone is screaming behind you, it’d probably be a good idea to turn around and see what they’re yelling about. I don’t really understand French, so I couldn’t figure out how bad I hurt her. I ran into people I think every time I went down, but her I actually knocked over. Oh well... yeah, Montreal’s beautiful, though; I love the plateau a lot. The culture is great there, and there are a lot of nice people and nice cafes and bagel shops, and really great music too.

What’s your favourite Talking Heads album?

I would have to say Little Creatures. It has “Road to Nowhere,” which is an excellent, excellent song. But the Stop Making Sense soundtrack is really awesome too, and has that really cool version of “Psycho Killer.” So maybe those two are tied.

How have you been recording lately (where, with whom, with what technology, how many players, etc.)? Is there a new back-up band? Who will we see in the line-up at Wavelength? What happened to the other girl (and founding member)?

We have been recording at various places with various technology. The technology side of things I don’t really know much about. We recorded about nine songs ourselves, here in Guelph at Pipe Street Studios, and four in London with Andy Magoffin at The House of Miracles. Scott Merritt is mixing the ones we did, and we’re also re-recording some of them at his studio The Cottage. The album is me, John and Geordie, with some guest-starring by Andy Magoffin. As for the back-up band, we do have a new back-up band called The Lethargians, which is made up of two girls named Sister Caitlin and Sylvie. We recruited them because we added a lot of overdubs and additional instruments to our new songs while recording them, and so a lot of them sound better with more instrument players than just us three. Sister Caitlin plays organ, and Sylvie plays various percussion instruments, and might do some back-up vocals. Hopefully they will both be joining us for Wavelength. It’s a lot of fun. There are still only three Bar Mitzvah Brothers, though. Does that all make sense? Bar Mitzvah Member Four left for various reasons linked to the pressures of being our age in today’s society, to be good and vague...

Where do you get your instruments? How much of your time is spent trying to find new instruments?

We get our instruments from all over the place. We get most of our instruments from my Dad’s store, which is The Family Thrift Store here in Guelph. But we buy instruments too, and get them as gifts at Christmasses or birthdays. Geordie and I both got mandolins for Christmas. But Geordie and I both bought the keyboards we use. Our drums were gifts or from dumpsters and my store; the omnichord we’re using right now is on extended loan from our friend Michael Barclay; one of my basses I got from an acoustic guitar trade. I bought another of my omnichords from my friend who found it at a garage sale. All different places. I wouldn’t say that a whole lot of extra time is spent trying to find new instruments... I look for Danelectro six-string basses on the internet, and Geordie goes drum and organ hunting, but mostly we just sort of acquire instruments, or pick them up when we see an opportunity.

Who’s your favourite poet?
e.e cummings.
— interview with Jenny Mitchell by The Temple Threat

HEIDI HAZELTON
WAVELENGTH 155
Sunday March 23, 10pm
Purveyor of: Folk-techno furniture music
www.makertakemotion.com

Another as-yet-unheralded expatriate of the Guelph music diaspora, Heidi Hazelton makes comfortably personal pop whose edges are blurred by computer-assisted, skittering breakbeats, disorienting (sometimes hilarious) voice samples and homespun lo-fi ambience. Think of the Sea and Cake boys remixing a Julie Doiron track and you’re halfway there. A CDR of her home recordings from 1998 to 2001 is now available from Die!Venom Records. Jonny Dovercourt met up with the recent Toronto émigré for coffee and chat at John’s Italian Café.

When did you start playing music, Heidi?

I started singing in a church choir every Sunday, and my Mom sang with me. But my first official band thing was in high school in Killaloe [near Algonquin Park], we had a band called Stab. It was just four girls, and S.T.A.B. actually stands for Soprano-Tenor-Alto-Bass. We played in community centres, we put on an Amnesty International show in high school…

Was it a political band?

No. We were just in Grade Eleven or whatever…

What were you listening to back then?

Good question. I think The Cure. We did a Sloan cover, I remember. And we sang the grad song at our graduation. So that was kinda brief but nice, to just sing with other people.

When did you become Heidi Hazelton, solo artist?

The way I learned guitar was just to write my own songs. I started to play when I was 16, ‘cuz my brother was learning too, so I helped him out.

Were you four-tracking in those days?

