She Wants Revenge

There’s good and bad news about She Wants Revenge’s sophomore release, This Is Forever. The bad news: it sounds exactly the same as their first album. The good news: it sounds exactly the same as their first album.

That’s always been the central conundrum of She Wants Revenge. Originality is not their strong point, but they never meant for it to be. The music, even sometimes the song titles, are a precisely calculated homage to post-punk and Depeche Mode style New Wave. Of course, you can’t go wrong with that, and there’s no denying that the songs are good. There’s a kind of genius in their achievement, an admirable exercise in excellent style over substance. What keeps the whole thing from slipping into tired parody is that She Wants Revenge is doing it with tongue firmly in cheek.

Like their first album, the new one This Is Forever, starts off with a moody electro instrumental piece, First Love. The rest of the album essentially follows suit with varying degrees of success. Written In Blood is the weakest song. It comes off as less knowing homage and more like a formulaic pastiche. The fun wears a bit thin on She Will Always Be a Broken Girl and Replacement. One song starts to blend into the next.

There are some genuinely good moments. All Those Moments is a gentler counterpoint to First Love, and is a welcome change of pace. Checking Out’s Sisters of Mercy style guitar and bass play to the duo’s strengths. Closer Rachael is the most successful song; it’s moody and coolly detached, and the brazen influences come off as cheeky rather than tired.

There’s not much new in This Is Forever. There doesn’t have to be. It’s all in good fun, and even though the party is winding down it isn’t quite over yet.

Slaying the Eternal Hydra

The discovery of a long-lost modernist masterpiece sparks an exploration of art, identity and truth in Eternal Hydra at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto.

The eponymous book was authored by the fictional Gordias Carbunkle. His character and book are based on James Joyce; unfortunately, the play too frequently tips its hat to Joyce’s style. It’s long and the plot jumps back and forth in time and place, between the characters’ reality and passages from the book. There are plenty of high ideas floating around about the nature of art, truth and morality, including a subplot about racism that feels awkwardly tacked on. But the ideas, while compelling, don’t quite connect with the plot or the audience.

The play starts well. An obsessive scholar, Vivian Ezra (Liisa Repo-Martell), presents her closely guarded prize to a publisher. It’s the legendary book Eternal Hydra, penned by the fictional modernist Gordias Carbunkle (David Ferry) 70 years ago. Vivian has brooded over the manuscript for six years, annotating and footnoting all 99 dense chapters. So extreme is her devotion that she believes the spirit of Carbuncle speaks to her and lives with her. Carbunkle appears onstage with her. The other characters only interact with him during scenes from Gordias’ life or novel.

The plot starts to go off the rails somewhere during the second act. Playwright Anton Piatigorsky is trying to look at modernism through post-modernism eyes. The result is that as each character tells their unique part of the story, plot threads are picked up and dropped far too quickly.

The same set is used throughout the play: an oblong table, four chairs, two benches. It functions effectively as a board room, Vivian’s office, Carbunkle’s Paris flat, and a cobbler’s workshop in 19th century New Orleans.

The actors are excellent, despite unconvincing Irish and Creole accents. This is a workshop production, according to director Chris Abraham, with new lines being added and others removed after each performance. The changes didn’t seem to faze the cast. Even when the plot dragged they kept the audience’s attention with subtly nuanced performances.

The play debuted in 2002 as a one act show at the Stratford Festival.

Eternal Hydra’s big ideas get a bit lost in the shifting points of view and plot twists. It’s a work in progress, and it feels like one. Piatigorsky and Abraham haven’t slain their hydra yet.

Tesseracts 11

Photo: Nicole Votta

The Bakka Phoenix bookstore in Toronto was packed with sci-fi fans eagerly awaiting the launch of Tesseracts 11 on Saturday. The anthology highlights a rich diversity of voices, with stories ranging from dystopian futures and transferred memories, to teenage sex and rock and roll.

Contributors from across Ontario and Quebec were on hand to give readings and sign copies of the books. Madeline Ashby described herself as a ‘closet American’ and started the readings off with a selection from her story ‘In Which Joe and Laurie Save Rock and Roll’. Claude Lalumière, David Nickle, Kim Goldberg, Kate Reidel rounded out the panel.

The authors chatted with the fans and answered questions during the signing.

