The Weakerthans on iLike

Fans: 38,197

- Bio

The Weakerthans

The Weakerthans Stephen Carroll – Guitars, Vocals, Pedal Steel, Keyboards John K. Samson – Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards Greg Smith – Bass, Vocals, Keyboards Jason Tait – Drums, Percussion, Vibes, Glockenspiel, Keyboards, Banjo, Loops The Weakerthans recorded their fourth album, Reunion Tour, in March 2007, in a recording studio built above a factory on the outskirts of Winnipeg, the cold prairie city where the band was born 10 years ago. The factory produces cases for machines and computers and musical instruments, but only in the daytime; for a week and a half in the middle of winter, after the casemakers departed each afternoon at 4:30, the musicmakers, led by producer Ian Blurton, would arrive and play all night, crafting new sounds and new songs on the factory floor and then driving back to the city through the frigid Manitoba pre-dawn. The result is lush and energetic, infectious, unforgettable—hours after listening to it you may be surprised to find that you still have one of the songs stuck in your head, and what's more, it's a song about curling. Yes, curling: that noble sport of sweeping and sliding that in the snowier precincts of North America is more like a religion than a sport. (Winnipeg, a city of just 600,000 people, has 21 curling clubs.) "Tournament of Hearts," the curling song, is a perfect example of what John K. Samson, the band's lead singer and lyricist, calls "first-person fiction," and there's a lot of that on Reunion Tour. Like Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" or Tom Waits's "Bone Machine," the album is a collection of finely rendered portraits of fictional characters, none of whom you probably know but all of whom you'll recognize. There's the dot-com millionaire on his way down in "Relative Surplus Value," the Winnipeg bus driver of "Civil Twilight" whose assigned route takes him every two hours past a house that is haunted only for him. And there are real-life characters, too: "Bigfoot!" tells the story of a ferry operator in northern Manitoba who saw the legendary creature and was then taken advantage of and mocked by everyone from cable news networks to the citizens of his own small town. In "Hymn of the Medical Oddity," we meet Winnipegger David Reimer, who was born a boy but raised as a girl after a famous and tragic medical experiment. Many of the themes and images of previous Weakerthans albums are here, from missed communications to abandoned buildings to the geography of Winnipeg. (Virtute the cat, the narrator of one of the more memorable songs from the band's last record, returns, too.) But there are new connections as well: the majority of the songs are about men, some sympathetic, some despicable. Two of the songs, "Sun in an Empty Room" and "Night Windows," are inspired by specific Edward Hopper paintings. And, more elusively but not less significantly, this is a record made during wartime, and images of combat and struggle lurk on many tracks. The Weakerthans have long been known for their lyrical ingenuity, but they are, after all, a rock band, and Reunion Tour is a musical triumph. Stephen Carroll, who, like Samson, lives in Winnipeg, plays guitar, pedal steel and keyboards. Greg Smith, the newest member of the band, plays bass and keyboards. He lives in Toronto, as does Jason Tait, who plays drums and percussion, as well as keyboards, banjo, vibes and glockenspiel. Reunion Tour is not itself a reunion—The Weakerthans have never gone away—but it is a giant step forward for the band. There's a new confidence and comfort here, four musicians more sure than ever of who they are and what they want to say.

Twitter Updates

New Merch Store News: Canadians, you will be happy, our new merch store will have very good shipping rates to your... http://bit.ly/6KR17E
02:15 PM December 29 2009

Latest bulletin 11.09.09

Two NEW Tour Dates in Australia

Good news for our friends Down Under! We have two more shows booked, to see the dates for our February shows in Sydney and Melbourne, please visit:

http://theweakerthans.org/concerts/

View all (27)

Photos posted by The Weakerthans

View (1)

Blog posts

Link to this artist page

on iLike.com:

on Facebook:

1 2

Blog posts

Oct 09, 10:35 AM

John K Samson Tour Dates

John K Samson will be heading to Europe to tour in support of his solo acoustic 7" release, City Route 85. The tour dates are now up on theweakerthans.org concerts page. See him opening for Kettcar and doing headlining shows. His tour starts November 5th and runs through to November 16th.
theweakerthans.org/concerts/
Oct 09, 10:30 AM

City Route 85

John K Samson solo acoustic 7" single, City Route 85 - out in Europe on Oct 30th (GHVC) , rest of world Nov 3rd (Epitaph/Anti). City Route 85 is the formal name for Portage Avenue, one of Winnipeg’s main thoroughfares. Samson begins his study of this storied street with the song Heart of the Continent, set at the corner of Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard, where a demolished building is resurrected by a narrator struggling to apprehend the losses and despair that haunt cities and citizens alike. Grace General travels west from there, a wintry drive on Portage to Grace General Hospital, seen through eyes preparing to face the death of a loved one. The closing song, Cruise Night, finds a young man desperate to join in the strange and sweet tradition of driving aimlessly up and down Portage Avenue, a social activity many Winnipeggers have participated in every Sunday night for as long as anyone can remember. City Route 85 will be released on 7 Inch vinyl and through digital download on October 30th by Grand Hotel Van Cleef in Europe, and on November 3rd on Epitaph/ANTI Records in North America.
Sep 12, 10:59 AM

Weakerthans Aussie Shows

Our Australian concert dates are now on our web sites.
Futher concerts will be announced later in the fall.
Sep 10, 09:19 AM

The Weakerthans Play Verge Awards

As part of the 2009 Xm Verge Awards The Weakerthans will be performing at the Mod Club in Toronto, with Metric and Hey Rosetta! on September 22nd. The event is open to the public with no advance tickets available and starts at 7:30 Pm. You must be 19+ to get in. Come to the door early day of show to help your chances of getting in. Or: You can win tickets at: http://www.thevergeonline.com/vma/
May 31, 12:29 PM

Greetings and News!

