Gig #46: Dan Bejar

Do you think carelessness is sometimes mistaken for genius?

Dan Bejar: I think it’s way harder to assert yourself through carelessness than through rigour and precision, if that’s what you mean. Hey, what are you getting at anyway!?!

Actually, I think that precision is one thing that consistently lands your work in the “critic’s darling” camp, as opposed to an Arcade Fire or a Wolf Parade or something. Sometimes I feel like people want to hear artists pretending that they didn’t think through what they’re singing and playing– maybe this speaks to the musician/writer distinction?

DB: Well, now that you mention it, most of Destroyer work is instinctual, though at this point I think my instincts are strong enough to separate the things that work from things that don’t. Your Blues and Streethawk are pretty precise, but a lot of the precision comes from John Collins. I think I have an ear for phrasing and words that manage to sound cool yet hopefully not go “clunk,” and I think I know when to steer clear of a vocal melody that is totally hack, but after that things can easily veer into awkward and messy territory.

I guess my guitar parts are usually precise, but the execution of those parts is downright treacherous, since I’m not very good on guitar.

I guess I was talking more about the writerly/lyrics side of things. Your lyrics never sound unintentional or disembodied or “transcendent” or something. Of course, no lyrics are ever unintentional, but I think bands like Wolf Parade and the Arcade Fire have a tendency to touch on big themes without really following through on them or tying them in to a particular logic. Big, evocative words get thrown around, and people can sing along to passionately as if the lyrics just materialized out of the ether, largely because they don’t ever seem to coalesce into a writerly voice. You, on the other hand, always seem very present (as writers, not characters) in your lyrics.

DB: Umm, I see what you’re saying now…And agree wholeheartedly! I don’t think there’s much of an after-the-fact feeling to my writing. People say I write specifically about nothing in particular. I don’t know about the latter part, but I think the first part is really important in conjuring up a voice that works, or at least the illusion of a voice at work. I think Destroyer writing, whether it’s good or bad, or operates at the expense of the music, at least adheres to its own logic, fairly consistently, which is all that you can really ask of a world, aside from maybe that that world be good or beautiful.

But you gotta wonder if this very “present” style of writing is forever at odds with truly gelling with the music, and that a more vague or transcendent or heroic style is better for losing yourself in it all. Part of me likes words as music sabotage, and part of me wonders why anyone would waste their time liking anything to do with sabotage. With Frog Eyes or the Clientele, the sound being whipped up and the words being spat out or cooed all seem to be part and parcel, which is probably the ideal way of being, and probably something that just comes about naturally. That being said, some of my favorite writers, like Cass McCombs and Azita, achieve a way more awkward and precarious balance, and that’s cool too. I would probably place myself more in that camp– or the Babyshambles camp, if they would have me.

This is sort of a weird comment, and I hate to drudge up the overplayed Bowie comparison, but I think it’s really funny the way you refer to the “kids” versus the way Bowie referred to the “kids.” He was like, “Hey, the kids! I know what the kids are hip to!” and you come off more like… a crotchety uncle?

DB: Well, to be fair, I think if Bowie had been singing about “the kids” in 1981, he might have sounded like someone’s uncle as well. I was born in 1972, which means that in “rock” terms I have no business addressing “the kids” unless it’s to shoo them out of my garden.

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Destroyer No One Needs to Know
‘Ideas for Songs is a cassette by Destroyer, released in 1997. The tape was a result of Dan Bejar being asked to contribute a song under the Destroyer moniker for a various artists compilation being curated at the time. As a response he submitted a cassette with 20 songs for them to choose from. The original 20 songs was pared down to 16 and then pressed as “Ideas For Songs” by Granted Passage Cassettes. The cover art features the 1977 painting Imperial Nude: Paul Rosano by the artist Sylvia Sleigh. Ideas for Songs was reissued by Triple Crown Recordings of Canada (formerly known as Granted Passage Cassettes) on vinyl on April 5, 2011.’ — Wiki

