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"A brand new, undeniably infectious, and activist pop unit." -Grant Lawrence, CBC Radio Three,
2006.
"So extremely good that it almost defies description." -Grant Hamilton, Brandon Sun, 2007.
"Bare-knuckled black comedy bordering on surrealism, diabolically sharp and intricate
left-wing zingers." - Rupert Bottenberg, Montreal Mirror, 2007.
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IN BRIEF The Consumer Goods have reached the
end of their first five-year plan having established themselves as a staple of the Canadian very-indie pop scene.
Their wickedly incisive and politically-charged music has earned both praise and contempt, but rarely disinterest.
Between 2005-2010, they released three records and scored two significant ‘hits’ including “…Sam
Katz,” a polemic against Winnipeg’s mayor that went into heavy rotation on local radio, much to Katz’s embarrassment,
and “Hockey Night in Afghanada,” an anthemic call for the separation of hockey and war-mongering that was recently
featured among ChartAttack magazine’s “Best Songs Ever.” The band also toured Canada
extensively, graced the cover of Uptown Magazine, charted in over 50 independent radio stations in Canada and the US, were
nominated for a CBC Bucky Award and an ISSA award, hit airwaves in Havana, Cuba, and made
top-ten lists in the Netherlands. Principally powered by activist/teacher Tyler Shipley, the band is now
based in Toronto and preparing a fourth record. ABOUT THE BAND
The Consumer Goods formed in Winnipeg, MB in 2005 around a set of angry and unflinching emotional responses
to a world on its head. Songwriter Tyler Shipley, then 23, surrounded himself with a cadre of musicians
drawn from the best of Winnipeg’s always-fertile music scene and charged them with animating the angst that gave that
first crop of songs its edge. The result was a shimmering and ambitious piece of work that surprised critics
expecting a learning-curve debut from a local artist. Complete with DIY artwork stamped with a hand-carved
image of anti-capitalist graffiti, “Pop Goes The Pigdog!” shot to the top of local charts and established the
band in the national scene with much exposure on CBC radio. In particular, critics seemed to agree that
what set this record apart was that its anger felt neither contrived nor naive; unlike
so much of what passes as ‘political’ music, this was an articulate and thoughtful engagement with the world.
Indeed, that insistence on intellectual rigor is what made 2007’s “Happy Bidet”
arguably the best in the band’s catalogue. Written during a tumultuous 8-month span that saw Shipley
move from the comfortable Winnipeg scene to the bustle and alienation of Toronto, the record featured a band at the height
of its craft; its thirteen tracks were recorded in just one day, but come off as a perfectly polished meditation on an American
Empire at war with everyone and everything. The record seemed to tap directly into the absurdity of Bush-era
idiocy and violence, and the folly that a generation was striding arrogantly into. Unlike it’s predecessor,
“Happy Bidet” turned the anger into a sublime joke; Shipley lamented the attack on women’s reproductive
rights by imagining George Bush looking for a back-alley coat-hanger abortion (“Rovie Wade”) and advised the sun
to stop shining in Arab skies, lest it be labelled a terrorist and bombed by American F-16s (“Sun Oh Sun.”)
In a world so screwed up, ridiculing the bad guys seemed like the only way to cope, and the glowing response to the
record seemed to confirm that. The mainstream radio popularity of “…Sam
Katz,” a clever polemic aimed at Winnipeg’s mayor (“I know it’s not easy running a city, a business
and a baseball team,” says Shipley mockingly), indicated that there was a real appetite for political critique that
came with a wink and a nod. Critics almost universally raved about the record, which was nominated for a CBC Radio 3 Award,
and the band became a legitimate fixture in the Canadian indie consciousness. But somewhere along the way, giggling
behind the backs of George Bush and Dick Cheney became an inadequate outlet for Shipley’s ever-present preoccupation
with injustice. Unwilling to engage in self-satisfied mockery at the expense of a caste of already-unpopular
right-wingers, the Consumer Goods’ third release was a sharp re-engagement with the outrage that characterized “Pop
Goes The Pigdog!” coloured by a manic and diabolical absurdity that reflected a similarly erratic period in Shipley’s
personal life. “The Anti-Imperial Cabaret” chose harder targets - relentlessly satirizing the
police, the military, the state – and insisted on bringing the critique to Canadian soil, even implicating the CBC in
“Hockey Night in Afghanada,” a devastating and unflinching indictment of the violence and racism legitimated by
Don Cherry and Ron MacLean’s weekly intrusion into Canadiana-at-large.
Despite the immense popularity of that particular song, the record did
not garner the same kind of critical praise, as commentators seemed reluctant to endorse the take-no-prisoners approach.
Even Shipley himself acknowledged that “The Anti-Imperial Cabaret” produced a certain kind of discomfort
for its unapologetic denunciations, in which even the author was not spared. But if this unforgiving approach
alienated some listeners it was, ironically, also the record’s strength; while ostensibly plunging off the lyrical deep
end, it was ultimately an honest reflection of Shipley’s own struggles to grapple with his own position in a profoundly
fucked up world. Indeed, the ambitious cross-Canada tour that accompanied the release in 2008 was remarkably
apt; after about a dozen shows, and with momentum growing, Shipley suffered a serious back injury and the tour was cut short
by his hospitalization and recovery. A breaking point was reached.
It was exactly what was needed. In the following year, Shipley tried
to answer the questions he had asked himself on “The Anti-Imperial Cabaret,” throwing himself deeper and more
effectively into the political struggles that had animated so much of the Consumer Goods’ catalogue. It
was a much-needed intervention. In 2009, Shipley recorded a bluegrass record under his own name documenting
a three-month strike at the university where he taught, and in 2010 he emerged with a new band and a somewhat different approach.
The ruthless irony he employed on earlier projects was no longer tenable; irony had become the new black, applied with
post-modern detachment to any situations or questions that seemed complicated, in order to avoid the hard work of determining
and acting on ethical principles. The moment demanded a re-engagement with sincerity, and the Consumer
Goods – never inclined to take the easy way out – are embracing the challenge with vigour. In
June 2010, they sang “we got friends beaten by the cops; the older we get the beatin’ never stops,” only
hours before finding themselves facing riot cops on Queen Street. More than ever, this is a band that is
engaged in the moment. Plans for a fourth record are in the works.
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