Lucas Stagg

GREAT BIG GONE

K-W songsmith Lucas Stagg up and left. After a decade or so on the 519 independent roots music radar, Stagg decided it was time to change it up. He packed up his J50 and moved the big city to see what Toronto might stir in him. You’d be forgiven for not noticing. Stagg continues to play at least weekly in the area, (sometimes solo, sometimes with cohort Craig McNair, sometimes with the Lucas Stagg Band), and he’s continued to crank out the annual record or so, now given added weight by his new home at Kitchener’s Busted Flat Records. His inaugural Busted Flat release is Great Big Gone, a record greatly informed by his leaving home, and his most gentle, rich project to date.

“Last summer, (producer), Dan Walsh was a part of a Rick Hutt Produced recording I did over at River Edge Studio,” explains Stagg of his decision to release a loving, largely acoustic record. “It was a big budget production with a four-piece band and all the bells and whistles. I had a bunch of songs that weren’t gonna make the cut on that record because I thought they sounded better with a simpler, stripped down approach. Dan suggested his studio on Lake Erie.”

Great Big Gone’s warm, sparse production and subtle textures suggest an album recorded under serene circumstances. Surely, a couple days on the coast with one’s guitar could be the ultimate serenity of many, but much credit needs to go to Dan Walsh for not only providing those relaxed surroundings, but for fleshing out each of Stagg’s deceptively simple odes to love, home, and beauty, with his rumbling, reverb drenched lead guitar, and his trusty rusty dobro.

“Basically, Tanya Philipovich, (who co-wrote the title-track with me), drove with me out to Port Dover, hung out for a couple of days, and we recorded the acoustics and the vocals. Duane Rutter, (another Busted Flat artist), lives right down the road so he came over and laid some trinkling guitars. Three weeks later I got the record in the mail and Dan had laid down everything else that you hear: dobros, electrics, bass. Dan takes a melody and converts it into a beautiful soundscape. After hearing it, I knew what type of record it was going to be. We actually recorded twelve songs, ended up with seven, and so I called Dan and asked him to do a ‘Dan’ arrangement using the “Great Big Gone” melody. The end result rounded out the record I was hearing.”

Walsh’s instrumental arrangement of the record’s title-track takes “Great Big Gone”’s repetitive, forlorn melody and retains all of the original’s intent, conveying Stagg’s high-lonesome narrative with long, lyrical pedal-steel moans. It’s a soothing capper to seven of Stagg’s strongest tunes, (including his stirring cover of Paul Kelly’s “Little Decisions”, a song seemingly written for Stagg’s voice), and a fitting debut on Busted Flat, a home for which he has much respect.


“I was a fan of the artists on the label, so at a music festival last summer I convinced Mark Logan, (BF head-honcho), to take a listen to the basic tracks. He loved it right away, but it took another six months before he let me know he was interested in having me on Busted Flat. He called me last week when the discs came in and said he put it on in Encore, (label headquarters), and some guy bought it halfway through the first song. We’re taking that as a good sign.”

Stagg’s new label is keeping him good and busy. He’s off to New York City next month for a couple of shows and will return just in time to back his bags for a Busted Flat showcase, up and down the Canadian spine with labelmate Paul MacLeod. It’s a pairing and a challenge that Stagg is excited to tackle.

“I heard Paul was itching to tour, so I called him up and the shows were booked by the end of the week. Busted Flat has earned a pretty good cool name for itself, so I think that’ll help. Paul is an amazing writer and I look forward to stealing a shit-load of guitar licks. We’re playing the right clubs, (twenty dates), for the ‘traveling troubadour’ type shows, out to Hank Snow’s hometown of Liverpool, Nova Scotia and back to Toronto’s Dakota Tavern in October, where I’ll be joined by the band!”

Stagg would hate for you to think that just cause he’s on a cool roots label, with a lovely new acoustic album ready for the fans and a solo tour on the horizon, that he’s forgotten how to get loud and gnarly. His eponymous band will keep that remedied, and plan to prove it with their own release later this year.

