’90s nostalgia gets short shrift

--taken from: Waterloo Region Record

by Joel Rubinoff

It was the Canadian version of the outlaw country supergroup, The Highwaymen.

Four frontmen, past and present, of four iconic Canadian '90s bands — Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Odds — joining forces at Guelph's River Run Centre last week to perform their greatest hits, and only hits.

"I'm An Adult Now," "Someone Who's Cool," "Brian Wilson," "Underwhelmed."

As The Trans-Canada Highwaymen banged out their songs of smart-aleck alienation with energy, conviction and an unerring sense of melody, it was all killa, no filla, a perfect time capsule of a pivotal era in Can-rock expansion.

"It's fun for Captain Kirk to be in the same band as Captain Picard," joked Sloan frontman Chris Murphy with classic Canadian self-deprecation. "I don't know if you know this, but this group was put together by Simon Cowell."

It was one for the record books.

But instead of Massey Hall or the Air Canada Centre, this so-called "supergroup" played a tiny, 785-seat concert hall to a rabble of enthusiastic diehards and loyal series subscribers in their 80s who appeared taken aback by the volume.

Which begs two questions: 1) jeez, what is going on with '90s nostalgia? 2) is this the best it can do?

At which point I remembered the much ballyhooed Big Music Fest two summers ago at Kitchener's McLennan Park.

Nope, not the sellout triumph with classic rock stalwarts Slash, Styx, Aerosmith and Bryan Adams, who drew a massive multi-generational crowd without breaking a sweat.

The one a year later that saw '90s alt-rockers Soundgarden, Jane's Addiction and Extreme play to a half-empty field of tattooed, nose-pierced 40-something slackers — and no one else.

This, it seems, is the pitfall of '90s nostalgia and indie rock in particular: great as it was in its time, it was so far from the mainstream, with such limited appeal, that it can't pull in the big tent crowds needed to fuel a genuine renaissance.

And it's not just in Canada.

Scanning Soundscan's Worldwide Ticket Sales chart for the top 100 tours of 2016, I count only 12 rooted in the decade of Bill Clinton, harem pants and Luke Perry sideburns, with zero in the top 20.

The highest, at No. 24, is Blink-182, followed by the Dave Matthews Band (27), Phish (29), Celine Dion (38), Red Hot Chili Peppers (42), Weezer and Panic! At The Disco (47), Snoop Dogg with Wiz Khalifa (53), Pearl Jam (56), I Love the '90s with Salt-N-Pepa and Vanilla Ice (76), Ricky Martin (83), Mariah Carey (94) and Rob Zombie/Korn (96).

Who made the Top 10?

Coldplay, a defiantly millennial act, is No. 1, followed by Bruce Springsteen ('70s/'80s), Beyoncé (current), Justin Bieber (current), Guns N' Roses ('80s), Adele (current), Luke Bryan (current), Trans-Siberian Orchestra ('00s), Kenny Chesney (current), and Muse ('00s).

What they have in common, of course, is that they play accessible music that appeals to more than one age group, boast killer live shows and — other than a cursory nod — have little to do with hip hop or grunge.

Call it the '90s Curse, but if you listen to Sirius radio's '90s on 9, what you hear is a preponderance of melismatic divas (Mariah Carey), teen troubadours (Britney Spears) hip hop schlockmeisters (MC Hammer) grunge distortionists (Screaming Trees) and one hit wonders (Right Said Fred).

None of which translate into a) arena-sized tours b) a legacy longer than Y2K panic.

Let's be blunt: The Spice Girls were big, but they were no Beatles (though they may have been The Monkees).

The Backstreet Boys were no Rolling Stones.

And Chumbawamba, despite their fist-pumping anthem "Tubthumping," was no Led Zeppelin.

So where do forged-in-the-'90s stars like Carey, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette and Backstreet Boys earn a living these days?

Casinos, cruise ships and 2,000-seat venues across North America.

It's as if the entire decade, it's time come 'round once again, said, "You know what? Meh. I think I'll pass."

"Very few '90s acts were able to develop deep catalogues of albums with hits that sustained," notes former Kitchener deejay Steve Sobczuk, pointing to a determined lack of melody in both hip hop and alt-rock.

