Record Companies are Dead! Long Live Zunior.com & the Social Arts Club!

by Terence Dick

Not so long ago - within our lifetime for those of us thirtysomethings - the music industry was in danger of crumbling due to a readily available technology that threatened to distribute for free what record executives so desperately needed to exploit for profit. Approaching obsolescence these days, the lowly cassette tape was once such a scourge that the industry paid for a flashy marketing campaign to convince its audience that, "HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC!" Ironically, this very technology was at the same time the key to a renaissance of independently produced music that brought more sounds than ever before into people's hands and ears. "Cassette Culture" was a common phrase back then and it referred to four track recordings that could be made, mass produced and distributed from any talented hermit's bedroom. It also referred to the easy exchange of tapes through the postal service and the rampant bootlegging of musics major and minor throughout the world (back in the 1980s, crummy cassettes of everything from Madonna to Thomas Mapfumo were for sale in street markets from New York to Dubai).

The current media frenzy around the digital distribution of music through the Internet and the death knell being sounded once again by the music industry is a bit of a déjà vu for us old home tapers. We can only cross our fingers and hope the major labels finally expire this time, never to haunt our listening stations again. Ironically (once again) and luckily (for independent music makers and fans), the technology that is a curse for the industry is a blessing to anyone with a computer, a phone line and a hunger to hear and play music. And now that any musician with a student loan can buy sound software, set up a website, and burn CDs, indie music is enjoying a newfound freedom.

This is a reason to celebrate. For too long the music section of Broken Pencil has been filled (for the most part) with releases by conventional, albeit independently run, record labels. The DIY spirit that drives so much zine-making seemed to get exhausted in making music (and frustrated by distribution obstacles), leaving bands to rely on others to package and sell their music. While this is fine and good, the originality that arises from entirely self-sufficient endeavours is what makes independent culture unique, inspiring and perverse. Two recent initiatives have helped me regain my faith in the culture (not business!) of making music in this country. Both use digital technology to maintain their autonomy by seizing the means of production and distribution. Marx would be proud!

Social Arts Club
Guelph's Social Arts Club, a loose collection of musicians and band who have passed through that town, have produced a library of CDRs that could only have come from creative kids with free time, musical instruments and a couple computers. Each release is ingeniously hand-packaged and the music runs the gamut from bedroom folk to post-rock to anthemic glee-club punk. To hear what they do, visit their zine-like website and download some mp3s from some of the following CDs. (All www.socialartsclub.org unless otherwise noted.)

Alight
Story of Glass: Part One: Erosion
Q: What do you get when you cross James Taylor with Godspeed You Black Emperor? A: Radiohead. Or, postrock ballads from the likes of Alight. This is choral orch-rock that sounds like the bookish cousin of the Hidden Cameras. The one who can't dance. Truly Church of Rock music.

The Chestnuts and the Trees
McPherson
Stripped down to git, git, bass and voices, this is quiet folk sung (not yelped) accompanied by finger picking and frustration (of the inspirational kind).

Motion Picture Cinema
Both Are Different From
This used to be called post-rock. Now it's just long-form, instrumental rock owing debts to punk rather than prog. The songs require patience, skipping the fireworks and instead slowly building momentum, culminating in rewarding muscular chordal crunches.

Ryan Newell
The Swell
Four track recordings that whisper timidly, with hesitation, so as not to disturb the Newell parents upstairs. These dream-poppy folk songs are almost too indistinct. Their quiet refrains (and trombone) recall the People From Earth, Rock Plaza Central and Eric's Trip in their folkier moments.

Of January May
When the Leaves Fall from the Trees
"Prog" in that it progresses from bit to bit. Chords slowly resolve themselves and change, accompanied by vaguely diaristic lyrics. This one is all about atmosphere, arrangement and crescendo.

The Stables Club Band
AKA The Young Generation
I initially hated this until my Social Arts connection said the singer is autistic and then I was a bit more sympathetic to this "all shouting, all the time" circus-punk (carnival organ, natch). Subsequent listens revealed it to be amongst the finer of r'n'r primitives like Half Japanese or the Shaggs. It's impressive simply for the complete disconnect between vocals and music. The singer's stentorian tones remind me of the high school English teacher who sings with the Nihilist Spasm Band. File under: Enunciation Punk.

These Are My Beating Heart
Thawing
Starting out as folktronica - mixing voice, guitar and looped computer grot, this sometimes relaxes into bedroom indie pop with sound effects, junk band yelping and skiffle. It sounds like the recordings made by the campfire were later diced in the laptop.

We're Marching On
Argh! Umph! Ahhh!
My favourite record of the moment. The glee club pop - hands clapping, feet stomping, guitars chiming, voices breaking - is inspirational. If the Arcade Fire weren't so dour and gothic, they'd want to sound like this.

Yang
First One's Free (www.untitled.nu)
More four track shoebox recordings of footshuffling and heart outpouring by this basement troubadour with his Canadiana laments, Guelph depression and sosoloneliness.

Various Artists
Social Hearts
Everyone from Bahai Cassette to the Bits in the SAC stable contributes to this 24 track omnibus. Hand packaged like all their fine product and holding secret surprises within, this is just waiting to be discovered by a digger like you.

Zunior.com
Started by Dave Ulrich of the Inbreds, Zunior.com is a website and online distribution service that aims to be as transparent as possible in the business of bringing musician and listener together. Entire CDs are available as mp3 downloads for the low, low price of $8.88. Bands from across the country have posted their records on the site. It's more like a great record store than a label and frighteningly convenient to use. Zunior is also, admittedly, a record label for a select number of bands with recordings available as mp3s, high quality wav files and mailorder CDs.
(All the following releases www.zunior.com.)

Clark
The Woods
Canada's answer to the Osmonds, the Tiellis (Rheostatic Martin, the Silt's Doung and Clark's John) must be genetically predisposed to generate therapeutic art rock that lends voice (and guitar) to their individual anxieties. John uses Clark to let loose bursts of anger, excitement and confusion. A new wave bands holds his hand in comfort.

The Dinner is Ruined
Legion Hall
For some reason, no one mentioned Dale Morningstar when that psych-folk bandwagon rolled through music critic-ville. Don't matter, he was there before and will remain after, chugging away on distorto-guitar, speaking in tongues, playing notes blue to infrared, and psychedelicizing the airwaves with Dave Clark and Dr Pee adding harmonies, rhythms, piana and more to the stew.

Elevator
August
And what about these dudes with their heavy psych-folk-rock-reverb action? That wacky tabbacky is doing a number on our musical recall. Elevator remind us about the many sub-basements of rock.

Ben Gunning
Beigy Blur
This Local Rabbit channels Elvis Costello with the bounciest rhythms imaginable. His voice is almost too (car)toonful, but in small doses, his giddy songs make us happy once a day.

The Mountainside Band
4tune
Comfort tunes like comfort food like comfortable shoes like, "Comfort me, I'm feeling lost in this big old world."

Mike O'Neil
The Owl
Quirk pop from the high priest of said stuff.

from broken pencil 28