This Book is Broken: A Broken Social Scene Story by Stuart Berman

Author:Stuart Berman [Berman, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2009-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

2002

MEMORIES OF YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE

IF JUSTIN PEROFF hadn’t gotten dumped by a girlfriend in 2001, you might never have heard of Broken Social Scene and I wouldn’t have written this book. But what was bad for Justin’s love life proved to be crucial to the band’s eventual success, as the breakup initiated a series of occurrences that would lead Broken Social Scene to Dave Newfeld’s Stars and Sons studios. And believe me, you needed all the help you could get to find the place, which was tucked away on Cameron Street, a dark, desolate laneway best known for boozecans and muggers. That the studio boasted little in the way of natural light was of small concern to Newfeld, given that he mostly worked through the night and made his bed in the studio’s windowless boiler room.

Broken Social Scene entered Stars and Sons in January 2002, stayed for three months, and later returned to complete recording and mixing in July. What made Broken Social Scene shows so exciting at the time was their sense of inspired randomness. But when divorced from the euphoria of live performance, that mercurial quality could just as easily come off as aimless and indecisive. It remained to be seen how an urgent rock song like “Cause = Time” could coexist alongside the breezy bossa nova–tinged balladry of “Looks Just Like the Sun” and a dramatic, dub-inspired set piece like “Shampoo Suicide” (né “Fuzz Song”).

Newfeld, a wedding DJ by trade, was the only producer crazy enough to try to make sense of this musical mess. His trick was to harness Justin Peroff’s rhythms as precise, mechanistic movements while immersing the melodies in a surface mist of ambient textures. The end result was not a document of a Broken Social Scene performance but a dream of one, where the juxtapositions felt initially sudden, yet ultimately natural.

You Forgot It In People was released in October 2002 and immediately received five-star reviews in Eye Weekly, NOW magazine, and the Toronto Sun; the first run of 1,000 copies sold out in less than a month. Meanwhile, Feist went off to resume her solo career in Paris, Charles Spearin shifted his focus back to Do Make Say Think, and James Shaw and Emily Haines relocated Metric to L.A. to work more closely with their new label, Restless Records. Broken Social Scene fortified their ranks with Stars’ Amy Millan, new full-time member Jason Collett, and part-time violinist Julie Penner. Following a sold-out CD release show at Lula Lounge in December 2002, Broken Social Scene would be a strictly Toronto phenomenon no longer.

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