Doc Walker: “Writing Songs Have Kept Us Alive”

Apr 3, 2015

With over 20 Top 10 singles, Doc Walker is one of the most recognized Canadian country acts of the past two decades. The group has received multiple Canadian Country Music Awards, including Fan Choice, Group or Duo of the Year, CMT Video of the Year, Single of the Year, and Country Music Program or Special of the Year. In addition, Doc Walker has been nominated for several JUNO Awards for Country Album of the Year, including a win in 2009 for the album Beautiful Life.

Even with several mantelpieces worth of hardware to their credit, and a growing international profile that has resulted in three Australian tours, the band refuses to rest on past laurels. “After a while the tried and true becomes been there, done that, guitarist Dave Wasyliw says. “With every new album we evolve to some degree. I think it‟s exciting to go to work and not know what‟s going to happen next.” The band‟s seventh album, 16 & 1, released in 2011, was a bit of a sea change for the group musically, but still reflected the values that have made the band endearingly popular over time. Now, with Doc Walker’s eighth full length album, that includes the Top 10 hit “Put It Into Drive,” and the singles Shake It Like It‟s Saturday Night, and That’s How I Like It. “Our music speaks to the pride we have in our roots, and the gratitude we have to the fans,” says lead singer Chris Thorsteinson, “and that is the most important thing. At the end of the day, all we want to do is write a record that we love, and that we know our fans are going to love and want to sing along to.”

The 8th is their eighth studio album, released on October 21, 2014 by Open Road Recordings. The album includes the singles Put It into Drive, Shake It Like It’s Saturday Night and That’s How I Like It.

Eric: So, look, every country music fan knows about Doc Walker now. Here’s what surprised me going back into the history of the band. You guys released 11 singles in the beginning of your career, but it didn’t get a lot of play. Then, all of a sudden your next eight hit, then your last three, two of them broke into the top 20. When that happens, do you guys look at each other and say, we’ve figured it out?
Chris Thorsteinson: Never, you never know what’s going on in the industry or what’s going to hit or what’s not going to hit. I think, what we’ve tried to do throughout our career, and I know this sounds cliche but be true to what you are. The thing is, if you’re true to what you like to play and what you like to write, it’s easier to repeat that. Say you stumble upon a single that someone else wrote and it’s a huge hit, ok, I’ve got to go find more singles like that. We were lucky enough that the singles we were writing and even the singles that we were picking that we liked were connecting. It was an easy process for us to either pick another song or write another song that was sort of in the same ballpark as that. That is what, over the years, has kept us alive.

Eric: One thing I’ve loved about Doc Walker, you’ve never been shy of doing covers. When you figure out what kind of cover that you want to do, how deep into it do you get in terms of learning from what made that song really great to begin with?
Dave Wasyliw: The great thing about it is the songs that we do decide to cover, they’ve hit each band member in a certain way. So, it’s almost easy in that sense where I already feel something for that song. Each guy agrees that it’s going to be on the record so they feel something for it too.
Eric: Of all the songs Genesis did in their career, and I dearly, deeply love them, That’s All was the one I couldn’t get into, but I was amazed no group had covered it before.
Chris: [laughs] Our producer, Justin Niebank and his wife, they were driving through the TN hills, listening to music, they were listening to Doc Walker and they were listening to radio and that song came on and his wife said, this would be a great song for that Canadian band to record? Even Justin is a producer who has produced Taylor Swift, everybody, worked on all the Keith Urban records, just shocked by this observation going, well that’s a really good idea! Then Murray came up in the studio with that sort of guitar lick, that swampy guitar lick and it all made sense. The thing is, the hard part for me anyway is trying to be as respectful as you can to the original artists and the reasons why it was a hit yet still try to put your stamp on it without offending any huge Genesis fans, which we did, and it’s fine.
Eric: You did Bob Seger’s Get Out Of Denver.
Chris: Then Drivin’ With The Brakes On was a Del Amitri song.
Dave: We did Comes a Time, Neil Young.
Chris: Waylon Jennings. So we’ve done a lot, but like Dave said, all of them have a special place in each of our hearts.
Eric: You’re paying homage to those great artists, but you also pay tribute to you families on the single That’s How I Like It.
Chris: The reason we actually picked that song, we didn’t write the single but for me and being married now and having three kids.
Eric: How old?
Chris: Seven, four and three.
Eric: So you haven’t slept since 2008.
Chris: Ha! No, and Dave has three kids also.
Eric: Same ages?
Dave: No. I have a thirteen year old, four year old and a six month old.
Eric: You didn’t plan this out between band members correctly.
Chris: Tell me about it! The single “That’s How I Like It” is about love and relationships that really reflects the life that Dave and I lead right now with having kids. It’s a nice little love song to our families. My goal when I got married and had kids was to not write a song about my kids and my wife because so many artists do it. When you’re single and you look at and say, I’ll never do that! We’ve written songs like that but when you think oh my god we’re having another kid and you have two and it wasn’t something you expected and then you see this beautiful little girl. All of a sudden we find ourselves writing these songs but we wanted to do it in a very honest way.