Claude Lalumière, Montreal-based author of ‘The Object of Worship’ and book reviewer for the Montreal Gazette, said the launch party couldn’t have gone better.

“It was fun,” Lalumière said. “It had a good mood, and it felt like a celebration, which is always nice.”

During the readings, several of the authors remarked that stumbling across a copy of Tesseracts was a pivotal moment for them. Seeing a collection of purely Canadian work gave them the impetus to start writing.

“It serves a specific niche because it’s the only anthology release of Canadian short fiction,” Lalumière said. “In the speculative world it highlights the Canadian voice, which is very different from any other national voice.”

Lalumière thinks Tesseracts 11 brings a new perspective to the venerable series. New authors, varied themes and styles create a dynamic feel to the book.

“I’ve only read two or three, and so far this is my favorite,” he said. “It’s really all over the map. It does feel a bit fresher and younger maybe than some of the previous ones.”

Tessearacts 12 is already being edited. Lalumière has the editorial reins this time, and he says fans of speculative fiction can expect surprises from his edition. He plans to shake up the formula even more.

“I think it’s probably going to be very different from anything we’ve seen so far,” he said. “I have very quirky tastes, and I think that’s going to show up. I like to push the envelope.”

the does at the Smiling Buddha

the does post-show. Photo: Nicole Votta

Devoted fans faithfully turned out to see the does band play the Smiling Buddha on a miserable, wet Monday night. The stormy weather suited their moody rock tunes perfectly.

“We’re the band you listen to in the dark,” singer Carol Ann said.

Diablo Red started the night out with a set of stoner rock tinged metal. The singer, Rob, disappointed the crowd only by not speaking between songs in the same growl he sang in.

Then it was time for the does. Drummer Alex Croft and guitarist Neddal Ayad set the mood with a slow paced improvised instrumental number. Singer Carol Ann and bassist Nicole Lee joined them on stage and the band launched into a driving version of their song ‘Ice and Snow’.

They put on an intense performance, well worth braving the elements for. There’s a raw edge to their music, a roughness that contrasts with and complements the simple arrangements. Neddal Ayad’s ragged guitar and Carol Ann’s voice are the musical core of the band’s sound. It’s a dramatic tension they know how to use.

“Make ‘em cry, Nicole,” Ayad said to Lee as the band began the bass driven ballad ‘Gunfighter’.
Broken hearts and moodiness aside, they do have a sense of humour about what they do.
“Neddal does it to pick up the hipster chicks,” Croft said.

The coming months will be busy for the Toronto- based band. Their packed schedule includes shows at the Bovine Sex Club. They’re working on a full-length release tentatively scheduled for March 2008.

Gorey Tales

PHOTO BY PERMISSION OF THE OSBORNE COLLECTION OF EARLY CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AND THE GOREY CHARITABLE TRUST
Edward Gorey's illustrations for Little Red Riding Hood

Gorey Tales, a new exhibit at the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Literature in Toronto, explores the more playful side of artist Edward Gorey.

Gorey is best known for his illustrations of faintly ridiculous Edwardian socialites, mustachioed men in long fur coats, unfortunate children and many cats. His art combines macabre subject matter with a dry wit to create a whimsical and sinister world. His illustrations and set designs for Dracula, and the opening credit animation for the long-running PBS series Mystery! made him famous. He has also stamped his unmistakable style on children’s book illustrations.

The Osborne Collection is located at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library. Over 80,000 rare children’s books are housed here, along with an accompanying gallery. Leslie McGrath, the department head at the Osborne Collection, said Gorey’s popularity has been drawing healthy crowds to the library.

“I think it’s been one of our best attended exhibits in years because his appeal is so broad,” she said.

A version of Little Red Riding Hood demonstrates Gorey’s versatility. The tiny figure of Red Riding Hood on the cover looks both innocent and slightly worried, but the heavy cross-hatching that usually characterizes his drawings is absent. While definitely Gorey, it’s much lighter than other pieces.

In The Dwindling Party, Gorey’s mordant humor is much more obvious. Pictures and pop-up pages illustrate the unhappy demise of the MacFizzit family during vacation, leaving only young Neville alive at the end.