No. I didn’t start recording until I got my computer, when I was 19 and starting university. I had the Acid program, that had the tracker thing, so I recorded on there.

Were you inspired by the Guelph music scene when you moved there?

Yeah, there were a lot of people just playing guitar. Killaloe didn’t have anything like that. It was the first time where shows were going on that I could possibly be a part of, and that was exciting. So I played open stages, and they sucked, ‘cuz I was so nervous. But Jay Gordon, from the band Spruce Hill, met through friends and we started playing together. We played a show with Holding Pattern at the university. That’s where I first met Evan [Clarke, HP drummer] — and Steve [Lambke, guitarist for The Constantines], actually, he put on that show.

Was that your introduction to the punk-rock side of the equation?

Yeah, the “indie shows” people. So Jay and I only played two shows, and then that summer Steve and I started a band, Steady Mix of the Ultralight. We bonded, ‘cuz we were into the same sort of thing and were hanging out and writing a lot on the back porch.

What were you listening to around that time?

The Sea and Cake, I was listening to a lot. I’d just discovered Modest Mouse. Mostly local stuff though, like Jim Guthrie and The Mudpuddles. We only lasted two shows too, but I kept playing music on my computer the whole time, and I started putting on shows. Two years ago I did a show called the Dublin Street Showcase, where I got eight people to play, and they each played three songs in my living room. That’s where I met Shaw-Han [Liem a.k.a. I Am Robot and Proud], he just set up with his computer, and Lee Sheppard played with Trains & Aeroplanes, and Noah23 played, he just brought a ghetto blaster and pressed play and rapped on top of it! And I played some songs solo as well.

So you didn’t have the desire to form another band after that?

No, I was pretty content playing by myself. I’d just started making beats and stuff, and that was pretty exciting.

So what inspired that move, to bring in the more electronic, beatwise element?

I just looked into adding a beat so I could keep time!

And you felt like you were onto something?

Yeah, I had a guitar/singing track and I just played it backwards, and I thought it sounded so great. “I love backwards!”

There’s one song on your CDR (“Day Home”) that features a voice that must be your Dad calling…

Yeah! It’s my Dad. I made that at home. I was teaching my Dad how to record your voice onto a computer, so I said, “Dad, say something,” and he said that “Hello, Heidi!” thing. I thought it was so cute, so I just used it.

What are you planning for your current/most recent batch of recordings?

I’m probably still going to record it on my computer, and it’ll probably still be pretty fuzzy. And I want to record a bunch of songs together — more of an album.

A set piece.

A set piece.

What’s in store for the Wavelength audience on the 23rd?

Same old, I’m just going to play with my sampler and guitar and sing.

Is it a well-behaved sampler?

Yeah, I like it. It’s nice, because I got frustrated playing shows and not being able to express that part of my music-making, just being the girl playing guitar and singing — I don’t really identify with that. //

ONE CANDLE POWER
WAVELENGTH 155
Sunday March 23, 11pm
Purveyors of: Motor-reving power-pop, Versus for HC kids
www.onecandlepower.com

Tell us a little about your band and your motivations for making music.

One Candle Power emerged as a four-piece indie rock band from Montreal in May 2001. We are motivated by many things: personal catharsis, live performance, experimentation with different musical forms and ideas, getting out and seeing new cities, meeting great people along the way.

From your website, it looks like this is your first time in Toronto, is this correct? What can be expected from a live OCP show, and what are your expectations of an audience in Toronto?

It is indeed our first time. The closest we’ve gotten to playing in Toronto was a Hamilton show we did in someone’s living room with Calvin Johnson. Because we have heard differing opinions on Toronto’s audiences, we have no idea what to expect. This is a good thing though because sometimes when we’ve had high expectations for a show, it ended in disappointment. Our live performances are sincere, emotional and energetic — we give our best effort each time we hit the stage. Given the nature of the music, the end result is often dependent on the setting and the audience’s participation. Performance is a symbiotic relationship — we feed off the audience’s energy and excitement and return it two-fold.

Most of the One Candle Power songs I’ve heard feature a double bass. Quite a unique choice of instrumentation, given that OCP is quite rooted in the rock form. How did this come about? Was it a matter of circumstance or a deliberate aesthetic choice? I know you’ve had some recent membership changes — does the band still feature double bass?

