00:00:00:18 [Music]
00:00:02:28 I think that most people aren't like a lineage as far as
00:00:05:06 what they listen to in music, you know, like something
00:00:08:09 sparked their interest in music at a young age,
00:00:09:28 and then eventually there is a point where someone like,
00:00:12:24 you know, gets into a type of music
00:00:15:18 that brings them to where they're at today.
00:00:17:08 Notes from the front line of a strange new culture,
00:00:19:18 this is Strange Notes.
00:00:21:06 [Music]
00:00:32:16 And it's Phoenix tonight,
00:00:34:18 The Weakerthans and The Constantines will be playing.
00:00:38:06 We're going to a interview
00:00:39:28 Mr. Bryan Webb of The Constantines.
00:00:42:16 The Constantines, I mean like,
00:00:43:28 this is a nerve wrecking one for me, I mean, they're,
00:00:46:03 for my money they're probably the best band in Canada.
00:00:48:08 I kind of got into them on their second record,
00:00:50:17 and I've been following them every since.
00:00:51:28 People compare,
00:00:53:07 you know they talk about the foogazy influence,
00:00:55:22 and then they say Bruce Springsteen,
00:00:57:18 and at the time when I think
00:00:59:18 a lot of say Bruce Springsteen, worship stuff is very...
00:01:02:17 almost approaching a level of cliché,
00:01:05:24 they have just like made it their own thing,
00:01:07:18 and I think they're probably one of the best bands in Canada.
00:01:10:10 The newest record they put out, Kensington Heights,
00:01:12:23 its easily the best Canadian record to come out last year.
00:01:15:06 Associated Press gave it number one album of the year,
00:01:17:28 and not one Juno nod, except for Artwork,
00:01:21:06 and the Artwork didn't even win, and I'm just, I don't know,
00:01:23:18 I feel like that was a tragedy in this country.
00:01:26:16 I think a lot of musicians identify with them as well,
00:01:28:28 like they're real bands man.
00:01:30:26 ♪ [Music]
00:02:05:06 You're originally from London?
00:02:06:12 Yeah.
00:02:07:19 What's it like growing up there?
00:02:09:07 It's like a good place to raise a family, as they say.
00:02:13:03 You know it's like, it's the insurance capital of Canada.
00:02:16:24 It's pretty conservative in a lot of ways
00:02:19:02 and pretty quite in a lot of ways,
00:02:21:28 but it was great being a skateboarder
00:02:24:19 in that kind of a town, you know.
00:02:26:17 Sure
00:02:28:01 You didn't feel like too afraid to go out all night skating,
00:02:32:17 and then there were like great...
00:02:34:08 like All Ages bars there, like called the Office,
00:02:37:01 the Electric Banana was like where the All Ages shows
00:02:39:14 were when I was a kid.
00:02:40:22 And there is a show called Speed City Radio,
00:02:44:18 that's been going for like; I hope it's still going,
00:02:46:20 but it was on the campus radio station there, it was my...
00:02:50:08 The guy who started Speed City Records?
00:02:51:26 Exactly, Mike Todd who runs Speed City Records was the guy,
00:02:54:06 like he started this All Ages series of shows when I was 14,
00:03:00:09 at the Electric Banana; it was like afternoon Saturday shows,
00:03:02:29 and just all of our friends, just rock bands would play,
00:03:05:18 and it was perfect, you know, like the first shows to play.
00:03:08:25 Like one guy would stage dive and there would just enough
00:03:10:28 people to hold on, move around the room.
00:03:14:12 That was amazing.
00:03:16:16 But yeah, I kind of got a little bit...
00:03:18:12 you get to like a certain age and you need to,
00:03:20:00 it's the kind of town that everybody needs to
00:03:22:10 get out of for a little while, at least.
00:03:23:20 Yeah, I mean, like I grew up in Grimsby, and like most of the
00:03:26:28 kids that I knew moved just far away as they could without
00:03:29:18 leaving the country; they moved to the West Coast,
00:03:32:17 somewhere else, you know, yeah.
