Art/glam/garage/synth rock since 1999
The new WP album, THEMES, is coming out this October. It features appearances from Peaches, Mocky, Taylor Savvy, Katie Moore, Michael Feuerstack, Murray Lightburn (The Dears), Andrew Scott (Sloan), and many other collaborators; amazing cover art by Lee Towndrow (see above); and you can pre-order it here!
2108 was a big year for the WP. In case you might have missed it…
We released a new EP, Old Dreams. Check it out on your favourite music platform here.
I collaborated with director Adam Traynor, editor Kara Blake, director of photography Jules de Niverville and art director Thea Metcalfe on a video for the song “Everything.”
The WP did our first shows in two years, with Stacey back on drums, longtime member Gord Allen on bass and new keyboardist Valérie B, along with a few special guests. We debuted our new stage costumes by Elise Boudreau Graham. Got to share the stage with old friends (The Canadian Romantic, garbageface, Daiquiri) and new (Marker Starling, Lost Creatures, and the link-less Bibliotek). We were really happy with how the shows went and are excited to play again.
But 2019 is going to be even bigger! It’s the 20th anniversary of the WP and we’ll be doing some special shows. I’m currently strategizing our set list, so if there are any songs you want to hear, let me know in the comments or on the socials.
Some music I’m currently digging:
Mocky, A Day at United
Eliza Kavtion, The Rez That Svmmer
Marker Starling, Trust An Amateur
Speaking of (other people’s) music, I’m going to be co-hosting one of my favourite radio shows, the Free Kick on CKUT, on Sunday January 20 from 11-1 if you’d like to tune in.
This is a weird time in the world, or maybe it’s just reverted to its natural state of chaos and strife. I don’t have a solution, but I think we should try to be more kind to each other. It sounds simple, even pat, but it’s actually not that easy to do. And in general, I’ve found that the hardest things to do are often the most important.
If you’re reading this, all the best and hope to see you in 2019!
After a quiet period, mainly due to the birth of our son, the WP started to get back in action this year. In the spring we released our latest EP Always. Produced by Murray Lightburn and featuring a song co-written with Mocky and a cameo from Chilly Gonzales on piano, it’s been called a return to the “classic” WP sound and, well, what more can I say? I like it, and I hope you do too.
We also put out a video for “Hey Joanne” directed by Montreal artist and musician Bryce Cody.
And we got back on the road! It was a short jaunt, but we had a lot of fun. In Toronto, we were backed by a one-off supergroup featuring three of my favourite musicians and human beings in general: Charlotte Cornfield, Adam Waito and Matt Collins. Here we are performing the title track from Always:
In Montreal, we were joined by our longtime collaborators Gordon Allen and Warren Auld, along with Tim Kingsbury (Sam Patch, Arcade Fire) on guitar. In Ottawa, none of my wish-list guests could make it, so Warren, Gord and I played as a power trio with Stacey’s vocals on top. And that was fun too.
In the fall, we had the opportunity to play at Montreal’s best film festival, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, at an afterparty of sorts for our old friend Adam Traynor’s new web series Le Ball-trap. Murray, Warren and Gord filled out the lineup, and José Garcia did some amazing visuals. Here we are performing “Avalanches” from History of Pain:
And to cap the year off, we were included in Sean Michaels’ list of the best songs of 2016. What an honour!
IN OTHER NEWS…
I didn’t see a ton of shows this year, apart from some great bands we shared the stage with such as Triple Gangers, Muelkik, EXE, Douce Angoisse and Sheenah Ko. I did see one show, however, that was very memorable. It was a triple bill of Napalm Death, Melvins and Melt-Banana.
They were all awesome, but the Melvins show was really life-affirming. They have always been one of my favourite bands, but I hadn’t seen them play for years. I noticed that they had a new bass player, and he was giving off a really good vibe. You know when a veteran band has a new, young member who just seems really overjoyed to be onstage with these guys? It was like that, but as I looked closer I realized that this guy wasn’t that young. But he had the energy of a young person, just really getting into it and enjoying himself onstage. Eventually he was introduced and I realized it was Steve McDonald from Redd Kross. I can’t really express how motivating it was to see the enjoyment he was having and putting forth to the audience. The fact that someone can still be that energetic and positive after many years in the music game gave me a much-needed renewal of faith.
The other big thing that happened this year was that Gordon Thomas, who we made a documentary about years ago and stayed friends with for years after, passed away just shy of his 100th birthday. I wrote a few words about him and the experience of visiting him just before he died.
