Last Night Electro Saved My Sanity: MSTRKRFT in WNNPG

The first time MSTRKRFT came through Winnipeg I didn't bother going and then I regretted it. When you realize that the only artists from Modular that you will ever get a chance to see come to your city are Wolfmother and MSTRKRFT, you start to panic when you miss the better of the two. Of course I had seen one half of MSTRKRFT a couple of years back when he opened for Nine Inch Nails in Death From Above 1979, and I loved it. When Jesse F. Keeler hooked up with Al-P to become MSTRKRFT, I fell in love with their brand of electro beats that sit well next to the likes of Justice, Daft Punk and Simian Mobile Disco. Not to mention their stunning remixing abilities. So, needless to say, I decided that I just had to go to the Exchange Event Centre last night for MSTRKRFT without a second thought. Oddly enough, it only hit me much (much) later that night that a show like this was a different beast from the ones I normally attend. Throughout the night I discovered the difference between a traditional live gig and a DJ gig, and in some ways, the similarities, too. And for some reason, I can't say I had ever given much thought to it before.

The time advertised for the gig was 9pm, but thankfully, my friend, Lisa, and I didn't really show up til 10 because, as we soon discovered, that still meant we had another two hours to go before the opener Felix Cartal came on. As we ventured further into the club, I started thinking the idiotic pseudo-bouncer needn't have scrutinized my ID so keenly. All he had to do was clock the level of my awkwardness and displacement in a place like this. The reasons why I never was a clubber came flooding back to me as drunken couples groped each other and girls tottered around in high heels and short shorts. The music preceding the actual show, while infinitely better than the stuff played at Top 40 bars, wasn't particularly inspiring nor distinguishable (aside from snatches of Hot Chip and Justice), and Lisa and I found ourselves seated at the back of the club, yawning from the stressful day's work we had already put in at her office. And probably from rapidly encroaching old age as well. So, as any good curmudgeon would do, we sat there mocking the younger people around us.

There were the girls in matching gold shoes, holding hands like they were part of some nightclub buddy system. There was a b-boy wannabe with a hockey mask permanently perched atop his head (and baseball cap), which led us to the conclusion that the sole purpose of the mask was to keep his hat in place. There was the guy who appeared to be leading an invisible conga line up and down the club, chugging away like the little engine that had no dance partners. There was a guy in neon green sunglasses - a Corey Hart of the long-lost rave scene. One of our personal favourites was Mr. Tall and Awkward, who seemed to be roaming aimlessly alone and waiting for MSTRKRFT - we felt that he was a kindred spirit. Nearly every girl looked like she was trying too hard while nearly every boy looked like he didn't care one iota for trying at all. And many seemed very tied up with mediating and commemorating their own experience whether by digital photo or mobile text. But like pretty much most gigs I've been to, I got the distinct feeling that it was more of an opportunity to be seen rather than to hear a particular artist's music. It was all very interesting from an anthropological standpoint, but the night was beginning to wear on us. At midnight, Felix Cartal came on, but honestly, I didn't get much out of him - there were some fairly dissonant and jarring mixes happening, and his set just ended up feeling too repetitive and not enough to get me anywhere near the sweaty, flying limbs on the dancefloor. It's not like I couldn't stand it, but it's more like I wasn't affected by it.

