Tv HeartAttack

Local Motion
ou don’t have to wear black to be in TV Heart Attack, but it’s a good way to escape mocking by your bandmates.
The final paving's not yet done on TV Heart Attack mainman Jason Corbett's path to fame, but along the way he's fronted the Saddlesores, played guitar in Speed to Kill, and has had more than a few celebrity encounters—including one with Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill, who very nearly produced the new band's debut.
"We were supposed to do a record with him, but we had some funding that fell through at the last minute," he explains, checking in from an Edmonton tour stop. "That was frustrating, because Andy and I had spent a lot of hours on the phone talking about the recording process: where we were going to track; where we were going to mix. He was kind of an influence on me that way: he just gave me a lot of positive reaffirmation about the music and where I was going to go with the sound of it. I didn't want the album to sound too commercial, but I didn't want it to sound cheap, either."
In the end, Corbett recorded TV Heart Attack's self-titled debut locally, with engineer Howard Redekopp (54-40, New Pornographers) sharing the production credits. And even if he didn't get to swap road stories with Gill, he still got his wish: the record is both polished and edgy, deeply personal yet slick enough to land TV Heart Attack a prominent place on local radio and, appropriately enough, on the idiot box.
The producers of the CTV show Whistler are big fans: they're placing six of Corbett's tunes on the winter-sports drama's next season, and the band will soon tape an on-set appearance as well. TV Heart Attack's also cracked MuchMusic: the quintet's video for "Hypnotic Eyes" debuts this Friday (March 23) on The Wedge.
Things are going quite nicely for Corbett and his crew, thanks to a lot of hard work and what the singer-guitarist describes as his willingness to be a bit of a benign despot.
"Playing in bands before, I've found that when there were too many creative forces it just didn't work for me," he explains. "So I've spent a lot of time focusing on how I wanted the band to sound and what I wanted the record to sound like. The songs are kind of written and brought in and then we arrange them together and everyone adds their flair. But in terms of the creative process, it pretty much starts and ends with what my vision is."
That vision can best be described as rock. Plain and simple, unhyphenated rock music that harks back to the stadium-fillers of prior decades, from glam-era David Bowie to grunge pioneers Nirvana. TV Heart Attack is the antithesis of anything that's trendy, and that's no accident.
"Basically, I just wanted to put out a record of songs that I felt were real honest, confessional," says Corbett. "I wanted to make a connection with people like bands had in the past with me. You know, when I first heard Led Zeppelin or when I first heard Nirvana or something, I felt like there was a connection there.
"It's interesting," he continues. "People ask me to describe our sound, and it's like, 'Well, it's got this forward momentum.' I always think 'Is this a song I'd like to drive my car to?' It's got to have that feeling, that rhythm to it. There's a bit of a darker element to some of our songs, and yet that's expressed in the confines of a pop song. So I'm kind of hoping that I'm delivering, in a palatable way, something that for me feels a little more abstract. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to just write simple pop love songs and just be like everyone else. I'm just being honest about what I hear and feel."
Local listeners can hear and feel what he's talking about when TV Heart Attack plays a pair of homecoming gigs: with Retrograde at the Plaza tonight (March 22), and on a triple bill dubbed The Big Show with the Sessions and Curtis Santiago at Richard's on Richards on Friday (March 23). And they'll most likely find out that Corbett made the right choice when he opted for his current career over the snares and pitfalls of a higher education.
"I was an only child," he says, "and I used to spend a lot of time drawing and listening to music. I was like 'I'm either going to be an artist, or I'm going to be a musician.' So at the end of high school I kind of flipped a coin—and I went with music. Basically, it's just more gratifying."
Playing Edmonton at the tail end of a Prairie winter is not what most performers would call a pleasure. But for Corbett, it's just one more sign that he's steadfast in his determination to connect with rock fans nationwide—and, eventually, beyond.
By Alexander Varty - The Georgia Straight March 22, 2007

Tv HeartAttack
S/T
Independent

The debut album from Vancouver's TV Heart Attack finally hits the shelves and it turns out to be the unreleased Speed To Kill album. This isn't a bad thing, mind you. Not one bit. Darkly urban-futuristic Eurocentric cyber-glam, if you can dig it. Murky themes of anguished love and jagged hate-fucking, and the ongoing struggle to remain proud and alive when there's nothing left to believe in. Jason Corbett's always been a good lyricist (and the stories he tells is far darker than the person he really is), but musically, this band is miles ahead of most of what you'll see and hear in the Vancouver scene. That's due to Corbett choosing his bandmate henchmen wisely. Not quite the sort of thing which will make the alpha hipsters shit their emo girl jeans at Pat's Pub, but this is a unique form of post-modern rock which will attract the well-heeled malcontents who live west of Granville Street, or will catch the ears and minds of the thinking rock fans who still own stuff by the Cure and the first three (ie. the best) U2 albums. Or people who wish that Franz Ferdinand would stop writing happy, goofy songs and tell us what they're really thinking when the ecstasy wears off. Listening to this album makes me believe that some good actually came out of 2006 after all.

- Ferdy Belland
- The Nerve Magazine Feb 2007