Pizza Don’t Dance (Stars, Southpaw)

I first saw the Canadian pop group Stars when they opened for, and were assimilated into, Broken Social Scene at the TLA in Philadelphia.  I love Broken Social Scene, despite their warm, scruffy hippie-dippyness and their ridiculously all-inclusive stage presence.

(Seriously, how big is Broken Social Scene?  They’ve just been designated Canada’s eleventh province, its fifth most populated.  The last time I saw them, they gained two new band members when one of their percussionists gave birth (rhythmically, of course) to twins on stage.  In times of war, all Canadians are conscripted into either the Mounties, the RAF, or Broken Social Scene.)

If BSS is a great big, harmonious galaxy of musical jubilation, Stars is... well, just stars.  Eh.  They’re pretty enough on a cloudless night, but kind of spread out and ill-defined.  You can pretend they come together to form something, a bear or a dipper or a hunter’s belt, but then you blink and realize that you’re the one drawing all the lines, doing all the work, and you’ve lost the image as surely as I’ve lost my metaphor, here.

Maybe their new CD is called Set Yourself on Fire because the band ain’t gonna do it for you.

That’s the conclusion I came to after leaving last night’s show.  A friend begged that I gave them another shot.  It had been a couple years and they’re touring behind a critically lauded CD.  Their, um, star is rising, and it’s always kind of nice to see a group that’s just sold out the Bowery Ballroom in the comfy confines of Southpaw.  They also have a very earnest sounding missed-love song called “Reunion” where they plead “All I want is one more chance.”  Jeez, if you’re gonna beg...

I remembered the group as a five-piece, but there were eight on stage, last night:  Two guitars, drums, percussion, keyboards, bass, lead vocals/trumpet and sax.  And for all that, I left shrugging.  The distinguishing feature of Stars should be male-female vocalists Torquil Campbell and Aimee Millan.  Live, (sometime actor) Campbell hams up his delivery, emoting as if selling every tepid timeworn love-lost lyric to someone in an imaginary fifth balcony; he contorts and cringes, retches and reaches out.  For all the theatrics the sound is oddly muted and expressionless.  Millan has a pretty voice – I loved her vocals on BSS’ “Lover’s Spit” back at the TLA – but she too fades into the band’s sound.  Which would be fine were that sound distinguished or the songs stronger, but it’s all kind of a busy, bland synth somethingorother.  The sax player would lay dormant for long periods of time before coming to life and adding almost nothing at all.

They dedicated a number to Donald Fagen.

Some songs are a little faster than others.  But the songs they said were “sad” sounded so much like the ones they introduced as “sexy” that, well, the vocalists themselves obviously found it necessary to tell us how to feel about them.

Which isn’t to say that any of this is awful.  It’s just awfully, terminally, oh, ‘kay.  Warm milk.  I left early, and without buying that acclaimed CD.  But if you’re having trouble sleeping, tour dates are here.  [There are two mass Canadian exodus shows in Japan 5/13 & 14 that have otherwise killer line-ups:  Stars is there with BSS, the Dears and DFA1979.  How they gonna fit all them people on that tiny island?]

The best part of the show was an anecdote Millan told about performing in Vermont.  When the band (Canadians who originally met in Brooklyn) mentioned on stage, there, that they were headed here, they were met with a round of boos.  Surely there was something those New Englanders liked about New York City, no?  Again, boos. 

“What about pizza?  New York pizza?”  the band offered.

“Pizza don’t dance,” spit out some front-row dweeb.

Not if you don’t give it a reason to, and this band doesn’t.  Come to the Mercury Lounge for DFA1979 tonight, Pizza Boy, and I’ll show you a room full of New Yorkers that’ll dance all over your sorry, syrupy little head.

Typical Southpaw disrespect towards opener, Juno-winning Canadian folkie Jenny Whiteley.  Accompanied by a back-up singer and her husband on mandolin and guitar, she had a beautiful voice if sometimes questionable material (What are you doing singing about being a Folsom prison inmate, sweetie?).

I really only mention her because the poseurish crowd abruptly stopped its loud, self-absorbed gabbing when Whiteley casually mentioned, before her last song, that her back-up singer was (of course) the Stars’ Amy Millan.  Oh, now she’s worth listening to, hmmm?

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