Whaam! Pow! Bang! Brad, We Need to See Drowning Girl

?By Steven Christianson

Ask a question for which the answer is all-too-obvious, and you'll end up getting, well, an obvious answer.


"So where'd you guys come up with the name of the band?" Doh! I really did pull a Homer with that one. "Lichtenstein, idiot," I think to myself. But she, the Hill Kourkoutis half of the band, smiles politely, anyway, and describes the epiphany, as it were, upon visiting a gallery in New York and standing in front of the original 1963 Drowning Girl.


Like Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl, which embodied many previous artistic spirits, but not necessarily replications, the Drowning Girl of Toronto paints a musical canvass that reminisces without reproducing. But then the club circuit in Toronto is already well on its way to knowing that.


The band has an opening gig for Tara Slone, and in fact playing with Tara Slone, at one of Toronto's newest additions to the club circuit of live music, Tattoo Rock Bar.


Tonight, January 23rd, Hill celebrates her birthday, and many would be freaked to learn that she's only just turned 20. Ryerson film student, formerly of Degrassi: The Next Generation, and co-fronting a band with an eight-track demo CD that you know is going somewhere real fast, she's achieving and burning ground like one of those browners you knew in high school who was probably destined to be named one of Canada's emerging leaders by the Globe and Mail. Yet – and here's the unassuming charm about it all – she's having fun, ostensibly without worrying what others think. And she's no browner.


She and the other 50 percent of Drowning Girl, David Paoli, met at a Starbucks and hit it off immediately. "We should check to see if Starbucks owes us any royalties," she jokingly remarks. "But yeah, that's where David and I started our experience as Drowning Girl."


They balance each other like shrimp and seafood sauce, and, in fact, are in some ways much like an old, married Lennon-McCartney couple.


Paoli is a thinking and articulate musician whose personal fluidity is as dynamic during a conversation as it is while performing on stage. Like most musicians, he feels the notes, and that is visually evident; but one can also see him thinking about the notes, almost analyzing the arrangement and considering how to improve it, or what it means at a particular moment. That doesn't happen too often.


Even in conversation, he's kind of, well, Renaissance.


Someone remarked to me, after hearing a couple of the songs from Bang, Drowning Girl's demo CD, that the band sounds like what a Toronto band ought to sound like.
I asked David what that meant to him and how he would interpret that comment. His response was cautionary, thoughtful and musically wise: he received the words as a sculptor uses clay – feeling, and thinking about each piece, looking to understand the components and the overall relationship. Pretty fucking heavy stuff, I know; but some people are like that. And it's not only refreshing, but cool, when you experience it and see it.


And that's one of the really unique features that puts Drowning Girl along its own trajectory: the complement of styles and personalities and spirits. That, plus the fact that they clearly love playing live.


Live music itself has made a Renaissance in recent years in this city. And someone like Hill Kourkoutis seems to have been born for that very purpose.


"It's an insane amount of emotions all at the same time," Hill explains. David describes Hill's vocal and visual performances as "heavy metal-Beyonce-disco". After watching Hill (both of them, in fact) come alive on stage, David, it could be said, is reserved in his description. Their energy is like envisioning Aristotle on speed.


I inform the duo that several GBA listeners described their music as "speaking", "ringing of a lot of different eras", and "embracing some interesting influences and successfully making them theirs". These comments were actual emails we at GBA received prior to the interview.


David responds: "We [musicians generally] have spent the last eight or so years re-hashing things….It's all about developing the sound," he points out.


And what contributes to that development? "New media and new formats," he says, "will certainly continue contributing to the evolution of music."

"But for that next step to occur, we need to let it all go," Hill explains. "People's true eccentricities need to emerge. It's a really exciting time"


Lichtenstein is credited for having fostered an inspiration of painting that has become hallmark in North America, both for what it reflects and what is reflected by it. Like Lichtenstein himself, bands like Drowning Girl know exactly the sort of questions to ask: how do I become inspired by that thing without becoming that thing?


Drowning Girl's answer? Bang! Get it?


Go to www.drowninggirl.com for more. Once there, or in the club with them, pay particular attention to songs like Bang, Fish Hook and Caught by the Rope. With those in particular you'll begin to understand the elements of oral and visual that these performers cleverly sew together.

(Photo Credit: Josee Scalabrini)



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