After a few years of preparation, hard work and just honing her craft, tonight is Meaghan Smith’s big night.

The Halifax singer-songwriter, whose debut full-length record The Cricket’s Orchestra was released in early February, is celebrating the release of the album tonight at the Halifax Club, 1682 Hollis St.

Smith, her band and a horn and string section will perform at the 148-year-old club in a setting that should truly fit her music – a mix of old-timey folk and roots brought into 2010 with modern production techniques and a touch of sampling.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. The festivities get underway at 8 p.m. and wrap at 10 p.m. Opening act is Kim Dunn.

Smith spoke to East Coast Noise recently about her new album, which has been getting rave reviews since its release, and the learning experience her career has been for the last few years. Her happiness is palpable over the phone line from her home in Halifax. With a new record, her art being displayed in galleries and more tour dates coming, Smith has no complaints.

Plus, she’s already writing her next record. But more on that in a minute.

The Cricket’s Orchestra was actually finished two years ago. Smith funded the record herself and had no expectations for it.

“Essentially, I made it for myself,” Smith explains. “I didn’t have any management, I had no contacts anywhere with anybody. This record was just me leaving my day job just to see what would happen and just making a record that I wanted to listen to. I think that’s what I mean when I say I really did not know what was going to happen because I really wasn’t making it setting out to get ‘X’ amount of radio play or get a management deal or get a major label deal. That was kind of the furthest thing from my mind.”

But Smith’s “modern vintage” sound, as she calls it, was quickly snapped up by Sire/Warner, and the major label has been nurturing her career since.

Since finishing the recording of The Cricket’s Orchestra with producer Les Cooper, Smith released a sampler EP, The Cricket’s Quartet, she’s worked with legendary producer T-Bone Burnett on a cover of The Pixie’s Here Comes Your Man (available on the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack), toured with kd lang and done gigs with Sarah McLachlan and Ron Sexsmith.

Her album was put on the back burner while changes were taking place at her record label, but she’s grateful for the wait.

“They’ve been playing it really slow with me, gradually introducing me into marketplaces, and I feel like it’s exactly what I need,” she says. “I needed that time to get used to the fact that so many things were happening with my music and life personally and my record. I needed to catch up to it. I wasn’t mentally prepared for a lot of it.”

Smith says she learned a great deal during her two-month North American tour with kd lang last year.

“She started warming up first thing in the morning for a show that night. She’d kind of walk around soundcheck and through supper, you could hear her making these weird sounds … I’m not going to try to do them because she’s kd lang and I’m Meaghan Smith,” she explains with a laugh, “but it was like she was stretching her voice. And it sounded crazy at first.”

Smith says lang explained to her that she was just exercising her voice.

“I didn’t warm up ever,” Smith says. “I had no vocal training, I have no musical training, so I’ve never warmed up in my life. But after seeing her doing that, I started to do my own little warm-up exercises, and just the amazing difference that makes, being able to perform and just feeling confident that you’ve warmed up your voice, that does so much for you.”

Between playing with lang, McLachlan and Sexsmith, Smith has also learned about reading her audience and simply getting the most out of a performance.

Smith has come a long way. When she last spoke with East Coast Noise, she spoke of a debilitating stage fright she had to gradually get over in order to perform.

A little over a year later, she says she has it under control now, and on the odd occasion she feels that fright returning, she’s able to turn it into energy that she takes to the stage.

She’s ecstatic at the reviews The Cricket’s Orchestra has been getting, but she admits to also being a little shocked.

“I’m breathing a huge sigh of relief, and just feeling really, really thankful that they like what they’re hearing.”

Already, she’s working on material for her next record.

“I want to basically take what I did on the first record and that sound I found for myself, that modern/vintage sound that I found, and just exaggerate it and push the envelope as far as I can. I feel like I was kind of testing the waters with that record. I was seeing how people would react to various sounds and seeing how I felt about various sounds. I think that I played it kind of cautious in certain songs.”

On the next record, she says to expect more experimentation. Smith experimented on her current record with a collaboration with Kid Koala on the track A Little Love, and she says she’ll go further next time out, whether that means collaboration with country musicians, hip hop performers … she says she’s leaving her options open.

“(My music) is not everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s a lot of people’s cup of tea, and I’m excited about that,” she says.

After tonight’s performance, Smith heads out to Toronto, Montreal and down into the U.S. over the next few months. Check out her tour dates on her website.

Tickets to tonight’s show are $25 at the door. Smith will have paintings and various items of artwork available for purchase at the venue along with her new album.

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(Jenocide, Photo by kelly clark fotography, typicalgirl.com)

Jen Clarke says she doesn’t want to appear preachy, but if you listen to what her alter-ego, Jenocide, is saying in her danceable, hook-filled songs, there is undoubtedly a feminist point of view coming through.

“I do have political ideologies about feminism as an undercurrent to all that I do, but I never want to alienate people,” Clarke says. “It’s more about inclusiveness and empowerment than alienating (anyone). I want everyone, you know, guys and girls, to dance and have a good time above anything political. I just want to have fun songs with fun hooks that people want to dance to.”

Jenocide, also featuring beatmaker Ed “Erenzi” Renzi, is bringing its dance party to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia over the coming few days (dates listed below) with Ruby Jean & The Thoughtful Bees and A/V.

