“It’s like Disneyland for Canadian music!” — The Northern Pikes on recording at Studio Bell

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Calgary, Alberta: a premiere place to record a record? Come again. The home of the world’s most famous Stampede is not the first place one thinks of when recalling locales where great albums were made. With the opening of Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre (NMC), that perception is changing fast. Artists ranging from Luke Doucet and Randy Bachman to Boston alt-rock band Guster and The Northern Pikes have all recorded projects recently at this one-of-a-kind facility.

“Sure, it’s strange to have a world-class recording facility in Calgary of all places, but the word is getting out,” says Jason Tawkin, Manager, Building Audio, Studio Bell. “The facility, and the collection housed within the facility, is world class … it’s a pretty unique place.”
Unique is an understatement. It’s a curio shop of wonder. Something new and unexpected waits around every corner. Where else can you see artifacts like k.d. lang’s stage clothing, Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” sunglasses and Neil Peart’s hockey-themed drum kit during recording breaks? “It’s like Disneyland for Canadian music!” says Northern Pikes’ drummer Don Schmid.

This past summer, the four members of The Pikes (Schmid, Jay Semko, Bryan Potvin, and Kevin Kane) gathered in downtown Calgary with only their band ethos – “art before ego” – as their guide. The group arrived at Studio Bell with only a couple song sketches prepared. As Semko says: “it was an experiment and an adventure.” Over the course of just 16 days and two separate sessions (10 days in February 2018 and another six days in July) they collaboratively built the 10 songs from the ground up – tracking seven at the first session in the spring and the remaining three when they returned to Studio Bell mid summer. Working with engineer Graham Lessard (The Barr Brothers, Basia Bulat, Kevin Drew) and NMC Audio Technician Eric Cinnamon, the foursome recorded these songs one by one live off the floor using a Trident A-Range analog console — only one of 13 built and sonically superior to anything available these days. Due out in 2019, the record (the band’s first studio effort in 16 years) remains untitled. The result is an eclectic disc unlike any the Northern Pikes have captured in the studio before.

It is marked by some fairly heavy songs, a little bit of social/political commentary, some power-pop, and some acoustically-inclined numbers.

“Even though we were using modern technology with multi-track recording, we were going through a lot of vintage gear, which warms up the sound and creates a cool vibe,” explains Semko.

“It definitely sounds different,” Schmid adds. “It sounds gritty and real. Listen to how quiet everything is in the digital age … there is no hiss. At some point maybe music should have some other idiosyncrasies.”

World class, unique, and idiosyncratic are exactly how each band member described the Studio Bell setting — ranking the facility on par with historic haunts where they’ve made records in the past including Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY and London’s Abbey Road. The NMC studios include: three control rooms, three live rooms, three isolation booths and a plethora of historic gear to use.

“It’s possibly my favourite studio that I’ve ever recorded in,” says Kevin Kane, guitarist for The Grapes of Wrath, and the Pikes’ newest member, who joined the band for the Big Blue Sky 30th anniversary tour in 2017. “With the demise of the record industry, well, it’s not dead, but it is but a shadow of its former glory, there are fewer and fewer big studios.”

The National Music Centre living musical instrument collection includes more than 300 musical instruments (in working order) spanning 450 years of music technology: everything from a 1591 harpsichord to the legendary monster synth TONTO (a.k.a. The Original New Timbral Orchestra) that was a big part of Stevie Wonder’s sound, a grand piano that once belonged to David Foster, and a rare Novachord of which only six remain in the world. Artists record using one of three historic analog consoles in any combination of adjoining live rooms; each live room is designed to have its own sound and has a selection of historic musical instruments suited for the uniquely designed spaces. One of those rooms is the Rolling Stones Mobile recording truck where iconic songs were cut, such as: “Stairway to Heaven,” “Smoke on the Water,” and “No Woman No Cry (live).”

“Unique to our living musical instrument philosophy is that we are not collecting just for prosperity sake,” Tawkin explains. “We feel those objects are better appreciated when they are actually used as they were intended such as the Rolling Stones Mobile recording truck. It would be a shame if another record were never made with that truck.

“A great deal of inspiration comes from working with such historic pieces,” he adds. “That positive energy and that creative spirit of working with such important pieces of music technology translates into amazing things.”

One of the most recent donations to the NMC collection, which The Pikes took advantage of, was a 1958 Fender Pro Amp, owned and used by Neil Young. Bryan Potvin had not recorded through an amp in the last 15 years, but he and Kane both plugged into this vintage amplifier during the second session for the record. The Pike’s guitarist christened it “Old Nasty!”

