Essays, Interviews, Observations, Pop Culture, Stories, and other Dodginess

Let’s play The Belle Game

Posted on October 2, 2013

The Belle Game Interview picture

Pitchfork named The Belle Game’s song “River” as Best New Track. Another song, “Tradition” – was featured in the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy. Both tracks are from the Vancouver-based band’s debut album, Ritual Tradition Habit.

The Belle Game embarks on its first full American tour this month that includes a stop at Chicago’s Empty Bottle Nov. 1.

The Belle Game is Andrea Lo (lead vocals), Adam Nanji (vocals and guitar), Katrina Jones (keyboards and backing vocals), Alex Andrew (rhythm guitar), and Rob Chursinoff (drums). Prior to their new album the band released two EPs – Inventing Letters (2009) and Sleep to Grow (2011).

The Dodgy recently spoke with Jones about the origins of The Belle Game, the tour, the new album, and band’s name.

Nanji, Andrew, and Lo all grew up together in Vancouver. Nanji attending McGill University in Montreal, where he met Jones.

“We did a weird, long distance Belle Game thing for a couple years until we all graduated,” Jones says. Then me and Alex moved to Vancouver.”

The Belle Name

“It actually came from Adam, Alex and Andrea – one of their friends is from Germany. At the beginning of the band we used to play around with a glockenspiel.  He was over one day and played with one of them and was like ‘this is the bell game.’ The glockenspiel translation to English was bell game, or bell play.”

Ritual Tradition Habit

“The theme of the album is about all of us growing up and being older and learning what we like and don’t like about ourselves and about other people who we choose to keep in our lives. We came up with the title because there are all those little things that you do in your life that you keep or don’t keep or choose to accept or choose to reject or whatever it may be. That’s sort of the overarching theme of all the songs on the album because all the songs are about relationships or huge changes in our lives or a lot of personal stuff.”

Ritual, Tradition, and Habit are also the titles of three short songs placed at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the album.

“We just named those little tracks as a way to bookend that theme of what we were talking about.”

 The Belle Game listens to…

Jones says the gang has been listening to the Canadian band Braids. “We just played a show with them and they released a record and we were listening to it on the way back from a festival we played.”

Jones says Lo is into bands like The Xx and  “experimental-type stuff.” And drummer Rob Chursinoff is “more of a Neil Young type.”

“The band I’d want to go see very much is Deer Hunter. We saw them in Vancouver about two weeks ago and that’s how good they are I want to see them again.”

A Band Goyte Should Get To Know

The Belle Game opened up for Goyte in Vancouver during his tour following the success of the song “Somebody That I Used To Know.” Since it’s a duet with Kimbra, and she wasn’t there, I told Jones that either her or Lo should have come out to sing the part.

“He just kind of sang (her part) but crowd knew the song so well they sung it loud and carried him. It was a cool moment. But we absolutely would have done it. I think we even maybe contacted his management prior to that to ask if it was OK but we never heard back. He didn’t know us. I don’t blame him.”

Festival Express

The Belle Game met their tour mates, Bear Mountain, during the Canadian music event “Tracks on Tracks” in which about a dozen local bands boarded a train from Vancouver to Toronto with performance stops for gigs along the way. The final stop was the music festival NXNE.

“We’ve been close ever since,” Jones says of Bear Mountain.

Bear Mountain was in Chicago this summer to perform at Lollapalooza.

“They had a great time. They loved it. We hope to get some festivals like that.”

B-Sides

Adam Nanji and Katrina Jones are a couple.

The band lists “fine whiskey” and “bush parties” among its interests but Jones says they’re not a big party band. “No big drinkers or anything like that. For us it’s food. We love having a great meal. That’s more our thing. A nice dinner and go back to the hotel and go to bed.”

The band performs live as a six-piece. “We don’t have a permanent bass player. We bring a bass player on the road.”

Horns can be heard on some of the songs. Jones says they use session musicians in Vancouver and the saxophone on the new record is her playing.

The video for Ritual Tradition Habit’s “Wait Up For You” was filmed in a little Canadian town called Langley. It’s got a culty vibe and beautiful women. It was directed by Kheaven Lendowsky, who is directing a new Belle Game video for the track “River.”

“We’re keeping it under wraps because it’s something pretty exciting,” Jones says.

Jones says there’s a good chance they’ll perform in Europe for a few weeks in November and December.

“We’re looking forward to it.”

In addition to the Nov. 1 Empty Bottle concert, The Belle Game will play Cleveland Oct. 30, Detroit on Halloween(!) and Minneapolis Nov. 2. The Belle Game has a website, Facebook, and Twitter  with more information.

Let's play The Belle Game

The Belle Game

 

Are we done with High Waist Shorts?

Posted on September 30, 2013

Dodgy Fashion image

Shhhhhhh…..maybe they’ll just go away.

That’s what I said about a year or so ago when I starting seeing women wearing high waist shorts.

I believe I first spotted them on fashion blogs and sites like Lookbook. That’s right, I’m confident enough where I can sit at a pub with a pint while perusing through the world wide web of fashion. It wouldn’t stop me from wrapping a cue stick around your head, if need be.

Anyway, then they started popping up on my street. Doesn’t matter how hot these gals were, the shorts were a turn-off. I’m not the first one to say this, but it’s true. They can hide a great ass. As my friend Zeke says, “they give no class to the ass.”