Jenocide, which is touring in support of the full-length album Machines That Make Us Wet, was born out of Clarke’s five years of being the only girl in otherwise all-guy bands like HOTSHOTROBOT and Windom Earle.

“When I started going to shows and got involved in the indie scene probably like five or six years ago, there were no girls in rock bands, really; maybe a couple. There were no girls doing their own thing in terms of something that was more aggressive. There’s always been hordes of girls with guitars and stuff like that. I never identified with stuff like that.

“I would go out to punk shows and other kinds of shows, and there were no girls and it was so depressing.”

Finding no one she could relate to, Clarke says she was inspired to create a strong female character, taking elements from some of her role models like Madonna, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, Le Tigre and Peaches.

Her aim was to create “strong voice for women, something that women can identify with” while ensuring that the music was still fun. She says women are bombarded on the street, in magazines and other media with images of what they’re supposed to look or act like. She wanted to cut to the heart of those issues.

When asked about another current strong female musician and character, Lady Gaga, Clarke admits it’s not the first time she’s heard the comparison.

“I think like six months ago I would have told you that you were an idiot, because my initial, knee-jerk reaction to her was like, ‘Oh great, another one of these bullshit popstars that’s like content-less.’ But she’s a very smart woman, and I think she surrounds herself with very smart people. I’m intrigued as well with her image, and she definitely is a good woman, pop-culture figure right now. I don’t take offense to that, I think she has awesome style. And certainly she’s a performer just as much a musician.”

Clarke says “there’s a lot of bullshit” to deal with as a woman trying to do something different, particularly on the east coast, which has a wealth of more traditional folk, rock, metal and country acts, but a smaller scene of pop or dance music.

Clarke says she hasn’t met any resistance to the Jenocide project, but it has been a challenge to find peers to perform with.

Since debuting with her EP bikerides. barrettes. bruises. last summer, Jenocide has performed mostly in the Halifax area, bringing out men and woman alike to dance. She says women seem to really connect with what she’s doing, and she has no doubt she’s alienated a few men along the way.

“Jenocide has some strong opinions about girl power and getting rid of guys if they’re not good for you,” she says. “I’ve alienated a lot of guys, I’m sure, at shows because some people feel threatened by it because it’s a pretty aggressive, in-your-face mentality when I’m up on stage saying, ‘If your boyfriend sucks, then fucking dump him.’ I mean, it’s tongue-in-cheek, right? It’s not militant, but it can be interpreted that way I’m sure by some people who maybe feel defensive about who they are and they feel that they’re being pointed out.”

Clarke has two releases out now under the Jenocide banner. Her debut, she says, was a little more thrash while the follow-up LP was more dancey. Next, she’s aiming for a bit of a hip-hop feel. Expect another release from Jenocide in the not too distant future.

In the meantime, she wants everyone to come out and dance their asses off. Here’s when and where you can do just that:

Jan. 23 in Saint John @ Blue Olive
Jan. 24 in Fredericton @ The Capital
Jan. 27 in Charlottetown @ Hunter’s
Jan. 28 in Moncton @ The Paramount
Jan. 29 in Sackville @ George’s Roadhouse

Jenocide’s albums can be bought online, at her shows or on iTunes.

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(Dave Gunning recently released his seventh album, We’re All Leaving.)

We’re All Leaving is folk singer Dave Gunning’s seventh album and the first he can honestly say he enjoys from start to finish.

The Pictou County, N.S. native says he’s never a fan of his records once they’re finished, but We’re All Leaving is the exception.

“I usually only hear the mistakes,” he tells EastCoastNoise, adding that his latest record, released a few weeks ago, features better writing and production than his earlier work.

Gunning worked once again with producer Jamie Robinson, and the singer-songwriter is happy with the result.

“We’re done that first-date awkwardness,” Gunning says with a laugh.

Robinson also co-wrote some of the 11 tunes on We’re All Leaving. Other writing partners this time around included David Francey, Matt Andersen and Rose Cousins.

It’s a star-studded affair, but at the centre of it all is Gunning with his sparse folk sound and crystal clear lyrics that have made him a popular name along the east coast and into the U.S. and Europe over the last few years.

While most of the record features Gunning’s familiar storytelling and folk sound, the first single is a country rocker called Made on a Monday. Inspired by the idea that cars produced midweek are likely to be better than cars made just before or after a weekend, it describes how we all feel at different times in our lives.

With the economy still trying to rebound from a recession, the tune really hits home.

“It’s certainly how I feel sometimes,” Gunning says, “when nothing’s going right, and the pieces just don’t fit. Writing the song was a lot of fun, coming up with different ways to describe that disjointed feeling.”

Gunning got his start in 1994 playing pubs and soon he was gigging with other musicians. His first album was released in 1997, but it wasn’t until 2003 that he really began focusing on his original material.

“Otherwise, I’d be 50 years old and still playing ‘The Gambler,’” he says with a laugh

Since releasing his debut album, Gunning has had a steady stream of success, garnering six Music Nova Scotia Awards and three East Coast Music Awards along the way.

This week finds Gunning still in the midst of his Atlantic Canadian tour for We’re All Leaving (see remaining dates below), and he has plans to tour western Canada as well as the United Kingdom once again.

