Gentlemen Prefer Labels
Posted: 07/17/08 2:18PM
Filed Under: Music
By Sarah Liss, EYE WEEKLY
Breaking news! In the latest installment of what seems to be an ongoing effort to rescue awesome Canadindie bands who’ve fallen by the wayside after inadvertently breaking away from their label homes, Arts & Crafts announced the signing of Ontario’s favourite sissy, “Gentleman” Reg Vermue, this week. Vermue joins former Three Gut labelmates the Constantines on the A&C roster, which has been growing increasingly stronger ever since the business-cum-collective branched out of their core Broken Social Scene–affiliated friends-and-family group.
“Basically, I’ve been without a label for a couple years since Three Gut folded,” explains the exuberant Vermue, days before taking off to play a press and industry showcase in New York with Broken Social Scene. “It’s been an… uh, interesting period of doing everything myself. I decided I needed to make a new record and shop it around, and I figured — foolishly — that it’d be really easy. I was like, ‘It’s Canada, people know me, someone will want to put it out."
“But then,” he sighs, “many months passed. I made two different versions of the record, cuz labels weren’t happy with the original, and neither was I. I recorded a few more songs, took some ballads off and ended up with a more concise rock record, with a new wave track and a dance track. I wanted it to sound really exciting.”
Happily, Broken dude and A&C co-founder Kevin Drew — who, you might remember, was the twisted mastermind behind the porny night-vision clip for Vermue’s “Boyfriend Song” a few years back — fell for the revamped record, which the ivory-complected Vermue’s tongue-in-cheekily dubbed Jet Black. The bulk of the album was recorded in Ottawa by Vermue and his Sundance Kid, rad percussionist Greg Millson (who sidelines as a member of The Hylozoists and Great Lake Swimmers, the latter of whom recently opened for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at the Molson Amphitheatre) with Dave Draves, who produced 2004’s Darby & Joan.
“There were quite a few labels that rejected it,” he offers. “Then it came down to two, and I ended up with Arts & Crafts. I do owe it to Kevin. He loved and championed it, and he made sure everyone in the office listened to it and loved it too, which was super-important to me.” One of the most exciting aspects of Vermue’s new deal is getting the chance to release his music outside of Canada — an opportunity that’s evaded him up till now. Though he’s got a solid three-disc back catalogue, the singer/songwriter’s first three CDs (The Theoretical Girl, Make Me Pretty and Darby & Joan, all of which came out on the late, lamented Three Gut) were only available in this territory — a bit of a headache when you want to take your songs across the world. Arts & Crafts plans to release Jet Black in Europe and the States as well as our home and native land, where it’s slated to hit store shelves Oct. 14.
“The core of the label is very family-oriented, which is amazing,” Vermue says. “That’s what I loved about Three Gut. It was very Guelph, a collective that turned into a label, and there was lots of energy and creativity but it had major limitations — namely, nobody at Three Gut was a business person. I like that there’s a strong business sense at Arts & Crafts. I’m in my thirties, this is my fourth record, and I want to tour more extensively. I feel like at this point, I should’ve broadened things substantially, but thanks to bad luck and bad business sense on a personal level, I haven’t. I’m so excited to be around people who know about things that I don’t and can teach me.”
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