6/14/2008:
Veteran Band keeps it rocking
by Peter North (The Edmonton Journal)
The
Edmonton Journal, page C1, Saturday, June 14, 2008 Veteran
Edmonton band keeps it rocking
Manraygun expertly weaves moody lyrics with
'memorable melodies'
by Peter North
The way Everett LaRoi describes his membership in Manraygun,
it's as if the making of the album Misfortune Telling was one
of the bonuses, not the primary reason for holding on to his
membership in this five-man band.
Composed of five veteran Edmonton-area players, Manraygun is
a rootsy rock band whose members have more than paid their dues
and who, collectively, could lay out a fairly detailed family
tree illustrating a large swath of the last 25 years of our
rock 'n' roll scene.
LaRoi tosses off names of venues like the legendary Spartan's
Mens Club where he first gigged back in the early '80s, and
makes mention of bands like the Malibu Kens and the Dragnets
that his guitar-playing bandmate Dennis Lenarduzzi played in
during the same era. It was a time when Moe Berg and Mike McDonald
were just able to see formative editions of the Pursuit of Happiness
and Jr. Gone Wild (respectively) on the horizon. LaRoi also
mentions names like Idyl Tea, which he fronted, and Old Reliable,
where bassist Tom Murray saw a few of his years flash before
his eyes.
Rounding out the Manraygun cast are guitarist Steve Lenarduzzi
and drummer/vocalist Silas Grenis. It's this cast that will
unveil their 12-song collection tonight at Teddy's, 11361 Jasper
Ave.
"It's been hugely fun and this is a swell bunch of guys,"
states LaRoi.
"There was nothing preconceived about this project. I was
looking for side-guy projects and Dennis, who is an exceptional
graphic artist, had been away from the scene for a while and
wanted back in. He had reams of lyrics, so we started working
on some songs."
Before long, LaRoi was presenting some of the material he had
ferreted away for a solo disc, and with the help of his aforementioned
friends, he started laying a few of them down in his studio.
When not sharing their culinary preferences during these sessions,
the musicians would make much headway when it came to documenting
the tunes, and with that came the sense that a band was starting
to emerge.
"I was reluctant at first, but I started looking around
the room and realized what a strong skill set there was with
the five of us. I do production, Dennis does graphics; we can
do everything in-house."
Once the decision was made to cut a full-length disc, this collection
of "driven guys" hunkered down for five weekends,
"working long hours, to the point where we'd be frazzled
and get into a weird emotional state."
The result is a set where the blinds are sometimes drawn and
a dark lyrical wash prevails. Instrumentally, the quintet provides
balance via spinning cool harmonic lines across memorable melodies,
which has long been LaRoi's strong suit.
The band doesn't so much walk the tightrope between roots rock
and alt-country but swing from it, never letting the listener
know just exactly where they'll land from one tune to the next.
"I am fond of Steve's tune Blind Boy; it has such a haunting
lyric, and Dennis's classic '50s arrangement of Bing Crosby's
Here Lies Love takes the song to another place," says LaRoi.
"Tightrope Tapdance happened by accident and we couldn't
get it right until Tom told us all to 'just play it like The
Stones' and it ended up with this mock Brown Sugar thing."
Tickets for tonight's show at Teddy's are $12 at the door. Manraygun
should be onstage by 10:15 for the first of two sets.
11/4/2000:
King Of The Road by Julio Gomes (The Chronicle
Journal--Thunder Bay)
The
Chronicle-Journal, page C1, Saturday, November 4, 2000 King
of the road
Everett LaRoi embarks on another long journey
to musical success
by Julio Gomes
It's been a decade since Everett LaRoi was out on a full-fledged
cross-Canada tour, so you can expect a lot of things have changed
in that time. But he's happy to report that after five weeks the
experience has seen more ups than downs.
"It's
actually been good," LaRoi said yesterday during a stopover
in Marathon. "We've had good shows and good media coverage,
so it's actually been quite fun."
"I was expecting more Desolation Road and less Knocking At
Heaven's Door," he adds with a laugh, dispelling notions this
has been a "hell tour."
As
he and his bandmates Robin Hunter (lap steel and slide guitar),
Dan Holden (bass) and Tim Resaul (percussion) have charted thousands
of kilometers on this tour, so LaRoi has been down a long and winding
road.
Born
in Edmonton to American parents (his father was a professor at the
University of Alberta), LaRoi and some high school friends formed
a power-pop band called Idyl Tea.
After
three albums and extensive touring, they broke up in 1995. Rather
than jumping right back into the business, LaRoi decided to retrench.
That meant taking vocal training, attending production workshops,
honing his guitar-playing and studying music theory, all the while
waiting on tables.
Not surprisingly, that process took up almost four years of his
life, but did result in the composition of 45 songs.
I
just really wanted to have a good batch of songs for my solo album,"
LaRoi, 34, explained.
The
recording of 11 of those songs
involved LaRoi filling in as producer as well as main performer,
with the help of the rhythm section of Ron Samsom (drums) and Shantel
Koenig (bass), and guest musicians such as Shuyler Jansen (pianorgan),
Christine Hanson (cello), Mike Yuswenko (Hammond organ) and Tony
Michael (mandolin/fiddle).
