The Gazette

August 2006

ROADSTORIES:

Patrick Watson gets Lessons in Soul and Hard Work

Words and Pictures by Dylan Young

In the pursuit of pop music mythology a lot of questions get asked. Who recorded your album? What does your band name mean? Are you friends with the other bands in your scene? This is what rock journalism has come to, statistics and trivia rolled out in lieu of stories. And for most bands, thats just as well. Theres usually not a lot to tell. But when it comes to singer/songwriter Patrick Watson and his band, short answers just wont do. How do you explain an outfit that has opened for headliners as incongruous as eTalk darlings The Stills and minimalist composer Philip Glass, yet still, somehow, both complemented and upstaged them both? And how do you explain a local son from Hudson, Quebec, ending up on a whirlwind tour of Europe opening for soul legend James Brown? You dont. You grab your passport, take a deep breath and do like they used to do when rock n roll was young. You join the mid-summer tour and tell the story. ** The two-Euro bottle of wine passes from guitarist Simon Angells hand to mine and I take a long healthy swig. Behind us on a park bench, Patrick Watson is humming

wordless harmonies with some Parisian musicians we met earlier on the steps of Sacr Coeur. Drummer Robbie Kuster is finger-tapping soft rhythms into the benchs wooden backrest and bassist Mishka Stein is pulling pensively on a Benson & Hedges cigarette, listening to the impromptu a capella. Its kind of unbelievable, Angell remarks, looking across the sloping landscape of Paris Montmartre district. He couldnt be more right. To our left, across a cobblestone square that slants so steeply it seems as though one end is sinking, is the Bateau-Lavoir, a block of ramshackle buildings that once housed Apollinaire and Cocteau, and where Modigliani had more than a few tantrums. The glasspaned studio that opens onto the tiny park is the same one where a young Picasso pioneered his way to the uncharted angles of cubism. This is hallowed ground and the drunken revelry were enjoying is more than mere ritual, its sanctified in precedent. The tree Angell is leaning against might be one Pablo himself stumbled towards in some giddy spell. The following night, these four Montreal lads will walk onto the stage of the prestigious Palais des Congrs and play the first of five dates opening for the hardest working (and some would say, hardest living) man in show business, Mr. James Brown. The following night, things will go from unbelievable to incomprehensible. ** What everyone wants to know is how did Patrick Watson get such a plum gig as opening for James Brown? Its a question that is all too often accompanied by that other one who the hell is Patrick Watson anyway? Of course, neither of those questions have easy answers. Part of the problem is that Watson has more or less gone out of his way to avoid simplification. Far from steering his career and music into the easily marketable trendfriendly genres that have attracted many of his peers, Watson has eschewed the obvious gestures, following an inborn sense of what it means to make timeless music and of what, in the end, constitutes rock stardom. The truth is, I dont really care about someone like Mick Jagger or Iggy Pop, Watson tells me. That kind of celebrity doesnt really interest me. But take some of those classical composers Take someone like Bach, or Debussy, or Satie. Those guys were the real thing. Those guys were crazed geniuses. They didnt just make good music. They changed

the way we think about music and they made music that changed the way we think about other things. That kind of thinking has inclined Watson towards choices born of a desire for strangeness rather than stability. He began his career at seven, playing in churches around the Hudson area. He studied classical and jazz piano but ended up in the neo-ska outfit Gangster Politics (along with guitarist Simon Angell) while attending Vanier College. He composed soundtracks for films and made music to accompany an underwater photography show and book. He opened for The Dears and Steve Reich, played with Lhasa De Sela and DJ Champion, and this winter hell tour Eastern Europe, playing with Britains celebrated Cinematic Orchestra. Watson describes his own music as cinematic pop, a term that serves better than most but fails to fully convey its unique balance of lyrical narrative, vocalese, orchestral weight, psychout and pop artistry. Watsons songs do have the pensive intensity of stories told in independent film but, here, his lyrics are the images and the instrumentation, their soundtrack. His 2003 debut, Just Another Ordinary Day, was a critical darling and an underground hit. His sophomore effort, Close to Paradise, due out this fall on Montreals Secret City Records, could well make him a household name. As to the James Brown gig, the simple answer would be that Brown and Watson share the same music publisher. But in true Patrick Watson style, the real story has a little more to it. Enter Super Frank. Legend has it that James Brown, during one of the dryer periods of his career, challenged a radio station owner named, no kidding, Super Frank, to tell him why his radio stations didnt play the Godfathers music. Super Frank answered simply, Its just not the sort of music we play. Brown was so taken with the mans straight-talking style, he asked him to be his manager on the spot. More than a decade later, Super Frank, owner of Intrigue Music and still manager of the Godfather of Soul, would meet Patrick Watson after a show in New York City. A couple of drinks and a few well-spun tales later, Watson knew hed found a publisher eccentric enough to make his life interesting. He wasnt wrong. Super Frank, for a start, saw nothing unusual in putting Watson and Brown on the same stage. **

