CanCon Temp Home

[Dr. Drum]

Well of course J. had been before but I'm the guy who always says he was born to walk on concrete and pavement. It really is idyllic. And so compact - we were in a cottage on the west end of the island but you can go practically anywhere and make it back in time for supper. Had a blast, so I'm sure we'll be back for another visit before long...

[riley]

I haven't been to PEI in years. Prior to that it seems like we were there every year (we have some relatives there). The people are super friendly albeit a bit cultish.

I'm actually leaving this afternoon for my very first trip to Doc Drum's home province. Unfortunately my first trip to Newfoundland is driven by a two day course in St. John's which will at most allow me to see a bit of the city over two nights.

The good news is the time restrictions should prevent me from finding too much mischief while I'm there. This of course is also the bad news.

[Dr. Drum]

St. John's is nice in September. Although watch and see if it doesn't rain for two days, now that I say that. You might find it a mite cool, though. I will never forget – years ago, mind – the Canada Day weekend we got on a plane with it 23° here and got off to 5° in Torbay. Pack a sweater.

So are they Screeching you guys in while you're there? You gotta get Screeched in!

[tuneschick]

I would love to see pictures of Riley kissing the cod. That'd be awesome.

Have a great time Riley, cod or no. Try to find at least a little mischief while you're there.


~

Hey Drum, I noticed you were listening to the new Emily Haines this weekend. Any thoughts? I've only heard 'Our Hell' (on Pitchfork) - pretty indicative of the whole thing?

[Dr. Drum]

It's pretty downcast, tunes... Largely piano-based, though there is a band. You can totally see Robert Wyatt or John Lennon as points of reference. Same kind of fraught/plaintive emotion and kind of a vaguely early 70s feel, even...

This comparison is completely arbitrary but I get the sense that this disc may elicit a little more involvement from me than Amy Millan's did... Not that I dislike Amy's any time I play it, but somehow I've never developed much of a connection to that record.

[riley]

I don't anticipate being Screeched in for this brief stop.

[Dr. Drum]

Just bought my "hard copy" of this tonight. Taking it out of me right now – in the most beautiful, melancholic way of course!

[tuneschick]

Glad to hear you're enjoying it, Drum. Strangely, I haven't been in any big rush to get this one yet. Partially a mood thing I guess. I need to hear some more of it first, since the first track on Pitchfork didn't do a whole lot for me.

And it's funny, your comparison to the Amy Millan album... you say you haven't developed much of a connection to it and I'm pretty sure Riley said he was disappointed with it. Yet it's somehow become my most-played album of 2006. I've had some not-so-easy moments this year and this seems to be the album I reach for every time I'm going through a rough spot. It seems to be the album that somehow both soothes my frazzled nerves and lets me take a bit of time to just sit and feel sad or introspective or hurt or thoughtful, as the case may be (and as ridiculous as I'm sure that sounds.)

Yet I still enjoy it just as much as a making-dinner-on-a-happy-sunny-Sunday-evening album, a having-a-glass-of-wine-outside-under-the-stars album and a driving-down-the-highway-with-the-windows-rolled-down album. And those are all important.

What can I say - love it. It hasn't lost its appeal for me even a little bit.

[Dr. Drum]

Not at all ridiculous, tunes.

You know, I really wanted to love Amy's disc, too, or at least like it a whole lot. I've put it aside for the time being and at some point, I will go back to it. Probably still susceptible to a potential change of heart. If it happened it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've changed my mind on a record...

Took a few listens but Knives has locked in totally now. Give me descending lines the likes of "Dr. Blind" and you've pretty well got me. She's put serious effort into these songs, particularly in the lyrics. Interior packaging is very nicely done, too. Well worth it if should you happen to come across it on sale somewhere this weekend, tunes, even if you're a bit so-so on it to start.

[riley]

I see Final Fantasy won the Polaris. Interesting and surprising choice, but probably most in line with the award's mandate, which is cool.

I don't love or hate He Poos Clouds at this point. Still trying to figure out what the fuck it all means.

