@ The Khyber, Philadelphia 09/10/2002
by John Theobald
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Screw the mainstream if you really want to get your rocks off you have to go to the underground. That's just what we plan to do with this series, take some of the best emerging bands that are out blowing away hardcore fans on the underground music scene. 

The Frames song “Fitzcarraldo” is based on a story of a man who carries a steamship over a mountain in an obsessive attempt to fulfill a dream.  In some ways this heroic and operatic story is representative of Glen Hansard and his band’s own struggle for success and integrity in today’s perilous music industry.  Formed in Dublin in 1991 by front-man Glen Hansard Dublin’s Frames have been through the Major Label ringer and come out standing, emerging as one of the great elusive rarities in the music world, a successful and original independent band. The Frames’ artful blend of traditional Americana Folk and Irish compositional elements into a distinct and expansive Rock sound has gained them critical acclaim and a cultish following in their homeland but only limited popularity stateside. 

I recently had a chance to catch The Frames live at Philadelphia’s legendary but miniscule Khyber.  With its low stage and tight room The Khyber provides the ideal venue to intimately experience the emotive and graceful Frames.  On their second US tour since the release of their fourth album, 2001’s Steve Albini produced masterwork “For The Birds”, and with a new live album “Breadcrumb Trail” in toe The Frames own The Khyber for the evening.  Live, The Frames are an engaging and absorbing act. At The Khyber The Frames my be preaching to the choir but tonight  the choir is definitely listening.  Dexterously winding their way through a set of songs from their last three albums and some in the running for their anticipated fifth album the band is at once delicate and soaring, melancholy and uplifting.  Glen’s storytelling, kept to a minimum on this evening, punctuates the performance adding an element of levity to the show. Well versed in the art of the side-wards glance, Wry bassist Joe Doyle acts as the perfect foil to Hansard’s animated front-man antics and provides perfect vocal accompaniment to Hansard’s slightest whisper to piercing falsetto voice.  The tightness of the bands craft is evident throughout the set, anticipating each-other’s every move and playing off one another, The Frames deliver their songs with skill and perfectionist zeal.

Glen Hansard loves his band, he loves his music and he loves performing. In turn it is impossible not to return the love.  The Frames are the kind of band you feel in your throat and leave feeling somehow richer despite the cover charge and bar tab. 

"I left school when I was 13," proclaims the effusive Irish native Glen Hansard, lead vocalist and founder of the Dublin band The Frames D.C.. "I knew then I wanted to be a singer, so my mother said: "OK, if you want to sing then you better earn off it, so I began busking on the street during the day." Hansard, who grew up around a family who loved music, had never dreamed that such a gentle kick from the nest would eventually lead to one of Ireland's most magnetic rock bands. Their Elektra debut, Fitzcarraldo has been hailed as an unpolished gem, combining rustic poetry with Hansard's soaring vocals and a contagious live energy that caused The London Times to write: "Raw, rocky and for real, this lot are undoubtedly going to be a force to be reckoned with."

Hansard learned his straight-ahead playing style from working the Irish passersby, combining it with a tramp-like propensity for "truth at a slant" dynamics in both the songs he writes and the stories he tells. "After I busked for a couple of years, I came home one night and told my mom I wanted to make a demo. She went to the bank the next day, and lied to 'em about what she needed the money for. Said it was to fix up the house or something. Hansard used the small loan to record some songs. "I did four songs, made 50 copies and scattered them around," he says.

Much to his surprise he got a call a few days later from legendary record honcho, Denny Cordell (he discovered Tom Petty, and managed Joe Cocker, among others) who was working with Island Records. "He calls me over to his flat. I was shocked when I got there. Sitting around his coffee table are Ron Wood, Stewart Copeland and Marianne Faithfull. Now you got to remember I'm only 17 years old at the time." Hansard says he sat a bit stupefied as the famous rockers sat around listening to his demo, talking about music. At the end of the night, the record executive called Island founder Chris Blackwell right in front of Hansard and said he wanted to sign the young singer. "I told him I needed time to form a band. I went back to all the friends I knew who were busking and put one together."

