Sep. 10, 2008 - Issue #673: Sex in the City 2008

Moving Music

E-town musicians celebrate the transit system

Consider the nature of music for a moment: there’s almost always some sort of movement surrounding it, metaphorically or just plain physically. There’s the touring that takes musicians from town to town, but then there’s also the movement of the audience—dancing, moshing, gentle nodding of the head—and the onstage movement of the performers—often very similar to what is going on off stage. And of course there’s also the movement of the songs themselves, as one note proceeds to the next and words and music unfold to tell a story or convey a feeling or simply lead listeners further into the mystery of what it’s all about.
 

Given all that, a musical component to a celebration of 100 years of Edmonton’s public transportation system—titled Moving Music—seems wholly appropriate. And so Fri, Sep 12 and Sun, Sep 14 will see Sir Winston Churchill Square taken over by musicians and music fans of many stripes. Among those who will be taking the stage for the event is local songwriter Trevor Tchir, a man who has done his fair share of travelling over the years, having spent time living in Ottawa before moving back to Edmonton and setting out from here to play music across the countryside.
 

Tchir has undertaken a number of trips since moving back to the city—among them a cross-Canada solo tour that saw him travelling by Greyhound bus, along with a second trip out East and another over to Europe—but he’s also spent a good part of time putting together his fourth album, crossing the country in spirit on the recording.
 

“This is my first one recorded in Alberta,” Tchir says about the upcoming album. “It’s fun because I’ve gotten to include some new Albertan musician friends on the record and get to work with some people who I’d kind of hoped I’d get to work with when I moved back here—like Shannon Johnson does some violin on it and Lane Arndt does some guitar and banjo and bass.”
 

Tchir also had former Edmontonian Bramwell Park in to do a little singing and banjo picking the day before Park left town on the way back to his own home in St Catharines, Ontario. But the player on the album with the biggest presence is Tchir’s brother Stephen, who now makes his home in Montréal where he’s studying music.
 

“Steve is on almost all of it, and he’s really matured as a singer and a guitarist so it’s really changed [the Trevor Tchir Band’s sound],” Tchir remarks. “I mean, before this record I only had electric guitar on one song on anything ever, but there’s a lot more electric guitar. He sings a lot of backup vocals, mandolin and guitar.”
 

Tchir also made a trip to Ottawa for a weekend of recording organ and backup vocals with Peter Webb and Pierre Chrétien, both of whom worked with him on earlier recordings, nicely tying together this new Edmonton-recorded album with the work he did while in Ottawa.

 

So it seems that there’s much travel—by bus, plane or car—behind the scenes as well when it comes to creating music. Tchir also suggests that music is a way of sound tracking experiences, and even  encouraging memories.

“I found that on the Greyhound tour my favourite thing was to meet other musicians in the different Canadian cities and do CD exchanges or buy a local record, and that became the soundtrack,” he explains. “The fun thing is collecting that music from other musicians on your travels and then bringing it back home and sharing it with friends that love music. That’s what’s really fun.” V 
 

Moving Music

Fri, Sep 12 (7 pm)

With the Trevor Tchir Band, the Whitsundays, Shout Out Out Out Out

 

Sun, Sep 14 (12 pm)

With Le Fuzz, Ayla Brook, Manraygun, Ben Sures, Robin Hunter & Six Foot Bullies

Sir Winston Churchill Sq, free (all ages)

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