In the midst of it all, the busy musician is already looking ahead to his next project, sort of a side project to his original work – a tribute to legendary east coast musician John Allan Cameron. Gunning performed on a recent tribute album to the artist, but he plans to release his own CD tribute to his musical hero.

Gunning, who says the first concert he attended featured Cameron and Stan Rogers, honoured both musicians on his latest album’s tune Big Shoes.

And while he’s in the middle of touring, Gunning is keeping a close eye on what’s happening back at home. His wife Sara is expecting the couple’s third child anytime now. While Gunning himself is on the road, other family members are on call in case baby decides to show up before Dad can get home.

For more on Dave Gunning, check out his website.

Here are Gunning’s remaining east coast tour dates:
Oct. 20 – Corner Brook, NL – Arts & Cultural Centre
Oct. 21 – Labrador West – Arts & Cultural Centre
Oct. 22 – Goose Bay, NL – Arts & Cultural Centre
Oct. 23 – Grand Falls, NL – Gordon Pinsent Centre for the Arts
Oct. 24 – Gander, NL – Joseph R Smallwood Centre for the Arts
Oct. 25 – Carbonear, NL – Princess Sheila Theatre
Oct. 26 – St. John’s, NL – Arts & Cultural Centre

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(Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac of Madison Violet. Photo contributed.)

They changed producers, changed their sound (a bit, anyway) and even changed their name. But Lisa MacIsaac and Brenley MacEachern of Madison Violet (formerly Madviolet) still write and perform charming folk tunes with a bit of a pop flare and their stunning, trademark harmonies.

While Madison Violet is based in Toronto, the duo has strong roots in the east coast – MacEachern grew up in Kincardine, Ont., but spent much of her childhood in Nova Scotia and MacIsaac (a sister of Ashley MacIsaac) was raised in Creignish, N.S.

They’re actually in the middle of an east coast tour this week, and EastCoastNoise caught up with MacIsaac by phone from her Toronto loft shortly before the tour began to chat about the band’s seemingly never-ending road journey, recording their new album and songwriting.

“It’s exhausting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she says when asked about Madison Violet’s touring. They have east coast dates and they’re following it up with dates in Ontario, Germany, Ireland, Denmark and more. “There’s less distractions, and I’m able to keep my thoughts in check.

“There are times when you just want to get the hell home,” she admits. “It’s rare. To me, that’s what the song, ‘The Ransom’ is about on our album (the just-released No Fool For Trying), one of those little moments when you just … you’ve had enough and you just want to get home and sleep in your own bed with your own pillow and there’s familiar sights and sounds. But knowing that I do have a home base in Toronto, that I do have a loft here, is comforting.”

The girls in Madison Violet aren’t strangers to traveling. They keep a busy worldwide touring schedule, and they even wrote their new album in a small villa they rented in Grenada. True east coasters, they find themselves at home near the sights and sounds of water – only in Grenada they have palm trees instead of pines and crystal-clear waters to swim in.

MacIsaac and MacEachern wrote their 2006 album Caravan in just that – a caravan. This time, they spent a month in Grenada (where they recently purchased some property).

“I find it’s challenging to write on the road because there is always a task at hand,” MacIsaac says.  “You’re thinking about the next show, or the next interview, getting to the next city. That’s our reasoning behind holing up in a camper van or in a villa some place near the water. It’s the tranquil serenity, the peace of not having to deal with work.”

On No Fool For Trying, the duo sheds its pop sound even more for a rootsier, alt-country/folk sound where their stunning voices truly shine.

“It happened naturally,” MacIsaac says of the more stripped-down sound. “I think our songwriting has progressively gotten rootsier. I think it was just a natural progression. We recorded two albums in the U.K., fairly big productions with John Reynolds, who very much has a stamp and a sound. His productions are very drum- and bass-oriented; he’s a drummer. We wanted to put something out that was a little more stripped down that would let the lyrics really shine through. Also we wanted something that was a little more indicative of our live show, which 90 per cent of the time is done as a duo.”

Madison Violet signed producer Les Cooper (Jill Barber, Meaghan Smith) up for the project.

“It was very strange to me to work with a different producer,” MacIsaac says. “We know John’s style, we know what to expect, we get each other. Les and I butted heads a little bit … or a lot, because I’m sure I was stuck in my ways and used to working one way, and it’s difficult to give up the reigns to a producer you haven’t worked with previously,” MacIsaac says.

“There were some points where we fought tooth and nail on some things. And sometimes I won, sometimes he won. In the end, I think what he came up with was a beautiful production. I wouldn’t change anything that he came up with. I think he did a great job, and he’s a brilliant producer.”

If MacIsaac and Cooper had difficulty at times, MacEachern brought a calm voice to the recording sessions.

“Brenley is a pretty even keel peacekeeper,” MacIsaac says. “I think we all had certain things we needed to learn about each other in the studio. You’re really vulnerable in the studio, you’re putting your heart on your sleeves and emotions run rampant. No matter who is producing, it would have been a really emotional experience, I’m sure.”

With the slightly altered sound came a slightly altered name. The duo went from Madviolet to Madison Violet in time for this new album simply because it suits their sound more.

For most of their east coast dates, MacIsaac and MacEachern are performing with a stand-up bassist (Adrian Lawryshyn). They’ll be joined by drummer Robin Pirson for their August date in Port Hawkesbury, N.S.

MacIsaac says more east coast dates are likely, but for now, here’s what they have coming up:

July 23 – Harmony House Theatre, Hunter River, P.E.I.
July 24 – The Company House, Halifax, N.S.
July 25 – Harmony Bazaar Festival, Lockeport, N.S.
July 26 – Lift the Wind Concert Series – St. Margaret’s Bay, N.S.
Aug. 9 – Granville Green – Port Hawkesbury, N.S.

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(Jessica Rhaye. Photo contributed.)

Six years passed between Jessica Rhaye’s debut self-titled album and her 2006 follow-up, Short Stories.

She wasn’t about to let that happen again, and the singer-songwriter from Saint John has proved that by releasing her third album, Good Things, only three years after her sophomore effort.

“There was a huge gap between the first record and Short Stories, but I think that was because I was in school, and I think I really needed to take the time and mature and really own my craft of songwriting,” she tells EastCoastNoise. “And I wrote a lot of tunes that didn’t make Short Stories, so I had a lot of tunes left over, so the whole songwriting process didn’t take quite as long.

“But yeah, I’d definitely like to keep moving at this pace.”

Rhaye’s third album is a more acoustic-based, stripped-down affair than Short Stories was. The new album, released independently only a few weeks ago, came out of a tour of England Rhaye did with New Brunswick’s Matt Andersen and Nova Scotia’s Dave Gunning a few years ago.

Usually when Rhaye performs, she does so with just her vocals and an acoustic guitar, so she decided to take that approach on Good Things.

“I was (in England) by myself, and we were each doing our own solo acoustic shows,” Rhaye says. “It was going along really well, and I think people were looking to buy the music as they had heard it. And at the time, I was playing a lot of the new tunes which are on the new record. That’s kind of where it started. I thought maybe it was time that I record something that sounds like what I do acoustic.”

Rhaye’s earlier efforts weren’t over-produced, but they had a bit of a pop sheen that is less present on the new record.
The new album, produced by Ed Woodsworth in Cape Breton, features a few of Rhaye’s earlier tunes which she wanted to revamp a bit, as well as a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” which has been a staple of Rhaye’s live show for some time.

“I brought back Time Out, which was on my very first record. I just thought it would work well with the new tunes, and I kind of thought it was time to bring it back and, I don’t know, kind of make it a little bit more mature sounding, which I think it does … (I) got rid of the children’s laughing. And I brought back Holding Out (from Short Stories) too, which is kind of funny. It’s probably the version which we should have started out with first because it’s kind of the root of the song. On Short Stories, we did the more produced, almost dance version of the song.”

Rhaye wrote some of the new album herself, but she relied on help from songwriter friends – or “song doctors” as she calls them – Dave Gunning, Ken Tobias and Asif Illyas (Mir) for others she co-wrote.

And for the title track, Rhaye met up with legendary Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith.

“I was definitely nervous,” she says of working with Sexsmith when he was in New Brunswick for some gigs. “But once I got talking to him and kind of settled into the songwriting mode it was no big deal really. It was a big deal, but it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. He really brought that song around. I had a verse and sort of a chorus and he really helped me fix up the chorus and he helped me write the second verse and he wrote the bridge, so he really brought that song around.”

With Good Things now out, Rhaye has some summer concert dates lined up, a proper fall tour and even some possible gigs planned for outside the east coast.

She also has a DVD called Good Things From The Stage in the works. Produced by Hemmings House Pictures, it will feature live performances, interview footage and behind-the-scenes clips from the making of Good Things.

“We were in Riverview last June when we did the live recording part of it. It was originally just supposed to be an EPK, a press release we would send around to different people to try and book shows so they could see what I do live.”

The project quickly turned into something more expansive that Rhaye hopes will be released as soon as next month.

A sample of the new DVD along with tons of other information on Rhaye can be found at her new online home here.

Rhaye’s upcoming dates include:

June 26 – The Mason Jar Speak Easy & Cabaret – Sussex, NB
July 4 – Harmony House – Hunter River, PEI
July 11 – Salty Jam Festival – Saint John, NB
Aug. 16 – Outdoor Ampitheatre – Cambridge Narrows, NB
Sept 2. – The Carleton – Halifax, NS
Nov. 13 – Brush of Hope Event at the Delta Brunswick – Saint John, NB
Nov. 20 – Capitol Theatre – Moncton, NB

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(The Novaks, left-right, Mark Neary, Elliot Dicks and Mick Davis. Photo contributed.)

Mick Davis bemoans the loss of spontaneity and of real guitar heroes in rock music. The Novaks singer and guitarist says technology allowing bands to fake things in the studio to get a perfect sounding recording is killing emotion and feel in rock music today.

But Davis hopes his Newfoundland band can help change that.

“Singers today in these power-pop, whatever you call them, punk groups on the radio, they never sing through a whole track, you know, or at least it doesn’t sound like it to me,” he says. “Because of ProTools, they can sing the chorus, and if they get it right the first time, they cut-and-paste it into the other two places where the chorus is.