"In the '80s, acts like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince and Springsteen did this, and even secondary level acts like John Mellencamp were able to put together a pretty long career to draw from.

"If Nirvana was one of the biggest acts of the '90s, they had only two hit albums of new material and a third 'unplugged' record with covers and older material before Kurt blew his brains out. Pretty thin output to base any 'legendary' status on."

As New York Times essayist Carl Wilson pointed out in a pithy rant on the same topic, it's hard to feel nostalgia for, say, gangsta rap, when it's associated with things like crack cocaine, turf wars and the Rodney King riots.

The counter argument, of course, is that the reason there's no flag waving, cross-burning '90s revival overtaking pop culture is because the '90s, ahem, never left.

Think about it. In the decades prior to the '90s, we could expect a major musical paradigm shift once every decade or so: rock 'n' roll in the '50s, guitar bands and psychedelia in the '60s, disco and punk in the '70s, synth-pop and metal in the '80s, grunge and hip hop in the '90s.

And then what?

If you scan Billboard's Hot 100, you can draw a straight line between then and now, with a few squiggles for variations on a theme: dance pop, electropop, synth pop, indie pop, indie folk, indie rock, alt rock.

"There's so many more genres vying for your dollar," points out Greg Henderson, programming manager at Kitchener's Centre in the Square, noting how music splintered in the post-90s digital era. "EDM, R&B, hip hop ..."

And just as disco begat EDM and Madonna begat Lady Gaga, so did '90s titans like Mariah Carey beget Adele and Jay Z beget Drake — younger, hipper offshoots drawing from the same musical well.

To be fair, the decade wasn't a total wash, nostalgically, with remakes of TV shows/films like "Full House," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Power Rangers" going head to head with upcoming reboots of "Will & Grace," "Baywatch" and "Toy Story."

Flannel shirts and Mom jeans are back — who would have thought that was possible? — O.J. Simpson was the subject of two recent miniseries, and '90s 'It girl' Winona Ryder made a comeback in the Netflix series "Stranger Things."

"The Simpsons," on the other hand, never left, Pokemon and SpongeBob SquarePants are bigger than ever and — because the culture feels stuck in permanent dry dock — '90s series like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" feel contemporary almost two decades after they went off the air.

And guess who was just named "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People Magazine for the fifth time since 1991?

Julia Roberts, of course, her perky visage seemingly frozen in time.

Which begs the question, how can we miss the '90s if they won't go away?

"In our Been There Done That Mashup Age, nothing is obsolete, and nothing is really new,"' Kurt Andersen wrote in Vanity Fair, explaining this "stylistic paralysis" as a natural reaction to massive techno and geopolitical changes since 9/11.

"I feel as if the whole culture is stoned, listening to an LP that's been skipping for decades, playing the same groove over and over. Nobody has the wit or gumption to stand up and lift the stylus."

"The end of history" was the popular refrain as the '90s kicked off with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and pundits celebrated the fact humankind had reached its evolutionary peak.

Ha, ha. What's ironic, in hindsight, isn't that history continued with gleeful abandon — 9/11, the War on Terror, Donald Trump — but that pop culture had its head so far up its butt it neglected to pay attention and offer a modicum of course correction.

"I think Bruce Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac wrecked it for everyone," points out programming chief Henderson of the classic rock acts that dominate the concert landscape. "They're so massive and still huge draws."

So here we are in 2017, grappling with bro country and Justin Bieber in place of Billy Ray Cyrus and the Backstreet Boys, watching the same/similar TV shows, the same/similar blockbuster sequels, with the odd sense that no time has passed.

Once "The Rachel" makes a reappearance, there will be no turning back.

--taken from: Waterloo Region Record

The Trans-Canada’s muttonchopped minstrel is packing Gremlins

--taken from: Planet S (read more here)

by Emmet Matheson

He’s Mojo Nixon on maple syrup. He’s Stuart McLean for Millennials. He’s the lovechild of Red Green and Chixdiggit. He’s B.A. Johnston, Hamilton’s hard luck troubadour for an era of lowered expectations. He’s just released a new album — his eighth since 2005’s My Heart is a Blinking Nintendo — and it’s full of lo-fi, minute-and-a-half odes to cheap beer, bad movies, and lousy jobs.

