Anybody who’s reading my blog at this point knows that I’m maybe unhealthily fond of Luke Doucet, the frontman of this band, and his music, and I’m not really going to make any stabs at denying that. But even if I had no idea who the man was, I’m pretty sure I’d still love Veal. The thing about them, though, is that everyone keeps trying to categorize them. I guess it’s human nature but even the bio on their myspace is littered with comparisons to Indie Music Heroes and futile attempts at genre description to the point of absolute ridiculity. I’m not sure if that’s a real word but let’s roll with it. I mean, look at that thing. The phrase “Surf-noir-motorcycle-hillbilly rock” is used seemingly without irony. Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, David Lowery of Cracker, the Who, and Fugazi are all referenced in the span of a few paragraphs. Last but certainly not least is the mention of the Cramps/Dick Dale/Iggy Pop orgy. Flattering as all those comparisons are it seems to me to actually do them an injustice, because in the end, they’re just Veal: unique, utterly bizarre, and really good.
Take their first album, Hot Loser, released in ‘97 in, as far as I can tell, a haze of pot smoke. (Luke had long hair, see right. I don’t know if I like it on him but I do think that, much like his recent beard, regardless of aesthetics it was pretty impressive. Dude has surprising hair-growing abilities and that’s a beautiful head of hair.) The man himself has admitted, both then and now, that the lyrics at this point were pretty much “free-association bullshit”. They’re kind of my favorite part of the record, if only because they make me giggle so hard sometimes. But, the thing is, regardless of that, the album is still just fun to listen to. The lyrics are weird and the songwriting is unconventional, but it feels really, really good on the ears. The production (y’all just sit tight for the Six Degrees section.) is the kind that kinda swallows up your head. And, amidst the unusual musical structure, there are some fantastic songs. I fully believe that “Mexico Texaco”, “Cauchemar” and especially “Down Again” could be singles now – the latter may be the best on the album. The only song that doesn’t really agree with me is “In Bed With The Pope”, the sound of which makes me cringe a little, but even that’s growing on me.
Something similar can be said for their next release, Tilt O’Whirl (2000). While the music is hit-and-miss in some places on this record, when it’s good, it’s really good. Take for example “Spiderman” and “Buttercloud” – though, if I’m being honest, it might have taken a listen to the more stripped-down versions of them from Luke’s live record Outlaws (Live and Unreleased) to realize exactly how good they were. Even still, there’s a lot of gems on Tilt O’Whirl, like the short-but-sweet “Underground”, my personal favorite “Skid”, and the bitter, sleepy ballad, “Centre of the Universe.”
And last but not least – their greatest, in fact, there’s Embattled Hearts. Luke had really honed his songwriting skills by then, and every song is memorable and catchy. And the lyrics are at their best, too. “Everybody Wants More Cocaine” (which, sorry Rivers, owns Weezer’s “We Are All On Drugs” a hundred times over, though that might not be saying a whole lot.), “Miss Brazil” and the parts of “Fader Creep” I can make out are social commentaries that I actually don’t mind for once, and “Radio” a lament for the state of popular music with some pretty nice movement to boot. Neville Quinlan declares “Toothbrush” one of the sexiest songs ever written by a Canadian. And everything else is so tongue-and-cheek and laced with delicious irony. It’s a good record, a consistently good record, with strong performances all around, and it got no response. It totally bombed. That was back in 2003, and they haven’t put anything new out since. Luke Doucet insists that the band’s days are not over. No one else seems to believe him, but I do, and I’m hoping like hell that, now that his latest record Blood’s Too Rich is out, a new Veal album is the next thing he releases.
Highlights:
- “Down Again“, from Hot Loser. Listen to the melody, and especially the nuance in his voice.
- “Skid“, from Tilt O’Whirl, just makes me happy. The music, the tongue-in-cheek lyrics, the keytar, the ‘ooh-la-la-la’s in the chorus, and that solo.
- “Miss Brazil“, from Embattled Hearts, has a crazy catchy chorus, lyrics with a point, Luke singing in the upper registers, and the phrase “to satisfy viagrified erections”. I don’t care who you are, that’s just good stuff.
Six Degrees/Pointless Trivia Section: Alright, brace yourselves.
- Veal can’t keep a bassist for beans, and they’ve had a revolving cast of bass players over the years. They seem to have finally clicked with their seventh, Nik Kozub, member of about a zillion different bands including up-and-coming, ridiculously fun “we just make dance music” band Shout Out Out Out Out, producer of another zillion records in Edmonton, avid sweatband wearer, and head of Nrmls Wlcm Rcrds.
- Veal’s drummer is known only as Chang. I don’t know about any of the other projects he may have been involved in, but I feel he deserves his own special mention, because he’s a tight drummer, and he’s hella mysterious and charismatic to boot. If this were fandomsecrets and I had less dignity, I would be slapping the words “I’d hit that.” on his picture.
- One of Luke Doucet’s first major gigs was as a hired guitarist for Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstacy tour. Sarah’s band is all over Hot Loser. For one, her keyboard player and one-time boyfriend (oh yes, I went there) David Kershaw produced and played additional instruments on it. Another of Sarah’s guitar players, Sean Ashby, is frontman of a band called Jack Tripper which is thanked in the liner notes along with Ms. McLachlan’s drummer and husband, Ashwin Sood. Finally, her longtime bassist Brian Minato plays guitars and Yamaha Portimento on the record. Brian would actually later do a stint in Veal as one of their many bassists, and he also was part of Jack Tripper for a time, as well as co-producer on their album 9 Easy Pieces. Oh, yeah, and he played bass for Luke for a bit too. Dude gets around.
- I don’t know much about Barry Mirochnick, but the guy’s everywhere. He wrote or co-wrote five of the songs on Hot Loser, did lead vocals on two of them, played bass and background vocals on everything, and did some other instrumental things. He’s played on every record Canada’s ever produced (including Jack Tripper’s 9 Easy Pieces). I am not even kidding. He was also a member of Acoustically Inclined (as was Luke Doucet), and has played for Christine Fellows, Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics, Veda Hille, and Neko Case.
- They’re not directly related, but when I got my copy of Hot Loser – with four incomplete layers of shrink wrap, two copies of the liner booklet and a certificate from Divine Industries for three “divine dollars” – and I looked the company up to see wtf was going on, I found on their website The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, who make music about HP Lovecraft and his literature. And that deserves some kind of mention.
- Tilt O’Whirl was produced by Rheostatics drummer and producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda, who produced the Barenaked Ladies‘ Gordon, and albums by Ashley MacIsaac, Spirit of the West and a ton of other people. He was also married to singer/songwriter Mia Sheard, who covered Veal’s “Mexico Texaco” on her album Reptilian, bringing us full circle! Hell yeah!
Get Veal’s music here, at Six Shooter Records, or here, at MapleMusic.
