March 30th, 2010 / 2 Comments
It’s one of those years. Nearing the end of March, and already we’ve had to say goodbye to Kate McGarrigle, Mark Linkous, Vic Chesnutt, and now Alex Chilton (and don’t get me started on the Oscars forgetting to mention Bea Arthur). But I’m not here to eulogize – there are far better folks at that than me (Paul Westerberg, for one). Instead, I’d rather celebrate a song that’s meant a great deal to me for a long while, and one of the first things I ever learned how to play on the guitar. (A love song so perfect that it even made its way on WP’s …A Given EP, recorded for the wedding of our dear friends Kevin and Gordon – and that’s just the way I’d like to remember a great songwriter now passed).
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More: New Music
March 11th, 2010 / 2 Comments
So for nearly the past two years, we’ve tried getting a batch of songs together with Brooklyn folk singer Ryan Doyle, but you know how these things go — you get busy and distracted, and sometimes things take longer than you originally planned. 26 February 2010, however, we finally managed to pull it together in the lovely Buddy Project studio in Astoria, Queens, and did some joint recording that we’re both particularly proud of. We recorded one of the first ever WP songs, titled ‘By Lamplight’, which has come in and out of WP set-lists since the start. And let it be said now, Ryan Doyle’s ‘Homeless Summer 1996’ is the summer jam of 2010. (Or, considering how long it took to actually get into the same studio, maybe we should play it safe and say summer 2011). Anyway, considering how good it went this time out, you can be sure to expect more in the way of WP / RD in the future. Until then, here’s the original 2005 demo of ‘By Lamplight’. So young, so full of promise.
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More: Friends, New Music
January 25th, 2010 / 0 Comments
One of my fondest memories of growing up in Canada involves John Weldon’s 1979 short film The Log Driver’s Waltz (viewable at the National Film Board of Canada’s incredible website (here). The song (originally written by Wade Hemsworth), was performed for the film by sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle and became such a quintessential Canadian cultural artifact that I can’t think of a time when this tune hasn’t been a part of my understanding of Canada itself. For a time, we performed ‘If Only I Were a Painter, I’d Paint for You the Moon’ from Songbook as a two-part medley with ‘The Log Driver’s Waltz’, and at our 2008 Sled Island show at Central United Church in Calgary, our friend Kris Ellestad asked us to back him up on a full run-through. We post it here in memory of Kate McGarrigle, who died last week.
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More: Friends, Places
January 18th, 2010 / 6 Comments
Like it or not, Calgary is the city in which we live, and it’s the city that brought us all together. Sure, considering what’s going on up North to Alberta’s tar sands and the knowledge that by living here one is – in at least some way – attached to the disastrous oil machine, it’s sometimes hard to feel all that proud about it. But, it’s still important to look back at the good things that have come out of Calgary from time to time, right? Good things like Jann Arden, which leads to even better things like our new side project MANN HARDEN. And so, we give to you, our non-Calgary friends who doubtlessly missed our one and only show, MANN HARDEN (all songs by Jann Arden). (Foon on mandobird, Annalea on drums, Peter on guitar, Kenna on guitar, Mark on violin). This one’s for you, Calgary.
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More: Places
December 28th, 2009 / 1 Comment
Each January, our intrepid Kenna Burima puts together a festival called The Midway, held adjacent to the annual High Performance Rodeo here in Calgary. Last year, Woodpigeon performed a set of Bjork tunes, and a recording has just re-surfaced, thought earlier lost due to an exploding hard-drive. While we put some pretty big arrangements together, this stripped-down version of ‘Aurora’ has always been my favourite of the night. A guitar, some voices, and a hushed theatre (and a little demo that we worked from too).
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More: New Music
December 18th, 2009 / 0 Comments
With everyone’s eyes on the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, we here at WPHQ wanted to highlight a feature-length documentary entitled Dirty Oil, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks. You can watch some clips and catch up on some important tar sand related readings here. As Albertans, we personally can’t believe what’s happening in our gorgeous province. WP is extremely proud to be featured on the soundtrack of Dirty Oil with an instrumental version of ‘A Hymn for 2 Walks in Different Cities’. Here’s the original 2005 Sketchbook EP version of the song, to hopefully give you at least some warmth in these frustrating times.
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More: News
December 10th, 2009 / 3 Comments
Late this summer, the editors of MOJO magazine asked if WP would be up for covering a song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Without admitting I’d never actually listened to it, we set about re-building the track ‘Mother’ into something a little different from the original everyone seems to love. Talk about pressure, but it’s out at newsstands now, free with the December issue. (Otherwise, just take a listen to it here. We won’t tell).
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More: New Music
November 20th, 2009 / 0 Comments
Everyone in Montreal seems to be perfectly in love. It’s a city of pairs, strolling happily hand-in-hand, cooing bilingually. It’s a city of endless possibility, but even then it seems all the best ones are already taken.
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More: Dispatches
November 19th, 2009 / 0 Comments
It seems that somehow, without fail, I make my way to Montreal each November. The annual trip, repeated so often, starts to feel like deja vu, and I think of the old things that lay forgotten. Of the first songs I ever recorded. Of the lost songs left behind in rehearsals. I fret there’s not enough time to remember them all, but little bits and melodies sometimes pop into focus.
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More: Dispatches
November 5th, 2009 / 0 Comments
Our 2 week stay at the Banff Centre has come to a close, and tonight’s the final performance, the final recording. Early this afternoon our gear was loaded up and taken from the hut where we’ve spent so many hours the past 14 days. One last play at the piano, one last song. (This one’s for Analog Bell Service, The Witchies, and Basia Bulat, to the great producers we worked with, and to all of the audio engineers who laughed at us when we asked for bottles of water, but would always go and get them for us anyway).
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More: Dispatches
