The Summerlad

In the winter of 2005 came a creative watershed for the prairie-fire-and-brimstone, hot rod amps and double-neck guitars of The Summerlad: a commission to write and perform a piece at The High Performance Rodeo for One Yellow Rabbit. The ‘Lads blew everyone off the horizon with the guitar-orchestrated, choral-accompanied City of Noise, an ensemble piece about the day in the life of a city.

Part “Peter and the Wolf”, part “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, City of Noise played for one night to a sold out audience. A smaller, more fragmented version was also performed later that spring for the group’s Themes: International release night at a beautiful old cathedral. The response was so overwhelming that the group disappeared for two years to record the composition. Recorded in fragments, the ‘Lads fleshed out the piece with added spoken text and a growing recording confidence. With massive amounts of help from The New Gallery and their space and a whole mess of friends and relatives, City of Noise has finally taken shape and has become a truly unique and exciting release.

And by the way: since they’ve come up for air, the boys (Garrett, Arran, Sean and Dean) have been swooning mightily over the addition of Ms. Liz Collins on keyboards and vocals. Oh, how the dynamics have changed! With Liz’s new blood and desire for sound exploration as well as the driest sense of humor in Western Canada, The Summerlad are more excited than ever for the City of Noise album and single.

With a release schedule set for fall ’07 on double vinyl via Saved By Vinyl and on CD through Saved By Radio, and a series of shows with expanded line-up set in unconventional venues across Canada and beyond planned for the winter of ’07/08 and the spring of ’08, along with plans to record yet another album and who knows what else — maybe forming a leftist political movement or writing scripts for Hollywood — The Summerlad seem poised for a career as, well, careerists.