When his 2015 album Shit Sucks made the long list for Canada’s Polaris Prize, which celebrates artistic merit in Canadian music, it was one of the Canadian music scene’s most controversial moments since everyone thought Sloan was breaking up after Twice Removed. Some critics didn’t think an ostensible comedy album belonged among nominees for a prestigious award, and some thought that was a myopic, elitist thing to say.

--taken from: Planet S (read more here)

Napalmpom Premieres Intimate and Hyperactive Video with IMVERYAPE

--taken from: BeatRoute Magazine (read more here)

Napalmpom: “The mid-to-late ’90s era of Much Music instilled confidence in us at a young(-er) age that being a Canadian band could be genuinely important and valued. We obsessively taped episodes of Much East and The Wedge hoping to see videos by Thrush Hermit, Change Of Heart and Slow and wore out our copies of Sloan’s own Intimate and Interactive. 90 minutes dedicated to the music and personalities of a Canadian band? Canada’s Kiss, but with far better songs. Its Beatles, but without the baggage. We dreamt of having our very own ‘leave the Much studios to sing a tune in Speaker’s Corner,’ as Chris Murphy did on ‘Deeper Than Beauty.’

--taken from: BeatRoute Magazine (read more here)

Music icons front and centre again

--taken from: Kingston Whig-Standard

by Peter Hendra

The first time the frontmen from four iconic 1990s Canadian bands -- Moe Berg (The Pursuit of Happiness), Chris Murphy (Sloan), Craig Northey (The Odds) and Steven Page (The Barenaked Ladies) -- got together to play a show, the idea was to do so in a songwriters circle, in which each performer would take a turn telling a back story about a song and then playing it. It didn't last long for that to change.

"We did [a show] last summer, and it was kind of formatted that way, but we basically cheated the whole thing by doing four songs that way, and then doing the rest as a band," Berg recalled over the phone.

The quartet have taken that "superband" idea a step further, and are now known as the TransCanada Highwaymen, a nod to the many hours, days, months each has travelled across the country while touring. The newly formed group, which performs at the Grand Theatre tonight, plays four of the best-known songs penned by each of its members while telling a few stories, too.

"We wanted to do something a bit different," Berg said, who penned hits such as "I'm an Adult Now" and "Cigarette Dangles."

"We wanted to present ourselves as a band. I think we wanted it to be like a real concert experience for the audience instead of just a songwriters-in-the-round. It brings a little more energy and excitement into the show, I think."

This show is different in other ways, too, Berg said, thanks to the involvement of theatrical producer Jim Millan, who previously designed tours for the Kids in the Hall and some reality show stars.

"He approached us about doing a more theatrical production where we share road stories and there's a multimedia aspect to it and also the music," Berg explained. "So it's a bit more than a concert."

Playing concerts, as it turns out, is something from which Berg excused himself for a long time.

"I created a lot of anxiety around it," he said. "I didn't really know how to get around it except for just avoiding doing it."

He warmed up to the idea of performing again, though, after The Pursuit of Happiness played a show about 18 months ago.

"I had a pretty good time that night and I was thinking, 'If I just fought through this, I could get back to enjoying it again.' It's something I can do, it's a skill I have, and then so I just decided when people asked me if I could come do this, could you come and sing a song for this, I decided to say yes more often than I said no, and I [used to] say no all of the time," said Berg, who moved to the other side of the console as a record producer when he stopped performing.

"And I started to get back into the idea of doing it and not being so anxious about it, and then this came up, and I thought, 'OK, this is going to be a real test. I'm going to go out and do this.'"

That he isn't the frontman but rather one of four made performing again more appealing, Berg said.

In hindsight, Berg feels as though he didn't appreciate what he had back in TPOH's heyday.

