Who are you and what do you do:
I am a male-shaped human living and working in Toronto. I occasionally play in a band called Tusks. When the time comes, I’ve also recently found myself playing with Jim Guthrie and with Nate Doucet’s ADO project. I also work full-time for a polling company. I have two cats.
Current obsessions:
I try to keep my obsessions limited. But recently, I’ve been liking Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, Paul F. Tompkin’s Pod F. Tompkast podcast, and Todd Rundgren’s Something/ Anything.
A song or a record that will always put you in a good mood, without fail:
If a song makes me feel good, I figure it’s probably lying. No one likes to be lied to all the time, although I like being lied to a little bit. So I’ll go with “Imagination is a Powerful Deceiver” by Elvis Costello, which is an outtake from My Aim is True. It’s typical Elvis Costello: sentence eating verse lead to a Raymond Carver-esque chorus, and then back he goes, mining human misery.
Tell us about an album or artist you think is really under-appreciated, and why they are deserving of more praise:
I kind of feel that, not withstanding some dated production techniques, Prefab Sprout could stand to get a bit more love. They were a pretty neat, nasty little band with their new romantic haircuts and good diction. People should start with Two Wheels Good/ Steve McQueen and then see how they should go from there. On a later album there’s a song called “Cars and Girls” which was intended to be a commentary on Bruce Springsteen. The chorus goes “Somethings hurt more, much more than cars and girls” and I haven’t been able to listen to Springsteen the same way ever again. Rock and roll could use more snippiness.
Most played track on your iTunes:
According to the software “Runnin’ Away” by Sly and the Family Stone. That doesn’t seem right somehow, though it’s a great song. But the ‘puter never lies.
Most cherished musical object:
I’ve had this one bass that did most of the work during my touring days. It’s been to Europe twice, across North America several times, and looks like it was held together with duct tape. It looks scrappy and everyone says it plays like a dream. It is the Replacements of bass guitars.
Proudest moment:
Fighting my way out of a recently dark and weird period in my life.
Most vulnerable moment:
There was this moment my old band Kepler played at that stupid CMJ festival. No sound check, no audience, no point in being there. And we knew that would happen, but somehow the actual doing of it was weirdly crushing.
It wasn’t a conscious thing at the time, but I think that was the beginning of the realization that I would have to participate in the “real world” a bit more than I had previously thought. There was not going to be some big break I could look for and I couldn’t coast living marginally. I’d need to get a job, sacrifice some of this kind of bohemian, anti-authoritarian delusion that I could survive without being ONE OF THEM. I would be forced to grow up, and that if I wasn’t careful, I’d become bitter, or worse, sad.
Also: getting dumped. These moments are about on par.
If you could score a film for anyone, who would it be and why:
I like Charlie Kaufman movies a lot, because they get at really harsh truths using completely absurd angles. I couldn’t possibly improve on the scores Jon Brion does for him, but if it were conceptually possible, I’d peel off Brion’s skin and wear it as my own just to have the opportunity.
Your favourite use of a song in a film:
Like a pop song? Can’t really think of any specific ones. It’s always struck me as a kind of shitty device… just like: let’s freeze time and play some song while a character saunters in slow motion to fill up the space. I always kind of liked how the TV show the Wire used music. People would just be listening to things on a car stereo and the song would be abruptly cut off when the character got out.
Are you most influenced by your surroundings or your inner monologue:
I don’t know if these things are separate, but I’d say my inner monologue. I’m trying to become more present in the world.
Fiction or nonfiction? Poetry or prose?
False choices!
Favourite venue to play in and why:
It’s never about the venue and always about the people. If the sound guy or the staff or the audience make you feel like a welcome guest, or even a human being, I can withstand all sorts of grubbiness in a club. Some of the best shows I’ve played have been in places where you’d be afraid to walk barefoot.
Dream venue to play in and why:
I’d like to play in Levon Helm’s barn in Woodstock, though I suspect the bands I play in aren’t folksie enough to cut the mustard.
Top album released this year:
I don’t like the idea of “top” albums and I haven’t really heard much… I really like: Metal Kites’ (School of Unlearning), Sandro Perri’s Impossible Spaces, T H O M A S (EP), Snailhouse’s Sentimental Gentleman, what I’ve heard of the new Bruce Peninsula and probably a whole butt load of others if I just got around to it. I honestly feel my favourite music is being made by people I know.
First band t-shirt you ever purchased from a merch table:
The green “Pavement Ist Rad” shirt with this weird yellow schematic on it. It didn’t look like much, but when I wore it around campus during my college days, it was an instant conversation starter among the type of people who scratch their knees a lot.
Band you’d leave your bandmates for:
I’d play in Nick Lowe’s band, either the classic set up or his newer classy studio-guy outfits.
Album you want to expose your kin to whilst in the womb:
Mahmound Ahmed’s Ethiopiques compilation. I think #5? Pretty spooky beautiful stuff. I’m a English-language rock and roll guy for the most part, but I’m fascinated by what other people in world have treated as pop music. Specifically that stuff, the sound, the band, and the kind of ramshackle techniques used to record it.
If for some reason you lost the ability to make and play music, what would fill that gap:
Stand up comedy. I have no idea if I’d be good at it, but I think I’d like the idea of performing and feedling off a live audience. I’d probably start off doing a kind of CBC Radio friendly stuff about what a bummer it is that white people are always confusing me with a terrorist. And I’d probably have to work on my Indian people accent. And I’d need a white guy name.
What was your last dream about:
I’ve recently had a lot of dreams about growing hair. I have this weird skin condition called alopecia where hair falls out and then sometimes grows back. It got really bad last year; I had to shave my head. Anyhow, a recurring dream involves we waking up one morning with a full head of hair, like the Homer Simpson episode where he uses the hair tonic. In the most recent dream, I run around telling people my hair has grown back, but people just kind of shrug their shoulders. Girls are all like “enh, I liked you better bald”. So I decide to just shave my head again. No one notices.
I think it’s about being true to yourself in the face of sympathetic indifference, but I can’t be sure.
