RISS&ENTERTAINMEN Bigmouth Strikes Again: She Wants Revenge..Wants Revenge? Kevin Lalonde, OP Columnist Those of you who haven't been living under a very large and boring rock for the last two or three years have proba- bly noticed a growing trend in the alternative music world lately. New musicians, with relatively little credit to their names, have suddenly appeared, their praises being sung high and low in every blog and magazine from coast to continental coast. The Arcade Fire, the Arctic Monkeys, the Bravery, the Killers, all of them exploded seemingly from nowhere, their debuts often hyped to the extreme before even releas- ing their first singles nationally. Naturally, the habit among Rob Gordon-esque music nerds is to immediately discard these emerging musicians, often saying “Why the hell should I care about them; what have they ever done before?” And usually they’re right. But as beat-doctor and now four-stringer Adam Bravin, one half of LA electro- rockers She Wants Revenge proves, there’s always an exception to the rule. “In making hip-hop music, it’s not all I ever did,” says Bravin (a.k.a. DJ Adam 12), who crafted beats for the likes of Dr. Dre before turning back to rock music. . “Whether I was producing for somebody else or not, I was always making music. It just happened that the music I was selling was mostly hip-hop stuff, because I think I was trying to figure who I was as a musician during all that time. It’s not like I just made hip-hop music for years and then decided to switch it all up.” She Wants Revenge’s self-titled debut effectively (and obviously) fuses an eclectic mix of Joy Division, Prince, Interpol, the Cure, and all kinds of other new wave sounds, as well as many others. The result is an electric _ wave of guitar, bass, and beats that sends even the most show-gazer of geeks out onto the dance floor. Seems like kind of a strange place to be for a guy who DJs at parties for P. Diddy. “Tt just happened one day. We had been working on hip-hop music together, and I made a beat that was a little bit different and was a little faster than the stuff I had done, and the keyboards were a little darker. I played it for Justin [Warfield] and he wanted to take it home and put guitar on it and sing on it. He hadn’t really planned to sing on the stuff we were doing, so he took it home and gave it a shot. He brought it back and we both fell in love with it and decided at that point that we should continue to make that kind of music because it was giving us a certain feel- ing. The feeling in that music made us feel like we felt when we wete younger and listening to a lot of music that we grew up listening to.” Obviously Adam Bravin and Justin Warfield haven’t been the only ones to get a special feeling from the music they’ve been making. Just weeks after the release of their first single, a dark little electric-rock ballad called “Tear You Apart,” the duo began to receive highly positive press from around the US. Warfield’s perfect Ian Curtis baritone had apparently rang a few bells in their hometown of LA, where “Tear You Apart” became a smash hit on the city’s leading rock radio station, KROQ. Sure enough, MTV picked up the Joaquin Pheonix-directed video for the hit single and She Wants Revenge has been riding the new- wave wave all across the country since. Some press release wordsmiths have even gone as far to suggest that She Wants Revenge is “out Interpol-ing Interpol.” “T wouldn’t say that at all. We really don’t care what anybody says. We know the difference between our band aeditor@gmail.com and Interpol, and Interpol knows the difference between what they do and what we do. We just make honest music and we try to make a sound that reminds us of the music that we grew up with without emulating it, but rather using it as an influence. So for people to say that we do Joy Division better than Joy Division—Joy Division was a rock band. We’re an electronic band that incorporates guitars and bass into it. That’s my opinion of it. But if you listen to the record, you'll hear a lot more influences in it. I think it’s just people not having a handle on what we’re doing as a whole.” Given the huge breadth of Warfield and Bravin’s work over the last few years, it’s not surprising that some folks out there don’t feel like they’ve got that handle on She Wants Revenge. And just when you think you’ve got it fig- ured out, they just have to make other plans. “Justin and I are continuing to make hip-hop beats. We'll be doing remixes and we’ll continue to make hip-hop. .: We're actually stock piling