— David Hepworth
Much as we may want to deny it, Canadians tend to look to the south. We watch American television, buy American products and it's somehow cheaper to fly from Calgary to Miami than to Montreal. We're so attached at the hip that we don't even question the fact that we have the same damn country calling code. It's even expected that Canadians will move to the States in order to make it. In the excellent film Frost/Nixon, David Frost — played by Michael Sheen — observes that "success in American is unlike success anywhere else" but Canadians take this one step further: success in the US is the only success.
Musicians have typically followed suit, even if two of the finest pianists of the twentieth century, Glenn Gould and Oscar Peterson, lived their entire lives north of the forty-ninth parallel. The first great generation of singer-songwriters got the hell out of Montreal and Winnipeg and Fort McLeod as promptly as they could, settling in the warm, hippiefied air of California. But this isn't so much about where they've ended up (as a Canadian who also doesn't live in Canada, I'm hardly one to judge) as the sources they've drawn from and the markets they've catering to. Four fifths of The Band came from Ontario yet they made a name for themselves cutting records about the American south. Drake has largely spurned the high life in LA in favour of his native Toronto but you'd never know where he comes from based on his music.
So, most Canadians are drawn to the US while few have bothered seeking out the UK for inspiration. Martha Ladly would hand in her notice as a member of Martha & The Muffins (leaving them with just the one Martha) and begin a vagabond musical and artistic life in Britain beginning in the second half of 1980 before eventually returning to Canada for a life in academia. Bryan Adams has been based in England for decades, even back when he was busy moaning about the supposedly draconian Can Con regulations, but how "British" is his work anyway?
Another Canadian who has been involved in British music is Philip Rambow. He got himself involved in the UK's glam rock scene, toured with Brian Eno and was in a group called The Winkies, reckoned by Billy Idol to be the first punk band. Like many of his forerunners back home, he was a first rate singer songwriter but sought to surround his music with audacious production and was at home in the rising pub rock scene that spawned Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and Nick Lowe. Americans (and, to be sure, the Canadians that followed them) were busy smoothing over country into the Eagles or mining jazz and R & B with sessioners to forge yacht rock but British D.I.Y. values had infiltrated everyone who wasn't involved in prog rock and it helped with a certain slapdash quality to much of the music — and this is a tradition that goes back to The Beatles and their studio staff stuffing a sweater into into Ringo Starr's drum kit in order to get a distinct sound or John Lennon insisting that producer George Martin stitch together two versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever" in spite of them being out of key with each other. For all their love of the Fab Four, American musicians with all their high tech studios and note-perfect session cats never manage to appreciate the patch work nature of their work. But I'm going to take a guess that Rambow had this spirit pretty well figured out.
"Rebel Kind" is a phenomenal single and probably would have still been great had it simply been a showcase for Rambow's phlegmy Costello-meets-Peter Gabriel vocals and the power of his melodies. David Hepworth hears a great driving (or cycling, depending on your preference) tune, which does admittedly give it that touch of Americana but the stuttering urgency of the guitar and bass put it firmly on the eastern side of the Atlantic. There's even traces of disco and the outrageous synth/clavioline, which harks back to The Tornados and their extraordinary smash single "Telsar", is the very sort of addition North Americans would never consider. The driving song is meant to invoke the freedom of the road, yet these numbers are too often bogged down by musical conservatism. If Rambow was indeed interested in capturing a cruise up the M1 (or down the Trans Canada Highway), why not bring back the spirit of satellites flying through space to invoke it?
But, then again, how am I to know what he had in mind? As a Canadian, I feel a bit ashamed to admit that Rambow is new to me and "Rebel Kind" is the first song of his I've ever heard. Perhaps he did look to the US for inspiration from time to time. Perhaps he didn't even think of "Telstar" and disco when he put this song together. Perhaps he's just a talented figure who worked at his craft in several countries and found inspiration everywhere and nowhere. Perhaps it's time I listen to a lot more of his work and damn all those places
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Herb Alpert: "Rotation"
Philip Rambow, Madness and Herb Alpert aside, this is a pretty grim fortnight for new singles and Hepworth is none-too-impressed. I've examined Camden's finest ska-popsters more than enough (and, indeed, they'll be covered in this space at least one more time) so it behooves me to give consideration to "Rotation", the follow up to Alpert's hugely successful hit "Rise". Good as it is, "Rise" feels like it's striving for coolness; on "Rotation", the atmosphere is looser and there's more room for some nice soloing. Alpert's backing band sounds better too. Not close to the hit that its predecessor was but it certainly deserved better.
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