[tuneschick]

I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I hated Final Fantasy at Hillside. I had heard great things so was expecting to fall in love but it just never happened, not even close. Might have been the festival's biggest disappointment for me.

[riley]

It shouldn't be embarrassing at all Tunes. There is nothing straight forward or immediate about Final Fantasy. I can totally see it not being everyone's cup of tea. Like I said, I'm not sold at this point either.

[Dr. Drum]

FF was a fitting inaugural winner of the Polaris Prize, I thought.

I'd have agree on the immediacy thing, of course. Pallett's stuff is definitely a slow burn. It's beautiful, but not necessarily in conventional or even very broad 'rock' terms. FWIW, I'd say Has a Good Home is a little easier to get into than the latest one, but they both take a bit of effort and he's definitely isn't going to be everyone's cup o' tea.

[Dr. Drum]

Owen Pallett? You'll hear about this guy

Bruce Demara
Toronto Star
25 September 2006

The music critics love him.

He's a darling of the indie music scene and his string arrangements have contributed to the acclaim of break-out bands like Arcade Fire.

He's even been profiled in The New York Times.

Yet to the average Canadian music lover, the name Owen Pallett – and his one-man band Final Fantasy – is almost certain to draw a blank stare.

Probably not, however, for much longer.

With his violin, a looping pedal (which plays back parts just performed so Pallett can play live over them, creating a mesmerizing blend), and his self-described "bad singing," Pallett has over the past two years found growing success as a solo artist.

His most recent acclaim came just this week, with the Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album of the year, for his second release, He Poos Clouds. Pallett was the underdog winner of the $20,000 award, chosen Monday night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre by 11 of the country's top music critics.

"So, Owen, how are you feeling?" an interviewer asks a few days later.

"Confused and disgusted," Pallett replies, with a self-conscious laugh. "My first thought was 'did (the judges) even listen to the record?' Because it's kind of crap," he says, noting he had bet on The New Pornographers' Twin Cinema to win. (Metric and Broken Social Scene were also among the nominees.)

The critics who award the Polaris prize beg to differ, citing the album's uniqueness and originality, and Pallett's craftsmanship as a composer, lyricist and musician.

"It's really distinctive what he's doing. Originality is one thing, but there's also a question of discipline and craftsmanship and clarity of purpose," says Rupert Bottenberg of the Montreal Mirror.

Aaron Brophy, of Chart Magazine, describes the album as "unique, different and exciting.''

"It's essentially a violinist doing pop songs that have this surface layer of really twisted Dungeons & Dragons metaphors, with a storyline that you have to really listen to ... over and over to try and figure out. It's kind of like a musical Rubik's Cube."

(Among the album's eight tracks is "This Lamb Sells Condos," a cheeky swipe at local condominium kingpin Brad Lamb, which has been nominated for the Echo Songwriting Prize, sponsored by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. The $5,000 prize will be awarded next month.)

James Keast, Exclaim! magazine's editor-in-chief, says the album rewards repeat listeners. "You can put it on and let it go, and it's pleasant and easy. ... But if you want to spend more time with it, there are layers and layers underneath it that make it that much more compelling on the 20th listen than it was the second listen, which is really rare in the realm of popular music," he says.

Adds Jill Wilson of the Winnipeg Free Press: "Today's music is so single-oriented and this album is so not that. It's so much a whole." And, contrary to Pallett's self-deprecating opinion, Wilson says the singer, whom she's seen live, has "a lovely voice. ... There's kind of a frailty about it that I like a lot."

His band name, Final Fantasy, refers to a hugely successful Japanese video game series. The album and its title track, "He Poos Clouds," is another witty, scatological reference to Dungeons & Dragons. Pallett, whose older brother designs video games, is an avid gamer.

Fellow musician and long-time friend Steve Kado carries the "game" analogy beyond lyrics to performance. "Owen does work all this stuff in advance on paper, sort of like a Sudoku problem. (His music) has got very interesting problem-solving in it. Even just watching the technical virtuosity of a Final Fantasy performance is quite striking."

