By: David Schultz

Labels: Broken Social Scene

The Langerado Music Festival is upping its game. While it has been a significant festival the last several years, this year's line up seems more diverse and an attempt to push Langerado into the upper festival echelon. Modest Mouse is the latest addition to the annual Florida gathering joining Snoop Dogg, Death Cab for Cutie, Ryan Adams and The Cardinals as some of the marquee names.

The rest of the line-up isn't too shabby either. Highlights include Broken Social Scene (great with or without Feist), Cold War Kids, Flogging Molly, Mute Math, Gym Class Heroes, The Pogues and Matisyahu. The Zach Brown band will also bring their anthem "Chicken Fried" to represent the country set while rubbing shoulders alongside festival mainstays like Umprey's McGee, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Michael Franti and Steel Pulse.

Besides some new names, there is also a new location. This year Langerado moves to Bicentennial Park in Miami on March 6, 7 and 8th. Tickets are on sale now.

Labels: Broken Social Scene, Cold War Kids, Death Cab, Festival News, Gym Class Heroes, Modest Mouse, Robert Randolph, Ryan Adams, Slightly Stoopid, Umphrey's McGee

At the end of their performance at Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn, New York, Broken Social Scene's lead singer, Kevin Drew, seemingly joked that this would be the group's farewell performance. Every joke has a kernel of truth; the communal Canadian collective confirmed this week that they will join Sleater-Kinney on "indefinite hiatus."

Since the release of their highly-acclaimed self-titled album, the group, consisting primarily of musicians signed to the Arts & Crafts label, has remained together as a touring entity. As the tour winds down, it appears the band members will all return to their various individual endeavors.

Labels: Broken Social Scene

Radiohead's Thom Yorke calls the music industry "a bunch of fucking retards." While Broken Social Scene slam the Idol franchise and the industry (of course, Idol IS part of the industry machine).

We all know the love/hate relationship music stars have with the business side of their industry. We all know they sellout to the big labels and then bitch about what happens to their artistic integrity. I've got a solution for them: don't sign the record deal! Build your own fan base, start your own label and sell your songs over the net.

More soundbytes:

Jessica Simpson - yes she was/is a singer - to star in Baywatch movie.

REM reunited with original drummer Bill Berry for a tune during a Minus 5 show, which is REM guitarist Peter Buck's side project.

Hank Williams Jr. says he did not try to cop a feel or steal a kiss from Holly Hornbreak. No that's not a character from a Bond movie, that's her real name.

Labels: Broken Social Scene, Radiohead

By: David Schultz

The sixties gave rise to the commune, where hippies not only shared space but lived together as an extended family. Communes were not exclusive, welcoming anyone wishing to join in the collective effort for the time that they are able to contribute. Broken Social Scene embodies the spirit of the hippie commune, channeling all their musical resources into a common effort and allowing friends and family to join the band, if even for just one night.

The Canadian collective primarily revolves around its founding members, singer and guitarist Kevin Drew, guitarist and bassist Brendan Canning, bassist Charles Spearin, guitarist Andrew Whiteman and drummer Justin Peroff. Drawing in musicians from fellow Canadian bands like Stars and Metric, Broken Social Scene can differ greatly from one performance to the next. For their New York run, the band adopted an all hands on deck philosophy and were quite fortunate that Webster Hall has a stage large enough to hold them all.

In their effort to replicate the layers of sound found on their most recent self-titled release, Broken Social Scene brings a staggering number of musicians to the stage. At first blush, this seems like anarchy. There are too many guitars on stage, too many drummers and the full horn section on stage left that seems out of place with the violin player on stage right. Once the band gets going, singers come on stage from all directions and none of the seventeen musicians ever stand still for long. In theory, such chaos should not work. However, the kinetic energy created by Broken Social Scene doesn't just work, it works brilliantly.

Songs like "Fire-Eyed Boy," "Superconnected" and "Bandwitch" encapsulated the band's frenetic, breakneck pace. When they get their momentum going, Broken Social Scene sounds like a wonderful amalgam of the Talking Heads and Sonic Youth. Each song contains a riff or a chorus that will burrow into your subconscious, take root and slowly unfold. Ostensible frontman and ringleader Kevin Drew kept the show moving, pausing occasionally to amiably banter with the audience or point out sister Ibi in the balcony before launching into "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement."

Taking note of the strange bass beat pounding through the floor, Drew abruptly cut off one of the band's trademark intros, bringing the show to a standstill. Hearing and feeling the thumping beat from Webster Hall's dance floor two stories below, a curious smile came across the bearded singer's face. "Do you hear that?" he wryly asked the band before turning to the audience. "What, is there something else going on here tonight?" Drew queried. While the current "it-band" of the Canadian musical scene might have been humbled by not being the sole musical event in its own venue, Broken Social Scene remained unfazed, if not bemused, by the discothèque pulsing below.

Further keeping with the values of the commune, the women pull their weight. For the songs requiring the hoodie-wearing Drew to abdicate center stage, Metric's Emily Haines, looking especially punk with her short blond locks and simple white T-shirt, bounced up front, handling the lead vocalist role with energetic verve. Contrasting Haines' ebullience, Julie Penner calmly played violin, unemotionally giving a homespun quality to the Canadian wall of sound. Even though she primarily provided back-up vocals, former Reverie Sound Revue singer Lisa Lobsinger's strong voice demanded notice.