The double bass was a mix of circumstance and deliberate design. Chrissy was initially seeking a cellist to work on her solo material with. However, playing in punk-rock/rock’n’roll bands from the age of 14 kept her compositions loosely attached to those forms. When Moses began working with Chrissy on those songs he suggested that his friend Dave (an upright bassist) join the band, hoping that the instrument’s similarity to the cello would produce the “sad” sound that they were hoping to achieve. Because the double bass is such a sensitive instrument, it really forced us to adopt a careful and delicate style of songwriting. It made us write songs that would accentuate not just the loud parts, but also the quiet... Even though our band does not feature a double bass anymore, we still carry that philosophy with us. With every song, we are just as careful to monitor our dynamics.

The band seems to play quite a number of shows in Massachusetts. What first brought you to that particular state? Besides gigs, is there anything else that keeps drawing the band back to that part of the country?

Boston and its surrounding areas have always had warm and receptive crowds. On many occasions, our shows there have been much better than shows we’ve ever anywhere else because of the people in the audience. They dance, sing along and are very energetic. This is the main reason why we keep going back. Plus, we’ve made so many awesome friends there. It has become a home away from home.

What’s in store for One Candle Power in the near to moderate future?

Because we are all students the only time we can leave town is on weekends, and so during the school year, we do as many mini-weekend tours as we can while still maintaining good GPAs. We are booking a tour to the eastern provinces for May and for east coast and midwest USA for the summer. If time permits, we may join up with our friends Madeline Ferguson and make our way down to Florida and back up in August. Also, we hope to find a good label to work with — as much as we love the D.I.Y. aspect of our band there are some things we could definitely use some help with.
— band interviewed by Chuck Skullz

MEAN RED SPIDERS
WAVELENGTH 156
Sunday March 30, 10pm
Purveyors of: Pop goes the wall of sound
www.meanredspider.com

The Mean Red Spiders are an essential part of the history of psychedelic music in Toronto. Over the course of three excellent albums, they have worked against the notion that it is best to stay the same. Their amazing new album, Still Life Fast Moving, sees the Spiders bringing new subtlety and experimentation to their noise. To these ears, it lies somewhere between Wire’s immortal Chairs Missing and the sweet melancholia of the Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Session. Mad-scientist Minesh, guitarist/general-shit-disturber Greg and accident-prone drummer Adam were kind enough to answer my questions.

There are few bands in this city that have been as active for as long as yours (since summer 1994). What is the secret to your longevity?

Minesh: Friendship, tolerance and many mood-altering moments.
Greg: No illusions, no compromise.
Adam: Friendship, the pleasure of each other’s company, shared musical obsessions.

You guys are road warriors of the highest order. Any cautionary tales? Best towns? Worst towns? Best places to eat? Most ignorant (of Canada)?

Minesh: Advice, keep your pants on and feet firmly planted on the ground at all times. Best town would have to be a three-way-tie between Athens GA, NYC and Moncton. Best eats on tour: Schuba’s in Chicago or that Mexican restaurant across from Southpaw in Brooklyn.
Greg: Always be prepared to be pulled over while crossing borders in the prairies. Play first, drink later. Big American cities are scary. The smaller ones, even scarier. Most Americans know Toronto, but have no conception of the size of Canada. Better road food in America but stay away from the Bob Evans.
Adam: Caution to drummers: stay off the seesaws!

What is wrong with the Canadian music industry?

Minesh: That there is one. Hard and sad to believe that there is a need to fabricate something as subjective as music on that scale and to pervert it in the guise of culture.
Greg: You can’t have a level playing field when the same people who have economic interests in artists give out FACTOR grants, VideoFACT grants, PromoFACT grants...CRTC Canadian content rules, which ghetto-ize Canadian music and videos... only two national music mags: one a joke, the other pandering and incestuous... regionalism, which makes Toronto’s musical contribution the same as Winnipeg’s.

You guys have divergent musical tastes and interests. Any side projects to keep the public informed of?

Minesh: There are many things yet to be revealed... keep your ears open and eyes shut...
Adam: Rob will have Lisa and I appear on the new Interstellar record. The 122 Greige Media dynasty.

