Our band lives on a massive island that is pigment green with sharp grey mountains moving slowly and peninsula fingers stretching out and snagging the sea. The people in the band are all different heights and all have very different tastes in music and very different ways of expressing emotion or thinking about art.
We started making noises in a concrete basement on the wrong side of the railroad tracks in Victoria, Canada six years ago, and we had a lot of conversations with each other through many songs. Some of these conversations were long and sad and unsure of what they were about. Some of them were many voices talking at once but understanding each other perfectly and saying the same thing in different, unconscious ways; and after this type of conversation we would quietly get into our cars and drive back across the tracks and feel a beautiful buzzing in our heads.
We took a bunch of songs and recorded them in 2006 with Neil Osborne. We called the record “Bridges” and we played the songs to each other and also played them to other people over and over and over again all over Canada, America, and Europe. Sometimes there were five thousand people listening and sometimes not, but the band loved putting the music into the air and letting it go.
When we got back to the island we put some heaters and carpets down in our concrete basement and dimmed the lights a bit and sometimes took a sip of scotch and stared at each other and thought about music and the strange relief of Fall but didnʼt talk about it and instead had a lot of conversations with each other through many many songs. So many songs this time that the band felt new and old at the same time which is, I think, a wonderful feeling. In the middle of the winter we put all our instruments, carpets, heaters, lamps and do-dads in a giant truck and moved everything up to a cabin on another, smaller island off the western coast of Canada (Hornby Island, BC) that is crushingly beautiful and calm. We again asked Neil Osborne to join us, and together the band stood facing each other in a circle under an angled skylight. The sound of the songs filled the room and the sound would only stop when someone was frustrated or hungry or needed to watch some Flight of the Conchords or stand out on the porch in the dark and listen to the wind moving the huge trees.
We have put together a group of these new songs and we have called the record “No Nations”. The songs have played over and over again in our heads until they no longer sound like songs, but more like a list of a million decisions and feelings and moments. We are ready to put the music into the air and let it go.
- Antonia
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More information on Jeys Overhead:
http://www.myspace.com/jetsoverhead
The Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Duhks have always gravitated towards traditional roots-based song structures, but they’ve never stopped evolving since their inception five years ago. Due in part to a collective musical worldview that knows no boundaries, that evolution led the band to their latest offering Fast-Paced World, the first Duhks record to feature prodigies Sarah and Christian Dugas (replacing vocalist Jessee Havey and percussionist Scott Senior respectively). It’s an album that reflects the quintet’s newfound confidence, with Sarah bringing five original songs to the band’s encyclopedic collection of originals and covers both old and new.
The French-Canadian born Dugas siblings have been immersed in music their whole lives, thanks in part to their musician parents. “We had a family band that toured across Canada when I was 7 and Christian was 9,” remembers Sarah. “My father had a recording studio in the house, so I grew up hearing a variety of musicians playing everything from rap to rock to world beat. I grew up in a fun and creative environment.”
Dugas’ emergence as a songwriter has clearly contributed to the group’s progression — the other members are fiddler Tania Elizabeth, guitarist Jordan McConnell and founder/banjo player Leonard Podolak — from the jaunty pop of “You Don’t See it” to the jazz-waltz of “This Fall,” the Duhks’ enthusiastic fan base has embraced the changes. “The reaction has been really positive,” says Dugas. “We’ve been able to keep the old fans and gotten some new ones as well.”
“There’s a more liberal attitude in the band when it comes to songwriting approaches,” admits Podolak. That attitude has even extended to drummer Christian’s use of a full kit, in contrast to the band’s previous use of just percussion. “My musical tastes have broadened immensely since we first started,” Podolak adds. “I think we’ve evolved musically, while maintaining our roots, but everybody in the band listens to so many different things, it was bound to happen.”
It’s that kind of musical DNA that makes the band’s spot-on fusion of traditional bluegrass, folk rock, Afro-Cuban jazz and soul so accessible and yet so hard to pigeonhole. It’s also earned them a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Country Vocal Performance category as well as a Juno award in their native Canada.
Accolades aside, the band doesn’t see any reason to pull their punches lyrically, as Dugas laments on the funky title track, “We’ve forgotten what’s sacred in this fast-paced world.” “It’s a song that’s essentially about over-consumption,” remarks Podolak. “We’ve all grown up with an outlook where’s there’s enough for everyone without destroying the earth.”