00:03:34:01 Now, I can see that a lot.
00:03:35:10 The metal scene in London is huge, which is probably true of
00:03:37:18 a lot of like kind of conservative towns,
00:03:40:14 you know like, there is this...
00:03:41:23 there is a giant underground metal scene there,
00:03:43:18 which was great.
00:03:45:02 The embassy was like the main place for metal, I think.
00:03:47:20 When did the move to Guelph happen,
00:03:49:04 were you going to school or?
00:03:50:28 Yeah, I was in University at Western, and I worked at the
00:03:54:03 campus radio station there as the music director for like
00:03:57:18 two years, and that kind of kept me in the university.
00:04:00:06 I was not enjoying it all that much.
00:04:02:28 After I left the station, so I just decided to put that on hold
00:04:06:18 and move to Guelph as we had already started playing,
00:04:09:03 and some of the guys were living there at a house,
00:04:10:28 and it just seemed like a nice city.
00:04:13:07 So I moved up there in like 2001, maybe,
00:04:17:20 and into that house, and we put on some host shows there,
00:04:21:28 and we used to practice in that same place;
00:04:23:23 it was Dallas, Steve and I,
00:04:26:01 and an artist friend of ours named Pete.
00:04:27:22 And then Guelph had this amazing community of musicians
00:04:30:10 that were all doing like home recording
00:04:33:06 Jim Guthrie had a home recording based show on CFRU there.
00:04:36:22 Everybody was just making music for their friends
00:04:39:13 and like for themselves, it was so exciting to me at the time.
00:04:42:28 So yeah, that kept me there for a while.
00:04:45:11 Is a lot of that still there you think?
00:04:47:03 Every time I go back, there is some like strongholds there,
00:04:51:09 that have been there since I lived there.
00:04:53:09 There is Hillside, the Festival there.
00:04:55:17 I always heard kept like... the kids were starting the
00:04:58:23 bands just to get into Hillside for free each year, you know,
00:05:01:26 like local kids. That's awesome!
00:05:03:18 It's a freaky little kind of hippie time too.
00:05:05:28 Like it's just far enough off the 401
00:05:08:03 that it's stayed small and strange.
00:05:11:28 The local, yeah.
00:05:13:21 What were some of the more memorable like
00:05:15:15 you know musical experiences from there,
00:05:17:23 what bands were playing at the time?
00:05:19:28 When we were doing house shows, it was bands
00:05:21:18 like North of America and Royal City.
00:05:25:18 The Mudpuddles were a local band.
00:05:27:11 Evan Gordon, who played keyboard in the Cons,
00:05:29:28 they were incredible.
00:05:31:08 They played in the basement, but before them,
00:05:32:28 Evan's younger brother Geordie was in this band
00:05:34:28 called the Barmitzvah Brothers, and it was like...
00:05:36:18 they were like 14 to 16 at the time,
00:05:38:28 like really young, their set was like these 14 year old kids,
00:05:42:28 like surrounded by toys,
00:05:44:04 and like toy pianos and stuff, and like all this people like us
00:05:47:26 just kind of hanging, baffled by how free they were musically.
00:05:51:05 Then the Mudpuddles just like destroyed,
00:05:53:25 like it was one of the most intense shows I've ever seen.
00:05:57:01 And it was in my basement, you know, which was incredible.
00:05:59:14 Yeah, I won't ever forget that one.
00:06:00:28 Do you guys still get the chance at all ever to like
00:06:02:23 play in weird like locations or anything like that?
00:06:04:28 We don't get it as much of a chance.
00:06:06:28 It works out less and less that we get to play these things,
00:06:10:02 but we have this on-again, off-again,
00:06:12:16 Neil Young Crazy Horse cover band
00:06:14:28 that is devoted more to playing shows like that,
00:06:17:14 which is a blast.
00:06:18:28 [Music]
00:06:21:15 Stay tuned for more tales of the bizarre.