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Destroyer School, And The Girls Who Go There
‘Originally released in 1998 (and reissued on Merge in 2010), City of Daughters was Dan Bejar’s first foray into Destroyer mode. While it may lack the apocalyptic Ziggy Stardust panache of Streethawk: A Seduction (or to a lesser extent, Thief), it provides a wide open window to the artist’s metamorphosis from bedroom bard to Dadaist-indie poet laureate. Without all of the signature Destroyer flourishes (“lie lies” “la las” and choice “guitarmonies”) Bejar’s clever wordplay feels even more surreal (tracks like “I Want This Cyclops” and “You Were so Cruel” point a longer finger at Syd Barrett than they do David Bowie). Like all Destroyer records, it requires more than a couple of spins to draw you in, but it rewards that patience with an endlessly inventive collection of serpentine melodies peppered with the kind of darkly funny, stream-of-consciousness refrigerator poetry that has come to define Bejar’s nom de plume, and while there are a handful of cuts like “No Cease Fires! (Crimes Against the State of Our Love, Baby)”, “School and the Girls Who Go There,” and “Space Race” that lay the foundation for future recordings, City of Daughters is a stark town populated with hopeless eccentrics, which is probably just how Bejar likes it.’ — allmusic

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New Pornographers Jackie
‘Mass Romantic is a barnstorming debut from the New Pornographers, a collection of Vancouver-based indie rockers. With chief songwriting duties falling into the hands of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar and Zumpano’s Carl Newman, the album displays a decidedly power pop form of indie rock. Guitars wail and ratchet as keyboards swirl toward every direction of the compass. The vocals, handled by Bejar, Newman, drummer Kurt Dahl, and alt-country star Neko Case, are sung in a style that delivers maximum catchiness. The band displays a keen sense of musical history, as the songs cover influences ranging from the Beatles (“The Mary Martin Show”) to David Bowie (“The Slow Descent into Alcoholism”) to T. Rex (“Jackie”) to Todd Rundgren (“The Fake Headlines”). Mass Romantic is noisy, fuzzy, crunchy, and hook-heavy. It’s an album that reveals its charms through repeat listens, and makes a listener wonder how the band can master so many different musical styles via so many vocalists while still maintaining a fiercely cohesive sound.’ — collaged

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Destroyer In Dreams
‘Streethawk is a record of practically nothing but graceful abandon. Each line seems immaculately crafted, every note falling into perfect order, every word sung with the proper bite and bile. This is what Bejar was building to, why he became a songwriter in the first place, and he reaches quite a precipice. Songs move effortlessly between bits of received wisdom, the drama is amped up to almost unthinkable levels, and these tunes feel like a long series of exclamation points. The guy got really good really fast, and he knew it– his wit is sharp, his observations are keen, and his gaze is withering.’ — collaged

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Destroyer Strike
‘Bejar’s pop songcraft gets a real shot in the arm here; instead of burying his best lines in verses, he builds his rave-ups around them, and the songs feel like a series of unlikely peaks that, in less able hands, would topple in seconds. You could study this music at academy; you can also pump a fist to it. It can at first feel overwhelming or overstuffed, but the salty poetry and barrage of hooks eventually starts to make its own kind of sense; beyond brimming over with ideas, if it’s got a flaw, it’s that it wasn’t issued with a glossary. This is the payoff for years of head-down dedication to craft– all these monstrous choruses and anthems-to-be; all those difficult years of working and reworking to make himself a better songwriter until, finally, he was one of the best we’ve got. He still is.’ — Pitchfork

