Pop secrets

SCOTT FRAMPTON — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:22:08 GMT

The New Pornographers explore the quiet zone
This confounding of rock orthodoxy simply happened.

MASS ROMANTICS: ‘You shouldn’t have to be afraid to slow things down. . . . You can’t be a party band forever.’

New Pornographers, "Myriad Harbour" (mp3)

“One guy was talking to me about the song ‘Challengers,’ ” Carl Newman says of the title track to the new New Pornographers disc, “saying, ‘My wife thinks it’s so sad; two people are never going to get together even though they’re in love.’ ” Newman shakes his hands back and forth in mock alarm. “ ‘No, no, tell your wife the two people in the song get together eventually.’ ”

And they did: Newman tells this story a few days before he’s to be married. It’s a love that’s all over Challengers (Matador), in ways both conspicuous — “Go Places” is his most overt love song — and subtle, as in the relocation of some of the band’s operations from Vancouver to his bride’s leafy Brooklyn neighborhood. What’s funny about Newman’s story — and he’s in on the joke — is that you can’t blame that guy’s wife for her interpretation of the song. As celebrations of love go, “Challengers” sounds like an awfully sad one. Which is probably why it rings so true.

“Songs that have a sad note are always my favorite, like ‘The Devil’s Eyes’ by the Go-Betweens,” he explains. “It’s sad, but there’s hope, like no matter what shit goes down, we’re going to be all right.”

The same could be said for the New Pornographers: they’re bound less by shared rock ambition than by a certain kind of love, and so they’re less affected than most bands would be by the fact that their main songwriter and frontman has moved across the continent. As bassist John Collins said around the release of their 2003 second album, Electric Version (also Matador), “Carl just doesn’t write a bad song.”

Sometimes touted as a Canadian supergroup, or, more ambiguously, a “collective,” they all have side interests. Bassist John Collins is a producer and keyboardist; Blaine Thurrier is a filmmaker; Newman released a well-received solo record, The Slow Wonder (Matador), in 2004; Dan Bejar, the group’s other songwriter, has his own band, indie fave Destroyer, and has never toured with this one; Neko Case has found her vocal cords and her voice as a solo artist and in some circles has eclipsed the New Pornographers. And yet the band thrive. “It’s just the nature of the band,” Newman says. “Even though it’s our jobs, it’s really low-key.”

MOMAR man

SCOTT FRAMPTON — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:28:36 GMT

Joseph Arthur’s abstract expressions
Joseph Arthur rounds the corner of a wall displaying his artwork, squinting into the soft, perfect light of the main gallery space.

GO, BABY!: Touring with a band has brought out Arthur’s inner rock star.

Joseph Arthur rounds the corner of a wall displaying his artwork, squinting into the soft, perfect light of the main gallery space. MOMAR — the Museum of Modern Arthur — unofficially opened in early June a block from the Brooklyn shore of the East River. The idea is to sell his large abstract paintings, many done live on stage as part of his solo performances, and maybe the work of other artists as well — he’s working it out as he goes along. He’s also busy recording another album with his band, the Lonely Astronauts, roughly his third recorded disc this year. Roughly, that is, because there’s already an album of Lonely Astronaut songs in the can, and he’s also sorting through 35 tracks for his next solo record. How many songs he’s written and recorded lately, he’s not exactly sure.

With his mouth bent into a smile under the heavy slits of his eyes and high forehead, Arthur looks like a porpoise poking his head above the surface of the water — or, eyes adjusting and readjusting to the light, a baby. Rock and roll is notoriously infantilizing to those who practice it. You’re carted to where adoration is readily available by people responsible for your safety, and all manner of intoxicants are presented to you as easily as a bottle tilted at your chin; the whole nocturnal/diurnal divide is just an abstract concept. But some of the best artists are indeed like babies: every sensation arrives as fresh information about the world. Babies are always in the moment.

Arthur is one of those for whom the differences between life and art blur into a smear. Inspiration isn’t something you spend time or energy doubting, no matter how absurd its origins. Take the idea of opening a gallery. “A few months ago, I was just walking around the neighborhood,” he explains, “and there was a broken storefront — somebody had broken into at night. I walked in there and just sat in the middle of it for a little while, and the idea came to me there.”

Art came first for Arthur, who’s 35. He drew and painted growing up in Akron, and he just never stopped. But he also started listening to his older sister’s records, and those of her friends. “I was really young hanging out with older upperclassmen and listening to Zeppelin and shit like that. In eighth grade, I was in a band with two seniors, which in high school years is a lot.”