What bands (living or defunct) would you choose to play at the ultimate show in your honour? What music would be playing in between sets? Where would the show take place? Who would be backstage? What would be in your rider?

Minesh: It would have to be a triple bill with Can, The Stooges and The Clash in London, UK. What would be spinning? Reggae of course: The Arabs, King Tubby, etc. Backstage would be all of my friends and everyone else that wanted to be there, enjoying sweet treats...
Greg: The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in NYC with the Factory people backstage filming the show and lots of illegal substances on the rider and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music between sets.
Adam: Funkadelic (circa 1972) in Detroit with King Tubby spinning between sets. Judy’s hangin’ with James Jamerson in the back. Art supplies in the rider.

American Idol and especially the Great Canadian Music Dream suck and blow ass. Come up with a better music-based reality TV (the best oxymoronic phrase of all time) show.

Greg: I really can’t better the reality of being in a working Canadian band… the horror... the irony... the smell! Just film that.
Adam: COMING SOON! All-inclusive viewing of the major labels’ demise.

From your present vantage point, how will the next MRS recording differ from the outstanding Still Life Fast Moving?

Minesh: Blurring of structures and forms in a pop confine.
Greg: Hard to view from the present... so much can happen, but maybe a little more scratchy, scrappy and trippy.
Adam: Architecturally tangential... upside-down.
— interview by Smokey Campbell

Edgar Breau revealed to me, in my initial contact with him, that he was “not a retro act.” He “came under the spell of John Fahey at the tail end of the ‘70s and began writing songs that were open tuning finger style.” Earlier influences like Syd Barrett never went away, but his style had become more his own. The reason this distinction must be made is because Edgar Breau is a former member of Simply Saucer (as is Kevin Christoff). Simply Saucer, for those who don’t know, are something of a well-kept secret in Canadian proto-punk/new wave/kraut/psych/rock circles. People who are familiar with this band have an odd fervour about the group. It is an anomaly for a band to form in the very early ‘70s in Hamilton, yet sound so much like all the interesting and lasting things of that era. I asked a series of questions of Edgar, and this is the result, a biography of sorts. He answers all the questions, but I haven’t included them here. He started by addressing the question of how Simply Saucer are starting to be spoken of as “seminaL” in the same way as say, The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, but are remarkable in that they formed at a time when these bands were hardly known to the world at large. — Paddy O’Donnell

Edgar Breau: Lately I’ve been thinking just how close we (Simply Saucer) were to the era of the VU, Can, and even the late ‘60s psychedelic explosion. The Beatles broke up in 1970. We were up and running in nascent form by about 1972. I was playing with one of the original members in high school, ‘70/’71. I was an avid record collector, as were all of us.

I guess for me it started early with Elvis Presley 78s which my older sisters had. My father liked Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, opera, classical. There was also down east music. Roy Orbison. Maureen (my sister) watched American bandstand and eventually brought home early Stones 45s and Beatles. The Kinks became my faves. I began to buy just about everything. Dylan, Moby Grape, Kevin Ayers, John Coltrane, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the first Stooges, the Velvets, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Can, Faust, John Fahey. I was influenced by a columnist in Fusion by the name of Wayne Maguire. He had very eclectic tastes from The Stooges to Fahey to Coltrane to Tolkien to C.S. Lewis and wrote cultural commentary that was often critical of the counter-culture and staunchly defended the permanent things, the western canon, the dead white Eurocentric civilization against the barbarians at the gate. He was a counterweight to the prevailing left-wing liberal dominant current. Not to say that the counterculture was bereft of legitimate causes, but the trashing of a caricatured western culture was without nuance or a proper understanding of the irreplaceable role that Christianity played in the building of our culture.

I didn’t necessarily know all this back then. I was driven by my own inner demons to play rock’n’roll, as I think a lot of us were. But these were always in a kind of tension with my core beliefs. I began corresponding with Chris Bell of Cleveland’s Mirrors who were connected with Rocket from the Tombs and eventually Pere Ubu. I met him through Terrapin, the Syd Barrett fanzine.

