Many thanks to those who came out this past Tuesday and Wednesday to see the shows at the Rainbow and Le Petit Chicago with our good friends Remotely Controlled and You Yourself & I. Much fun was had on stage and off; those guys are all class acts in every sense and we enjoyed having them (six bodies in total) crash on our couches/futons.

We were (pleasantly) shocked at being asked to encore both nights; we can now boast three such events at our shows so far. At LPC, the very kind fellow who demanded more was also throwing us a lot of devil horn salutes, which continue to warm our hearts.

So, we're thinking it will soon be time to take this thing out of Ottawa, where audiences perhaps can't properly digest heavy mellow.

Excelsior!

TCA

Here's some stuff we did.....

Aug 23 2008, - Mavericks i(heart)music fest 2008 w/ Handsome Furs,The D'Urbervilles & Black Hat Brigade  

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   May 21, 2008 - Cafe Dekcuf 

w/ Zing Zing and Bass Lions 

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Mar 26, 2008 9:00 PM - Babylon 

w/ The City Streets and The Little Bees 

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   Feb 4, 2008 - Maverick's   

221 Rideau

w/ The Golden Hands Before God...and The John Punch Band 

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   Dec 13, 2007 8:00 PM - Zaphod Beeblebrox  

Description:with Acres 

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   Aug 22, 2007 - Irene's 

Description:w/ Jake Jasmine (Vancouver) 

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   Jun 13, 2007 - Zaphod's 

Description:w/Rockets Fall 

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May 10, 2007 - Ottawa Live Music-CKCU FM 

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   Apr 26, 2007 - Zaphods w/The Marble Index and The Dunes 

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   Mar 31, 2007 - Club SAW - Camp Ten Oaks Benefit 

Description:Canada's Only Counter Culture Carnie Music, Fashion, Charity, Weirdos With: Mike Dube (of the Hilotrons) MackenzieMacBride and the Super Model Syndrome, The City Above and Ottawa Indie Fashion Makers on display Proceeds to Camp Ten Oaks (Childrens Summer Camp) 

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   Mar 18, 2007 - The Rainbow 

Description:w/Remotely Controlled, Mile Over Mecca 

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   Feb 15, 2007 - Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Description:w/ Once Past Silver and Auto Racing 

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   Feb 3, 2007 8:00 PM - Irene's Pub 

Description:w/ Books on Books and Les Allumettes 

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   Dec 30, 2006 - Club SAW 

Description:w/ Transitaural and Butterflies & Zebras 

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   Dec 4, 2006 - Zaphod Beeblebrox  

Description:w/ Pointing at Airplanes, Smoke Judo, Elephantoms 

A small update; our main recording device (Ross's PC) is still out of commission what with more personal stuff to contend with. We have (as previously indicated) started from square one, as it were, with Steve's 8-track; a process which has been very fruitful. We should be posting something from these sessions soon. Ths very afternoon, in fact, Ross will be redcording vocals for something new we have called 'Sister Helen'; not, as you might think, a reference to Sister Helen Prejean (of Dead Man Walking Fame) but rather to Sister Helen in a really amazing old Horror flick called Devil Times Five (with Leif Garrett of all people playing one of a group of homicidal children). We also decided to revisit some stuff we wrote in an earlier incarnation: Bib Fortuna and Phantom Truck. More on that later when we recommence the weekly new songs blitz.

Meanwhile, fine tuning of Year of the Spider (our second LP), should be underway next month. Expect a late summer-early fall release; though we hope to have it ready for a show we've been asked to do in August. If it all comes through, we'll be supporting someone very exciting and, one hopes, some people will finally see us. We love the critical acclaim that's come our way so far; we just can't figure out why it's not making folks more curious about us. Ah well; maybe we're just ahead of our time.