Weakerthans digital electronic news letter subscriber greeting: Hello
Weakerthans digital electronic news letter subscriber message contents:

The Weakerthans - Tour dates.
The Weakerthans will be performing through out the United States this summer and fall. Full tour dates are being announced on our site as they are confirmed. While we're at it, we will playing a couple of Canadian shows as well: in July, we are starting in Western Canada with a performance at the Vancouver Folk Festival, then heading down the West coast of the USA. Later in the year we will be playing at various stops across the Mid West and North East USA.
Here are the concerts dates so far:
July
7/17 Vancouver, BC @ Vancouver Folk Festival
7/18 Seattle, WA @ Neumo's
7/20 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place
7/21 San Louis Obispo, CA @ The Downtown Brew
7/22 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
7/23 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
7/24 Eugene, OR @ WOW
7/25 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theatre
7/26 Nelson, BC @ Spirit Bar
September
9/15 Hamilton, ON @ Casbah
9/16 Boston, MA @ Paradise
9/17 Brooklyn, NY @ Williamsburg Music Hall
9/18 NYC, NY @ Bowery Ball Room
9/19 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
9/20 Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
9/22 tba
9/24 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
9/25 Chicago,IL @ Bottom Lounge
9/26 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock
9/27 Madison, WS @ High Noon
9/28 Waterloo, ON @ Starlight Lounge

Itunes Session.
The Weakerthans will be releasing their recent Itunes recording session, tracked while we were on our Rolling Tundra Revue Canadian Tour at Metal Works in Mississauga, ON. Keep an eye on your iTunes home page it will be released June 30th, 2009.

Thanks.
Thanks to all those who came out to Rolling Tundra Revue 2009 Canadian Tour concerts. We hope you all had as much fun as we did.

End Transmission
Apr 15, 12:14 PM

Weakerthans, Constantines Winnipeg After Show Party at the Lo Pub

Hey, The Weakerthans and Constantines will be hosting after show parties at the Lo Pub after their Winnipeg concerts April 17th and 18th. Persons showing a Weakerthans/Cons ticket stub get in for free. Dance parteh!
More Art and Culture of Noise and Song at the Lo:
Sunday April 19th at the Lo see: Wooly Leaves, Baby Eagle, Bry Webb, and Greg Smith Sounds, (all Cons and Weakerthans side projects) for 7$. Doors 8pm.
Feb 20, 07:43 AM

Voting for The Indies now open

Juts a reminder that The Weakerthans are nominated for two Indie Awards, "Favourite Live Artist/Group" and "Favourite Rock Artist/Group" and you can vote for the band at the Canadian Music Week website:

http://www.cmw.net/cmw2009/awards_indies.asp

Thanks for your support!
Jan 13, 03:38 PM

Rolling Tundra Updates!

Response to the Weakerthans/Constantines Spring 2009 tour has been phenomenal. (Is it still Winter in March/April/May? If you cover as much of Canada as these guys are going to, you'll probably encounter a bit of both!).
The demand has been so great that Ssecond shows have been added in Winnipeg (Saturday April 18 at the Burton Cummings Theatre) and now in Toronto (Wednesday April 1 at the Phoenix). Tickets for the Winnipeg show are on sale now at Ticketmaster, while the Toronto show goes on sale Thursday January 15. Be sure to check our website at www.theweakerthans.orgfor full details of all shows and outlets.
See you on the road!
Dec 08 2008, 07:17 PM

Rolling Tundra Revue: Canadian National Tour 2009.

The Weakerthans are pleased to announce the most expansive national tour they have ever done. Staring on March 18 in St John's NFLD, the band will rock their way across Canada from East to West and then North. By the time they reach Whitehorse Yukon, on May 4 they will have hit 21 cities between The Rock and Vancouver Island, as well as travelling north of the 60th parallel.
Joining the band once again will be Toronto's Constantines, their touring mates for the inaugural Rolling Tundra Revue in 2005 (and whose 2008 album "Kensington Heights" in one of our favourites of this year). It seems rare that bands of this stature will undertake a tour of this magnitude, so gear up for an amazing concert and cultural event!
See our concerts page for concert listings in your city.
Oct 20 2008, 01:37 PM

The Weakerthans find a wealth of Plexi glass trophies at WCMA 2008.

The Weakerthans would like to express our sincere gratitude for the honors bestowed upon on us at this years Western Canadian Music Awards.
A hearty congratulations goes out to Mighty Kraken Films for their work on our music video for Civil Twilight.
We were acknowledged in the following Categories.

OUTSTANDING INDEPENDENT ALBUM AWARD
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour

SONGWRITER(S) OF THE YEAR
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour

VIDEO OF THE YEAR
The Weakerthans ~ Civil Twilight
Directors: Caelum Vatnsdal & Simon Hughes

1 2

Existing users:

New users:

The Weakerthans

Twitter Updates

Latest bulletin 11.09.09

Photos posted by The Weakerthans

Blog posts

Link to this artist page

Blog posts