SOME WICKED: Dashiell Brown's Blog

John Brown, Newfoundland spoken word aficionado, did his thang on The New Spin with David Day backing him on guitar with some great alt-tuned licks that remind me of John Fahey and other instrumental acoustic guitar greats. I saw these guys down at Natalie Noseworthy’s open-mic night at the Hava Java, and John Brown has been going down there for more than a year now. John Brown initially started at the now defunct Turner’s Tavern.

Here’s the New Spin Podcast of John Brown and David Day, otherwise known as The Hip Replacements. This also features the hit “Once I Went On Medication.”

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dashiell brown

Hear all my other New Spin Podcasts.

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(photo by Tom Cochrane)

Dan Trouble performed on The New Spin last month as she was getting ready to audition for a major label in Toronto. Here she is playing at The Bovine Sex Club on Feb. 23, opening for Manitoba’s The Brat Attack. We talked about her latest EP Horses with Lazers and why she plays in DADGAD tuning so often.  Jordan Young also made a special guest appearance, backing her up on guitar.

Here is the whole podcast for your listening pleasure.

Dan Trouble will be touring the mainland this summer with her new outfit DT & the Dinosaurs, including J Young on bass. And don’t forget every Tuesday night at CBTG’s, DT with her co-host Andrew Mast host a variety show, opening the stage to a “wonderful host of randoms, hooligans and sometimes even musicians. It’s the only show in St. John’s where you’ll see a Jazz pianist, Ska trio and a Thrash Metal band on the same night on the same stage. ” Thanks, Uke!

Want more podcasts? Here are all the live shows/interviews I’ve had on The New Spin.

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It’s RPM time again, where you record an album only in February, the month of the blah’s. I recorded one last year called Circuit Tree and it was quite the experience. Though I have only just begun to sample some of the albums, I was excited to see that AE Bridger, along with Justin Guzwell, made one this year. AE Bridger is one of the most exciting acts to see downtown here in St. John’s, and rather than reaching for a cup of coffee to wake you up, might I suggest listening to People on Pause for the kind of jolt you probably didn’t know you needed to nudge you out of whatever reverie you might currently be finding yourself in.

People on Pause barrage you with an experimental, psychedelic wash of loosely-based pop music to keep you groovin’, and throwing in a circus of noise and sonic play akin to getting hit with a taser gun lest you get too comfortable. Any fan of Les Claypool’s more experimental side will understand. Remember Sausage?

Even better, you can listen to the whole album online at the RPM site, as well as many others. Highlights from People on Pause are Girl From Blight, Jack-O-Lantern, and Black Mice.

You can also read my review for AE Bridger’s album, I am a Ghostly Leech.

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On his latest album with his latest band, Patrick Molloy and The Manifest’s Who Will Listen? is bold, italicized, and even underlined. He is clearly shooting for the moon on this one, channeling the progressive power rock of Rush a la Vapor Trails, with an Ozzie Osbourne-like wail that sounds surprisingly fresh against today’s trendy pop-oriented music industry and—daring.

Whether his aim was true will actually depend on who will listen but I’m sure radio stations here in Newfoundland and Labrador and across Canada will eat it up. From what I understand, they already are. “Who Will Listen?” was already featured as the Producers Pick on The East Coast Countdown and won the Regional Radio Star National Songwriting Competition for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Patrick Molloy will be representing Newfoundland in Toronto from March 10-14th during Canadian Music Week for the National Prize of the Radio Star competition. It’s apt because his album manages to reflect the smorgasbord of the tastes and styles you’ll hear from so many of the local bands here in St. John’s, from the progressive hard rock of The Pathological Lovers to the more punchy new-wave of The Subtitles.

Though a few songs may feel incomplete or less developed, there are a number of hits here, in particular “Darkness Glows” and “Peace, Now, Today” which I still have in my head. Produced right here in St. John’s by gold and platinum award-winning producer Krisjan Leslie, Who Will Listen? serves up a heaping dish of all that’s fresh and happening here in the St. John’s music scene, and Patrick Molloy must have felt it his duty to deliver such a showcase. For that alone, you can thank him.

Preview his new album online at www.patrickmolloy.ca

Here’s an interview I had with him last year on The New Spin.

(The New Spin airs every Thursday night, 9-11 PM Newftime, 7:30 Eastern on 93.5 CHMR-FM.)

