http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338060240956289.html
* ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
* MAY 27, 2009
They're Hip, but Canadian
Wall Street Journal
By JIM FUSILLI
TORONTO -- The Tragically Hip has everything you'd want in a rock band: smart, distinctive songs; a sound to call its own; a live show that jolts the audience from its seats; and, in Gordon Downie, a front man who's been compared to Mick Jagger and Michael Stipe. The Hip's only problem: The band is Canadian.
Which isn't much of a problem in Canada, where the quintet is widely acknowledged as the country's best rock band. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored two of their 12 discs with Juno Awards for best rock album of the year; another, 1996's "Trouble at the Henhouse," was voted album of the year, regardless of category. Eight Hip albums reached the No. 1 slot on the Canadian charts the week they launched. The band has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
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Listen to a full song off the new album "We Are the Same" by Tragically Hip:
But "we can't draw flies in the States," the 45-year-old Mr. Downie said when we spoke earlier this month in a dressing room at Massey Hall, before and after one of the Tragically Hip's six shows here tied to their fine new album, "We Are the Same" (Rounder). Not that the band needs the approval of American fans. But it would like, and deserves, a bigger audience.
It's a mystery to me why the Hip haven't succeeded in the U.S. Many Canadian musicians have: the Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Rush and Neil Young, to name a few. The Band, which created the prototype for what's known today as Americana music, was 80% Canadian; only drummer Levon Helm was born in the U.S. Further, were live rock a competition, the Hip would bulldoze just about any contemporary group that trod a terrain that accommodates the Smiths and Bruce Springsteen. I'd compare them to the Hold Steady -- but the Hold Steady don't quite measure up. Stand in the audience among the Hip's fans and you sense that they're right: This is a band to believe in, which is about the highest praise a rock group can inspire.
And yet no traction in the U.S., despite repeated touring, an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" back in 1995 and a slot at Woodstock '99. Maybe it is because of their devotion to their homeland: Whereas Mr. Cohen earned his international acclaim as an expat coming out of New York's 1960s folk scene and Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Young for the most part reached a wide audience out of California, the Hip are Canadian born and based, proudly so.
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the tragically hip
Clemens Rikken
the tragically hip
the tragically hip
"For 20 years we've been beaten with both sides of the stick," said Mr. Downie, who writes the band's songs. "We're told our success in Canada is due to some nationalistic cheerleading. But I have no interest in perpetuating or galvanizing old myths about this country."
Yet he cites Canada, its cities and natural beauty, with unabashed affection in his songs. "It was considered quite risky to use Canadian place names in songs, especially in commercial pop," he said. "I wasn't the first to do it by any stretch -- and those who did it were considered brave, as if they were eschewing an American brass ring in favor of a Canadian ideal. But music is meant to flow anywhere you want. Music isn't stopped at Customs."
The Hip, which includes Rob Baker and Paul Langlois on guitar, Johnny Fay on drums and Gordon Sinclair on bass, have tried to cultivate an American following since they began their career some 25 years ago. Talk about grinding it out: Mr. Downie recalled a show in Hoboken, N.J., to which the band drew five people. Once a turnout in Harrisburg, Pa., was so tiny that the Hip considered inviting the attendees onto the tour bus. "There were more of us than them," he said. (They're touring the U.S. through mid-June; see thehip.com for dates and locations.)
America is an important market to them, not merely because of size. "We go down there because that's where the music we play came from. It's from the Mississippi Delta by way of England -- the Pretty Things, the Stones. That's our music, maybe with a Canadian coat of paint.
"If we were told we couldn't go to America anymore, we would be heartbroken," he added. "We're not trying to replicate our success up here. We go to America to work. We're not tourists."
During our conversation, Mr. Downie seemed incapable of a thoughtless answer. Had I known him better -- or at all -- I might say he grew melancholy when he pondered the band's relative lack of success in the U.S. How different he seemed on stage the night before. For all the Jagger/Stipe comparisons, he's like no other performer I've ever seen.
While singing with fire and bravado, Mr. Downie prances, staggers, goosesteps, squats and swings his arms like an ape, tries a bit of flamenco dancing and wields the mike stand like a majorette. He dedicated one tune to the pope and referenced Flannery O'Connor in the intro to another. Then there are those white handkerchiefs that he waves, wears as a veil, uses to mop his shaven head, flings into the audience, and trades for cell phones and cameras -- which he returns. The audience seems to cherish those pieces of cloth as if they were spun from gold.
For its part, the band goes about its business with industry: On the night I saw them, Mr. Fay boomed away on the big rock numbers and deftly worked an intriguing collection of hand drums during the unplugged set. Mr. Baker played a few notable solos; one was so enticing, I resented the distraction of Mr. Downie's showmanship. The high points came early and continued, but the reading of "Morning Moon" from the new album was magic, an intense yet tender respite from raging rock. It was the kind of moment no one who loves rock and pop, no matter where they reside, could resist.
Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at
jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter@wsjrock.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D9
They're Hip, but Canadian, Wall St. Journal
