Greg MacPherson

So my friend Nick Friesen decided to make a music video for one of my songs… this makes three videos that have been made for songs from Disintegration Blues but Nick’s is first one to be released so it’s officially my first video ever. I’m pretty happy… truly honoured actually.

In other news, Rob Gardiner and I are flying to Germany on Thursday for what will be my first tour ever in Europe with my band. These will be special shows I predict… lots of new songs, Rob’s first time across the ocean, etc.  If you find yourself in Europe please consider attending one or more of these shows.

Rob Gardiner, my drummer for the past two years, has never been to Europe. A week from today he and I will board a flight from Winnipeg to Chicago and then from America across the Atlantic to Germany for a two week tour. I think he’s going to like Europe and I think Europe will like him. Details are HERE.

It’s Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, a day off to contemplate the cultural foundation of this province and perhaps make amends for the mistakes of the past. I’m not from Winnipeg but I’ve come to love it here, as much out of fascination for the slow pace of change as for the crazy rivers and huge skies. The ingredients for a place like this are magical and terrifying: impossible winters, beautiful summers, generous people, segregation of class and ethnicity, isolation, relatively cheap rent, terrible drivers, cultural diversity, urban sprawl, etc etc. There is much more good than bad here and for a hundred reasons I’ve found it very hard to leave. Quite the opposite, I’ve started a local record label, I’m playing in several side-projects and I’m working full time in community development. Winnipeg is both a stick and a carrot!

Over the next several months I will find many opportunities to go elsewhere, an overdue tour to BC and back perhaps, a tour through some of Europe, but like Louis Riel I will keep coming back here, hopefully with a different ending… but who knows? The future, like much of the past, is an open book.

I’m sitting at a tall round table in a pool hall in Winnipeg’s West Central neighbourhood. There are 15 or so elderly Italian men gambling on various games of chance a few metres from me as I type. It’s 8am on a Saturday morning. I’m impressed people get up this early on the weekend to play cards.

I have some shows coming up. Solo shows, long overdue… I honestly can’t wait to play. Perhaps I will see you there?

I would like to thank everyone who attended, played, and helped to promote the shows we did in Winnipeg this past weekend. These were very special nights for me that I won’t soon forget.

On another front, I’ll be doing a short tour of Germany at the end of next week and the shows are all but confirmed! See the SHOWS page for details.

I haven’t been this excited about a show in a LONG time. To make things that much more exciting there are actually TWO shows! Here’s a link to the details:

Winnipeg’s WECC Sept 9 and 10

The first night is a Friday night so we plan to ROCK from start to finish… absolutely no prisoners, arrive prepared to pogo. The second night will be more thoughtful, romantic, and intense… more for music aficionados who like stories, atmosphere and want to leave a show feeling somehow different than when they arrived. That’s the plan… I think we will succeed.

In the mean time, I did an interview on a Toronto-based internet radio show today that turned into an hour long co-hosting gig… have a listen:

Greg talks about the new record, the new label, the many bands he’s in, the new day job, the city of Winnipeg, etc

Just got home from out east. I’m feeling a little under the weather since we pulled back into Winnipeg, I guess I burned the candle down a little too far this time around… but it’s the summer time and there are beaches and funny motels and exotic local beers wherever we stopped so I’m not going to chastise myself or act like I didn’t know this would happen. Sick? Sure but was it worth it? Definitely.

Thanks to everyone who came to, promoted, advertised, and took video footage of our shows. I love you people… I also love the folks who organized Sappy Fest and invited us to maybe the best party I’ve been to in 5 years. Great food, great service, great music, great friends everywhere… amazing!

