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From Montreal, with love
Breaking up, and breaking out, with the Stills
BY SEAN RICHARDSON

A few months ago, Montreal rock romantics the Stills delighted Smiths and Strokes fans all over North America with the release of their dark yet danceable debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart (Vice). Since then, the band have opened for the likes of Ryan Adams, Interpol, and even first-generation post-punkers Echo & the Bunnymen. In a few weeks they’re off to the UK to drum up support for the album’s imminent release there, but before that they’re doing a quick North American headlining tour that hits both Cambridge and Providence next week.

The Stills also just put out a video for Logic’s lush dream-pop opener, "Lola Stars and Stripes." Directed by Olivier Gondry, brother of music-video royalty Michel Gondry (the White Stripes, Björk), the clip shows the group wandering the streets of New York City, humorously speeding up and turning black-and-white whenever the song erupts into one of its elegant guitar fits. Fans can watch the video on the band’s UK Web site, but don’t look for it on commercial television in North America. Perhaps wary of the track’s elliptical anti-war sentiment — "We don’t need to feel secure, we’re so middle class/But I’m still waiting for next week’s chemical blast" — the group just shot a different clip for "Still in Love Song," which will be the album’s first single here.

Rock doesn’t get much more cosmopolitan than a Canadian band and a French director making a video in the US for sole distribution in the UK. But all it takes is a quick look at their business team to see that the Stills wear their roots on their sleeves. Their manager and producer hail from 1990s Montreal ska-punk faves Me Mom & Morgantaler, and their label is the Atlantic-distributed offshoot of the Montreal-bred hipster mag Vice. The group still live at home when they’re not on tour, but the rest of their posse has resettled in NYC.

"We’re one big family of expatriates," laughs Stills drummer Dave Hamelin when I get him on the phone from the road. "It’s fun when your label president knows where you went to high school." The guys have known Logic producer Gus Van Go since they were teenagers going to see his band play. "Before we were in this band, Gus basically taught us how to write songs. He’s a really good arranger. All the drum parts on the record were his brainchild, and a lot of the bass stuff, too. He’s basically responsible for that side of the band."

Hamelin and frontman Tim Fletcher originally formed the Stills around a bunch of songs they wrote while sharing the same four-track recorder. The petulant "Still in Love Song" — "Your dreams of acting onscreen, what do they mean/You’ll be dancing senseless in your bedroom" — is one Hamelin wrote about a certain female acquaintance, whom he mischievously names in the title of a different tune on the album, "Allison Krausse" (not the bluegrass star). "I ran into her like three days ago, and she’s pretty pissed that there’s a song about her," he admits. Especially, he adds coyly, "Now that it’s the single, and we’ve played it on two late-night shows."

The Stills perform Tuesday, February 3, at T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline Street in Cambridge; call (617) 492-BEAR.

 


Issue Date: January 30 - February 5, 2004
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