Spinning Out & Going Nowhere

 "Spinning Out And Going Nowhere" earned its hook from a trip to the Dufferin Mall No Frills I took back in 2018 with Jeremy Costello, Nick Dourado and Bianca Palmer, while we arranged our last album. We fumbled through the overstimulation of the market and arrived at the checkout line conveyor belt. At its aisle-side edge, a lone lime was stalled and spinning on itself, immune to logic of the mechanism which aimed to carry it to the cash, but deeply affected nonetheless. We all stared. I don’t recall who let it go first, but someone sang, “Spinning out and going nowhere…”, someone else called it back, and I have repeated it every day since. It took four years for life to collect itself around the hook in Country form, and then it took another year to record it with Jeremy Costello and Nathan Doucet. 

Credit where it's due: My late friend Jimmy James Evans coined the term "sun fucked onion" and I borrowed that original phrase. There are losses so unfathomable that a mind can refuse to inhabit them and instead get spun in the cascading groove of every other possible reality. I dedicate this song to Jimmy, Carmella and Jeff. That's all I'll say about that, but you can go ahead and find your own meaning in the resulting song. 

We had originally arranged the tune with the Atlanticks, so I want to  acknowledge how much that collective sensibility impacted the final recording. When it came to getting it to tape, inclement weather and a sickly sound tech rubbed up against B's schedule, so I went ahead with Nate and Jer (aka the Fiver trois who will soon be on tour). Nathan Doucet is known as a heavy drummer, but his willingness to explore a lighter touch lit this one up. Jeremy Costello, voice of 600 gods, remains my most trusted musical collaborator, paralleling life with a bass line at once steady and chaotic. I asked Stew Crookes to play pedal steel. I love how he shifts between punctuating, harmonizing and echoing the melody. 

A big thanks to Charles Austin at OCEAN FLOOR for recording, Gavin Bradley Gardiner at All Day Coconut for mixing.  And of course to Steve Lambke at You've Changed Records for supporting my music work flow. 

Listen via the link in me bio or but the extended cut on bandcamp.

Going West with the Fiver Trois end of August Early September

Here are the dates…

Jeremy Costello, Myself and Nathan Doucet, of the Fiver Trois are going to be delivering some new songs, some old songs and some older songs played new!

fresh off my press

missing the deadline on the great recalibration

a poem written prior to the lunar eclipse of April 8 upon realizing a failed plan

i am getting concerned that we did not finalize the score for the eclipse

we failed again to reach for a consensus about what we should all say when the moon blocks the sun in full

i know i know i could write something quick

and that i need not attach the ego to the words

after all, it’s not so much about what people say

but that we all say it at the same time during true totality, just for the few minutes that the moon blocks the sun

and that we pace ourselves

and pronounce the words just at that angle with that so slight a curve

in as smooth a move as the planetary orbs do

and not for exactitude’s sake, but for the sake of things to come.

and when i say “we” i mean it loosely

“we all” can just mean everyone who opts in

and truly, it makes more sense to just decide a thing to say now and start campaigning

since we only have 4 days left to coordinate.

because my understanding of the great recalibration is we need only rally those people in the path of totality to say the same thing at the same time.

that means everyone who’s already in it by hazard of living life within that path,

and everyone who is entering the path for the purpose of viewing totality

but also any incidental travelers within that relative margin,

albeit massive.

truckers too…

but all the other people outside the path can just do their day like normal

going about the earth unexpressed.

so what i’m trying to say is: don’t be overwhelmed.

it’s not a worldwide effort as much as a concerted and targeted one and so yes,

i think four days might be enough to get it together

and you know, you can opt in

you can opt out,

all that’s asked is that if you’re not wanting to go about this plan-

if you’re not wanting to say the words-

just stay out of the path of totality and let all of us wanting

to proclaim it pure and simple with no detractors.

i know there are some of you who aren’t very eager for the great recalibration

some of you who are afraid of change:

you’re happy with the order of things

you’ve worked very hard for where you are and you don't want to see it all upended.

you spent a lot of time in discomfort and you finally found the sweet spot and the present circumstance is very much yours.

there are some of you who have adjusted to whatever it is that is happening even when it hasn’t been to your liking,

and you’ve toiled to attain that plasticity.

you say you’ve grown to like your husband,

you enjoy collecting Scene points

and you’re not eager for a balance change.

you coo you’ve transcended the impact of human carnage: the child's cry, it’s all just noise now.

you claim that it’s actually really comfortable to be living moment to moment,

and that by curtailing longing you’ve uncovered virtue.

if this is you, all i want to say is that I actually heard that after the great recalibration it’s blissful for everyone.