“Well, there are two rock records in the works,” he explains. “One is the Rick Hutt Produced record, and the other will be a Lucas Stagg Band record. We just recorded eleven tunes at River Edge, and Busted Flat will be releasing both records in 2009. The band is hittin’ all of the right clubs, right now, so we’re definitely looking forward to having a CD in hand.

“Writing songs and meeting new players keeps me interested in making cool records. If it weren’t for the commitment of the musicians that I’ve gotten to know over the past few years, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”

(originally published August, 2008. Echo Weekly. Kitchener)

Jolly Llamas

Dread City Rockers

“From the beginning we knew that if we were going to make an album, we were going to make a good album,” says Jolly Llamas frontman Brent Hagerman of his group’s long-awaited new record. “There couldn’t be anything half-assed about it. We knew we were going to take our time and work on it until it was done, until it was right. We could have finished it two years ago, but because we did spend so much time with it, we kept hearing things that could improve. Over the course of those years, I think the album really got better and better. Plus we all have jobs and families and Ph.D’s to work on and stuff like that.”

For those counting, it’s been nearly four years since the Jolly Llamas’ (singer-guitarist Brent Hagerman, drummer Ian Mollison, bassist Chris Robinson, organist Scott Wicken), last album, an effort which established their reputation as the area’s finest progenitors of fiery, experimental, roots-based reggae. The new album is Dread City Rockers, which not only delivers the best twelve songs of the band’s career, but also proudly celebrates the band’s deep love and knowledge of authentic reggae music. The Llamas had help though, and they barely had to cross town to find it.

“We did it with Brian Alexanian at Zane Studios in the Belmont Village,” says Hagerman between pulls off of a cold pint on a swelteringly humid day in uptown Waterloo. “The reason we went to him was because, (local singer-songwriter), Mike Alviano told me that he toured with the Wailers and I was like ‘Really?! There’s a guy in Kitchener that toured with the Wailers?!’ So I immediately called him and I was pretty overzealous at the time and I thought it may have turned him off a little, but he was cool. He toured with them in the late seventies/early eighties and he’d been a soundman in Toronto for years, working with all the reggae bands that came through. He had all these amazing reggae credentials and that’s what I was looking for. He had spent time in Jamaica and he knew a lot about the music, so that’s why we went to him. The album took something like three or four years from start to finish, but that’s only cause we wanted to make it as close to perfect as possible.”

Alexanian’s production skills and laundry-list of hardcore reggae cred certainly did much to buoy the spirit of the album, but he was working with guys who could speak his language. Hagerman has devoted the last decade or so of his life to reggae and the Jamaican culture, a fact that might surprise people upon first meeting the demure, white, academic family man from Kitchener.

“Well, I haven’t lived here my entire life” he explains. “I grew up in Bermuda and reggae was the sound when I was growing up, everywhere in the Caribbean. In the early eighties I was pretty much only listening to Yellowman and, of course, Bob Marley. It wasn’t until I came back to Canada though, as a teenager listening to indie rock or whatever, that I found myself really wanting to connect with reggae music again. Strangely enough, Big Sugar was the band that made me realize that. I remember hearing 500lbs and thinking, ‘Oh, here’s a band with a strong reggae influence that doesn’t suck!’ Cause in the eighties there were a lot of bad reggae bands, with a really soft, overly-processed sound. Big Sugar sort of became a template for us when we started the Jolly Llamas, and once we started my fascination just grew. I was listening to a lot of reggae, writing reggae music, and even writing about reggae, (notably a remarkably comprehensive feature on Sly & Robbie for Exclaim!). Then I ended up quitting my job to go back to school and get my Ph.D studying, of course, reggae.”

This detailed study of the tenets of reggae and the Rasta culture was instrumental in raising the Llamas above the level of your average frat-boy party band. Unlike rock ‘n’ roll, in which an evolution from the tried and true methods and traditions of the genre is pretty much essential if a band wants to be relevant and successful, reggae demands that you not stray too far, lest you be accused of dumbing-down a sacred cultural touchstone. It’s a fine line that the Jolly Llamas deftly maneuver.

