Number All Your Lovers! Shane Burrow

An Interview with Shane Of: The Binary Link/ No Brigade/ BingeNinja And an Editorial About Said

by Brandon Rabideau
Photos by Sandra Kosinski

www.myspace.com/thebinarylink
www.myspace.com/nobrigade
www.myspace.com/bingeninja

Rabideau - Tell me a little bit about the new No Brigade record, "Back in Hell".

Shane - Basically, we recorded our first record called "Welcome to Hell" and it was basically an idea we had because we were really bored with the metal we were playing at the time and a lot of the scene shows that were going on. Now, I don't want to denounce those shows or anything, I mean they were a lot of fun but at the same time I just wanted to do something different and maybe turn some heads. So, we just decided to bring the computer down to the basement one day and started cutting up samples from different bands we loved and putting effects on them and making our own songs out of them. But in regards to "Back in Hell" we chose to make our own samples and get some digital drums and do a lot of the sounds ourselves, all of the sounds ourselves actually. And I think we've put together a record that captures our love for music in general. It's cool because we made something that we're okay with just playing and performing and just makes people smile.



The album is great, and I'd recommend it to anyone. The guys in digital hardcore outfit No Brigade are angry and they're pretty in your face about it. Their aggression boils over in their new sophomore effort "Back in Hell". They have no time to be fashionable as they musically go for the throat and drop lyrical bombs from their gnashed teeth. While "Welcome to Hell" was fittingly a warm welcome into their brand of hell this album is a new animal. "Back in Hell" brings us to a different kind of hell, in which the duo mash as much noise that will fit into five minutes, into two minutes. Raver friendly, bass heavy, frenzied, aggressive, and organized in its disorganization, "Back in Hell" has it all! We may have the most interesting album of 2010, and the year just started. It's available now through D-Trash Records. For now it is a digital album only, and you can buy it on iTunes. ---

Rabideau - What else is going on musically with Shane?

Shane - Well, obviously we just finished the No Brigade record, and I'm pretty proud of that. You've got that there, in front of you, and I mean in terms of burnt covers, it's probably one of the greatest of all time. I've also been recording some other stuff with my friends for the BingeNinja record and having a great time. Doing some rock stuff, doing some concert stuff, and having a great time. Excellent question, thanks for the question.

Rabideau - I'm glad you enjoyed it, there are many more to come

Shane - Oh, awesome!

Rabideau - Who are the friends you're referring to that you're recording with? Anyone I'd know?

Shane - Well, my friend Adam, he's a fantastic producer, he's into a lot of digital hardcore stuff and I'm doing a lot of digital stuff with him. As well as Greg Dawson from BWC Studios. The majority of the record is rock, heavy rock and I'm doing it with him, that turned out really well. And Rob from This is Picture who showed up tonight, which was a nice surprise. He's one of the best artists in Ontario I think right now so I'm really excited for him to be on the record too. ---



Shane is a notoriously funny guy and is more than a casual drinker. This interview was no different, but I suppose I was an enabler, meeting him in a bar. During my last editorial I mentioned Shane to Theo of Dance Electric: "Oh, no way, Shane Burrow? I haven't seen that guy sober since like 2005" ---

Rabideau - I'm glad that you kind of brought up the metal shows that you were playing back in the day, because that's how I kind of got into your music. I'll tell you my first "Shane Burrow experience". It was Binary Link. At the Hype.

Shane - Uh oh.

Rabideau - You guys were obviously intoxicated, but you played a pretty sweet set. And after a song, the promoter kind of came up and said, "Okay, that's it your times up." and you said "Okay", and as she walked away you went to the mic and said "Alright, we're gonna play one more song... actually it's more like two songs, you'll see, apologies to the next act but we want to play it." and you played for another 10-15 minutes. You borrowed the drum kit from another band and during the course of that 10-15 mins, a couple of the borrowed drums got broken, and you kind of just got in your van and fucked off and you ended up banned from the venue.