But the young Hansard learned fast that record company shenanigans can be even more brutal than playing for street dollars. He released an album on Island, but was just as quickly dropped. "It was partly my fault I guess," he laughs. "I was listening to too much Pixies at the time and made a record that wasn't really me." Hansard, who was groomed on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen as a boy, strayed from the raw roots music that garnered him the early attention and made what he calls "a half-baked punk album." It would be the last time he'd ever abandon his own muse for a grasp at instant popularity.

"I got extremely depressed, though," he says. "I didn't know if I should give up or keep going. So I took this strange trip to New York where I got away from everyone I ever knew. I needed to be in the loneliest place on earth. Sometimes you have to get up from the canvas, away from the picture if you know what I mean, before you can see the whole painting." Hansard says he stayed in one of Manhattan's cheaper hotels, walking the streets during the day - looking, as he puts it- for a sign. "I even stood in front of the Dakota hoping the spirit of John Lennon might give me a clue," he says.

Well?

"He told me to find a Shaman," smiles Hansard. "The next thing I know I'm wandering into the Natural History Museum sitting in front of the exhibit with all the Shaman." But Hansard says he needed further inspiration to keep writing songs. "I met this tramp who kind of became my Shaman, in a way," he says. "He was about the only person I spoke to during the two weeks I was in New York." A mystical exchange of gifts between the two (a chestnut from Hansard, half a billiard ball from the tramp, which Hansard still treasures) sealed their friendship, and somehow inspired Hansard to keep going. "I wrote a lot of the songs on the new album on that trip," he says. The smoldering "Revelate," and the plaintive "Say It Now," were the results of his New York adventure.

Hansard returned to Ireland, getting his band together to "redeem ourselves". The band borrowed money to make their own record. "We were playing in this club in Dublin called Whelan's, where we really built up a following." The Frames lineup, which includes Hansard, David Odlum on guitar, Paul Brennan on drums, Graham Downey on bass, and Colm MacConIomaire on violin, have all played together since the busking days. The strange route to another record deal seemed a natural progression for these players, who have always based their musical fortunes on the faith they have had in each other. Says guitarist David Odlum: "There was about 20 of us who always busked. We had always traded off in each others bands. There was always a sense of camaraderie." Odlum says it was because of their tight-knit circle of friends that they were able to raise money to make their own record. They enlisted ex-Boomtown Rat Pete Briquette to produce. "It was done on a shoestring budget."

But it was the bands resourcefulness that led to the group being recognized by legendary producer Trevor Horn, and others. "I think the way we did our video had a lot to do with a buzz happening around us," says Odlum. With no money left after the recording of the album, the group was stuck on how to make a clip for their favorite track "Revelate." "We had a friend whose mum worked in the Postal Office," says Odlum. "So we decided to wait until she was on a lunch break, and we went in an put a video tape in the security camera, we did our video during the break, and put her original tape back when she came back." The video which cost four dollars to make, became a cult-hit in Ireland. Says Hansard: "A friend of ours put it on a local video show there and people loved it. Then we got it on an even bigger show, and it got even more requests."

Eventually, this homemade security clip was nominated for an MTV Europe award. "By that time people were starting to take notice of the album, our live show and everything," says Odlum. The newfound buzz caused Trevor Horn and his company ZTT, to sign the band, which ultimately led to the band signing with legendary A&R executive Seymour Stein and Elektra. "We re-recorded some tracks with Trevor," says Odlum. "But it all stays true to the spirit of the original album we did ourselves."

Fitzcarraldo, is a passionate piece of work, layered with acoustic touches like the wistful "Red Chord," but it is also anchored by the ferocious attack of "Monument" and other powerful rockers. And true to Hansard's promise, the album is amazingly free of any of the flavor-of-the-month trappings that have plagued countless post-alternative releases of late. Hansard writes with a dented, cockeyed sort of optimism that shakes its fist at the world, while at the same time reveling in it. It's much in the spirit of the mantra he invoked to the group upon returning from his lonely, but magical journey to New York. "I said to 'em, from here on in we're gonna sink or swim," he laughs. "So let's f***ing swim until we drop."

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