Nov. 25, 2009 - Issue #736: Poster Boys

The Hidden Cameras: I’ll remember you

Joel Gibb says that a good idea will always stick around

'I'm being attacked by a big thing of cheese balls," Joel Gibb wryly laments, interrupting the train of thought he was on to face dairy-based assault.  Giggling voices echo beyond the phone receiver while he wards off his assailant. "It's crazy, it keeps attacking me."

More laughter follows. Trapped together the close quarters of a tour bus, Gibb and the rest of the Hidden Cameras are "giddy," which seems a suitable mood for a large-cast group who specialize in expansive, quirky pop music. The perpetrator of the cheese-ball attack could be one of the 13 other people packed into the tour bus (the band, plus others). Maybe it was a group effort.

"We don't even need an audience. We fill the venue usually with just us," Gibb deadpans to another ripple of background laughter. "That's the whole point of having such a big band. If no-one shows up to the show, we still have an awesome show."

Or maybe the Hidden Cameras are just happy to be out on tour again. Gibb's back to criss-crossing North America after a lengthy stint in Berlin where he recorded parts of Origin: Orphan, the Hidden Cameras' fourth and latest release. It's an album that maintains the group's hold on catchy pop hooks while bringing forth some darker compositions that seem to sit on a more orchestral plane than previous output.

Of the German capital, Gibb notes that while it's "10 times sexier than Toronto," he doesn't believe that Berlin caused Origin's flirtations with new musical directions. He's been getting a heavy serving of questions about it, too, and just isn't ready to answer any of them.

"Not to say that [Berlin] hasn't influenced me, but to try to explain it would just come out wrong. You can't explain something like that," he says. "It's sort of like saying, 'How did your upbringing influence your art?' Y'know? To even attempt to answer something like that would just wouldn't do it justice. It's such a big question."

Besides, he points out most of Origin: Orphan's tracks were at least partially written before his stint in Europe. Some existed in skeletal forms during the Awoo album sessions, now are fleshed out and bundled together in the here and now, saved from obscurity by—what else ?—their own hooky melodies.

"[The songs on a record] sort of choose themselves," he says. "I think sometimes it's an immediacy about a song that gets it on a record," he says. "Like the song 'Walk On': I remember I had that riff for that song written—I'm sure it's written in my notebook somewhere from years ago, but I only really rediscovered it playing piano in Berlin. And I kind of remembered it again. I have lots of song ideas written all over the place, and it's like, if they're any good, they just reoccur. Sometimes I don't even write them down, because if they're any good, you'll remember it again. And if you don't remember it, maybe it's not meant to be." V

Fri, Nov 27 (8 pm)
The Hidden Cameras
With Gentleman Reg
Avenue Theatre, $18

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