Some folks have been kind enough to post footage from some of our shows, looking through it all I found this document of us going crazy in Trois-Rivieres last October…

I’m at my brother’s place between Toronto and Ottawa… so nice here, and incredible hot outside today. After over 3000kms of driving and 2 shows in 3 days I feel like laying in the grass in my brother’s back yard more than I feel like driving to Ottawa. That said, I have many good friends in Ottawa and tonight’s show will be fantastic… win win!Couldn’t sleep last night so I made this:

Disintegration Blues Tour 2011

This week marks the first of what I hope will be many Disintegration Records tours. This time around, we’re celebrating the upcoming release of my new album, with a trip across Eastern Canada.  My own band will be sharing the stage with Winnipeg’s Cannon Bros in all of these lovely cities:

I promise to bring CDs, vinyl, t-shirts and be ready to rock. See you soon!

The Disintegration 2011 Tour is updated and can be seen here.

Also, did I mention that my good friend Cam Loeppky and I have started a record label? It’s called Disintegration Records and I made this basic website for it my self. Our first release will be a CD/digital version of my new recording, Disintegration Blues sometime in late August.

I’m playing shows in New York and Toronto next week! I’ll be in Brooklyn at the Knitting Factory on Tuesday evening, opening for my friends Imaginary Cities – 8pm set time. Then on Thursday I’m in Toronto at the Gladstone Hotel playing a Manitoba Music showcase for NXNE – 10pm set time.

Also, there’s this:

www.disintegration.ca

I just got asked to play NXNE. It looks like I’ll be performing solo at the Gladstone on June 16th. Unfortunately, they also tell me I’ll be on at around 1am… That’s only midnight Winnipeg time so I promise to take care of business. You should come!

Lots of shows being booked across canada over the summer. Will update them on the shows page asap. In the mean time, I’ve confirmed that the Cannon Bros, one of my favourite bands in the world, will tour east with me in July/August! The world better not end on Saturday like those crazy people in America have been predicting… I at least want to do this tour first.

So much is going on, I’m not sure where to start… The Assiniboine River is flooding west of Winnipeg and I have friends out there trying to sand bag in the rain. I wish I had a car on days like today.

In music news, have I mentioned that I’m starting a record label? My friend Cam Loeppky, Winnipeg’s finest recording engineer (and long time live-sound man for such notable acts as the Weakerthans and Imaginary Cities) and I are joining forces and will be launching Disintegration Records in a month or so. Our first release will be a CD version of my own album, Disintegration Blues, set to hit stores in early August.

We’ll be touring across Canada at least once this summer, contact me to book shows or see the Shows page for details.

I am in a side band called Nova. I sing and play baritone guitar. I write all of our lyrics. Maybe you’ll like Nova if you already like my solo music. Can’t hurt to tell you about this I figure.

NOVA

I just got back to Winnipeg after a 16 day trip across the Prairies playing shows at people’s houses in Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta. It was exciting and challenging… new people every night, alone in a car driving long distances, not knowing what to expect from any given show or community. The whole tour was organized by the folks at Home Routes and I can’t thank them or the people who hosted the shows enough for this very memorable experience.

Now that I’m back home for a while I have some business to attend to. Not least of which is releasing my new record, Disintegration Blues here in North America. It was released on vinyl in Europe by excellent Danish label, Play/Rec about two months ago but it’ll be another little while before I can get some discs pressed and have something in stores on this side of the Atlantic. Stay tuned for more on who’s putting it out and when… in the mean time I’ve put two unreleased songs up on the myspace page for your listening enjoyment.

Tours, recording plans and new songs coming up so stay tuned.

I leave today for a two week Home Routes concert tour across northern Saskatchewan and Alberta. I’m getting pretty excited, the European tour last month reminded me how much I love playing solo and now I get two more weeks of shows to enjoy myself. Life is good. I haven’t advertised these shows because they’re all in private homes so you’ll have to know somebody who knows somebody to get an invite. More tours planned for later in the year though and I promise to play the West Coast next time out. It really has been too long.

I want to thank everyone for coming out to the shows I played in Europe this past month. The four years between European tours disappeared pretty quick once the plane touched down. Special thanks to my brothers at Play/Rec and the folks at GHVC for making this tour happen. Hopefully I can make it back later this year.

