What do you get when you take Jenny Lewis, remove the ginger hair and skin and add some synthesizers? You get Emily Haines and Metric. She’s part of the Canadian Indie pop rock brat pack, which really needs a clever name by now. I’m taking suggestions. Emily Haines is a workhorse. She splits time with Broken Social Scene and Metric while guesting on albums by Stars and The Stills. After two solo acoustic albums she’s re-joined her Metric mates to return to do what they do best: hooky new wave pop rock.
In “Gimme Sympathy” she asks a deep deep philosophical question that has tortured mankind since the early 60’s: “Who would you rather be The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?”
Feels like a no brainer to me: The only way I’m picking the Stones is if its a battle between Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts. Watts always looks pissed off and annoyed to still be touring. I’ve always liked that. His face screams, “I’m 70 for f*cks sake, why am I still behind this bloody kit!“. A famous anecdote relates that in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Mick Jagger phoned Watts’ hotel room in the middle of the night asking where “his drummer” was. Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs and punched Jagger in the face, saying: “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. You’re my fucking singer!” There’s no shot Ringo would ever punch John or Paul.
Advantage: The Stones.
Highlights: “Help I’m Alive,” “Gimme Sympathy,” “Twilight Galaxy”
Catch them on tour in June:
June 8th, 2009 in Los Angeles at the Wiltern (tickets)