Minstrel

Of course The Biltmore was sold out! Headwater, C.R. Avery, and The River and The Road brought down the house. And if C.R. didn't nail you from the stage in the head with a beer can crushed by his sweaty, bare hands then you weren't really there!

The River and The Road were a delightful, surprising treat. Especially when they managed to get the frontmen from Headwater, Jonas and Matt, to join them in an encore. Yes, it is going to be a very good night when the sold out audience wants the relatively unknown opener to do an encore; this yet with Headwater (up second) and C.R. Avery with band and, of course, top-notch half-naked burlesque dancers on the way.

I was suffering severe spinal pain, but stayed late since we were having fun, and I'd embarrassingly never seen C.R. Avery live, despite listening to his recordings and YouTube for many years (and recording also out of Red Light – with Neal Miskin or Jesse Waldman.)

If you haven't seen Headwater's music video for "Your Love," here it is. It's clean, simple and filmed in our backyard in North Vancouver. I apologize to some of my friends who feel all I write about is Headwater. It's not true, but the only way to write is what you want and what you love, all the time and do nothing else.

So… Headwater really brought their act to a new level last night. The Georgia Straight and most reviewers, hey, probably the band, see themselves as finally becoming "rock". Ridiculous! We don't live in a world of genre anymore (if C.R. Avery that very night didn't remind us all of our endemic post-structural locality in 2012.)

Headwater was never country, nor were they a string-band. They were in metal acts as teens, Jonas on drums, Matt on guitar or bass even when he played in punk band The DC Tones (*DC stands for something venues often banned from print). The point, musicians aren't performing within genre anymore, and it frustrates me to think we still define our tastes that way.

I don't merely like alt rock, metal and Celtic. There are in fact only a handful of bands within those large genres that I listen to with any regularity.

Based on my iTunes plays, quite accurate despite mostly listening to vinyl:

My most listened to bands in 2011 are...

1. Mumford & Sons
2. John Hiatt
3. Black Dub (Daniel Lanois)
4. Maynard (Tool, Puscifer, APC)
5. Jeff Martin (The Tea Party, solo)

So far 2012:

1. Hugo
2. Headwater
3. Maynard (Tool, Puscifer, APC)
4. Gotye
5. Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

As you can see, I'm weird. There's no logic, nor genre loyalty. But unless your playlist is something like: Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Gotye, The Black Keys and Foo Fighters new album, I bet you're as erratic as most listeners when it comes to taste.

And yet we freak out when musicians change and grow. Dylan got booed when he went electric. So, I hope that Headwater doesn't get sucked into this new rock genre, and forget their roots (lol, yep, I said that.) The fact that Jonas sang "Lonely Trail" from their debut EP My Old Friend made me want to cry when I thought of that album release, my life at the time, and the full nostalgia of realizing how things change as we grow older.

Musicians must change what they do. Thank the gods Headwater has, and I hope they keep changing.

Tim and Patrick have said they would like to go do something more like My Old Friend again. I think the band is primed for a live album, or even a live EP. Or even just sending out a live track once a month from whatever show and let fans pay what they want. Those tracks, I can tell you, would get heavy rotation by me, at least, for sure.

As listeners, or music consumers if you like, we feel no guilt over what we like, regardless of its genre, and so I dis-'like' this idea of musicians being within this genre or that, or going from that to this other. Listeners listen to what we like. We don't care if our playlist has Enya, then VAST, then Headwater, and perhaps some Planxty or Christy Moore to really feel good today!

Listeners don't listen in genres, and musicians shouldn't think that way either. It won't get you radio play anymore, being rock, or being commercial even. Why bother pushing songs on radio stations when you can more easily hang-out online, chat, meet people and communicate that way. Of course, radio is still good, but fewer and fewer are listening to it.

I sell more online by being played and referenced in podcasts! I can't recall a single direct sail from any of a dozen radio interviews or live-on-air (including being the first uilleann piper to play live on FOX 99.3 in 2006).

Last night at The Biltmore, Headwater didn't unveil their new "rock outfit" or new "sound." Headwater just did what they always have done, made people dance by playing really fucking great new music!

A SECOND LISTEN to Headwater's Junior Recording, PUSH

Thank You Headwater, for letting me embed the new single "Your Love"

By Elegwen O'Maoileoin: @Minstrel2012

ALBUM: HEADWATER PUSH,

Release: April 2012 

In the wake of writing about Shannon Labrie, I've been inundated with unsolicited music, some even on major labels. And all of it's good. But none of it's great. None of it contains that je ne sais quoi that makes us play a track over and over again, tell all of our friends about it. Bob Lefsetz, "Quality" April 4^th, 2012

One thing I learned today was that for me, writing about music when I hear it, when I first listen to it, isn't forced. Not only that, it's part of the listening experience for me; part of my natural digestion. My friends probably see how this makes sense, as, when I can't write, I talk.

