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Blinker the Star mastermind Jordon Zadorozny may well be the pre-millennial poster boy for indie rock. His early musical influences were, naturally, the Fab Four, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.| He was inspired to pick up a six-string after listening to Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'N Roll" and the over-cooked hooks of Boston blaring from muscle cars in his hometown of Pembroke, Ontario (pop. 14,000). He gained the confidence to sing after listening to J. Mascis howl and slobber through Dinosaur Jr.'s lo-fi opus You're Living All Over Me. Then there are the more obvious ties: He spent formative band years playing in Tinker with Melissa Auf Der Maur, now of Hole, and he co-wrote a song -- "Reasons to Be Beautiful" -- with Courtney Love for Hole's last album, Celebrity Skin.
There's also the fact his band's released three albums on three
labels in four years -- the sad fate of many an indie rocker during
these days of label consolidation and the ascendance of just about
every other genre of music. Blinker's self-titled debut came out on
the A&M imprint Treat and Release in 1995; A Bourgeois
Kitten, was released by A&M proper a year later; and their
latest, the just-released August Everywhere, was picked up
in nearly releasable form by DreamWorks after A&M folded
earlier this year.
All of which begs the question: Is this twenty-six-year-old
multi-instrumentalist ready to carry the torch for scrappy-smart
guitar rock into 2000 and beyond?
"It was never my intention to be in that movement or anything,"
explains Jordon, referring to the fact that he's been lumped in
with indie stalwarts like Sebadoh and Smog. To hear him tell it,
his records have been shaped as much by economic limitations as by
artistic considerations. "This is the record that I've always
wanted to make," he says of August, without
hesitation.
If so, the record Jordon's always wanted to make is a decidedly
polished, thoughtfully arranged and lyrically mature affair -- one
that, despite drawing from the same pool of references, is leagues
apart from the Smashing Pumpkins-lite riffage of his debut or the
somewhat slapdash songcraft that characterizes much of
Kitten. The title track lands jabs of distortion like a
prizefighter, while ambitious songs like the piano and
strings-driven "Pretty Pictures" and the gut-curdling vocals of
"Right Kind of Girl" show that arrangement and mood are as
important to the new Blinker as unbridled fuzz was to the old.
"The blueprint in my mind -- although we never talked about this in
the studio -- was to make a record as cohesive as [XTC's]
Skylarking," says Jordon. "Even when I was thirteen I knew
that that's what I should be hoping to do. I remember thinking, how
do you do that, how do you construct music that's complex but
accessible, heartfelt and that's sort of in the back of my
head?"
Part of what makes that formula possible for Blinker (a power trio
rounded out by bassist Pete Frolander and drummer Kellii Scott) is
Jordon's impressive sonic vocabulary, which was cultivated in a
musical kid's version of the candy store. Although Jordon laughs at
the mention of his purportedly bohemian upbringing, truth is his
family was far from Cleaver conventionality. Both his parents were
professional musicians (his mother into Celtic music, his father
into bluegrass) whose idea of settling down was opening a music
store in the Canadian boondocks when they tired of the road.
"They weren't circus folk or anything," Jordon assures, despite
admitting that as a boy he was forced to dress in
turn-of-the-century garb and sing in old folks' homes with his
parents playing the role of backup band. "Me and this girl Tanya
toured around singing Anne Murray's 'Can I Have This Dance.' She's
all frilled out and I'd have the top hat and everything. We'd sing,
do a waltz, do a jig, waltz again, kiss, then sing the song and
then kiss again at the end. We had this twenty-minute show that we
would do. I hated that, so I had to quit that. My punishment was
vocal lessons."
Vocal lessons, piano studies and his father's guitar tips all
contributed to Jordon's burgeoning musical identity. By the time a
college-age Jordon joined Tinker in Montreal, he was a highly
proficient rocker-in-training. Tinker, meanwhile, were a local
sensation fueled in no small part by Auf Der Maur.
"Melissa was beloved in Montreal," Jordon explains. "Her father was
the unofficial mayor of Montreal, so she was introduced to a bigger
world early on."
Soon, thanks to some diligent weekend writing sessions, he was also
being introduced to a bigger world. Despite the local success of
Tinker, Jordon had become the man behind Blinker, the major-label
rock band. Four years later, Jordon remains a major-label talent in
spite of forces conspiring against his chosen medium. At the height
of his transformation he even made the most rock of rock choices:
He moved to Los Angeles.
"L.A. is the best thing that ever happened to me and my music," he
says now, looking back on the sessions for August. "Just
running into enormously talented music people all the time. And the
constant sunshine is a mood lifter."
But wait, what about Jordon the indie rocker, the humble musical
spirit who grew up worshipping Husker Du through the copies of
Graffiti magazine that his dad brought home for him? Has
he been killed off by his celebrity doppelganger? Well, not
quite.
"Los Angeles is not a place where I'd actively lead a interesting
life," Jordon clarifies. "It's interesting to look at and to think
about, but it's not interesting for me to really be a part of life
in Los Angeles. I like Pembroke. That's where things happen for me,
that's where the bulk of the things that I remember that mean
something to me are from."
So when Jordon prepares his next offering -- which he's describing
as "either more sweeping, heavy metal, or in a Thin Lizzy
direction" - he'll likely be at home, away from the glitz and back
where he always finds his inspiration. He'll probably gather up
some friends and head to Fred Meigher's Bar and Tavern in Chapeau,
Quebec, the very same place he whiled away long, fuzzy chunks of
his youth.
"You go there in the afternoon and there's a couple old guys
sitting there with Labatt's 50s talking about the old days and
stuff," he says. "It's basically all the young weirdoes hanging out
with the old guys. In any place where there's no policing there's
this almost sort of vague code of conduct that you just sort of get
used to. Really, nothing goes wrong. Someone gets beaten up once a
year or something. They're generally good people. It's not really
an oasis; it's more like a dirty old pond."
Sort of like indie rock in 1999, if you think about it. And thank
God someone's still hanging out there.
JOE ROSENTHAL
(October 5, 1999)