The CBC included a little piece of mine about my dad in their Father’s Day posting. Check it out here:

music.cbc.ca/blogs/2013/6/From-Evening-Hymns-to-Rosanne-Cash-musicians-stories-songs-and-photos-for-Fathers-Day

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Vancouver Indie Folk Collective The Fugitives release Bigger Than LuckEP, July 16, on Light Organ Records, ahead of full-length album due this fall.  Listen to the EP single “Bigger Than Luck” today.

LISTEN TO “BIGGER THAN LUCK” HERE

You’d never know by listening to it, but The Fugitives new EP Bigger Than Luck is actually inspired by astronauts.   Well, photos of astronauts. Vancouver based Songwriters Adrian Glynn and Brendan McLeod took the weekend off while recording their new EP with producer John Critchley (Dan Mangan, Elliot BROOD) to take in an exhibit of rare photos from the first two moon landings at New York’s Natural History Museum.  Awestruck by the magnitude of these miracle photos that were tucked away in a small, bland corner of the museum, Glynn and McLeod felt like the images were a perfect reference for the themes of banality vs. wonder they were exploring on the EP.  Glynn says, “We felt like Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber running out to everyone, yelling ‘We landed on the moon!’”

Out July 16 on Light Organ Records Bigger Than Luck is the precursor to a full-length album due this fall, but is by no means a trial run.  Mastered by Greg Calbi (Of Monsters and Men, She & Him), featuring the vocals of Brandy Zdan, and the instrumentation of bluegrass guruChris Quinn and fiddler Sahra Featherstone, Bigger Than Luck marries the driving banjo and top-notch harmonies of past Fugitives’ releases.

McLeod says album single “Bigger Than Luck” is a feel good song from a cranky old man. “We’re always trying to remind ourselves to be grateful for being alive, and then next thing you know we’re giving the finger to a red light.  So ‘Bigger Than Luck’ is an attempt to trick ourselves out of ingratitude.”

When not touring as musicians, Glynn and McLeod are active pursuing other disciplines.  McLeod is an award winning novelist and former Canadian SLAM poetry champion, while Glynn is a working actor who received rave reviews for his role in Chelsea Hotel, a play based on the songs and poems of Leonard Cohen.  Their band is similarly eclectic, boasting prominent former members like Mark Berube and CR Avery.  The current arrangement of rotating cast members includes violin-looping prodigyHannah Epperson, multi-instrumentalist Steve Charles, and renowned actor Benjamin Elliot.  As McLeod puts it, “We’re like Broken Social Scene. But acoustic, and way less famous.”

LISTEN TO “BIGGER THAN LUCK” HERE
BIGGER THAN LUCK EP OUT JULY 16 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

TRACK LIST

01- Bigger Than Luck

02- Old Mistakes

03- Slowly Undone

04- The City

ARTIST SITE: fugitives.ca

LABEL SITE: lightorganrecords.com

Hey, if you’re a Rdio user you can now hear the album “Bruise” on their.. network? Can we call it a network? Anyway, it’s on Rdio. So stream on:

http://www.rdio.com/artist/Adrian_Glynn/album/Adrian_Glynn/

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adrian with Glen Hansard

And then you have one of those nights you just won’t forget.

I flew to NYC this weekend to open for the great Glen Hansard (The Frames; the Commitments; Once) at a small benefit show for the Rose F Kennedy Centre in Brooklyn.  Playing the show was fun. Singing with Glen was fun- (video). .

Later, the few of us left went down the street to a bar a friend had kept open just for us. Glen told me the story of when he first saw his mate Jeff Buckley play in Dublin- Jeff downed an entire pint of Guinness in front of the unruly bar crowd before starting the first song, just to get them on his side. Apparently it worked.

Then I was trying to explain to Hansard who Stan Rogers was and the Canadian importance of Northwest Passage.  He said, Just fucking sing it.  I obliged and then he answered with an old Irish tune by Christy Moore. And so it went, back and forth. A cappella songs and stories with a true Irish gent until 5 am somewhere in the Lower East Side. And I laughed at New York as I was stumbling home because it was actually quiet and I could hear the birds singing.