Some of the miniature books Gorey has illustrated are scattered among the larger picture books. They’re merely an inch long, but the thumbnail sized illustrations are detailed and impressive.
Other children’s books, with darker themes from the Osborne Collection, are also on display. They help to anchor Gorey’s work firmly in the tradition of illustrated children’s books. Early versions of familiar fairy tales and popular Punch and Judy stories have distinctly dark undertones. McGrath said that’s something she hopes people will appreciate in this exhibit.

“There’s a long, fascinating tradition of this type of material in children’s publishing,” she said. “You can go right back to early materials to the world upside down […] on through Struwwelpeter, and even through Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark. There’s a long tradition of the macabre and the interesting, cautionary tales, in children’s books.”

The exhibit also includes some of his best known work, like a first edition of The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest, and a toy theatre Gorey based on his award-winning costumes and set design for Dracula.

The variety of material in Gorey Tales creates a picture of an artist able to apply his idiosyncratic style to the serious and whimsical alike. It’s been a pleasant surprise for many visitors, McGrath said.

“People can come in who don’t think about this person as a children’s illustrator, and they realize a good illustrator is a good illustrator, whether he’s doing adult books, children’s books, doesn’t really matter,” she said.

Orn at the Smiling Buddha

Orn filled the Smiling Buddha in Toronto with a palpable wall of doom last Friday night. Dense waves of feedback and a low-end throb were felt as much as heard by the enthusiastic crowd that packed the venue. They played a two-song set that still clocked in at 30 minutes.

Orn isn’t quite your typical doom metal band. The long, droning songs and the tortured wail of vocalist Adam Cooper are classic doom. But the structure is minimal to the point of being avant-garde. Cooper, guitarist Dan Ross and drummer Justin Smith created an affecting soundscape of feedback and simple, heavy beats.

The three of them started the band a year ago, and have only played one other show. Ross, a shaggy, bearded political science doctoral candidate, commented on Orn’s slow, steady pace before the show.

“Like all things in doom metal we move very, very slowly,” Ross said.

They drew a surprisingly mixed crowd. The usual metal heads in bullet belts and ratty hair rubbed shoulders with hipsters in bandanas and Cons. Doom metal has gotten a stamp of approval from magazines like Vice, and another Toronto-based doom outfit, Nadja, has gotten coverage in mainstream media.

Everyone seemed equally caught up in the music though. Any song that can hold your attention for 20 minutes has to be good. The crowd pressed right up to the edge of the stage, and even the most detached hipsters rocked out to the pulses of noise.

Orn have just released an EP, Teeth/Knowing. They plan to gig around Toronto and eventually release a full-length album.

Unlike other bands in the doom scene, like Sunn 0))), who put on pretentious, conceptualized shows, an Orn show is refreshingly down to earth. They’re just three guys in black playing their hearts out, no props or robes needed.

“There’s nothing complicated or tricky, it doesn’t ask you to be over-sophisticated or to intellectualize what you’re looking to do,” Ross said. “It’s just big, loud, stupid music. I think sometimes people just want to listen to big, loud, stupid music.”

Control

Photo courtesy the Weinstein Company

Control is a stark film. It is beautiful even when it shouldn’t be, a fitting aesthetic for a film about Joy Division front man, Ian Curtis.

Based on the biography written by Curtis’ widow Deborah, Control tells a more personal story than typical rock films. Curtis (Sam Riley) is at pains to keep wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) away from the band as their fame grows, and as he carries on a disastrous affair with Belgian journalist, Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara).

As the film progresses, Curtis begins to suffer from violent epileptic seizures as his personal life disintegrates. A long list of pills does little to control the increasingly frequent episodes. Isolation and hopelessness overtake him, and one night in May 1980, alone, Curtis hangs himself.

Control marks photographer Anton Corbijn’s feature film directorial debut. His style is perfectly suited to the subject. The images are stark, monochromatic panoramas of a dismal town in northern England, shabby backstage rooms, and bleak domestic settings. This is the genius of Corbijn. Light subtly illuminates the actors in the sparse settings. When Curtis performs, eyes fixed on something beyond his reach, he seems to glow. Maccelsfield is lent an unlikely grandeur. It’s the visual equivalent of Joy Division’s sound.

The actors played the music themselves, and thankfully does it justice. The surviving members of Joy Division, the recently defunct New Order, composed the incidental music.

For a movie about Joy Division there is a surprising sense of humor and levity. Curtis and the other band members are sometimes arrogant, and given to rude jokes with deadpan delivery. Throughout much of the band’s career, Curtis kept his day job in the civil service. They were not instant stars, and international fame was something Curtis would never live to experience.

The performances are unaffected and superb. The actors playing the band bear an uncanny resemblance to their subjects, the characters real and distinct. Samantha Morton turns in a remarkably sensitive performance. Debbie’s love and growing frustration are palpable and understated but poignant.

Sam Riley as Curtis is mesmerizing. An unknown, Riley delivers a debut more impressive than Corbijn’s, successfully tackling the daunting task of portraying Curtis on stage. His Curtis is conflicted and complicated. He hates everyone he loves. His longed for fame turns out to be something he can’t handle. He is terrified and humiliated by his deteriorating health.

The last night of Curtis’ life is obsessively documented. For viewers even remotely familiar with Joy Division, his death comes as no surprise, but it is no less tragic. Corbijn doesn’t soften the edges of Curtis’ depression, and doesn’t let the viewer forget how young he was. Despite the cutting insight of his lyrics, he was only 23 when he died.

This is not a typical rock biopic. Curtis was not a typical rock star. Control is not mythologizing. It treats its subjects with too much honesty and dignity for that. It is a austere, beautiful story of a talented man beaten down by despair and crippled by his loss of control.

Toronto After Dark Film Festival '07

Festival director Adam Lopez and Murder Party star Chris Sharp answered questions from the audience. Photo: Nicole Votta

Conjoined twins, brown knights, zombie chickens and philosopher donkeys. Where do you find them? The Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

The second Toronto After Dark Film Festival opened Oct. 19 and wrapped up Oct. 25 at the Bloor Cinema. The festival, which shines a light on independent horror, fantasy and science fiction films, featured 14 films and over 30 short films.

Communications director Chris Emery said the festival organizers and fans have one standard they hold the films to.

“We always say that our film festival is based on thrilling cinema,” Emery said. “They like the thrilling cinema, they like seeing the film where you’re walking down the dark corridor and you’re not sure what’s going to jump out or try to kill you.”

A Taste for BrainsThe festival opened with the Canadian premier of the highly anticipated Mulberry Street. Set in New York City, Mulberry Street is a zombie movie in the vein of Land of the Dead and 28 Days Later. A virus spread by rats takes over the city and the victims turn into rodent like zombies. It’s a solid movie and the audience clearly loved it. But it feels a bit too familiar. Maybe the zombie genre needs a break.

However, two more zombie movies were on the bill, the zombie chicken comedy Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead and Automaton Transfusion. Directed by Steven C. Miller, Automaton Transfusion is definitely low-budget and the cast isn’t quite Oscar worthy. It contains a political slant that works surprising well, though. These zombies were developed by the United States military. The experiment goes horrifically awry and a remarkable amount of gore ensues.

Wolfhound was billed as one of the festival’s highlights. Rumored to be the highest budget Russian film ever made and with a plot line that owes more to Beastmaster or Kull than Lord of the Rings how could it go wrong? If you went into the film expecting highbrow fantasy, you would have come out disappointed. This is cheesy sword and sorcery fun.

Most pleasantly surprising were the shorts. Short films were shown before each feature and in blocks of nine on Saturday and Sunday. While some of the features regrettably fell into clichés, the shorts were daring and visually arresting. Some of the most notable were the surrealist An Introduction to Lucid Dreaming and A Very Sunny Morning, the gas-masked dystopian fantasy Ambassador’s Day, and the morality tale The Tragic Story of Nling. Latchkey’s Lament and Operation: Fish were easily the most visually appealing films.

The festival wrapped up with Murder Party. Festival director Adam Lopez took the stage to cheers and applause, as he declared the festival a success. According to Lopez, over 5,000 people attended the festival, a figure well beyond their expectations.

While thanking staff, volunteers and audience, Lopez said their enthusiasm and love of thrills was what keeps the festival going.

“We do it all for you guys,” he said.

Lopez promised the festival would be back next year, same time, same place. Whatever monster or madman reigns supreme next year, there will be gore and horror and audience chants.
What do we want? Kills!

Canzine '07

The art of zine making at Canzine. Photo: Nicole Votta

A cacophony of noise greeted visitors at this year’s Canzine, where hundreds of zine makers discussed the finer points of zine culture, and took in readings and a free noise band who did interpretations of Metallica.

