(Old Man Luedecke. Photo: Killbeat Music.)
Nova Scotia banjo picker Old Man (Chris) Luedecke is releasing his latest effort, My Hands are on Fire and Other Love Songs, on March 30.
The album follows up his Juno-award winning (Roots Album) Proof of Love. Joining Luedecke again at the production helm is Steve Dawson. The album was recorded over three dates with Keith Lowe (Fiona Apple, Bill Frisell) on bass, John Raham (Be Good Tanyas, Po’ Girl) on drums and Grammy award-winning Tim O’Brien (Hot Rize, Steve Earle) on fiddle, mandolin and vocals.
“Good music is honest to its time,” Luedecke says in a press release. “The old blues and country artists I love were singing about the world they lived in. When they sang about trains and telephones, they weren’t being ironic. It was new and what they saw around them.
“I want the songs I write to be catchy, but not at the cost of being true. I hear so many songs that have beautiful melodies, but I don’t know what they’re about and I can’t feel them. I try to write about my life in a way that I’d like to read about somebody else’s life.”
Luedecke has two east coast shows lined up in the coming months:
April 30 – Halifax @ Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
May 1 – Fredericton @ The Charlotte Street Arts Center
Ruth Minnikin releases new record
The press release for Ruth Minnikin and Her Bandwagon’s latest effort, Depend on This (Songmill Music) says the record was finished “27 months, two weeks, five days and 11 hours after its noble beginnings.”
It took some time, but the follow-up to acclaimed 2006 album Folk Art is in stores now. Divided into two halves, the album explores two sides of Minnikin’s creativity. She describes the completed album as, “a conceptually dramatized exaggeration of an avant-garde jalapeno pepper on a life raft.”
Minnikin’s first band, Booming Airplanes, was signed to EMI during the Halifax pop explosion of the 1990’s. Her chamber-pop side project, The Heavy Blinkers, developed a cult following all over the world, and at the turn of the millenium, Ruth made two albums and toured the UK and the US with alt-country quintet, The Guthries.
She’s appeared on over 50 recordings throughout her career.
Depend On This track list:
01. The Theme Song I
02. Sleeping and Dreaming I
03. Four Churches I
04. Depend On This I
05. Animals of Bremen I
06. Finale I
07. The Theme Song II
08. Sleeping and Dreaming II
09. Four Churches II
10. Depend On This II
11. Animals of Bremen II
12. Finale II
Minnikin has showcases planned during ECMA weekend in Sydney. She also has the following date planned for this weekend:
Feb. 13 – Wolfville, N.S. @ Al Whittle Theatre
Mullane unleashes Shift
Nova Scotia’s Jon Mullane is releasing his latest album, Shift, this month.
He’ll debut the album with a show on Friday, Feb. 26 in Halifax from 5-8 p.m. at the Pogue Fado. The launch is being held in conjunction with Molsen’s monthly Give ‘Er’ event. The $5 admission is in support of the 2011 Canada Winter Games
Mullane worked with producer Creighton Doane on Shift. Mullane describes the collaboration as “…two ‘80’s boys channeling their inner synth-rock gods!!”
“Shift continues where my last album, The Source, left off – a shift in momentum, a shift in direction, and a shift in energy,” he says.
The single Make You Move saw heavy chart action and was featured in NBC’s international promotional campaign for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and was the official theme for the World Canoe ’09 Championships.
Andrew Watt and the Glory Glory make debut
Nova Scotia’s Andrew Watt and the Glory Glory will celebrate the release of its debut album, First Day of Summer Life, on Feb. 19 at the Seahorse Tavern in Halifax.
The band became the new musical outlet for former The Heavy Blinkers co-frontman Andrew Watt last year when he enlisted the aid of three complete strangers to help make his debut solo record.
Recruiting Halifax rock trio Glory Glory Man United as his backing band was a leap of faith for Watt, he says: “I decided to blindly invite these strangers to come over to the studio and rehearse my album. It was a real gamble that has paid off.”
Robert Drisdelle (Poison Percy Rufus) was soon brought in to record horn and string arrangements and finally Dreamsploitation’s Charles Blazevic to help work on the final mixes.
As a member of the internationally renowned Halifax pop outfit The Heavy Blinkers, Watt received critical acclaim from magazines such as Mojo, Q, Uncut and Rolling Stone. Recently, The Heavy Blinkers were named one of the “greatest bands you probably never heard of” by Spin.
Smothered in Hugs drop name
P.E.I. band Smothered in Hugs is now English Words. The band announced the name change last month at a gig to release the new 4-song EP Customer Appreciation.
The band says it’ll have a new website up shortly branded with the new name.
In the meantime, check out the band on tour with In-Flight Safety.
And with that …
In-Flight Safety tours Maritimes
In-Flight Safety is embarking on a Maritime tour this winter in support of its latest album, We Are An Empire, My Dear. The band was recently nominated for six East Coast Music Awards and had a song featured on NBC’s Chuck.
The band will perform two shows in Vancouver during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games before returning to the Maritimes for their tour.
The Maritime dates are:
Feb. 25 – Moncton @ The Paramount w/ English Words, John Jerome and Great 88
Feb. 26 – Halifax @ The Seahorse w/ Rich Aucoin & The Stance
Feb. 27 – Charlottetown @ Baba’s Lounge w/ English Words & The Orb Weavers
Mar. 4 – Sydney @ Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion (ECMA Concert Series Stage)
The Cottars bounce back with new album
Cape Breton Celtic four-piece The Cottars are back with a new album, Feast, on Rounder Records this month. Featuring traditional songs as well as tunes by founding band member Fiona MacGillivray, the album is the band’s first since 2006’s Forerunner.
The new album may come as a surprise to some, for The Cottars, originally made up of two sets of siblings, Fiona and Ciarán MacGillivray and Roseanne and Jimmy MacKenzie, split up some time ago.
However, the MacGillivrays are back, this time with new members Claire Pettit and Bruce Timmons.
Feast was released this week, and its track listing is as follows:
1. Overture
2. Fare Thee Well, Northumberland
3. Seagull
4. The Munster Suite
5. Song For Stephen Foster
6. Young Munro
7. The Contradiction Set
8. Leave Tomorrow Till It Comes
9. On A Pier
10. The 23rd of June
11. Hymn For N
12. Goodnight To You (Oidhche Mhath Leibh)
The band will perform on March 5 at Cruise Pavillion in Sydney, N.S. as part of the ECMA concert series.