“Instead of, when you listen to a Lenny Kravitz song, when he goes, ‘ooh yeah,’ or ‘rock on, guitar solo,’ you don’t hear that anymore because nobody’s actually sang through the whole take, and you’ve lost all that feel and improv, you know. And it really sucks. There’s no guitar solos on the radio anymore … there’s no guitar heroes. That video game is huge now, and I think that might be in our corner,” he says with a laugh.

“I’m not saying I’m a guitar hero, but at least there’s guitars prominently on the album.”

Davis was chatting with EastCoastNoise recently about The Novaks new album, Things Fall Apart (Sonic/Warner), which was released two weeks ago. The trio’s sophomore effort comes four years after the band’s self-titled debut, a long time for any band to wait around.

Tonight at The Rock House in St. John’s, the band hosts an official CD release show.

Apart from a concert here and there, the band has mostly laid low since touring finished for its debut a few years back.

But a lot has changed for the group. Most notably, guitarist Chuck Tucker left The Novaks prior to the recording of Things Fall Apart last year, leaving Davis (vocals, guitar), Mark Neary (bass, vocals) and Elliot Dicks (drums) a trio.

“Just before we made the record, (Chuck) said he had a job offer and he wasn’t sure he was gonna do, so we said ‘Well, if you’re going to leave, you should leave now before you put your face on the album.’ That wasn’t any big deal or anything, he just wanted to go that way and we said, ‘Well, best to ya.’

“We all sort of knew that he’d sort of go off that way, be a regular person,” Davis continues. “He got a great job offer and I think he’s more of the type that would like a family and a house and all that. The rest of us are crazy. I don’t think he was so meant for the road as the rest of us.”

It takes a special type of person – or a crazy one, as Davis describes – to want to live a life on the road. While the hour or two each night of playing to fans is supposed to make the lifestyle worth it, many bands will tell you living away from family, friends and your own bed gets to you after a while.

“You’ve got to not mind scrounging, just going in the hole, making it work no matter what,” Davis says. “Everyone else in the group now will do whatever it takes. When we’re home we play gigs or do whatever work we have to do to keep it going, but we will never latch on to anything that will keep us here.

“You’ve got to be crazy in a sense; you’ve got to believe in it. I can’t do anything else, I have to do this. Sometimes, you, in a town like this, like St. John’s, you hang around with so many people who play .. it’s a real close-knit scene and everything, but sometimes you forget that most of the people you’re with are not going to be doing this forever, you know. A lot of groups or bands start in college and when they get their degree, it’s over. That’s not us. The Novaks or bust for me.”

Davis says he’s always known the rock n’ roll lifestyle was for him.

“I never went to school. I had a couple little jobs that didn’t last very long, washing dishes one time when it got really bad. Besides that, it’s been from playing for pizza to playing for $50 to being in all the papers and playing for nothing,” he says, laughing.

The singer says playing as a three-piece has forced The Novaks to work harder and it’s made them a better band because of it. In the last few years, the band has gotten to be more business savvy as well.

“The new record to me is very honest, for me. It was just songs that I wrote, you woke up in the morning and this is what came out, whereas the first record was sort of … when I wrote those songs I didn’t even know that we’d ever make a record. There are songs on there where the influence is on the sleeve. Like, I think I have a Rolling Stones song, so I’m going to write one like that.’”

But the band has come into its own on Things Fall Apart, 12 tracks of classic rock n’ roll sounds that wouldn’t sound out of place next to old Tom Petty records.

Davis doesn’t deny his influences, but he says he gets tired of hearing comparisons to Petty, The Rolling Stones and other bands.

“The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty always come up with us,” he says. “And that’s fine because people love those guys. That’s no insult or anything. But it just gets tired after a while.

“The key is longevity because then they’ll start comparing young bands to you. That happened to us really early on. I remember somebody getting one of those (Canadian Music Week) report cards from ChartAttack, there was a young band and they said that they sound like us. It was like, ‘Jesus, we just got here ourselves. They were probably highly insulted,” Davis says with a laugh.

Davis, wanting to get away from comparisons to other bands, actually didn’t want one of the new album’s tunes, ‘Under Those Wheels,’ to be on it as it sounds too much like a tune by The Faces, ‘You’re So Rude.’

But Gordie Johnson (Big Sugar, Grady), who helped the band out on the new record, loved the tune and threw in his bid to keep it on the record. He went so far as to play the tune for his neighbour in Austin, TX, Ian McLagan, keyboardist for The Faces.

McLagan liked the tune and agreed to play keyboard on it. Needless to say, Davis put his concerns aside and the tune is on the album.

“So if anyone says, ‘you ripped off the Faces,’ I can say, ‘well, one of the Faces is on it,’” he laughs.

The Novaks host its CD release show tonight at The Rock House in St. John’s, and the band’s next Maritime date will see the group on a bill with The Trews, Thornley, Econoline Crush and headliners KISS on July 18 on the Halifax Common.

For Davis, the gig is a bit of a dream come true. He says growing up he was a huge KISS fan.

“The other guys, no … me, yes,” he admits. “I was a maniac. I think most kids were about KISS. Not so much anymore, but I’ve got a soft spot for them. If you’d told me about this when I was 10 years old, I’d have shit my pants. But the boys, Mark and Eliot never listened to a KISS record in their lives.”

Going forward, Davis is just looking to play for people again and promote the new album. The band has Ontario dates with Matt Mays & El Torpedo and a reunited Change of Heart over the next few weeks.

A video will also be shot for the band’s single “There Goes The Night.”

If you haven’t heard the new album yet, Davis says it represents just how The Novaks sound on stage, playing scrappy, guitar-based rock n’ roll.

“I’m proud of the record, but it was made in 10 days,” he says. “Ideally, I’d love to go in and make a Beatles record and spend a year on it, but if I look at it like, ‘Well this represents the group live,’ then I have no qualms with it. It’s full of flubs, full of mistakes. We didn’t use a meter, drummer didn’t play to a click, nothing like that. It’s very real. It’s going to be tough competing on the radio with all the robotic, sort of sterile stuff, but hopefully it’ll help change it.”

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(Moncton-based singer-songwriter Melanie Keith will release her debut album this week. Photo contributed.)

Moncton singer-songwriter Melanie Keith promised me just over a year ago that her debut solo effort would be released in June.

She didn’t lie, but I was expecting she meant June of last year and not June of 2009.

Another year has passed, but finally – officially – Melanie Keith & The Strombachs will release its seven-song debut this week with a show at Moncton’s Empress Theatre on Thursday.

The release has been marred by delays and disasters.

After recording with Moncton songwriter and producer Robin Anne Ettles in 2004 for the Imitating Hercules project, Keith started her solo project, The Strombachs.

Fast forward to 2007 and Keith recorded her debut album, which soon had to be scrapped due to a serious production error. The album was tracked and ready to be mixed, but there were problems with what the studio delivered for tracks to the mixer. The studio refused to fix the problem, and Keith was left with tracks that were unusable.

She ended up getting a grant to help fund the album, but it wound up only covering the cost of the initial, unusable recording.

When she was finally able to re-record the album, with Ettles producing and playing every instrument but drums (Al Bourgeois), Keith had no money left to have the CDs manufactured.

“It’s killed me to make all of these decisions all the way along,” she said in an interview this week. “It really has. It’s embarrassing. You do an interview or you say something’s coming out and it doesn’t happen … but by the same token, it was a really good decision because things that have led up and have happened since then have kind of made it more useful to be releasing it now.

“I think things kind of got fast-tracked really fast for me in 2005. We entered this battle of the bands thing, and we won it and there was pressure to get an album out, and I didn’t even have time to sit and think of where I wanted to go or develop myself as an artist.”

Since that time, Keith says her sound has drifted a bit from pop-rock to an Americana sound in the vein of Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow.

She’s also started her own record label, MerleSong Records, and she has national distribution through Fontana North/Universal Music and online through MapleMusic.

A lot has happened, and Keith admits she’s both nervous and excited for Thursday’s CD release show. For it, Keith is arranging to have the hour-long show broadcast on her website. She will also Twitter throughout the day so fans can keep track of the CD release chaos.

“I’m nervous more about all that technical stuff because I’ve never done it before,” she says. “So I just hope that it all works.”

She’ll also be shooting a video over the next few days for one of the tunes from the new album.

In addition to playing all the shows she can around the east coast, Keith is preparing a cross-Canada and potential U.S. tour for the fall. She’s even in early discussions to possibly tour the U.K.

The Strombachs were also chosen to be one of about 45 bands showcasing at the Contact East convention Oct. 1-4 in Moncton, which could land her more gigs.

In the meantime, she has an album to release.

“I just hope it’s worth waiting for,” she says with a laugh.

Watch Keith’s CD release show online here Thursday at 6 p.m. If you’re in Moncton, the show is free to attend.

Here are Melanie Keith & The Strombach’s upcoming tour dates:

Thursday, June 11 – The Empress – Moncton, N.B.
Friday, June 12 – Relay For Life in Moncton, N.B.
Saturday, June 13 – Ruthie’s Pub & Eatery – Victoria, P.E.I.
Friday, June 19 – Sessions Café – Rothesay, N.B.
Friday, June 26 – Bridge Street Café – Sackville, N.B.
Tuesday, June 30 – The Capital – Fredericton, N.B.
Saturday, July 25 – O’Brien’s – Riverview, N.B.
Saturday, Aug. 22 – GreenFest – Clairville, N.B.

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(The Motorleague, from left: Ryan McDonald, Dana Robertson, Don Levandier, Nathan Jones.)

The Motorleague rose from the ashes of Moncton rockers The Ditchpigs a few years back. They’ve quickly developed a reputation for high energy shows and catchy-as-hell songs that blend poppy hooks with an onslaught of noisy, loud guitars and a driving rhythm section – feelings of frustration and anguish turned into anthems that have rocked bars from Halifax to Toronto.
The band features the talents of singer-guitarist Don Levandier (The Ditchpigs), guitarist Nathan Jones (I Capture The Castle), bassist Dana Robertson (HOPE) and drummer Ryan McDonald (Broken Radio Sound).
Tonight in Moncton, the band will release its first full-length album Black Noise (the follow up to EP White Tape). The band has teamed up with Fredericton-based Forward Music Group to release the album nationwide on Tuesday, May 19.
Black Noise was recorded in June 2008 in Toronto at Chemical Sound studio with producer and guitar-god Ian Blurton at the helm as producer.
First single “Hymn for the Newly Departed” is now at radio and the band has a video in the works for the tune. A series of east coast dates are planned (see their official site for details).
The Motorleague singer/guitarist Don Levandier answered some questions from EastCoastNoise via e-mail this week. Guitarist Nathan Jones pitched in a few comments of his own. Read on …

