The Golden Dogs - 3 1/2 preview

The Golden Dogs, despite their long standing as one of the most ferocious live bands in Canada and catalogue of critically acclaimed albums, have never quite gotten their due.

Like the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir (which cultivated the musicianship of Chris Brown and Kate Fenner, David Wall and Broken Social Scene's Andrew Whiteman); or By Divine Right (which gave BSS founder Brendan Canning and Leslie now just Feist national exposure at the start of their careers); The Golden Dogs may be as well known for their own music as for giving many musicians a schooling and a start including Zeus' founder Carlin Nicholson and ace in the hole Neil Quin.

The high point of their career thus far has likely been playing the Hollywood Bowl touring in support of Feist with Sloan.  Not bad for a husband and wife team from North Ontario's Thunder Bay who met in an Italian wedding band playing polkas. It's hard to fathom the distance between Thunder Bay and Toronto unless you've driven it.  Every band that's crossed Canada- an improbable feat at times- knows that crossing the Ontario border heading East or hitting Thunder Bay is a cruel lie and means another 20 hours drive.  In Europe you could likely cross 10 borders in the same time.

When they originally descended to the Big Smoke The Golden Dogs fronted by the frenetic and inevitably sweat drenched Dave Azzolini and his wife, former keyboardist now drummer, Jess Grassia were a formidable force made up of other near Northern Ontarians from Sault St. Marie with a powerful debut Everything In 3 Parts (2003).   The Canadian Music press fawned over them deservedly.  Lineup changes have been consistent but the 'band' has always been a vehicle for Azzolini's formidable pop chops.  Big Eye Little Eye followed in 2006 to the same acclaim but 2010's Coat Of Arms failed to explode despite its considerable charms. In the same period their brohemes notably Bahamas (Afie Jurvanen) and Zeus have gained international profiles and eaten their share of humble pie.  Afie's eaten the least.   His raffish good looks and breezy delivery (not too mention what they all share in common incredibly substantial guitar chops) have made him a steady commodity in soft seaters and cool kid clubs alike.  In short everyone's rooting for The Golden Dogs on this one appropriately titled 3 1/2.

Reinvigorated by Grassia's confidence in her role on drums and a strong new lineup with Stefanie McCarrol on keys and guitar and Alejandro Cairncross on bass live and on record the group is notably reinvigorated.  McCarrol and her brother Jay's group Brave Shores, at least with their booming single Never Come Down, are also getting considerable airplay with perhaps the most crossover appeal.  In that 3 1/2 embraces some of these electro touches it's a departure of sorts and an arrival in others.  Stefanie's presence, physically resembling and echoing Jess' enthusiasm at the same station, adds a welcome updated synthesized wash which carries across the recording.  Some of the polish is undoubtedly Carlin Nicholson's spit shine who mixed it at Sloan's studio.  The single Do It For You is in heavy rotation on the CBC and a video for the second single Decided (recorded live off the floor with Joao Carvalho at Revolution Recording) is due soon.  Caught recently Azzolini's enthusiasm was self evident:

"Regarding the sound we're going for.  I suppose it's a reflection of wanting to make super pop-y music and noisy-screamy-er stuff on one album. Songs that are friendly and songs that are abrasive."

2015 ALBUM RELEASE SHOWS

FEB 21 – Toronto, ON @ The Rivoli w/Jane's Party
FEB 27 – Ottawa, ON @ House Of Targ w/Ornaments
MAR 6 – Hamilton, ON @ This Ain't Hollywood w/High Kites, Chuck Coles
MAR 7 – Montreal, QC @ Divan Orange w/guests tba - buy tickets
MAR 13 – Kitchener, ON @ The Boathouse w/guests tba
MAR 20 – Kingston, ON @ The Grad Club w/guests tba
MAR 21 – London, ON @ Call The Office w/guests tba

Golden Dogs Rivoli setlist (06.21.14)

 

The Golden Dogs

Rivoli

NXNE

06.21.14

Good Feel

Permanent Record

Nevermind

Do It For You

Feel Like A Bridge

Runouttaluck

Pretending

Saints At The Gates

Birdsong

One Last Time

Yeah!