Speaking of underappreciated bands, a few of us were in Toronto last Friday to see the reuniuted Swervedriver. Bliss. Though the setlist neglected Ejector Seat Reservation (the one that never got released in North America) and 99th Dream, the guys played a bunch of stuff we didn't hear when they stopped by Barrymore's on their last tour in '98 (Son of Mustang Ford, Deep Seat, Duress) and a really kickass b-side (Scrawl and Scream). Shame if you are one of the many, many people who saw the Barrymore's show then ignored singer Adam Franklin's two subsequent (and amazing) solo stops here. 

Happy summer.

And, because we fancy ourselves essayists:

It was the end.

A certain Ottawa band, having won themselves a plum opening slot for a certain New York-based band, got all 'indie rock' on us and busted out no less than four tambourines in an attempt to capture some of that Arcade Fire-style, joyous abandon thing.

Well, that's their business (even if it was supremely lame) but then a couple of these folks insisted on lingering just in the wings with a tambourine each while the headliners did their thing.

Our headliners very graciously waved them out for a song, which did not require one tambourine, let alone two.

Sadly, the pair remained visible in the wings, their tambourines audible, through another song; loudly telegraphing something to the effect of, 'Oooooh, ooooh, puh-leeeeeze let us come back out to bask in your greatness.' The headliners, who are obviously tolerant and kind to a fault, waved the interlopers out for another go. In spite of the shared, kind nature of our headliners, their faces betrayed the utterly a-rhythmic beat and resultant ruinous effect of the tambourine duo. An audience member, speaking for the majority, was less tolerant, exclaiming, 'Get the fuck off the stage!' Indeed.

From whence this madness?

Chartattck.com recently carried a feature on ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />....Victoria's ....Black ....Mountain under the headline '........Black ....Mountain: Putting the rock back in indie rock.'

While the piece — an interview with Mountaineer Stephen McBean— doesn't deliver what that heading seems to promise, it's good to see someone in the music press hinting at the issue.

What issue, you ask? How about a serious lack of actual rock in what we tend to call 'indie rock' these days?

Those of us who don't worship all things New Pornographers/Arcade Fire don't really know (or care particularly) which one of those much-beloved combos deserves credit/blame for inspiring the legions of imitators for whom five is the MINIMUM number of required band members, two the MINIMUM number of drummers; artists who think more than one tambourine is not gratuitous and attempt to substitute the cacophony of sound from all that redundant percussion (and so-called 'gang' singing) for any actual songwriting chops; we just think this thing has run its course, okay?

Let's go back to the late 1980s when one of the enterprising duo that created Sub Pop records, Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt, coined the term 'grunge' to describe their artists and, by extension, the 'Seattle sound.' It was that kind of marketing savvy that brought the British music press (and later everybody else) to ........Seattle and set off the great musical revolution of that era, which climaxed with Nirvana.

Many of us who were there had at best mixed feelings about the term; mainly because one adjective didn't seem sufficient to cover, for example, both Mudhoney and Love Battery. While it was clear that these guys shared a lot of common influences, they all were clearly running those influences through their own, unique filters (that would be the aforementioned 'songwriting'). Thus the notion of a specific, homogenous regional sound binding them together could be said to be entirely mythical. Incidentally, many of us regarded these bands (and many others) as 'indie rock' because there was rock clearly in evidence (key influences being The Stooges, Black Sabbath, et al) and they were on an independent label.

A while later, we got Stone Temple Pilots and, though they arguably got less derivative with each successive record, they were pretty blatantly copying Pearl Jam and a couple of other Pacific Northwest bands on their first, Core.

It eventually got even worse, of course, with Creed, Nickelback and others whose names and faces are happily forgotten. So, just as in movies, where genres go from classical eras through to post-modernism and, finally, self-parody, we start with a new musical movement which is eventually imitated into irrelevance.

And back we come to the present, where it seems safe to say that 10 out of nine hipsters would say 'indie rock' refers very specifically to that model pioneered by Arcade Fire and New Pornographers. They've got the 'indie' part covered, no argument, but to paraphrase a certain, memorable fast food ad campaign from the '80s, 'Where's the rock?'

For one thing, as the New Yorker noted in a piece published just prior to the release of  Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, "the guitar is secondary in Arcade Fire's generous arsenal."

