Interview with Chris Brokaw...

Although probably best known for his work in bands ‘Codeine’ and ‘Come’, Bostonian Chris Brokaw has accumulated a body of work during his career that most musicians could only aspire to. The prolific musician took time out from practice in Chicago to talk in advance of his Dublin gig.

His European tour coincides with the release of his latest solo offering, Incredible Love, which showcases the musician’s trademark fluid guitar skills, and also debuts his hesitant and hypnotic vocals. Brokaw explained how the album came together, “I guess there are three songs on the record that were originally demos. I did a series of demos in March 2004. Then I went back and re-tooled some of those and recorded another eight songs in August and September of 2004. Everything was put down a year before it actually
came out."

Incredible Love is a little rockier and more hard-edged than his previous solo work, though he views the change as a natural progression. “I was becoming more interested in rock music, after a fairly long period of not listening to any. People were also saying to me that they missed me playing rock and that I should put together a band, so I wanted to try it out.”

Considering his extensive history of musical collaborations, it comes as no surprise that Brokaw was joined on the album by similarly talented friends, Jeff Goddard and Kevin Coultas. “I’ve known both those guys for a long time” he says, “Jeff used to play in a band called ‘Karate’ up until pretty recently and Kevin used to be in a band called ‘Rodan’. He also played drums with my old band ‘Come’ for a little while and did some touring with us.”

The musician enthuses about the group dynamic and its power to refresh material with every performance, “We played a show in New York about a week and a half ago, and something really turned around that night, like it went from being a good band, to being a really good band. So it’s growing and getting better - it’s exciting.”

In the spirit of reinvention, Brokaw decided to take the album on tour alone. “That’s mostly how I’ve been touring for the last couple of years, playing acoustic guitar and singing. I’ve kind of figured out a way to make it a full-sounding experience. I really try to make the guitar sound like a whole band, and make it a little bit different from the typical singer-songwriter style.”

One of the album’s highlights is a reworking of Suicide’s I Remember. The singer chose the track after seeing the band’s live show. “I saw them in Boston about three or four months after the war in Iraq had started. It seemed to me that nobody was talking about it, at least in the context of the arts or music. It always seems that really big stars waste good opportunities to say something. I went to the Suicide show and they somehow turned every song into a huge anti-war protest. I was so impressed by that.”

Brokaw wants his own music to ‘say something’ also, and refers to The Information Age as an example, “I can’t believe as many people in my country voted for our current president, twice! Especially given that never before in human history has so much information been available. I think years from now people are going to be amazed.”

Upon completing Incredible Love, Brokaw immediately threw himself into new projects.
“I’m actually in Chicago right now working on some new music with Doug Mc Holmes who plays in ‘Tortoise’ and a drummer called Elliot Dicks who used to play with ‘The Nerves’”, he says. He also describes the project he is working on with Jeff Farina, formerly of ‘Karate’. “It’s going to be a lot of old blues stuff like Gary Davis, just because it’s what Jeff and I have been listening to a lot. We’re trying to do it in such a way that it’s not just two white guys sitting around singing the blues. If we can manage to make it sound interesting and not hokey, well, that’s sort of what we’re going for.”

With such a rapid production of ideas and material I ask what the Dublin audience can expect of the gig later this month. Brokaw, however, is giving nothing away. “I think it’ll be better than the first time I played at Whelan’s! My first show there, two or three years ago, was o.k. But I was really only starting to play solo at that point, I was pretty new at it and I think I’m better at it now. I love playing Dublin and I always look forward to playing there.”

Chris Brokaw plays Whelan’s on Saturday, February 25th.

Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene (Arts & Crafts, 2005)

Broken Social Scene is the third full-length album from the Canadian collective of the same name. It was recorded over the past two years with producer Dave Newfeld, who also worked on the band’s acclaimed previous record, You Forgot It In People. The 17 - strong collective, featuring artists from Metric, Feist, Do Make Say Think and Stars, are joined by a further six members on this ambitious offering.

Opening track Our Faces Split the Coast in Half yawns and stretches, tentatively tugging the album into action. The track sets the tone of what is to follow, playing out like a swirling jamming session, everything tied at the top with horn arrangements and melodic, garbled vocals. Ibi Dreams of Pavement (a better day) provides the collectives first opportunity to flex some real muscle, showcasing a glorious mish-mash of stirring noise that builds towards a triumphant crescendo.

7/4 (shoreline) is a straightforward, double-dose of upbeat indie-pop. Handclaps maintain the momentum in Windsurfing Nation, as insidious guitar hooks topple out breathlessly. It’s all Gonna Break spectacularly closes the album in characteristic Broken Social Scene style; an almost ten minute sprawling kaleidoscope of sound. While the experimentation works well here, it is occasionally lapses into indulgence, for example in Bandwitch.

Minor complaints aside, it’s amazing that a group of musicians of this quality managed to create an album with such great designs, and still retain a sense of haphazard beauty. Great stuff.