06-30-2004, 02:31 PM
Incase anyone didn't catch it in the paper yesterday...
Any size fits Tragically Hip
Band flips from arenas to clubs large and small
New album taps into roughshod charms of old
BEN RAYNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
BATH, ONT.—The atmosphere at the Tragically Hip's invitingly lived-in studio, a cottage-y old farmhouse on the Lake Ontario shore just outside Kingston, is so relaxed and aimless that one wonders how the band has managed to get any work done there over the years.
The level of comfort at the Bathhouse, as the space is known, is in fact enough of a drag on the creative process that the Hip has taken to moving afield to workshop and record songs for a new album. It's certainly a great place to come back to, though, so it's not surprising that longtime friends and partners-in-rock Gord Downie, Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair — minus drummer Johnny Fay and guitarist Bobby Baker — have picked the spot as the pleasant locale for a day of yakking with the Canadian press about their latest recorded offering, In Between Evolution.
The album is the finest and fiercest rock 'n' roll missive the Tragically Hip has issued since, perhaps, 1993's roiling Fully Completely — the disc that In Between Evolution's gruff mix of brains and brawn most closely mirrors. It also stands as testament to the rewards of shaking off the routine that can set in as a successful band enters middle age.
How the Hip rekindled the raggedy-assed spark that seemed too tightly constrained and sanitized on its last two, somewhat disconsolately received albums, Music@Work and In Violet Light, might seem a rather obvious move to admirers, mind you: It bashed the songs into shape onstage and then recorded them quickly and with a minimum of fuss in mostly live-off-the-floor takes. Which is, one is tempted to point out, what a band whose live performances are held in such near-religious renown, should be doing way more often.
"When you're young, that's all you do," Downie dryly comments. "In the middle part, you get more into taking your time."
Credit for some of In Between Evolution's roughshod charms goes to producer Adam Kasper, who has coaxed similarly vibrant performances from folks like the Weakerthans and Queens of the Stone Age in recent years. But the album's feel and thrust — "Just great songs to be performed," says Sinclair — really developed during a run of jam sessions and low-key club gigs in Whistler, B.C. (two benefits for the families of the Rutherford flood victims among them) leading up to the final recording sessions in Seattle early this year.
It's not like the Hip, who have always maintained a strong working-musician's ethic, have neglected the stage over the years. Downie alone — who dropped a pair of solo albums, 2001's Coke Machine Glow and last year's underrated Battle Of The Nudes, during downtime from the group — points out that "I'm on my fifth album in five years" and he has been hitting the road accordingly. Nevertheless, something evidently clicked back into place for the Hip during the run-up to the new album.
"It's still fun, which is the main thing," says Langlois. "It's pretty rewarding and it's a lot of work. I think that's where we really work the hardest, when we get together and stay motivated to improve the songs and weed out the ones that aren't making it and filter all these decisions as a five-piece."
In Between Evolution's release is being heralded this week by a pair of Toronto gigs, an up-close-and-personal club show last night at the Mod Club Theatre and another, more typically scaled performance at the Molson Amphitheatre on Canada Day.
The move from clubs to larger venues and back is, by now, old hat for the Hip, which is still in the odd position of a being a band whose audience sizes fluctuate wildly depending on where it lands. The disparity between the group's multi-platinum success at home and its cult status in the States — Rounder Records will handle the new disc south of the border, as it did In Violet Light — is standard Hip lore. The lads find themselves playing shows "small, large and in between" on a city-by-city basis in the U.S.
"We've got a good thing going in all the cities down there, and a very particular history in each one of them of how it's gone and what kind of club we're at," says Langlois.
Touring the States "takes a lot more time — there's a lot more cities. So the norm for us becomes a varied existence of (shifting nightly) from small clubs to big clubs to theatres. And then we come up to Canada and we're in the arena. Years ago, that's where the big adjustment was. But we've managed to get comfortable in any kind of venue."
"I think we have a really unique sort of career, a unique ability to do that," says Sinclair. "It kind of guided the way we wrote this last record. A little bit of this, a little bit of that ... It's actually more difficult to step up in front of 450 people, I find. To me, that's the real challenge. It's a lot harder making them stay than getting them in the door."