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Now that I’m back from vacation, I’ll be on the air tonight, bringing you all new editions of The Folkin’ Freak Show and Other Frequencies.

The Folkin’ Freak Show, 9 PM

Possible list of artists: White Magic, Castlemusic, Dory Previn, Burning Hell, T. Bone Burnett, Jenn Grant, Litterbug, and Weather Station, to name a few.

Other Frequencies, 10 PM

Local turntablist DJ TJ will be my special guest. Who knows what’ll happen!

Streaming online tonight on 93.5 CHMR-FM, 9-11 PM, 7:30 Eastern, 4:30 Pacific

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When it comes to unique Canadian jazz/dance acts, it doesn’t get better or funkier than Halifax’s Gypsophilia, a dynamic seven-piece that’ll blow you away (with their horns, guitars, keys, violin, accordions, double-bass and more) and infuse you with a can of get-yer-jive-on whoop-ass. Largely inspired by Django Reinhardt (like our own Duane Andrews) in sound (and dress!) their quixotic early 20th Century gypsy jazz sound smoothly crosses through genres of swing, be-bop-’til-you-drop, blues, reggae, funk, klezmer, even R&B and Eastern European flava, and anything else they might feel like throwing at you. Further setting themselves apart from other “similar” jazz acts is the fact that they don’t have a drummer, primarily using the guitar and the bass to drive their compelling rhythms, zig-zagging through time signatures and tempo changes like sunbeams weaving through dust. Since they are currently in St. John’s as part of the Wreckhouse Jazz and Blues Festival, I saw their incredible, foot-stomping performance at the Martini Bar on George Street last night and had the pleasure of interviewing Ross Burns, Adam Fine, and Nick Wilkinson in the CHMR studio.

Listen to this exclusive Folkin’ Freak Show podcast, which will also air this Tuesday night at 9 PM on 93.5 CHMR-FM. Only on SOME WICKED (R)

Want to stay updated about The Folkin’ Freak Show. Become a fan! “Folked up music for a folked up world,” every Tuesday, 9 PM. Then stay tuned to my electronic and avant-garde show, Other Frequencies at 10 PM. And don’t forget The New Spin, of course!

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dashiell brown

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Fresh on the scene out of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Matthew Hornell has only been playing guitar since high-school, but his songs aim right for your gut, riding on pure emotion. His well-crafted folk songs draw you in, you’ll be singing along, feeling at home as in front of the campfire with good food and friends. Sounding timeless, yet fresh and bold, played live, his songs are executed with whip-crack precision. And when backed up by Tiffany Hancock’s beautiful and exquisite vocals, the duets become absolute magic. “Goodbye for Now” is purely enchanting, and “Khaki Dodgers” is an immediate hit. You’ll be singing it for days. Matthew Hornell and The Diamond Minds seems to have struck gold, and we should be so lucky they want to share it with us.

–Dashiell Brown, The New Spin and The Folkin’ Freak Show

Local St. John’s folk act Matthew Hornell of Matthew Hornell and the Diamond Minds, and special guest Tiffany Hancock, performed in the studio and played several great numbers on The New Spin. Listen to the podcast here.

For more great folk music, be sure to check out my new show, The Folkin’ Freak Show. Tuesdays, 9-10 PM, streaming online at 93.5 CHMR-FM.

(Photo taken by Jon Janes)

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A few weeks ago, Jon Janes of St. John’s The Mountains and The Trees was my guest on The New Spin. He has a new e.p., Hop, Skip and a Jump, and is playing at the North by Northeast Festival and Conference currently underway in Toronto. Strongly influenced by Iron and Wine, he brought his banjo, guitar, and harmonica and played a few ditties and we chatted folk, which I also play on my new show, The Folkin’ Freak Show, Tuesdays 9-10 PM (7:30 Eastern) on 93.5 CHMR-FM.

Here is The New Spin Podcast, featuring Jon Janes of The Mountains and The Trees.

Here is his website.

“As the name suggests, The Mountains and The Trees will wash over you with simpler times, lost memories, and wonderful dreams.”