Eric: What did you want to do on the new album that you might have not had the chance to do before?
Chris: We made vinyl, which is cool.
Eric: When you’re a band, there’s something about holding your own vinyl.
Chris: We set out to make a record when we were young, and we finally did!
Eric: The audiences keep getting bigger for you. Do you miss anything of the old days?
Chris: Oh yeah, and no.
Dave: I miss a lot less than you do, I think.
Chris: I don’t miss traveling in a suburban.
Dave: I don’t miss Mr. Noodles.
Chris: You know what I do miss? And we got to experience this, with the first time we went to Australia. We’ve had 4-5 records out in Canada, it was doing really well, we go to Australia and it was like going back to the start of our career again with these brand new fans. No one knew us. The one single we had out, If I Fall, it was the first time that this sort of Country has ever heard of this band and it was a real nice exciting moment for us, which was what I miss about the old days. We’re always fighting for it but it was nice to have that freshness again.

Catch Doc Walker on Tour

Apr 24 Southey Rink Southey, Canada
Apr 25 Rockglen Community Hall Rockglen, Canada
May 30 Grande Prairie Stompede 2015 Grande Prairie, Canada
Jun 19 Red River Ex Winnipeg, Canada
Jun 20 Beaumont Blues and Roots Festival Beaumont, Canada
Jun 25 Dauphin Country Festival Dauphin, Canada

Queen’s Brian May Teaches You How To Play Guitar

Apr 3, 2015

As an artist, Queen’s Brian May has done whatever he wanted to do – building a a home-built electric guitar, called the Red Special, becoming an astrophysicist, going out on tour with Adam Lambert and performing with Lady Gaga. As a teacher, he can teach you how to play guitar just like him. His independent spirit and genius, though, will have to come from within.

https://youtu.be/BuU0Xz-P_Jw

The Official Trailer For Amy Winehouse Doc Is Here

Apr 3, 2015

From Asif Kapadia, the director of Senna, comes the documentary film to see if you’re a music fan – Amy, The Story Of Amy Winehouse.

How Four Women Ruled the ’90′s and Changed Canadian Music

Apr 2, 2015

Eternal Cavalier Press is proud to release details from our third title, We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the ’90′s and Changed Canadian Music by celebrated Vancouver-based music journalist Andrea Warner, due April 2015.

We Oughta Know is equal parts music criticism, cultural analysis, and feminist coming-of-age memoir. In a series of thought-provoking, subversive, vulnerable and intelligent essays, Warner writes about the four best-selling Canadian artists in Canada: Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, and Shania Twain. Narrowing in on the five-year period between 1993 and 1997, Warner focuses on the music and legacies of the four artists, and their influences on her as a teenage girl.

The book will be presented as a series of essays with titles that include: Adventures in Sexism: Media, Music Critics, and Mucking up the Boys Club; Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill, and 1995: What it Feels Like for a Girl; and Of Feminist Heroes, Vapid Wonders, Madonnas, and “Whores.” Capturing the intriguing wit and detailed research skills Warner has displayed as a writer/associate producer at CBC Music, We Oughta Know is a powerful debut from one of the strongest young voices in music journalism that will appeal to fans of music, pop culture, feminist art, and engaging, razor-sharp criticism.

“To me, women have always been at the forefront of Canadian music. But I know that’s not the case for a lot of people,” Warner says. “I started to find all these weird statistics that proved it wasn’t just in my head, and I wanted to explore that. What has it meant to me, to music, and Canada? How have our perceptions of them been shaped — sometimes unfairly — by the media and our own biases? Dion, Twain, Morissette, and McLachlan are these hugely important artists, they really did change everything, but they don’t always get the respect they deserve. Sometimes even from me.”