On their first night in New York, Drew and the rest of the band truly enjoyed themselves, seemingly not wanting to leave the stage. Diving into their final numbers, the band just kept playing, building the songs to epic crescendos. By the time the horns, guitars and Penner's violin hit their final surging notes at the end of "It's All Gonna Break," the crowd didn't care that the band had played through the encore break. Unfortunately for American audiences, Broken Social Scene's three night sold-out run at Webster Hall marks their only stateside appearances before embarking on a month long tour of Europe and Australia. Pitchfork's David Nadelle best expressed the palpable excitement over the band's mounting popularity. "Isn't it great," Nadelle quipped, "that Broken Social Scene are finally headlining venues where there are more people in the audience then on stage."

[Ed. Note: Photographs are linked to owner's Flickr account. Some Rights Reserved.]

Labels: Broken Social Scene

By Evan Ferstenfeld

If there's anything that can be grudgingly agreed upon by red and blue states alike after a marathon of Michael Moore movies, it might be that Canada seems to be a pretty keen place to live indeed. After all, the "little country that could" boasts ample examples of unlocked doors and unterrified citizens, a national sport that does not try to re-enact a Roman battlefield siege every Monday night, babbling streams flowing with the freshest of ginger ales, and a medical system where having your spleen replaced will not cost you a literal arm and a leg extra. In a land that has relegated many of America's most pressing social open sores to mere kindergarten scissor cuts, it is no wonder that our wacky neighbors to the North might also be pointing a stiff maple leaf in the right direction for taking rock music to a better place.

Instead of continually slashing music program funding, Canada has sanctioned several federal programs to foster musicians through their band's formative and gawky years, making Canada one of the few governments around the world that has actually paid to make sure its music doesn't suck. Of Canada's many talented musical confections, The Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene have arguably emerged as the two most arty but still huggable noise makers in Pabst country. While The Arcade Fire dabble in David Bowie textures and wondrously update styles of eras past, Broken Social Scene harness the power of an orchestral free-for-all approach, sounding like the Polyphonic Spree thrown out of an airplane on an overcast day.

The peaceful, hip-but-not-glib gathering of people at BSS's sold-out October 24th performance in Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts started out quite calmly for a band which continues to edge further into instrumental overload with every new note that escapes from them. On a stage smaller than a third-grade spelling bee platform, BSS quickly dispatched its four guitarists, two drummers, keyboardist, and other assorted sonic twiddlers, finding anywhere to stand within the two square feet each member had been allotted. Bobbing their heads in unison like a bunch of rock'n'roll Rockettes, Broken Social Scene waded into the first song of the evening by playing their latest single "Major Label Debut," a brilliant electro-country ditty that proves upscaling your band's recording studios and war-torn drum kits doesn't always facilitate cashing in your band's soul. The song is as good example as any to see Broken Social Scene's predictably unpredictable stylings: start with a simple guitar hook that immediately grinds itself into your mind's rhythm section, and then steadily adding a jigsaw puzzle-esque arrangement of scattered soundwaves, sounding like a musical magnet clinging on to more and more objects as the power is increased.

In the studio, BSS has sometimes struggled with the problem of being a tad overzealous in how tall they've stacked their wall of sound, overwhelming the simple ingredients of what made the tunes so special to begin with. Not being able to create the musical equivalent of an elephant stampede live proved to be Broken's best ally, as each sweet layer of mounting instrumental mayhem strung together at the TLA held back the force of the previous one just enough to swiftly weave into one another. Highlights from the non-stop noise fest included "A Better Day," a raucous sonic step-child to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," which had several Social members drop whatever they were playing to quickly form a row of trumpets, blasting the audience with the force of a Civil War firing line; the hypnotic beats and strums of the political "Cause = Time;" "KC Accidental" giving the propulsive jolt of a runaway train that jumps the tracks only to sprout wings and fly away.

A band with this many sounds vying for the listener's attention needs some human voices calling out amongst the cacophony. Leslie Feist, who doubled as the opening act with her own alt-country entry Feist, stamped her wonderfully elegant touch on the haunting "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl," conjuring up an intensity all her own as the song becomes soaked in yearning violin strings and delicate banjo plucks. New gal on the Scene Amy Millan took center stage with Leslie asking the audience to give "Bandwitched" its vocal backbone, effectively morphing the crowd’s sound into what can best be described as a school of excited orca whales. Co-founder and ringleader Kevin Drew took the role of the laid-back father who exerts just enough musical authority to keep everyone in line, engaging in some slightly foggy banter with the audience before dousing them with the punk-rock fuzz opera "Almost Crimes." Perhaps the biggest sonic surprise of the night was when Kevin informed the crowd that this was his band's sixth gig in as many nights, a statement that cleared up any frustration with the band's lethargic stage presence that evening.

Before the rousing encore, Kevin opened up the floor to his concert-going delegates for any questions, and issued several shout-outs to the City of Brotherly Love through an off-kilter ode to the Phillies, our plentiful cheese steak supply, and his sincere fondness for the Flyers, thereby opening himself up for a barrage of Canadian hockey-related taunting. Luckily, no one took the bait.

BSS capped its fantastic showing at the TLA with an instrumental from its overlooked and underrated B-Sides and rarities package Bee Hives. As each piece of the band gunned itself towards the final expected sonic trajectory, the song violently halted nearly all extraneous tinkering, exposing a pounding military drum march and a few guitar surges following its lead. It was as if Broken Social Scene had suddenly spotted its enemies across the horizon (Disturbed, Nickelodeon rock stars, any rapper with a "Lil'" moniker before their name) and decided to charge them head-on, despite being ridiculously outnumbered and victory a near impossibility. But oh man, what a racket they will make going down against them.

Labels: Broken Social Scene