Environmental issues are a passion for the band, inspiring them to launch The Duhks Sustainability Project (www.greenduhks.com) in October 2007. Spearheaded by Tania Elizabeth, the band’s goal is to “tour on as sustainable a basis as possible; fueling our vehicle with Biodiesel, supporting local organic farmers wherever we go, wearing sustainable eco-conscious clothing, using earth-friendly shampoos, soaps and cosmetics and offsetting remaining CO2 emissions with carbon credits.”
“As a band, it’s something we feel very strongly about,” says Podolak. “We just want to reduce our carbon footprint as much as humanly possible.”
Fast Paced World was produced by the Nashville-based Jay Joyce (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt), who joins an impressive set of producers (Béla Fleck, Tim O’Brien) before him. “Jay’s basement studio was like something out of the Star Trek Enterprise,” laughs Podolak. Despite trying to quit smoking at the time (4 nicotine patches at once!), Joyce was “very open to our ideas and very easy to work with. I also think he learned as much from us as we did from him about combining the acoustic and electric elements of our songs in a studio setting,” continues Podolak.
As the band continues their own musical evolution, Fast-Paced World illustrates just how far the Duhks have come—and just how far they’re willing to go to challenge themselves artistically. Ultimately though, according to Leonard, the Duhks “just want to play music that speaks to everybody.” Mission accomplished.
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More information on The Dhuks:
http://www.myspace.com/theduhks
Who are they?
Ashley Boo-Schultz and Human Kebab
Where are they from?
Parkdale, Toronto, Canada
How have they been described?
Progressive Dance Folk/Campfire After Party
What do they want?
They want everyone to have a crush on life.
Without going into too much explanation… Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, lovingly known by those daunted by big words as USS, are musical chameleons. Perhaps chameleon is not the correct term, but rather, the closest in proximity. USS appeal to the masses. If this were a John Hughes film we would be cueing up the snapshots of the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the beauty and the criminal all being equally galvanized by the soothing, yet particularly positive and impactful use of imagery such as ‘beats drop like cod fish stocks’, while pondering with wonderment the concept of ‘the birds singing Fur Elise to me’. Each of them would firmly believe that USS is speaking to them. They would notice people, not of their kind, surrounding them but they would feel that USS is the transmitter and they are the receiver.
The USS show harkens back to an old school, yet neo-vaudevillian atmosphere. Think Nirvana unplugged at a Science Centre Rave. Chuck D and Flavor Flav at a motivational seminar. Bob Marley in a Lab Coat: anything is possible. Their message is delivered melodically with contagious optimism by Ashley Boo-Schultz, creator of all things musical, while the hypeman / turntablist, Human Kebab, elicits dance floor pandemonium and wide scale audience singalongs. Whether dealing with rainy day rec room reverie, psycho-pharmaceutical protocol or the physics of emotional responsibility, Ash’s perceptions of existence are painted with randomness and divergence. Only Human Kebab’s Ferris Bueller esque disposition could bring such a left field visionary back to a place of accessibility. Here in lies the dualistic beauty of their partnership. Human makes it almost seem normal when the blender comes out on stage and Ash mixes himself up a smoothie mid song, so that he is fit, both mentally and physically, to guide everyone present into their mad scientist laboratory of self transcendence.
This brings us to Hollowpoint Sniper Hyperbole. While making some cash to repay his student loan on an oil pipeline in northern Alberta, Hypeman Human got a call from a friend. The friend, rather excitedly delivered the news that 102.1The Edge in Toronto, Ontario was playing a song (the aforementioned Hollowpoint Sniper Hyperbole) off of their self released EP, Welding the C:/. Human called Ash who was attending a college basketball game in Texas on an emotional pilgrimage. Now what? Neither of them had anticipated this momentous opportunity after their glorious night of bliss (a self financed EP release party at the Gladstone in the heart of Toronto’s Parkdale in July of ’07) and had gone their separate ways. Hmmm… interesting. Human asks his foreman for a couple of days off, Ash turns the caravan around and heads home. They shoot a video and drop by the station for an interview with ear to the ground dj, Barry Taylor (responsible for getting the song into rotation). Human returns to the tundra, Ash continues his pilgrimage and quickly they realize the runway has been paved and they have taken flight! Hollowpoint enters heavy rotation, out spinning the likes of Coldplay and Radiohead. The band headlines 102.1 The Edge’s Next Big Thing concert on May 30th to a record-setting frenzied crowd of over 2000 people and then kicks off the main stage on the station’s much coveted festival, Edgefest.
Labels clamor after them; radio across the country jumps on board the single. More and more people subscribe to their theory to “Expect the unexpected”. That’s the story of how science meets spirit. Bob Marley in a lab coat? Welcome to USS and the soundtrack of possibility.
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More information on USS:
http://www.myspace.com/ubiquitoussynergyseeker