Some aspects of We Oughta Know have already been examined in Warner’s pieces for CBC Music, but it’s the personal perspective that she adds to both her critical writing and her examination of feminism in Canadian music that will make We Oughta Know one of the most talked about music books of 2015.

We Oughta Know will be available at independent bookstores and online retailers across Canada.

Eternal Cavalier Press is proud to continue its look at Canadian music stories that often go untold with a commitment to furthering the conversation about Canadian music and developing independent music culture in Canada.

Andrea Warner has contributed to the CBC, Exclaim!, the Georgia Straight and the Globe and Mail. She is a Polaris Prize Jury member who served on the Grand Jury in 2013.

Ed Sheeran’s Sesame Street appearance is as sweet as you think it would be

Apr 2, 2015

At home you can play with your mommy and daddy, and you can talk whenever you want. At school you can play too – with your friends, but you must raise your hand to speak and follow your teachers’ instructions. You live in two different worlds.

Except if you’re on Earth, where the only thing we can all agree on is how great Ed Sheeran is.

Montage of Heck – watch Kurt Cobain discussing what they COULD have called Nirvana

Apr 2, 2015

Combining home movies and clippings from the archives, Montage of Heck tells the story of Kurt Cobain’s struggle to balance his desire for the spotlight with his hatred of fame. In this clip Cobain’s diaries reveal some of the names Nirvana toyed with before deciding on the moniker they’d use to define a musical era.

Cobain: Montage of Heck is out in the UK in cinemas from April 10, available on digital download on April 24 and on DVD and Blu-ray from April 27, and premieres in the US on HBO on May 4.

9 Animators Direct Dan Deacon’s New Video And It’s Great

Apr 2, 2015

For this special episode of Adult Swim’s Off The Air, the channel brought together nine of their favorite animators to each animate one section of Dan Deacon’s song “When I Was Done Dying” off his latest album Gliss Riffer.

Video: Watch sound waves extinguish a fire

Apr 2, 2015

The fire extinguisher uses low-frequency sound waves to douse a blaze. Engineering seniors Viet Tran and Seth Robertson now hold a preliminary patent application for their potentially revolutionizing device which, by blasting a fire with low frequencies between 30 and 60 hertz range, the extinguisher separates oxygen from fuel.

A2IM To Present Pat Chin, VP Records Co-Founder, With Libera Awards Lifetime Achievement Award

Apr 2, 2015

The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) is proud to announce that the fourth annual Libera Awards Lifetime Achievement Award will honor Pat Chin, co-founder of VP Records, for innovation in the independent music industry. Chin will be honored with the award on June 25 at NYC’s Highline Ballroom during A2IM’s 10th Anniversary Indie Week when A2IM members from across the U.S. will meet along with their International colleagues from over a dozen countries around the world. In what has now become a Libera Awards tradition, 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award winner Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records, will present Pat Chin with the award.

With more than 50 years in the music business, Pat Chin has always been a champion for innovative, independent music and a pioneer among women in the music industry. From the retail store founded with her late husband Vincent “Randy” Chin in their native Kingston, Jamaica, the Chin family was present at the birth of reggae music. In 1979, the family moved their business to Jamaica, New York and adopted the moniker “VP” (for Vincent and Pat). As a woman in the male-dominated world of reggae, “Miss Pat” (as she is affectionately known) built a business on strong relationships with artists, producers, suppliers and an ever-growing fan base. Miss Pat is the heart of VP Records and continues to serve as a powerful example of female leadership in business and the community.

Under her leadership, VP Records created a reggae empire, contributing to the careers of countless artists including Shabba Ranks, Sean Paul, Maxi Priest, Gyptian, Bunji Garlin, Beenie Man, Lady Saw, Sizzla, Mavado and Etana among others. With the passing of Vincent Chin in 2003, her children and grandchildren have taken on leadership of the day-to-day operations as Miss Pat extends her legacy through her philanthropic efforts. To commemorate the 35th anniversary of VP Records in the United States, the family collaborated with celebrated graphic artist Michael Thompson to establish a reggae Archive titled A Reggae Music Journey, a mobile exhibit of the history of reggae. Their vision is to create a permanent home for the exhibit and establish a reggae museum in Jamaica. With her unique spirit and indefatigable energy, Pat Chin continues her musical journey.

Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records, the winner of the 2014 A2IM Libera Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, will present Pat with the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award. Bruce is the founder of the independent record label Alligator Records. Iglauer, in addition to his numerous philanthropic and artist support efforts, has spent his career championing blues and roots rock, jumpstarting the careers of new talent or renewing the careers of legendary artists including Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Lonnie Brooks, Mavis Staples and Charlie Musselwhite, among many others. Iglauer was a longtime board member of A2IM who stepped down in July 2014 due to term limits.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, A2IM is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit trade organization headquartered in New York City representing a broad coalition of over 350 Independently-owned American music label small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The organization represents Independents’ interest in the marketplace, in the media, on Capitol Hill, and as part of the global music community, as well as, supports a key segment of America’s creative class and the small business community that represents America’s cultural and musical genre diversity. Billboard Magazine, using Nielsen SoundScan data, identified the Independent music label sector as 35.1 percent of the music industry’s U.S. recorded music sales market in 2014 based on copyright ownership, making Independent labels collectively the largest music industry segment.

In 2013, the winner of the A2IM Libera Awards Lifetime Achievement Award was Tom Silverman of TommY BoY Entertainment. The 2012 A2IM Libera Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Martin Mills of Beggars Group. Nominations for the 2015 Libera Awards will be announced Wednesday, April 29 and voting will open immediately to the A2IM independent music community.

Indiana Indie Labels Sign Petition Against Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act Boycott

Apr 2, 2015

After Gov. Mike Pence signed the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, an upsurge of people rallied against it as a thinly veiled means to legalize discrimination based on sexual identity in the state. Wilco (who canceled a concert in Indiana) to Miley Cyrus (who tweeted her support for that decision) has railed against IRFRA. Now a group of indie labels have written a press release signed by a number of labels and businesses to make clear their allegiance to the civil liberties of the LGBT community and calls on Gov. Pence and legislators to repeal the law. But they also argue a boycott isn’t the best way to achieve meaningful change.

Here is the text of their open letter:

We are a group of independent record labels and music businesses based in INDIANA. We are deeply disappointed with the recent passage of the INDIANA RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT and the message that it sends to those both in and out of our state. At the very least, this is a poorly written and unnecessary piece of legislation. At the worst, it provides a path to legal discrimination.

We join the chorus of INDIANA residents and businesses calling on GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE and the INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY to repeal the IRFRA. Additionally, we appeal to our state government leaders to enact legislation clearly protecting the civil liberties of LGBT individuals to assure that none of our employees or neighbors may be discriminated against due to sexual orientation or gender identity.

Some businesses and individuals have taken action to suspend or reduce participation in INDIANA’s economy. While this sort of action is well-intended to place pressure on government leaders to repeal or fix this law, we feel an isolationist approach can sometimes be misguided.

As music companies, we cherish the power which music and art can have in promoting social progress. We believe cultural events can be a great opportunity to put a glaring spotlight on injustice. We will continue to proudly call Indiana home, and we call on others in the arts community to address this issue constructively. To musicians with events scheduled in INDIANA — please follow through and perform. While canceling shows is one way to protest, a greater statement can be made by coming here and using your art to influence the policy debate that is occurring locally. You can insist that the venue you play publicly states that they will not discriminate under any circumstances. If the venue won’t do that, rebook your show with another venue that will. Your performance can be a rally. We need your support locally.

Other music businesses in INDIANA who wish to show their support are invited to join in signing: http://www.musicforindiana.org

Asthmatic Kitty Records
The Bishop
Bloomington Guitar & Amp
Cultural Cannibals
Dead Oceans (Secretly Group)
Flannelgraph Records
Fort William Artist Management
The HI-FI
Indy CD & Vinyl
Jagjaguwar (Secretly Group)
Joyful Noise Recordings
Jurassic Pop Records
Landlocked Music
Luna Music
Magnetic South Recordings
Mahern Audio
Meitus Gelbert Rose LLP
MOKB Presents
Russian Recording
SC Distribution
SC Publishing (Secretly Group)
Secretly Canadian (Secretly Group)
Spirit of ’68 Promotions