I saw The Stooges play in T.O. and was very impressed. I saw the MC5 at Varsity Stadium. I holed up in a storefront in east-end Hamilton for a year and barely did anything but write songs. Ping used to bring me food so that I didn’t starve. I had no bed, bath, furniture, closet etc., just guitars and amps and echo chambers. We rehearsed relentlessly. Kevin Christoff was an exceptionally inventive bass player influenced by Hugh Hopper, McCartney, Chris Hillman, and I gave him lots of room to improvise. Ping lived with my family as a foster child. He was the Eno, Stockhausen, Sun Ra, Kraftwerk influenced member. We started out using audio generators, which Dave Byers picked up at Heathkit. Drummer Neil was a prolific record collector: Dylan, Beatles, jazz. We were a very loud band.

We were aware of what we were doing and when we recorded ourselves, we could see that in many ways we were as good as our influences. After we became entangled in the T.O. punk scene, we crashed and burned and I thought everything had been lost, including our raison d’être. Our first manager had moved to Montreal and later Arabia and had taken the Master Sound (early Daniel Lanois studio) demo tapes with him. All that we had recorded was a single that was not that representative. Everyone scattered and I was soon labouring in the coke ovens at Stelco. I decided that to survive as a musician I would have to do it from scratch as a Fahey devotee singer/songwriter and bought a Laskin guitar and began to relearn how to play acoustic. It wasn’t until Bruce Mowat [longtime Hamilton music critic] heard me playing at the Baytides Cafe and I told him about the Saucer that the cult thing began to happen. I wrote to my former manager and asked for the demos and the rest, as they say, is history.

Rick Bissell was our first manager. He owned an import record store in downtown Hamilton and had once managed April Wine. It was he who got us in to the studio and began booking us into various venues in 1973-74. There weren’t indie clubs when we started. Our first gig was in the basement of an Anglican church in east-end Hamilton. We played three sets of 45 minutes. One set consisted of a single song called “Noise.” Fighting broke out at some point and the police were called. Neil, the drummer, played an unforgettable violin solo. My sister Teresa still laughs when she recalls that excruciating experience. We performed with strobes and psychedelic lights. At that point, I was sharing the electronics with Ping, who doubled on congas. My blond ‘67 Telecaster was plugged into a distortion pedal, wah-wah, an echo chamber and a Marshall 4-12 amp with a cast iron horn on top.

Rick tried booking us into high schools. We played an arena in Carleton Place, which we emptied out fairly quickly. We were thrown off the stage at Oakville’s 707 club. Ping had come on stage dressed in a skin-diving outfit. Our drummer was assaulted and thrown bodily out of the club. Rick had us play a high school prom. Imagine “Illegal Bodies” at a high school prom in 1974. Smith Falls, Hawksbury — Kevin has the list. Sometimes we went over like a storm, but mostly people seemed a little bewildered. Our guitars were stolen by Hamilton’s Parkdale gang. It was not easy. There was not a lot of money around to record. But there always seemed to be money for partying. There was not a lot of support and no other bands we could pool resources with. Teenage Head got started around 1975-76 but we were never on very good terms with them. We were Hamilton East, they were Hamilton West.

The early band never played a Toronto gig other than an outdoor show at a high school. Later when the punk scene started up, we played there more often, but that was a different line-up and we had jettisoned many of the old songs because of the prevailing minimalist punk ethos that dominated. We needed gigs to survive. But ultimately it would be our undoing. We really should have concentrated on recording a record or two — there was plenty of material. I was fanatical about rehearsals. One year even on Christmas day. There were at least three LPs worth of songs. When Rick left, we went into a tailspin. Soon Ping became despondent, non-communicative, and left.

The band was reborn as a tighter two-guitar-bass-drums outfit that became part of the nascent T.O. punk scene. We played “Rock Shock and Outrage” at the Masonic Temple and other gigs at David’s, the Edge, the Horseshoe and others. There were some substance abuse problems, simmering personal stuff, rivalries, as well as music direction disagreements that ultimately tore us apart. The break-up of the band hit us all pretty hard. It had been an all-or-nothing endeavour for me and I was unprepared for civilian life.

After Saucer broke up Ping and Gripper (a friend and roadie) continued to live at Saucer house and the craziness continued. One day, Ping woke up to a loud bang and found that Gripper had pretty near blown his head off with a rifle. Ping was left to clean up the mess and shortly after sold all his equipment and never played again. The death of Gripper had an ominous finality to it, and I took it as a portent that I must make a clean break with my past and begin again somehow. The house where we had lived and loved and partied and rehearsed was soon torn down. I began to re-examine my life, reading the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsin, discovering what normal life was all about working alongside rough steelworkers, and finding out who I was outside of Simply Saucer.