Pallett has pledged most of his prize money to the Blocks Recording Club, an artist-owned co-operative he co-founded with Kado, after he pays a student loan for his partner Patrick Borjal, who is with him on tour.

Kado calls the gift "very typical of Owen. He does try very hard to do the right thing, and do what's right for his friends and the community he's part of."

Raised in Milton, Ont., Pallett has been playing the violin since he was 3, following in the footsteps of an older brother who plays the cello. His earliest musical influences were classical composers like Soviet-era Dmitri Shostakovich.

"People (in high school) must have thought I was kind of a freak because they were all into Def Leppard and INXS, and I was listening to (Hungarian composer) Béla Bartók," he says, on the phone from Vancouver, where he's three-quarters through an eight-month tour of Canada and Europe.

Pallett, who also plays piano and guitar, was somewhat of a prodigy: He composed the music for one of his brother's video games when he was 12, wrote an opera in high school while playing in numerous bands, and studied composition at Uof T.

He recalls moving to a big city as an awkward transition, and says "I'm still lacking certain elements of tact. It's like 'ohmigod, I've really got to figure out how to talk to people.'"

"He was playing a lot of Celtic music at the time, very involved in certain parts of the Toronto folk community, listening to too much Björk and Tori Amos," Kado says, adding conspiratorially: "He doesn't want that spread around."

Pallett played with a number of bands, including the Hidden Cameras, and formed a band of his own called Les Mouches, which later dissolved. At a fundraiser for musician Bobby Birdman in May 2004 at Sneaky Dee's, Pallett – just a week after starting to use a borrowed looping pedal – played his first Final Fantasy gig to unanimous acclaim. His first album, Has a Good Home, stirred up attention both locally and in places as far-flung as France and Germany.

Despite the recognition his album has received, Pallett is determined not to follow the conventional path to stardom.

For example, he won't be stepping forward any time soon as a gay icon, saying he finds the "politicizing" of his sexual orientation "boring."

And while his music has a "definite anti-establishment sort of vibe," he doesn't mix drugs and music. "I'm totally scared to see some of the cocaine use that goes on in Toronto these days. ... I try not to preach about it. I will drink all night with you, but I'm not really into the stupid drugs."

Finally, Pallett insists that he will stay independent of the big record labels, preferring the "DIY (do-it-yourself)" route. "I really like the feeling of having a kind of personal accountability for the art being produced."

He's vague about his next project, other than to say it might be "a fantasy epic romance."

He also confesses that the tour he began in April with Bob Wiseman (formerly of Blue Rodeo) and the Phonemes is getting a bit wearing. While "playing for people ... is really wonderful," he says, "I kind of just want to go home."

Undoubtedly his fans will welcome him back. But without a major-label recording contract, does Pallett risk sacrificing commercial success?

The critics chime in again.

"I'd argue his music is too obtuse, too complicated, too different to ever truly be a mass-consumption type of record," says Charts Brophy.

"My suspicion is he's the kind of artist who could find a very broad audience around the world, but it'll be the sort of audience that will be a very limited, very devoted group of people," adds Mirror's Bottenberg.

The last word goes to James Keast of Exclaim!

"There is an accessibility to what (Pallett) does that really crosses a lot of genre boundaries in terms of his appeal.

"But if (success) doesn't happen, it's because Owen doesn't want it to happen. I really think that he's unwilling to put himself in the situation that getting that big would require," he says.

"That said, he's an artist I fully expect to be hearing in 20 years and I don't say that about many."

[Ryosuke]

Does the winner of the Polaris Prize get free tickets to see Polaris? If so, then I want to enter. Where can I download an entry form?

I'd need more than free tickets though. They'd have to somehow find a way to convince my boss to let me have a day off on Friday, November 10 so I can see them at the Shibuya AX (I have already been told no ).

Fuck it, I'll pay for the tickets myself, just let me have the day off.