I have so many plans and exciting things to look forward to but I’ll try to focus on the present and tell you for now that my new record, Disintegration Blues is being released in a few days on Play/Rec in Denmark. Also, I’m going to be touring over there in a few weeks. See the SHOWS page for details!

I have a new record coming out in Europe next month, it’s called Disintegration Blues. It will be available on Play/Rec, an excellent independent music label based in Copenhagen. I’m excited to say it will be released on vinyl and digitally! Nine new songs, mostly recorded this past summer with the expert help of engineer Cam Loeppky at Prairie Recording Studios in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I will be touring across much of Europe in January and February (see shows page for details) then across Western Canada in March. I’ll post show dates and details as soon as I get them. See you soon!

Thanks to everybody out east who came to see us play last month, sent me photos, bought our records, etc etc. Things keep getting better for me somehow… I have a video in the works, another new record coming out in a few months and a tour of Europe close to booked. I’ll have tour dates up in a week or so, who knows what else! It’s been that kind of year.

One more tour before it snows! And not just any tour, I can say with confidence that this tour’s going to hurt a little bit. 14 shows in 17 days and the days off are for driving ridiculous distances… not to mention these shows will be physically intense. Three Winnipeggers playing like there’s no tomorrow… because there might as well not be back home. Winter’s descending out of the dark skies, Winnipeg gets darker every day, a little colder by the minute and a few steps away from 4 months of ice. We plan on making every moment of this tour count, nobody’s going home without feeling like they’ve been through something serious.

See you soon!

Tour Poster We will be starting the first leg of the 2010 Travelling in Style Tour across Canada next week, September 9th in Regina. We have new songs to try out and so many old songs that I can’t even believe how many records I’ve made all of a sudden.  The band has been practicing a LOT and I predict you will be impressed. See you soon!

The rumours are true, I started them so I should know… as of today, I have a new album recorded and ready to be released! Not only does it sound better than I hoped it would, it will be released on VINYL in Europe by Denmark’s finest independent record label, Play/Rec and should be available here in North America by the end of this year. Nine songs, most of which you’ll have never heard before unless you’ve been to see me play live this past year or so, and artwork by the fearless and talented Terry Corrigan. It’s magic really, showing up to a recording studio with equipment and friends, maybe bring some fancy beers and decent food… a week later you walk out the same door with a new album. This post-modern world of ours certainly is a wonder for those of us in a lucky enough position to enjoy it. Make the most of your luck my friends, and try not to be an asshole to those with less.

There’s a fresh new tour posted on the ‘shows‘ page – the Traveling in Style Tour 2010. Every province except BC and NFLD is on there… Canada’s a big place! I’ll make it to those two provinces as soon as humanly possible, I promise… special trip, special trip – coming soon. In the mean time we’re practicing like a pro hockey team for this latest tour… like a hockey team’s rookie orientation camp with people  losing teeth, plenty of stops and starts, protein smoothies, people getting whipped with towels, me blowing a whistle every 30 seconds, dudes lifting heavy weights, Cole Woods yelling at the drummer to shoot instead of passing, someone just threw a beer bottle on the ice, my voice is scratchy from bellowing into the microphone, etc. I highly recommend that if we’re stopping in your town, you should come see us play.

Last day of July? How did that happen? Time’s whizzing by and I don’t know about you but I’m trying to squeeze as much into every second of every day as humanly possible. We started a new recording this week, a full length that should be released later this year! I know, everybody’s saying, “Two records in one year? What, are you Willie Nelson all of a sudden or something?” Truth be told, yes I am Willie Nelson.

Tours are being booked, new shows are up on the ‘shows‘ page. See you soon!

It was a good day yesterday. First I read this. Then I read this. Makes the post-tour blues a little easier.

Back home now after one of the best tours I’ve ever been on. So many good shows and old friends… Ryan and Cole were an excellent rhythm section to travel with and we’re already planning our return later in the year. See you soon eastern Canada. In the mean time, Sled Island in Calgary and the Folk Fest in Winnipeg are coming up in a few weeks to keep me busy. If you’re interested, I posted an old song on myspace… it’s called Crack Down, Jason Tait recorded it for me several years ago and I forgot all about it until now. I hope you like it.

