Did you say side project?
It seems these days I take my writing cues from Little Elpees. He's right ya know... there's a certain, ridiculous, glee that comes out of the mind of a music nerd at the mere idea of a side project. The musical pest in me probably goaded more than one Blur or Elastica fan in the mid-late 90s with "What do you mean you don't know mememe?". Ridiculous, but true.
With that confession out of my system, I'm going to present you, dear reader, with two of my favorite (and related) side projects. Lets go back six or seven years... I'm in the habit of buying every release on a few record labels. As such, I discover Canada's Stars with their first release on Le Grand Magistery, A lot of little lies for the sake of one big truth. Catchy pop melodies, female backing vox (at the time) and a charismatic front man who could be spied now and then as a dork in episodes of Sex in the City or a corpse on Law and Order. Stars were a wee band back then with a small but devout following. So I don't think too many people were paying attention when Torq released a side project on LGM called Memphis. I noticed... and I loved it. If I remember right it was the first time I'd heard dueling vocals from Torq and Amy Millan. At the time Amy was singing mostly backup vocals on Stars material while creating those fantastic guitar riffs.
So Stars grew up, the band got bigger and Chris Dumont and Torq later released a full length of Memphis material. I think in the meantime I sort of became known as "that girl who asks for Memphis in Chicago" because I'd constantly check on it's progress whenever Stars or Metric1 came to town2.
Here is where I show the elapsing of time... "We span time as a couple. We're spanning time, we're in love. Look like you like me. We're in love, we're spanning time.3"
This brings us to today. Memphis has a new record coming out (their 3rd now) and Amy Millan has finished that solo record she's been working on for the past few years. Now instead of dueling vocals, Torq and Amy create dueling songs...
1 James... err Jimmy... of Metric also works with Torq and Chris having remixed some of the material and lending his horn.
2 Which was quite often in those days... there were so many Stars shows at Schubas and so many Metric gigs at the NewNew/Empty Bottle/Double Door/etc.
3 Name that quote...
Buy some: Stars, Memphis, Amy Millan, Metric