Unless you've had your head firmly resting between the recesses of your ass when it comes to the Toronto music scene, then you should be more than familiar with the Barmitzvah Brothers. Sincere, sweeping, simply divine are these Brothers Barmitzvah. They have more talent and songwriting skills then almost anyone out there making music in this country. Their new album Century of Invention showcases their twang-tasticness yet again and if you don't own it you're a total idiot because it's one of the better records to float into Matt Thomas' rusty old ears. Matt hopped a riverboat and floated downstream in search of emotionally crippling childhood memories and those mythic creatures, the Barmitzvah Brothers.

Role Call/ Instruments!

Lieutenant Jenny Mitchell specialises in Omnichord, bass, banjo, vocals, and social interaction; qualified keyboard operator. Lieutenant Geordie Gordon specialises in keyboards, violin, bass, vocals, and banjo; Group Quartermaster. Sergeant-Major Tristan O'Malley specialises in guitar and vocals; qualified driver. Sergeant John Merritt specialises in drums; qualified keyboard operator. Private Sylvie Smith specialises in vocals and keyboards; qualified percussion instruments specialist.

You folks always seem like you're on the hunt for new sounds, any fun new musical toys?

We've somewhat recently had to adapt our keyboard guitar to all the parts performed by Geordie's old Yamaha keyboard; if anything, it's become more mainstream because we've stopped playing the keytar with a strap. It just lies flat on top of the Wurlitzer and no one in the audience can really tell it's any different from a regular keyboard. It does have wicked effects buttons and a pitch wheel, though, and it plays a mean version of Wham's "This Christmas" as a demo.

In celebration of your amazing new CD Century of Invention describe to us a fantastic new invention and what it can do for us.

The invention is called the Galapagos Machine. Invented by Kurt Vonnegut but the plans are hidden somewhere and only alluded to in a complex series of riddles concealed in the text of his will. But the machine will solve Vonnegut's one perceived fault of mankind: our big brains. Apparently life would be much sweeter if we were all tropical marine hunters covered entirely in fur and with small brains. I dunno, I was just reading that book ("Galapagos") in the studio the other day.

Everyone likes to focus on everyone in BB's age... how do you deal with that constantly coming up?

I dunno. It's a lot less annoying, whatever it is, now that we're all the age of majority. There's way less of a sense of doom associated with telling someone my age now; more of a sense of excitement mixed with resignation.

Considering you're neither Jewish or brothers one must ask, why the name?

This is a legend: originally there were only two members: both girls. So the name made sense at the time, as far as irony goes; but time has proven that name more and more incomprehensible.

What has changed since last time the BB rocked out on the Wavelength stage?

I guess we were kind of riding some sort of wave of popularity last time we played Wavelength; it definitely felt like the peak of something at the time. Mr. Bones had just come out, and we'd just made the cover of Now Magazine wearing powder-blue tuxedoes. The hipsters were going wild. We rode that for a while, then kind of took a break without really realising it and ended up becoming really prolific within the space of a couple years. Jenny started going out with a really amazing producer and we made our Christmas compilation and Century of Invention.

What do you say when people ask you what you are going to do when you grow up?

"I dunno."

You wrote a lovely ditty about the lovely Dan Burke are there any other Toronto indie landmarks that you would like to compose a song to?

We should write a song about Spiral Beach called "You Should be Famous by Now".

By Matthew Thomas