I also wrote about:
I didn’t do a ton of freelance writing this year, but I was happy with this review of gay Québécois wrestling icon Pat Patterson’s autobiography.
2016 was a tough year for a lot of people, and I fear that the next few years may be just as hard or harder. I don’t know what to say or what to do, except to try to be a good person and engage in my community as much as I can. WP-wise, I’ll be working on some new material and a new stage show which I hope to share with as many people as possible.
If you’re reading this, I thank you for your support, I wish you all the best and hope to see you soon!
The World Provider’s new 6-song EP, Always, is out May 27 from Ting Dun Productions.
You can buy it on iTunes or other digital stores, stream it on Spotify, Google Play or wherever music is streamed, or buy it from our Bandcamp page, where (if you like physical objects) you can also get a CD or a T-shirt (including a download code).
Always was produced by Murray Lightburn (The Dears), features Chilly Gonzales tickling the ivories on “Pam Pam,” and the title track was co-written with Mocky.
Hope you enjoy it!
In case you missed it, check out the new WP video for “Hey Joanne” or my recent interview in Cult MTL about the new record.
Sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s, I heard the music of Gordon Thomas for the first time via my friends Mocky and Taylor Savvy. It was on a tape, that had clearly been copied a bunch of times, with a surprisingly large number of songs on it. The singer’s strange voice and simple lyrics contrasted the slick, full-band jazz arrangements; plus, the music had a weirdly timeless quality—that is to say, there were no obvious signposts to indicate in what era it had been recorded.
Stacey and I were fascinated and curious to know more, but nobody seemed to have much info about this singer apart from his name, Gordon Thomas. In 2001, sitting on a patio in Berlin, we and Mocky came up with the idea of making a documentary about trying to find him.
Long story short, with a bit of old-fashioned journalistic/detective work, we were able to find him in his lifelong hometown of New York City. When we met him, he was 86, still fully lucid and, to our surprise, full of optimism and future plans for his music career.
He’d played trombone in big bands in the 40s, most notably with Dizzy Gillespie, and since the big band era petered out, he’d been working odd jobs and using his meagre earnings to record and self-release his music. The film became a portrait of his life, music and philosophy.
Everything’s Coming My Way was completed in 2005 and has shown at festivals, on TV and even, thanks to the diligent efforts of our sales agent, on airlines, in classrooms and in other strange markets around the world. And when the film had had its life, we continued to visit him as often as we could, and helped him out by selling his music online (you can stream or download much of his catalogue on Bandcamp; future earnings will go to an appropriate charity to be determined or in accordance with his will, as the case may be).
Getting to know Gordon was a joy and a privilege. Ever optimistic and positive, wise, funny and spiritually rich, he brought happiness and inspiration to everyone he met. He was a bridge to another time—when he grew up, people still rode around Harlem on horses and buggies, and the modern world was a bit of a mystery to him, but he always rolled with it.
It bothered me a bit when people referred to Gordon as “childlike.” He was a fully functioning adult, a union dues-paying musician, and a lot smarter than he let on. He was certainly eccentric, but not more so than any number of artists I’ve known. I eventually concluded that his naïve persona was a bit of a put-on, a defence mechanism against the world’s cruelties, but his optimism was very real.
Gordon was always full of fantastic stories, and at times you couldn’t tell if they were real memories or just dreams or fantasies. (The one about Miles Davis having planned to write a song for him was particularly suspicious.) That said, some of the things we did with him, like seeing him perform in front of adoring fans in Montreal or going to his birthplace of Bermuda for a film festival, where he was treated like a total rock star, probably sounded like tall tales to people he told—but I can confirm they’re true!
As the years went by and his health deteriorated, Gordon talked less about his future plans, but every time we spoke he’d still say that we should aim for Hollywood. The last time we hung out, in the summer of 2015, he spoke openly about wanting to die and wondering why he was still alive. With his friends mostly passed away, and his health getting worse, he didn’t feel he had a lot to live for. It was a hard conversation to have, but there wasn’t much we could say.
Gordon spent the last years of his life in a seniors’ home, and the level of care he received was pretty minimal. It was a sobering reality check of what happens to you in the USA if you’re old, black, poor and alone. Luckily for him he had health insurance from the Veterans’ Administration after having briefly served in the army during WWII, as well as a pension from the musicians’ union, which along with his Social Security covered his expenses and basic needs.