– Dashiell Brown, The New Spin

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When it comes to St. John’s musicians, you can’t get any more homegrown than five-time MusicNL Award nominee Ian Foster, but this summer he’s going to spread his roots, embarking on his largest Canadian tour to date, to promote two remarkable new albums, We Begin Here and Found: Music From the Unmade Film, his latest project composed for the 2009 RPM Challenge (my own RPM album is here.) I chatted with him to get a better understanding of who this guy is and what he’s all about.

Ian Foster is not unknown in these parts. He was born and raised here in St. John’s, playing the keyboards in Radio Shack at 10 years old until he got kicked out of the place. His parents then gave him a keyboard and he immediately started playing The Beatles’ songs that came with the book. Seeing this as a signal that Foster seemed to have a knack for this music thing, they enrolled him in private lessons for piano and voice. Foster picked up the guitar along the way, though he didn’t study music at the university; rather, he majored in English and History because he enjoyed the folk/pop/rock idioms of popular music and though he loves classical music, he didn’t want to devote himself to the formal study of it.

He started gigging live in 2003, supporting other musicians, and then went out on his own with the Ian Foster Band, debuting his critically-acclaimed album, Through the Wires in 2006, which captured the live sets his band had been playing. But since the other members of the IFB had other jobs and priorities, the IFB served as a one-shot deal, and Foster has been going solo since, having released Room in the City and now his two new releases.

Where Through the Wires was about methods of communication, Room in the City was about traveling in cities, which had a major impact on him as he started to tour his material, made possible by funding through MusicNL. His latest release We Begin Here is about history. “There’s a weight to history and we feel it. If we don’t feel it, we should—it has to at least be acknowledged,” Foster says.

For example, take his Dylanesque folk song, “Gone with the Good Earth,” driven by his rich acoustic guitar and harmonica. The title, taken from Robert Wright’s A Short History of Progress, laments the plight of the farmer, the entropy of man’s detrimental effect on his land, farming the land until there’s nothing left. “I used to know what it was worth/But now it all seems to be washed away/Gone with the good earth.” History teaches us we must be good to the land. Not only today’s farmer, but the microcosm of modernity surrounding the farmer, is all but destroying it.

Or take “The Pacific’s Waters”, a folk song also inspired by history, in this case, herstory. A 30 yr. old woman sat next to Foster on a Greyhound bus and revealed that she had left her family to go meet a man she had met online, to see if she could escape her failing marriage, her own past which she was trapped by, to see what could be. We must acknowledge history, but sometimes we are compelled to go forward.

The title track “We Begin Here” is the centerpoint of the album and defines its overlying theme: “History is just an art of creating where we begin.” Foster means that history is not set in stone, that it invites many interpretations, and it’s flexible. In other words, as the title of the first track states, “the future is an ocean,” and “you’ve gotta be brave enough to sail.”

When asked about his own future, what his plans were, and whether he felt successful, he modestly told me, “I do…when I get close to writing the songs that I hear in my head…I know it sounds cliché, but I just want to make the music I want to make.” In fact, his aim has always been about communication. If he can make people respond to his music in some way, then he feels successful. He told me about the 1000 true fans theory, that if you can get 1000 loyal fans that will support you, buy all of your music, follow everything you do, then you can make a living doing what you love as a musician. But for Foster, I got the impression this would be the icing on the cake for him. Doing what you love and being able to do it, that’s his ultimate aim, and he feels he’s achieving it.

Indeed, once you listen to his two brand new releases, you will feel it for yourself. We Begin Here and Found are the mark of a man who fears no musical bounds or traps himself in any kind of formulaic song craft or sticks to any one genre. This isn’t songwriting to be ignored but wrapped around you like a cozy blanket that will get better with the wear and tear, especially the Knopfler-like “Different Songs,” perhaps my favorite song on the album, an ode in a way to all the different songs will you hear, not only on We Begin Here, but also on Found: Music From the Unmade Film, which has a Magnum P.I.-like techno number, a ragtimey piano jazz feel, and a gypsy, flamenco track; the album is mostly instrumental and may be somewhat inspired by Daniel Lanois. It is also an enhanced cd, which includes images of the unmade film.

We Begin Here slows to a crawl towards the end, taking you into more contemporary territory, with several power ballads, but the album is quite a journey and utterly memorable, like he’s taken you into a delicate, vulnerable world you never knew existed and want to protect with your life, lest it too be gone with the good earth.

Ian Foster’s tour and cd-release party begins here in St. John’s at The Ship, Sunday, June 21. This will be his fifth tour and his largest to date.  His website is ianfoster.ca.

