Danielle St-Amour requested I make a playlist for her in preparation for our AGO Art in the Spotlight talk. I accompanied the playlist with some liner notes to describe my band New Fries and some of our interests around music and collaboration. And more generally about the experience of playing music as a non-musician and the community that bred this approach.
20 Jazz Funk Greats - Throbbing Gristle
When I think of a band that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of what New Fries was trying to do as a band, I think of Throbbing Gristle as the model. Their attitude wasn't so much an earnest desire to make music, as it was a mischievous barge into a world. I identify with this mischief! However novice, TG's sensibilities came through in their music--they understood space, rhythm and tone with songwriting which demonstrated how it's possible for the novice to make music if they are deep listeners curious about sound. They are also a wonderful case of a band that could have only existed with these specific humans and at the specific musical location they all found themselves at (oof, magic). I need another paragraph for Genesis Breyer P-Orridge but there are many songs so I'll try to keep this brief :)
Sports Spootnicks - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
I really looked to Lizzy when I approached writing lyrics and imbuing a vocal style onto the band's songs. She doesn't say much, her lyrics are opaque, but when you hear her vocals on any song they are always undeniably hers—all style, all personality. The records that came out of the recording sessions at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas during this time (Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, B52s, Lizzy) are all so inspiring to me—music that combines dance music/rhythms with experimental structures and textures and strong vocal personalities (my favorite music).
It Fit When I was a Kid - Liars
This band came up a lot for New Fries over the years. We never had much of a musical language (scales/notation, notes and chords, writing songs in a particular key, etc.) so we spoke more generally about elements—repetition, space (silent pauses), dynamics, (loud and quiet, fast and slow). It was like the music was written more visually than sonically: shapes, colors, textures, positive/negative space, etc. Liars seem to make music with these elements in mind as well.
Blonde Redhead - DNA
DNA and all the other No Wave bands from the New York downtown scene in the late 70s/80s were absolutely my introduction to deconstructed nihilist music. More than straight-ahead punk or riot grrrl, this was the version of DIY music that made sense to me musically. The atonality made something in my mind click. Hearing this music was an invitation to play music. I especially responded to how instruments were played in ways not intended that centered intuition over skill. I am also forever inspired by the spirit of this time when artists were moving hungrily from filmmaking to music to visual art and around again. This spirit of play and 'dropping in' to catch an essence or to learn new code is exactly what keeps me going in my practice, however clumsy or full of failure.
Dance this Mess Around - B52s
There is a live SNL performance of this song that my bandmates and I watched in the first months of us getting together to make music. I know I cried when I watched the video, I'm pretty sure the others cried too. The camp, the palpable queerness, the absurdity (the absurdity!), the simple but electric arrangement, the sass and the fun were all lessons. We felt alive watching them and we wanted to make music that was equally alive and free.
Sick - Palberta
One of the things I have been most floored by being in a band (especially one that sounds like ours) is how easily music moves and reaches people, and largely outside of institutions. These aesthetic values (and to some degree associated political values) have been a vehicle to connect with people all over and develop unique music kinships (I like the term ‘sister band’). Music and band culture operates within an economy of generosity. This is a band we connected with from elsewhere who helped us tour the US and who we similarly host when they come to Toronto.
Temperature's Rising - Mobb Deep
This may be my favorite hip hop record of all time. Many of the musical elements that were important to New Fries are mastered by hip hop musicians (repetition, dynamics, vocal personality). I sometimes wonder about how a lifetime of listening to hip hop readied me to drop in on music making. This record is truly an education.
Ice Cream - Royal Trux
I just love this song and this band. If I were to ever start another band I'd want it to sound like this--sludge and zig zags.
Kirkobain - Old & Weird
If Palberta were our US sister band, Old and Weird were our Halifax sister band. We made a 7" record together called 'Juice'. They are fellow music trespassers and we played many shows together over the years.
French Disko - Stereolab
I forever hold the ideal that a song can be a container for protest while simultaneously changing my mind about music AND making me dance.
Body's In Trouble - Mary Margaret O'Hara
I have a deep (belly-deep) love and curiosity for voices with shape—voices that flip and stretch and point straight to the absurdity of language, how it's inadequate, and how it's musical. MMO, Elis Regina, Missy Elliot, Yoko Ono, The Roches, Liz Fraser, Rah Digga, Gal Costa....
Dirty Blue Gene - Captain Beefheart
No better place to finish than with this guitar freak maestro. Though this song to me is an absolute masterpiece of angular guitars and strange timing, what I really want to talk about is attack!. New Fries was by no means the most aggressive band, but we certainly played with attack and it made for a physicality in our performances. Not full-blown aggression... attack! And having space to attack literally changed my life.