I wish we could have helped him more, but our resources were limited and, if I’m honest, so was the audience for his music. The very things in his songs that appealed to me turned the average listener off, while at the same time his music lacked the dark or “edgy” quality that endears certain obscure artists to an underground audience. His fan base was the definition of “small but devoted,” and spanned the entire world. Just a few weeks ago I received a CD order from Wales, not the first or the furthest such order from around the globe.
Last week, I got a call from a good friend of Gordon’s. He had suffered a stroke and become unresponsive. I flew down to New York and visited him at a nursing home in the upper Bronx. He was rail-thin and couldn’t speak, but he kept trying to get out of bed, though he was too weak to complete the action. It was heartbreaking to see. “It’s OK Gordie, you don’t have to get up, just rest,” I kept saying. I’m hardly the first person to note that the very elderly, in their fragile and dependent state, revert in a circular way to being a little like babies, and here I was speaking to him in the same tone that I use to soothe my one-year-old son.
I held his hand and talked to him a bit. I told him that I loved him, that Stacey sent her love too, that his music had meant a lot to people, and that he would soon be with the friends he always talked about wanting to reunite with in the next life. At one point, he opened his eyes, squeezed my hand and smiled. He also made one of his classic expressions, a sort of facial shrug that communicated “Whaddya gonna do?”
Another friend of his from the seniors’ home came to visit. He had a different take on the situation, encouraging “Mr. Gordon” to get better soon so he could celebrate his 100th birthday. It was a very appropriately GT-esque expression of optimism, but I wasn’t sure I could share it.
As I walked down 7th Avenue to the train station, I looked around New York with a strange feeling. Would it ever be the same without Gordon Thomas? Then I noticed the eccentric characters floating by me on every corner. Each one of them could probably star in their own documentary.
A few days later, I got another call. Gordon passed away on January 25, 2016. He would have been 100 years old on February 7. He touched my life in a profound way and he’ll always stay with me. I feel sad that he’s gone, but he lived a long, meaningful life, and it was time. I love you Gordie, rest in peace.
I only did two WP shows this year (plus one with the Police cover band Stinkronicity, possibly/probably our last). I was mainly occupied with being a parent. Both were old-school solo WP shows: likely to be happening more and more, though I plan to bring Stacey and the guys back onstage when it’s logistically possible.
I enjoyed doing these shows, though I now have to spend some time rethinking the solo act so that I’m not just doing the same thing I was 10-15 years ago. I’m always happy to perform my old songs and routines, but I need to add new ingredients to the broth as well.
On Halloween I did a show with Corpusse at Casa del popolo. In addition to performing as the WP, I also accompanied Corpusse onstage, which was really fun. Unfortunately (and unbeknownst to me), during my show two guys got in a fight. I was honestly shocked to find out something like this would happen at Casa, which I always thought of as more or less a safe space with like-minded people. But in addition to this other, much more serious, incident, this reminded me that no place is immune to douchery.
Not long after the show, I released a new song called “Autumn Wheels” on the WP Soundcloud page. It’s from the sessions I did last year, which I’m now preparing to release in some kind of “official” way in the spring of 2016.
The Globe and Mail’s Sean Michaels included “Autumn Wheels” in his weekly compendium of “songs you need to hear.” I’m not sure what Sean meant when he said that I’ve written “songs that are smart as border collies and dumb as cuckoos” – that my songs are both smart and dumb? (probably true), or that I have some smart ones and some dumb ones? (also quite possible, though I couldn’t say which is which). At any rate, I appreciated his kind words, and was flattered to be included in such illustrious company.
What else did I do this year? I reissued the WP’s 2008 album Hard Feelings on our Bandcamp page, adding a few previously hard-to-find tracks from the vaults.
I spoke to artist and musician Steve Kado about the demise of the Blocks Recording Club for Weird Canada. This was intended to be part of a longer piece on a bigger topic. Right now that project is on the back burner, we’ll see what happens…
I also wrote about:
the alleged death and mysterious persistence of the CD format,
the mixed feelings brought up when friends move from Montreal to Toronto,
the “Blurred Lines” lawsuit and the issues it raises for all us accidental plagiarists,
and the second installment of my chronicles of the best and worst WP shows of all time.
My favourite records of the year are:
Mocky, Key Change
Peaches, Rub
Chilly Gonzales, Chambers
The Dears, Times Infinity Vol. 1
Violence, Le Théâtre EP
Pecora Pecora, Le satellite perdu
And yes—each and every single one of these is by personal friends of mine. What can I say? I know a lot of talented people… and I have good taste.
