from today's "Georgia Straight"
Northey Stays in the Game
By steve newton
Publish Date: 24-Feb-2005
Craig Northey is best known for his work with the Odds, the whimsically rockin’ local quartet that spent most of the ’90s churning out some of the most enchanting, Beatlesque pop this city has ever heard. Since the Odds called it quits in 2000, he’s stayed deeply involved with the music game, recording the solo album Giddy Up, writing for the likes of Colin James, Wide Mouth Mason, the Waltons, and Rosanne Cash, and even acting as musical director on a North American tour by comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall. You could say that Northey’s been keeping busier than a dog with two dicks, so when the Straight tracks him down to chat about his latest release, Northey Valenzuela—a collaboration with Gin Blossoms guitarist-vocalist Jesse Valenzuela—it’s no surprise to find the tireless rocker in a studio in Bath, Ontario, mixing the debut solo release by Tragically Hip guitarist Robby Baker. Performers on the CD, which sports the working title Strippers Union Local 518, include Hip members Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois, and Gord Sinclair, as well as former Odds Doug Elliott and Pat Steward. “So it’s kind of one of those hip-hop collectives,” quips Northey, who cowrote all the music with Baker, sang quite a bit, and played guitar here and there.
As for the Northey Valenzuela disc, which is distributed in Canada by Maple Music, that’s the result of Northey’s long musical relationship with the Arizona-based tunesmith. “When we started in the Odds we kind of moonlighted as the [cover band] Dawn Patrol at the Roxy on Granville,” recalls Northey, “to pay for trips to try and get the Odds thing going. Every month or so we’d go to L.A. and play house gigs and showcases, and I met Jesse down there through a mutual friend. We ended up sleepin’ on the same floor at this guy’s place in Silverlake.”
It was on that floor that Northey and Valenzuela discovered their mutual admiration for Nick Lowe, via their host’s com?prehensive collection of Lowe albums. Many a late night (and early morning) was spent grooving to the man who gave the world such pure-pop gems as “Cruel to Be Kind” and “Half a Boy & Half a Man”. “Jesse and I really bonded over those records,” Northey relates. “We both liked what they drew from; you know—from the soul and roots-country traditions. And we liked the wise-ass lyrics. It’s kind of a place we can go together.”
The collaboration spawned some extremely catchy pop ditties, in particular “See Through Heart” and “The Little Things”. And the theme from the CTV comedy show, Corner Gas, gets my vote for three-minute jangle-pop tune of the year. Series star Brent Butt asked buddy Northey to come up with a tune for the program and the result was the irresistible Northey-Valenzuela composition “Not a Lot Goin’ On”. Northey describes the tune—which features a sprightly guitar solo from long-time Bryan Adams picker Keith Scott—as “a little sparkly song”. Local blues-rocker Colin James also contributed guitar solos on two Northey Valenzuela tracks. As Northey puts it, “It doesn’t hurt to bring your friends in to do all the stunt work.”
Much of the material on the CD sports the same simple, hook-filled vibe that typified the best Odds songs in the ’90s; hearing them makes one pine for the latter quartet all the more. But Northey insists that there are no immediate plans to hook back up with Odds singer-guitarist Steven Drake—an in-demand producer himself—and get a reunion going. “You can keep checkin’ in with me every year like you do,” he says, “and I’ll give you the same answer. Basically my modus operandi is to just keep makin’ music. And I still get two out of three—I work with Pat and Doug quite a bit, so I get my jollies. And there’s a lot of ‘interdisciplinary studies’, as they used to say in the old university days. I get to work in different mediums, and being able to do collaborations like the ones with Robby and Jesse are fantastic. It helps you bring stuff back to your world.”
When he isn’t writing, producing, or mixing, Northey likes to keep his chops up with gigs like the Puck Bunny Ball, which takes place at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel on Saturday (February 26). It’s an after-party for the Remax Sea to Sky Hockey Challenge, with proceeds to the PacificSport PodiumFund for Canadian athletes and will feature appearances by Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, Loverboy’s Mike Reno, Colin James, Barney Bentall, and country artists Lisa Brokop and Aaron Pritchett. “A lot of my hockey-playing friends will be there,” Northey says, “and everybody gets a coupla songs at an event like that. You sort of pick songs based on what everybody can get up and jam on without creating too much of a mess, so I’ll probably play ‘Louie Louie’. And maybe ‘Free Bird’.”
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I've been out here in Kingston taking part in the mixing of the "Strippers Union Local 518" record (Rob Baker's side project).Mark Vreeken is at the helm and things are sounding "soooo good" (www.homestarrunner.com/tgsmenu.html).
