06-24-2004, 09:13 AM
First thing I have to say is, why does this article writer think the new albm is formulaic??? Have they even listened to it? It's the most oddball rock album I've heard in years! Oh, and to the band I have to say you're goddamn right you should have played larger venues!! :rambo: Anyway, here's the article...
Inimitable Hip
Band sticks to a winning formula on new album
By MIKE ROSS
Edmonton Sun
As somebody somewhere once said, if it is not broken, it does not require repairs, eh? Perhaps that somebody was Canadian.
So it should come as no surprise that there are few surprises on In Between Evolution, the new album from the Tragically Hip. It contains odd and cryptic lyrics. It seethes with a trademark two-guitar counterpoint Canadians ought to know like Arctic high-pressure systems in January. It is full of such head-scratching titles as Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park. It rocks in the Hip's inimitable fashion. In short, it's the new Hip album.
The real miracle, say the band members, is that like all Hip albums, In Between Evolution is a "collective songwriting experience" between five individuals, a rare thing indeed. This chemistry has remained more or less intact for 21 years.
In Between Evolution arrives in stores June 29, with a handful of local fans treated to hear the whole thing - live - during a sold-out concert at the New City Likwid Lounge last night. And what about all those poor fans who didn't get into this very special intimate and non-interactive gig?
"Well, we're coming back ... November, I think," says a groggy Gord Downie during a sit-down interview over coffee yesterday morning, though he ends up doing most of the talking. The singer is flanked by lead guitarist Bobby Baker. Downie hangs his head at the thought of all those thousands of disappointed fans and deadpans, "Yeah, in hindsight, maybe we should've done a bigger place."
OK, so the giant-rock-band-doing-small-rock-bar-schtick isn't a grand pretension of Rolling Stones-ian proportions. These guys do club shows whenever they can. Bar shows are good for the band and obviously good for the lucky fans who may well count last night's gig as an experience of a lifetime.
And besides, "This is how the record started," Downie says. After the songs were born, wriggling and pink, they were reared to adulthood or at least late adolescence in a small bar in Whistler, B.C., during the off season, the Hip performing under the nom de plume the Fighter Fighters.
So, doing more club shows to launch this album - Edmonton is the first of four across Canada - makes perfect sense.
"I think we feel like these clubs will help galvanize these songs," Downie says.
"Really, the songs are muscular and cool, so it was more of an artistic choice to do the Likwid Lounge, but sitting here this morning on the day of the show, it feels like my wedding night."
Could it be that the band was more nervous at the prospect of playing for 500 people than for 15,000?
He continues, "Nervous? Is that the word? There's a lot of emotions. The game is coming and nothing's going to stop it."
Baker adds, "Performing songs for us is like the consummation of the whole process. It's a long courtship to get to this point. And now we're going to make the connection."
Live shows have always been the most important part of the Tragically Hip, their albums in a sense just promissory notes that they'll deliver a killer concert when the time comes. They largely have for 21 years and counting.
Instead of their own digs in Kingston, the band chose to record In Between Evolution in Seattle - "Because all the cafes in Amsterdam were booked up," Downie jokes.
In doing so, however, the musicians were subject to the noxious gas of American media - a "smokescreen" Baker says, of Kobe-O.J.-you-name-it scandals to keep the public in a state of perpetual dread and ignorance. It definitely had an effect on the lyrical content of In Between Evolution, Downie says. He asks: How can world affairs not intrude on his lyrics?
Even so, some of the record reads like a travelogue: that polar bear in New York's Central Park, One Night in Copenhagen, If New Orleans is Beat - a lament, Downie says, that his favourite coffee shop in the Big Easy closed down - and the poignant It Can't Be Nashville Every Night. That one, Downie says, came from having two days off in Music City, U.S.A. and no gig.
"That was really depressing," he says. "The history in Nashville is electrifying. You can feel it. It's a short history, but it's a powerful one, country and western, rock 'n' roll. It's quite noble if you're a songwriter and you're there. Hey, I didn't write D-I-V-O-R-C-E, but I've written a couple of songs. It's so cold after dark if you don't have a show. It's existential. I felt set adrift. You're neither home, nor working, so what are you?"