A live review of the band from October, 2007 (again from the New Yorker) said: "the drummer and the bassist rarely played syncopated patterns or lingered in the low registers. If there is a trace of soul, blues, reggae, or funk in Arcade Fire, it must be philosophical; it certainly isn't audible. And what I really wanted to hear, after a stretch of raucous sing-alongs, was a bit of swing, some empty space, and palpable bass frequencies…"

Even if you really like Arcade Fire (and this is not to say you shouldn't), it can be objectively stated that they don't (or least, not yet) have a great grasp of dynamics. To most white rock kids, dynamics means the soft verse, loud chorus formula of the Pixies (later popularized by Nirvana, of course) but, in the wider sense of the word, it means changing things up in some way to keep the listener on his/her toes; things like pausing for effect and syncopation. Sorry, but rock has dynamics. And foregrounded guitars. And low end.

In stark contrast, the Arcade Fire way seems to involve hitting a peak early in the song and staying there. So please give the indie rock name back to rock bands.

Not that any of this is the fault of the Arcade Fire folks themselves; they're clearly the imitated here rather than the imitators. It's just that, in the same way that 'grunge' as an abstract concept begat Nickelback, too many bands think they can capture a spirit by co-opting a formula; in other words, imitation to the point of irrelevance.

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After messing with it over the weekend, it appears something went amiss during the move, and my computer... the device with which we create rock is currently sick. This makes me sad. My hope is I can retrieve the files from the music drive and put it onto a new computer... which I'll have to buy. Boo...

This kind of causes a problem as a large number of demos remain upon a drive I can't currently access... I remain cautiously optimistic. I frequently told the computer how much I loved it.

More to come on this developing situation.

So, we have landed ourselves a most solid new bass player. Welcome to Andria Lemmons, most recently of the late, lamented Captain Foxy. She can surely play and is also a real fun person, which is at least as important. So, we're rehearsing hard for our show next month at Deckuf, Andria's live debut with us. Watch this space for news of a late-June gig that we're getting very excited about. We're hoping to have our second record (once again coming out under our own Giallo Records imprint) all ready for that one; it just needs to be mastered.

On a personal note, we're all absurdly excited about a veritable whack of absolutely killer live music we're going to be trying hard to see in the coming months: at Bluesfest here in Ottawa we're getting Secret Machines, Budos Band, Jose Gonzales AND TV On the Radio fer chrissake. FYI, we saw Secret Machines last summer at the Metric-curated Dog Day Afternoon in Toronto and they schooled eveybody else on the bill. Just schooled 'em.

Just before the festival, a reunited Swervedriver will be appearing at Lee's Palace in Toronto. These fellahs are canonized in our world; we saw them on their last tour at Barrymore's in Ottawa and it made at least two grown men (that'd be Ross and Steve) cry. Literally.

Come the fall, you'll more than likely find three of us at All Tomorrow' Parties in upstate NY to see the reformed My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Thurston Moore and Shellac among others.

Anyway, we can't say it better than Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, who sang, 'Every day, rock'n roll is saving my life.'

Excelsior!

TCA

Hello friends of TCA.

Just a note to explain the recent interruption of our song demo rock flow. The faucet was turned off when I moved down Somerset to Chinatown a couple weeks ago. All is well, save for the keyboard which got unfortunately busted along the way. We hardly knew ye, Mr. Keystation. That said, it hasn’t stopped the flow of creative juices, which in Steve’s case is a raging river. We’ve been demoing on his Tascam 8-track the last couple weeks and have a few of his new ones developed. It’s been a lot of fun working on a deck again, with the knobs and faders and whatnot, and has given me an opportunity to get to know Steve and Sheilah’s cat better. Chat Douze. He’s my friend. Anyway, we’re trying to dig up some demo CDs to get some new demos up on the MySpace for you to listen to. Please be patient with us. Do not adjust your TV set or internet machine...

Mad love,

Ross, on behalf of  The City Above