Dave Azzolini (Golden Dogs) archived interview

The following is an archived  in-depth interview (originally published May 3, 2010 dealing largely with The Golden Dogs forthcoming release (Coat of Arms, release date July 27), the songwriting and recording process and in the end a helpful but largely irrelevant (given The Golden Dogs stark originality) list of influences.

   








Q: Who are the exact personnel on Coat of Arms and who plays what instruments (presumably multiple).  

A: There's so many guests and such, but mostly it's Me, Jess, Taylor Knox, with Carlin Nicholson and Mike O'Brien. Afie (Jurvanen) came in for one solo, Rob Drake drummed on Dear Francis, Neil Quin played on a couple tracks, and a whole lot of people came in for backing vocals and group vocals.  

Q: Did Carlin (Nicholson) engineer and produce it or who is the producer?

A: The Producer cred is "Produced by The Golden Dogs with Carlin Nicholson and Mike O'Brien". Most of the arrangements were solidified in the demo process. There were a couple of tracks that we saved for the studio which Carlin & Mike had a hand in: For instance, When the Movie’s Over was sort of a hybrid song that came about when we were jamming out some new songs at our place. It started out as a jam and I started making up the verse melody with bogus words, then Carlin came up with a piano hook. Then Jess suggested that a chorus from one of my other songs would fit. So I plopped that in there, finished off the words and we recorded it pretty soon after. That doesn’t happen with me very often. I like to think about songs for awhile before I put them down on record. Lester was another one, although the arrangement was finished, Mike offered the lead guitar hook, which is an important part. Underwater Goldmine was another one. Mike developed that intro slide guitar part. Goldmine was one where me, Jess, Mike & Carlin came together and just knew where to take it. It is a pretty magical recording.

Q: When did you first start thinking or not start thinking about the album setting out to as it were to let the album come together in an organic way. If Lester was the first song unexpectedly recorded in a gap in the recording of Zeus’ album Say Us what was the first song written for instance?

A: Burst and Weapon I think – they were finished at the same time, winter of 2007. More than half of the album was written on piano, a Yamaha CP 70 electric piano – it’s Carlin’s, but we’ve had it for years now. Jess loves playing it, and if it wasn’t 200 pounds, we’d bring it on the road. Even songs that are heavy guitar arrangements like Permanent Record and Old Hat were started with the piano. Weapon was actually written on guitar first even though it's a heavily piano arranged song, that opening riff was written on guitar. Darkroom (the chorus at least) was developed at Taylor’s place on an badly out-of-tune piano and cheap old church organ with foot pedals and ridiculous drum beats. Songs like Dear Francis and As Long As You Like were sort of developed at the same time. They have a 50s girl group kind of feel. Jess was originally going to sing Dear Francis, which is why the key is so high, but when we went to do vocals, she wasn’t feeling it and insisted that I do it. I did it too…in only a couple of takes.  

Q: Over what time period would you say you were writing songs for this record and at what point did you start to work up arrangements?

 A: The seeds of some date back to the period right after we finished the last record, so late 2006. I always have bits that I record. If the songs keeps bugging me to finish it, then it gets special attention. Jess is great for remembering bits and pieces and pushing me to finish melodies that she really likes. Cheap Umbrellas was one I had started a long while back. I had sort of let it go and Jess pushed me to finish it and said that she would sing it. There's always songs like that where, say, I can't finish it all at once, but the melody keeps needling me until I have to finish it. Songs usually come in twos or threes. There are always songs that are related to each other in theme, or at least in terms of the point in my life that they were created. Burst / Weapon are two that definitely go together. Goldmine / Lester ; Dear Francis / As Long;  Permanent Record / Old Hat. The last song arranged was When The Movie’s Over.

Q: How would you say Coat of Arms is a product of Ill Eagle Studio, the East End vibe, the shared responsibility etc.  

