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Peter Tigchelaar’s Gracious Window
For Peter Tigchelaar 15 years isn’t that unusual a time to take between albums. With a growing family and a day job taking precedence, Tigchelaar has spent recent years more reclusively but still meticulously crafting a collection of songs together for a future release. In the last year, Tigchelaar decided that future was now and this week offers his long awaited sophomore CD, Gracious Window.
“I was born in this city over a half a century ago but I’m a bit of a hermit,” admits Tigchelaar on his absence from local stages. “I live out in the country. I probably consider myself more of a writer than a bar performer. I do like to get out to play but I deal with a hermit–like shyness that a writer tends to have.
“I’ve written a lot of songs over the years,” he adds. “Some of these are older songs that I’ve had around in my hermitage, if you will, of writing and I feel it’s time to take them out of the quiver and fire them.”
This time out, Tigchelaar holds the reins as producer. He enlisted Trevor Titian as engineer at his Orcana Recording Studios and then tapped Bill Dillon (guitar), Tone Valcic (drums), Michelle Titian (vocals), Carl Horton (keyboards) and Jamie Oakes (guitar) to record on the project. The songs – a mix of pop, folk, rock and perhaps the choral influences Tichgelaar grew up on – are an easy listen but the lyrical content is a little heavier. Tichgelaar hopes to challenge as much as he might please a listener, in the same vein as some of his inspirations – Dylan, Lennon, Tigchelaar or monk and poet Thomas Merton and Rabbinic scholar A. J. Heschel.
“It’s definitely got a singer/songwriter vibe about it,” offers Tigchelaar on his new recording. “Bob Dylan’s probably been the biggest influence on my life. The Beatles, Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen – people with thoughtful, challenging, provocative lyrics or perhaps consoling, heartfelt lyrics that married them with well–crafted music. They soothe the soul or challenge the heart and mind.
“Thomas Merton was very influential on the lives of Joan Baez and the peace movement,” adds Tigchelaar on his other influences. “He was a poet and a hermit in Kentucky. He wrote about finding your real self and contrasting that with a false delusional self. And I see that in a lot of writers like Dylan and Cohen. Heschel wrote God In Search of Man and The Prophets. There’s an aspect of the role of prophets in culture that is very intriguing to me. Dylan, Cohen and Merton marry prophetic insights into well–crafted art. I think there is a role for prophets and the prophetic in culture and in music. I see these artists bringing it together and it’s one of the things I aspire to do with my songwriting. There might be some politically incorrect things I’m trying to address but I try to marry them to some cool tunes.”
Valcic and Horton reprise their studio roles to help bring Tichgelaar’s cool tunes to the live setting but for the CD release show Tichgelaar adds Aaron Goldstein (Huron, Lee Harvey Osmond) on guitar, his son Andrew on bass and even his wife Cheryl to sing. With the Gracious Window CD release, Tigchelaar offers his first major foray out into the clubs, but with any luck, he’ll continue on with achieving his goals – musical, spiritual and otherwise – wherever his journey takes him.
“The full title is Gracious Window – Songs to Light the Way and it is about seeing through and seeing into things, which might sound philosophical,” says Tichgelaar on the song that became the title of his newest CD. “The idea came from when the Hubble telescope came out. There’s something about what a gift it is to have things like the universe of galaxies to explore as much as the depths within our self. I like to think these songs might help light the way for people. I hope to help people find their own voice. A lot of people are looking for hope and everybody has an opportunity to light the way for someone else and help other people find a voice.”
Peter Tigchelaar plays this Thursday April 30 at the Corktown Pub and the show gets underway at 8pm. Click on petertigchelaar.com
The Subterraneans Collective’s Sinking Ship
Jay Baggett and Jon Busuttil formed The Subterraneans Collective in the summer of 2003 as an acoustic based duo. After recording their Busride EP and playing a variety of shows, many more musicians wanted to join in the jam. By 2007, the duo became a quartet with Dave Reed on keyboards and David Abbey on drums and more recently, the open musical membership has near doubled the band again. With their popularity growing amongst musicians and fans, this weekend the Subterraneans Collective offer their debut full length, The Sinking Ship.
“Once the quartet came together and we were playing more and more live, we definitely caught the ears of some like–minded musicians, who all basically jumped up at random during a couple of the house shows we were playing at,” recalls Baggett. “Right now we're rolling with as many as seven people (Tarek Ajak on sax and flute, Sam Klass on guitars and Aerin Ellison on trumpet), and it’s given us a chance to make every show a little different. And we’re still open to new additions and collaborations too.”
As a jam band, the Subterraneans Collective mine the pop/funk/rock of the Grateful Dead and Les Claypool but push those boundaries with their own melodic flair and improvisational skills.
“We had a pretty basic idea of what we wanted to do, but a lot of it was more or less on the fly, and the songs all sort of evolved as we went along,” says Baggett on the recordings done in his living room home studio. “Even the older ones changed as they progressed and wound up sounding completely different. We wanted to try to keep as much of the live feel intact as we could, but at the same time take advantage of the chance to mess about with sounds and ideas that aren’t as easy to do in a live situation. The variety of sounds happened organically; we never really set out to record a rock or a funk album, or anything like that. I think it all ties together nicely though, and that mix makes the Subterraneans’ sound.”
With new versions of some of the Busride tracks and a collection of all new material, the Subterraneans are about building things up toward the future on The Sinking Ship, sonically and philosophically. While the title of their new recording might seem negative, Baggett and the boys believe otherwise.
“With the revamped songs and the newer material, this album shows a bit of both where we started and where we’re headed,” notes Baggett. “You get a good look at what makes us want to create – not only our musical influences, but also the things we see, read, hear and experience as well.
“The Sinking Ship title probably sounds more negative than it’s intended,” he adds. “It’s meant more as unification: we’re all in the same boat, we’re all connected. The solution to the ship going under is realizing how true that is.”
With unity in mind, the band is set to thank a venue that helped them in their early days by playing a special improvisational instrumental set at a Mayday benefit for the Skydragon with artists like Rackula, Nilla, Sam Klass and Jay Hachey.
“We’re going to be playing an entirely improvised instrumental set, as the four–piece line up,” says Baggett. “The Sky Dragon community’s been a big supporter of us since the beginning, so playing Mayday is a good chance to say thank you.”
And while the CD release should focus on the future, it’s also a nod at what developed the Subterraneans Collective. They’re also showing their appreciation at this week’s gig by paying homage to a local band that helped offer their own inspiration.
“This show sort of fell into our lap, and the timing was perfect,” explains Baggett on the CD release date opening for the Fat Cats. “It’s an opportunity we’d been looking forward to, and so was too good to pass up. The Fat Cats have built a solid community around them, and it'll be a great chance to give them an earful of something we hope they pick up on, and dig it as much as we think they will.
“We’ve met some abundantly talented people over the course of this project and I can hardly wait to see what comes of putting minds together with them all again,” adds Baggett. “This show’s about us celebrating the culmination of a year’s work and having a good time with the folks who helped us get to this point.”
The Subterraneans Collective play this Friday April 30 at This Ain’t Hollywood with the Fat Cats. Click on thesubterraneans.ca
The Lyra Transmission Debut
The members of one of the city’s newest bands can trace back their roots to the all ages scene of nearly a decade ago.
At 16, brothers Aaron (drums) and Mathew Guevarra (vocals/guitar) formed Subdominant when they were in their junior year at high school, secured a win in a local battle of the bands, claimed a grand prize of studio time in a Mississauga studio and managed to impress the in–house producer and studio owners enough to start talking major labels. But with two years of wrangling and false promises, major label deals were won and lost and some heavy music industry lessons were well learned all before the Guevarras turned 18.
The band was still a popular local draw and continued to gig adding Marc Cote on bass but things didn’t seem to click any more. After a temporary break, the trio would form Skeptic and prove important in Mathew Guevarra’s self–discovery.
“This was an intense time because, following the disappointment of losing the record deal and Sub–d coming to an end, I went into a soul searching period where I questioned everything about my life; the meaning, purpose, and all that,” recalls Mathew Guevarra. “It was during this time that I became a born again Christian. Music and recording, record deals didn’t compare! My new found faith began to saturate my lyrics and stage persona as well as my personal life.”
As Guevarra matured, he’d fall in love and begin a family very much out of the rock underground. Cote would go back to school while Aaron would step out from behind the drums, and front his own band, the Hollywood Way and later reconnect with Cote in Starside.
But as luck would have it, after a work layoff in 2008, Mathew would again explore music with his basement studio and begin recording other artists as well as new songs for his own new project.
“I began to work at writing and recording new songs, reworking older material, while continuing on in my session work,” says Guevarra. “The songs began to turn out pretty good so I began to put it out there to see if there was an audience for it. The Lyra Transmission started as a solo project and I was being invited to perform at various venues and to tour out east, but I had no band. My immediate desire was to ask for Aaron and Marc’s help – the two guys that bring out the best in me musically.”
Self produced at his WD Studios, Guevarra shows a great ear for sonics and for melody on the Lyra Transmissions seven–song debut EP, particularly on tracks like “All For You” and “Last Chance Calling.” “All For You” could, and should, be a hit on modern rock radio but Guevarra is more concerned with the meaning behind the songs more than any monetary gains they might hold.
“The songs I had been writing reflected the experiences I was undergoing in my life at that time,” explains Guevarra. “This was a time of major personal and spiritual growth for me. I had gone through personal triumphs and failures in both my everyday life and spiritual life and I have written very openly in some cases about it.
“I don’t and will not hide the fact that I am a born–again Christian and that I owe absolutely everything to God,” he adds. “It has become my life’s ambition to live to please him, whatever that may mean. The Lyra Transmission is one transmission in an endless sea of others, but it offers a positive choice – an option to want to discover what’s more purposeful and meaningful in this life and the next.”
What life holds for Guevarra in the short–term is a long awaited return to the local stage and hopefully the Lyra Transmission will continue but the band will simply take things one day at a time.
“The music has changed a bit since I got old,” laughs Guevarra, “but I hope that people still appreciate loud guitars and drums. We play the music we love best; loud guitar riffs with Marshall distortion and a tight rhythm section. Honestly, we’ve worked hard to get to this point, juggling personal lives and such. Aside from gigging and promoting this CD, we still have much more work to do.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve stepped on stage together, so I definitely don’t want to disappoint anyone,” confides Guevarra. “We’re trying not to have any expectations about this new project, but trying to enable ourselves to accept it for whatever it is.”
The Lyra Transmission plays May 1 at Club Absinthe with Kristin Nicholls and Prologic. Click on myspace.com/thelyratransmission.
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