DETAILS

Jay Crocker CD Release
Broken City
Thursday, November 6 - Thursday, November 6

More in: Rock / Pop

In many ways, Jay Crocker and Chad VanGaalen are on opposite ends of the musical spectrum. Crocker is best known for crowding a dozen or so musicians onto a stage to play tightly scored, upbeat big-band pop. His vocal delivery is deliberate and crisp, a carefully weighted addition to the meticulously arranged mix. VanGaalen, on the other hand, flies relatively solo. Although he is often joined onstage by a two-piece backing band, his most memorable performances recall his history as a one-man band busking on the streets of Calgary. Beautiful, tenuous and deeply sardonic, his songs are nebulous, mischievously harnessing the power of organized disarray.

That said, the pair also have a lot in common. Both spent the past year engaged in the daunting balancing act of raising newborn children while writing, recording, promoting and touring in support of freshly cut albums. And while the grooves etched into those records could hardly be more stylistically different, they are both products of an approach to life and craft alike that boils down to a folk music esthetic. Probing the origins of their lives as musicians reveals a comprehensive do-it-yourself mentality rooted in a profound appreciation for good, old-fashioned dedication and an insatiable curiosity about the nature of the sounds they produce.

“My love for music came pretty late, because I wasn’t really exposed to much of it as a kid,” explains VanGaalen. “My sister gave me a Corey Hart tape when I was in elementary and I think the next thing I got was A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory, which was the first time when I thought music could be pretty awesome. I wasn’t playing until Grade 12, which is when I taught myself how to play guitar after hearing Sonic Youth’s Goo. Then bands like Shellac introduced me to things like [experimental composer] Glen Branca. Then I got really into avant garde stuff like John Cage’s ‘Sonatas and Interludes’ for prepared piano, which was what triggered the whole idea of instrument building and trying to find the roots of all those sounds.”

Though the pair has never collaborated in the studio, they both speak fondly of hang-out sessions where the two of them would construct homemade instruments and effect boxes. From VanGaalen’s arsenal of hobo woodwinds to Crocker’s “Cockatong” fuzz pedal, the output of these projects is rooted in the philosophy that the textures the two musicians are after can’t simply be bought — they need to be built from scratch.

“When I’m building instruments, it’s all devoted to what kind of sound I can make inside the language of improvised music, whoever it may be that I’m playing with, and that’s found its way into the pop stuff a little bit these days,” says Crocker. It’s not just Crocker’s instruments that take the made-from-scratch approach, either. Even the packaging for his soon-to-be-released follow up to 2006’s Melodies from the Outskirts. “We got sent glossy cases and the ink wouldn’t take, so they’re all hand-sanded, like those ‘oops, I sat in bleach’ jeans. We’re trying to do everything we can to do it ourselves completely.”

That follow up, dubbed Below the Ocean Over, is worth the two-year wait. Recorded and produced by Craig Schumacher (Devotchka, Calexico, Neko Case) at his renowned Wavelab Studio in Tucson, the album exceeds expectations at every turn. Characterized by what Crocker calls a “more unified skin” than his previous work, the album flows seamlessly between delicate, dissonant string crescendos and rich horn interludes, from morose, thoughtful instrumentals to jaunty riffs that compel you to dance. Played from a score that was committed to sheet music long before the trip south became a reality, the repertoire is brought to life by a cadre of musicians who take the notes off the page and infuse them with an unmistakable sense of adventure and camaraderie.

“There were 10 of us down there [in Tucson] in a rented house, and we played our asses off all day long,” says Crocker, who recalls the session with a pilgrim’s awe and reverence. “For ‘Broadway Star,’ we were all around one microphone, so it took about four hours just to get everyone placed properly, and we did maybe five takes. So you’re sitting there in a room with 10 guys all fanned out and you don’t want to be the guy to fuck it up, and you can hear that tension in the song, which is beautiful, I think. You can hear that performance, and you can hear every performance on the album. The solos and stuff, most of them were done in one take with all of us standing there, waiting for the guy to rip one off and then cheering when he did. It was a pretty life-changing experience for all of us.”

By comparison, the story of VanGaalen’s recent project is one of austere solitude. Although the defining image of the solitary man hunkered down in his basement clashes violently with Crocker’s tale of adventure, there remains a common thread about an artist devoted to being involved in his work on as many levels as possible. As with previous recordings, VanGaalen’s Soft Airplane is adorned with his hand-drawn artwork, and the video for lead single “Molten Light” is one of his characteristically bizarre animated shorts. And where Crocker enlists a battalion of musicians to carry out his creations, VanGaalen turns to bizarre contraptions like the robot-powered drum machine that churns out the rhythm on “Cries of the Dead.” Looking forward, the enthusiastic innovator has his sights set on ever more ambitious inventions.

