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Brothers have worked it out >> The Chemical Brothers transcend while Britain loses its cool by MIREILLE SILCOTT
The year English dance culture apexed, boasting both a hulking Ministry of Superclubs where thousands took E every weekend and intimate DJ clog-ups under pubs where people thought they were really avant-garde because they drank beer instead of taking E. The year Channel 4 was making one-hour docs about drum & bass. The year the Prodigy became the world's number one band. When Vanity Fair proclaimed "London's Swinging Again!" and everyone photographed in the cramped sooty city look-ed like a cool cat from planet cool. With their cool dark Evisu Jeans and their cool Velcro-fied rucksacks and their cool limited-run sneakers. Even Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, thought "Britannia" was "Cool," and invited Jarvis Cocker for drinkies at 10 Downing Street. That year, the Chemical Brothers, a little spoilt by the success of their just-launched second album Dig Your Own Hole, played Montreal's Metropolis. The venue was filled with fresh-faced girls and skinny boys wearing slung-across record bags and and an energy level that would have killed most of their parents. These kids were just gagging for it: something meaty, beaty, big and British. Cleanly imported for their dancing pleasures. I had written a feature for this newspaper about the Chemical Brothers the week before that 1997 show. After interviewing Tom Chemical on the phone, he told me to come backstage after the concert so we could meet. Interviewees always say that. Then you go, they shake your hand and walk off to take a shower or something. Still I went anyway. "Hi, um, I wrote that cover story about you, heh, heh." Silence. "We hated that story." Oh. No. Why? "You called our music 'amyl house'! We hate that term! We don't even do amyl nitrate!" Amyl house was a term some journalists in the U.K. used to describe the Chem's style of rockin' blockin' beetz, because at the club the Chemical Brothers DJd at, the Heavenly Sunday Social, the punters were famous for sniffing amyl nitrate. It was stupid term, but I found it preferable to the infinitely more fitting tags of "Brit hop," "indie-dance" or "big beat" (the one which would eventually stick). "And by the way, we hated that photo you used, too." Oh well. In 1997, being young and British and pioneering a genre yet to be christened, the Chems could afford to be like that. After all, they were in the middle of a rupturing youthquake.
Derailing the U.K. pop engine On the phone this week, Tom says he and Ed are now "older and wiser... a bit less insane about all those things, I suppose." Which is good. Only problem is the whole of the U.K. pop machine also seems older and wiser, a bit less insane. In other words, slightly boring, deflated, its youthquake becoming atrophied-over. 1997, the flagship year for "Cool Britannia," was in retrospect the last hurrah of England's long run of 1990's pop culture ground-breakingness. The whirlwind that started in 1988 with acid house, and caught speed in the mid-'90s with jungle and Britpop, ended in 1998 with a deluge of books celebrating "a decade of dance culture," Oasis planning babies and flaccid MOR bands like the Manic Street Preachers at number one. Everything had been marketed. Scenes dissected. Demystified into oblivion. "Our first album was mainly inspired by crazy experiences we had DJing, when everything was still new and fresh," says Tom, who along with Ed, came to the fore playing at Manchester Balaeric club Naked Under Leather in the early '90s. "Our second album was inspired by playing live, and things we learnt from that--the mathematics of playing electronic music in front of a crowd at Glastonbury and stuff. The third album, Surrender, has just been released. Surrender is just an album about doing what we do. An album about us making music. It's not about scenes or anything." Okay. Fair enough. So what does a writer writing a feature such as this write about then? There used to be all kinds of stuff. In 1995 (album 1, Exit Planet Dust), Tom and Ed were still part of the thing called house. In 1997 (album 2, Dig Your Own Hole), there was Dance Music is the New Rock 'n' Roll, the very popular A Real Band Doesn't Need Guitars Anymore angle. The Chems liked that angle, since they never wanted to be considered a "club act" anyway.
Surrender is sweet But today, now, with Surrender, there is no exciting scene that the Chems can even have the pleasure to deny being a part of. Nobody could come up with something as retarded as "amyl house" now if they tried. Clubland U.K. has gone tepid, long past its ecstasy comedown, and the festival scene has imploded, with some 1999 dates even getting cancelled. And the battle about samplers being real music-making instruments? Been won. Everyone knows that shit. Even in America. And yes, Surrender is a great album. Actually, it's probably the best Chemical Brothers album to date: more skilled, full of catchy hummable bits, a grower that just grows and grows (listen to the first single, "Let Forever Be," featuring Noel Gallagher. And then listen to it again. You'll see). It's messy in the crashing breakbeaty Chems way, but clean and soft enough to listen to before work. It's a fuckin' genius album. But without a backdrop, without at least a peripheral scene from which it emanates, can it keep the kids listening and interested? Without it's-house-it's-rave-it's-electronica-it's-big-beat-it's-indie-dance-festival-music, will a 14-year-old Joe Blow looking for identity in a jewel box really care? Point blank, can the Chemical Brothers make it on their own?
Afghan hound scene Well, shoot. I dunno. Seems kind of like they can. Maybe not as well as the Prodigy, probably as well as Fatboy Slim, and certainly better than Leftfield or Underworld (who, if you ask me, in 15 years' time will seem as embarrassing as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark do now). The Chems are no beauty kings, they've been trashed incessantly by the music press for their strangely un-star-like appearances. But you still know what they look like. And you still care. "It's weird, isn't it," says Tom (who, by the way, is the one who looks like a bespectacled Afghan hound). "After all the bashing we've taken because of our 'image,' or lack of, something about the way we are has remained memorable to people. So what more do we need? Whatever it is, journalists seem to think it's a wonder we've survived this long without it." Forget wonder. It's a miracle. That these dudes with no cool image to speak of, and now no cool scene to come out of, have, if all vibe-o-meters are reading correctly, held up magnificently. They've stayed interesting. With nothing but a smasheroo new CD to buttress them. Sometimes, there's just no telling. "We stopped worrying long ago," says Tom. "Everybody's always wanting the next big thing, the next big explosion. But to us, it's just like enjoy the thing now. I mean, were we any better as artists when we were 'amyl house'?" No. Not at all. "So what's the big deal? You know all those things musicians are always saying about music transcending everything?" Yeah. But usually it's not true. "But sometimes," says Tom, "it is."
The Chemical Brothers perform live at Metropolis, Thursday, July 22, 8pm. DJ Ram and Tiga warm up. Tickets $24.50+tax from Admission, 790-1245
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The last time the Chemical Brothers played Montreal, the U.K. was a rupturing youthquake to be reckoned with. In 1997, it was just a great time to be young and British, when young and British meant you were extremely saleable: 1997, the year after Trainspotting railroaded over every other musicky-culty film in recent memory. 1997, the year Patsy and Liam were all over the Met Bar, and Geri sausaged herself into a Union Jack sheath for performance.