I appreciate the fine female leg. But not in those things. You know what’s sexier? A girl wearing sweatpants rolled up to the knee.

Maybe I’m reminded of my Uncle Morty, who I think invented high waist shorts. Not only invented them – he wore them. Morty was a brutish, odd Irishman.  He looked like a Celtic version of Ernest Borgnine. At least from the waist up. Morty had hair all over his body except for most of his head and his legs. That’s right. His legs. Morty would take these old man pants or jeans and cut them into homemade shorts. High waist shorts. He said his legs were never able to grow hair, unlike the rest of his flesh. But most of us figured he shaved his legs. I just remember those odd shorts. My first look at high waist shorts. On his body.

Now when I see these kinds of shorts on women I think of Morty sitting at the pub, his legs crossed, shirt tucked in. He’d smoke a cigar and rub his legs.

Morty’s dead now but those shorts live on. Although I think they’re fading out. Unfortunately they seem to be replaced with a similar style only with buttons that run up the middle in one row or two. They look like someone made cutoffs out of a Civil War general’s coat.

High Waist Shorts image

Nice legs there, General!

Other fashion observations

I’m still hoping for an end to the giant sunglasses that women are fond of. Enough already.

Heels and jeans are a big no-no. And so are flowing, swishy pants. Unless you’re that disturbed old lady down the street who pokes her cigarette-smoking head out her window and yells at me to “fuck off.”

One can never get enough of plaid, tartan and kilty skirts.

Ponytails will always, always be hot. And don’t be afraid to wear one with a baseball cap.

Less heels and more cute Doc Marten-style boots.

Dodgy Fashion high waist shorts

Is That a Mix Tape in your Pants?

Posted on September 21, 2013

About eight or nine years ago my friend Ajar brought a used 1995 Jeep Wrangler. While he took it for a test drive Ajar tried out the radio. It had a cassette player. And there was a cassette in it. Ajar didn’t know if it was from the previous owner, someone from the dealership, or maybe somebody else who test drove the car and wanted to try out a tape.

Cruising down Chicago’s Western Avenue, Ajar turned up the volume. It was a mix tape. During the drive Ajar heard the Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation” (the slower, better version), some Shellac, The Jesus Lizard, and the Sparks’ “Armies of the Night.”

“I still don’t know if that tape played a part in me buying the Jeep,” Ajar says. “I think it did.”

After finalizing the sale Ajar asked if someone at the dealer, maybe a mechanic, put the tape in there. The salesman didn’t think so and said the Jeep had only one owner before arriving on the lot. He offered to remove the tape. Ajar says, “Fuck it. I think whoever owned the Jeep left it in there. Probably wanted the new owner to have it.”

It was a Chicago-centric tape. Other songs included Liz Phair’s “Stratford-On-Guy” as well as Veruca Salt and Screeching Weasel. But there was also Adam Ant’s “Can’t Set Rules About Love.” The tape ended with an instrumental from Recoil, the project founded by Depeche Mode’s Alan Wilder.

The October before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Ajar, myself and our friend Spider drove there in the Jeep. That tape, dubbed “The Jeep Tape” – got plenty of play throughout the journey.

Ajar had it with him when for some reason we stopped at the New Orleans version of Coyote Ugly. It was Halloween weekend and we were the only ones in the bar. They had a tape player and Ajar convinced the Coyote Girls to dance on the bar to “Armies of the Night.”

New Orleans Coyote Ugly Cassette Tape

Armies of the Night – New Orleans style.

Last week Ajar and I went to Chicago recluse author Clive Javanski’s apartment. We knocked and he didn’t answer. The door was unlocked so we walked in. He was nowhere to be found (not the first time this has happened). We heard music. It was coming from his music system on a shelf. Specifically, from a cassette player. A tape deck. I never noticed it before. What’s strange is that the song in question was skipping as if it was a vinyl record that was either scratched or a victim of a bad needle. The “song” in question was “Silver Shamrock” – a weird tune from the Halloween III soundtrack. While taping the song from the album it skipped but Clive just left it like it was. Ajar said it made the already disturbing Irish-infused Halloween song (to the tune of “London Bridges Falling Down”) even creepier.

It led to a long conversation about mix tapes, made better when our friend Anastasha stopped by with her iPhone, which had a case in the design of a cassette tape.
One thing about mix tapes: they don’t have to feature only music. I had a friend make me a tape for the New Orleans journey and it included an eclectic mix of tunes and sound bites from our own group of friends that were recorded at parties and such. He entitled it “It’s Hard to Say.”

Titles on this tape include

Let’s Play Quarters

Dusty Dildo

Pennyface

Hi Mom I’m Home

Rats

Valentine

Enlighten Me

Head Cheese

Cassette Tape The Dodgy

It’s Hard to Say

Clive’s tape was labeled “Weird Stuff” and included among music sound bites from Dennis Hopper films and Twin Peaks (“Chopping Wood? Inside?”). At some point during the night the ABBA song “SOS” blasted from Clive’s weird mix tape. We all danced.

We’ve also decided that for the next installment of The Asshole Book Club – which becomes The Asshole Poker Game – each of the players must create and bring one mix tape.

I’m working on mine right now.