I didn’t see nearly as many movies as I used to, but I liked Sicoria, It Follows and Entertainment quite a lot. TV… mostly British crime series that I often fall asleep while watching. Books… I’ve only recently started to be able to read them again. Baby brain is a real thing.
See you in 2016.
Ten years ago this week, my album Enabler was released on Ta-Da Records. I’d self-released The Elements of Style a few years previous, but this was my “official” debut on a label. Though the label has since gone into a coma, I will always be grateful to Patti Schmidt and Jeff Waye for believing in my music and wanting to share it with the world.
To mark the occasion, I’ve put together a digital reissue on the WP Bandcamp page including a few bonus tracks from the vaults: a couple that were on Deep Inside The World Provider, a mini-CD EP that I put out in 2003, a couple of alternate versions of Enabler tunes, and a remix.
Enabler definitely has a special place in my heart, bringing on a nostalgic feeling for a time when I was definitely more innocent about the music business, the vagaries of trends, and so on.
The album was recorded and mixed by Jace Lasek at the old Breakglass Studio in downtown Montreal. The wood panelling and low lighting of the 70s-era studio, which reminded me of my grandparents’ suburban basement, was like a comforting womb. We recorded on and off for over a year, whenever I could scrape together the funds. A bunch of friends and family dropped by to contribute their talents, including my brother Nick Fraser, Bitch Lap Lap (who still prefers to be credited by that name on this particular collaboration) and Michael Feuerstack.
I remember agonizing over whether the “rock” tunes would fit with the “lo-fi electro-pop” tunes, and I actually considered splitting the recordings off into two projects. I still occasionally wonder if that would have been better from a marketing standpoint, since putting them together condemned the WP to a grey area between genres.
I grew up in the 80s, and rock songs with synths have always seemed normal to me. But if I’m honest, then as now I was not a prolific writer, and I knew it would take me ages to come up with enough songs for one album per project. Even as is, Enabler clocks in at just under 20 minutes!
I remember that when I sent the mixes around to some friends to get feedback, Mocky suggested that I re-record any vocals that were less than perfect. I dismissed the suggestion out of hand—I couldn’t bear (or probably afford) to go back into the studio yet again—but today, the occasionally off-key and/or mumble-mouthed vocals definitely stand out as a flaw.
But I love the innocent energy of the album, and it has a number of tunes that are still audience faves to this day.
Finally, I know no one cares about CDs anymore, but I must note that the CD version has some pretty amazing artwork by Lee Towndrow and Philippe Blanchard.
Check it out… hope you enjoy.
And forgive me this bit of wallowing in the past. I just got the mixes of the newest WP material and I’m currently scheming up the best way to get it out to the public as soon as possible… so stay tuned.
I’ve been in the studio recording new WP tracks. So far we have one song in the can, another almost done. I feel good about these tunes, and I look forward to sharing them.
In other musical news:
WP producer and occasional band member, The Dears frontman, and multimedia auteur extraordinaire Murray Lightburn has a new single, “A Thousand Light Years,” coming out. He’s releasing a self-directed video (which I’ve seen, it’s very cool) in a most unusual way: at least at first, it’s screening only at appointed times next Sunday, February 9. More info here.
You can also listen to this very cool remix by Sebastien Grainger right away:
Looking further forward into 2014, I recently got word that Mocky, the enigmatic producer/songwriter/musical genius best known for his work with Feist and Jamie Lidell, is releasing a new album on June 18. He describes it as the “sonic heir” to 2009’s Saskamodie, which is one of my favourite records of the century so far, so I am pretty stoked. It’s being released on his own Heavy Sheet label and that’s about all I can tell you… keep your ears to the ground.
In the summer of 1998, I had just graduated from film school. I was bumming around doing random jobs, and I’d just laid down some tracks of my newly formed solo project at a friend’s bedroom studio. That studio’s owner, my longtime friend and collaborator Dominic Salole (now better known as Mocky) announced that he was leaving Toronto to move to London (he would later ramble on to Amsterdam before settling in Berlin).
He and I had known each other as kids in Ottawa—I saw his first band play at basement parties and talent shows. Later, he and my brother were roommates in Toronto, and that’s how I came to meet Chilly Gonzales, Peaches et al. I have a million great stories about all those years, but I’m saving them for the coffee table book.