EastCoastNoise: Black Noise is coming out May 19, CD release is Friday in Moncton … what else is happening or on the horizon?
Don Levandier: Right now we’re excited to get the first video out and see how that goes.  We’ll be making the usual stops around the Maritimes for May then gearing up to break our ‘we’ve never been further west than Toronto’ mould. That won’t happen until the fall though.  Other than that we were supposed to do a gig with Fred Penner in Newfoundland at a conference – but it looks like we’ll be playing the day after him with Tom Fun – which is equally cool – but not really – I mean … FRED PENNER.

ECN: What’s the scoop on the video for “Hymn for the Newly Departed”?
DL: The scoop is that it should be out soon – I’m not 100 per cent sure on the timeline but we’re going to show a version of it at the CD release – then launch it officially on Eastcoastnoise.com. After that we’ll see who’ll play it.
The video itself was shot by The PostMen who are a local production company that shoots for CBC / CTV / STARS and more – they wanted to try making a music video because they’d never done so before – we wanted to make a music video for the same reasons – voila.
Nathan Jones: Video was produced by our friends at The Postman. We were lucky enough to have 40 friends come and hang out with us for a day while we put everything together. The final version is going to be publicly debuted on Friday, May 8 at The Paramount during the album release party. After that it will sent to Much Music/MTV and other places as well as being plastered all over the Internet. Special thanks to Marc Savoie, Marcel Gallant, Felice Grana, Michael Cowie and Mel Flanagan.

ECN: You guys recorded this album last year with Ian Blurton in Toronto … what was that experience like for you as a band? How did it compare to recording CDs here in Moncton in the past and what did you learn from it?
DL: It was a lot tighter.  We had one week to do the entire record – where at home you record as you please – and take as long as you like. It was also weird having more than one person (record) your band. In Moncton we’re used to working with Kyle McDonald, so it’s very one-on-one, whereas in Toronto we had Ian as a producer and two engineers for the drums and bass parts.

The guitars and vocals were done with Ian after that – it was really weird playing or singing in front of the guy.  It wasn’t too bad until we’re sitting in the studio and a studio hand starts going ‘OH MY GOD…THAT’S IAN BLURTON’ – then it started getting a bit weird.  But after the first day or two of doing vocals and guitar – the jitters were gone and it was down to business.

As far as Blurton goes – he’s way smarter than you think.  I always got this hairy caveman vibe from him – but he’s actually really articulate and well spoken.  You don’t expect that from him – because at shows he’s quiet – but the guy is very smart and great with computers.

As for learning – I think he took away a lot of my crutches.  Things like doubling up vocals or tons of vocal harmonies are what I’m used to doing – but in this case 90 per cent of the vocals are straight – one vocal, no harmonies – so it really made me push to sing better rather than rely on layering.  He taught us that simple is often the best approach.
NJ: It was awesome having an outsider’s opinion on the songs, especially an opinion that we all so obviously respect. Ian has had a hand in some of the best rock records this country has produced, whether it’s his own bands or something he’s produced.

Being in Toronto was probably the best part of making this record. When you’re at home trying to do something like this there’s a lot of distractions going on – work, family, day-to-day life stuff. When you’re away from home and out of your comfort zone, all you have to really focus on is the task at hand, there’s no putting things off until next week or next month. Things had to be done so they got done.

ECN: Why did you choose Blurton to produce and what was he specifically like to work with?
DL: Originally we wanted to do the next Ditchpigs record with Jon Cummins (Doughboys / Bionic) and that plan carried over to The Motorleague.  We never had any solid plans – just an idea of that’s what we want – and we had heard that Cummins was up for the idea (although I never spoke to him personally).  At North-by-Northeast 2007, I mentioned to Ian – who was hanging out with PJ (Dunphy, former Motorleague bassist) – that Cummins was hopefully going to produce.  Ian said, ‘Fuck him, I’m doing it.’ EXACTLY one year later we were in Toronto making the record.

Blurton produced 2 of my all time favourite records (by The Weakerthans) and played on another two (Steel Teeth by Change Of Heart and Blurtonia) – it was a no brainer.  We knew the guy a little, so that helped too, it wasn’t like going into the studio with a stranger. And we knew he’d know our sound – we weren’t worried about him changing it too much.

ECN: On this album, and the last EP (White Tape) … the songs, at least on the surface, sound pretty pissed off – frustration over jobs, relationships … what gives? Will we ever see a happy Motorleague tune?
DL: No. I heard Gordie Johnson speak once – and he said it best – ‘write what you know about.’  A lot of the anger is introspective – while other songs are 100 per cent specifically aimed at certain events and people.  I spend a lot of time biting my tongue with Monctonlocals.com (website and message board Levandier runs)  – I don’t do that with The Motorleague.  I think the songs need to be angry to be good – so ‘You Wear Me Down’ is probably as happy as you’ll ever get.