I was planning to skate outdoors each morning but the temperature has swung from plus 13 to minus 15 and back again ... completely wrecking it for me. Its been warm rain, snow, sun and then freezing rain. Robbie and I took a walk out onto Lake Ontario one cold day, just as we neared the shore, his foot went through the ice. My Vancouver heart was beating like a rabbit's for a few minutes there. He described the sensation as closer to burning than freezing as he sloshed his was back to the house. There are amazing formations of ice as the waves and pressure cracks buckle and grind. We stood out on the dock at 4:30am this morning and listened to the ice groan and release. It sounds like boom cars moving out in the distance with no discernable tune. Subtones and giant eliptical aftershocks. Its as if someone slowed down a macro recording of a waterdroplet hitting the surface of a pond. I want another cold snap tonight.
Black ducks of Sydney. It’s a beautiful stream in summer. Winding wide and slow through the gentle dip in a willowy park it passes under a filigreed covered bridge in the shape of an off-white domed gazebo. Making its way to the nearby harbour it passes discreetly under the main street as the tranquil bead of traffic heads into town. This is a logical place for ducks. The urban well. Children and retirees will know to bring stale bread here. Tourism ensures the ducks this quadrant will remain verdant and delicious.
I’ve never been in this town when it was at its prime. I first arrived at a time when the coal and the cod had either begun to leave or were gone. This wasn’t any Springsteen song either. The singing never stops here and the tragic nature of the subject matter often seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t know whether the songs actually bring on the tragedy but they are more than just a soundtrack to all this sad beauty. Atlantic Canada was revealed to me on these terms but in the dead of winter. The picture of this park is just as beautiful at 25 degrees below zero but, at times, it is not as comfortable to be outdoors pondering. On this day it is winter and the 150 year-old houses that ring the park are dead stoic. Large milky dagger edged blankets of ice hang from the eaves and bright pastel colours do their best to deliver a note of optimism. The wind has taken solid shape in the waves and arcs of the drifting snow -- a calm negative image to its constant force. The larger arcs ramp up to shoulder the roadways in massive heaps. The graders and plows have done an admirable job pushing back against the flow of nature and carving hard vertical edges to the drifts that line the roadsides -- head high to a full grown man. The creek under the gazebo is frozen for half its visible length and as it nears the road it does a strange thing for water any shallower than 5 metres. It remains unfrozen. It passes through the culvert under the road and empties in a shallow splay into the frozen bay. The Sydney harbour itself is covered in a layer of ice and snow and the warmer creek water must sneak in under it. On the other side of the culvert on the dark brown delta of the creek huddle the dark brown ducks. There are a few birds that remain in full summer bright colours. Heads of iridescent emerald, bright white bands and smoky gray splashes are, however, not the norm with this crew. Of the hundred or so ducks most are camouflaged against the brownish black-coated rocks of the creek bed. It is as if they have been painted with the same unflattering brush. There are species of black ducks but these are the ones not intended to be black. Something is wrong here. The ducks have chosen the warm water directly in the outflow of several 8 inch PVC pipes poking from the banks of the creek. A gas station and a utility building of some sort sit higher up on opposing sides of the creek. Their backs are turned. They have business to do in the street. These ducks are quiet. No quarrel or flurries of movement. They expend only the energy required to stay awake. Their choice is to stay.
There are miners and fishermen still here in Cape Breton but not too much mining and fishing. While the adaptation process is slow the home fires still have just enough heat. Plenty have left. It could be said that nature’s way would be to move the flock to a new nesting ground. In winters like these it is a matter of migrate or perish. I’m not sure but I believe its right for ducks to migrate. I’m sure that before towns existed raccoons, and rats also lived in the wilderness. Now they wouldn’t know what to do with the crayfish in a stream or the…whatever rats used to eat before MacDonalds fries. Ducks have wings. This means they have options. Even just a hundred miles south they could enjoy temperatures closer to zero. Here the steam from your breath moves out in a quick wisp and is gone. The outer shell of a “weather proof” jacket turns instantly crisp and crinkly. The upper reaches of your nostrils freeze together with each successive inhalation and frost slowly reaches down from your eyebrows and into the blurry fringes of your field of vision. The closest fishing boat is so icebound that it appears more like one of those dry-docked and landscaped theme restaurants than an actual functioning vessel. It must have seemed quite hospitable in the mines on days like these. The greatest antidote to the cold, however, is the bright and clear serenity of a day like this. These ducks are opportunists beyond logic. Why leave a warm spot even if it appears to be your prison? The beauty that is revealed after the longsuffering winter must be worth the price. Chemical poisoning aside these ducks abide by the same love of Cape Breton that so many others will never shake. This is home. Bad lungs and a bad back but everyone understands me here. Black ducks of Sydney.