You're someone who lives for music, that's who. As yesterday's Hip circus in downtown Edmonton proved, he's not alone.
Inimitable Hip
Band sticks to a winning formula on new album
By MIKE ROSS
Edmonton Sun
As somebody somewhere once said, if it is not broken, it does not require repairs, eh? Perhaps that somebody was Canadian.
So it should come as no surprise that there are few surprises on In Between Evolution, the new album from the Tragically Hip. It contains odd and cryptic lyrics. It seethes with a trademark two-guitar counterpoint Canadians ought to know like Arctic high-pressure systems in January. It is full of such head-scratching titles as Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park. It rocks in the Hip's inimitable fashion. In short, it's the new Hip album.
The real miracle, say the band members, is that like all Hip albums, In Between Evolution is a "collective songwriting experience" between five individuals, a rare thing indeed. This chemistry has remained more or less intact for 21 years.
In Between Evolution arrives in stores June 29, with a handful of local fans treated to hear the whole thing - live - during a sold-out concert at the New City Likwid Lounge last night. And what about all those poor fans who didn't get into this very special intimate and non-interactive gig?
"Well, we're coming back ... November, I think," says a groggy Gord Downie during a sit-down interview over coffee yesterday morning, though he ends up doing most of the talking. The singer is flanked by lead guitarist Bobby Baker. Downie hangs his head at the thought of all those thousands of disappointed fans and deadpans, "Yeah, in hindsight, maybe we should've done a bigger place."
OK, so the giant-rock-band-doing-small-rock-bar-schtick isn't a grand pretension of Rolling Stones-ian proportions. These guys do club shows whenever they can. Bar shows are good for the band and obviously good for the lucky fans who may well count last night's gig as an experience of a lifetime.
And besides, "This is how the record started," Downie says. After the songs were born, wriggling and pink, they were reared to adulthood or at least late adolescence in a small bar in Whistler, B.C., during the off season, the Hip performing under the nom de plume the Fighter Fighters.
So, doing more club shows to launch this album - Edmonton is the first of four across Canada - makes perfect sense.
"I think we feel like these clubs will help galvanize these songs," Downie says.
"Really, the songs are muscular and cool, so it was more of an artistic choice to do the Likwid Lounge, but sitting here this morning on the day of the show, it feels like my wedding night."
Could it be that the band was more nervous at the prospect of playing for 500 people than for 15,000?
He continues, "Nervous? Is that the word? There's a lot of emotions. The game is coming and nothing's going to stop it."
Baker adds, "Performing songs for us is like the consummation of the whole process. It's a long courtship to get to this point. And now we're going to make the connection."
Live shows have always been the most important part of the Tragically Hip, their albums in a sense just promissory notes that they'll deliver a killer concert when the time comes. They largely have for 21 years and counting.
Instead of their own digs in Kingston, the band chose to record In Between Evolution in Seattle - "Because all the cafes in Amsterdam were booked up," Downie jokes.
In doing so, however, the musicians were subject to the noxious gas of American media - a "smokescreen" Baker says, of Kobe-O.J.-you-name-it scandals to keep the public in a state of perpetual dread and ignorance. It definitely had an effect on the lyrical content of In Between Evolution, Downie says. He asks: How can world affairs not intrude on his lyrics?
Even so, some of the record reads like a travelogue: that polar bear in New York's Central Park, One Night in Copenhagen, If New Orleans is Beat - a lament, Downie says, that his favourite coffee shop in the Big Easy closed down - and the poignant It Can't Be Nashville Every Night. That one, Downie says, came from having two days off in Music City, U.S.A. and no gig.
"That was really depressing," he says. "The history in Nashville is electrifying. You can feel it. It's a short history, but it's a powerful one, country and western, rock 'n' roll. It's quite noble if you're a songwriter and you're there. Hey, I didn't write D-I-V-O-R-C-E, but I've written a couple of songs. It's so cold after dark if you don't have a show. It's existential. I felt set adrift. You're neither home, nor working, so what are you?"
You're someone who lives for music, that's who. As yesterday's Hip circus in downtown Edmonton proved, he's not alone.