The Palais des Congrs show goes without a hitch. Of course, this is the largest show the band has played together and theyre an unannounced opener on this tour. For an audience expecting one of the most singular musical experiences in pop today, a squirrelly cinematic pop group from Montreal arent necessarily going to go over well. Its nerve-wracking for the group but they approach it humbly, introducing themselves and thanking Mr. Brown for having them on the tour. Before long, heads are rocking in time and by the end of the third song, the audience has warmed to a steady purr. When the band finish their set, applause fills the hall. Still, they hurry off stage. Throwing his bass on the couch, Mishka Stein lets out a deep breath. The other guys have played big shows but thats the largest room Ive ever done, he says. What was that, 3000 seats? I felt like my knees were going to give out at one point. The band debrief and then head upstairs to watch Mr. Brown in action. ** Its hard not to be cynical about James Brown. At the age of 73, it would be a miracle if the man was as vital as the myth would have us believe. Between that lowered expectation, the throwback comicality of the bands monkey-suit uniforms and the over-the-top absurdity of the show, its just too easy to be jaded. Sure, the Godfather can still belt it out like a twenty-year-old and he leads his band with the precision of an elite fighting brigade but somehow were, all of us, Watson, Kuster, Stein, Angell and myself, left feeling less than carried away. Which is why, the following night in Brussels we are completely blind-sided. If we think the audience at Couleur Caf Festival has been receptive for Watson and the band, we have yet to see what it can do for the hardest working man in show business and his soul train circus. As we watch, the MCs and band tease the audience to near hysteria for twenty minutes before the man even hits the stage. When Mr. Brown finally takes the spotlight, the 6000-plus audience explodes. For the next two hours, the Godfather plays the audience, and us right along with them, like the pied piper steering the mice into the harbour. Suddenly, all the pomp and ceremony, all the goofy theatrics, make sense. Theyre part of the formula that makes James Browns ministry of soul work. And the flourishes that our rock n roll-slanted cynicism had seen as kitsch are actually part of a tradition of showmanship that predates even the earliest notion of rock bravado.

** Watson, Angell, Kuster and I are sitting in Brussels Grand Place, talking excitedly about the festival, Mr. Brown and the tour. Three days in and weve all agreed that the tour is blessed. And its not just the shows. Theres the food, which has been excellent and plentiful, the rented tour van, with its palatial PlayStation2 and GPS-adorned interior, the weather, unnaturally warm and sunny, and the mood, which has developed a zest of the euphoric. This is far from the tour horror stories each of us has experienced in the past. This is the first time Ive really had to take on the role of the frontman, Watson says. Its a lot different from playing solo. But seeing the way he [James Brown] did that tonight really inspired me. Its like I could see what were striving for. What we did tonight was a great start, Kuster says. Hes referring to the point at the end of Luscious Life, the anthem track off the forthcoming album, where Watson had gotten up from his piano and started moving around the stage in a trancy jog, and where Angell had dropped the guitar and joined Kuster bashing away at the cymbal. The gestures had been completely spontaneous and the crowd had eaten it up. I just cant believe that old man, Watson adds. Hes just about the best performer Ive ever seen. ** By the time Watson and the band play Amsterdams Paradiso, theyre playing like tour veterans. The re-purposed church with its bank of stained glass windows sets the scene. Its the smallest venue so far but its the most intense. This is where the Rolling Stones played the last time they were in Amsterdam. Watson and his band have weathered hecklers and cold audiences and converted even the most ardent cynics simply by playing like they mean it. Tonight is no different. After the show, several people ask for information about the opening act. This is how it begins. **

After a lengthy Eurotunnel crossing, a drive to the heart of London and a five-team FIFA 2006 tournament on the PS2, we pull into the London Tower grounds. Tonight, Watson and the boys will be playing in the dry moat of the fort where Anne Boleyn was imprisoned. This is the last date with James Brown. Everyone is feeling it. Watson, Stein, Kuster and Angell are in good spirits but theres an aura of finality in the air. Even Browns band seem sorry to see us go. A Beefeater introduces the band and they plow into the first sparkling notes of Giver. Twenty-eight minutes later, they hit that moment in Luscious Life where things come unglued. This time, Watson jogs right off the stage and into the crowd, runs straight to the bleachers at the back, then pivots and runs all the way back to front, arms in the air the whole way. People laugh and clap and shout appreciatively. And when the song (and the tour with it) finally comes to its staggering end, people hop to their feet. ** Two nights later, we go to an open mic night in a Brighton pub. Anonymously, the band signs up for a ten-minute slot and plays three songs on borrowed instruments. The punters love it. Nobody mentions James Brown. Later, we wander the town, visiting the long pebble beaches, swimming the cold Channel waters and sitting by a fire with other travellers. We wind up on the steps of an old cathedral and Watson turns to me, lets loose a short laugh and says, you know, despite everything, I think tonight was my favourite show.