andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Passion Pit are a lesson in modern romance. Ever since I heard their backstory – lead singer Michael Angelakos crafted the EP Chunk of Change as a Valentine’s Day gift for his girlfriend – I knew they would be more to me than just a fling in my musical lifetime. But I never imagined my first close encounter with them would pan out like a fairy tale of its own.

The show was sold out when my companion (I’ll call her Merv) and I arrived at Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ottawa’s go-to live music club. It was shocking enough that a band this sought-after detoured so far into Canada, and even more surprising that the resident’s of Ottawa had enough forethought to buy advance tickets. Not about to give up on our night, Merv and I stuck it out in line until a lush pair of hipsters were escorted from the premises, freeing up some elbow room for the two of us.

The timing could hardly have been more perfect: Passion Pit hit the stage the moment Merv and I were safely inside. They played “Moth’s Wings” and “The Reeling”, and captured the layered essence of their recordings by cramming the stage with a drum kit, synthesizers and more than one stringed instrument. Angelakos sauntered about the clutter, exuding a sort of romantic sex appeal that comes only from a hairy-chested twenty-something singing love songs in falsetto. He hardly spoke a word to the crowd until he announced the last song, “Sleepyhead”, and yet the crowd was hanging on every pulse of the music.

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There used to be a new buzz band for every season. A soft humming surrounded their obscure name, or an aesthetically-abstract lead singer, or a new use for an autoharp. Gradually, the hype would build, and their album cover would soon begin to look as familiar as a Stop sign. By that point, their name and singer and music concoctions were so well-known they booked Late Night with Jay Leno and appeared on the cover of Spin. (Because Rolling Stone was too busy with American Idol.)

So anyway, the buzz has a cycle and I was getting used to it. Keeping up, even. But this summer I noticed how hopelessly out of the loop I am. The cycle has condensed, I think I have clocked it in at a maximum 14-day turnaround.

At the beginning of July, as I anxiously awaited Ottawa’s annual Bluesfest, all I heard was THE DEAD WEATHER. Jack White’s latest endeavour with Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence(Raconteurs, The Greenhornes). I was ready, I was the one  telling people Jack White – yes, the man, the myth and the legend-in-the-making – was going to be in town. I stood stage-side, enraptured during their smoky and bone-chilling set at the festival and afterward I vowed, as I wiped the drool from my chin, to purchase their album and make them my new favourite band.

This was when I noticed the cycle reach warp speed. Just the next day, I was swept into a whole new mode of anticipation: Guelph’s annual Hillside Festival (a.k.a. my reason to live.) I managed to delve briefly into the repertoire of The Dead Weather but was overcome by  Hillside’s performer roster.

There was Timber Timbre, Toronto’s latest creep-folk. Then Woodhands, another Toronto export of lively electro-rock. And even though I had all year to get familiar, I was hastily catching up on The Arkells. It was a busy July.

Not two weeks have passed and I had a difficult time crafting the above paragraph, as the bands that just days ago dominated my iPod have escaped my vocabulary in lieu of this week’s flavour. (Briefly: Discovery, Passion Pit, jj.)

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