Also this issue:

Musical Chairs
Queens of the Stone Age should have a revolving door on their tour bus.
-Sam Adams

Zod Records Tour
-A.D. Amorosi

Phil Markowitz
-Nate Chinen

Le Tigre
-Patrick Rapa

'Grass Roots
-Mary Armstrong

August 29-September 4, 2002

music

Strong Man

MOSH AND GO: Samson (right) quit Propagandhi to become a people person.

The Weakerthans’ John Samson likes humans.

by Chris Parker

John Samson is a musician with the soul of a preacher. In his teens and early 20s, the future Weakerthans singer-guitarist agitated in support of his anti-racist, anti-capitalist, pro-female, pro-vegan views through his political punk band, Propagandhi. In 1997, Samson, disillusioned with scene and band politics, left Propagandhi without much idea what he’d do next.

"I was playing mostly for teenage boys who were there to push each other around. And I realized then that's not what I'm interested in," says Samson from his Winnipeg home. "Lifestyle political choices are valuable and good, but can and often are used to promote hatred of humanity and a disgust with society itself. That doesn't accomplish anything and I came to the conclusion that I like humans. I want to know who they are and what they think, and I can't do that if when I encounter someone who happens to eat meat, I think to myself, Œthis is a horrible human being.'"

Samson began fiddling with songs from over the years that he'd put aside as inappropriate for Propagandhi. They drew on his eclectic tastes and love of pop music, forging a spare, rustic folk/blues-based sound into something which defies categorization. In the course of recording these quieter, more reflective songs, Samson rediscovered his love of being in a band. With the Weakerthans, Samson's politics are more personal; songs and stories are woven from fragments and images in a musical mosaic bearing little resemblance to Propagandhi. Better use of dynamics and negative space propel songs from soft to loud and spare to forceful in a manner more in keeping with conflict-climax-resolution than verse-chorus-verse.

"Lyrics dictate music at some point, spatially, and it's almost geometrical how things should work," says Samson. "I'm into something that translates on the page. I want someone to be able to sit down and read it from beginning to end and not say, oh, that's the chorus."

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Which is why Weakerthans songs like "History to the Defeated" and "Without Mythologies," adorned with scene-making details like "a table littered with bad light and chipped plates" or "failures inflicted in phone calls from strip clubs and bail bonds," emerge just as those maddening computer prints, revealing their shape when you release your dogged focus and broaden your perspective. It's something John Samson can appreciate.

Tue., Sept. 3, 7:30 p.m., $8, all ages, with Greg MacPherson and The Rocking Horse Winner, North Star, 27th and Poplar sts., 215-684-0808.