7 weeks in Toronto. Zero social life. 4 Cameron House gigs with The Fugitives. One leather recliner chair that has molded to my shape. This is what making a record is like.

STUDIO!

Yes, I’ve been spending 6 days a week since New Year’s in Green Door Studio with producer John Critchley (Dan Mangan, Amelia Curran) and bandmate Brendan McLeod working on this new record. The Fugitives is basically just Brendan and I now (save for the wonderful musicians we hire to make us look/sound good) so all 3 of us got to know each other pretty well. Anyway, my label Light Organ Records will be putting out the new record in the Fall and we can’t wait.  But we will have to.

TOUR!

We are about to embark on a Western Canada tour in March. We kick off with a Vancouver show at the Biltmore Cabaret and then head out to Winnipeg and back. I’m delighted to say that my good friend Hannah Epperson will be joining us on fiddle for this tour and opening a lot of our shows. Check the tour dates page!

(Apologies to my friends in Brandon, MB. Scheduling doesn’t allow us to visit you lovelies this time but definitely in the Fall).

LIFE!

I don’t have one. Just kidding. Right now I’m pretending to be sick so I can finally finish watching the Wire. Then I’ll be able to get on with things. Recent good read: The Sisters Brothers by Canadian author Patrick DeWitt. Simple language but some of the most vivid scenes I can remember reading in a long time.

So on and so forth.

Glynn

When I was 15 and learning electric guitar i used to go home on Friday afternoons, turn up my amp (because there was no-one home to complain) and play Aneurysm and On A Plain as hard as i could. I’d jump around like a grunge animal and there would usually end up being blood spattered across the white pick-guard on my rental Godin and I’d collapse feeling like I got something out. Thanks, Kurt, for teaching me how to brood like a champ. And Happy Birthday.

Sorry for the hiatus, everyone. I’ve been very busy these last couple months with my other project, The Fugitives (www.fugitives.ca). We toured the UK before Xmas and have spent every day since New Year’s in a studio in Toronto recording our new record. I spend 14 hours a day on a couch! I’m like one of those recliner-bound people on the spaceship in Wall-E.

Anyway, you can catch me out on tour with the Fugitives in Western Canada next month, dates will be posted shortly.

In the meantime, here’s a little video of rehearsing a song with a string quartet in the studio last week (i wish i got to do this every morning): Strings in the studio

xo Glynn

This was shot in LA last year for the song Leavin Alone:

http://vimeo.com/33372184

Hey, sexy people from sexy towns. I hope you’re all smiling and well-fed. I know I am.

Thanks so much to all you Northern BCers for making that little August tour so fun- the Robson Valley Music Fest was magic and all the shows around BC were fantastic, thanks for the support.

I’m back into the theatre world, for now. The play I was part of in February, Chelsea Hotel- featuring the songs of Leonard Cohen, has been picked up for a second go round at the Firehall Arts Centre in downtown Vancouver. We open Oct 3^rd and run till Nov 3^rd, come check us out if you’re in this town. The details are all here.

No rest for the weary, though. As soon as the play closes I’ll be hopping on a flight with the Fugitives to England where we’ll be touring for two weeks, fueled by pints of real ale and struggling to stay on the left side of the road. We’ll be posting our UK dates very soon, they’ll be here on my site and on the Fugitives site.

And that will take us up to the New Year when the Fugitives will head to Toronto to record a new record. Exciting times!

Maybe it’s in preparation for visiting England again, but I am ingesting a lot of British culture at the moment. I finally began reading English author,  David Mitchell. I flew through his wonderful coming-of-age novel BlackSwan Green and am now onto Ghostwritten. I am also obsessed with a BBC documentary series called “Time”. It’s on Youtube. It’s one of those mind-blow type shows where your brain hurts after watching. At least mine does. Maybe my brain doesn’t get enough exercise.

Hope to see you soon.

October love,

Glynn

Hell-oh! I am writing this from balmy and bubbling New York City (mostly garbage juice that’s bubbling). I haven’t been to this city in a while and I have missed it. Too bad it’s so boring.