O Canada

After years of musical atrocities committed against the United States, the nation of Canada is finally trying to make amends. Though it will certainly take decades for America to recover from the damage done by many years of enduring hit singles from Avril Livigne, Good Charlotte and Nickelback, there is hope for reconciliation. Celine Dion has been exiled to the deserts of Nevada, and, just this past weekend in Brooklyn, in observance of Canada Day, the Canadian Consulate put on a program of some of the best indie rock that Canada has to offer.

Unfortunately I had misjudged how long it would take to get to Prospect Park, so I had to kick myself for coming in at the end of Malajube's set (though I have no doubt that, had this not been an outdoor concert, they would certainly have blown the roof off that sucker). They're one of those bands that should really be much more popular in America than they are, but due to a combination of an almost unpronouncable name, an inability to speak English, and an inherent weirdness that seems to only exist north of the border (you'll notice in this picture that the lead singer is wearing the head-section of a monkey costume), they'll probably never achieve the popularity of their Anglophone peers. This is especially unfortunate, since they're easily one of the most energetic live bands I've ever seen. I guess I should just be happy I can see them without going through the bullshit I had to to get Arcade Fire tickets.















For those of you who don't know, Canada Day is like the Canadian version the 4th of July (which happens to fall on the 1st of July), except that, while we cowboy Americans celebrate the day we fought the British into submission and secured our full independence, the Canadians celebrates the day they asked the British Parliament really nicely and convinced them to grant Canada partial sovereignty. So, like most things Canadian, it's pretty much just a lamer, more wholesome version of it's American counterpart, which is about what I was expecting of the other two bands on this bill, but was happy to find was not the case.















I read an Esquire article a few months back claiming that Sam Roberts is possibly the "greatest rock'n'roll front-man working today." Like all good music criticism, this was a bit of an overstatement, though not entirely unfounded. The Sam Roberts band basically sounds like a more macho, less intelligent version of Wilco. I would have preferred to see them playing a smoke-filled bar in the deep south with a chicken wire-lined stage than at a Starbucks-sponsored outdoor concert in Brooklyn (the whole thing really just felt like I was watching a taping of Austin City Limits), though they definitely rocked.















Then finally, a square-looking old guy from the Canadian Consulate came out and gave a long spiel that nobody really paid attention to, and introduced the Stills. It seems as though the goal of whoever billed this show was to make each act seem progressively more familiar to the audience twentysomething hipsters and aging Park Slope parents that want to pretend that they're still twentysomething hipsters, going from full French-Canadian freak-out, to faux-Americana, to post-punk revivalism. And with their shaggy haircuts and jeans tight enough to ensure that no member of the band will be having children in the next decade, the band couldn't have been more at home. As soon as they went into "Still In Love Song" it was like instant nostalgia for hanging out at East Village dive bars circa two years ago. This was probably more like a homecoming than anything for the band who, to the best of my knowledge, were never popular in Canada until they came to New York and became the next Interpol (who, as far as I'm concerned, are still actually the next Strokes). Though, I must say, for a group of Canadians acting like New Yorkers that want to be British, they put on an excellent show.

Francophonic Spree

Last Wednesday (that's Valentine's Day, for the record) when Erin and I came home to our apartment, we were greeted by a somewhat hostile letter from our building's management informing us that our superintendent will be visiting our apartment sometime in the near future to inspect it and make sure that we have sufficient carpeting, because the obnoxious frenchman that lives below us and seems to take joy in aggressively pounding on our floor (his ceiling) whenever we walk around our apartment at some time that isn't between the hours of 10am and 8pm, has apparently gotten fed up with our (though mostly our cat's) "excessively loud walking" and ratted us out to the super. Though I feel that this gives me every right to get on the French-hating bandwagon, I was persuaded to love the French again after going to Mercury Lounge to see French-Canadian indie pop sensation Malajube.

Let me first say that I thought their much underrated album Trompe L'Oeil was one of my favorites of last year, though I always thought their lack of English lyrics was just a novelty (like Christina Aguilera's Spanish album or Adam Sandler trying to make serious films), so I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only do they speak fluent French, but they speak pretty much no English (and by that I mean none). They opened the set with an extended instrumental jam, which might have alienated the audience had anybody actually been able to sing along to their songs with lyrics, then the singer greeted the audience in his thick French accent, "Hallo anglophones," followed by an incoherent string of words that were apparently supposed to be English. Then they kicked into "La Monogamie" with enough intensity to keep the hairs on the back of my neck raised for the better part of the night, and managed to keep that energy level going for most of the show. If nothing else, it was refreshing to see a band that actually looked like they were having a good time, especially after watching the uber-serious opening band, Snowden, whose over-earnest posturing would surely make Michael Stipe blush and, inexplicably, had a larger crowd than Malajube.

On a side note, I saw a bunch of movies this weekend as well. Children of Men was amazing - by far the most painstakingly constructed dystopian future I've ever seen in a film (the guy living in the cover art of Pink Floyd's Animals was a particularly nice touch). While I usually find the shaky, handheld camera technique hackneyed and nauseating (OC I'm looking in your direction), this movie pulled it off brilliantly, and the 5-minute-long single-shot sequences blew my fucking mind. This might not top The Departed as my favorite movie of the year, but it comes pretty damn close.

Dreamgirls was pretty much what I expected it to be. The story was too jumpy to really make it a cohesive film, but I found it a generally entertaining riff on the history of soul music. Jennifer Hudson is as good as she's hyped to be. Beyoncee is just as vaccuous and unremarkable as she is in real life. And Eddie Murphy is good enough to make me die a little every time I see a poster for one of his fat-suit movies.

I also saw Music & Lyrics (don't ask) this weekend, which was (expectedly) schmaltzy, but surprisingly enjoyable. Hugh Grant's dry self-deprication has apparently grown on me in the past few years and I managed to get through most of the movie without having the urge to beat Drew Barrymore over the head with a blunt object. Even the music was halfway decent (lest you think I've lost my credibility as a music snob, I'll remind you that the original music was done by power-pop guru Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne).

I still gotta make it through Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, United 93 and Last King of Scotland by Sunday. Wish me luck.