Stop #1 : The Roxy for Forty Foot Echo.








Oh God. This is one of those days I wonder why I came out early. I could be home reading or cleaning my ears or something. And it’s raining. Am I really guilty of quantity over quality this year? I think I may be, but there’s not a lot of choice at NMW this year, the festival being somewhat truncated in its upstart year. Yes, NMW took a hiatus last year, so this festival somehow is a mere 200-ish bands. And my dashing legs aren’t what they used to be. How did I manage to catch 74 bands in 2004?  But hey I guess I can’t pour accolades over everything I see this week. And I’m getting the full spectrum and still seeing the goods, so it’s okay. But man… bad, scattered new rock from Forty Foot Echo. Okay, so the sound (see Nickelback etc. - a reference that will come up again over the week) is popular even though it’s not my thing, but I can recognize what’s good about the genre, and this isn’t it. These guys don’t even have the suburban hard modern rock stylings, that flash-and-dazzle, that manly superman charisma and peculiar run-of-the-mill catchiness that (dammit, I’m gonna say it, and I’m gonna hate myself for it) Nickelback + friends have. Drivel! There’s no stage presence at all, and it barely even looks like a band. It’s a bunch of random jocks and metalheads and someone’s dad thrown in, the only guy who moves is the singer, and he moves badly. Too much lame deliberate and awkward rock posturing. Is that Eric Lindros playing bass? And did he shrink? Well this was a painful and disappointing start to the night - it’s a new incarnation of the band, and it looks really hacked together and under-practiced. Maybe they could get there if they worked really hard but they need a serious makeover and some rock jock lessons. There were a lot of guitar strap problems too. Bring back Crispin, at least he could sing like a mofo!

Stop #2 : The Cellar.
Nothing’s happening here yet, even though it’s supposed to be. There’s nearly no one here aside from the bartenders and some people sitting by the merch. I heard something about “20 minutes to go” while I was dashing out the door to find something that was running on time. Was the first act a no-show here?

Stop #3 : back to the Roxy for Art Of Dying.

I ran into one of the guys in this band (well, two of them, but I haven’t seen them play in such a long time I wasn’t aware that the other guy was part of this band now) while I was registering for the festival and he told me to come check out his set. So I did. I hadn’t, as I said, seen them in ages. When I got back to the room, they were still setting up but they were pretty much on time. I was surprised to see that two of the people I’m used to being in this band were no longer there. Has everything changed in the last two years? Well this band used to be called Sunlike Star, and they were amazing. I was very into Sunlike Star. The singer had an astounding voice, and the songs were edgy. But somewhere along the line, they switched modes to an angry heavy rock band. Jonny David Hetherington swapped his trendy good looks for an undercut and some baggy cargo pants, but he maintained his great voice and his good onstage personality. So even though I’m not a big fan of the direction they went in musically, I can still see how they are a great draw. I mean, he’s really good on stage. Maybe a bit contrived at times, with his sappy diatribes about the meaning of the band name (“It’s about not fucking…well, it is about fucking, but it’s about not giving in to every day bullshit…”). An observant friend of mine noted one day that there was a furniture store called “Art Of Living” across the street from the shop Hetherington used to work in, so we wonder if that was also an inspiration for the name change. Anyways, sonically, they have totally old school finger-eleven-ified themselves. And someone’s sure a fan of f11’s James Black. The bass player sported a bleached blond fauxhawk and moved about mechanically much like creepy mister Black is well known for. Now I kind of like finger eleven, even still, so I don’t have a big problem with Art of Dying, aside from how much cooler they were before. But I guess that’s mere opinion. They certainly have a host of fans these days.

I still can’t get over the voice though. When I try to tune out and peel off all the other sounds going on, that voice is still so pure and sharp. And at least these guys have oomph on stage! They’re actually pretty good to watch. That bass player’s moves are pretty neat. They actually look and sound like a band that could do some serious damage to the music scene. They should have some solid chances. To begin the set, I delighted to hear someone on stage call “Joe Party to the stage please, Joe Party to the stage.” I haven’t seen the enigmatic Joe Party in ages, but memories of sofas on the front lawn of the old Greenhouse Studios for a summer solstice party filled with bottles of warm mystery alcohol while being both molested and entertained at the same time by Joe Party came flooding back. How can he be so charming and so dismissive and such a sleaze at the same time? Weird. He had three girls draped over him on this couch, made no apologies for openly grabbing boobs or spilling booze all over, and we all swooned for it. Some people just have it. On this night he was there for the role of beer runner, showing up shortly after his call to the stage with a round of beer bottles.

Before one tune, Hetherington stooped down at the edge of the stage urging people to come closer. He stated they were going to do a slow one so everyone should come on up and get cozy. Smiling the whole time, no wonder he can command a room. So a couple people came up, with whom he carried on a small happy conversation with, before the band launched into a tune that was faster and harder than anything they’d done so far! Oh those jokesters! They had us all fooled. Hetherington does/did have a gorgeous acoustic project once upon a time called Hethro, so it wouldn’t have been unwarranted to throw something like that in here. Anyhow, even if no one seemed to care much, he’s still awesome at the onstage banter, coaxing people to come up and chiding them when he announced the weekend’s starting now and no one cheered. One thing though - can anyone make sense of the Cheap Trick patch pinned to his shirt? Wacky!