“Imagine what this amplifier sounded like to break that 15-year streak!” says Tawkin.
One of Kane’s favourite memories from the NMC sessions occurred when the band had only one day left in the studio and they felt they were still short one song.

“That night Bryan [Potvin] presented an idea he had for a verse with a few lyrics,” he concludes. “The four of us sat around the hotel room and, as I listened to Bryan and Jay talk about the song conceptually and play around with some melodies and chords, I scribbled down a few lyrics based on what they were saying. The next morning, Don sent us all a text with the final lines of the song and we had ‘Don’t You Give Up’ completed by the time we walked into the NMC.”

Learn more about recording at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, here.

New “Old Direction” for Dennis Ellsworth

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“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (Les Guêpes, 1849)

This above oft-quoted epigram from the 19th Century French critic and novelist is usually translated as “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” The phrase refers to how a large-scale change may appear monumental on the surface, but on closer inspection, the fundamentals remain.

Catching up with Dennis Ellsworth to chat about Things Change (his fifth solo album), we find the 41-year-old in the midst of a domestic existence. Ellsworth has just returned from Home Depot, where he was picking out kitchen cabinets and paint samples. Karr’s well-worn phrase sums up the songwriter’s current state; it’s also an apropos tagline to describe his new record.

Ellsworth quit drinking more than a year ago; he and his wife bought a house near where he grew up in the suburb of Stratford, PEI (on the other side of the Hillsboro River from Charlottetown); and he’s set to become a first-time father. Upon an initial spin, Things Change sounds like a departure for the songwriter. Gone is the alt-country sound that’s served as his wheelhouse. Replacing the roots vibe is a radio-friendly wall of sound, with a sprinkle of pop. Listen deeper, and you’ll still hear the poetic lyrics, and Ellsworth’s ability to make a song speak to us all – confirming Karr’s words. The building blocks of this songwriter’s art remain the same.

“I didn’t want to commit to the same old routine that everyone says you have to do.”
Pursuing Publishing PlacementsImagine turning on the TV and hearing your song played while watching a well-loved Canadian CBC drama. That’s one of the feathers Dennis Ellsworth can now add to his songwriting cap. His song “Hazy Sunshine,” from the 2013 record of the same name, appeared on Heartland last season.

Vince Degiorgio, President and founder of Chapter Two Productions (which includes Cymba Publishing) first met Ellsworth at a song camp a few years ago. Immediately, he was struck by the artist’s abilities, and a year later signed him to a publishing deal.

Another recent publishing credit is a song in the Canadian rom-com The New Romantic, which made its world premiere this past March at SXSW. “Vince sent me a message asking if I had any songs that sounded like ‘Skinny Love’ by Bon Iver,” says Ellsworth. “I said, ‘I don’t,’ but I’d just written a song that was close enough, so I sent him a demo. Vince called back immediately and asked, ‘How soon can you get in the studio?’”

Ellsworth cut the song, sent it to Degiorgio, who forwarded the track to Instinct Entertainment — the Toronto-based music supervision and licensing company representing The New Romantic. Then the publisher went to Japan for more than a month, so the songwriter didn’t hear anything. “I figured they weren’t interested,” says Ellsworth. “Then, one day after Vince got home, Instinct got in touch with him and said the song was going to be in the movie!”

“It’s not so much that I took my songwriting in a new direction, it’s more like I went back in time to an ‘old direction,’” says Ellsworth explains. “I’m a child of the late 1970s. When I first started collecting records, what I chose to listen to was late-‘80s and early-‘90s stuff. The early ‘90s were marked by alternative music that featured heavy guitars, and that music inspired me a lot in my formative years.

“When I started writing songs for this record, and I got a feel for where I was going, I intentionally listened to artists like Matthew Sweet, The Lemonheads, and The Jesus & Mary Chain,” he continues. “I used their music as my inspiration.”

Once the song bones took shape, it was “the icing on the cake” to hire fellow East Coaster Joel Plaskett to produce the record. The pair convened at the JUNO Award-winner’s New Scotland Yard studio in Dartmouth, NS. “With Thrush Hermit, he lived in that alternative rock and Sub Pop [Records] world back in the ‘90s,” says Ellsworth.

