WHO ARE THEY?
Singer/songwriter and record-store employee Jackie Game (a.k.a. “The Noise”) first met upstart drummer Sarah Felgemacher (a.k.a. “The Backbone”) back in 2005. The two holed up in Game’s basement in the wilds of Whitby and started hashing out the artfully rustic rock ’n’ roll that would become The Recroom’s signature sound. Around Christmas 2006, the pair received the gift of the low-end — Angel Valenciano, whose cinematically soupy basslines help anchor the three-piece’s lush, evocative songs.

GAME ON
Game’s vocals are The Recroom’s not-so-secret weapon. Admittedly, the band has assembled a sturdy foundation of nicely roughed-up ringing guitars, bass and beats. But the thing you notice most about the songs on last year’s Wake Up the City (Get Bent) is Game’s stream-of-consciousness narratives — poetic fragments that map out tableaux from rural Ontario road trips, downcast glances and second guesses — delivered in a remarkable shape-shifting voice that evokes everything from aggressively seductive post-punk goddesses to haunted gothic sirens. For her part, Game lists a diverse range of influences that include Constantines (“They made us wanna start a band”), Radiohead, Sigur Rós and “a lot of jazz.”

WHO NEEDS A HIT?
Songwriter Game insists there’s no rhyme or reason behind her writing process. “Some of the songs on our first album don’t even make sense to me — I just keep capturing a single moment and moving on.” Her bandmates may support her, but this haphazard process doesn’t always make sense to more conservative — or business-minded — types. “I just did a songwriting competition where they insisted that I needed verses and choruses,” Game groans. “One of the judges kept telling me I had to try harder to get people’s attention. I was like, ‘By adding a chorus? I’m not trying to write a hit!’ He was just old-fashioned. I guess if it’s a business to you, you’ve gotta have a catchy pop song.”

FIRST WE TAKE THE SUBURBS…
Though they’re huge proponents of their local Whitby-Oshawa scene (which counts Cuff the Duke and Anagram among its esteemed alumni), the members of The Recroom are getting a bit burnt-out playing to the same faces at every show. “At first, we’d take any show we were offered, just for the sake of playing,” says Game, “but it’s getting tiring playing around Oshawa because we feel like we have to write new material. We’re almost done writing our next album; hopefully we’ll have it out in the fall.

“It’s exciting to be playing Toronto though, ’cause we feel like we can play old material — nobody has heard our same songs over and over again. And now that the Oshawa scene has slowed down a bit, we’re gonna try to get out across Canada. At the very least, this summer we’re hoping to hit Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.”

VELVET ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
One reason for the so-called “slowing down” of the ’Shwa’s indie scene is the recent closure of beloved rock club the Velvet Elvis. Game says the owners “had problems keeping it open. It’s so unfortunate, ‘cause a lot of crazy bands would come through there and all sorts of local bands would get together and play. The community feels kinda split up now, and there aren’t a lot of good places to play.”

Now that fewer people are booking shows, she adds, The Recroom keeps getting booked on the wrong bills. “It seems like there’s a folk thing going on here — a lot of Oshawa bands are more folky-country, and we’re just… not.  When we first started out, there were tonnes of bands, like The Kilner Advisory Board, who were fucking amazing. But now there’s just not a lot of rock ’n’ roll around here.”

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1