By JAMIE KASTNER --
Creeping up on their ninth year of doing the band thing, of
seasonally decorating the trans-Canada with their van tracks, Toronto's
soul/funk staples, the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, decided to downshift last
year for some time off the road.
The band, who have been together since high school, had recently
crossed
the country twice in support of their debut CD Superior Cackling Hen, the
album had made #1 on national campus radio, and original guitarist Andrew
Whiteman had left.
"It was a natural time to pause for regeneration," says founding
member,
organist/trombonist/songwriter Chris Brown.
The fruit of their down time? Shy Folk, their fifth release. The album
came
out yesterday on their own Yonder Records - they've also taken over
distribution duties from Sony, who handled Cackling.
Brown personally has been playing a slew of sessions in both Toronto
and
New York, and Warner is releasing an album by his side band, Don't Talk Dance,
in March (Brown plus the Barenaked Ladies' Tyler Stewart and Big Sugar's
Gordie Johnson). "Now I'm anxious to get back to work full-time."
Singer Dave Wall also put out a solo record, and singer Kate Fenner
took
part in the CBC's Quiet Please, There's A Lady On Stage ... So you can imagine
what their up time is like.
Shy Folk, says Brown, who wrote most of the songs, is drawn as ever
from
their individual and collective experience. One song, Simple, was written in
memory of Brown's father, who died of lung cancer. "Since we (the band) have
grown up together, sometimes it gets sticky. But you really appreciate it when
you do a song like that and everybody knows exactly what they're singing and
playing about.
"We recorded that song live off the floor. I turned off all the lights
in
the studio and used the trombone light to read an excerpt from Audre Lorde's
The Cancer Journals to set the mood."
Although the intro didn't make the album, other spoken words did; a
poem of
Brown's, In A Salient Way, gets a dual reading by singer Ani Di Franco and
Vancouver writer Neil Eustache.
What with all their work, through down time and up, one can't help but
wonder why the Bourbons remain essentially indie.
"There are different definitions of success. We have been very
fortunate in
that we tour extensively and we have a great following across the country.
Sometimes a label will find a band, hype them and then hope for the best. It's
never worked that way with us."
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