“I think there are a lot of purists who would agree with that,” concedes Hagerman. “I think the main reason for that is that it’s really easy to play bad reggae. An offbeat here, an upstroke on the guitar there. But if you want to play authentic reggae, you have to go past Bob Marley! You have to delve deeper into the sixties with ska and rocksteady, and Toots & The Maytals in 1967. What we tried to do was learn that stuff and then fit it into our own context. I like to see how far we can take the music, but at its core have it still be reggae. I think with our album there are some very roots-reggae songs, like “Ease Up” or “People Don’t Help People”. But on, say, “Dub City”, we’re trying to take an authentic reggae song, but put a scrappy rock band on top of it. For some people that would be taking it too far, but I’ve always liked experimenting with that. Bands like The Clash and The Ruts did that very well.”

It would seem like an ideal time for reggae musicians. Bands like Bedouin Soundclash have shown that there is a huge demand for reggae music beyond the purists and rastas. They’ve shown that reggae can be for everyone. After all, it’s great dance music and everyone likes to dance, right? Hagerman isn’t so sure.

“I think everyone loves the stereotype of reggae, which is like, you know, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. People say they love reggae, but mostly they just like happy, uplifting music. That’s fine, but go listen to Bob Marley’s “Ambush In The Night”. That is not happy music. I keep hoping that there is a large audience for reggae, but I haven’t found it yet.”

The Jolly Llamas may find that audience yet. Their love of the genre is as infectious as the hooks that make tracks like “Dub City”, “Toast Coloured Girl”, and “Information Cage” instant classics. With reverence, precision, (and some sweet Hammond work), Hagerman and co. have crafted a definitive reggae album which will hopefully inspire others to follow suit and just say no to faux-reggae.

“You know, when I made the decision to quit my job to get my Ph.D, I knew that I had to make sure that it was something that I was not going to get tired of. I realized that reggae music has fascinated me for the last ten years and it’s just getting more and more intense and I’m not going to get tired of it in the next four years. I can make a career out of this.”

(originally published June 2007, Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)

Revival Dear

REVIVAL DEAR

Discovering your sound does not come easily for most bands. Years are often spent honing your abilities and by the time you’ve found your singing voice, or learned a few guitar licks, you’re ready to write some songs. The first few usually aren’t so hot. It takes a good couple dozen before you find a balance between where your strengths lie and where your inspirations hit your heart. Naturally, as this time progresses and your talents mature, so do your tastes. Whichever band you loved that owned Much Music when you started is maybe by now less important as you begin discovering the classics. Bob Dylan; Neil Young; The Band; Muddy Waters; all the artists that sounded like your parents’ music until you could finally let down your high school blinders and appreciate that maybe the roots of modern music are the roots for a reason. Eddie Orso and Shelley Hayes spent a lot of years playing rock n’ roll in various incarnations before they formed Revival Dear, a group whose hearts lay firmly in the roots-based Canadiana of their heroes.

“Roots music is real, it’s honest,” Orso explains of his commitment to that aesthetic. “I love old instruments, songs about the country and vocal harmonies. Old time music is worn-in and it just feels right.”

Eddie Orso and his partner in music, Shelley Hayes, have a long history of collaboration, but it was a Big Pinkian change of scenery that started turning the gears of Revival Dear, which has quickly become their most successful, (both commercially and artistically), endeavour.

“Shelley and I have been singing together for years now,” he says, “but it wasn’t until moving to Toronto when the name Revival Dear and the sound of Revival Dear came through us. We rented a house and turned the basement into a recording studio and just worked out there for two years. The Band, Bob Dylan, Blue Rodeo, and Gram Parsons were all in heavy rotation and we found ourselves falling into a very rootsy, Canadiana kind of sound.”

The move to Toronto came after several years on the scene in Kitchener-Waterloo, where their former outfit, (Samsara), met with moderate success, but they needed something more. They needed a new scene, with new folks and new ears, and they found a fertile ground, and a good many collaborators in the big city.

“We moved to Toronto to network and get into a bigger scene. Living in a big house with a band was pretty inspiring itself. We developed our sound over the next few years, just soaking up our old vinyl collection. If you learn how to play the mandolin, banjo, or upright bass, you’ll find yourself writing old time roots music. And that is what we did. We have a basement flooded with vintage instruments and away we went!”

