New album due out ... sometime next year (apparently April at the latest) and I gave
another couple of spins last weekend. Anyway, I just discovered their
bio yesterday and it's worth a read.
They all came from B.C. to Montreal for their own reasons, thinking they had important things to do.
Spencer Krug played piano all alone. Thump thump thump. “Oh these big dumb hands,” he said. And he sang: “Squawk squawk.” He was all alone.
But then he got a call: “Do you have a band? And will you play a show?” Spencer lied, “Yes.”
He called Dan Boeckner. “I heard you play guitar,” he said, “I heard you go twang twang real good. And sing. Squawk squawk, mumble mumble. Come make a band with me. We have a show in three weeks.”
And Dan said, “I’ll be right there.”
So they made some songs.
“Great,” they said, “Now we need drums, drums that sound like thunder.”
“Yes, thunder.”
And not unlike Zeus himself Arlen Thompson appeared.
“Can you play like thunder?” they asked.
“I am thunder,” he said.
Then Dan fell over because he was so drunk and Spencer forgot his own name for a few days, but then they got barely organized enough so that the three of them could make music that sounded like burnt toast, or like two pinball machines in a slow motion bareback horserace.
“Great,” they said. “Now we need a name.”
“How about Wolf Parade?”
“No, that’s stupid.”
“Okay, well, what about Wolf Parade?”
“Who are you? I’m drunk.”
“Wait, I’ve got it…Wolf Parade!”
“Perfecto Mondo!”
So they played the show. It went fine. Then they played some more.
“Great,” they said, “It’s 2003. Let’s make a record!” So they made a little four-song record, all by themselves. Then they played some more shows. Things went along.
“Great,” they said, “It’s 2004. Let’s make another record!”
“No wait,” they said, “We need another person first; a fourth. We need somebody with a knack for electronic hullabaloo, somebody who goes blibitty blabitty bloop.”
Just then Hadji Bakara entered the room with an exquisite dive roll and popped to his feet before them. “Blibitty blabitty bloop,” he said.
And so together the four of them made sweet nonsensical music that sounded like a bullfight, only where the bull is a gorilla and the matador is a robot precariously holding a baby and all the spectators are eagles and whales with laser beams for eyes and everybody cries when the gorilla dies. Oh!
They sang about everything and nothing at all.
And they made a little six-song record, all by themselves. And they played some more shows. Things went along.
“This is great,” they said, “We don’t need anybody.”
“You need Sub Pop,” said a voice from the shadows.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Isaac Brock, singer and songwriter for Modest Mouse, and Sub Pop employee.”
“Hey, I know you,” said Dan, “You liked my old band, Atlas Strategic.”
“That’s right, boy,” said Isaac, “And I like this band, too. Now, what say we go get you signed to Sub Pop, then come fall 2004 you all come to Portland and I’ll produce your record, or at least most of it.”
The band conferred in hushed whispers.
“Are you sure you’re not drunk?” they said.
“Aw, hell,” said Isaac, “We’re all drunk.”
“That’s true,” said the band.
So that’s the way it went. They signed. They recorded in Portland with Isaac and his invaluable sidekick, Chris Chandler, then went home and recorded a few more songs on their own, and the next thing you know they had an EP scheduled to come out in the summer of 2005, and a full-length in the fall. Things had really started rolling along by that point. They got to tour with Modest Mouse, and later with The Arcade Fire. They got to play All Tomorrow’s Parties, and to put a song on a Believer Magazine compilation album. Things were going so well that the boys thought maybe they were in heaven.
“You’re going to need more than Wolf Parade to get into heaven,” said a voice.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Win Butler… sorry, I mean, it’s me, THE LORD.”
“Oh jeez,” said the boys, “Well, what do we have to do to get into heaven?”
“What else you got?” said THE LORD.
And Dan stepped forward and did speak: “I played and recorded in a band called Atlas Strategic from B.C., with records still available on Global Symphonic. I have moonlighted on guitar with The Arcade Fire. I try very hard to stay sober.”
“I can’t understand you,” said THE LORD, “Really. You mumble.”
So Arlen stepped forward and did speak: “I have drummed in various rock bands, whose names need not be mentioned here, Dear LORD, but they were various indeed. I drummed for a song on The Arcade Fire’s album, Funeral, and I am currently playing in a two-piece with ex-Hot Hot Heat member, Dante Decaro. I wash myself almost every day.”
THE LORD said: “Huh.”
And Spencer stepped forward and did speak: “I have played and recorded with a band called Frog Eyes, from B.C., and will do some more of that still. I have toured with Destroyer, playing the piano, and I have a side project called Sunset Rubdown, with a record coming out on Global Symphonic. I stopped eating meat for 3 months last year, and I try to spy on strangers through their slightly parted curtains as little as possible.”
But THE LORD had stopped paying attention.
So Hadji stepped forward and did speak: “Dear LORD,” he said, “I have read more books than you.”
“Excellent,” said THE LORD, and with that Hadji began a slow ascent into the bluest of blue skies.
Oh reader, what now for our four heroes, and the whimsical hand of fate?
Stay tuned!
Cannons at dawn? Horses have been popping up in the visual arts a lot for me in the past 2 days. I went to the Jack B. Yeats exhibit in the National Gallery last night and those equine motherfuckers were all over the place. Spencer obviously has a thing for horses, but he hates snakes.
