Wednesday 21 February 2001
54-40 pays tribute to Marshall McLuhan


Nick Lewis

Vancouver rockers 54-40 have spent so much time thinking about Marshall McLuhan, they're starting to think like the famous Canadian media theorist. 

Guitarist Phil Comparelli says he was turned on to the onetime University of Toronto English professor after a lyric he heard on Genesis' Lamb Lies Down On Broadway album. 

"We were tossing around international artists that made references to Canadians on their records, and it's a pretty short game," Comparelli says. "We found that line in the Genesis song -- 'Marshall McLuhan, casual 

viewin' -- and thought we'd name our record after it. But we chopped it to just Casual Viewin' since we figured no one would get the reference." 

To keep with the McLuhan theme, they concentrated on his ideas of the world as a global village and decided to have their imagery reflect that. 

When it came time to shoot videos for the album, the band convinced their label, Sony, to instead use the budget to fly them to Thailand, Kenya and Morocco. 

"Most people travel around the world and get inspired to create a record, but we did it backwards because that's the Marshall McLuhan way. It doesn't matter what order you do it in, as long as you do it. We didn't want to be inspired by other cultures, we wanted to take our stuff with us and ask them what they thought of it." 

The project worked out, as photos and home videos of the trip were used to create an astounding six music videos from three weeks of footage. And the album has just been nominated for a Juno, the fifth for the band. 

Of course, so far it's been "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" for Comparelli, singer Neil Osborne, bassist Brad Merritt and drummer Matt Johnson. 

"Yeah, you could say we're the Susan Lucci's of the Juno world, but I'd rather you didn't," Comparelli laughs. 

Having recently celebrated its 

20th anniversary with a New Year's Eve gig in Winnipeg, 54-40 should be a lot bigger than they are. 

With hit singles such as Miss You, Baby Ran, Nice to Luv You, Blame Your Parents, Ocean Pearl, Assoholic, I Go Blind and Luv You All, they have certainly been present on the Canadian charts the past two decades. 

"I don't understand it either," Comparelli says. "It's always the same story. Someone will really know the band well and drag someone else along who may have barely heard of us. 

"And I'll be talking to them after the show and the person will have known every song we played, without knowing they were 54-40 songs. I don't know if people can't get their heads around the band's name or what it is, but everyone knows the songs and not the band." 

The irony is that it took a quartet from Georgia to cover one of their tunes for 54-40 to get better recognition in this country. 

"We used to tour down in the States playing the college circuit, and we'd play a club in Washington," he says. "This group of guys used to come out and see us a lot, and they'd end up coming backstage and eating our pizza and drinking our beer. 

"They'd tell us how much they loved us and they'd talk to us about getting a band together and we'd just be like, 'Yeah, OK, get outta here.' Years later those guys turned out to be Hootie and the Blowfish." 

That a group of their fans became more successful than they did with a cover of I Go Blind has never perturbed Comparelli, he says. 

"It enabled us to get our own studio in Vancouver which enabled us to make this record on our own terms," he says. 

And are the Blowfish still treated like snot-nosed brats? 

"We're all good buddies now," he says and laughs.