hip-hop beats to sell to other artists at some point.” That probably doesn’t mean that you won't be hearing from them, however, and after all, they will be hitting Dick’s on Dicks early next week. “T think really we’re just interested in putting on the best show that we can and exposing our music to as many people as possible and eliciting some sort of emotional response from that. We’re really just enjoying playing shows for people that wanna come hear us play, and meet- ing as many of those people as possible.” All dark lyrics, moody, crunchy tones, and goth style aside, She Wants Revenge looks like they’re here to’ stay. Takeshi Loves Mary Jane Vancouver-based illustrator Takeshi Miyazawa talks comics drawing and the industry Vince Yim, Highly paid music video extra While waiting on Granville Street, Takeshi Miyazawa emerges from the Skytrain station to greet me. Even at 27, his youthful Asian looks.make it seem likely he still gets carded for beer. He notices the copies of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane that I brought along for the interview and asks to take a look. Apparently, Marvel doesn’t provide compli- mentary copies of books for freelancers until months after the issue hits the stands, and only provides four or five copies at that. Miyazawa hails from Toronto, Ontario. While he admits that he didn’t start reading comic books until high school, he developed enough of an interest to start drawing his own. After making them on a photocopier with standard 8.5x11 pages and stapling them together, he sold them through local comic stores for a dollar each. Following high school, he studied at Queens University, majoring in oil painting. During his second year, his books attracted the interest of writer J. Torres (Teen Titans Gol). “He hadn’t been officially published then,” Miyazawa recalls. “But J. had met editors and knew about the’ indus- try. It takes a lot of know-how to get in and to actually get a job, so it was a fortunate accident that I met him because he taught me about sending submissions and talking to edi- tors.” This led to Sidekicks, which Torres wrote and MV drew for Fanboy Entertainment under editor C.B. «| Cebulski. After graduating, he retreated to Japan. aD wa not doing anything art-related,” Miyazawa recalls, “I i city hall, doing translating and interpreting’ ’ Returning to Canada two years later, he reconnected with Cebulski, who was by then working for Marvel, and received regulat work, leading to his current ongoing art assignment, SpiderMan Loves Mary Jane. When creating the pages, Miyazawa works froma _ script, doing rough thumbnail sketches, and then sendin, them to his editors for approval: Once approved, pe ds the pages in full detail. “I can do about three or f a day if I really try,’ Miyazawa says, “With Mary J. have to be super-tight, so maybe a page, two pages day.” Even with deadlines, he still has time for other cre pursuits, including his online comic strip, BFX. A join effort with artist Arthur De La Cruz (Kissing Chaos) {they take an experimental approach. “We kinda freestyle it, have it a little more organic, not so straightforward, like other comics,” he comments. “We can do whatever we. wa nt Heavily influenced by Hong Kong cinema and Japane animation, it features high-tech weaponry and John Wo Se ae ee ee A ee Ae Ae ee a AA Aa AAA ANS a atk AR ATA ALTA NG _ younger Vo you can do with sequen esque gunplay. The comic book industry has had major upheavals over the past 15 years, from the speculator bubble to the down- turn in readership. Miyazawa is blunt regarding the state of the industry. sWell, it sucks,” he admits. “I personally think the problemi i is distribution. There’s only one distributor and they basically have ea monopoly on who gets what.” , comic book companies must publish to specific quo’ s, which can be difficult for smaller publishers and if While ud are | oganiy problems with the industry, VA , Miyazawa et see some positive things, and he reflects _ these in his current work. “Marvel is trying to aim comics Jat young girls and. teenagers... trying tOiget back that says. 5 ANS Miyazawa has considered working is in video games and ive f animation, although: comics t remain his favourite medium. “T like to tell stories, “There ate so many things 1els. More importantly, I get aking a film, you have a ad of it, the product changes.” tot, maintaining balance is always i important. “Lately, Tye been feeling that the act of ” he sa total poner. When oo drawing i is work,” Miygzaye admits. “I’m kind of getting Continued: P.15