February and March are shaping up to be a couple of excellent months for concerts in D.C. The Shins are playing two shows at the Black Cat, Super Furry Animals have an evening at the 9:30 Club, Atmosphere is coming back and there are a few band-packed weekends in March that will make indie-rock fans go crazy. Perhaps best of all, Montreal’s proudest sons, The Unicorns, kick it all off Feb. 1, playing the intimate backstage at the Black Cat.
For the uninitiated, the Unicorns are a trio of clever indie-rocking Canadians. Their sophomore release, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, is a genre-bending piece of ironic brilliance. The album is full of morbid imagery, self-referential lyrics, and enough hooks to make you come back begging for more. Largely avoiding the typical song structure that alternates between verses and chorus, the band managed to create some of the catchiest songs of 2003 that you never heard, especially “Sea Ghost” and “I Was Born (a Unicorn).”
The Unicorns are comprised of Nick Diamonds (guitar, keyboard), Alden Ginger (bass, keyboard) and Jamie Thompson (drums). Diamonds and Ginger share vocals and songwriting duties, and Thompson plays a bigger part in creating new material.
In anticipation of their upcoming show, we decided to get a trusty steed, ride hard till morn and track down the Unicorns in their natural habitat of Montreal. When it was pointed out that all of our steeds are untrustworthy, we decided it was best just to call them. Diamonds and Thompson talked with me for awhile about the band, their musical tastes, and the superiority of Canada.
What we found out: getting a straight answer from a Unicorn can be tricky. Off the bat they claimed that their main influences were largely fictional boy bands. And the Beatles. They also cited inspirational speaker Anthony Robbins as a large non-musical inspiration. While the Beatles may play some role in their music, there are certainly very few traces of either boy band or motivational speaker. Rather, the music tends more toward the irreverence of Pavement, circa-Wowee Zowee, and the lyrical oddities of many of the psychedelic Elephant 6 artists.
Much of the music, however, is simply unclassifiable. Just when a song seems to be settling into a genre you will be thrown for a loop. On “I Was Born (a Unicorn)” a vocal sample drops in out of nowhere, sounding not too far removed from something musical collage-makers The Books would use, except funkier.
The almost bipolar “Tuff Luff” has a five-second hip hop breakdown in the middle, and the instrumentation keeps one guessing as well. The pennywhistle intro to “Sea Ghost” seems comical at first, but when the guitar falls into place it sounds like a bizarre, clever Weezer. When asked about the genre-bending quality of the album, Diamonds declared that it was fully unintentional. He later added that whatever was necessary for the hook was what was employed, be it fiddle, clarinet, or just guitar.
Upon being questioned about the surge of Canadian musical acts, Diamonds was at first incredulous. When it was pointed out that Broken Social Scene, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Hot Hot Heat and the Stills (the last two of which the Unicorns have opened for) are all Canadian, Diamonds quickly attributed their collective songwriting prowess to the extreme cold and the lack of a totalitarian regime. Ever tongue-in-cheek, he went on to say that unlike many of the aforementioned reputable musical groups the Unicorns were in it solely for the money, and that any artistic statement was purely accidental.
Drummer Jamie Thompson reminds you all to use condoms, and of course, to see The Unicorns play the Black Cat. If you’ve got a car, check them out Jan. 31 as part of UVA’s Fest Full of Rock where they will be playing with the likes of RJD2, Magnolia Electric Co., and Pretty Girls Make Graves.
The Unicorns will be playing at 9 p.m, Feb. 1, at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. N.W.