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Destroyer Here Comes the Night
‘In sonic terms, the album is something of a minor marvel, full of twisting, reverbed guitars, abstract noises, wheezing keyboards and ethereal background vocals. The generous lengths of the songs allows for several guitar breaks, piano interludes, and quiet moments of acoustic strumming. Much of the album is catchy as hell, and there are moments of real beauty peeking out from the messy sprawl: the airy fuzz-guitar solo in “Hey, Snow White”, which could best be described as gay Neil Young; the frenetic, bouncy piano and guitar crescendo of “Self Portrait With Thing”; the overblown choral singing of the album’s closer, complete with a full string section. There are also moments of pure pop bliss, recalling Bejar’s work in the New Pornographers and his earlier releases as Destroyer. “Here Comes the Night” is especially successful on this level, employing melodica and achingly romantic lyrics to nice effect.’ — collaged

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New Pornographers Testament to Youth in Verse
‘The meaning is that there is no meaning. Let us clarify: pop music succeeds because of its non-linearity, its connection to unspoken emotions, suppressed ideas, hidden desires. A good way of tapping these buried feelings is by going at them sideways, disguising your intent and subtly avoiding emotional defenses. An example of this is the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie”, long recognized as both a great song and complete gibberish. While not about anything, the song taps into something much deeper and more complex than its simple, pounding drums and ragged guitar would suggest. People don’t necessarily need or want explicit “meaning” or content in their art. They might not even know what they’re looking for, but like armchair art critics, they know it when they hear it.’ — Dusted

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Destroyer An Actor’s Revenge
‘Your Blues is the sixth studio album by Destroyer, released in 2004. It was a notable departure from the full-band format of Destroyer’s previous few albums, largely featuring MIDI-simulated orchestration as its backing music. It has been variously described by critics as “some kind of masterpiece, the work of a truly original and iconoclastic talent”, “a bold step in a new direction, risking over-the-top theatricality, but with its feet planted firmly on solid ground”, “seem[ing] like a work in progress” and “an acquired taste”.’ — Wiki

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Destroyer Don’t Become the Thing You Hated
‘Recorded with the production duo JC/DC (aka David Carswell and John Collins) — who aided in the creation of Destroyer’s first three discs — Dan Bejar ditches the band format he used for 2002’s This Night with tremendous results. Fusing a dramatic vocal style akin to that of David Bowie in the 1970s with 1980s studio achievers like Microdisney and Prefab Sprout, Your Blues is regularly breathtaking. Launched with the strummed guitar of “Notorious Lightning,” Behar soon expands on his vision with the bright, synth-conceived orchestration of “An Actor’s Revenge” and the fabulous, adventurous pop of “The Music Lovers.” The flute-laced “It’s Gonna Take an Airplane” is the high point here, with lyrics like “Baby, you were born to be seen/And art’s just the start,” but late-model standouts like the Hunky Dory-inspired “What Road” and the haunting closer, “Certain Things You Ought to Know,” all help make Your Blues 2004’s early front-runner for art rock album of the year.’ — allmusic

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New Pornographers Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
‘2004 was one hell of a year for the members of the New Pornographers. The group’s two premier members, Carl Newman (recording solo for the first time as A.C. Newman) and Dan Bejar (Destroyer), each took the time to release universally lauded solo efforts. People tended to praise A.C. Newman’s The Slow Wonder a bit more, maybe since the strength of the debut album caught people more off guard given Destroyer’s good track record (and maybe because Your Blues was a little too weird for most tastes), but both albums ranked on year-end lists and reaffirmed the talents that we’d already known these two songwriters possessed.’ –– Tiny Mix Tapes

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Destroyer Rubies (live)
‘Destroyer’s like a big ol’ Rottweiller: some call him dangerous, others call him protective; some say scary, others say noble. Their detractors will always seem very well-reasoned and casual, almost indifferent, while their fans seem to twist in adulatory diarrhea, obsessing, drooling; sick. A couple of summers ago, I received a package from a friend containing lyrics of several Destroyer songs written out and lovingly illustrated; two other friends and I followed suit, spending a chunk of July transcribing and illustrating our own lyric sheets. Destroyer is a band for fans, a feast or famine experience, a tattoo-your-forearm experience.’ — Stylus Magazine

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Swan Lake A Venue Called Rubella
‘Canada has certainly been the hot spot for indie bands in the new millennium, so the fact that the singers from three of the biggest (Dan Bejar from Destroyer, Spencer Krug from Wolf Parade, and Carey Mercer from Frog Eyes) came together in Swan Lake has been — while perhaps not much of a surprise (the idea of a “collective” being quite a popular idea up north, coupled with the fact that the three have been working together in some form or another for the past few years). Fortunately, Beast Moans should thoroughly satisfy these malnourished fans. As a group, Swan Lake writes songs that have more cacophony and less form than what any of the three writers produced individually: they have structure, but it’s a structure based on how the layers define it instead of how the structure defines the layers. In “A Venue Called Rubella,” for example, keys and guitars play their own rhythms with little regard for what the others are doing while the singers’ indie-English-accented voices spout vaguely postmodern and often undecipherable lyrics.’ — collaged

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New Pornographers Myriad Harbor
‘There never has been much of a question that the New Pornographers are a cerebral power pop band — A.C. Newman’s songs dance around meaning and Dan Bejar deliberately turns meaning inside out — but they always hit the gut instead of the head due to their propulsive melodies and sweetly muscular guitars. Bejar balances these precious tendencies of Newman by indulging in his eccentricities. His songs aren’t as detailed in their arrangements, but this only accentuates his oddness, where he can make either the slow, spooky crawl of “Myriad Harbour” or the delicate Brit-pop stomp of “Entering White Cecilia” seem equally off balance.’ — allmusic

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Hello, Blue Roses Shadow Falls
‘Hello, Blue Roses is a Canadian musical collaboration involving Dan Bejar (of Destroyer and The New Pornographers) and his girlfriend, Sydney Vermont, a visual artist from Vancouver. Hello, Blue Roses’ first album, The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty… was released on 22 January 2008 by Locust Music. Their name is a reference to a line from Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie.’ — Wiki

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Destroyer Plaza Trinidad
‘I’ve done descriptive writing. When I first started writing songs I kind of had a political mandate, which was to reject that kind of writing. I thought that was the only course to take because it seemed to be so explored, a milked songwriter territory. Like, stay away, from Bob Dylan style or this world of the surreal. So I thought that I would write without using any kind of adjectives. I [have] since ditched that, obviously, and I’ve come to my senses because it seems to be the kind of writing that comes most natural to me, which is probably a good reason to reject it. At least at first, when you start. And then you have to throw up your hands and do what it is you do.’ — Dan Bejar

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Swan Lake Heartswarm
‘Easy math even I can do: two gigantic heads are better than one, three certainly better than two, and so on and so forth. But when you’re talking about records by supergroups, that logic doesn’t always hold. Projects run the risk of being trampled by big feet and bigger egos. Avoiding these pitfalls is Swan Lake, that three-headed dragon comprised of left-field Canadian indie rockers Dan Bejar (of Destroyer and the New Pornographers), Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, and Sunset Rubdown) and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes, Blackout Beach). As vocalists, they range from downcast warble to abrasive yelp; as writers, they’re known for cryptic, densely allusive songs that twist and slither into unexpected places. The phrase “acquired taste” comes to mind.’ — Pitchfork

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New Pornographers Silver Jenny Dollar
‘Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers have got a knack for impeccably crafted pop songs. On their fifth studio album, Together, they remain rooted in their usual brand of giddy hooks and quirkily catchy melodies, but they add a few new elements to the mix. As a result, the album is something of a hot mess – all over the place in its scatter-spray musical influence – but its unflinchingly lovely and impulsively listenable. Bejar’s excellent “Silver Jenny Dollar” returns things to Archies pop territory introducing the album’s first really memorable hook.’ — music OMH

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Destroyer Grief Point
‘The limited-edition 12-inch “Archer on the Beach” b/w “Grief Point.” is inspired by the music of Kranky recording artists Tim Hecker and Loscil and achieved through their full collaboration.”[1] Both of these tracks are true collaborations, with Dan Bejar writing and performing the vocals, and Tim Hecker and Loscil writing the music on Archer on the Beach and Grief Point, respectively. Grief Point is spoken word by Dan Bejar, complemented by Loscil’s ambient music.’ — Merge Records

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Destroyer Savage Night at the Opera
‘Kaputt is far from a typical Destroyer album, but, then again, has there ever really been such a thing? While there are no obvious references to his own back-catalogue in Bejar’s lyrics here, and very little of his trademark scat-singing, it would be impossible to mistake it for the work of anybody else. Who else could dream up such a beautiful verse as “I was just getting used/ To having you ‘round/ You went wandering/ Around the world/ I woke up, I went downtown/ I woke up and everything was drowning” and then dump another as abstract as “Oh Eva, your face/ I was a four leaf clover/ I was Red Rover on his way over to your place” into the same song? Dan Bejar has always been a master of combining the sublime and the ridiculous, and Kaputt is no exception.’ — Beats Per Minute

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p.s. Hey. ** Randomwater, Hi, man. It was Roussel-ian, yeah, and I hadn’t even thought about that. Beautiful call/interpretation, sir. If I end up in your/my old parts this month, and I’m working on it, you bet on the pie and howdy, etc. front. Thanks about ‘Jerk’! Take care. ** Kyler, Hi. Cool, high fascination is the best. Thank you. As is new whiteness, come to think of it. And cleanness, not that I know much about that, ha ha. Good … morning, night? ** les mots dans le nom, That snail one’s image is kind of transcendent, yeah, right? Mm, I’m not exactly sure when ‘The Weaklings (XL)’ will hit stores. I was told mid-November a while back, but a note on the cover of the ARC says mid-December. I’ll try to find out. As to your second question, I have no idea really. I’m not interested in ‘attracting boys’. The idea seems really mercenary or something. I mean, I guess the more your identity precedes you, the more interest in you pre-exists you and ups the seeming value of your presence or something. ** Flit, ‘Buttertoed James Brown’: the hits keep coming, and the excitement for what you’re working on builds. ** Zach, Hi, Zach. The sound machines were cool, no? I love their different styles and thinking about how those styles in some way reflect maybe the different countries’ ideals of perceptibility or something. Do tell me how Blackout is, if you go. That one really does seem like an ultra-special one in theory, and it gets the most controversial response. Cool, thanks for what you said about the slaves/’Sluts’. That’s hugely my interest in them and was my interest while writing that novel. What’s going on with you and keeping you busy? ** David Ehrenstein, I’m really surprised at myself that I didn’t see the Roussel vibe, but it’s so true. Very curious to hear how your interview with D. Radcliffe goes. He seems to have the potential of being quite a sharp, interesting fellow. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I think cat harm was definitely going on there. Or cat annoying at least. ** Tosh Berman, No, I think Roussel it is. How was that book on Roussel? Is it a bio? Maybe you already told me. I’m not entirely coffeed up yet. ** Matty B., Hi, Matty! Oh, tell me about Frightnight. There’s also 13th Door, which some say is even better. I don’t know if the link is working? You sent me a physical pdf, and that certainly works. Best of the best! ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant! Thanks much. Cool, great, about the excerpt! Let me … Everyone, the writer of majesty and d.l. Grant Maierhofer has had an excerpt from his stellar novel ‘The Persistence of Crows’ posted on the fine site/journal Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and this is a great chance for you to dip into said novel’s wonders, so please do, and do so via here. ** Sypha, I think one would need to be a very romantic human preference-lover to not see the cat piano as at least a mild torture device. I did see that Tom Clancy died. It produced no feeling of note in me since I never read his stuff and just thought of him rightly or wrongly as a seemingly crap writer with awful politics. I vote for bringing back your Tom Clancy novel with a gay twist. ** Rewritedept, Are they called that because they make you burp? Failed? Well, failure is a relative idea, right? I wasn’t thinking of them as failures, even if they were. I did do writing yesterday. Today is potentially a busy one, yes, in terms of physical movement and possible momentousness. Wow, I call that day of yours a busy one. Low-key busy? Interesting idea. Yeah, that seems utterly possible, now that I think about it. I guess today the album I’m most interested to hear is the new one by The Field if I had to pick. My drool for ‘Home’ gives your drool for ‘Home’ a sloppy high five. I saw the ARC, and it’s fucking beautiful. ** MANCY, Hi! Thank you so much, man. How are things in your corner of the world? Are you working on stuff? Are you feeling happy and good? ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks a big amount, T. Oh, urgh, ugh, sweat, etc. on the inspection. Best of everything, luck included, getting a pass. ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, that’s so disappointing about ‘EfT’, and yet, that is kind of precisely what I feared the movie would be. What a shame. I don’t even know if I’ll bother seeing it, or bother seeking it out before the easy downloads start. Sad. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Thanks, man. Yeah, that’s very interesting: your ideas/thoughts with Marc re: your Five Years project’s generation. I’m trying to work in this place where that idea about how we receive and recall stuff is put in concentrated conflict with the faith one has in the intuitive form that results when one needs to expose the personal compulsively, if that makes any sense. ** Misanthrope, What’s happening with the Republicans is completely fascinating. They’re exposing everything that’s wrong with their current make up and with their delusional planning and their corruption of what conservatism is and means, and they really do not seem to realize what they’re exposing. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen happen in the political realm. I can not see an outcome where they won’t completely fuck themselves. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I listened to your Brad Listi podcast interview yesterday. Really good! Did you tell me before that you’d worked with Steven Millhauser? If so, I forgot. What was that/he like? I’m such a big fan of his. And did you have personal interactions with Joy Williams? Super wow, if so. It would be too hard and lengthy to explain how the scrapbook page relates to the novel in this context. The title/subtitle ‘The imperfectionists’ is a general key. But, yeah, the styling in the page/post itself was an experiment in achievability using imagery as place holders. I’m excited for you about the three weeks, man! ** S., Very nice paragraph and recipe. I’m sorting it with thoughts made lustrous. Well, you seem like you’ve got the master mindset all set. All you needy is a spidery body language, if you don’t have it already. ** Rudyd, Hi there! Good to see you! Thanks a whole lot! ** Alistair McCartney, Alistair, my buddy! Thank you for gracing my humble abode. I’m doing really good, man, thanks. I’m thrilled about your novel distilling. How close are you to finishing, do you think? And of course I hope and trust the green card procedures are going smoothly at long last. Well, as smoothly as anything like that can go. I hope to see you in LA sometime soon too. Lots of love to you, big A.! ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark! Thank you so much. Mm, no, not failure per say, no. Maybe in the sense of trying to determine what makes something seem a failure. Maybe sort of like the idea that something could seem great to its maker and yet be deemed a failure, and how something could be deemed a failure by its maker and be declared great. In between there somewhere is interesting. ‘Is the language designed to be blind to how destined for failure it’s misconstrued aspirations are?’ Wow, that is in fact really, really true. How amazing that you got that from the scrapbook page. Wow. That’s very exciting. Thank you for sharing that perception, Mark. Hey, you probably like Swan Lake, don’t you? Aren’t you a giant Spencer Krug fan, or am I misremembering? ** Creative Massacre, Hi, Misty! I looked around about Waverly Hills yesterday and saw that it had been on Ghost Hunters and other shows. I found what looks like a pretty good TV doc segment about it that I’m going to try to watch today. Lots of love to you, pal. ** Right. You get a gig featuring a chronological set by the very great Dan Bejar today, and you’re welcome, ha ha. See you tomorrow.