“As we settled into Toronto,” Orso continues, “we started going out to open-mic’s and bars to meet people. The C’est What had an unbelievable open jam night. That is where we met, (producer), Terence Gowan. He took a shine to us, as we did to him, and shortly after we were recording our record at Don Kerr’s studio, The Rooster. Most of the overdubs were done at the Rock Basement, (our house in Toronto). We also recorded some finishing touches with Jeremy Darby at Canterbury Studios.”

The result of these sessions is Revival Dear’s self-titled debut, a rollicking, authentic, straight-from-Saugerties revival of the style and tunes that were once perfected by the rebellious vanguard of groups like The Hawks and Gram Parson’s Fallen Angels. Orso and Hayes share vocal duties evenly throughout and certainly immediately recall the best of Parsons’ and Emmy Lou Harris’ duets, but the songs are so crisp and poppy that further inspection reveals even a kinship with Lindsay Buckingham-Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac, (see opening track “Town That I’ve Known”). All thirteen tracks employ a myriad of classy instruments, from the loving mandolin and pedal steel licks on “Century Toy”, the Garth Hudson-esque accordion of “Workin’ Man”, the truly excellent Hammond work on “Give Me The Blues”, and the smatterings of banjo and fiddle dusted across the album. All of this lends Orso’s and Haye’s vocal work a rich bedrock upon which to paint their masterpiece. It’s a remarkable record that can be committed in this day and age and still sound like it could have come from any generation’s roots heroes. Revival Dear have worked hard to make such a record, but it shouldn’t be interpreted as any sort of musical history lesson. After all, it’s only rock n’ roll, and Revival Dear want to see you dance.

“We like to leave audiences feeling like it’s OK to stomp your feet, sing along, and be a part of the show,” Orso explains of their mission. “We like to extend our songs into long piano or harmonica jams and sing ‘til our voices crack. We have fun, and in doing so, so does our audience.”

(originally published June, 2008. Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)

HAVE NO FEAR, THE COAST IS CLEAR

IN-FLIGHT SAFETY RETURN

“I think we are stronger than average as a community because we share a lot of information with each other. We don’t covet our experiences abroad. We come back and share our ideas and try to help each other be better musicians.” In-Flight Safety frontman, John Mullane, is explaining to me, (via his Haligonian home), the benefits of Halifax as a musical breeding ground, and he should know. In-Flight Safety are about to release their first record for a label and rightfully take their place amongst Halifax’s next invasion of cream-of-the-crop Canadian talent.

“I think Halifax breeds a certain type of musician,” he says. “I would attribute this to being on the colder of the two coasts – there’s not much to do in winter but work on music. Also, when you live here, you’re all too aware that you are on the margins of ‘big time action’, so bands and musicians are free to express themselves without any pressure to conform to certain trends you might see in bigger centers.”

The In-Flight Safety story is the stuff of indie legend; the kind of tale that makes a band feel the sky’s the limit. After recording and releasing their debut EP in 2003, (the five-song bedroom recording Vacation Land), Canadian indie darling Emm Gryner caught a set of theirs in Moncton. She immediately declared them her favourite new band and went to work spreading the word. She even managed to get a copy of it into David Bowie’s hands, (she was singing in his band at the time), and he was quick to express his admiration. With these accolades in-hand, Mullane, bassist Brad Goodsell, pianist Daniel Ledwell, and drummer Glen Nicholson played their first NXNE showcase and were named 2003’s ‘Best Un-Signed Band’, and had their EP re-released by Universal. Now, the band is ready to release their first long-player and have found themselves a home at Emm Gryner’s imprint, Dead Daisy Records. Named as an affectionate nod to their hometown, The Coast Is Clear finds In-Flight Safety expanding on the ambient melodicism of their debut, but with slightly higher production values and more specific goals in mind.

“When we started recording the songs that would eventually become The Coast Is Clear, we found ourselves with a proper producer, (Warne Livesy), and in an extremely well equipped studio in Vancouver. We came back to Halifax and tried to maintain the big studio sound for the drums and decided to overdub virtually everything else in my small home studio. In my studio we realized that we were trying to achieve a sonic quality that you really can’t get with limited gear and knowledge. At first we were rather frustrated, but then we just decided to try and make the best record we could make and that’s what we did. We are very proud parents of this record.”

