2002 : 01 "Stars and Sons" by Broken Social Scene

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Things are tough on touring bands in the 00's. The price of everything has gone up, venues haven¹t exactly stepped up with a cost-of-living increase in guarantees, and internet-enabled hippie generosity is making a marked negative impact on record sales. The best you can hope for is to sell enough merch to fill the Econoline's tank and hope for good weather so you can camp out for the night. Maybe somebody will let you sleep on their floor. Basic meat-and-potatoes four piece bands are feeling the pinch and reserving the once-nightly 3AM Waffle House breakfasts for birthdays and special occasions. All of which makes the 90's-00's phenomenon of the Collective so remarkably improbable. You didn't have to think twice about letting some Slint-ish/Pavement-esque/Shiner-like band crash in your living room. But the Arcade Fire? You simply don't have enough towels and hot water for that crowd's morning ablutions. If bringing horns and woodwinds on the road isn't ridiculous enough, having some addled goof running around banging the crap out of a parade snare is nothing short of a slap in the face to every house sound guy in the world. Really, you had to bring him with? It's like something from a Gunter Grass novel, only weirder and more depressing. A band I was in opened for one such gargantuan outfit, which will remain unnamed. We were told at load-in that we had to let the headliners use our amps and drums. They had 12 people in the van and no room for gear. My first instinct was to demand a rental fee or walk from a gig that was only giving us a $50 guarantee. Then I thought of all the nice things people did for me when I was on tour, took a deep breath and said, "sure." I gave them the benefit of the doubt and points for taking such an ambitious project on the road. The thing is, this band was the worst bunch of dicks ever. Seriously, all 12 of them were single-mindedly assholeian. Not one of them could muster up an ounce of civility or gratitude. Excuses were made: "It's expensive keeping them on the road," The van's really cramped," and my favorite "You know, they really didn't dig your set." Well, fuck them. You thought my band sucked? Fine, that doesn't mean I have to take shit off of your flautist. I'm sorry your artistic vision is so precious, enormous and unwieldy that it can't fit in the back of a cargo van. I'm sorry that you can't perform without an out-of-tune French horn blooting the flat 7 every time you strum a dominant V chord. The world can be so cruel to "artists" who take sub-tarded pop songs and make them needlessly complicated. See you in the cutout bin, pricks. Anyway, Broken Social Scene, to the best of my knowledge, is not like that at all. This song rocks; I don't care if it took 19 people to make it. —Neil Jendon Listen: Broken Social Scene >> "Stars and Sons"