no matter how radiant you are, no matter how well adjusted or accomplished

no matter how jeweled you’ve bejeweled your retaining wall

or how dull your back has made the blade

no matter how naked you bask in the sea of acceptance:

it gets better.

you say you have 2 cows? you’ll have 3 cows after!

or you’ll lose your desire for cows

depending on how cows factor in come the great recalibration

because actually none of us can say

and if we could, well, we’d be recalibrating manually.

and i know it’s a moment where you’re also doubting the science

and i understand that as well

i don’t think most of us understand how it’s all going to work

how precise of an angle is required to cut it

or how the vibration of our voices bouncing off the full fucking shadow can rip a hole through time and create a new opportunity for all.

but it seems worth a try to just score this thing and see if it works.

in summary: we’re looking at maximum two and a half minutes vocalizing in unison while the moon eclipses the sun

just everyone involved has to agree to do it

it’s ok if someone else wants to do the words

but if we all need someone to do them, i can.

- s. schmidt, April 4, 2024

Spinning Out and Going Nowhere

Didn’t we have a time?

We had a time! And I want to say thank you to photographer Matt Horseman for documenting it.

At times it feels like Gods are against you. Other times as though they don’t exist. And most of the time like they don’t really care unless you introduce yourself. The events preceding this show saw each of those feelings in quick succession. Sappyfest 2023 saw the Atlanticks (Jeremy Costello on bass and synths, Bianca Palmer on drums and lap steel, Nathan Doucet on bass and drums) team up with Graeme Patterson (huge tick) for a midnight show delayed by a flash flood that evacuated the main tent.

On the reissue of One Hundred Dollars' "Forest of Tears"

The first full length record I ever wrote and recorded with my old band One Hundred Dollars, has been reissued on vinyl. It hasn’t been available for a long time and isn’t on streaming services.

Forest of Tears was recorded at Elder School house in 13 hours in 2008 by Rick White. It came about because Rick had seen me and Ian play as a duet when we opened for him at the Music Gallery, and offered to make our record. I was told this was a great honour, but only listened to George Jones and had never heard of Eric’s Trip, so I spent most of my time nodding like I knew at everyone who was wide eyed and stoked for me. We assembled a band quickly. Ace pedal steel player, Stew Crookes, had already graced us with his angelic tones after seeing us play the Tranzac months before, and we asked Ian’s bandmates from Jon-Rae and the River to fill in the rest – Paul Mortimer on the bass, Dave Clarke on the drums and Jonathan Adjemian on the organ. We arranged the songs over a few rehearsals, went out to Rick and Brian’s, set up in front of some mics, played the songs, and ate a huge steak dinner.

To write this now in the past tense as if I was there seems like the only way to do it, but I’m not totally sure I was.  I probably necessarily don’t remember that time in my life. I know I was 24 and I had begun writing songs with my boyfriend Ian Russell a few years earlier, late in life for most songwriters. Mostly he’d write intricate music on guitar, I’d belabour lyric and form, and we’d fight about chord changes. Sometimes I wrote chords too. I swore I was singing what no one else seemed to be able to hear.

 Ian had been diagnosed with Leukemia in 2007 and we didn’t want to talk about it publicly lest it overshadow the music or the meaning. Cool thing was we didn’t have to talk about it publicly that much because it was Myspace time, and social media was only just becoming a tacky necessity that was decimating message boards. Clearly in some of the photos of the time Ian’s going through chemo - the Dana Farber protocol in particular. (Yes Ian survived! Our love didn’t! He’s making guitar music now too - you can listen to that on bandcamp: https://ianrussellguitar.bandcamp.com/album/in-light-2). I know that, at the time, performing live music on Ian’s good weeks was largely what I looked forward to, and writing songs was where I exacted what little control I felt I had left over my life. 

Maybe I don’t have the memory because I have song. Now, looking at the track list and singing the lyrics ever etched in my mind, some things are clear: On Forest of Tears, songs provided me the setting to experience an emotional life that had nowhere else to be lived. In Hell’s A Place I fantasize about escape and murder with a queer lover. In Careless Love the singer leaves her rapist. In Tirade of a Shitty Mom I take the voice of my worst fear: a mother rejecting her trans son. I imagine my grandmother’s love song on 14 Hour Day as she mourns my grandfather, and pay what I thought was an appropriate tribute to him on Marbridar. Nothing’s Alright is just as it was, and In Juice & Sage, I’m jealous and uselessly premonitory of the great toll and isolation that now, in my obsidian years, I know accompany pushing away/letting go. I do not find this record easy to listen to for its meaning, but I know it means a lot to people who came up with it because I keep getting emails that you want to buy it. So here we are, 2023, and Brian Taylor, generous as he was the first time around, re-pressed it on blessed Blue Fog Recordings. Thank you Brian dad, for making it possible for me to release music.  And thank you Rick for showing me how simple it is to make a record if the music is there.