Adding to the throwback vibe, Plaskett recruited The Super Friendz’ rhythm section (Dave Marsh and Charles Austin) to join them in the studio. “Recording this made us all feel like we were in our 20s again,” says Ellsworth. “As I get older, nostalgia plays a bigger role in my life. I’ve chosen music as the way that I write and express myself. Six months on, I feel Things Change is the best record I’ve ever made.”

While not a concept album, several of the songs on the record (“Absent Mind,” “Caught in the Waves,” and “From the Bottom”) describe Ellsworth’s feelings of career ennui, and the personal transformation he experienced in the last 365 days – especially his decision to put the plug in the jug.

“I wasn’t an abusive drinker,” he admits. “I was a constant social drinker. I didn’t want to quit because I like the taste of beer, scotch, and red wine, but I realized I needed to pull myself together a bit more, on a personal level, to strengthen my chances of survival. The benefits far outweigh the losses.”

Two decades into his artistic career, Ellsworth’s music keeps getting stronger. With this maturity, he’s also re-prioritizing where best to invest his energy. That means more time in the studio, recording demos, writing and co-writing songs every week, and less time away from home in the grind of touring. Signing a publishing deal three years ago with Cymba Music Publishing (see sidebar) was the main driver for this switch.

“I’m less of a performer and more of a songwriter, anyway,” Ellsworth concludes. “I just changed the parameters and structure of what I believed in. I didn’t want to commit to the same old routine that everyone says you have to do. I still want to make music, write songs, and make records, but if I can switch my focus to songwriting more than performing, that’s a transition I want to make.”

SIDEBAR: Pursuing Publishing Placements

Imagine turning on the TV and hearing your song played while watching a well-loved Canadian CBC drama. That’s one of the feathers Dennis Ellsworth can now add to his songwriting cap. His song “Hazy Sunshine,” from the 2013 record of the same name, appeared on Heartland last season.

Vince Degiorgio, President and founder of Chapter Two Productions (which includes Cymba Publishing) first met Ellsworth at a song camp a few years ago. Immediately, he was struck by the artist’s abilities, and a year later signed him to a publishing deal.

Another recent publishing credit is a song in the Canadian rom-com The New Romantic, which made its world premiere this past March at SXSW. “Vince sent me a message asking if I had any songs that sounded like ‘Skinny Love’ by Bon Iver,” says Ellsworth. “I said, ‘I don’t,’ but I’d just written a song that was close enough, so I sent him a demo. Vince called back immediately and asked, ‘How soon can you get in the studio?’”

Ellsworth cut the song, sent it to Degiorgio, who forwarded the track to Instinct Entertainment — the Toronto-based music supervision and licensing company representing The New Romantic. Then the publisher went to Japan for more than a month, so the songwriter didn’t hear anything. “I figured they weren’t interested,” says Ellsworth. “Then, one day after Vince got home, Instinct got in touch with him and said the song was going to be in the movie!”

MICHELLE SIU/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Live music’s last hurrah?

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Toronto’s booming real estate market has led to escalating property assessments and rents in commercial buildings. Clubs that once staged local favourites and stars alike are closing.

It’s a Thursday night here on Queen Street West. Inside The Cameron House, Corin Raymond and The Sundowners are on stage. It’s standing room only for 100 music lovers who cram the narrow bar’s front room to hear Mr. Raymond’s weekly pay-what-you-can gig – one of the longest running artist residencies in Toronto, at 13 years and counting. Above the bar, a sign says: “This is Paradise.”

The Cameron House may indeed be a Utopia for musicians and fans alike but, along with the nearby Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, which turned 70 this year, it’s one of the few left in the downtown Toronto neighbourhood that once had handfuls of places where live music could be heard on a nightly basis.

Leave The Cameron and head north on Spadina Avenue. Eventually, after a few blocks, on the west side, you’ll stumble upon The Silver Dollar Room, which opened in 1958. The venue, where Bob Dylan, Levon Helm (The Band), Barenaked Ladies and Blue Rodeo once played, closed this past May; a high-rise student-housing complex is set to take its place.

Other notable recent venue casualties in Toronto include The Hideout, Soybomb, The Hoxton, The Central, Holy Oak, Harlem, and Seven44. They followed the earlier exit of the The Colonial Tavern, Albert’s Hall, The Gasworks, The Edge, The Diamond, and The Bamboo. As Toronto arts weekly Now Magazine noted last March, seven music clubs alone closed in the first three months of 2017.

They’re falling in succession amid a perfect storm of economic factors that threatens them and other small businesses: As core real estate soars in value, property assessments and taxes rise in concert. Landlords then either find wealthier tenants who can afford escalating rents or sell to developers eager for their coveted properties.

