As some of you remember I did a big feature on lo-fi pop-punks Night Court back in September when they were slated to open for the Pointed Sticks and the Avengers. Emilor made that gig, as an audience member, but the band did not play due to illness. I was bummed: I had really looked forward to seeing them, and at the Rickshaw, no less!
Since that time, I have fallen deeply in love with one of the songs off their album HUMANS!, "What's It Like to Be a Bat, Man?" which ("Batman" reference aside) is inspired by an essay by philosopher Thomas Nagel. I still have not read that Nagel essay, but I have walked around the apartment singing "I've studied the facts, I see how they act, but I'll never know what it's like being a bat" -- surely one of the ear-wormier choruses I have encountered this century. I am enjoying the rest of this album, too, but mostly I just want, when I've played the album through, to flip it over and listen to that song again. Understand that I have actually dreamed of being a bat (in the sense of a nocturnal fantasm, not a fervent wish), but I will, indeed, never really know what it's like to be one.
Anyhoo, unless I missed a gig, tonight is your next chance to see Night Court perform. They are playing Green Auto as the last band on tonight's bill, going on around 11 or 11:30 (just late enough for me to make it to see the Lulu's and Crummy at the Princeton! Ironically, it looks like I will be forsaking the Me Bats to hear "What's it Like to Be a Bat, Man," which is a lot of bats for one night. Maybe I will ACTUALLY SEE A BAT on the walk between venues? I will flip).
Night Court has also released a video for a new song for me to obsess over, "The Bride of Frankenstein," about a classic 1935 horror movie which you should see if you haven't, ideally after having watched the first Frankenstein. It is on their new EP, Frater Set; the video is made entirely of clips from this film, and the lyrics make multiple references to Frankenstein lore, as drawn from these two classic films ("we don't belong dead" is actually an inversion of "we belong dead," Frankenstein's tearjerking final declamation at the end of the movie, which he makes just before -- spoiler alert -- flipping the switch to destroy everything, after his big date with the bride goes bad. Who among us has not been there?
Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and his bride
Be aware as you watch this video that:
a) long before he played Frankenstein's monster, Boris Karloff was a day labourer in Vancouver, working on the PNE grounds, possibly helping construct our wooden roller coaster (my original source for this fun tidbit was Nardwuar the Human Serviette; thanks, Nardwuar!).
b) The director of both Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale, was gay, which was the subject of a feature film called Gods and Monsters (itself adapted from a book called Father of Frankenstein). Sir Ian McKellen plays Whale in the film, while Brendan Fraser (AKA The Whale -- is this Darren Aronofsky's idea of an in-joke?) plays Whale's love interest.
There is also a nod to the title of this film in the song's lyrics.
c) Elsa Lanchester, who played said Bride of Frankenstein, was (besides being a terrific actor in her own right), in fact married to another gay British filmmaker and actor, Charles Laughton. While not having any direct influence on the Frankenstein movies, Laughton did play a fay, sadistic Moreau in Island of Lost Souls, a fabulously decadent Nero in the Cecil B. DeMille pre-code masterwork Sign of the Cross, and co-starred with Karloff in another Whale feature, The Old Dark House (which is alone among the films mentioned in this post in its presence on Tubi). And of course, he also played Quasimodo in the second, I think, film adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, bringing a staggering amount of pathos to the role; Laughton, like Karloff, had great compassion for the monstrous, perhaps informed by his homosexuality, or perhaps by his not being the most physically beautiful man who ever lived.
...none of which is necessarily relevant to why Night Court wrote a song called "The Bride of Frankenstein," but Karloff, Laughton and Lanchester have been on my mind in the last while, and the band does not leap on my attempts to unpack subtexts to this song, so I thought I'd help my readers out a bit.
I didn't even ask about Bela Lugosi, but I've always been more of a Karloff man, myself. Hear the new Night Court EP, Frater Set, here! (It will apparently be for sale at the show, as well).
Allan: What's a Frater Set?
Allan: Anytime a group releases an EP within a year of an LP I figure that they were recorded in the same sessions -- that it's outtakes or such. Is this so?
Jiffy Marx: No but you’re not entirely wrong. We recorded the first track, "Bride of Frankenstein," during the same sessions as Nervous Birds One and Too. It was a song we thought deserved it’s own thing so after releasing those recordings then the Humans LP, we figured it was past due!
Dave-O: Other than Bride, the Frater Set recording was a separate session from HUMANS! We wanted to release a Halloween 7" and Dromedary Records was not only into it, but because it is a hand-cut record, we were able to actually release it the same year it was recorded (pressing it in a standard plant would have pushed the release to next year). We actually recorded 6 songs but could only fit 5 (as it is a one sided picture disc).
Dave-O: I guess we just think it's better to leave a listener wanting more vs boring them? We were listening to alot of Tony Molina when we started writing for Night Court and liked the idea of intense little packets of catchy/messy songs...I mean, Guided by Voices and the Descendents (and many others) have been putting out sub-two-minute gems for decades!
Jiffy Marx: These days if bands get paid anything at all they get paid per song not per minute so put that shit on repeat!
Allan: Who edited together the Bride video? What is your history with that film, Elsa Lanchester, James Whale, or Frankenstein in general, and what is the theme of the song? (You change the "we belong dead" to "we don't belong dead;" explain the deeper meaning there? Who does not belong dead?).
Jiffy Marx: All our videos are done by Jeffry Lee, we don’t know him he just makes our videos.
Allan: Talk about leaving me wanting more! But tell me about songwriting -- who wrote what?
Emilor: Max Martin writes everything.
Allan: Anything to say about the gig, or the other bands on the bill? (I gather the dude from Talk is Cheap, the old Victoria punk store that kind of morphed into Cavity, is playing in Crom/Dam -- any history there, or with the other bands? Have you played Green Auto before?
Jiffy Marx: Rob from Mononegatives helped us out when we were in Ontario last year so we wanted to return the favour mostly because he’s a super nice dude but also we really want to see his band they’re awesome!
Emilor: First time playing Green Auto and we're really excited to see Mononegatives and its New Meds 1st show!
Dave-O: We should note that it is in the middle warehouse which will be different and cool.
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