However, when MSTRKRFT took the stage, I began my stealth journey to the centre of the dancefloor. That pulsing, persistent 4/4 rock beat that makes MSTRKRFT one of my favourite electro acts soothed my otherwise stressed out body and propelled me further and further into the inner core of gyrating bodies. Aside from the sweat raining down on me from the shirtless, grinding idiot atop the platform and the rather fierce knee to the back of my head from another dancer on the aforementioned platform, I had a pretty euphoric time. I literally lost myself in the music, usually shutting my eyes and moving like a de-programmed robot (no sexy dance from me). I was whipping my head around so fast that I became completely disoriented and detached from the people moving around me. Between the unsure footing rolling on top of discarded glow sticks and the green lights spidering across the ceiling and walls, I seemed to effectively separate my mind from my body. While I caught glimpses of MSTRKRFT on the stage from time to time, rather than focusing on the artist, I focused on the music in a new way. But at the same time, I couldn't tell you exactly what was being played or remixed at every moment, and that was okay. It was pure feeling without concentration - perhaps it was the bliss of a brief numbness to the outside world. Like that moment in the film I Heart Huckabees when Mark Wahlberg and Jason Schwartzman smack themselves in the head with a big plastic ball to achieve a state of non-thought for a fleeting moment. But this was for an hour and a half. And it included a complete abandoning of kinesthetic sense. As I made my way back up the stairs from my drowning on the dancefloor, I felt like I had sea legs.

One of the memorable highlights for me was the remix that featured bits of Hot Chip and then pieces of Happy Mondays' Hallelujah. I also recognized their remix of fellow labelmate Wolfmother's Woman, Justice's D.A.N.C.E. (apparently a hot track for the night considering it was played in some form three different times) and Kylie Minogue's Wow along with the odd track off of debut LP, The Looks and, of course, latest single Bounce/Vuvuvu. The set ended with a rather jubilant remix of Daft Punk's One More Time, which allowed for audience participation akin to the live shows I'm accustomed to as MSTRKRFT dampened the vocals and everyone joined in for the "Don't stop the dancin'" refrain. By the end of the night (or early morning), I felt just as exhausted and vindicated as I do leaving any good show, yet knowing that it was the show itself and not the environment that I had fallen for. I could do without most of the people and without the preamble of parading poseurs, but there is always life-preservation in good music. In this case, it was postmodern pastiche as remedy for the postmodern condition.

This tour is continuing on into the US, so if you live in any of the cities they're hitting, get tickets and let MSTRKRFT's beats give you that pummeling gift of oblivion for one night. Fist of God, indeed.

The Looks - MSTRKRFT

Bounce ft. N.O.R.E. (Felix Cartal Remix) - MSTRKRFT

Woman (MSTRKRFT Remix) - Wolfmother

Ceolakanth is Android (MSTRKRFT Remix) - Polysics

Three Quarters Full Or One Quarter Empty?: The New Pornographers at the Groove FM Jazz Festival

And so I returned to the Groove FM Jazz Festival and the Pantages Playhouse for the second show of the "indie package" - Canadian indie supergroup The New Pornographers. This was a make-up show for the Winnipeg gig they had to cancel earlier, and it was my first time seeing them live. Due to their supergroup nature, not all members are present at all shows, and unfortunately, at this one, both Neko Case and Dan Bejar were absent, and thus Kathryn Calder, AC Newman's niece, took over all of Case's vocals with delicate aplomb. The audience was definitely lively, often shouting out to the band, and they still put on an excellent show live despite the fact they were missing a quarter of their members, but at the same time, I didn't quite feel like I saw a complete show. I don't know if this was because a quarter of the band were missing and because they were vocalists, or because I'm not as huge a fan of the band as I am of others, or because the some of the ludicrous banter coming from the audience appeared to be making the band feel a bit awkward (continuous requests for Freebird were annoying me and no doubt annoying them as well).

Following a rather raucous and fun set from Winnipeg mod-popsters and Mint Records labelmates Novillero, who also managed to get the crowd dancing early, The New Pornographers took the stage led by Newman with his Challengers-emblazoned guitar, and launched into a set that included Challengers, Use It, All the Old Showstoppers, Unguided, Adventures in Solitude, Stacked Crooked, All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth, Testament To Youth in Verse, and Twin Cinema. My personal highlights were hearing the bouncy, shuffling classic Mass Romantic played live, and singing and dancing along to Sing Me Spanish Techno - one of my favourites despite the fact it doesn't seem trendy to state as such. I was also impressed with the tender duet between Newman and Calder for Adventures in Solitude as both closed their eyes in rapt emotion. One point at which I really noted the fact members were absent was when I missed Bejar's vocals for Testament to Youth in Verse - the feel of the song seemed to shift from quirky to gentle and bland.

