Today, he's a fedora-wearer, wrapped in a jean jacket, inside Blue Rodeo's Woodshed Studio, where the long-rumoured album was in part recorded in fleeting sessions over a period of some seven years. So, yeah, Downie is something of a tall riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. (Spot Downie or the Sadies amidst the crowd if you can.) And as for Gord Downie, the Sadies & the Conquering Sun, when asked if that is the album title or the band's name, Downie's stock reply is "exactly." The album artwork, created by illustrator Nik Dudukovic, is a darker, more congested version of the Beatles' Sgt. Instead the label has supplied murky imagery involving projections and highly stylized photographs that obscure the participants (see above). The Sadies-and-Downie disc has been released on the indie label Arts & Crafts, whose publicists have stymied my editors by not okaying a photo shoot with Downie and his current bandmates. And although he has made himself into a highly watchable showman (as the flamboyant and intense singer of the arena-filling Tragically Hip), he's quite comfortable sublimating himself within a band or even lurking in the shadows, even when he goes solo(ish).ĭownie's new project is Gord Downie, the Sadies & the Conquering Sun, a stirring, confronting collaboration with Toronto's Sadies, the cosmic cowboys who ride with curious singers – the nervy songstress Neko Case and the pimp-y Detroit soul-shouter Andre Williams – when they're not putting out excellent alt-country albums on their own. He has rhymed "Jacques Cartier" with "right this way," and his cryptic flair makes Arcade Fire's Win Butler look like Bryan Adams. He is a published poet, his music has inspired Dora-recognized dance choreography and he is aggressively championed by the novelist Joseph Boyden. Although the Canadian music cognoscenti don't always seem to know what to make of him, Gord Downie remains this country's most intriguing rocker.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |