In Owen Sound there is a street corner that has four churches, called Salvation Corners, and a block away is a street corner that has four bars: Damnation Corners. I visited both. From talking to some folks at Damnation Corners, I found out it’s a bit of a tradition to visit the bar on Sunday, shortly after services are done. Most small towns have sub-communities within them and I think this was an example of that: people build their communities around things like going to church, or going to the bar, or maybe a bit of both. This particular bar…    read more.

This song came very obliquely from two conversations –- one I had, and one I overheard. We played a festival in Red Rock, and the day after the festival we went hiking with some friends (Devin and Keri Latimer from Leaf Rapids…check ’em out!). At one brief point, in conversation with Devin, we were postulating the granularity of brain activity and what you could actually see with an MRI scan. It was a real nerdy discussion, but he is a Chemistry professor and I have a math degree and that’s just what we got up to talking about. We came…    read more.

This song has a rather complicated provenance, but ultimately it’s based on two things: an article about elections that I found when I visited Arnprior, and the superlative nature of the signs you see while driving into small towns. First, the article: it was about how several city councillors in Arnprior would not be running for re-election, and after the main thrust of the article it gave the brief history of some of the councillors – some of whom had long family histories full of council members. That kind of small-town dynasty is interesting, to me, because it involves both…    read more.

North Caledon is not far from Toronto, and when we traveled there we just put in the name of the place in our phone and decided to follow it to see where it would lead us. What would Google Maps consider the important place to identify as being “North Caledon”? It turned out to be a cul de sac near the town cemetary. A rather interesting spot, to say the least. Because it’s easy to wander in a graveyard and imagine dozens of stories behind each stone and symbol and epitaph and even sometimes just the proximity of the stones…    read more.

Our new album, “In City & Country”, is finally here! You can BUY IT NOW on all the different services/places you might think to purchase an album in this day and age: We have been steadily releasing singles, but we’re really excited that the folks can finally listen to the whole album, because we’re old school enough to care about crafting an album that has a cohesive structure and theme to it. We hope you enjoy it. It’s already been getting some love from radio, which we hugely appreciate, including cracking the Top 10 on the National Earshot Folk/Roots/Blues chart…    read more.

I started out writing a totally different song. It happens sometimes — you have an idea, it feels like it’s going somewhere, then you get lost in the middle of the second verse and you’re not sure what you’re talking about anymore. As Leonard Cohen says, the thing is that the bad lines take as much effort as the good ones. So what do you do if you wind up in a song full of bad lines? Well, you cannibalize the good ones and write a different song entirely. I had read this “Bonnie & Clyde”-style story about a couple…    read more.

As you drive into Goderich, Ontario there is a sign, as is true for many towns and cities, that tells you not only the name of the town but also what it’s known for. Goderich’s distinction is to be “Canada’s Prettiest Small Town”. A bold claim, but it could be true. It was given that distinction by the Queen(!), although searching historical records I couldn’t find any sign that the Queen had actually been to Goderich. A Dutch princess may have visited. I’d say that’s still pretty damn good. In 2011 Goderich weathered a tornado — a pretty rare weather…    read more.

Crystal Beach, on Abino Bay, used to be home to a 37-acre resort/amusement park. It started as a religious campground in 1888, by the 1940s you could see the Glen Miller Orchestra play in the Crystal Ballroom. There were multiple roller coasters (The Cyclone! The Comet!) on the site. It closed in 1989 and demolition erased all traces of its existence, except for a break wall and pier. This sort of thing happens in lots of small towns – an industry is built up and torn down. I lived in the nearby town of Ridgeway briefly, as part of a…    read more.

I have a cousin who, every time I see him, says, “I don’t know how you can live in Toronto.” And I remember when I went to the University of Waterloo, meeting people from Toronto who would sometimes say, “There’s nothing to do here!” And I would wonder what the hell they were talking about, since I found Waterloo to be exceptionally vibrant. The fact of the matter is, both of those types of folks are missing out. I love every big city I’ve been to, and Toronto is no exception. I also love just about every small town I’ve…    read more.

Our latest single is also the near-title track of our upcoming album: “City & Country” for the album In City & Country. I don’t know why we made it hard on ourselves. But we did make a lyric video for the single featuring images from all the small towns around Ontario that were the inspiration for the songs on the album. Since this song is the lynch-pin that ties the theme together, it seemed to make sense to include all these images here. The fine folks at Exclaim! were kind enough to premiere the video yesterday — thanks, Exclaim! You…    read more.