By now I was married with a couple of kids. I began subscribing to literary journals like The New Oxford Review, The Chesterton Review, the Dawson Newsletter (prominent historian contemporary of Toynbee) and basically doing a lot of reading Chesterton, Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers (The Inklings) as well as French Catholic authors like Mauriac, Bernanos, Maritain, Belloc (French/English) as well as Dostoevsky, and a lot of Catholic theology. Flannery O’Connor led to Faulkner who led to the Southern Agrarians who led to Russell Kirk and this linked up with the Chester/Belloc political theory of Distributism which intrigued me with its rejection of socialism and capitalism. Anyways, I began collecting books as I used to collect records. By 1983 my marriage had fallen apart and the usual painful events were occurring.

By 1985 I had a new repertoire, a new woman, and was again playing with K.C. and original six-piece Saucer prototype member Dave Byers in a band called Third Kind that never got off the ground. I would be remiss for failing to mention my wife Dianne in all that transpired. She pulled me out from under the rubble in ‘85 and has been an inspiration ever since. I continued my composing on the acoustic and began testing my material at the Baytides coffeehouse. The usual influences were ever-present, along with instrumentals.

I soon found other gigs and eventually hooked up with K.C. once again as well as Compton Roberts on harmony vocals and Jeff Bakalar on electric guitar and Paul Panchezak on drums. Paul had played with Crowbar and King Biscuit Boy and I had known him from the earliest days of the Saucer. We gigged as Edgar Breau or Shadows of Ecstacy or Edgar Breau and Shadows of Ecstacy. Soon we were in Grant Ave. recording a CD. About this time, 1989, Cyborgs Revisited was reissued and the reviews and zine interviews came fast and furious and the past became present once again and the babies kept coming and the money didn’t –— I sold the theremin for formula and the Saucer thing kinda split me up somehow and I was writing material against the liberal ascendancy while attending Sunday mass, and learning that the most outrageous things to do were often the most conventional — the Edmund Burke influence. My wife was worried that if I kept shooting off my big mouth we would be fire-bombed.

One day after a gig I decided I would pack it in and just forget about the whole thing. We home-schooled and I made my own cheese and I kept buying books and playing guitar and writing songs and we sorta withdrew. I was asked to run as a candidate for the Family Coalition Party in 1999 for Hamilton East and did so. Teaching at home was a great experience, but Edgar sans guitar was not so easy to live with and eventually I picked it up again and songs came pouring forth. Paul Reimins, an old friend, bought a half share of Grant Ave, found my tapes, and called me in to finish the project and record my new stuff which I’m currently doing. I’ve hooked up with Shadows again. Jeff Bakalar is leaving for the Czech republic, replaced by guitar doctor Mike Daley. My core influences remain. They will always be there. I’m just no longer a citizen of that country. I’m a songwriter and that’s the entire rationale for what I do. That includes my Saucer material. They are like old paintings.

Shadows Of Ecstasy:
Edgar Breau -- acoustic guitar, vocals
Kevin Christoff -- bass
Mike Daley -- electric guitar
Compton Roberts -- backing vocals
Paul Panchezak -- drums

Edgar's background of Shadows Of Ecstasy:

The original guitar player has just moved to the Czech Republic. The drummer I've known since the earliest Saucer days and was a good friend of our first manager. He's played with Crowbar and many a time with King Biscuit Boy. Paul organized the benefit concert here in Hamilton after his death. A real pro, perhaps Hamilton's finest. Mike Daley is also a veteran performer here in the Hammer and elsewhere. He is a good songwriter in his own right, a lecturer on popular music, works as a music programmer at the CBC, and has gigged with many local bands. Compton Roberts is a teacher with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop culture and American Lit. An aspiring author with unique vocal abilities and great musical instincts he fronted Forensic Banquet with Mike Daley and worked solo performing gems from the classic standards catalogue as well as original compositions. Paul Panchezak plays in a blues band that is fronted by his wife Donna. They are called Trick Bag. Kevin Christoff played bass with Simply Saucer and his imaginative bass lines and creative solos drew the attention of all astute critics. K.C. has gigged locally for the last 20 years with various outfits ranging from country to pop to jazz but his first love is original music and the studio.