Newman attempted rather sarcastic banter with the audience (including a shot at Winnipeg's Burton Cummings - the audience's utter silence spoke volumes about the crowd's apathy for their "hometown hero"), and at one point a rather vocal older man, who kept screaming how much he loved the band, decided to yell "We still love you," prompting Newman to ask "Despite what?" in a bewildered tone.

Somehow the set still seemed too short and I was still missing key songs I wanted to hear like Myriad Harbour, Mutiny, I Promise You, and Falling Through Your Clothes. There were also some sound issues where the bass appeared to be overpowering the vocals, muddying the sound so much that I grew frustrated - I was thankful when one of the audience members piped up and told them to turn the bass down a bit, but it came too late in the show to really make too much of a difference.



The set proper concluded with a nearly endless cover of ELO's Don't Bring Me Down, which was fun and a crowd pleaser, but I think I would have preferred a more powerful original song as a closer. If anything, the cover might have worked better as an encore number, especially since they had a disappointingly short two-song encore, finishing with usual show ender The Slow Descent into Alcoholism. I was left with a strange feeling of incompletion and I still don't know whether I should look at the show as an above average gig for a regular group or a below average gig for a supergroup. I would really like to see The New Pornographers live again to get a better sense of how I feel about them, and hopefully, I'll get to see the full line-up next time.

Mass Romantic - The New Pornographers

Adventures in Solitude - The New Pornographers

Performing Love, Thorny and Fragrant: Stars at the Groove FM Jazz Festival

I got to see Montreal-based band Stars play live a couple of years ago when they came to the Garrick Centre in Winnipeg to promote their 2004 album Set Yourself on Fire. And it was definitely a fantastic show. Then within the last eight months I've managed to miss them twice - the first time, they played Waterloo just before I moved there, and the second time, they played Winnipeg in winter while I was still in Waterloo. That's why I was so thankful that they decided to play the Groove FM Jazz Festival as part of the "indie package." I would finally get to see them play material from their latest album In Our Bedroom After the War. Of course being part of the Jazz Festival, they ended up slotted in Pantages Playhouse, an old vaudeville theatre building with proper seating and a balcony - not exactly my favourite kind of setting for a live show. As I sat there in my eighth row seat, watching the opening act, Winnipeg band The Details, I started feeling a bit grumpy and put off by the situation. The audience appeared to have drawn all sorts of demographics, and especially ones I never thought I'd see at a Stars show. Frankly, I think some of these people were wondering what they were doing there themselves (if they were expecting jazz, they were in for a surprise). And I was wondering how I was going to bear sitting through the show trapped in the eighth row.

After the intermission between The Details and Stars, the pulsing introduction from the opening track from In Our Bedroom After the War, The Beginning After the End, started up and the real Stars fans began to scream in recognition. The band sprung out onto the stage, and instantly, Torquil Campbell told everyone to come down to the stage - he later said that we should have to stand if they fucking had to. I joined the exodus of indie-pop fans as we stumbled and leaped over the bewildered older people who were completely content to remain seated. I was so grateful I could have hugged Torq. The moment that all of us crowded against the stage the gig started in earnest. And Stars are always completely earnest.

The stage was decorated with white and red roses, which were flung from the stage at various intervals, some of them disintegrating into showers of petals. It was a beautiful idea and completely fit the honesty and tenderness that Stars embody. The first track they played was the second one off the latest album, The Night Starts Here, and indeed it did. Torquil and his lovely singing partner Amy Millan demonstrated the perfection of their united vocals - I think their voices complement each others so perfectly it's emotionally alchemical. Amy lightly chanted the refrain of "The night starts here, Forget your name, forget your fear" and I did exactly as I was told, dancing and letting myself soak in the bittersweetness. Then Torquil asked the audience where our Barack Obama was and when would we finally elect a First Nations person for Prime Minister in this country before launching into Soft Revolution. This was only the beginning of the banter that he and Amy would engage in throughout the night.