“So you take any drum machine — just some piece of shit, you don’t need anything good — and suddenly it becomes the programming for your MIDI brain,” he says, describing the intricate details of his next big device, essentially a programmable drum machine that would physically drum instead of using digital samples. “You program your drum beat on your shitty drum machine, and it sends each channel to a pin on the brain. And from each pin you run a wire out to a solenoid, which is a magnetically driven thing like on old percussive doorbells, where it physically makes a magnet pop up and hit a xylophone key. So what I’m going to be doing is programming drum beats, then having 16 solenoids that will be playing the different parts. And since it’s all modular, I can play the rooms I’m playing in instead of having a drum machine. Every night it’ll be different — I’ll pull all the solenoids out like octopus tentacles and just hit around with a drumstick and find cool things to stick the solenoids to. It’s easier than it sounds. It’s way easier than the drum [robot]. It’s almost too easy!”

Given his established knack for off-the-page innovation and an imagination that toes the line between warped and deranged, there’s no doubt that VanGaalen’s recent transition from stoner rocker to parenthood has raised some eyebrows. Who among us isn’t curious what it would be like to be reared under the tutelage of a twisted genius who sings sad, pretty songs about death and dismemberment? True to form as a consummate experimenter, the stay-at-home dad weaves a story to pique the interest of music lovers and sociologists alike.

“My parents were divorced really early on, and my dad got put in jail for selling drugs and shit,” he recalls. “Don’t get me wrong, my mom did an awesome job of raising me, but we didn’t really have analog synthesizers or crazy-ass drum machines or vibraphones, so I try and put things like that and glockenspiels and ukuleles in front of [my daughter], and she’s loving it. We draw together all the time, and it’s kind of a mini experiment — raising this thing that doesn’t really have any walls around it. And all the options she has, like being gay — she can be whatever she wants in any way, which really excites me. A lesbian mathematician is what we’re shooting for, so… hopefully.”

While this ambitious, forward-thinking tack runs against the mainstream grain in Calgary, a city seen by many outsiders as a great bastion of traditional conservative values, VanGaalen remains undaunted and intent on raising his daughter in his hometown, no matter how she turns out. Likewise, Crocker has no plans to leave anytime soon, despite his growing frustration over the lack of public support for those in the culture business.

“The art community here is a lot smaller, but there are a lot of really good genuine people here, and a lot of people that are searching and pushing and digging,” Crocker says. “I’ve been able to do what I do here and still experiment. I’ve often wondered how much the character and quality of the arts community here is actually a consequence of people having to push back so hard.”

Fortunately, it seems like all the pushing is paying off. Drawn in by bright lights (including the relative supernova of VanGaalen’s talent), the lumbering gaze of international attention is finally giving Calgary a fair shake. While Crocker’s new album has the potential to push him that much closer to the precipice that represents the end of obscurity, fame is the farthest thing from his mind.

“In a perfect world, I would have enough money to keep working but slide underneath the radar with just enough people to keep it going,” he says. “That’s my goal: to keep doing work with good people and to not have to suck from the bottle of water in the hamster cage. Being signed and having indie recognition doesn’t really do it for me. I like making the records and hearing the sounds and exploring that. It’s the work for me. I’m just a hard-working gigolo. With a really small penis.”

Asked about his own meteoric rise to indie stardom, VanGaalen is emphatic that he knew he could make it as a musician long before the days of sales numbers and signing to Sub Pop records, offering yet another taste of the dyed-in-the-wool folk sentiment that makes him such an easy guy to like.

“When I was busking, I was making $500 a night, and that’s when I knew I could pay my bills,” he says. “Since then, I started getting paid a lot less money. What the fuck? I was making more on the street taking my pirate’s gold back home and counting dirty change. Now I have agents and managers to pay….”

“And shitty band members,” chimes a voice in the background.

“Yeah, and shitty band members to pay, so I was making more as a one-man band, but it’s way more fun now. Well, no, it’s a different kind of fun. I’m covering ground. I’m not just playing outside the Wicked Wedge any more. I’m playing in New York City, outside pizza places. Letting people hear it a little bit more.”