Montreal Mirror : Music : POP Montreal

>> POP Montreal

Beauty on the beast

>> Gonzales performs an organ transplant

Like his fellow T.O.-to-Euro provocateurs Peaches, Feist and Mocky, alt-rocker-cum-prank-rapper-cum-pianist/composer Gonzales has a history of confounding expectations with cunning creative coups. Following his freaky PianoVision gig at this past summer’s Jazz Fest, his latest Montreal show, the centrepiece of Pop Montreal’s opening night, sees him trading his tenably toned piano for the powerhouse pipe organ.

“It’s very different from the piano show,” says Gonzales from his present roost, Paris. “I’m going from a delicate kind of sound to more of a bullfight, percussive, violent. The organ is another beast entirely.”

Deeming the pipes of power “a way to channel some of the megalomania of Gonzales into a palpable, overwhelming force,” Gonzales cooked up Organism, a marathon 12-hour organ recital with light show, for the Parisian Nuit Blanche a year ago. Given that pipe organ is to piano what a Sherman tank is to a Honda Civic, the beast can get burdensome.

“It was supposed to be the voice of God, back in the day, so they had to imbue it with this overwhelming character. I wouldn’t want to spend my whole life, or even an extended period of time, with that voice of God.”

A couple of hours is fine, though. His Montreal show, sans light show and far shorter, is mislabeled as Organism. It does, however, have leftfield guitar god Gary Lucas accompanying the silent classic The Golem for a sweat act, and it is happening in the gorgeous Église St. Jean Baptiste on Rachel.

Gonzales promises a “quasi-religious program” of covers and his own work—“but it’s a bit more gospel-for-the-Godless style, being that our generation is really not normally communicating with religious music at all. I’m not actually trying to bring back religious music, but bring that flavour in a way that speaks to people of my age.”

He’s quick to distinguish himself from the likes of the Polyphonic Spree and even the Flaming Lips, whose hijacking of Christian conventions seems a riposte to the rise of the theocratic right in the U.S.

“I’m coming at it more from a show-biz perspective. What interests me in both religion and politics are the show-biz aspects—that’s why I used the political press conference as a performance medium back in the day in Berlin. This is using the trappings, the particular flavour of show biz that’s associated with religion, which is based on fever, and overwhelming, and intense emotions.”

With Gary Lucas and the Pearly Gates of Ill-Repute at l’Église St. Jean Baptiste (309 Rachel e.) on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 7 p.m., $25

A breed apart

>> Montrealers the Mongrels have a patchy yet powerful pedigree

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Formed only a few months ago, Montrealers the Mongrels are already moving at a breakneck pace. They begin recording their debut disc this week, and harbour hopes of touring in the spring.

Despite having only a measly four shows under their belt, the Mongrels have garnered a lot of attention, and no wonder, considering their pedigree. Their line-up boasts Montreal rock vets from Tricky Woo, Bionic, Local Rabbits, Soft Canyon and Blood Sausage. They also boast two drummers laying down the groove behind their wall of hard-assed ’70s psych-soul, but it’s actually singer Amy T.’s soulful croon that really steals the show.

“I think the calibre and the reputation of the people who play in the band definitely helps people notice us a little quicker,” says T., “but we don’t really feel any pressure. We just concentrate on what we do and don’t really give much thought about what other people are going to think about us.”

If most of you don’t recognize Miss T. from her relatively short time on stage fronting the Mongrels, you might remember her from her brief stint as a Montreal hopeful on Canadian Idol. After making the preliminary rounds, T. made it to the first round and was granted a ticket to Toronto to compete. Once in Hogtown, she electrified judges with her version of soul rockers Shikasta’s “Come Around,” and then surprisingly dropped out.

“It was just so boring, I wanted to leave every day. I stuck around until group day, when five contestants would perform as a group, and we did well. Then I just told the producer I wanted to leave. It was cool, though, that I got to sing a Shikasta song, wear my Barfly t-shirt on TV—and I now have my Gold ticket framed in my bathroom.”

With Space Team Electra, Seahorse Liberation Army and Mike Visaggio at Lambi on Thursday, Oct. 5, 10 p.m.

Pop stops

>> Further highlights of this year’s program

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG and LORRAINE CARPENTER

Vashti Bunyan (La Tulipe, Oct. 4): Recent stints with Animal Collective and an appearance on the excellent Strange Folk compilation have paved the way for a proper comeback by this British cult heroine, a Rolling Stones protégé who could have become another Marianne Faithfull but, after releasing the classic Just Another Diamond Day in 1970, disappeared into relatively healthy hippie commune life instead. Her new one, Lookaftering, bears the familiar fragile strains of Bunyan’s voice, backed by lovely arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano and flute that are alternately serene and haunting.

Sudden Infant Dance Syndrome (Quai des Brûmes, Oct. 4): It’s never too early to deck yer offspring in club-wear, but make it comfy cause these Calgary kids forge a breakneck fusion of riffs, keys and drums that course from your ears to your feet like flesh-eating disease, with bratty commando vocals aimed straight at the brain. Songs about zombies, retards, cult members and the prom, plus lyrical homages to the Runaways, make the band a treat for all ages.

Sloan (Théâtre National, Oct. 5): These Haligonian godfathers of the modern indie scene’s northern contingent are comparable to another Canadian contribution to pop culture—Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th series. Just when you’re certain they’re dead and done with, they pop up out of nowhere. Sloan’s competence with machetes is unconfirmed, but their knack for brilliant pop-rock numbers has been proven over seven albums, an EP, a singles collection and a massive live record. There’s doubtless plenty more sweetness on their forthcoming 30-track epic, appropriately titled Never Hear the End of It.

TTC/Spank Rock (Club Soda, Oct. 5): For fans of fine-tuned, future-tense hip hop, this one-two punch is a knockout. Baltimore’s Spank Rock are the certified standard-bearers of their burg’s distinctive sound, and the magic touch of their producer Armani XXXchange makes Spank Rock the in-demand remix stamp of the season. They won’t upstage their Big Dada associates TTC, however. The collective has firmly planted its freaky French flag in Montreal, with memorable shows as a unit and frequent party-rocking cameos from members Cuizinier (who also joins baile funk breakout brat Edu K at Fractal on Oct. 6), Teki Latex, DJ Orgasmic and Para One.

3 Inches of Blood (Café Campus, Oct. 5): With surging riffage and galloping tempos as unwavering as a Viking longship knifing through the icy blackness of the North Atlantic, and a twin-vocal assault that slices up a rolling thunder of guttural growls with lightning squeals of imperious falsetto fury—never to mention a lyric sheet littered with medieval magic ’n’ mayhem—B.C.’s 3 Inches of Blood are beautiful bastards born too late, clutching their classic-metal convictions with a tenacity unseen since Schwarzenegger was the last sucker pushing that wheel of pointlessness around in Conan the Barbarian. Worship them or perish!

>> Music Listings