The sheer intensity of the music was incandescent - Torquil has been accused in the past of being "hammy" (cough, Pitchfork), but I only see his theatrics as passion of the order of Morrissey. Being a consummate performer who believes and feels every word he/she has written is the opposite of "hammy" fakery, and Torquil is the consummate performer. There were so many highlights, and many of them were due to Torquil's energy as he played off Amy, who serenely played brilliant guitar, electric and acoustic. They ended up making two dedications to the couple whom they stay with whenever they're in Winnipeg - the first was The Big Fight, dedicated by Torquil, and the second was My Favourite Book, which was dedicated by Amy, ostensibly to rectify the dark implications of the first dedication and to elicit further banter between them (including a comment by Torquil that sex was always painful and you end up regretting it - a theme that works its way into several of their songs). The former was seductively sinister as Amy and Torquil exchanged lines in a dark dialogue of a fractured relationship, and the latter definitely balanced it out with its retro elegance and twee melody. Ultimately the spectrum that these two songs span, the pain and the elation of relationships, is completely representative of their body of work, and it's what makes me adore them so much.

The Ghost of Genova Heights, a track I wouldn't have immediately pegged as one of my favourite Stars track has proven to be exactly that, especially after seeing it live. It shifts between two different styles and moods, between a dreamy New Romantic feel and a soulful funk. Torquil was hugely impressive with his falsetto, breathing and yelping like Prince, making this song's chorus one of the most memorable ones of the night. Humour was also constantly present - before shooting headlong into the raucous Take Me To the Riot, Amy attempted to talk to the crowd about the Manitoba Moose hockey team and the AHL, only to have Torquil jump in and say that this audience was probably the only 800 people in Winnipeg who had no interest in hockey, prompting a hearty cheer. He also prefaced One More Night with a dedication to the newly re-formed New Kids on the Block, complete with an accapella satire of boyband trite emotion and dance moves, singing the chorus of Phil Collins' saccharine One More Night with a modified ending complete with profanity. The set-up served to demonstrate the contrast between Collins and the honesty of Stars' One More Night in which lovers hurt each other as much as they long for each other. There was also a sweet little moment in which it appeared Torquil lost himself in the middle of the song, standing there holding his trumpet and muttering "shucks" before eventually returning to the microphone and continuing on to the second verse.

I also have to mention one of the most exciting segues in which they moved from What I'm Trying to Say into Elevator Love Letter, two of my favourite Stars songs flowing together in an ecstatic tribute to complex emotion. To round out the entire set, they also played Your Ex-Lover is Dead, Set Yourself on Fire, Ageless Beauty, Midnight Coward, and Window Bird. The vulnerability and uncertainty that accompanies love and intimacy in reality pervades Stars' music and transforms these seemingly unromantic characteristics into a new form of romance. My only petty wish is that they would have done Barricade, a fantastically perverse ballad from In the Bedroom After the War, in which two football hooligans fall in love, turned on by violence.

One of the most intense moments was the final song of the set proper, the title track of their latest album, an epic ballad to the necessity of rebirth and reinstatement of humanity after the horrors and dehumanization of war. A person in the audience asked Torquil if he could dedicate it to his friend in Afghanistan, and Torquil replied with "Of course, my friend," his voice choked with sincerity that nearly made me tear up. The song built and built to an incredible climax of catharsis as Torquil ended up throwing his head back and howling "war" over and over. I felt my eyes close along with him as I sang with him, my vocal cords straining.

