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The Smell of Our Town – An interview with the Hidden Cameras"
The Smell of Our Town:The Hidden Cameras, Saviours of Art-pop
" The Smell of Our Town – An interview with the Hidden Cameras"
The Smell of Our Town:The Hidden Cameras, Saviours of Art-pop
photo by Bonno van Doorn
Today’s music is a desolate, artless wasteland. Many will blame pop music for this. Of course, they’d be wrong. The death of art in pop music happened as a result of the consumer. There came a time (let’s say, oh, 1980) when "art" became fashion and pop followed suit. [1]
So perhaps it should come as no surprise then that there comes a saviour. One band prophesied (that’s where we, the press, come in) to resurrect the art in pop music. In a time when pop and art have very little in common, arise The Hidden Cameras, Saviours of Art-pop!
The Hidden Cameras are a "gay church folk rock" band that dares to challenge conventional style. With a ever-changing line-up of 13 members who don’t know how to play their instruments like Led Zeppelin, who dare to write songs about golden showers and gay marriage, and spit in the face of conventional concerts, opting instead for Jewish old folks homes, erotic theatres, and churches, the Hidden Cameras are an experience in themselves. Add this to their live show spectaculars, which are the stuff of legend in their native Toronto, and timeless soothing pop music in an original, yet oddly familiar style and you get just a taste of what The Hidden Cameras are all about.
At the heart of every good revival lies a leader. This leader must be one so out of tune with "normality" he creates his own, and lets the world follow. Enter Joel Gibb, the band’s singer/songwriter/visionary, who was kind enough to sit down with me before their appearance at the Tombola 2009 event at the Paradiso:
What do you do? What’s the philosophy behind the Hidden Cameras?
Gibb: I write songs, and I started the band two and half years ago. I had four-track recordings of all my songs and I gave them to my friends and they played them with me. I produced shows in Toronto.
How did the idea evolve from just you playing in an art gallery for a friend to a 13-piece band?
Gibb: It’s exciting to play with lots of people. It’s exciting to see lots of people playing simple pop music. I always liked that idea. I wanted to include a lot of my friends in ways that they could contribute. I wasn’t just looking for professional musicians; I was just getting people to do different things. My best friend actually dances in the band, and his ex-boyfriend just started playing some drum rolls, and then playing a bit of xylophone, it’s just natural. I really like built-up pop music.
Do you get annoyed when you try to have an original idea, and you come across the pond and immediately get grouped in with band such as The Polyphonic Spree who really don’t sound like you at all?
Gibb: Yes, it annoys me very much.
The Hidden Cameras play out-of-the-way venues. Why the insistence to play strange places?
Gibb: I’m a music fan like everyone else and I got very pissed off when I couldn’t get into shows because of the bar (the legal age limit in Toronto is 19). Also they were dirty, and there were rude people working there, so since there’s a performative aspect to the show I tried to have the shows in places where everyone could come.
You guys describe yourself as "Gay church folk music" …
Gibb: I wrote that on a flyer once.
…Do you feel that your sexuality is a prominent part of your music, or do you feel that the music could exist in the same manner if you were straight?
Gibb: Well, they’re two separate things. In music you write melodies and think of arrangements and then you sit down and decide what kind of ideas you have, and what should be in a song, and what you definitely don’t want to be writing. That’s just what I want to write about. I want to write about gay themes. There’s not enough of that, I don’t think. In a way I make it really gay, I mean, every song is gay. Every song has a gay reference or a gay theme. Even when it’s not specifically gay, it relates to a gay experience. Just because I really respect gay artists and filmmakers, and they are totally respected in their fields. But it seems like in pop music that’s not the case.
Taboo, if you will?
Gibb: I guess, yeah.
Back in Toronto about two years ago, The Hidden Cameras had quite a lot of hype around them, but very little output. What took you so long to make a record?
Gibb: We had this hype, right in the beginning out of nowhere. We were just getting our shit together, and suddenly we have all these expectations on us. It was weird because usually bands get a longer period to form, but yeah, it did take a while to record.
As a gay musician, and quite a proud flag-bearer for the gay community, how do you find the ways that gays are represented in society, and do you find that stereotype has become a parody of itself?
Gibb: I think that gay people have to fight against that. Because when you grow up, that’s the image you’re given, and when you find out you don’t even fit into THAT it’s kinda hard to find a certain identity. Like, for example, if you don’t like club music, you’re kind of a freak. It’s that kind of idea.
…
The next day, The Cameras are playing Ekko in Utrecht. The venue is draped in weird posters and pieces of art. It is surprisingly light fare compared to the usual spectacles of singalongs (with projected lyrics), stage malarkey, and aerobic workouts. Not to say they don’t try; it’s their first headlining gig (they had been playing with The Sleepy Jacksons until now – ed.) and their second last show before they go back home to Toronto. The band seems a bit uneasy as, it is later revealed, they had a quite a night of debauchery in Amsterdam the night before.
However, this quiet mood puts sheer beauty into the more down-tempo songs such as ‘Boys of Melody’, which tonight becomes a somber anthem to the driving force of the band. Gibb’s vocals sound as if they were lost in the midst of early 60s AM radio, and now come crashing back into this moment. The night, overall, is beautiful, if a little understated (this is to say overstated, by any other band’s terms), even with the dancing man in 80s metal wig and sequined thong.
Which brings us back to where we began: simplicity in a land of overzealous chaos, a light to shine on through the darkened howl of fashion faux pas and superficial princesses. All Hail The Hidden Cameras, Saviours of Art-pop.
The Hidden Cameras released single ‘A Miracle’ on June 2.
[1] Many of you readers will now note that there are many bands who attempt to bring art and rock together. I’d like it to be noted that these bands are either: a) pretentious assholes b) manufactured pretentious assholes or c) too true to their music to ever be considered pop.