Listen to Ian Foster this Tuesday on my new show, The Folkin’ Freak Show on 93.5 CHMR-FM, Tuesdays 9-10 PM, newftime, 7:30 Eastern, 4:30 Pacific.

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I am debuting two new shows tonight on CHMR-FM, The Folkin’ Freak Show and Other Frequencies. I have happily agreed to share a pint with myself and discuss the ever-growing popularity of the new folk movement and my two new shows.

ME: Hi, thank you for taking the time to chat with me.

DB: No sweat, but let’s make this snappy. I gotta prepare for my shows tonight.

ME: OK, sure. So, why The Folkin’ Freak Show? Isn’t there enough folkin’ music in this town?

DB: No, you can never have enough folk music. Folk music is the music of the people, the John Doe’s of the world, and when you consider Newfoundland’s own history, it’s no coincidence folk and trad. is so important here. Folk is labor songs, maritime songs, mountain songs, railroad songs…rock n’ roll grew out of it. And look at all the folk festivals going on everywhere, not to mention all the great new folk music popping up in St. John’s. And Tom Power’s Deep Roots on CBC2. You have folk night at The Ship every Wednesday. So why isn’t there a local show about it? It’s about folkin’ time, don’t you think?

ME: But don’t you play folk music on The New Spin?

DB: Well, The New Spin’s focus is really on new music, hot off the press, with lots of punk, post-punk and indie rock—folk fans might not dig that. The New Spin was initially called The Folkin’ Freak Show, but when I saw how much insanely good new music was coming to CHMR, I realized I had to devote an entire show to just playing the new stuff. But I still find I’m gravitating towards the folk-oriented new stuff. It needs its own show.

ME: So will it just be new folk music, then?

DB: No. The New Spin is a showcase of all that is great out there right now, that isn’t getting radio play or much promotion. The Folkin’ Freak Show will be about folk and world music and discuss it’s historical importance and influence to today’s mass movement that has brought us the likes of Devendra Banhart, Iron and Wine, M. Ward, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, etc. It’ll be a mix of the old and new. There’s a whole slew of new Canadian folk, too, Timbre Timbre, Bruce Peninsula, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir… It’s a very exciting time for folk music. The Dark Was the Night comp is proof of this.

ME: Yeah, Grizzly Bear just hit the Billboard Charts with the likes of Eminem and Lady Gag. Animal Collective hit the charts at #13 with their latest release. Why do you think folk music is taking off again so suddenly?

DB: Well, it wasn’t suddenly, but Devendra Banhart has a lot to do with it when he released his critically-acclaimed album, Rejoicing in the Hands in 2004. But many other bands were doing the same thing, like Iron and Wine, Joanna Newsom, Coco-Rosie, Animal Collective, M. Ward…I think people were growing tired of shitty, compressed-to-death pop music which represented a growing commercialism and domination of the entire music industry which quickly killed the grunge movement in the 90’s. Folk music quickly moved in to fill the gap, but it took more than ten years for the world to catch on to this growing revolution. Malls are out, folk music is in. And now with the global economy in its fragile state…the new folk movement is going to speak to more people than ever. And it’s about folkin’ time.

ME: And aren’t you doing another new show after that?

DB: Other Frequencies, yes, a showcase of electronica and underground hip hop. What with Loft 709 on the go, Errand Boy, Le Malediction, Aoke, Sports, and Ye-Yeti, the popularity of electronica, dance and hip hop is growing, but there’s no show about it here either, and it needs a voice. New DJ’s are popping up and new electronica acts. Let’s support it.

ME: Do you plan on having guests on your show as you do on The New Spin?

DB: Funny you asked. Ryan Green of Patch is going to be my guest to help me launch Other Frequencies tonight. We’ll be spinning some Patch tunes, plus some of his favorite electronic tracks. Should be pumpin’.

The Folkin’ Freak Show roots through the backwoods to bring the best this folked-up world has to offer. Tuesday nights, 9-10 PM, streaming online on 93.5 CHMR-FM, or Rogers cable 942.

Other Frequencies is the first all-electronic show in St. John’s to get your booty groovin’, all genres of electronic music, from dub and grime to techno and trance. Tuesday nights, 10-11 PM, right after The Folkin’ Freak Show.

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