Adrian, along with Fringe Percussion, will be the musical presenter at former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan’s next Public Salon, a night of ideas and ingenuity presented at the Vancouver Playhouse on April 23rd. See below for details.
The Fugitives hit the road again Feb 20-25 for shows in Northern-ish BC including two shows at the Canada Winter Games!
Feb 20th- Dunster Schoolhouse- Dunster, BC
Feb 21st- The Old Church- Smithers, BC
Feb 23rd- Canada Games Plaze (5:30pm)- Prince George, BC at the Winter Games
Feb 24th- ArtSpace (9pm)- Prince George, BC at the Winter Games
I’m maniacally excited to be working on some new solo recordings with these fellow yellow pals, Zach and Tom of the Zolas- we’ve been in the studio for the past few weeks. Coming to you in 2015.
Adrian, backed by Fringe Percussion, will be opening for the amazing Barr Brothers for their Vancouver show Dec 5th at the Fox Cabaret. Tickets available here: northerntickets.com/contact/
We’re very honoured to get a nod for Vocal Ensemble of the Year at this year’s Canadian Folk Music Awards for our recent album, Everything WIll Happen. We’re a band that’s fortunate to get to have a lot of amazing vocalists joining us onstage at different times, including Chris Suen, Ali Romanow, Kathleen Nisbet, Steve Charles, Trish Foster, Matt Elwood, plus the Fugitives that joined us on the recordings, Ben Elliott, Derek Kehler and Sahra Featherstone. Thanks, everyone!
folkawards.ca/2014/09/canadian-folk-music-awards-nominees-announced-2/
What happens when a guitar feedback loop is replaced with a water-dipped gong? What if a drum kit was replaced by firebells, rusty bread pans and a timpani drum or a harmony line by a handsaw? These are some of the questions innovative singer-songwriter Adrian Glynn and Vancouver’s premiere new music percussion ensemble, Fringe Percussion, will answer in their first live performance together at St James Hall on September 13th.
Links:
Adrian Glynn and Fringe Percussion EPK video
Here’s my version of the ALS icy buckety go-get-em:
Hello and howdy from Londontown;
I am here on tour with The Fugitives- we just did three glorious weeks in Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Austria and are now on week two of our UK tour. We have two shows in London coming up, (as well as a few other smaller towns) and our last performance of the tour will be at Glastonbury Festival on June 27th. (You can see all our dates here).
We were also quite chuffed (you can tell I’m in England) to be nominated recently for a Western Canadian Music Award for Roots Album of the Year for our latest record, Everything Will Happen. Very chuffed indeed.
We have a few summer festivals coming up and then I will be heading back into the studio in the Fall to record a new solo record, at long last.
I hope your summer is off to a brave start. I’m off to the Tate to get all cultured and the like.
Love Glynn
It’s not often you have a tour that you don’t want to come home from. Usually you’re ragged, tired of other beds, tired of other people, tired of Tim Horton’s, sick of cars and sound guys and asking for the wifi password. Sick to death. But not this tour.
We spent two weeks opening shows across the prairies for the living legend, Buffy Saint-Marie. We all knew a little of her music before the tour started. Some of our parents were big fans, some of us had caught her incredible set at folk festivals along the way. We knew it would be a good tour. We didn’t really know it would be unforgettable.
The first show was in Winnipeg, sold out, energetic. We hadn’t seen Buffy or her band yet and were excited to catch them after our set. They took the stage and right away we noticed three things- Buffy may be 73 but you’d be hard-pressed to peg her much over 45, the way she owns the stage in 4-inch heeled boots and skinny jeans; each member of her band looked like they could individually take our entire band in a bar fight- these were not small guys, but man, did they gel as musicians; and the last thing we knew right away- this was not going to be a folk show.
We all became instant Buffy fans that night. We already knew some of the bigger tunes, like Universal Soldier and Up Where We Belong, but other anthems were soon impressed into our brains and the soles of our awkward dancing feet- Darling Don’t Cry, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Starwalker. Usually after a couple times seeing the same band on tour you start retiring to your dressing room and the flask.. Not only did we never miss a chance to catch most of Buffy’s set from the wings, we even got her albums and started playing them in the car, rocking out to the same tunes we had just been rocking out to the night before. Now that’s love.
Meanwhile, we were getting to know the band. Michel the drummer and Leroy the bass player joined us for a whisky night in a hotel room in Swift Current. A dour security guard with a sad, dangling flashlight tried to break up our fun at 2am, but we weren’t having it. We spent several nights carousing with these guys, hearing their stories of Buffy and Manitoba and the road, and sharing our less interesting tales of running out of gas in Lloydminster and how cool Brendan’s mom is to us.
About five shows into the tour, two amazing things happened. One- the guys talked to Buffy and she asked us to join her onstage for her tune Country Girl. Two- they asked us to smudge with them before the show. If you don’t know what that is, then only feel kinda dumb- I only kinda knew. It’s a prayer ritual involving the burning of sweet-grass, breathing, meditation and prayer, a very sacred rite. We were floored and honoured when Michel asked us to join their smudge before the Saskatoon show. Michel prayed in Ojibway, Buffy in Cree. We breathed the sweet-grass smoke with them, arms around each other, giving thanks and feeling the glow of new friendships forming. Afterward, in the dressing room, every Fugitive was silent and reflective. We decided later that we needed a prayer ritual that involved more than just standing in a circle and simultaneously slapping each other’s faces and giggling, which had been our tradition for the last two nights.
We danced in the wings during Buffy’s last songs in Moose Jaw, sad that it was the last time now, happy to have a tour we didn’t want to end. It’s a rare thing. We won’t forget it.
Greetings from Glynn and a happy somewhat newish year to you and your faces, I hope your resolve is strong as ever as February stumbles toward Bethlehem to be born. Hi, how are you. I’m on a plane in a winter coat and moccasins, I’m flying to New York where it is even colder but I’m excited in my belly. I’ll be part of a great show called Communion on February 4th (performing solo at Rockwood Hall, 7pm). And New York is usually a good place to hang out.
And then there’s the Olympics.. well, we all know about what’s going on with Russia’s new anti-gay laws. The Fugitives were inspired by the story of Dmitry Isakov, the first Russian to be arrested under these bigoted practices, who went back to hold up a sign in his town square even after being arrested and beaten for it the day before. We wrote a song about his brave story and got some people in our community together to make a little video for it- watch it here. Hopefully, with the world’s eyes on Sochi, some pressure for change will begin to mount as well as a further awareness of these sorts of homophobic practices around the world that simply can’t be tolerated any longer.
Ok, that was pretty serious. But there’s fun news in my world, too. As the Fugitives continue to support our recent release, Everything Will Happen, we’ve got some exciting stuff coming up. In March, we’ll be opening for the legendary Canadian folk-singer, Buffy St Marie, at theatres across the pr