Caught in the headlights

Is the Dears' End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story the beginning of a rock 'n' roll success story?

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Once upon a time, there was guy from NDG who had a band called Wren. His name was, and is, Murray Lightburn, and he played rock music. "Two guitars, bass and drums," as he puts it, "but a bit mathy here and there, weirdo time signatures and stuff like that. People said we had the Smiths influence, but I don't think we sounded very Smithsy at all."

"I think Murray's voice was a little more Morrissey than it is now," says Natalia Yanchak, who plays keyboards in... oh, hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Allow me to finish up this little preface.

"The thing is," says Lightburn, "with Wren we were more serious about the craft of making something different. But we didn't really have it together in terms of ever getting a record out or anything. We were supposed to be the first band on RightWide, but that went belly-up in a hurry. I think everything happens for a reason, though, and Wren was really a training ground--boot camp. Just got me primed and ready for what was to come."

Charting the Dears' expansion

What was to come was a band called the Dears. Basically, Wren with keys (enter Miss Yanchak) as opposed to dual gee-tars, and a more dramatic, feelings-on-the-sleeve tone. Bit by bit, though, the Dears evolved into something else entirely. The lineup expanded to include a cellist, Brigitte Mayes, and relief guitarist, John Cohen, who would leave Lightburn free to croon his heart out unhindered. The Wren rhythm section left on good terms, and were replaced with that of Gazelle drummer George Donoso and bassist Martin Pelland.

But that wasn't enough for the ambitious Mr. Lightburn. No, he had to cook up the notion of the Cosmopolitan City Orchestra, a fluctuating brass-and-strings ensemble that would push the Dears to new heights of drama, grandeur--and resentment, at least as far as beer-bellied sound techs go.

"Natalia was having a party at her house one night. I was smashed and I had this revelation. I was telling her, 'This is what we're gonna do! This is what we're gonna do! We're gonna do this different, man! I'm telling you, it's gonna work!' She said I was crazy--she's always the sceptic."

"I think managing a band itself is already a big enough undertaking," says Yanchak. "To put, on top of that, getting 16 other people together to play--yeah, I said, 'You're crazy. Go do your little projects in the corner.'"

"It's not as hard as you think," says Lightburn. "It takes a lot of work--when I first started scoring the music for the CCO, at the beginning of '99, I'd gone back to my folk's place to regroup, cut down on the booze and get my shit together. I holed up with my crappy PC and my crappy notation program and my Casio keyboard and just slaved away at the charts for three months, getting the right textures.

"I've made a lot of changes because I've learned a lot since then. I've also added new parts, because I'd think that they'd never play the stuff--too many 16th notes or whatever--but then I get lucky, bring it in bit by bit, sneaking in new things. Now, 'No Such Thing As Love' is totally over the top, totally beyond what's on the record."

Taking the fall

Record? Oh, yes, they recorded an eight-song album on their own, over the summer of '99. It's called End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, and ironically, that's where the story really begins to take off.

"It's pretty conceptual, I'd say," says Lightburn. "Not a '70s prog-rock concept record, more like a character loosely based on, I guess, my life, being the writer. He falls into a dark space--the whole journey of the record is the fall into the darkness, where you don't know where you are. At some point you hit the bottom and that's when you finally know. You can sort of claw your way out--hence the last song, 'Partir, par terre.' That's basically what it's about--a really long, dark fall."

Ironically again, that "fall" precipitated the band's rise to attention, at least on an initial, local level. It was local label Grenadine who took the bait, falling in love with a sound the Dears had termed "switched-on orchestral pop romantique."

Yanchak recalls, "I knew Alex Megalas from Underground Sounds [Natalia's show on CKUT]. He'd come in a few times to volunteer around the station. He was in the indie rock circuit. But that had nothing to do with how we got hooked up with them. We'd finished recording, and we'd sent out 15 or so demos, to every possible contact we had. Some people showed interest but dragged their feet. Then we played the show at Petit Campus, and Eric from Grenadine was there. He freaked out, and e-mailed us that night. It was odd, like the circle was completed--I didn't even know Alex was part of the label. It's a small world."

"The way we did the album was unconventional," says Lightburn. "The songs are different, the sound is different, everything about it is different from anything on the racks right now, in a way. Production-wise, I mean. Somehow it falls into the indie rock category, which is fine. The reaction that we got, though, shows that a lot of people weren't expecting it. Even my best friend said it took him three listens before he really got around it. Now he can't get the songs out of his head. I've heard that from quite a few people. It's not a first-listen record at all, but hopefully that's the mark of a classic."

The emotive aspect

Nobody was anticipating the reaction that met the band for their effective out-of-town debut a month or so back, in Toronto. While Lee's Palace wasn't packed to capacity, it was an auspicious night nonetheless. "It was a press convention," says Lightburn, "just hilarious. We got a lot of good press, actually, amazing press. Really good reviews and a very positive response. One dude gave us a show review saying that when we go back, 'expect riots.' The comparisons are always there--the Britpop thing, Jarvis Cocker, which I still don't get because I don't listen to Pulp at all. I'm sure they're quite good, but I don't get it. Maybe it's the keyboards--we're a very keyboard-heavy band.

"A lot of the pop music out there is either totally electronica or guitar-based. What we're doing is crossing over and then crossing over again. We have the analog synthesizers, and then the rock 'n' roll aspect, and then the orchestral side. I think it'll appeal to people who are looking for something, but don't necessarily know what it is. So we're trying to give the people not only what they want, but what they need. Especially the emotive aspect."

Ah, yes, the "emotive aspect." The drama, the passion, the agony and the ecstasy. The Dears' stock in trade, their strongest card--and Achilles' heel as well. "It's not a crying-in-your-beer thing. It's more like fighting back. Not angry, but like you know that things are shitty, but you know you're going to make a comeback, you're not gonna off yourself. Even if you feel like you want to die, you're a survivor. We've all survived some kind of bullshit, so we're gonna take all this bullshit, learn from it, turn it around and stick it back in your face. And survive."

Tightrope to the top

That's a pretty sweeping statement, Mr. Lightburn, the kind that, like the Dears' music, will earn them howling accusations of pretentiousness, if not collective emotional instability and scarred psyches. So be it, says Lightburn.

"When it's done these days, especially on an indie rock level, it's done in a very fromage way. It's disgusting, sometimes. I don't think we do it that way. The whole way we go about things is in a very upfront, in-your-face, honest way."

"Like our attitude toward the band," says Yanchak. "We take it seriously--maybe not seriously, but realistically and eloquently. No nonsense."

"There's no cartoony aspect to the band," continues Lightburn. "No gimmicks. The humour is very dark and very, very, very dry. Straightfaced humour, not slap-your-knee funny. There's some funny things on the album, but it's because the lyrics are so over-the-top sometimes that it's hilarious--but also very real."

As for the detractors--let them howl. "I don't fear anything anymore, especially accusations of pretension. Anyone who really knows me knows I'm not pretentious at all. Same with the band. It's earnest from the get-go. A lot of music out there is not speaking to people, because the artists are always trying to shield themselves and not deal with the demons. Everybody has them, and you get stronger and stronger as you face them and deal with them.

"It's a big step, it's a tightrope, it's scary as hell and it makes your heart beat fast, but it's the only way to live. As an artist, I'm saying--it's all the way or forget it. There's people who want to just stay in that same place and not grow, and then there's people who are looking for that escape that will let them grow, and I think that's where we're headed." :