A: That studio has a drum sound. Getting the drums to sound good is half the battle and they have that figured out. It's a very dry, small room sound, but that's the way I like it. The recording vibe was such that there was no real huge time pressure while we were tracking…this was good for getting the right feel on songs. One song though, Travel Time was the first song recorded at Illegal, but it ended up not having the right feel and I wanted to scrap it, but Taylor insisted we have one more crack at it, but by that time, the studio was unavailable (Danielle Duval was tracking). So we did it at Taylor's place in the west end just off Spadina. We ended up liking the track a lot better. Better performance, big drums sounds – it has a nice place on the album. The east end vibe is mostly that it's very residential where we were. Parking is easier...hahahah. Not too many distractions, very laid back. The studio was just the best place to hang out at the time. Whether working on our stuff, Zeus stuff or Danielle's stuff, or just goofing around.

Q: What is the official release date for the vinyl LP and what is the overall release date.  

A: I think it's all July 27. It's a summer release. I think most of the music industry goes on vacation in August so it'll be interesting to see how this works out.  

Q: What can you tell me about your excitement about having your own piece of vinyl, and also what does it mean to be on a label like Nevado with artists like Afie that you clearly admire?  

A: I can finally do scratching on my own piece of vinyl! Besides that, I hope it means that the real music lovers out there will dive into the new album a bit. Vinyl does have a romance about it that's undeniable. Each side of the album has it's own vibe. We think that the second side is just as good as the first side. We hope others will find that too. We spend a lot of time on album art….the whole winter actually making these specialized song signs…vinyl is a great canvas for artwork. Having something to stare out or zone out on while you’re listening to the music. It’s very important to us.  

Q: It seems slightly odd that one of the most common questions to ask an artist is their influences but you seem to remind so many people of so many different bands (The Cars seems a common reference point for instance) that The Golden Dogs sound ends up being so rooted in pop tradition but bracingly original. Maybe by way of the bands and artists you started to introduce Jess to when you first met perhaps you could talk about who your big influences are as a songwriter, guitarist and producer. I'd imagine that by now you're so hip deep in the music that your peers are making that they are the greatest influences but if you can point to any other contemporary examples of original bands that inspire you or craftsmen whose technique you applaud that would be helpful.

A: I hope people hear this album and don't immediately think "influences". I think we really got our own thing going on this new album but obviously, rock and roll is almost sixty years old and there are going to be references that pop up in every band playing music today. Arcade Fire - Springsteen/Talking Heads/Modest Mouse; Broken Social Scene - Dinosaur Jr.; I could do this for every band almost... Radiohead - Can/Pink Floyd/ Beatles; Everly Brothers/Buddy Holly/Little Richard/60's Girl Groups; Beach Boys - Phil Spector.   It's fun to do for sure... Anyways... I digress...In terms of influences I just heard some of the new New Pornographers and was pleasantly surprised. I went right to listening to Permanent Record afterwards and felt that we fit right in with this music. Is it Prog Pop? I just think it's just Pop with definite English pop leanings. I felt like we were like the Pornographers minus the slightly faux English accents and the oblique and grandiloquent lyrics- (I looked that up, it means someone who uses big words!). Plus, perhaps we have a bit more of, say maybe, a Neil Young influence going on? Not overtly but...I don't know. A definite directness anyways. If this is a fair universe, the Golden Dogs would get a spot playing with the Pornographers. If we're talking about who we'd love to play with? I'd say Spoon, Pornos, Wilco, Walkmen, I just heard the new MGMT and thought they were doing some interesting stuff too. I thought of Burst when I heard the new MGMT album, I immediately put Burst on and felt really good about our album. Jess and I were talking about how fun it would be to do a covers album and release it on our website only. For free.

Here's the list we came up with, I think it's a pretty good list of influences too:
 Harry Nilsson - Without Her  
Wilco - I'm A Wheel  
Frank Black - Headache  
Kinks - Tired of Waiting  
Hayden - Dynamite Walls (Jess sings this one great)  
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain (don't think we could pull it off, but it'd be fun to try)  
Modern Lovers - Hippie Johnny Elliot Smith - Independence Day  
Guided By Voices - Glad Girls  
Brian Eno - Needle in the Camel's Eye
 Ween - The Mollusk (didn’t I put that on the list?)

