additional silverhearts article from the star
`Brothel blues' from the heart
Apr. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM
VIT WAGNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
There's a trick to turning the clock back musically without leaving the impression that your songs belong in a museum. And it's expertly mastered by the Silver Hearts on their new disc, Dear Stranger.
Bolstered by an instrumental arsenal that includes fiddles, accordion and the seldom-heard sousaphone, Peterborough's "brothel blues orchestra" splits the difference between past and present in a way that does justice to both.
"Some of the instrumentation we use was more prevalent in a much earlier era — maybe in our grandparents' or our great grandparents' time or at the turn of the previous century," says Charlie Glasspool, whose contributions to the ensemble include piano, trumpet and occasional vocals. "At the same time, we're obviously living, breathing artists writing songs in the 21st century.
"There's a certain joie de vivre or hedonism in our songs that you might not get in a lot of contemporary music. We celebrate the vices and virtues of an older time when people weren't quite as uptight. Sometimes it feels like the puritans are taking over. And the Silver Hearts are definitely a statement against that sort of behaviour."
The Silver Hearts, formed back at the turn of the current century, are renowned for boisterous live sets featuring as many as a dozen or more players. On Dear Stranger, which has its official Toronto launch tomorrow at the Mod Club Theatre, the band has added Deadly Snakes vocalist Andre Ethier to the mix.
Ethier, who sympathetically lends his gravelly pipes to the dissolute "Whiskey Blind," "Sweet Sweetheart" and several other tracks, previously joined in for one song on the Silver Heart's live recreation of Tom Waits's Rain Dogs.
"The Silver Hearts always come across as a very exuberant and lively bunch, so it's nice to have a singer in front of us," Glasspool says. "We've all taken a turn singing various songs, but the energy level and enthusiasm is even greater when we have someone like Andre leading the charge.
"He's fearless and really bold but also, by turns, tender and mild. That fits really well with the Silver Hearts."
The album, recorded in four days last summer at the Peterborough home of accordion player Kelly Pineault, approximates the warm intimacy of a live session — even if, Glasspool concedes, the band has largely resigned itself to the impossibility of replicating its shows on disc. "A frequent criticism of the band has been that the songs and the recordings are great but that there is just no comparison to the performance," he says. "That's something we really can't do much about.
"We've tried to capture a live vitality by recording as many people at once as possible, without a lot of overdubbing, to varying degrees of success, I guess. Maybe we've given up a bit on trying to sound `live' on a recording. I just hope we're true to the material. And that people enjoy it."
Additional articles by Vit Wagner
Apr. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM
VIT WAGNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
There's a trick to turning the clock back musically without leaving the impression that your songs belong in a museum. And it's expertly mastered by the Silver Hearts on their new disc, Dear Stranger.
Bolstered by an instrumental arsenal that includes fiddles, accordion and the seldom-heard sousaphone, Peterborough's "brothel blues orchestra" splits the difference between past and present in a way that does justice to both.
"Some of the instrumentation we use was more prevalent in a much earlier era — maybe in our grandparents' or our great grandparents' time or at the turn of the previous century," says Charlie Glasspool, whose contributions to the ensemble include piano, trumpet and occasional vocals. "At the same time, we're obviously living, breathing artists writing songs in the 21st century.
"There's a certain joie de vivre or hedonism in our songs that you might not get in a lot of contemporary music. We celebrate the vices and virtues of an older time when people weren't quite as uptight. Sometimes it feels like the puritans are taking over. And the Silver Hearts are definitely a statement against that sort of behaviour."
The Silver Hearts, formed back at the turn of the current century, are renowned for boisterous live sets featuring as many as a dozen or more players. On Dear Stranger, which has its official Toronto launch tomorrow at the Mod Club Theatre, the band has added Deadly Snakes vocalist Andre Ethier to the mix.
Ethier, who sympathetically lends his gravelly pipes to the dissolute "Whiskey Blind," "Sweet Sweetheart" and several other tracks, previously joined in for one song on the Silver Heart's live recreation of Tom Waits's Rain Dogs.
"The Silver Hearts always come across as a very exuberant and lively bunch, so it's nice to have a singer in front of us," Glasspool says. "We've all taken a turn singing various songs, but the energy level and enthusiasm is even greater when we have someone like Andre leading the charge.
"He's fearless and really bold but also, by turns, tender and mild. That fits really well with the Silver Hearts."
The album, recorded in four days last summer at the Peterborough home of accordion player Kelly Pineault, approximates the warm intimacy of a live session — even if, Glasspool concedes, the band has largely resigned itself to the impossibility of replicating its shows on disc. "A frequent criticism of the band has been that the songs and the recordings are great but that there is just no comparison to the performance," he says. "That's something we really can't do much about.
"We've tried to capture a live vitality by recording as many people at once as possible, without a lot of overdubbing, to varying degrees of success, I guess. Maybe we've given up a bit on trying to sound `live' on a recording. I just hope we're true to the material. And that people enjoy it."
Additional articles by Vit Wagner
posted by Hoolaine at 5:33 PM
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