For anyone who is wondering why there has been such a preponderance of pretentious sub-par indie rock knock-offs lately – and why at least half of them are Canadian – there is a simple answer to the puzzle.
The emerging millennial popularity of Toronto rock supergroup Broken Social Scene and the breakthrough success of Montreal indie outfit Arcade Fire’s 2004 release, Funeral, have both given marginally talented Canadian hipsters from Halifax to Vancouver a cause for celebration.
Now, instead of having to come up with innovative music like The Weakerthans, Wolf Parade and the aforementioned Arcade Fire did, they just have to throw in a few poorly played (and unnecessary) instruments, spice things up with some dual male-female vocals and cash in on the “baroque pop” bandwagon.
Which brings us to The Most Serene Republic. Now a seven-member band complete with violin, piano and trombone, the group formed in Milton, Ontario, in 2003 as a three-piece consisting of Adrian Jewett, Ryan Lenssen and Nick Greaves.
In a phone interview with The Diamondback while shopping for groceries before kicking off a winter tour in support of the band’s 2007 album, Population, lead vocalist Adrian Jewett discussed the band’s beginning and its growing popularity.
“As a band, we basically started off with shows in 2003,” Jewett said. “Nick, Ryan and I pretty much just started playing music together.”
After recruiting several additional members, the band released its 2004 debut, Underwater Cinematographer, to a small but receptive audience.
“Inspiration for [Underwater Cinematographer] was absolutely nothing,” Jewett said. “Just us in a basement, exchanging music and melodies and rhythms and harmonies as a fun thing to do.”
While the band’s debut may have been unstructured and lacking a central theme, Jewett thinks Population is a much more cohesive endeavor.
“We knew for Population, it would be immediately reviewed and put up online, and people would listen to it,” Jewett said. “That definitely affected how we put everything together. … It made us very organized when it came to this one.”
Unfortunately, that organization didn’t pay off, as Population feels like a cheap knock-off of something labelmates Broken Social Scene would have put out several years earlier. Unaware of the irony in his words, Jewett agrees that the music scene is oversaturated with unoriginal bands.
When asked what he likes in the music scene, Jewett very hiply responded, “I myself barely listen to music anymore. It hurts a lot and affects my attention span. There’s just too much of it.”
Branching off of an analogy about too much of a good thing, Jewett continued, “Music is your metaphysical soul food, and too much metaphysical soul food is like eating nothing but shoddy Lunchables. I guess most of the music I hear today is comparable to Oscar Mayer and Lunchables.”
Yes. Yes it is.
Not content to keep his pretentiousness confined to other bands’ recorded music, however, Jewett also thinks the live music scene is played out and similarly oversaturated.
“It’s not like we’re playing for crowds where they’re severely depressed socially or financially, and music is how they escape,” he said. “They don’t have families off at war, so they’re basically coming in for entertainment, and these are people who are constantly entertained all day anyway, so it’s hard to have any connection.”
If that doesn’t bring fans out in droves, what will?
The Most Serene Republic will play at The Rock and Roll Hotel in Washington. The show begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $10.
fallopia@umd.edu