As far as the music I started with at 12, it was all about learning every Beatle chord back then. That's what got Jess hooked too. It's the blueprint for great pop. Great for learning and having fun learning music. Beyond that, Stones, Dylan and The Who made me love Rock & Roll at that age too. That shit took me through most of my teens right there. It's not that esoteric a list but it worked. I couldn't get enough of that stuff.

The Golden dogs Lester (from Coat of Arms)

The songs that make up The Golden Dogs new album Coat of Arms have long since wormed their way deeply into my heart- as they will for so many listeners across this great country, continent and world of ours.

I first saw The Golden Dogs in their original incarnation at Guelph's Hillside Festival when their definitely buzz worthy Everything In 3 Parts had just broke.  It is an amusing anecdote in Canadian Rock Lore that... well you might as well hear it from the horse's mouth:

"Okay so basically the Island Stage at Hillside (which is one of if not the best programmed festivals in Canada) is this idyllic tent and Guelph is this really manzy panzy granola town with a pretty heavy duty male and female lesbian contingent (Guelph has more male lesbians per capita than any Canadian municipalities incidentally) and actually quite a few swingers or polyamourists (the King of the Swingers is or was on city council no word of a lie) or whatever those skeezebags call dipping the pen in your neighbour's ink.  So anyways my mushrooms are just kicking in I'm super hyped about this set and then this fucking band just blows up.  Like... and okay sure my mushrooms (like half a fucking cap man get over it) are slowly kicking in... I'm thinking in my mind 'this is what it must have been like to see The Police'.  The band was wholly original somehow rooted in the New Wave but not pandering to it, just really dynamic and engaging original songwriting and the whole band shreds including particularly the lead and very lanky lead guitarist Dave Azzolini who looks a bit like Ric Ocasek without shades but mainly because he's tall as fuck and plays ridiculously good guitar.


So anyways this green bean shaped man... Oh hold up... First I gave the entire band the CLEARLY IRONIC (note that NOBODY was dancing in this entire supposedly hippy town before I got up front and centre and shook not too few tailfeathers) Johnny Cash style 'Fuck You' - whilst still dancing said ass off.  Then beanpole man points at me - mid guitar solo nonetheless - and lunges forward (I'm clearly thinking this is part of the stage show) and then the fugger kicks me (while wearing my trademark - certainly after this occasion- Phil Collins '94 tour t-shirt), hard right between Phil's eyes.   I try to do this Matrix style backspin that didn't totally work clearly due to the durability of his combat boots and point of contact pretty much dead centre on the xyphoid process.  


The entire writeup of the band in the next day's Guelph Mercury was eclipsed by this one event which I don't have to look up because well I was fucking there."


In true rockstar-in-training fashion frontman Dave Azzolini berated a fan (allegedly sporting a Phil Collins t-shirt) for his rude reception of the band in the festival's Island Tent."


How was I supposed to know the keyboard chick was his wife?  Seriously.

In any case we're friends now if this video is any indication.



Whoa hold up.  I left out the part about how when the lights came up - and again this audience wasn't made up entirely of lesbians and it's the Friday night of a 3 day festival this fucking guy 'Dave Azzolini' announces over the mic:  'Hey ladies you see this guy in the Phil Collins shirt?  Don't touch him all weekend.  He's got diseases'.

I couldn't make this stuff up.

Dave Azzolini full interview (The Golden Dogs past and present)

The following is an in-depth interview dealing largely with The Golden Dogs forthcoming release (Coat of Arms, release date July 27), the songwriting and recording process and in the end a helpful but largely irrelevant (given The Golden Dogs stark originality) list of influences.

   











Q: Who are the exact personnel on Coat of Arms and who plays what instruments (presumably multiple).  

