LOCAL EXPOSURE: Like an oasis in the Mojave Desert.

(Thirty years ago, there'd be goldfish in those platforms. © 2009 Benjamin Luk.)

Paul, LJ and Philly are onto something big with their acoustic rock trio, Mojave. Combining elements of hard rock with clean but passionately-executed female vocals and swelling strings, they’re able to bring together the best of both worlds and create an approachable listening experience that’s taken them on numerous tours through the US. With a somewhat darker gothic vibe presenting itself in their lyrics, they remind me a bit of Vancouver’s more listenable answer to Arkansas’ Evanescence, A Grey Medium. Having seen both A Grey Medium and Mojave perform live though, it wouldn’t be fair to say that one is better than the other because they each have a very different band dynamic. I’ll only say that I’m a sucker for a chick on strings and that Mojave’s the kind of band that sneaks up on you quietly and ninjas your brain, so you find yourself coming back to them later in the evening when you’re all blitzed on booze and need something to Google so you don’t go to sleep drunk. No drums and no wacky effects; the sonic power that Mojave brings to the table in concert is all chords and cords, and that’s the way it should be.



My only criticism is that some songs seemed to end before they’d even begun. Before I’d even had time to absorb the lyrics of “Crow’s Funeral”, I was already listening to the outro. But if my only negative comment is that I wish Mojave would play longer, well, that’s hardly negative at all, is it? Oh, and kudos to them for the Tool homage. Double kudos for adopting a llama.

Mojave's Set List at The Roxy:

• For A While
• Faultline
• Save Me
• Crow's Funeral
• Silence
• Wake Up
• No Mercy
• Hollow
• Escape Plan

Special thanks to Paul and the staff of The Roxy.

LIVE WIRE: Hank & Lily are cult favourites... Heck, they're even being pursued by one!

(The new Tide commercial proved far too weird for their marketing executives to handle. © 2008 Matty Conrad, courtesy of Hank Pine.)

Hank & Lily are not your average band. (They’re also not your average comic book artists.) In fact, the closest that I can come to defining them is as Canadian cult icons, hailing from the land of garden tea parties and wax museum tourist traps; Victoria, BC. Unbeknownst to most of the Vancouver indie scene, Hank & Lily brought self-professed vaudeville rock to Granville Island last Friday night, appearing at Performance Works for the 5th Annual PuSh Festival. And what’s more, it was free!

Having been a Hank & Lily fan for the better part of a year now after finding a bunch of free downloads off their webpage, I was immediately attracted to their off-the-beaten-path character-based performance antics. Hank & Lily don’t just play as whatever boring normal people they might be in the real world; they play as Hank Pine, mysterious gas mask wearing mass-murder suspect carrying his dead girlfriend around in a plastic bag towards New Orleans so he can give her a proper burial, and Lily Fawn, a happy-go-lucky kidnapper as sweet as the day is gay, borne out of wedlock after a passionate night between her all-too-human mother and a reindeer named Buck. Sound insane? Trust me, the insanity’s the best part.

(Hank & Lily live at Performance Works. © 2009 Andrew Bishop.)

With their cabaret indie rock serving as a soundtrack for their graphic novel misadventures, Hank & Lily embrace the weird and theatrical. On Friday, Hank and Lily were joined by bassist Cecil the Weasel and backup singers The Avatars of the Second Sun Choir (or the A.S.S. Choir, for short). A red velvet curtain served as their backdrop with “The Hank & Lily Show” boldly emblazoned upon a banner atop it, and theatre dust was everywhere to drive home the point that Hank & Lily had been travelling for miles across the North American countryside just to play us a show. Pouring flour on the drum skins was a nice touch as well. Every time Lily hit the floor tom, she’d set off tiny explosions of dust and this in itself was immensely fascinating, never mind the fact that they were putting on one of the most energetic live shows I’ve seen since Trike played at Hoko’s.

There were trumpets and a flute, one of the backup singers from the A.S.S. Choir remains one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and somehow, Hank & Lily had me up at the front and dancing like an idiot with my friends. If you ever get the chance to see a Hank & Lily show, for fuck’s sake, go! I’m almost positive they’re already big in Japan.

Hank & Lily's Vancouver Set List:

• God Don't Like It ("Long Black Snake Moan" reprise)
• Don't Be Afraid
• Que Hora
• We Can Take You Apart
• We Can Build You
• A Part of the Whole
  
• We Got Bones
• Bomb In Your Heart
  
• Xanadu
• Prison Song
• Long Black Snake Moan
• North America
• Big Plans
• Lucifer*
• Barfly*

* Songs marked with an asterisk were played during the encore.

