The Two Koreas Have Been Approved

07/20/07 10:00am

by Nicole Kai (CHARTattack)

They started out as a tongue-in-cheek social experiment and developed into serious Toronto mainstays, eschewing van tours for frequent high-octane gigs at the Silver Dollar. Two records and quite a few unbiased accolades later, The Two Koreas — featuring well-known music experts Stuart Berman (vocals), Kieran Grant (guitar), Jason Anderson (farfisa), David Gee (drums) and Ian Worang (bass) — have eked out a solid reputation, proving themselves as talented musicians and not nepotistic opportunists.

ChartAttack: So everyone in Toronto used to know you as the "rock critics band." Has that changed?
Stuart Berman: People used to say, "Yeah, it's an inside job," and yeah, we work at papers and we have friends at other papers, but I think it became a moot point.

It's also discriminatory against the non-music writers in the band. Our bass player, Ian, he works for the 211 phone number — and I'm not sure what it's for — but also, Kieran's actually the editor of a film section.

I'd be lying to stay that we didn't have certain connections that have helped us get good gigs and whatnot, but the music scene is all based around connections and friends helping friends and I don't think that's anything novel for us.

How does it feel to be on the other side of the critics' pen?
Kieran Grant: If people don't like us because of how we look or the music, that's fine, 'cause that's taking us at face value.
SB: ...and the band we're most often compared to, The Fall, people either love them or hate them, so we know we're not for everybody.

Our first record was only released in Rotate This and Soundscapes, but this new one [Altruists] was released nationally, and we were added to playlists across the country, where people just liked what they heard and added us.

What kind of things do you look for in a band when you watch them perform?
SB: Whenever I go see a band or even listen to a record, I always focus on the sequence of the tracks. I always feel like you need to open a set and close it in a certain logical manner. And my favourite part of a show is when you think, "Oh man, I wish they'd play this song," and they go into it. That's the best.
KG: For me it's the gradual dissolution between the audience and the band. I started writing about music because I was obsessed with it and I wanted to be in a band. But there came an instance when I was writing about indie bands where I was interviewing them and I was earning more money writing about them than they were for playing their music.
SB: Making a living writing about music — on the one hand you're hanging out with these bands that are working three bartending jobs to make ends meet, and you feel bad for them, but then you find yourself at some record party with some idiot who's making hundreds of thousands of dollars getting drunk on the company credit card.
KG: My guilt is always assuaged by the fact that those artists would probably have less people at their gigs if it wasn't for us.

Do you feel your sound's changed from inception to now?
SB: Our first show was like writing an exam. It was like, "OK, we got 16 days... 15 days." but the second you start writing it, it's OK and same with our show. This nervous energy — the second we started, it melted away. But alcohol is a great stabilizer.
KG: A friend told me after one of our first gigs, you know, "People were excited to hear that you were good, but they were also kinda relieved that you're not that good!"
SB: I think our sound has matured — ripened. At the start we were pretty much just a two-chord garage band and really just ripping off The Fall — that's all we were physically capable of. Whereas now I think our songs have become better and I think some of them have three or four chords!
KG: For the third record we wanna make an album that sounds like it was recorded in New York City by professionals in the depth of the winter of 1976. And we're all gonna start wearing silk scarves and jackets.