Rife with triumphant melodies, tinkling, mysterious piano passages, jangling guitars, and Mullane’s falsetto croon, The Coast Is Clear is a dense sonic stew, tailor-made for lovers of beautiful, unpretentious pop. It’s quite an achievement that they’ve done it nearly all on their own, and now they’re looking forward to finally getting a little help.

“Before Dead Daisy, we’d been without a label for four years and it’s only just sinking in that we are not alone in this next release. It’s a great comfort to know that you have a core of dedicated people working on your behalf, towards your goals. We feel a little disconnected from Canada’s music center, (Ontario), so it’s been amazing to have people out there representing our interests while we are far away working on music. We don’t even have to worry about the dreaded College radio mail-out, and that’s more than we ever expected. We are happy campers.”

In-Flight Safety are returning to Guelph, (their last appearance being an emotive show-stealer at Hillside), on January 25^th. They’ll be at the Brass Taps with In Transit and Dean Drouillard. Things get started at 10pm. Don’t miss it. In-Flight Safety could very well be Canada’s next favourite band. www.inflightsafety.ca

(originally published January 2006. Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)

519 Revue, 2005 In Review

WELCOMING 2006

Well, 2005 has passed, and it was a pretty decent year for the 519. Some great records were released, and some great shows were played. Old bands were laid to rest and new bands rose in their stead. The rock owned by this city has remained vibrant throughout. Here are some highlights, some unfortunate passings, and some hopes for this bright, beautiful, wide-open 2006.

K-W experimental popsters Humshuttle ushered in 2005 with their second EP of a planned trilogy. By expanding on the blueprint of their 2004 debut, they crafted a moodier, more pensive work, rich with Ben Lee’s hushed poetics and the epic, rolling rhythms of How It Feels To Be Something On-era Sunny Day Real Estate. Though they played sporadically in 2005, Humshuttle did manage to get over to Ireland, where they became men and alcoholics, almost immediately.

Humshuttle weren’t the only locals to birth great music in 2005. A Failure For Every Season left their emo peers in the dust with their debut CD; Hibakusha, after ten long years of toil released their debut to almost unanimous praise as the record of the year; Tony Salomone finally came into his own with his umpteenth project, the Haunches, whose Recording Session Ends In Tragedy EP has owned the CKMS charts ever since. The Vermicious Knid released their finest work, and lamentably, their swan-song, with Smalltown Devotion/Hometown Compulsion, and helped keep their friends in the Sourkeys on the map with a split 7”.

Yes, the births were glorious and many, but the Vermicious Knid weren’t the only ones to lay down their arms last year. Several local stalwarts bid tearful goodbyes, but the cyclical nature of rock ‘n’ roll has given us as much as it’s taken away.

The Babyshakers, after three years of volume and mayhem, played their last show in May, destroying the crowd at Fiddler’s Green before the headliners, Teenage Head, had a chance to. Not one to rest on his laurels, guitarist Tommy Smokes was quick to bounce back with his new project, The Saigon Hookers.

“We are aiming to release a five song EP by spring,” says Smokes, “and hopefully a full-length by fall. We’ll be focusing on playing shows around Ontario and Quebec. We are going to play a lot and bang a lot of heads. It’s gonna be a good year for us.”

Post-rockers the Everyday Faces played their last show in 2005 and left singer/guitarist Rick Andrade free to return to his drum-kit behind the Machines. Their Jam-inspired boogie-pop has made them fast-favourites all across Ontario, and 2006 could easily be the year that they take over.

“We’ll be completing our as-yet-unnamed debut album and slaying audiences coast to coast with our raucous live show,” says Andrade. “We may also throw in a bake sale for good measure.”

In Transit released one of the records of the year with their debut, Morning Watch, built by members of a couple of bands who are no longer with us, (Malaprop, Detrimentals). Their careful balance of Coldplay ambience and fist-pumping anthemics keeps them high on the list of bands to look out for this year.

