What’s the deal with Len?
Well they are one of Canada’s most well known One Hit Wonders with their infectiously catchy single Steal My Sunshine from 1999’s You Can’t Stop The Bum Rush album. At the heart of it the band is/was siblings Sharon and Marc Costanzo. In 1994 they released an album called Superstar which is kind of a lo-fi indie guitar rock album that merges the sound of Smashing Pumpkins or Janes Addiction with Lush. It is actually quite good in a mid 90’s indie kind of way. They clearly were smoking some strong weed. The same year Marc produced an album by a band called Cindy which also featured Sharon on backing vocals. It is fairly typical indie alt fuzz guitar stuff from the mid 1990s. Some of the guys on this album would end up contributing to Len’s third album. Len’s second album Get Your Legs Broke came out in 1997 also on Funtrip Records which I’m pretty sure was their own label. Again this is actually quite a good album which may be surprising for people that think they were simply one song. Sharon and Marc both sound like themselves and the album also features Brendan Canning. The album is again quite reminiscent of an indie version of Jane’s Addiction but with some bubblegum lightness as well. But it isn’t quite either. It all reminds me of a lot of bands one would see at the Wavelength indie music series in Toronto in the mid/late 1990s. I have both of these albums and I’ve never really listened to them but honestly they are both pretty good records.
For the band’s third album they brought in a whole bunch of friends, members of the band Cindy, and also the guys from the band East Coast Hip Hop band Hip Club Groove whose Land Of The Lost album was also released on Funtrip Records in 1996. Brendan Canning continued to contribute to the band before moving on to form Broken Social Scene with Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin who were working on the KC Accidental albums. The Steal My Sunshine single ended up being a huge hit in many countries and sold over a million copies in the US alone. The video the band put together is about as emblematic of 1999 as anything out there and the song still receives a periodic resurgence – though it really has never gone away. So what about the rest of the album that most people have never actually heard?The album kind of wavers between light electronic pop with some scratching and samples (songs like Hot Rod Monster Jam, Man Of The Year), and fairly catchy standard Hip Hop in songs like Cryptic Souls Crew and Beautiful Day. Sometimes both on the same song (see Cold Chillin’). Feelin’ Alright was the second single from the album which didn’t really do well but is probably the only song on the album that sounds somewhat reflective of their previous work – maybe Cheeky Bugger as well. The album ends with three softer songs in Big Meanie, June Bug and Crazy Cause I Believe (which is actually a pretty great song). Overall the album really is a mishmash of styles reflective of the guests participating but the Hip Club Groove influence seems to exert itself the most. It is a pretty smooth sounding album and is quite well produced but overall I think I actually prefer the first two albums.
Following the huge success of Steal My Sunshine the band actually released a couple more albums – The Diary Of A Madmen in 2005 which I haven’t heard and It’s Easy If You Try in 2012 which I listened to today for the first time and it is actually pretty good as well – it is much less hip hop and more pop influenced – it reminds me of things like Video Killed The Radio Star in places (which I didn’t realize till after writing this that they had done a cover of on their previous album), dance club pop in other places, rock in others, and Pop Goes the World elsewhere. It’s much better than one might expect and probably their most stylistically consistent album.
I have the Picture Disc of You Can’t Stop The Bum Rush which Sharon gave to me when I was living at a friends place briefly around 1998 and she was subletting a floor. Her and Marc and Derek Mackenzie were around a lot so I got to know them a bit. Sharon and Derek were very nice. Marc was a bit more standoffish but they were all stoned most of the time so maybe it was just that. I remember talking to them about the album before it was released and I couldn’t remember the title so I kept referring to it as Kick Your Own Ass which they loved as an alternate title. Anyway that’s all I got on Len. I mean there are more details out there about their rise and fall but I gotta leave something for people to discover on their own. Incidentally the Steal My Sunshine was nominated for a Juno Award in 2000 for best single but lost to …. Bobcaygeon by The Tragically Hip. Sometimes award shows get things right. Cory Bowles from Hip Club Groove ended up as Cory on The Trailer Park Boys who’s soundtrack features the song … Bobcaygeon. Canada is a small place sometimes.
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