The twelfth annual Canzine was held on Oct . 28 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Staged by Broken Pencil, Canzine is a multimedia celebration of independent art and print zines.
Broken Pencil editor Lindsay Gibb said Canzine offers a chance for zine makers and underground artists in Toronto to come together.

“It started out as an oasis for zine people and what’s going on in the zine world and what zines are out there,” she said. “That’s what Canzine is all about, allowing people to get together and sell their zines.”

Judging by attendance, Toronto’s zine culture is alive and well. Two floors were crammed with tables of zines and underground comics. The narrow aisles were so packed people could barely squeeze by each other. This year’s Canzine featured a horror theme to coincide with the Halloween issue of Broken Pencil. Though Canzine is usually held at the end of October, Gibb said this was the first time they’d tried to add a spooky touch to the event.

“It just happened this year that we did a horror issue […] and we thought we would do it to coincide with Canzine,” Gibb said. “Canzine always falls toward the end of October.”

Readings, art installations and workshops were held on the second floor. Local writers read horror stories and a pair of make-up artists demonstrated the fine art of making intestines out of nylons and cotton balls. One installation challenged viewers to solve a murder. Artist Tara Bursey created a haunted room with worry bead diet pills and soaps inscribed with the word ‘imperfect’.

On both floors the atmosphere was friendly and chaotic. Members of the band Friendly Rich and the Lollipop People wandered up and down the stairs with rolls of packing tape and crank organs. Zine vendors spilled out onto the landings. An artist in a commercial pilot’s uniform sat behind his table sketching an intricate pattern of people and dense, curving lines amidst the chaos.

The printed zine doesn’t seem to be in any danger of disappearing, says Gibb.“I [thought] that online would change the face of zines and what people are creating. And for sure it has changed a little bit, like you see people making t-shirts and purses and whatever, things instead of just zines,” she said. “But we have more zines here than anything else. People are still making physical zines, not just online.”

Shapeshifters

Nicole Votta

A whale skeleton hangs from the gallery’s ceiling, the immense stark white form undulating with breathtaking grace.

It’s made of white plastic lawn chairs.

Brian Jungen’s Cetalogy dominates Shapeshifters, Time Travelers, and Storytellers, a new exhibit of contemporary Aboriginal art at the Royal Ontario Museum. The works exhibited range from traditional pen and ink to video presentation. Several pieces dating back to the 19th century are also included.

Co-curator Candice Hopkins said that merging of past and present is at the heart of the exhibit.

“In many Aboriginal cultures "time" is understood as cyclical, sometimes paradoxical, and there is nearly always a continued recognition of how the past influences the present,” Hopkins said.

Cheryl L’Hirendelle’s audio installation, hearing in coyote daze, invites visitors to experience a lost wilderness in the middle of the ROM’s ultra modern Crystal. It’s surprisingly effective, even though surrounded by visual art and sitting on an undeniably plastic rock.

High-Heeled Moccasins and Kent Monkman’s other pieces are a playful twist on the theme. He mixes tradition with modern fashion objects like a Louis Vuitton quiver and beaded patent leather platforms.

Many of the new pieces were commissioned specifically for this exhibit. Hopkins said that while this was a challenge it also created a unique opportunity.

“Commissioning this number of new works for an exhibition can be a gamble but on the other hand it enabled us to work quite closely with each artist throughout their process […] and it also enabled many of the works to be site specific and respond to both the unique architecture of the space and the idea for the show itself,” she said.

One of the most interesting pieces is unfortunately tucked in a corner, almost hidden by other displays. A Pleistocene-era mammoth tusk painted in the 19th century, captures a changing society in terse black lines. It charts the rapid changes in lifestyle ushered in by the arrival of the Europeans. On one side figures hunt and travel, and on the other permanent settlements have been built. It creates a powerful link between the modern and the ancient.

Cetalogy and the other pieces seem less like the products of modern artistic tastes. They become the newest and most vigorous expression of a dynamic tradition reaching back through Canada’s history, one that continues to evolve and respond to change, which is what Hopkins hopes viewers take away from the exhibit.

“I hope that there will be the perception that Aboriginal culture is not static [and] located in the past, but present and rapidly changing,” Hopkins said. “These artists are some of the best in Canada and I think that the exhibition clearly demonstrates this.”