Lily Fawn plays her first solo show opening for Rodney DeCroo at The Black Frog (108 Cambie Street) this Valentine's Day. Doors at 9, cover charges may apply.

LOCAL EXPOSURE: He who pays the Piper calls the tune.

(Piper Davis: Making lumberjack shirts sexy since 2006. © 2009 Benjamin Luk.)

To this day, I’ll never understand why certain performers open for supposed “headliners”. Every now and again, I’ll hear about a night’s lineup and somewhere deep inside, I’ve got to give my head a shake. I mean, how is it that we have Piper Davis, the synthpop-funk princess who’s travelled to Spain to study electronica and music production, opening for The SSRIs, who sound all right recorded but in concert sound like a wrecking ball in a piano store staffed by teenagers? I just don’t get it.

As for Piper herself, her sound isn’t so much groundbreakingly new as it is an intensely successful amalgamation of world music, indie pop and synthesized electro. With funk bass and her seductively husky voice taking centre stage, Piper’s hot shit live, delivering each line with something close to deadpan nonchalance. But as the layers of her band coalesce and you hear the Old World collide with the New in offbeat jazz- and reggae-inspired rhythms, you begin to realize this wasn’t something concocted overnight; it’s a perfectly blended show-stopping cocktail of Vancouver's best indie. Two parts Macy Gray, one part The Ting Tings, and one part the way Cat Power scuffs her way across a stage, and you’ve got yourself a killer glass of Piper Davis. (Try her with a little “Cream and Tea”.)

The show wasn’t quite as wild as I would’ve imagined her Commodore performance to be – Piper opened for Dragonette around this time last year – but there’s something about her personality that tells me she’s not so much in this to attract a crowd as she is to just perform. However, it should be quite telling that a good portion of the people who came, came to see her alone, and that at one point, there were about seven concert photographers crowding the front of the stage for her. Heck, I was one of them. The SSRIs? Well, maybe we’ll save them for another review.

Piper Davis plays again with My!Gay!Husband! at The Biltmore on March 28th, 2009 for Glory Days.

OFF THE RECORD: Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream

(Courtesy of Columbia Records.)

My dad has been a massive fan of The Boss since well before I was born. It's not uncommon for him to see Bruce play three or four times on one tour, flying to Toronto or Portland or Tacoma just to watch him follow up his shows from GM Place. Thusly, when I came of age and began to make my way through classic rock history, Bruce Springsteen was one of the last artists I listened to (given the fact that I was a teenager and it's supposedly never cool to like the same music your parents do). Maybe this is why my dad and I had such different reactions to Working On A Dream, Springsteen's latest studio album. After thirty-odd years of following Bruce's work, a person’s bound to have different expectations than someone who’s only recently come into the fold. My father's a little disappointed with Working On A Dream, most likely because Springsteen's lyrics have less substance this time around.

He's got a point. "Outlaw Pete" kicks things off with a lush, heavily orchestrated eight-minute tale of crime and adventure in the Wild West. But lyrically, Springsteen breaks no ground that wasn't broken a few centuries ago when Blood & Thunder cowboy novels became all the rage, though he still manages to inject some humour into a familiar archetype with couplets like, "He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail / At six months old, he'd done three months in jail.” Meanwhile, “Queen of the Supermarket” finds Springsteen insulting the intelligence of his audience by stretching his working-class hero shtick past breaking point. Lines like, "A dream awaits in aisle number two," or, "Though a company cap covers her hair / Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there," look bad enough on the page, but they sound downright farcical when buoyed by swelling strings and Beach Boys-style harmonies.

On the other hand, Springsteen is packing a mighty melodic punch on Working On A Dream. “My Lucky Day” and the title track are as good as any pop song Springsteen's ever penned. The former is a propulsive, euphorically soaring love song while the latter sees Springsteen's hammer-n’-nails lyrics married to a chorus that harkens back to vintage Roy Orbison. And while Brendan O'Brien – Bruce's go-to producer this decade – has his detractors amongst the Springsteen faithful, his contemporary touch fits these songs, which aim to be more pretty than gritty, as he irons out the wrinkles in Bruce's voice.

Given that there were only fifteen months between the release of Bruce's last album Magic and Working On A Dream, it should come as no surprise that the album is underwritten and leans hard on easy rhymes and basic chord progressions. What is surprising however, is how a man who's already got his legacy written in the history books in indelible ink still sounds so hungry. Sure, he’s playing Super Bowl XLIII but even the money and convenient timing shouldn’t be motivation alone to put out a comparatively average album. Then again, it’s not everyday you have a 59-year-old man trying to make his own Pet Sounds, is it? That's got to be worth a listen.