After the set proper ended, Torquil was the first to bound back onto the stage to tell us that he would have to perform accapella and that he knew some great Captain and Tenille songs; when the rest of the band reappeared, he feigned disappointment and told us that we could catch his solo material at a softball game in Ontario, trailing off with "the bus there is cheap." Stars then proceeded to perform a stellar four-song encore - it was like they read my mind. They needn't have told me to dance. They began with their fabulous laidback cover of This Charming Man - once again, anyone who could accuse Torquil of heavy-handed overdramatic performance couldn't have ever heard the subtlety of this understated cover version where Amy and Torquil's voices approach whispers as Marr's famous riff gently pulses in the background. They then slipped seamlessly into Reunion, one of my favourite songs off Set Yourself on Fire, a joyful trip of nostalgia and reclaiming missed opportunities. The show then ended with the gentle loveliness of Calendar Girl and then The Woods, the only other song that night from their second album, Heart.

Stars restored my faith in live gigs after the last lacklustre one I attended. I wish I could have gathered up the gig in my arms like a bouquet of roses, thorny and fragrant, and buried my face in it forever. Instead, it will have to remain pressed and dried in the folds of my memory.

The Ghost of Genova Heights - Stars

Barricade - Stars

Elevator Love Letter - Stars

Tokyo Police Club: A Lesson in Gig Selection

Back when I first heard about Canadian band Tokyo Police Club (probably well over a year ago now), I downloaded a few of the tracks off their EPs from music blogs, listened to them, was mildly interested and then left it at that. They were typical indie-pop with that bouncy backbeat and a bit of new wave cheek. Having listened to most of the songs off their Smith EP, I recall thinking the songs were rather short and similar. Then after listening to several songs off their A Lesson in Crime EP, I started confusing those tracks with the ones I heard earlier from the Smith EP. Besides the slower title track, I couldn't distinguish between the two EPs. When I heard their debut album, Elephant Shell, I confused its tracks with the tunes from their EPs. Needless to say, I probably shouldn't have gone to see them live. I don't know what exactly I was thinking - as if seeing them live would help the fact their songs all sounded the same to me. Nonetheless, I decided I would give them a shot (and kill one more evening in my generally eventless life) and attend their gig at the Garrick Centre in Winnipeg last night. As part of the tour in honour of the sixteenth anniversary of Exclaim magazine, TPC are making their way across Canada with varying opening acts.

The second I got into the line for the show I found myself irritated and for completely unreasonable, curmudgeonly reasons. The massive amount of teenagers and people who were technically adults, but still much younger than me, were annoying me with their attempts at indie hipsterdom. These things shouldn't anger me (these indie kids are at nearly every show I ever attend, whether in Winnipeg, Toronto or even Cardiff...they're practically a global phenomenon - I bet there are penguins somewhere in the antarctic wearing Converse sneakers and footless tights, bobbing their heads to a bouncy backbeat). Perhaps what was really irking me the most about this crowd, aside from the t-shirts paired with dinner jackets and the bizarre return of plaid flannel shirts, was the fact that all these kids appeared to adore Tokyo Police Club. Again, this should have been expected, concerts tend to be attended by fans of the band playing them. But somehow the fact this many young people turned out to see this particular band, which in my eyes was completely average, vexed me. It started to make me wonder whether the kids were there because they truly loved the band and found their music to be life-changing and original, or whether they wanted to believe that this band was truly unique because all the other cool kids thought so, too. And if it really was the former reason, there was no way I could ever understand these people. At any rate, I started feeling rather surly and self-righteous and turned up songs by The Sound on my iPod to block out the rumbling of excited chatter around me. I became an ancient 25-year-old.

Frankly, it's already a bad sign if I'm not compelled to take up my usual spot against the stage. Despite the unseemliness of being pressed against the stage at my age (though this problem will probably only get much, much worse as the years pass), I almost always plant myself firmly against the centre stage, arms resting on a monitor. I should also add that the fact I'm very short also contributes to this behaviour. This time I stood back a fair bit further than usual, well away from the pointy elbows of malnourished indie boys, though still close enough to have my hair ruffled by the bass vibrations emanating from the speaker stacks. As Tokyo Police Club took the stage, I hoped against hope that they would end up impressing me with their live presence.

