| The Indie's Turn Merge Records is one of the mothers of the 1990s indie scene: home of label founders Superchunk, as well as Lambchop, The Arcade Fire, and The Magnetic Fields. |
| Battle of the "Experts" This month, we float by as Brighid and Aaron (viciously, maliciously, and mercilessly!) face off on lucid dreaming in music & film. |
| Getting To Know... Brighid Mooney offers some advice to those wanting to discover the music of Elvis Costello. |
| Globetrotting Ah, home sweet home. This month we look at Toronto, home of a large fraction of Being There's staff. |
| Been There Russell Bartholomee reflects on his first glimpse of Radiohead in 1995. Opening for R.E.M., the band was still young. |
| Watching the Music This month - Canadian rock band Sloan's rarely seen "She Says What She Means". |
| Whatever Happened To... Shelley Duvall was the only actress to ever be cast by Altman, Kubrick, and Allen. Whatever happened to her? |
| Oops! In a new column focusing on some of the biggest slips in music and film, we look at Garth Brooks' bizarre career move: Chris Gaines. |
| 9 x 5 Our contributors pick five things they're digging this month. |
Oops!
Chris Gaines
By Shel Desormeaux
Garth Brooks is the best selling country artist in history, so far. His success helped to build the genre now known as New Country, which is basically country with more pouting, bigger boobs and wind machines. But whining without real edge is still just whining, and so a restless Garth decided to channel his inner ‘rock’ star and introduce an alter ego.
As Chris Gaines, he released The Life of Chris Gaines in 1999. Critics, industry folk, music fans and generally anyone who’d heard of Brooks were both skeptical and curious. Most amusing, perhaps, was Gaines’ public persona, a gothy, scowling snotty boy with an impressive head of, er, hair.
At the time, Garth was nursing his new fascination with film (after a failed attempt at a career in professional baseball), and was lobbying for a part in a supposed thriller entitled The Lamb, about a tortured musician by the name of Chris Gaines. He landed the role, with Babyface as producer, and so devoted himself to immersing himself in it that he recorded an album of songs to establish Gaines’ history.
The album was released, hit the charts at number 2, but was a marketing disaster. The failure probably hurt the sales of his holiday release that year. His devoted fans were just that frickin’ bewildered. Stores were slashing the price of the album just to get rid of it, and plans for the movie The Lamb were scrapped, never to be heard about again.
Just like Chris Gaines. Even Garth himself spent most of 2000 on the down low.
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