ALBUM REVIEW: PUSH by Headwater (Nowhere Town Records)

Listener-Response Criticism

by Elegwen O'Maoileoin

Similar to the reader-response criticism we learn at uni, common in hermeneuts like me, I want to write to you with the same immediacy as that upon which my experience is based. I am listening to PUSH, third studio album by Headwater for the very first time, WHILE I write this.

I am excited.

Matt even let me pre-order my numbered album on vinyl! For a price. Hey, musicians need money to make albums that sound good, with songs that are arranged, and rehearsed and even pre-recorded, and produced before they are recorded.

Have any of you heard the first recording of "Death of Me"? Very different. My sister likes it because she can swing dance to it; while I prefer the slower, grittier rendition that let's Patrick Metzger show his sick ability to master a slow beat, whilst Tim Tweedale turns the typically "twangy", "country"  steel guitar into an instrument of raunchy, sexual lamentation/invitation.

These tracks are done. Now it's our, the listeners turn. I don't think anyone will be disappointed.

1. "Your Love"

            The band Headwater writes all the songs. Of course we know Matt Bryant writes the most. It's like he can't stop. What's even more shocking to many narcissists with guitars – read, oops, musicians – is that Matt then lets, perhaps demands that his band mate Jonas Shandel brand the new song with his honey and molasses. (On this song, Shandel sounds to me like that guy with the bed hair who looks at you in the morning and you remember why you love him beyond his nice car and skinnies. That's how his voice sounds. Of course, my ears are weird.)

But mostly this is the kind of artistic selflessness and humility that I think can make a band. And nowhere is the creative power of that very selflessness demonstrated more than "Your Love".

            Who writes a hit then let's their best friend sing and record it? Headwater's got the love, apparently. Guitar narcissists…be jealous! These guys have done their 10,000 hours now. They mean business, or music, or wait…!

Post Scriptorum:

"Your Love" sounded better than I imagined. I imagined it sounding good. But not better than any of Headwater's previous recordings. It is. Producer Marc L'Espérance knows what he is doing, seriously. It is glossy. Glossier than anything from My Old Friend by a long shot. There's traces of rock and pop production. Perhaps more than traces. I'm speaking as a listener here.

            Perhaps the fade out is overdone, melodramatic. Then again, it's called "Your Love"; and I've only listened once. Likely the big dramatic fade out is appropriate, that is, apropos of the song's sonic content. (Can feel producers wincing at my language. Lol.)

            Bottom line, I love "Your Love." Live, it's like re-living that feeling of deeply, unquestionably, with child-like reverence, loving another person! It just MAKES you smile, so, all ye emo-inclined folk, beware listening in public, as it may lead to cheerfulness and hope. Be warned!

2. "Candy Town"

            Jonas sounds different on this, from the beginning. Not sure what I think of it. It's different, somehow. Mic, EQs, the key, the performance: who knows?

            I would love to get to interview Jonas about a lot of the decisions he makes artistically.

            And it seems to fit the song.

            Jonas, I want to live in Candy Town, please tell us ALL where it is, if or when you find out!

            The song is the main thing: First time I heard it was at Steve Edge's ROGUE FOLK CLUB, and I would have sworn it was a cover, I'd never heard. This reminded me of a line from the wonderful Crazy Heart, where Bad Blake says that 'it's always like that with the good ones.'

            This song is sadly eclipsed following "Your Love." At the same time, listeners who want something with some really cool, energetic drumming will be pleased.

            How cool is it that track one Is in 9, and track two is in 3. (Of course, they're both in three, and my drummer friends always say "it's still just in 4!" Crazy percussionists.)

            By this point, I am ready for a good' ol foot tappin' 4/4.

Headwater doesn't let me down.

3. "Sky is Falling"

            I must sound like a tool saying when I first heard this song live, I also thought it was a cover. Maybe because it sort of reminds me of my favourite song by Jon Crosby (VAST), "Falling From the Sky," while sonically it's got Peter Gabriel all over it.

            It's in 4!

4 "Fuel the Fire"

            I love and hate this track.

            No, I don't hate it. But it first-off seems incongruent with what I just listened too. For some, I think this will be a breath of fresher air from some of the lament and melancholy endemic to all four inlets of Headwater. Hey, they're artists, after all.