"I did really enjoy performing. I loved it a lot. It was my favourite thing to do," he reminisced. "In some ways, it's not so much I miss it, I wish I'd taken more time to smell the roses while I was doing it. I shouldn't have let the pressures of whatever was going on get to me. It's such an awesome experience to get to do that, and I know how many people would love the opportunity to do the things that I was able to do. I wish I had appreciated it more than I did."

Berg misses being part of a band, he said, and he especially misses his bandmates.

"There's a camaraderie, a single goal, and a lot of these cliches that are really quite wonderful, actually," he reflected. "I've even been experiencing it rehearsing with these guys. It's great being around these guys and talking about music and about stories about being on the road. They're hilarious, all three of those guys, so they're always cracking jokes. That camaraderie, that's really intoxicating, a really fun thing."

The quartet has eight shows in Ontario lined up, at least for now.

"We're just trying to get this going," Berg said. "There's been talk about maybe doing some songwriting and stuff like that, but I think we're trying to get through these first eight shows, and then talk about doing some more, and see where this goes. It all has to be scheduled around everyone's 'day job,' I guess, if you want to call it that."

--taken from: Kingston Whig-Standard

The resurrection of smart-aleck ‘power pop’

--taken from: Waterloo Region Record

by Joel Rubinoff

He really is an adult now.

Moe Berg, that is, the 58-year-old lead singer of Canadian band The Pursuit of Happiness, whose biggest hit, "I'm An Adult Now," prophesied, among other things, his reaction to the music business from which he made a stern exit in the mid '90s.

"I really became disenchanted and I was not enjoying being onstage," confides the Toronto resident who once lyrically opined, "I can't take too much loud music/ I mean I like to play it, but I sure don't like the racket/ Noise, but I can't hear anything/ Just guitars screaming, screaming, screaming/ Some guy screaming in a leather jacket."

He pauses on the phone. "I just couldn't face it."

And so Berg bought into his own song and found comfort as a behind-the-scenes producer, writer and part-time professor.

Until last summer, when a like-minded posse of smart aleck rabble-rousers from indie pop's glory days — Sloan's Chris Murphy, The Odd's Craig Northey, former Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page — made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

"There's a 'power pop' element in everyone's music that flows from the Beatles, Badfinger, the Raspberries and the Knack," he notes of their musical connection.

"All these bands have a real pop sensibility."

And so was born the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, a Can-rock take on the ragtag ensemble once formed by country music outlaws Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.

"I'm not gonna say we put a ton of thought into it," jokes Berg, who played one gig in the summer with his fellow avatars of wit, snark and attitude before embarking on the current mini tour.

Technically, the multimedia show — which will include songs, video and pithy anecdotes — is billed as "An evening with Moe Berg, Chris Murphy, Craig Northey and Steven Page."

But don't expect one of those laid-back songwriter circles where a bunch of geezers sit around telling war stories while strumming acoustic guitars.

"We're a band," notes Berg, vaguely mortified by the association. "It's gonna be loud."

New material? Forget it.

No one wants to hear veteran artists perform new songs — the universal symbol for "bathroom break" — even when they're good.

Like the golden age of AM radio Berg and company grew up on, the show will be all hits, all the time.

"We decided to just put on the most entertaining show we can," says the Edmonton native, who figures the band's democratic "supergroup" structure will ease his return to the mike after a 20 year absence.

"Each of us will do our four most popular songs."

While he declines to confirm a set list, it's reasonable to assume it would include Sloan's "Underwhelmed," the Barenaked Ladies' "Brian Wilson," The Odd's "Someone Who's Cool."

And of course, "I'm An Adult Now" in which Berg, a wizened old soul at 27, complained about having to wake up early, the perils of drugs, fading sexual potency and his aching back.

"At the time I wrote it, I was just addressing the idea of adulthood — the irony, the humour," he explains patiently. "Definitely at that time in my life I was a little bit of an a---hole."

And now?

"I think being a wise guy is sometimes a bad idea," he notes reflectively. "But we were just who we were and tried not to do things just for the money, so we never looked back with regret. We had a great time doing it."

I point out that at 58, he's as old as the adults he once mocked, but the thought doesn't register.

"I don't feel old," he laughs. "I feel young at heart, with stunted emotional growth."

--taken from: Waterloo Region Record