Stop #4 : Adrenaline.
Still nothing at the Cellar. I’m bored. So I went to Adrenaline and got another helix piercing. Yeah I’m so badass.

Stop #5 : The Roxy for White Noise.

Again, why am I here? Dude, stop posturing for the camera, no one likes it when you do that and you look like a total douche. Very few people can pull that off and you’re not one of them. I have to leave, this is rough. The ladies in leather underwear dancing seductively with each other as though a lesbian cougar striptease might break out any second at the front of the audience, but still nowhere near the stage, can do all the enjoying on my behalf.

Stop #6 : Not really a stop at all.
It’s still silent at the Cellar and the door guy at the Roxy I think is already sick of me.

Stop #7 : The Buffalo Club for Jenny Galt.
***BIG IMPORTANT NEWS!*** Jenny can currently be spotted on the new reality making-the-band type show Rockstar:Supernova!Holy crap this is awesome. Go check it out and get our local girl into a massive world-dominating supergroup!

The show here is a smidge late, but it doesn’t matter because the rest of Vancouver seems to have ignored timetables altogether. The room is criminally empty - it’s not even that early anymore. But it is a Wednesday. I think Bruce Willis is here though. But wow, once it gets going - what a sweet set of pipes on a beautiful girl! Something good just in the nick of time before I take a running leap off the nearby Granville Bridge in desperation over what blah music I’ve encountered tonight. I already knew about the wonderful voice from Galt’s days in Cherry Bomb. That was a trio of girls who played frequently (residency at the Backstage Lounge) but I only managed to actually see them a few times. They had a few songs though that I continually played at home. Galt on her own is a nifty blend of singer-songwriter contemplativeness and sizzling sexy, yet not overbearing, rock. Her lithe frame hefts her guitar around while she openly sings away. No shyness at all. A few songs in, she swaps the electric guitar for an acoustic and as she slings it over her shoulder, she explains that she used to be fully acoustic and just picked up and electric a few years ago, but she’s finally made the transition to liking electric better. Yet, “…acoustic still has its moments that are really great and wonderful - and hopefully this is one of them!” She laughs. Truly an enjoyable and gorgeous set from a truly talented girl.

Stop #8 : The Cellar for Politic Live.

On the way back down the street, I pop back down to the Cellar where, hooray!.. Something is finally happening! Considering I have no clue what went on with the scheduling, I can only assume this act I’m watching is Politic Live. And again, I’m not much of a hip hop fan, but this was good! Crazy fun to watch these two guys trounce about the empty floor throwing arms in the air and playing things up at each other. Very entertaining and lively. They mentioned between songs that one of the bands cancelled, and that they themselves traveled 16 hours to get here. I can’t help but think this would really kick ass in a bigger, better-sounding room somewhere, where the loops they rapped overtop of could really soar higher.

Stop #9: Richards for Diaboleros and The Stills.

After this, I became disenfranchised with all the crappy scheduling, and so retired to Richard’s for the time being. I figure I will probably end up staying here the rest of the evening. There’s not much else I truly care to see around town at this point. Do I feel bad about missing a ton of sets? Sort of, but I know a lot of them I won’t like anyhow, and the ones I don’t know I’ll just have to keep tabs on for the future. Could be a good thing for discoveries! I now have a growing list of bands to see down the line, sort of my NMW rollover. Besides, I have obligations tonight. Like drinking and handing around media passes.

The Diaboleros are fun, a little bit like a quicker Another Blue Door. But… they aren’t completely blowing my mind. I hope Counting Heartbeats isn’t a band I’m going to kick myself for missing because at this point I’ve hunkered down too much to leave to walk wayyy over to the Media Club where Counting Heartbeats is playing, but I’m also not being thrilled by the Diaboleros (note : after listening to Counting Heartbeats on Myspace, they come across as a band I want to like more than I think I actually do. Hurrah - I saved myself an energy-sapping walk and had an equal musical experience). These guys are yet another band though who were shocked by the greeness of our springtime, being from the east. The drive in as things got “greener and greener” was a lovely experience for these chaps. Oddly, a song the Diaboleros claim to have written seven years ago strikes me as the strongest of the set. It’s got a very modern keyboard-rock feel to it, so I don’t know if they reformatted it slightly to modernize it, or if they were really ahead of the times, but it’s a really good song anyhow.

Stop #10 : On to the Stills at Richards then.

The room was weirdly not packed. The last time I saw them play here (Cord’s first interview!) they were at the Commodore, but then again, they were on a bill with artsy fartsy darlings Broken Social Scene, so it’s no wonder the room was jam-packed at that time. The Stills come across as soft and gentle and competent, no matter what tempo they are playing at. It’s a clever, intelligent band - no quirks or gimmicks or anything of the sort. They’re just plain solid. They are, after all, cooler-than-you art students from Montreal. Nothing went wrong in the set; it was absolutely aces. Is that boring? Apparently not. A solid band is a solid band. If you’re good enough, you don’t need to flaunt anything else. They’re dressed casually, they’re pleasant but not overly-witty between songs, they don’t wreck the stage after the show or have a 4-part kazoo harmony or anything. Just rock music, and a surprising lot of it from their debut major album. The audience definitely is enjoying it. As am I!

Day 2 Band Count : 7

On To Day 3!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : May, 2006.