Does Canada Make More Than Labatt's and Hockey Sticks? The Answer is...Matthew Barber.

"Somebody Sometime" - Ghost Notes (2009) by Matthew Barber

"dixie" 8.5" x 11" .. mixed media .. 2004 by Sanithna Phansavanh

It is rare in music or even life, which if I digress into that tangent we might as well get in one of those lil water golf carts James Cameron used to futz around with in his self-indulgent search for the Titantic. The search for what the meaning of in life would be an equally a never-ending depth of indulgence that I won't take you unless I have you Gitmo and those are my orders.

But seriously all joking aside, songs like the one above (available through my 4Shared account) are what I believe rare to find. "Somebody Sometime" by Matthew Barber, a talented Canadian artist who is brand new to the US scene minus a few past appearances and having just released in the US (it's been out for almost a year in Canada) Ghost Notes (2009) on April 14, 2009, did to my senses for a few days what is rare to rare and what I am always in search of when looking for new music. I believe that when songs "get you", get into your head, they can come hell or high water - asphyxiate you and force you subconsciously into to playing them over and over again just so that you can breathe (metaphorically speaking of course, I’m no David Blaine so I can’t hold the air that long).

You know what I'm talking about though, with the music and those types songs, wrapped around your neurons and synapses and all that jumble up there, you have to hear it 24/7, to get it out of your system. Really anyone who has listened to music, knows. I have a niece who when she was merely 2 lived by the motto The Wizard of Oz or no "figgy pudding for you!" And she meant it! You didn't put on the Wizard of Oz for her and you were cut off, personal vendetta, jihad style!

We all have songs like that and sometimes they pass quickly and sometimes never at all. I think (not to be too Freudian) it's a primal thing that certain music can arm bar your a** and you still cannot fill the urge with or without "crying uncle".

When I was 12, I got three tape cassettes for my birthday from an Aunt that had always sent me books, but I guess was trying to be hip, God-bless her for that. They were Down With The King by Run DMC, Joshua Tree by U2, Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys and the Joshua Tree got me. I listened to it so much it warped and played fuzzy and deep tones, off-beat, but I kept listening. U2's Joshua Tree was the first to that to me, especially the first 3 songs (1. Where the Streets Have No Name 2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For 3. With or Without You)

















I am not going to say the entire brand new album by Matthew Barber album Ghost Notes will do all of what I just talked about to you, but it might, in parts or in full, whatever the case may be, I have a feeling you will come away just as me and my friend did with the feeling "I like this."

I could go by the Press Kit stuff or other reviews off the net and write you a rhapsodically versed review of this album, but I'd rather go with gut instinct on this one and if my ears are tone deaf so be it. Something tells me the masses are going to like this album and that you my readers are going to like it too. It is not complex in its presentation, but it is deep in the words and effective at drawing you in from the first listen. That more than anything struck me as different. I was sitting with a friend and I told her I got this album recorded by a guy who is Canadian and I read her the press release and we put it on and just sat back. I told her I had an interview with 'this guy' and so I didn't know what to expect any more than she did. She said it was good, and then about 20 minutes into it she said it was really good and by the end she had moved closer to me, hand touching mine and asked for a copy. Thanks Matt ;p.

The album is basically poetry, the haibun - 俳文, much the way Bob Dylan writes so rhapsodical in his book Chronicles, Vol. 1 or if you ever hear Jack Kerouac read, it is all so similar - take a look:

"Easily Bruised"
Lend me an ear I'll tell you a story
'Bout a man who didn't know how to be
Joined a travellin' circus from PEI to BC
I was playing dead every morning
I was taking dives every night
Someone came and swept me off my feet in midflight
Now without a love I really got nothing
Without a love I'd hang up my shoes
It'd be a world of suffering
If this one I was ever to lose...

"michael" 8.5" x 11" - colored pencils - 2004 by Sanithna Phansavanh

So when I got the chance to ask Matthew Barber himself says about "Easily Bruised" he explained the following, "The first verse is about being kinda wayward and not feeling so good about things in the state of one's life and finding someone that gives you hope. So it is a love song kind of sense in that sense. I also wanted it not to be a straight up love song, but wanted it to respect the fact that relationships are always treading a thin live and even when things are going well we have those weird urges and destructive urges that can pop-up now and again and we have to be weary of them and how delicate love can be. The balance can get shift easily and of the notion of how you constantly have to make them work to keep it at an even keel and make it work."

And then the conversation switched gears to that notion I have of how can genre "art" or "music", and my personal disdain, I think I used for it and Matthew responded that, "I have always loved the Beatles. Probably my favorite album is White Album, how can you say they are one genre? They are all over the place, but the point is it is all the same band and the same people so why can't they just be the Beatles? I think back then you could be, but now a days some of those songs would be considered blues rock, some would be considered singer song writer, some would be considered alt-country, some would be considered jazz, what is that?"

I totally agree Matthew, what is that and why can the Beatles, be the Beatles, the Clash be the Clash and even Mathtew Barber be Matthew Barber, so maybe that is why I didn't give too much a heavy look at the press out there when I was fortunate enough (and Matthew thank you) to be able to find out who this producer of wonderful ballads, music that works, and I don't need to be deep or smart to understand that or enjoy, I just have to know that when I put in Ghost Notes I like what I hear.

We go on to discuss his influences, everything from George Jones, to Pavement to Bruce Springsteen he likes music not to impress anyone and you feel that in listening to his songs. They aren't to impress labels, or girls or boys or critics. It is just like we say in Georgia, specifically Athens, where Matthew Barber will be at the Farm on the 15th of May this Friday, and at the University of Georgia or anyone passionate about the school's football, 'Damn good Dawg!', why can't we say 'Damn good music!' and put any labeling or encasing of what genre he is or isn't and just appreciate the music?

Matthew Barber's Upcoming Schedule is as follows:

May, 12 2009 11:00 PM - The Living Room
154 Ludlow St., New York, New York -

Solo set. 11 pm sharp. PWYC.
May, 13 2009 08:00 PM - Union Hall
702 Union St., Brooklyn, New York -

Solo set, supporting Jill Sobule.
May, 14 2009 09:00 PM - The Milltown
307 E. Main St., Carrboro, North Carolina -

Solo set.
May, 15 2009 08:00 PM - Farm 255
255 W. Washington St. www.farm255.com, Athens, Georgia -

Solo set.
May, 16 2009 05:00 PM - Criminal Records - In Store
1154 A Euclid Ave NE, Atlanta, Georgia - Free Solo in-store performance

I really hope that you get to make it if you are in NC, Athens or Atlanta, because this is one of those rare treats that does not come around all the time. So as this is the first of what I expect will be many US tours and when he is big and famous and known from coast to coast you can tell your friends while discussing music sipping a Clos Du Bois cabernet, when people usually start with their Big Fish tales over good wine and good tunes and quietly say, "I was there."

Indeed, you won't have to explain it in terms of 'genre' or "sounds like X +Y with a little of Z", just give them your copy of the album and say, "Now press play".

The rest will take care of itself. It has with me.















"You and Me" - Ghost Notes (2009) by Matthew Barber

"great expectations" 10" x 12" mixed media 2004 (c) Sanithna Phansavanh