A: There's so many guests and such, but mostly it's Me, Jess, Taylor Knox, with Carlin Nicholson and Mike O'Brien. Afie (Jurvanen) came in for one solo, Rob Drake drummed on Dear Francis, Neil Quin played on a couple tracks, and a whole lot of people came in for backing vocals and group vocals.  

Q: Did Carlin (Nicholson) engineer and produce it or who is the producer?

A: The Producer cred is "Produced by The Golden Dogs with Carlin Nicholson and Mike O'Brien. Most of the arrangements were solidified in the demo process. There were a couple of tracks that we saved for the studio which Carlin & Mike had a hand in: For instance, When the Movie’s Over was sort of a hybrid song that came about when we were jamming out some new songs at our place. It started out as a jam and I started making up the verse melody with bogus words, then Carlin came up with a piano hook. Then Jess suggested that a chorus from one of my other songs would fit. So I plopped that in there, finished off the words and we recorded it pretty soon after. That doesn’t happen with me very often. I like to think about songs for awhile before I put them down on record. Lester was another one, although the arrangement was finished, Mike offered the lead guitar hook, which is an important part. Underwater Goldmine was another one. Mike developed that intro slide guitar part. Goldmine was one where me, Jess, Mike & Carlin came together and just knew where to take it. It is a pretty magical recording.

Q: When did you first start thinking or not start thinking about the album setting out to as it were to let the album come together in an organic way. If Lester was the first song unexpectedly recorded in a gap in the recording of Zeus’ album Say Us what was the first song written for instance?

A: Burst and Weapon I think – they were finished at the same time, winter of 2007. More than half of the album was written on piano, a Yamaha CP 70 electric piano – it’s Carlin’s, but we’ve had it for years now. Jess loves playing it, and if it wasn’t 200 pounds, we’d bring it on the road. Even songs that are heavy guitar arrangements like Permanent Record and Old Hat were started with the piano. Weapon was actually written on guitar first even though it's a heavily piano arranged song, that opening riff was written on guitar. Darkroom (the chorus at least) was developed at Taylor’s place on an badly out-of-tune piano and cheap old church organ with foot pedals and ridiculous drum beats. Songs like Dear Francis and As Long As You Like were sort of developed at the same time. They have a 50s girl group kind of feel. Jess was originally going to sing Dear Francis, which is why the key is so high, but when we went to do vocals, she wasn’t feeling it and insisted that I do it. I did it too…in only a couple of takes.  

Q: Over what time period would you say you were writing songs for this record and at what point did you start to work up arrangements?

 A: The seeds of some date back to the period right after we finished the last record, so late 2006. I always have bits that I record. If the songs keeps bugging me to finish it, then it gets special attention. Jess is great for remembering bits and pieces and pushing me to finish melodies that she really likes. Cheap Umbrellas was one I had started a long while back. I had sort of let it go and Jess pushed me to finish it and said that she would sing it. There's always songs like that where, say, I can't finish it all at once, but the melody keeps needling me until I have to finish it. Songs usually come in twos or threes. There are always songs that are related to each other in theme, or at least in terms of the point in my life that they were created. Burst / Weapon are two that definitely go together. Goldmine / Lester ; Dear Francis / As Long;  Permanent Record / Old Hat. The last song arranged was When The Movie’s Over.

Q: How would you say Coat of Arms is a product of Ill Eagle Studio, the East End vibe, the shared responsibility etc.  

A: That studio has a drum sound. Getting the drums to sound good is half the battle and they have that figured out. It's a very dry, small room sound, but that's the way I like it. The recording vibe was such that there was no real huge time pressure while we were tracking…this was good for getting the right feel on songs. One song though, Travel Time was the first song recorded at Illegal, but it ended up not having the right feel and I wanted to scrap it, but Taylor insisted we have one more crack at it, but by that time, the studio was unavailable (Danielle Duval was tracking). So we did it at Taylor's place in the west end just off Spadina. We ended up liking the track a lot better. Better performance, big drums sounds – it has a nice place on the album. The east end vibe is mostly that it's very residential where we were. Parking is easier...hahahah. Not too many distractions, very laid back. The studio was just the best place to hang out at the time. Whether working on our stuff, Zeus stuff or Danielle's stuff, or just goofing around.

