Jun. 21, 2011 - Issue #818: Brian Wilson
The Warped 45s
Born to run: life on the road has coloured the Warped 45s latest
Though, like most in the city, the band had been watching the game, bassist Alex Needleman had gone out to dinner with a friend, guitarist/co-bandleader Ryan Wayne McEathron recalls. He found returning downtown impossible—the police had cut it off, and the rest of the band weren't allowed to leave the bar, nor were the patrons. They weren't allowed to play, lest they attract the unruly outside mass. Instead, they watched the damage as it unfolded across the city.
"There was a 7-11 below us and they smashed the windows out on that, and the A&W across the street they smashed the windows out, and they dropped tear gas on the corner," says McEathron. "Me and one of the guys we were playing with were just standing up on the roof, looking down sort of in awe. There were two cop cars burning probably within 100 metres of the venue. Just a crazy scene."
They ended up playing, sans bassist, to the other stuck patrons in the bar after the streets quieted down (and saw, the next day, those dedicated fans cleaning up the streets in the riot's aftermath). But it'll surely become a rather unique road story for a band that's accumulating a wealth of them: led by cousins Ryan and Dave McEathron, the Warped 45s has been spending increasing amounts of time travelling the Trans-Canada, currently on the band's fourth cross-country trek since the release of 2009's Ten Day Poem for Saskatchewan.
That musical wanderlust has coloured the cowboy-into-the-sunset hues of the band's latest, Matador Sunset, an album that bounces between more aggressive cowpuncher assaults and gentler Blue Rodeo-ish songs, increasingly influenced by time on the road (the title-track transforms the group's touring van into "the aluminum wings of the great rivet-speckled bird.").
Collectively, the band, its producer and manager voted 20 potential songs down to the finalized 11, with the primary concern being which songs worked best in the barrooms and venues, not what could be tinkered around with in the studio.
"It was a collective, almost a voting, process," McEathron says. "We really just thought that we should have everyone's interests in mind, but also, do something that's road friendly. Because especially, as still a relatively new touring band in the grand scheme of things, I think it's important to have an album that translates live."
Tue, Jun 28 (8 pm)
With the Wheat Pool
Haven Social Club, $10
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