August 06, 2009

Publication title: Edmonton Music, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Unknown

You Can See The Sky Everywhere

Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Gallagher Park. Come What May session (with Alana Levandoski, Slaid Cleaves): Stage 2, Sat, Aug 8 (4pm) • Concert: Stage 2, Sun, Aug 9 (noon) • Funny Old World session (with Fred Eaglesmith, Johnny Flynn, Steven Page): Stage 6, Sun, Aug 9 (4:30pm).

“I don’t know if I’d call it a conversation,” laughs The Wooden Sky’s Gavin Gardiner. “I’d probably call it a fight.”

Lying on the backseat of a van driving somewhere along the I-94, the singer/guitarist has nothing but a long road and plenty of time to talk about his band’s folk-rock sound … and pretty much anything else. Like I said, he’s trapped in a van.

“I’m proud of the fact that all those songs made it on the album because it was a real internal battle,” he says. “We recorded 16 songs and we talked about putting out a nine-song record, which would have been impossible at that point because we would have had to cut seven songs. I hated cutting three.” Hence the fight. “We decided that it would be better to do it over e-mail because we couldn’t interrupt each other and we could say everything we wanted to say.”

The tracks that survived the e-mail campaign can now be referred to as If I Don’t Come Home You’ll Know I’m Gone, an album that will slip into stores as the summer fades into fall. But rollin’ down the highway they’ll be hitting Edmonton’s Folk Festival before the leaves change. Along the way, they’ll be playing gigs in gazebos, gondolas, and canoes (for serious), not to mention Carl’s house in Regina and Jon’s place in Sudbury on their way back East. In fact, The Wooden Sky are only playing one bar on their whole Bedrooms & Backstreets tour, preferring the comforts of a friend’s living room or backyard to the grime of a traditional club.

“Apparently we have some experienced canoers in the band,” he offers when I ask him about the canoe gig in Banff. “That won’t save our gear if we get flipped.” But he’s only a little worried about that scenario, especially considering the other alt-venues have been working out great so far — including a performance back at their apartment in Toronto.

“The word just spread ’cause I kind of thought we couldn’t let anymore people in,” he says. “We actually went up to the roof — we have a rooftop patio — and about two songs in, it started to pour rain. So everybody helped us bring all the gear inside. People crammed into the living room and we sort of stood on our couch. People were standing on the stairs, standing on tables and the counter. It was really sweaty and fun.”

In a way, playing music for a gathering of friends and neighbours in your home, as low-tech and as unpredictable as that is, in all its intimacy, is perhaps more folk than Edmonton’s very own Fest. And though Gardiner et al. aren’t nearly ragged enough to be labelled good ol’ boys quite yet, they’ve got the spirit. Gardiner’s voice always sounds warm and perfectly worn, but never worn out. The lap steel wafts and twangs against the twitch of the snare drum as piano or cello or harmonica accent, not so much the song but the sentiment.

For all their youth, it makes them sound like they’ve driven plenty of long roads before. But in truth, they’re just beginning their career and simply have to concentrate on I-94 for now.