            But I know for a fact, one day, I will be cruising down the Hope-Princeton, Coquihalla, or I-5 and this song will come on whatever iMix or iMcBob is streaming from the cloud to our car's A.I. and, everyone will look at each other, smile, and share one of Director Crowe's "life is perfectly imperfect" moments.

            And this song will be the evil folk-pop source of that deep, life-affirming ecstasy for us all.

The frenetic 5-string banjo riff adds a touch of rhythm that I love, makes me want to dance, and reminds me of My Old Friend, their first and still best album til PUSH. (That EP gets a bad rap from people who like high-production, and think rougher albums to be "less good" when in fact, they are just different, not qualitatively better or worse. Of course, prejudice and pre-understandings (read: Gadamer) are deep embeds in our judgment processes.)

5. "I Know"

            For all you who hate pop -- pop of any kind -- even Headwater's distinct, folk brand: fear not. "I Know" has more melancholy than that old man, Lori, even if his ghost lingered around the shop a million years to see his entire line of ancestors live, flourish and run his shop til the Rapture (I imagine Lori's kids would be into the idea of a Rapture, but that's just my view of the story. And I've sung that song myself on stage a couple hundred times now.)

            Can you say, Iron and Wine? This track screams it! Or should I say, Jonas Shandel gently picks it & breathes it?

6. "All Good Things"

            Fuck! I'm not even going to write about this song. If my rare, professional use of profanity counts for anything…. Just listen.

            Okay, I'll say something: Humanity needs this song.

PS (Written at posting): Does it seem to anyone else like this PUSH sound could easily become definitive, especially outside B.C.? Could America hear this and say, "Yes, that is what we want North-West Coast folk-pop to BE!" I can't take credit for this thought. Buddy Neal Miskin voiced his thoughts last night when we played Malone's in Vancouver as Sloe Gin Sideshow. Fun. I wanted to do Nowhere Town, but maybe next month. But yes, in general, I very much think PUSH will contribute to the global mind of what is B.C. folk? And PUSH will gain a new audience for Headwater. It will lose some, as every new album always wins and loses some fans. That's the journey. Some bands hold us for a long time, some for a while. But the more you listen, the more you love and the more you will allow the band to take you with them. Liking a band is reciprocal, at least imho. ;)

Tóg é go bog é!

- El

Sessions, sessions and more sessions!

1033 Granville St: Johnnie Fox's Irish Snug

1. Wed 4-8
2. Thur 2-6
3. Fri 2-6
4. Sun 5-9

4450 W. 10th Ave: Dentry's Irish Pub

1. Sat (ST. PATRICK's) 1-3pm

It is time for traditional Irish music folks!

Find me on FACEBOOK!

"What artists and scientists have in common is the ability to live in an open-ended st ate of inter pretation and re-interpretation of the products of our work. The work of artists and scientists is ultimately the pursuit of truth, but members of both camps understand that truth in its very nature is contextual and changeable, dependent on point of view, and that today's truths become tomorrow's disproven [sic] hypotheses or forgotten objets d'art." – This Is Your Brain On Music, Daniel J. Levitin

This book has been changing me. 

Anyway, I was going to write about how hard it was to make Neal laugh for the happy persona character in his music video I posted about yesterday.   

However, that's benched. 

Tonight, I am going to see Headwater. Really, despite everything life can throw at you sometimes, a concert can heal it all.

And tonight, Headwater will heal all.

My spontaneous directorial debut...Neal's first music video:

Late night at Lucas' apartment studio in North Burnaby. 

Neal and Lucas were making Neal's first music video.

The song, "Mississippi Half-Step" by the Grateful Dead.

Neal is the biggest deadheads I know. 

While most of us don't get to see our favourite artists perform because many still perform under the scarcity mentality model of the major label days, Neal's problem is more... mortal. 

Gerry's dead.

It's sad, American Beauty spinning on vinyl on a warm summer's day is close to heaven. And I am FAR from a dead head.

Neal and Lucas were editing from ten hours of stock footage made laying bed tracks (initial recordings of drums, keys, and vox).

I suggested we use only snippets of that studio footage, and just think up a story and shoot in now. Right now.

So, we did...

Hence, my first directing work. I also did the shooting in B&W. 1 take for each persona of the character. 

There was no chance of sitting in a small bathroom longer with cigarette smoke. 

Enjoy!

Studio footage shot by Lucas Ross

Video edited by Lucas Ross

Starring the fabulous Neal Miskin of Commercial Drive Records

Directed by Elegwen Ó Maoileoin