Operators Archives - Page 2 of 2

Dan Boeckner is a multi-talented musician and singer who originally hails from British Columbia. After forming a short-lived band called Atlas Strategic on the west coast, Boeckner eventually moved to Montreal where he co-founded the esteemed and popular bands, Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs, both of which garnered loyal audiences before ceasing to exist. Boeckner subsequently lived in California for a spell and formed Divine Fits with members of Spoon and New Bomb Turks, garnering strong reviews for their 2012 debut album, A Thing Called Divine Fits. His current focus is an excellent, electronic-based rock band called Operators, who have released EP1 and a single called “Ecstasy in My House” in recent months. Both records are available now via Last Gang, Operators have been touring across North America and here, Dan and I discuss finding a place in Montreal and BBQ, Sam Brown the drummer, landlords and landladies and musicians, switching from audio to video, being a loner and starting a buncha new bands/relationships, obsessing over Eastern Europe, living in an atomic strike zone during the Cold War, Bulgaria and Russia, the Serbian punk band Malfunction, NoMeansNo, Unwound, Nation of Ulysses, playing for the New Pornographers’ audience, re-establishing your artistic self in a whole new band, how people don’t always care about music made by the same people in a band they love, making new fans, analog and electro music, getting into Sonic Youth as a kid, name dropping good bands, M Blanket, Frankie Sparo, Witchies, Dan’s early band Say Uncle, contemplating the 1990s, recording upwards of 15 Operators songs at Hotel2Tango last year, duking it out on the road, hooks, loud louder loudest and pop songs, “Eye in the Sky” and other weirdly dark, minor key songs, what’s going on with Wolf Parade, the not-as-fast-as-it-seemed ascent of Wolf Parade, turning down The Late Show with David Letterman three times, Divine Fits will be back, the song “Start Again,” and that was it.

Related links: operatorsmusic.com lastgangentertainment.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes. Now available via AudioBoom.

listen to ‘Ep. #168: Dan Boeckner of Operators’ on audioBoom

Podcast: Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Owen Pallett is a tremendously gifted multi-instrumentalist, composer, and singer who currently lives in Montreal. Pallett was initially acclaimed for his string arrangements for artists like Jim Guthrie, Arcade Fire, Fucked Up, and many others and, particularly when he lived there, he was viewed as a true leader and champion of Toronto’s underground arts community. Since releasing his own music, Pallett’s profile has risen considerably; he was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his work with Arcade Fire on the score for the Spike Jonze film Her and he has also touched a nerve with his critical essays of contemporary pop songs for Slate. Pallett’s fourth album is a stirring and complex one called In Conflict, which is available in Canada on May 27 via Secret City and his current tour includes stops at La Sala Rossa in Montreal on Friday May 9 and at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on Saturday May 10. Here, Owen and I talk about Columbus Ohio, great Szechuan food, and Dan Boeckner’s band Operators, the idea of parenthood and the truth, how kids are the darndest things, disassociation and themes within In Conflict, liminal spaces, sanity, change, and not feeling at home at home, going to Montreal, treating illness like a kind of gift, ‘musicians’ and ‘white people’ and music critic Ted Gioia and what prompted Pallett to write his pieces on pop music for Slate, music theory and populism, elevating social media posts and watching them turn into clickbait, his upcoming review of the new Tori Amos record for The Talkhouse, Owen’s opinionated streak and where it comes from, what Owen’s night at the Oscars was like, Joe Trapanese not Richard Trapunski, eating dinner with Randy Newman, Burt Bacharach, and John Williams, how meeting celebrities you’re not working with might be overrated, trying to write music while on the road, future plans, the song “In Conflict,” and then boom goes the dynamite.

Related links: owenpalletteternal.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

Podcast: Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS