File next to: Sheezer, Vag Halen, Broken People Scene, Most Social
Playing: Night 1 of WL15, Friday February 13th at Sneaky Dee’s.
Most People are a local two-man psych-pop electro-indie dance party machine. No matter your age or gender, after you catch these guys play you will have an uncontrollable urge to plaster your bedroom wall with portraits of these sensitive and sexy dreamboats. Broken Social Scene are a band that you’ve probably heard of with a whole bunch of members and some relatively mega-hits. Hey, didn’t they play a Wavelength show early in their career? Anyways, something unbelievable has happened, Most People have decided to play a Broken Social Scene COVER-TRIBUTE set for WL 15! Catch it Friday February 13th at Sneaky Dee’s (431 College St.). Wavelength contributor Michael Ball caught up with Most People’s Brandon Gibson-DeGroote Paul McEachern to discuss the sure-to-be legendary concert.
Most People – “Release” | Wavelength Music from Wavelength Music on Vimeo.
Why did you pick this band to cover, and you would say that Most People are hardcore Broken Social Scene super-fans?
For the cover set, Broken Social Scene was kindly assigned to us by Wavelength, and to be honest I hadn’t listened to them much before a month ago. [Laughs] I was a teenager and knee deep in the prog-metal scene when they were doing their thing. But having now listened to them a ton, and doing some research, I definitely admire their ability to create a music scene around them by forging this super-group of exciting and interesting Toronto performers of the time. Still to this day, members have had longevity and success in their own projects partly due to the fan reception of BSS. I suppose we are similar in the sense that it is important for us to feel connected to the stream of musicians and bands that this city has to offer, and to feel like we can be part of it in some way, shape or form.
One might categorize BSS’s career as having multiple acts: the early days, the hey-days, and the reunion days. Does your set cover the whole career arc, or focus on one era?
It will span their whole career barring one album, we can only play three songs and they have four albums. All three songs will be from different albums.
Have you seen them in concert before?
Didn’t see ‘em. I YouTube’d it.
What kind of planning went into the set list and arrangements?
We both just listened to the shit out of their discography over the holidays and compiled a list of our faves that might be fun to play. We had to get creative with the arrangement of the songs, which ended up making for very unique versions, but still highly recognizable, which was important for us to keep in mind as we tore the songs apart. We didn’t want to get lost in the adaptations so that no one would even know what band we were covering.
Depending on the specifics there are like six to 40 people on stage at a Broken Social Scene show. Most People is a band of approximately two. How does this factor into things?
Frustrating! [More laughing] We worked within our number limitations which has always been a theme in Most People. We seem to be at our most creative, writing-wise, when forced to stick within the boundaries of having only two members.
Did you forget it in people?
No. Well maybe. Possibly just for a second. No wait…[Long pause] No, no definitely not.
In 15 years, when some punk-ass band does a tribute cover set of Most People, what do you expect to see?
17 super computers running Ableton 78.9 through laptop speakers and a cyborg version of Brandon on the cowbell. Any thing less than that, don’t fucking bother!
— Interview by Michael Ball