New shows added. Eastern tour almost booked. Winnipeg Folk Festival confirmed. Other festivals coming down the pipe. People seem to like my new record. Etc.

Our tour out west last week was excellent. It was the first time in two and a half years that the whole band went on the road together. I was a little nervous about that to tell you the truth but less than 30 seconds into the first song I looked around and realized that we’re actually better now than we used to be! This was a pleasant surprise.

Steve flew into town last night for our big hometown CD release show at the West End Cultural Centre this Saturday night.  Two nights of rehearsals and one big crazy show… I guarantee we’ll do everything within our power to make this one count.  If you’re in Winnipeg you should come to this show.

Otherwise, if you’re out in eastern Canada I have a tour booked and will be seeing you all at the end of May! I’ll post those dates in the next few days.

Welcome to my newly revamped and relaunched website!!! As if things weren’t exciting enough in my world these days with a new record coming out, a video in the works, tours coming together and more recording time booked… I want to thank Rob at Smallman and especially Derek Hogue at Amphibian Design for their efforts getting this website upgraded.  Please have a look around.

There’ll be a new song from Mr. Invitation posted here and on our myspace site in the next few days… it’s called Outside Edge and features a Steve Bates guitar riff over Jason Tait beating the shit out of his vintage drum kit like only he can.

More tour dates to be announced in the next few days as well!  Stay tuned.

It’s finally March! Another marathon Winnipeg winter in the home stretch and only 30 days until this new record of mine comes out. Our tour dates are finally solidifying too, please check the shows page for details.

There should be a new song up on our MySpace page soon. In the mean time, I’ve been keeping busy playing in a few side bands and one of them has a show on March 13th at the West End Cultural Centre here in Winnipeg. My friend Pip Skid, one of the most uncompromising, hardest hitting and original artists in Canada is releasing a new record that night and I have the honour of being in his live band and am a guest on a few album tracks. More details on that here.

Okay, this stuff is finally happening. Life is good. There’s a new song posted for free download on THIS site. Hope you like it. I’ll have some tour dates up soon too. About time!

So much news, so little of it posted on my website! My apologies friends, it’s been a hectic few months and I haven’t been as diligent about posting as I’d like to be. My excuse is that I’ve been busy preparing for the release of a new record, Mr. Invitation, which comes out March 30th. Mike, Ryan and I have been practicing a couple times a week for a while now getting back into shape and revisiting some of the old songs in anticipation of getting back on the road. Things are sounding better than ever and I can’t tell you how excited I am to get back on stage. I’ll have tour dates posted and some new music up on ‘myspace’ and here on my website in the next month, so please drop by again soon.

In the mean time, here’s an interview I just did with exclaim.ca. My first interview in while…

I got hit in the head with a board at work today and had to get stitches in my face… I’m fine but it’s been a long time since I got stitches or hurt myself to the point of needing medical attention. This got me thinking, I need to play music instead of working with my hands so I don’t lose a finger or something before my next record finally gets released! I also thought about how nice it would be to play some shows again after a long summer of working too much and concentrating on recording music instead of playing it. I blow off a lot of steam performing and when I take a long break from it I end up doing stupid things like getting hit in the head with boards. Needless to say I booked some shows when i got back from the hospital. See the ‘shows’ page.

In other news, the new record is finished. I got the master back just the other day and it’s sounding as good as I hoped it would. Derek and I did the art work for it and will be putting the finishing touches on it within the next week or so. Hopefully we can get some new mp3s up on this site or at myspace.com/macphersonband before too long. No word yet on a release date, probably not until late winter/early spring at this point though as touring in Canada in December, January or February is even crazier than demolishing stuff without safety glasses on. Some of us learn these lessons the hard way unfortunately.