So we’ve lost a few, gained a few, and with albums on the horizon from The Miniatures, Shannon Lyon, Saigon Hookers, The Machines, The Sourkeys, (and the impending, official reunion of Lucid), 2006 looks bright. It’s nice to be in a town where the rock is always changing, and always great. We’ll see how she goes…

(originally published December 2005. Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)

Rebirth For The Ride Theory

Hamilton has always owned a rich musical history. From the punk rock heyday of Teenage Head’s Frantic City, to Edgar Breau’s revolutionary experimental rock with Simply Saucer, (whose lone contribution to the world of rock, Here Come The Cyborgs, was produced by young, aspiring knob twiddlers Bob and Daniel Lanois), to the ever present, bubbling Hess Village scene, Steel Town is always vibrant with new, high class rock ‘n’ roll. Their newest export is The Ride Theory, a quartet armed with such unforgettable, explosive classic rock chops that they’re starting to gain “next-big-thing” status. Last summer guitarist/vocalist Aron D’Alesio, drummer Noah Fralick, guitarist/vocalist Kyle Kuchmey, and bassist John Smith released their sophomore full-length, In This City, a love letter of sorts to the town that gave them life.

“Hamilton is a really important place for us,” says Noah Fralick. “It’s sort of been our grounding, despite the fact that during the school year we’re not all living in the same place. The Hamilton arts community is well-established and very supportive of everything that comes from the city. We’ve been lucky to get the support of that community, and hopefully we’re adding to it. The culture here is raw and honest and it escapes the pretentiousness of bigger cities like Toronto. We’ve been told that this sentiment carries through into our music, and we’re really proud of that.”

In This City, like Hamilton, is certainly raw and honest. With all the hooks and grit of the White Stripes, and all the vicious, simple melodies of John Lennon at his most buoyant, it careens through its twelve tracks with nary a pause for breath. Its energy is nearly exhausting, but you’d never know it watching The Ride Theory play. As musicians they’re exemplary, with flying fingers, stomping feet, and note-perfect Brian Wilsonian harmonies. Their frenetic, dance-floor filling live shows made them fast hometown favourites, but with In This City as their calling card, the rest of the country is starting to notice.

“We’ve started to get a lot more attention from a variety of sources,” says Fralick, “mostly press and music fans in general. Over the years we’ve tried to work hard despite the fact that we’ve been in school. We’ve played nearly two hundred shows, done two East Coast tours, and had the opportunity to play with some really cool bands. It was nice that the album got us some new attention because it’s made us feel like we’re making progress as a band. I think that being successful means not only making music that we’re happy with, but also with getting other people’s attention. It helps to know that people are tapping into what we’re doing and appreciating it.”

One such person that started to “get” what The Ride Theory was doing was a label rep from Rainbow Quartz Records, home to basically every good revivalist jangle pop band in the world, (High Dials, Denise James, Zine Dines). After meeting with the band, he not only dug it, he wanted to show it off to the world, and his new label seemed to be a good place to start.

“Ted had worked as Rainbow Quartz’s international label rep and he expressed some interest in the album and the band. We developed a solid friendship as Ted was leaving RQ to start his own label, Sunny Lane Records, with another dude named Spencer Shewen. The two of them decided that they wanted us to be their first signing and we thought that it was a grand idea. The album will be re-released by them in April and will be distributed nation-wide by Fontana North. It’s really great timing since we’re all going to be graduating university in May. Sunny Lane seemed good for us because they’re very in-line with what we want to accomplish musically. Working with an indie label is very important to us because it leaves us free to develop without the usual corporate confines.”

Hearing Fralick modestly explain how the band needs to develop is almost funny. In their short life as a band all four members have been full-time students, with jobs, and in the last two years, they’ve released two full-length albums. Anything their 2002 debut lacked has been more than made up for by In This City’s glorious recording. It’s an amazing feat that they’ve even had time to get so much done, let alone do it so excellently. So what sets them apart? There seems to be a new “it” band every six months whose stylish aping of the Stones or the Beatles seems to poise them for great things. But The Ride Theory are the real deal.

“I guess that’s for the listener to decide, (what sets us apart),” Fralick explains. “We’re not very good at telling people if or why we’re good, we just play the music that comes naturally to us and hope that other people dig it too. Maybe that’s what’s different about us. We don’t try to put on some contrived display that’s inauthentic to what we’re doing. We have no time for being pretentious, it’s just not who we are. If you’re honest to your craft, you’re going to be set apart from the majority of bands whose motivations are superficial or non-musical.”