Q: What is the official release date for the vinyl LP and what is the overall release date.  

A: I think it's all July 27. It's a summer release. I think most of the music industry goes on vacation in August so it'll be interesting to see how this works out.  

Q: What can you tell me about your excitement about having your own piece of vinyl, and also what does it mean to be on a label like Nevado with artists like Afie that you clearly admire?  

A: I can finally do scratching on my own piece of vinyl! Besides that, I hope it means that the real music lovers out there will dive into the new album a bit. Vinyl does have a romance about it that's undeniable. Each side of the album has it's own vibe. We think that the second side is just as good as the first side. We hope others will find that too. We spend a lot of time on album art….the whole winter actually making these specialized song signs…vinyl is a great canvas for artwork. Having something to stare out or zone out on while you’re listening to the music. It’s very important to us.  

Q: It seems slightly odd that one of the most common questions to ask an artist is their influences but you seem to remind so many people of so many different bands (The Kinks seems a common reference point for instance) that The Golden Dogs sound ends up being so rooted in pop tradition but bracingly original. Maybe by way of the bands and artists you started to introduce Jess to when you first met perhaps you could talk about who your big influences are as a songwriter, guitarist and producer. I'd imagine that by now you're so hip deep in the music that your peers are making that they are the greatest influences but if you can point to any other contemporary examples of original bands that inspire you or craftsmen whose technique you applaud that would be helpful.

A: I hope people hear this album and don't immediately think "influences". I think we really got our own thing going on this new album but obviously, rock and roll is almost sixty years old and there are going to be references that pop up in every band playing music today. Arcade Fire - Springsteen/Talking Heads/Modest Mouse; Broken Social Scene - Dinosaur Jr.; I could do this for every band almost... Radiohead - Can/Pink Floyd/ Beatles; Everly Brothers/Buddy Holly/Little Richard/60's Girl Groups; Beach Boys - Phil Spector.   It's fun to do for sure... Anyways... I digress...In terms of influences I just heard some of the new New Pornographers and was pleasantly surprised. I went right to listening to Permanent Record afterwards and felt that we fit right in with this music. Is it Prog Pop? I just think it's just Pop with definite English pop leanings. I felt like we were like the Pornographers minus the slightly faux English accents and the oblique and grandiloquent lyrics- (I looked that up, it means someone who uses big words!). Plus, perhaps we have a bit more of, say maybe, a Neil Young influence going on? Not overtly but...I don't know. A definite directness anyways. If this is a fair universe, the Golden Dogs would get a spot playing with the Pornographers. If we're talking about who we'd love to play with? I'd say Spoon, Pornos, Wilco, Walkmen, I just heard the new MGMT and thought they were doing some interesting stuff too. I thought of Burst when I heard the new MGMT album, I immediately put Burst on and felt really good about our album. Jess and I were talking about how fun it would be to do a covers album and release it on our website only. For free.

Here's the list we came up with, I think it's a pretty good list of influences too:
Harry Nilsson - Without Her  
Wilco - I'm A Wheel  
Frank Black - Headache  
Kinks - Tired of Waiting  
Hayden - Dynamite Walls (Jess sings this one great)  
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain (don't think we could pull it off, but it'd be fun to try)  
Modern Lovers - Hippie Johnny Elliot Smith - Independence Day  
Guided By Voices - Glad Girls  
Brian Eno - Needle in the Camel's Eye
Ween - The Mollusk (didn’t I put that on the list?)

As far as the music I started with at 12, it was all about learning every Beatle chord back then. That's what got Jess hooked too. It's the blueprint for great pop. Great for learning and having fun learning music. Beyond that, Stones, Dylan and The Who made me love Rock & Roll at that age too. That shit took me through most of my teens right there. It's not that esoteric a list but it worked. I couldn't get enough of that stuff.