I’ve got 14 new songs recorded and they’re about 95 percent mixed at this point. It’s been a long process with people flying in and out of town and me working a few day jobs lately but this new recording should be finished and ready to release by the fall. I’m not known for trumpeting the work that I’ve done but in this case I feel more excited than I’ve ever been at the end of recording a record and I’m really proud of what we’ve done… hopefully you will like it too. I’ll get some mp3s posted on the myspace page as soon as we have it mastered!

In the mean time, it’s spring, I have half a dozen new songs to try out live and some friends have been kind enough to help book a few shows down east next month. Please have a look at the Shows page for details.

A few weeks ago I recorded a version of a song written by my old friend Jared Ozuk. Jared, who grew up in Transcona and moved all over the country, played in a number of under appreciated Canadian bands over the years and is maybe the best lyricist I’ve ever met. I recorded the song ‘Houses’ for a brand new compilation disc that Winnipeg community radio station, CKUW is releasing shortly. All local artists covering other locals who inspired their work.

I’ll be performing that song and maybe one or two of my own originals tonight at the CKUW fund drive kick-off party. First time playing in a few months… I can’t wait!! If you’re in town, be sure to drop by and help support local radio.

It’s been snowing here in Winnipeg this past few days… makes me feel like either hiding away with someone close and warm or shutting the whole world off and playing music. I’ve been at this a long time, it’s official… like a compulsion or one of those seasonal instincts, I held up in my room last night and wrote a new song: first days of winter always makes new music, every year since I was a kid. Some people see the beauty in everything, even the slush, the cold wind and the terror in the skies. I’m not sure I’m one of those people but I do see the rose faced women coming in from outside, all their clothes too heavy for early winter, the furnace on fresh and the heat pounding under ankle length coats and clean mittens. None of us have the rhythm yet, at least not outside. Stay in here and write, that’s what the wind on the walls outside are telling me.

As far as updates go for those of you been asking: the studio’s booked, the musicians are coming back to town, me, Mike and Ryan are practicing on Sunday and I’ve got 30 unreleased songs to weed through for the best 10 or 12. I’ll be playing a few shows here and there over the winter, just to keep from going crazy but mostly the doors are tight, the woods all cut and the music machine’s on full blast waiting for spring. See you all soon.

I’m finally getting back on the road! This time next month I’ll be in Atlantic Canada and Quebec trying out new songs in advance of a record I’ll be recording this summer. Lots of new songs… See the ‘shows’ page for details and drop by www.myspace.com/macphersonband to hear a new song or two.

I just recorded new music… lots of new music, for a release later this year. Not sure how I will release it but it’s coming. Check myspace.com/macphersonband to hear something new. There are upcoming shows on the shows page as well. See you soon.

Welcome to the latest new and improved greg macpherson website! Derek Hogue, the web-master, has been out on the icy shores of the north Atlantic holed up in his windowless computer bunker intercepting top secret messages from satellites and listening to people’s cellphone conversations looking for new ways of designing top-quality websites for rock musicians. I think he may have outdone himself. See for yourself, there’s information to be absorbed and photos to look at and songs to listen to and a list of upcoming shows to consult, among other things! Not bad eh?

On top of all this website business I have shows coming up and recording plans in the works. It should be an exciting year around here.

Where do I start? I played a benefit show in Toronto this past weekend and there’s a clip of it floating around the internet somewhere… maybe here.

Aside from that Steve Bates is flying in from Montreal in a few weeks for our first and only Winnipeg show of 2007! Wait there’s more: I’ve been writing many new songs, and there are tours in the works which should take me to cities and towns all over the damn place. To start there’s a Greg MacPherson Band tour being booked for this August in eastern Canada! Even more unbelievable, the website upgrade I’ve been promising is finally getting close to completion. I know it seems like years have gone by since I started talking about that… but that’s only because it WAS several years ago. The good news is that Derek’s sober again and he’s locked himself in a Halifax basement with three or four laptops and a desk top computer working at maximum capacity 24 hours a day promising that the site will be finished soon (marginally witty comments like that may slow his productivity though so I should mind my droll sense of humour where old Derek Vandemeer Hogue is concerned or he’s liable to hit the bottle again harder than ever and my lifelong dream of having a new website to replace this older website… the website I had dreamt about so many years previous and which had replaced the original website I had dreamt up to replace my first crazy website – will never be realised.)