There’s also a line – I’ll bring a song to the table and if it’s too far wuss or happy – it will get knocked down to ‘not a Motorleague song.’ I have an albums worth of stuff that went that way.

ECN: Does the album name signify something? Black Noise … and hey, White Tape?
DL: Black noise, while not the mathematical opposite, is the figurative opposite of white noise.  White noise can be used as a masking agent – this really can’t be used as such.

We wanted to continue to point out the irrelevance of mediums – hence the tape on the CD (artwork).  Now we’ve got an iPod playing a CD with the picture of a tape on it – it’s just ridiculous – so we knew that Black Noise had to stay on theme – to be a true successor to White Tape. For a while the title was You Know This To Be The Truth but that didn’t feel right – Black Noise felt right for the songs.
NJ: Black Noise is kind of a play on words. We were going with the colour theme and White Noise is an audio signal that spans the full audio spectrum at an equal level, not moving. So black noise is music? Yeah, we made it up.

ECN: You’ve got a professionally produced album in the can, a single on radio locally and a video in the works and I suspect tours are in the works as well – clearly you guys are serious about this … how far do you want to see the band take things? Do you want to stick to Moncton and do the occasional tour outside of the Maritimes, or are you guys prepared to drop everything and make this a full-time gig?
DL: I doubt there are any bands that wouldn’t want to make it a full-time gig. The minute bands make a poster, book a gig, and sell something (merch, CD) then they’re pretty much saying – they’d go that route if offered, and so would we, but it will never come to that. The ideal situation for us would be to get the single doing okay, tour as much as possible without losing our jobs /houses – and get to see the world  in the context of the band.

Bands with tons of success still have to lay down jobs when they’re not on the road – and I don’t think we’ll ever be any different.  We’ve got our goals set on seeing the west coast, and getting off the continent and those are attainable goals now – after that it’s all frosting.

ECN: Each of the band members have varying degrees of experience and success playing music with other Moncton bands over the years – how can you benefit from the experience you all have?
DL: For me personally, it’s what I write about, things that I’ve seen/done/been subject to – it’s where all the angst and sarcasm comes from, in addition to other things like the corporate American workforce. I think not being successful with The Ditchpigs has given me more drive to be successful with The Motorleague – to show people that we were on the right track – and could have done okay doing what we were doing.

Kind of a ‘fuck you’ to your old girlfriend by showing off your new one – immature for sure – but there’s some of that in there for me.  I’d like to say all the booking contacts and all that jazz were a plus – but honestly when we started The Motorleague it wasn’t as easy as going, ‘Hey, we used to be in The Ditchpigs, can we play your bar?’ We had to start from scratch.

ECN: Since the band’s inception, you’ve added a new drummer and bass player – is this the line-up you see will stick together going forward? Is everyone committed to the project with so many other things (bands, jobs) to consider?
DL: Everyone is as committed as they can be without having the house of cards collapse down around them. We do all have jobs and other demands on us – so we’ll move forward with this lineup until it’s not possible to do so – but we won’t miss tours or dates that are worth doing – we’ll make due.

ECN: What challenges do you face on the road ahead trying to get the album on radio and the video on TV?
DL: Money, money, money, money, money. Getting the song on the radio is expensive. Touring is expensive. We’re applying for every grant out there – if we get some real money coming in we’ll be able to give the record the attention it deserves.  If not it – there will likely be boxes of it in my attic next to my copies of Someone To Hate More Than Yourself (The Ditchpigs’ swan song record).

ECN: The Motorleague’s sound sort of straddles a fine line between really catchy choruses and almost poppy hooks that seem a natural for radio, but you have a certain edge and a bit of a punk sound that still gives you credibility amongst those who wouldn’t turn on a radio station to save their lives … is that something you’ve ever given any thought to? Is there effort made to try to make the band sound a certain way or is this just what you do?
DL: The older you get, the easier it is to write songs that are radio friendly. With age, there seems to be a certain ‘okay’ level with making music your parents like. I didn’t get wussier on purpose and honestly I can’t tell the difference with how I wrote for The Ditchpigs to how I write for Motorleague except for in The Ditchpigs I’d bring songs to the table and the pussy ones would get cut out.

In The Motorleague, that happens less – still happens though. I’ve got tons of songs that are completely soft, not heavy at all. One day I’d like to put out a solo record with all that other shit on it. But I think the guys in The Motorleague have all been in loud bands that weren’t cut out for radio, they’ve been there and done that, now they’re willing to try something different – at least that ‘s how I see it – they may have a different view.

I think if a song is good enough anyway – it will become radio friendly.  I mean – you can go from Sum 41 to Marilyn Manson – who sound nothing like each other but both pushed the envelope of what the radio was playing.

The Motorleague is hosting two release shows tonight (Friday, May 8 ) in Moncton. The first show is an early, all-ages show to be held at Moncton’s Aberdeen Cultural Centre on Botsford Street with a start-time of 6 p.m. Slain on Second Ave., Twelve, Sigil of Aeons, The Short Fused and Neverdie are also on the bill. Price is $5 at the door.
The second show is a licensed show at The Paramount Lounge on Main Street in Moncton. Joining the band will be Shelter With Thieves, Myles Deck And the Fuzz and Static in Action. Admission to the late show is $10 or $15 with a CD.

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