The Ride Theory are throwing a party in Guelph on March 3^rd at Club Vinyl. This shaker will not only be the formal re-release of *In This City*, but it will also serve as the label launch party for Sunny Lane. The sharp-dressed Hamiltonians will be joined by locals Paul MacLeod, the Platonic Shadows, and Spiral Beach.

“Hopefully,” Fralick muses, “we’ll be able to expose the audience to a genuine rock ‘n’ roll experience. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ is one of the most misused phrases in music today. Is fucking Nickelback really rock ‘n’ roll? Hopefully we can sway some people towards what we think true rock ‘n’ roll actually is.”

Rock ‘n’ roll may be about to enter a new renaissance. Check it out. $5 at the door. www.theridetheory.com

(originally published February, 2006. Echo Weekly. Kitchener)

Meligrove Band's Interplanetary Conspiracy

MELIGROVE BAND’S INTERPLANETARY CONSPIRACY

The major label record game is a brutal obstacle course of broken hearts and happenstance. Many bands are capable of building brilliant compact discs, brimming with revolutionary, spirit-raising pop rock ‘n’ roll, but so few of them are ever given even the remotest opportunity to reach an audience beyond their peers. The Meligrove Band know this all too well. A live favourite since their teens in Toronto, their tourniquet-tight performances and shimmering, bouncing pop melodies finally caught some attention last year from the big boys. They’ve just released their Jose Contreras-produced major label debut record as V2 Records flagship Canadian act. For Jason Nunes, (singing, guitar, piano), Darcy Rego, (drums), Andrew Scott, (guitar, trumpet, synth), and Mike Small, (bass), it could mean big things, but at this point, they’re just glad to have the support.

“So far it’s been a lot of fun,” says Small. “V2 is different from a lot of the other ‘big’ labels; they’re just four people sharing an office in Toronto and right from the start it’s felt like we’re all friends, not like we’re in some business deal or something. It has allowed us to do a lot of things we haven’t in the past, but we’re still in control of it all. We still design the posters, the album art, we silk-screen our t-shirts at home, but now there are four more people making sure our music gets heard by as many people as possible. That’s pretty awesome.”

Their debut album, Planets Conspire, makes the Meligrove Band a prime contender for Canada’s next cool band. Equipped with the urgent, frantic melodies of Hot Hot Heat, but cut with Nunes playful, heartfelt, (and coyly naïve), vocals, the songs display a flurry of influences, (Beach Boys, Sloan, Flashing Lights), while aping none. Production by Jose Contreras, (the mercurial By Divine Right frontman), keeps the sounds gruff and necessary, with nary a wasted second in any song. His deft hand on the mixing boards, (and no doubt his awfully charming demeanor), did much to influence the finished product and the young Meligrove’s high esteem for him.

“Jose added Jose, (to the album). There’s no one else like him. This was definitely the most fun we’ve ever had recording,” Smalls gushes. “There’s so much I can say about him, but I’ll narrow it down to: By Divine Right are making a new album, so remember to buy it next year because they’re amazing!”

Jose Contreras wasn’t the only one adding something new to the record. Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Scott, (not Sloan’s Andrew Scott), joined the fold shortly after the 2002 release of their previous effort, Let It Grow.

“Andrew has brought really cool guitar, synth, trumpet, and trombone playing to the table. Not to mention poster design and a killer moustache.”

Smalls and the remaining Meligroves have a busy year ahead of them; they’ll be off to the US, the UK, and anywhere else that will have them, (“We are going to play about a billion shows this year. All over the place.”). Before they go though, they’re coming to Guelph. With Planets Conspire in-hand, they’ll be at the Ebar with guests Evan Gordon & The Sad Clowns on February 2nd. It’s all-ages and it’s $7. Everyone in-the-know already loves the Meligrove Band. Do you?

“I’m confident that the people who are supposed to like it are going to like it, if they hear it. And whoever those people are, they’ll get to be our new niche.”
www.meligroveband.com

(originally published January 2006. Echo Weekly. Kitchener)