They blazed through their set in less than an hour mostly because all their songs are about two minutes long - a feature I came to appreciate as I felt myself longing to leave the venue early. With a set that included In a Cave, Tessellate, The Baskervilles, Your English is Good, Listen to the Math, Nursery, Academy, Nature of the Experiment, Box, Citizens of Tomorrow, and Be Good, TPC failed to engage me - to be honest, every time they played a new song, I could swear they had already played it earlier, and that I was in some horrendous indie groundhog day. In their live context, the sameyness of their songs only became more prominent to me (the only reason I can recount the songs I do is because I mentally took note of a few lyrics off each song to compare with the actual tracks later and work out like a puzzle - a fantastic mental exercise, but not a good sign for their music). Singer/bassist, David Monks, whose voice reminds me a bit of Peter Perrett of The Only Ones, was animated, but uninteresting as a similar drumbeat intro started each song off. Graham Wright, the keyboardist, who provided the odd unhinged shouting chant, bent so low over his keyboard that I feared he would trap his nose between the keys until he snapped his head as far back as humanly possible with Snoopy-like tosses. But even that action became cliched for me - it felt like I had seen that before from countless unmemorable opening acts. The show became reminiscent (right down to the seizure-inducing strobe lights) of when I went to see another indie Canadian band, Hot Hot Heat, play a gig about three years ago. That time, too, I shouldn't have expected much, considering I was really only there to see The Futureheads in the support slot, but the complete disengagement I felt at that gig also came as a sad surprise. Their fans also went beserk for songs that had no effect on me whatsoever.

I can't bring myself to hate TPC because they are so genuine and grateful, bless, thanking the crowd at every moment and making the effort to keep mentioning their earlier Winnipeg gig at The Pyramid. The set was also punctuated by a dedication to someone named Jill just before Your English is Good (am I so crotchety that I even find this ungrammatical phrase annoying?) and the encouraged participation in the form of handclapping for Citizens of Tomorrow. So, TPC do get an A for their attempt to interact with the crowd. Their encore was appropriate in that it was short just like their set was - it consisted merely of Cheer It On, which I only really remember because they keep shouting their band name in it (not something I'm particularly fond of, but which is extremely helpful when you're like me and apparently need to utilize mnemonic devices where this band's songs are concerned). For most of the show, I found my eyes straying to the audience, including a boy with the exact same haircut as Monks, flailing like he had a particularly bad case of head lice, and a couple of indie hipster girls dancing by themselves, one of whom looked like she had walked straight out of a 1980's high school yearbook photo, oversized glasses, unfortunate haircut and all. Kudos to them for being so confident with themselves and for actually having sense enough to attend a concert they would actually like.

I had also hoped that the opening acts might make my attendance worthwhile, but to no avail. The two opening acts were Smoosh, a teen-sister duo from Seattle, and Attack in Black, a plaid-shirt-wearing four-piece from Ontario - I've largely forgotten both of them. I will give kudos to Smoosh in that they're doing something fairly ambitious for their age (and heaven knows I can't play keyboard and sing at the same time, nor can I write my own music, and I really had nothing going for me as a teenager...so, I really don't have much of right to be harsh), and in time, they'll probably fit quite nicely into the indie scene. At the very least, they played a cover of Bloc Party's This Modern Love, which was admirable. Attack in Black sounded like a blend of country-rock and emo, a mixture I never really want to come across again.

All in all, the night was forgettable. Although, I'll probably remember just how forgettable it was if TPC tours this way again.

**NOTE** I'm not even joking when I say I initially forgot to include tracks to download for this post. Bloody hell.

Tessellate - Tokyo Police Club

Cheer It On - Tokyo Police Club