"We're punctual," quips Downie. "Pay us or don't. That's what we do."
Any size fits Tragically Hip
Band flips from arenas to clubs large and small
New album taps into roughshod charms of old
BEN RAYNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
BATH, ONT.—The atmosphere at the Tragically Hip's invitingly lived-in studio, a cottage-y old farmhouse on the Lake Ontario shore just outside Kingston, is so relaxed and aimless that one wonders how the band has managed to get any work done there over the years.
The level of comfort at the Bathhouse, as the space is known, is in fact enough of a drag on the creative process that the Hip has taken to moving afield to workshop and record songs for a new album. It's certainly a great place to come back to, though, so it's not surprising that longtime friends and partners-in-rock Gord Downie, Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair — minus drummer Johnny Fay and guitarist Bobby Baker — have picked the spot as the pleasant locale for a day of yakking with the Canadian press about their latest recorded offering, In Between Evolution.
The album is the finest and fiercest rock 'n' roll missive the Tragically Hip has issued since, perhaps, 1993's roiling Fully Completely — the disc that In Between Evolution's gruff mix of brains and brawn most closely mirrors. It also stands as testament to the rewards of shaking off the routine that can set in as a successful band enters middle age.
How the Hip rekindled the raggedy-assed spark that seemed too tightly constrained and sanitized on its last two, somewhat disconsolately received albums, Music@Work and In Violet Light, might seem a rather obvious move to admirers, mind you: It bashed the songs into shape onstage and then recorded them quickly and with a minimum of fuss in mostly live-off-the-floor takes. Which is, one is tempted to point out, what a band whose live performances are held in such near-religious renown, should be doing way more often.
"When you're young, that's all you do," Downie dryly comments. "In the middle part, you get more into taking your time."
Credit for some of In Between Evolution's roughshod charms goes to producer Adam Kasper, who has coaxed similarly vibrant performances from folks like the Weakerthans and Queens of the Stone Age in recent years. But the album's feel and thrust — "Just great songs to be performed," says Sinclair — really developed during a run of jam sessions and low-key club gigs in Whistler, B.C. (two benefits for the families of the Rutherford flood victims among them) leading up to the final recording sessions in Seattle early this year.
It's not like the Hip, who have always maintained a strong working-musician's ethic, have neglected the stage over the years. Downie alone — who dropped a pair of solo albums, 2001's Coke Machine Glow and last year's underrated Battle Of The Nudes, during downtime from the group — points out that "I'm on my fifth album in five years" and he has been hitting the road accordingly. Nevertheless, something evidently clicked back into place for the Hip during the run-up to the new album.
"It's still fun, which is the main thing," says Langlois. "It's pretty rewarding and it's a lot of work. I think that's where we really work the hardest, when we get together and stay motivated to improve the songs and weed out the ones that aren't making it and filter all these decisions as a five-piece."
In Between Evolution's release is being heralded this week by a pair of Toronto gigs, an up-close-and-personal club show last night at the Mod Club Theatre and another, more typically scaled performance at the Molson Amphitheatre on Canada Day.
The move from clubs to larger venues and back is, by now, old hat for the Hip, which is still in the odd position of a being a band whose audience sizes fluctuate wildly depending on where it lands. The disparity between the group's multi-platinum success at home and its cult status in the States — Rounder Records will handle the new disc south of the border, as it did In Violet Light — is standard Hip lore. The lads find themselves playing shows "small, large and in between" on a city-by-city basis in the U.S.
"We've got a good thing going in all the cities down there, and a very particular history in each one of them of how it's gone and what kind of club we're at," says Langlois.
Touring the States "takes a lot more time — there's a lot more cities. So the norm for us becomes a varied existence of (shifting nightly) from small clubs to big clubs to theatres. And then we come up to Canada and we're in the arena. Years ago, that's where the big adjustment was. But we've managed to get comfortable in any kind of venue."
"I think we have a really unique sort of career, a unique ability to do that," says Sinclair. "It kind of guided the way we wrote this last record. A little bit of this, a little bit of that ... It's actually more difficult to step up in front of 450 people, I find. To me, that's the real challenge. It's a lot harder making them stay than getting them in the door."
"We're punctual," quips Downie. "Pay us or don't. That's what we do."