Tag: Hillside Festival

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Ep. #117: Charles Austin of the Super Friendz

Post author By vish
Post date July 22, 2014

Charles Austin lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia and is one of the best musicians, producers, and people that I know. Austin has played in bands and projects like Neuseiland, the Lodge, Lost Wax Guild, Aqua Alta, and Psychic Fair and has also collaborated with Buck 65 and Al Tuck among others. He first gained prominence in the mid-1990s when his band the Super Friendz became underground favourites, releasing three killer albums and touring the continent as headliners but also frequently opening for people like Sloan and Guided By Voices. Their landmark debut album, 1995’s Mock Up, Scale Down was issued on vinyl for the first time last year and, after years of inactivity, the band is playing select shows including one at the Hillside Festival in Guelph on Saturday July 26. Here, Charles and I discuss how playing a single show is pretty selective touring, the Super Friendz drummer issues and why Kieran Adams is filling in for Dave Marsh at Hillside, meeting your new bandmate two days before a big show together, Halifax and Hurricanes Arthur and Juan, abandoning your family for Mike O’Neill, the Trailside in PEI, great Halifax bands like Monomyth, Walrus, and the Scoop Outs, local venue issues, recording cool bands like Paper Beat Scissors, Nathan Doucet is a great drummer, Josh Salter is a rocking encyclopedia, the Psychic Fair band and working with the lovely, underrated Jenn Grant in Aqua Alta, reading rock books like Feeding Back: Conversations with Alternative Guitarists from Proto-Punk to Post-Rock by David Todd, the best songwriter is Al Tuck, 1995 and Clive Macnutt, the vile temptress that is music, how to encourage your children’s interest in music, how your kids’ peer groups might ruin the bond you’ve forged with your kid, the Wiggles versus Ramones, American underground music in the 1980s, early Super Friendz jams, learning how to engineer and produce records, noted Nova Scotia producer Brendan Maguire, what’s up with the Super Friendz’s current status and that unfinished new album, the song “Mountaineer,” and then we’re good to go.

Related links: thesuperfriendz.tumblr.com hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

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Ep. #116: Matt Andersen

Post author By vish
Post date July 17, 2014

Matt Andersen has earned a reputation for being one of the most powerful live soul and rock performers of his generation. The New Brunswick native has released seven albums and toured the world over, quietly gaining an army of loyal fans who gravitate to his rumbling voice, accomplished guitar playing, and vivid lyricism. Though he’s impressed audiences on his own, his latest album is boldly produced by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin and features fully-fleshed out arrangements that his touring band, the Mellotones, have been bringing to life over the past few months at headlining shows and opening tour dates for Buddy Guy and Los Lobos. This latest batch of songs also features songwriting collaborations with Joel Plaskett, David Myles, Tom Wilson, Dave Gunning, and Keith Mullins among others. Andersen’s new album is called Weightless, it’s out now via True North Records, and brings Andersen to music festivals across Canada in the coming weeks, including Guelph’s Hillside Festival on July 25. Here, Matt and I talk about Ottawa, acronyms, working with Steve Berlin, Phantom Power, writing songs with Joel Plaskett and why collaborating is important, Matt’s old band Flat Top, solo is good, with and without the Mellotones and how fans have been reacting to Matt having a band, Perth-Andover New Brunswick and a Maritimes musical upbringing, soulful rock versus pop music, Creedence Clearwater Revival might be better than New Kids on the Block, Matt Andersen Blues Award Explosion, Gary the cat has to go outside, your girlfriend will take your dog with her, Matt’s self-consciousness about being called ‘Canada’s greatest guitar player,’ Stubby Fingers, playing music while others make noise, serious music/fun guy, “City of Dreams” and Detroit, not getting the simplified folk revival and how it relates to new country, the double-edged sword of being championed by Canadian folk music festivals, CBC, and Canadian music fans, backlash, writing universal songs, updates on new songs, touring in a pickup truck, Fords and Hyundais, his busy touring schedule, Elvis Presley is dead, the song “Weightless,” and then we drift away.

Related links: stubbyfingers.ca hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

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Ep. #114: Nat Baldwin of Dirty Projectors

Post author By vish
Post date July 8, 2014

Nat Baldwin is a talented double-bassist, singer, and songwriter who originally hails from the state of New Hampshire but lives in Maine. Baldwin is a skilled musician who studied with jazz and improvised music giant Anthony Braxton and, for the past decade, he has been a member of the Brooklyn, NY band, Dirty Projectors. In 2011 Baldwin released People Changes, his second solo album, and this year brings us its captivating, lovely follow up, In the Hollows, which is available now via Western Vinyl. Baldwin has a couple of shows in Massachusetts later this month and he plays The Monarch in Toronto on July 24, Casa del Popolo in Montreal on July 25, and Guelph’s Hillside Festival on July 26. Here, Baldwin and I talk about Love Lane, training for a marathon you can’t run and making music, an injured achilles’ heel, losing control of your physicality, the late, American middle/long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine, Nat’s long history of connecting athletic iconography with the music he makes, running rhythms, process-oriented parallels between bands and basketball teams, learning how to play music at 18, running/reading/music regimens, underground literature networks, Barry Hannah, Blake Butler, Lindsay Hunter, Amelia Grey, the song “Cosmos Pose” and bodybuilding, death, playing in a wedding band, Nat’s dad’s band Ben Baldwin and the Big Note, Ray Charles, seeing the Moonbeams sing the national anthem at Celtics games at Boston Garden, Larry Bird, visiting French Lick Indiana and Larry Bird Boulevard, getting into Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Anthony Braxton, and other jazz heroes, loaning William Parker a dodgy bass amp, losing interest in music, double bass and voice songs, what’s new with Dirty Projectors and David Longstreth’s writing habits, the song “Knockout,” and then we cross the finish line.

Related links: westernvinyl.com/artists/natbaldwin.html vishkhanna.com

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