“Progress is inevitable,” says Erin Benjamin, executive director at Music Canada Live, the voice of Canada’s live music industry. “Real estate will continue to rise.”

The net effect for musicians, particularly the younger ones learning their craft and not yet ready for the city’s bigger halls and arenas, is troubling – fewer small venues means fewer opportunities to play. Fans lose out, too.

Toronto isn’t alone, either. Other major cities with robust real estate markets are experiencing the same trend.

Despite what many call a crisis, it’s not all doom and gloom, though. Amid these countless closings, some Toronto venues have reopened (Hugh’s Room) or are set to reopen (El Mocambo) with new looks and new business models. Additionally, Massey Hall, part of the non-profit charitable corporation that also operates Roy Thomson Hall, is entering the second phase of a massive revitalization project that will include two new performance spaces.

The other good news: City councils, not just in Toronto, but other metropolitan areas such as Hamilton and London, Ont., are taking notice, adding “music offices” inside their local governments as liaisons with the music industry. “The news of venues closing is always a concern,” says Toronto councillor Josh Colle, who is a member of the Toronto Music Advisory Council (TMAC). “It alerts us to how important these venues are.”

Mr. Colle says TMAC is working on dozens of reviews related to live music venues: everything from bylaw changes to conversations between developers, planners and landlords. He acknowledges that taxes and rising real estate affects more than just music clubs. “We are losing bookstores, green grocers, shoe stores, etc.,” he adds. “The way MPAC [the provincial Municipal Property Assessment Corp.] assesses properties based on their highest and best use is a threat to every local business.”

Fellow councillor Mike Layton, who previously served on TMAC, adds: “There’s no doubt rent is playing a significant role in many of these closings. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do in limiting commercial establishments and the taxes they pay; that’s not within our powers but it is adding significant pressure. In municipal planning, we don’t zone for people, or for the tenants, we zone for the use.”

The cost of real estate makes it prohibitive for certain kinds of businesses such as live music venues to thrive in certain neighbourhoods. Besides trendy Queen Street West, take Yonge Street. This is an issue close to Mark Garner’s heart. Following the recent closure of Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge after its lease expired and the owner was asking for $2-million a year in rent, plus taxes and other expenses, the chief executive officer of Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area is now working to help protect more of these legacy venues.

“We do a great job in Toronto of protecting the facades of our buildings, but we don’t protect the interiors,” Mr. Garner explains. “Taxation increases are really what is decimating these businesses – especially in our patch of the city. What happens on Yonge will eventually happen on Ossington [Avenue] and other neighbourhoods.

“We did an analysis of buildings on Yonge, from Queen Street to Bloor, and found buildings appraised in 2012 for $2.6-million are now valued at $12.2-million,” Mr. Garner continues. “How do you phase in that kind of tax increase?”

More than 100 people recently attended a live music town hall at Lula Lounge on Dundas Street West in Toronto. Present were Mike Tanner of Toronto’s music office and Jeff Cohen, the majority owner The Horseshoe and Lee’s Palace. Other venue owners, music industry stakeholders, journalists, artists and patrons of live music also attended. Issues discussed and debated ranged from loading zones outside venues and noise bylaws to what everyone agreed was the elephant in the room – rising real estate prices in the metropolitan areas across Canada and the ensuing rise in commercial property taxes.

Most club owners lease space from a landlord. When that lease expires, there is often no barrier to how much that rent can increase. While rent control exists for many residential properties, that’s not the case when it comes to commercial buildings.

Sam Grosso, owner of Cadillac Lounge on Queen Street West, is one of the lucky operators who also owns the building. Still, it’s a struggle. And, that’s one of the main reasons the small-business owner recently decided to put the building up for sale.

“I pay my mortgage every month, not rent to a greedy landlord who keeps jacking up my rent until my lease expires,” Mr. Grosso explains. “It’s a double-edged sword. I bought the property for a good price years ago, but I’m still struggling to make the business happen and get people in the door.

“Meanwhile, I’m sitting on all this property that is worth a lot of money. You are beating yourself against the wall, and sometimes I ask myself: What am I doing?”

At the end of the day, Ms. Benjamin at Music Canada Live says all discussions about live music venues and real estate need to be long-term; there is no short-term solution.

“It’s important for TMAC and for other cities to pay attention and prioritize live music spaces in that big picture,” she says. “Once they are gone, it’s hard to bring them back.”

This article was published in The Globe & Mail December 18, 2017.