Something else that I find incredibly exciting and important is that I’ve decided to add another unreleased track to our myspace profile. Yes that’s right, the response to last month’s posting of ‘Time and Place’ was so huge (millions of you wrote in with encouraging letters and sent parcels stuffed with north american blue jeans) that I’ve posted yet another new recording made during the same session.

I have no big news to report other than the usual stuff: wrote some new tunes, booked some shows, bought a new pair of white pants, ate some fine east Indian food the other day, etc, etc. The new songs are being demo-ed on and off and will be released someday by someone in a format to be decided upon later. The shows are listed on the ‘shows‘ page and you should take particular notice of the fact that I’m doing a Winnipeg show with my four piece band and that in relative terms this is a big deal and somewhat of a rarity. Steve Bates will be joining us all the way from Montreal and we have a new drummer lined up because Derek moved to Halifax and Jord is booked solid with his other band. I’m expecting this to be a landmark show and I’ve told the drummer that he’s not only responsible for ensuring this but that anything short of a once in a lifetime performance and a sold out show will lead directly to his dismissal. His chances are good but you can help him with this by coming to the show and being ready to rock!

Anyone interested in hearing a rough demo of a new song that Derek and I recorded last August in Winnipeg can stop by myspace.com/macphersonband and click on ‘Time and Place’. There’s other stuff there too but don’t browse around myspace too long or you’ll cut into your facebook time.

In two and a half weeks I’ll be touching down in Hamburg, Germany to kick off a month long tour of Europe. Needless to say I can hardly wait to get started, particularly because I haven’t played a show in almost 4 months, the longest break I’ve had from performing since 1994!! I’m starting to lose my mind a little actually, all these new songs and pent up energy… GET ME TO GERMANY!!!

While I’m still in Canada though I need to set the record straight about something, I LIVE IN WINNIPEG. I am a citizen of the great province of Manitoba which lies both at the geographic and intellectual centre of Canada. I’m from Nova Scotia and I’ve lived in 7 Canadian provinces but currently I reside in Winnipeg. People keep asking me so I figure this will settle the mystery once and for all.

Hello my friends, it’s been another extended period since I updated this website and for that I apologize. I got home from my last tour and basically swore off all music related business out of boredom and maybe some form of rock and roll burn out. All of this internet foolishness is just that, some kind ridiculous idea of a time saving device that takes up a great deal of time. A grown man is entitled to a break from singing songs and living the rock and roll dream every once in a while especially if he’s leading more of a DIY hardcore dream while not playing anything resembling DIY hardcore. That’s a sentiment I’ll explain some other time and in a more suitable format. It’s no secret I’m the sensitive type, all singer songwriters are after all!

Anyway the break has done me a world of good, I caught up on sleep, worked a few shifts at the old job, read books and most importantly I sat down and did some serious writing for the first time in way too long. I already have about 5 new songs that I quite like and I hope that you’ll like them too. I may try to post one here or maybe on my equally ridiculous myspace site at some point in the near future… perhaps you’ve heard of myspace, it’s another one of these tremendously useful time saving devices we’re all so blessed with in this age of infinite convenience. Yeah, keep you’re eye open for that and maybe a new song or two if the planets line up properly over the next few weeks.

Okay, back to business and not a moment too soon! I have a European tour in the works with dates already up on the ‘shows’ page! I have… hmmmm, well like I said, I’m JUST getting back to business. Uh… have I told you about my new songs? Did I mention that I have a myspace page all of a sudden? Have you seen Al Gore’s film about global warming? That’s some scary shit… Hey, check this out: www.truwinnipeg.org. This may be the smartest and best argument I’ve ever heard made in the interest of the city of Winnipeg!

Okay, I gotta go do some music related business.