His move was the catalyst for an exodus to Europe among our group of friends—Gonzo left a year later, Peach and Taylor Savvy the following year, and Feist not long after. Now, after 10 years in Berlin, Mocky has made another dramatic shift, moving to Los Angeles with his wife, fashion designer Desirée Klein, and their two-year-old son.
During his time in Berlin he produced three solo albums including last year’s amazing Saskamodie and too many collaborations to count, but in the wider music world he’s probably best known as a producer—of Jamie Lidell’s Multiply and Jim and as part of the team behind the Feist albums The Reminder and Metals.
When Mocky was in Montreal recently, working in the studio with Bassekou Kouyate (Malian master of the ngoni, an ancestor to the banjo), we caught up and I thought I’d take the opportunity to find out more about his latest move and where it’s taking him. This interview is based on conversations in person with an email follow-up.
WP: Where did you get the idea to move to LA?
Mocky: Jamie brought me out here in 2007 (and I hadn’t been there since the 90s—a much different time) and I saw so many similarities to Berlin in terms of decaying relics of former magnificence.
WP: Was it hard to leave Berlin? Do you miss it?
Mocky: Not really, I am Canadian after all not German. My Wikipedia page says I’m “Somalian-Canadian,” but that is inaccurate and not how I identify. I have a very mixed ethnic background including British, Italian, Somalian, Ethiopian and more, but I was born and raised in Canada and only identify myself as Canadian. However I lived in Berlin for 10 years—I miss my Berlin friends, I miss the parks and my two Canadian friends who still live there, Peaches and Taylor Savvy. But otherwise LA is so fresh and exciting that I don’t miss Berlin much yet.
WP: What’s the atmosphere like in LA?
Mocky: LA today is like Berlin in ’99. The American dream kind of collapsed in on itself, so there is new space there to create—much like Berlin in the 90s after the wall came down… a new space opening up after the “fall of the wall” of American cultural imperialism. There is TONS going on here, and I started skating again, so it’s the perfect climate. I hit sort of a bohemian glass ceiling in Berlin, and LA seemed like the right answer.
WP: I heard that the new Feist album was largely recorded live off the floor. Can you tell me about that decision?
Mocky: It was an incredible experience! We did it live off the floor because we didn’t want to leave anything to chance—we wanted to KNOW we had something as it was going down.
WP: I saw that you did a soundtrack [to Xiaolu Guo’s festival hit UFO In Her Eyes]. Is that your focus these days, or producing/other work/your own music/all of the above?
Mocky: All of the above—I’m starting a new project TBA.
Though he’s been working and hanging out with underground artists such as Juiceboxxx, The Hawnay Troof and Kevin Blechdom (whose album Gentlemania he’d produced in Berlin), Mocky’s most recent coup de coeur was someone seemingly at the opposite end of the music-business spectrum: superstar producer and songwriter Linda Perry, who he had the occasion to see perform at a club.
“She came out wearing clown makeup,” he recalls, “and said ‘I’ve been depressed for two weeks, so this is how I’m dealing with it.’ She had a record player and she was lifting the needle and putting it back down—real Andy Kaufman shit. Then she sat down at the piano and started singing, and it was just AMAZING. Great songs, a voice like Nina Simone, totally heavy shit.”
Since then, Mocky has actually had the chance to work in proximity to Perry—producing one of her protegés at her Studio B and, as he says hopefully, “soaking up her writing skills through osmosis.”
I am officially intrigued. I hope to report directly from Mocky’s new home at some point—in the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye out on what he’s up to. He has always been one of the most inspiring artists I’ve known, so here’s hoping the move to this cultural hot spot will bring his various projects to more and more ears.
Taylor Savvy is perhaps the most mysterious member of the “Canadian jackass crew” that spawned the WP along with Peaches, Feist, Chilly Gonzales and Mocky. You may have seen Savvy onstage with Mocky, Peach or Jamie Lidell (or, if you’re really old school, in Feist’s band with me and Nathan Lawr way back in the day). He hasn’t unleashed any new Savvy music on the world for some years now, but we hold out hope.
He recorded this demo of ours during our visit to Berlin in the spring of 2009, in his basement studio (which has since been torn down and turned into a parking lot – yep, these kinds of things happen even in Berlin). Stacey made the beat on Savvy’s groovebox and played the live drums, Savvy tweaked some knobs on the box and played the tremolo guitar, and I played the keys and the bad indie-rock guitar. This song hasn’t been recorded in “official” form yet, although it has become one of our favourite songs to play live.
Enjoy!