Another clear thing upon listening is that I'm so grateful to the musicians who played with me in One Hundred Dollars. Everyone made the thing happen so generously, and we repeated the exercise so many more times. More than the recording, that act of repetition was a vital release for me. So thank you Jonathan Ian, Dave, Stew and Paul for offering me that. 

Money stuff at the end: Largely this music isn’t available digitally - it’s only on bandcamp.  https://bluefogrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/one-hundred-dollars-forest-of-tears-2008

My friend Creig just told me that in $100 in 2008 is now worth $140.14.  That said, the record still only costs $25 and you can buy it via the bluefogrecordings.bigcartel.com . Thanks so much, Simone Fornow

Outdoor Shows

For those of us who are feeling Covid cautious, who are immunocompromised, I’ve planned a few shows outdoors. You can find more details on my show page. Full band, featuring Jeremy Costello (bass and angelic voice), Nick Dourado (pure sound, piano) and Nathan Doucet (drums by birth). We'll playing selections from Fiver with the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition which we never got to do a release show for. We'll also be playing new songs and new material for as long as we want, which will probably be long.

The Joe Wallace Mixtape: Soundtrack to A More Radiant Sphere

I’ve never written seductive poetry and I have never written for money. I had an ideal for my poetry. I tried to write things which would stir people to think and to act. And I feel that it is a responsibility and I’ve always had that attitude towards it. I’m no longer interested in myself as far as that’s concerned. I’m interested in poetry. I rejoice when I see it spreading, where it does spread, if it does spread. Whether my name is attached to it, it concerns me little or none, none at all.” - Joe Wallace

In 2019, filmmaker Sara Wylie asked me to choose five of her great uncle Joe Wallace's poems to adapt to song. The songs would be featured in Wylie’s film , “A More Radiant Sphere” which premiered at DOXA 2022, and tells the lost story of Communist poet, activist and Canadian political prisoner Joe Wallace. 

Wylie’s film explores the historical record and looks at the way in which Canadian communists, like Wallace, are largely erased from popular accounts of the settler state’s formation and body politic. Born in 1890, Wallace wasn’t celebrated for his poetry in Canada.  In fact much of his poetry was dismissed for its style by his more renowned contemporaries like Milton Acorn and Northrop Frye. But he was the most popular Canadian poet in Eastern Europe and in China from the 1950’s until after his death in 1975. Schmidt chose five of Joe’s poems, wrote them into song, and then arranged them with John Showman (fiddle), Nick Dourado (piano) and Nathan Doucet (percussion). I was then asked to score the rest of the film. Working with Nathan Doucet and Nick Dourado, the three of us elaborated on and recontextualized the original songs’ melodic themes to create new instrumental pieces for guitar, piano and drums. The resulting collection, “The Joe Wallace Mixtape: Soundtrack to A More Radiant Sphere” is a study in two parts and two sides: first in song and second in melodic variation. You can pre-order the cassette or the digital version here on the You’ve Changed Records bandcamp.

Atop Of A Song : Watch It

In this three part series, ATOP OF A SONG dives deep into the making of Fiver with The Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition. Learn what you can and thank you so much.

Playing LongWinter on September 24th

uhhh a press released from Longwinter:

“This fall, Long Winter is pleased to present a special 10th anniversary extension to its winter series. Together Apart activities run September - November 2021, with the aim of connecting DIY music and arts communities across Ontario, Europe, and beyond.

Festivities will include an outdoor rooftop concert series at the Garrison featuring FIVER, monthly editions of a cross-city zine, installations by partner curators Bunker 2 and Younger than Beyoncé, features by Unit 2, Sou Sou, Strangewaves and more, IRL / cross-stream live performances from Toronto (St. Anne’s) and La Station in Paris, France, with a multi-channel video program co-produced with Collectif Ascidiacea and Club Quarantine, articles and playlists on Long Winter’s blog, through StationStation radio, and more.


Sept 24 - MUSIC
Fiver
LAL
Status/Non-Status
DJ sets by FSR
Time: 5:00 - 10:30 p.m.
Tickets: $15 in advance (to reserve a place); pay-what-you-can at the door
Location: rooftop of Garrison (from lot across the street)
Ticket link: https://www.ticketscene.ca/events/37413/ “

ATOP OF A SONG

We have been featured again in ATOP OF A SONG! Have a watch.