More background...

Full Name: Kevin Alexander Christoff
D.O.B.: December 27, 1954
Initial influences: Jack Bruce, Hugh Hopper, Paul McCartney.

I started playing guitar in 1969 and started in my first band early 1970. Although initially a rhythm guitarist, I was persuaded (coerced) into buying a bass guitar (a Saturn for $30) as I was playing string bass in the high school band at the time and we needed a bass player. In retrospect the move made perfect sense, but at the time playing bass in a band was the last thing I wanted to do. I've been playing bass ever since. This "first band" phase was followed by various garage/cover configurations until 1972. During that year, while attending Laurier HS, through mutual friends I met Paul Breau who informed me that his brother was looking for someone who could play "weird bass" to complete the band he was in the process of forming. This was how I met Edgar Breau and joined what was to become Simply Saucer. I remained with Saucer through various personnel changes from 1973 to 1979, playing high schools, clubs and on various bills with artists such as John Balogh, Teenage Head, Viletones, Battered Wives and Pere Ubu. During Saucer's lifetime, we recorded a six song demo in 1974 and a single in 1978 as well as several concert/club gigs, all or some of which are included on the soon to be released expanded version of Cyborgs Revisited. After the demise of Saucer in 1979, I went back to performing in various pub/cover duos and trios (a gig which continues in one form or another to this day) and even did a stint in a country band (!). Was reunited with E.B. twice, in 1986 (the short lived Third Kind which included former Saucer Dave Byers) and in 1990-91 with The Shadows of Ecstasy. This unit recorded several tracks in Grant Avenue, which may yet see the light of day. Also during this time I also enjoyed a short stay with local R&B band Trickbag. Most recently worked with Doug Murphy from Hamilton and started rehearsing again with Edgar Breau (2002) on new material and old in preparation for gig(s) in support of re-issue. Who knows what's next? Ð KC

Compton Roberts:
1. I am a high school English teacher in Hamilton specializing in Creative Writing and Literature Studies.
2. I am a singer and guitar-player (I play a 12-string Rickenbacker once used by Roger McGuinn of The Byrds that was also signed by him).
3. My first band was a country-tinged hard rock outfit in the late 1980s called The Forensic Banquet.
4. My influences are folk, jazz and 1960s rock music. As for my work with Edgar, the dominant influences are The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel.
5. I first met Edgar when I was just out of high school, he was playing a folk club in Hamilton called The Baytides. His original songs and instrumentals were unusually sophisticated in both lyrical content and musical structure. Edgar's eclecticism extended beyond music into literature as well and it was only a matter of time before our discussions led to a musical meeting of minds a few years later with The Shadow of Ecstasy.
6. Outside of music, I am currently working on a novel and a collection of poetry.

Mike Daley is a guitarist from Hamilton, Ontario. He has recorded and performed with the Killjoys, Nine Big Dogs, Uncle Violet, Rita Chiarelli, Kim Deschamps and many others. He has also released a solo CD, Been Here and Gone. Daley is a producer at CBC Radio in Toronto and has published scholarly papers on Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.

Edgar Breau & The Shadows of Ecstasy's gig at Wavelength, which will see the five-piece band perform both Simply Saucer and newer material, anticipates May's upcoming reissue of Cyborgs Revisited, featuring nine bonus tracks, on Sonic Unyon.

WAVELENGTH DJs

March 2
DJ Short Bald Guy & DJ Eh
Outragious and ecclectic.

March 9
DJ King Shit Of Fuck Mountain (pictured at left)
Thanks for nothing.

March 16
DJ Sean Ward
Remember when you used to dance like it wasn’t no thang? You should dance some more. People will think you’re what’s happening and your mom will be proud because your mom wants you to be what’s happening. Even more fun is to dance after you’ve bought a Sean Ward comic book. www.sykoward.net.

March 23
DJ Steven Venn
Formerly of internet station invisibleradio.com and a regular Wavelength contributor, Steven gets a chance to bring the sweetness from his mixed bag of hits.

March 30
DJ Strangerock
DJ Strangerock - all bathory all night long.