Shane - (Laughing hard) That's really funny that you remember that. That was... yeah. But other than that I think that Binary Link did a lot of good things, in playing lots of local shows with like-minded individuals. We were very into metal and hardcore but we tried to progress that scene. The Hype is a perfect example though of why we stopped playing. That place and a lot of other places I won't mention and a lot of other bands I won't mention were all starting to be very similar. A lot of the shows were the same, a lot of the sounds were the same and maybe that was cool for a while, but I thought it was time to play something that maybe wasn't so accepted and fashionable. Plus I have really thin hair and a lot of those bands have thick luscious hair they can sweep to one side, so I thought maybe I had more to offer than just hair and breakdowns. We just wanted to do something that freaks people out, I don't know if we did it but we're going to somehow.

---

I got in touch with Shane and he suggested I meet him at the Starving Artist in Toronto, as he was playing a piano set with a friend. I jumped at the opportunity as I thought it would provide a perfect personification of the artistic diversity that he possesses; a one-off piano set instead of a BingeNinja or No Brigade show. He gave me directions and a time to be there, and I drove up and down the street in vain, not seeing the tiny bar in my peripheral. I gave him a call:

"Hey, Shane it's Brandon Rabideau."

"Hey, what's up?"

"I can't really find the venue, I'm on Lansdowne but I must keep passing it, what's it close to?"

"I have no idea man, I'm fucking drunk."

Off to a good start.

I managed to find the venue after passing it 2 more times and stepped inside the virtually deserted bar. Shane sat in a corner with a toque and sunglasses on despite his relatively warm and atmospherically dim surroundings. He was chatting with a friend and drinking deeply from a pint of Amsterdam. The venue was a tiny hole in the wall, with Amsterdam on tap and very little in the way of a "stage" or "performance area". In fact there was just enough room in the corner of the bar to set up a simple keyboard and microphone stand. Eventually Shane and his friend Cyrus from the Hormoans decided to begin their set. Shane removed his toque and jacket, but left his sunglasses on. Despite that fact, the blushing pink hue of his face and slur of his speech betrayed his inebriation. He held in his sizable hand an even bigger screwdriver (the drink) and drew long sips from it with a straw. He approached the microphone, took a deep breath and loudly sang a single drawn out note...

"That was our first song."

The intimate crowd of mostly friends laughed and then the duo began, Shane singing and Cyrus playing the keyboard. Between songs, Shane would entertain people with swear words and jokes and he would take generous gulps of his spirituous libation. But once the piano began to play, his beguiling smile would falter into pursed, concentrated lips and he would begin to sing in his delicate, but powerful falsetto. The mood of the room would become tangibly entrancing. He was bathed in a blue light and clung to the microphone stand with his broad hands and a foot on the base of it.



He would open his mouth and just croon so emotionally that he held the collective attention of anyone in the room with such confident ease. It's the kind of music that you want to strain to hear every note and if there was a pause you could hear a pin drop. There was a blanket of silence cast over us... until he was done, at which point he'd gruffly say "Mother Fucker" or "Cunt" and the spell was broken by laughter.

He finished the set by playing one of BingeNinja's songs "Diora Baird". The soft guitar and charming lyrics in that song makes it one of my favourites. His boisterous laughter and obscenity laden humour belies the depth of his thoughts. He paints such vivid scenes with his dulcet voice and tortured lyrics:

"I know that it's my fault, I could never erase all the things I've done but I can't see your face growing older. Fallen winter, our frozen embrace." ---
Shane - We're planning a tour in the UK in the summer, at the end of august. We're going to the UK because one of our labels out there wants us to do some grimy shows there, for like 20 or 30 people and I'm like "Awesome! Double my audience!". So I'm definitely gonna go out and do that and do as many shows as possible. Our label in Canada wants to set us up with an east coast tour, basically Ontario and Quebec, but then we'll get to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and fly out to the UK from there. We'll probably be in the UK for about two weeks, sleep on a bunch of peoples floor's. And hopefully we'll eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day on $5 a day.

Rabideau - What does that even equal in British Pounds? I dunno?

Shane - (Laughs) I don't want to do the math, but it's not good!



Rabideau - Have you had any vocal training?

Shane - No, unfortunately. And it's truly unfortunate for anyone who's had to listen to my stuff. Uh, never. But if you were to take a video camera into the shower sessions through the last 10 years of my life, I mean, it's gold! It's the best stuff out there, I'm ashamed of myself for not recording the shower singing I've been doing for the last 10-15 years.

Shane Burrow was the lead singer/guitarist for The Binary Link. He is currently one half of No Brigade and he is BingeNinja.