The Guardian named Fiver with the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition one of the best albums of 2021 so far. Check it out

I'm putting out a new full length LP

I made this album throughout 2018, and was just so jacked to be able to tour it with my friends, Jeremy Costello, Bianca Palmer and Nick Dourado for 2020, 2021. But here we are, unable to go out and bring you the live music and I’ve mostly spent my time organizing with Encampment Support Network.

I’m so proud of this document though and the musical strides we took in making it.

you can order it from You’ve Changed Records - it’s an LP!

Here are some photos from 40 years ago taken by top photographer, Jeff Bierk.

Woah there's a global pandemic

Unprecedented times.

I put out You Wanted Country? In April 2020. It’s just a study of some of my favourite country songs, and one original. Not many things feel as certain as songs.

Thanks Coco

had a weird time at Pop Montreal.
Thank you again to FACTOR for funding our time there, and to Colin MEdley for this photo of the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition.

Pleased to announce a theatrical adaptation of Audible Songs From Rockwood

Working with Frank Cox O’Connell, Shannon Lea Doyle, Michelle Tracey, Laura Bates and Carlie Howell on this incarnation. We’ve got 5 shows over the course of Summerworks Festival, all wheelchair accessible, all at the Franco Bonni Theatre

Saturday August 10th 2:30pm - 3:45pm

Sunday August 11th 4:30pm - 5:45pm

Friday August 16th 10:45pm - 12:00am

Saturday August 17th 6:30pm - 7:45pm

Sunday August 18th 9:30-10:45

CHECK IT OUT AND BUY THE TICKETS HERE

The new unit with which I have been arranging songs will be in Toronto to play a show with me on Friday, June 14th at the Burdock. If you missed my last newsletter, the unit is comprised of Bianca Palmer, Jeremy Costello (of Special Costello fame) and Nick Dourado (Budi). They are talented musicians from the east coast, and when last they ventured to play with me in Toronto I thought they'd not be back for months. It turns out they all have a night off in the city and for some freakish reason, the Burdock was free. I could go on about how privileged I am to play with these people, but instead, I've recorded a record with them.  Who knows when or how it will be released...

The last time we played in Toronto I received this review:

“I thought about people that had witnessed great musical acts play together for the first time, and wondered if they knew it or not…It was something I had never heard before.  It was a consensus among the audience that we had witnessed the beginning of something truly special.” - Spencer Cathcart

Tickets are available in advance right here.

They will also be available at the door if it doesn’t sell right out because Burdock is small.

If you live in Montreal, come see me play for the Suoni per el Popolo festival on Sunday, June 16th.  I’ll be rolling solo, playing my lonesome heart out at Casa. 

All the information is here.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2363593836996713/--

And, I should also let you know, in July I'll be playing Folk On The Rocks in Yellowknife.  This is a reprise due to the fact that my 2018 show there was thwarted by a burst appendix. 

Fiver near LaHave

Last minute show for my friends in the east coast with some very incredible talent ` Nick Dourado, Bianca Palmer and Jeremy Costello. All new tunes. All strange arrangements.

7pm. $10. The Ploughman’s lunch are hosting a tuesday night show - who knows what could happen. You can get there by going to : 4645 Route 331, B0R1C0 West Dublin, Nova Scotia

https://www.facebook.com/events/609128209519191/

Circle of Steel

Last year I got asked to make some original music for a feature film called Circle of Steel. I read the script and thought I’d take a shot, wrangled the Highest Order together and we made an as of yet released recording called Show Me The Mark. I finally got to see the finished film at ReelWorldFilm Festival and I gotta recommend it. Directed and written by Gillian McKercher and produced by Kino Sum, the film’s a comedy about working in the oil and gas field in northern Alberta, it’s shot beautifully, it’s brutal, it’s funny and it’s well acted, and I can’t say enough about the soundtrack during the opening credits…

Anyway, I’m proud to have contributed to it.

Qurterly

Wrote a song called Rage of Plastics and USGirls covered it on the smash hit record pictured below.

I'll be playing Luminato with my dude, Cris Derksen on June 20.   It's a night called Ally and Kinship and quite happy to be performing on the same stage as Ansley Simpson as well.

Audible Songs From Rockwood will be played at Folk On The Rocks this summer, along with Lonesome Ace String band.  The HIghest Order is going to be there as well.

2018

There was this joke with my old band One Hundred Dollars, about the power that titles hold.  The joke was a way of laughing at the sour reality that as a band of 5, sometimes six, we would rarely ever be paid more than $100 a show.   Now here my name determines my number in a new way.