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WOODEN SKY
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by
Ric Taylor
November 12 - 18, 2009 |
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When Gavin Gardiner moved to Toronto to go to school, he experienced some serious culture shock from his days growing up in Morden, Manitoba. He grew up listening to what he calls popular folk like Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel, and spent his early teens wanting to be a songwriter but the move to the big city galvanized things for the young musician.
It was 2003 when he felt perhaps most at odds with the world; he felt most at home with his words and was inspired to seriously contend with putting a band together to put his songs out to the public. What would become The Wooden Sky would not only offer Gardiner a new outlet for his creativity but would also spotlight a quest for offering authenticity in a world of pop pabulum.
In 2009, with the release of The Wooden Sky’s latest effort, If I Don’t Come Home You’ll Know I’m Gone, some of the accolades received suggested Gardiner’s quest was in earnest and he had come upon something really special. Folk, country, gospel, rock, pop and more are incorporated into what The Wooden Sky do, referencing everything from Hank Williams to Wilco.
“When I came to Toronto, I didn’t really have a lot of friends or anything else to do so I kind of just wrote songs about it,” offers Gardiner. “I saw someone perform once and they were talking about how everyone into rock, when they hit their 20s they start finding Gram Parsons and then fall in love with country and I guess there’s an element of truth to that.”
“Townes Van Zandt, all of those songs are sad and morose – and still kind of beautiful in that sense – but I also love some upbeat rock stuff, too,” adds Gardiner. “That’s what I like about artists like Neil Young, because he has both of those sides to him. He often separates them into records but I haven’t really felt the need to do that. It’s nice to put all those songs on one album. It doesn’t have to be all the same thing, all the time.”
When terms like “genre–defying” and “career–defining” are thrown about, the more jaded might let their heads swell – but for The Wooden Sky, the terms are more than applicable. The disc reels and rocks with a subtlety that bristles with authenticity – underscoring Gardiner’s own struggle of putting his most personal details into song for public display.
“When you write these songs you don’t necessarily think that anyone is going to hear them – I mean, I wanted people to hear them but…,” muses Gardiner. “A friend of mine and I were sitting around playing guitar after our first record came out and he asked me, ‘Don’t you feel weird writing songs when other people are going to hear them?’ And I never really took it too much to heart until I started reading reviews. Even if they were positive reviews, it sort of felt strange to know I was letting people into my life like that. So for a while, I had a hard time even playing guitar or trying to write songs because I didn’t want to think about the fact that people might hear it. It seems now that I’ve kind of gotten over that and I can play guitar again.”
Luckily for fans, Gardiner continued to make music. The band – Andrew Wyatt (bass, vocals), Simon Walker (piano), Anissa Hart (cello) and Peter Krpan (percussion) – travelled from Toronto to Montreal, recording in studios, bedrooms and churches with a host of notable friends like Heather Kirby (Ohbijou), Debra Jean Creelman (ex–Mother Mother), Mika Posen (Forest City Lovers), Jessica Moss (Silver Mount Zion), Howard Billerman (ex–Arcade Fire), Stew Crookes ($100), Edwin Huizinga (Mars Volta), and Adam Kinner (Marathon). The end result of an album titled If I Don’t Come Home You’ll Know I’m Gone could sound sombre, but Gardiner assures otherwise.
“I don’t think it necessarily has to be sad,” reasons Gardiner on the album title. “It embodied a lot of themes on the record and also I liked the idea that it could be sad but it could be uplifting. I thought it sounded like some kind of surrender or truce in an argument fight. That’s the way I felt and it seemed to suit everything perfectly. I finished the record; I sort of felt like I’m done now and a lot of the songs had that feeling and it seemed to fit really well. It seemed eloquent in a very poignant, simple way.”
You could also say that the music of The Wooden Sky might also be summed up as eloquent in a very poignant, simple way.
“That was my goal for writing this record,” agrees Gardiner. “I was obsessed with these short story writers who wrote these beautiful, dark, haunting stories but they use the most simple, basic, conversational language to accomplish it, and they have these crazy themes. After reading a lot of these, that was the inspiration for this record.”
The Wooden Sky has found great success in capturing the complexity of life in the subtleties and urgencies of the moment and in a very relatable way. They’ve toured the country and played Hamilton before but what we can expect from the band live is what the audience brings to the table.
“One thing that is exciting about this band is that we play to the room,” smiles Gardiner. “We played in Windsor and it was Saturday night in Windsor, it was a party, so we played a party set. Some of the elements get lost but it was a really fun party. There are also sets we play in churches with stripped down versions of the songs that are quite different. I’ve been to Absinthe before, but I don’t know what the vibe will be. Last time was fun; I believe we had a party.” V [RIC TAYLOR]
THE WOODEN SKY
with Evening Hymns
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Absinthe
myspace.com/thewoodensky
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