Once the tracks were
laid down, the tapes were shipped off to Los Angeles for mastering.
"I wanted to try to make it a cut above (other recordings)
if I could," he said of the prolonged process.
An independent project,
with funding from Canadian Heritage, the self-titled CD was released
in March. The first single, That's The Way, has received significant
airplay and was a top-rated track on the www.mp3.com chart.
Along with a storyteller's
eye for detail, LaRoi boasts a lilting voice that's the perfect
accompaniment to the vast array of instruments he calls to each
song/ The result is a folk 'n roll or alternative roots style that
rely more on lyrics and melody than catchy riffs.
"I'm not exactly
sure what it is," LaRoi says of his mix of styles, which also
includes country grooves. "I let the song dictate what is required
(of the music).
"But I want
there to be something lyrically for you to sink your teeth into."
As he heads back
west and the tour comes to an end (it will culminate with an Internet
broadcast of the Nov. 23 show in Edmonton), LaRoi is looking forward
to sleeping in his own bed again, spending time with his girlfriend
and taking his dog for a walk.
But getting reacquainted with the long, lonely Canadian highways
hasn't been all bad.
"The road are a lot better," he says cheerfully. "But
the long drives are the same as they've always been."
Somehow, though ,
we think it's a journey that he prefers to be on.
11/10/1999:
LaRoi
loves life in local scene
by Darren Zenko (SEE Magazine)
SEE
Magazine ,
page 12, November 4-10, 1999
LaRoi
loves life in local scene
by Darren Zenko
Sitting in the Monday-morning café
to chat about his new disc, Everett LaRoi's looking a bit groggy.
No coffee for this boy; he's sucking back some strangely colored
fluid featuring that great ginseng taste kids these days go for.
"This
is for rehydration," LaRoi manages to explain between great
herculean swigs. "They wouldn't let me stop playing last
night."
"They"
is the crowd at Sunday's open stage at Mickey Finn's, the weekly
cavalcade of music LaRoi presides over. It's obvious this is something
he loves doing, a power source.
"The energy people have, when they get on stage the first
time, they're so alive," Everett grins. "Whether they
remember all the words, whether or not they blank out on one song,
isn't so important. A lot of people, you can see it's a really
big thing for them, and you see them sort of conquer that and
come back. I usually say 'Do it six times, then after that you'll
get more relaxed.'"
Six
times, huh? Then you must get super relaxed after 600 or 6,000
or however many times you end up performing when you begin playing
music while you're still young enough to be wearing pajamas with
the little feet on them.
"Some
of my first memories are actually on the piano bench with my mom.
I also remember hitting that piano with a hammer... there's still
chips on my parents keys. It was my punk youth."
Between
then and now came the bands. First, Route 66, and "college
radio hits" in the days of Reaganomics, Commodore 64s and
Devo's crappier albums. Then came Idyl Tea, running up to 1995
and leaving a trail of albums, videos, empty kegs and broken-hearted
schoolgirls in their Trans Canadian wake.
"That
summer and fall after I got out of high school, we were all trying
to decide if we should go to university or what we should do.
We had started writing at that point, we had a bunch of songs,
and it sounded like more fun to make a record and go out on tour,
you know?"
Yeah,
we know. So what about this new record, this first solo recording
(self-titled) from one of the nicest guys in town?
"Most
of the material is pretty new, stuff I wrote after Idyl Tea broke
up in 1995. I basically took a year off and spent two or three
years just writing. For me, it's like for every six songs I write
I usually get one good one and discard the rest. So as you can
imagine it takes a while to get a bunch I'm really happy with."
LaRoi
considers the unavoidable lag,
the phenomenon where by the time an artist manages to get a disc
out he/she/it finds him/her/itself constantly making "but
this isn't really what I sound like anymore..." sorts of
apologies.
"I'm not obsessed with always playing my newest stuff. If
you talk to most songwriters, they'll tell you that their newest
stuff is the best stuff they've ever done, but I've come to find
that I don't think that's always accurate. I think you're most
excited about it, and it would be convenient to think that it
would be a linear progression of ascension, but it's more that
there's moments in your life when you tap into something totally
intangible in a song."
After
recording comes the touring--it's how independent artists sell
discs. Unlike some folks, this is something LaRoi's looking forward
to.
"Going
on tour again, it's sort of a personal mission. I do miss it,
the road stuff, the camaraderie. Especially when we were really
young; it's sort of democracy, all for one, one for all, three
kids in a van, taking on the country with boxes of fine albums.
I think I grew up on that first tour across Canada."
But
there's not much chance of him hitting the road for one of those
louder, brighter, hillier places outside E-ville city limits and
never coming back.
"Edmonton
's my home and I don't have any plans to move. Musically, I think
the scene now is the strongest I've seen it in 10 or 15 years.
It's a totally untapped scene... there's so much good music that
comes out of this town and it just keeps on coming."
10/20/1999:
Everett LaRoi has found himself and his
music
by Sandra Sperounes (Edmonton Journal
Edmonton
Journal ,C3,
October 20, 1999
Everett
LaRoi has found himself and his music
by Sandra Sperounes
Talk about a double whammy.
Four
years ago, Everett LaRoi and his band Idyl Tea, decided to pull
the plug on their kettle of melodic pop tunes.
It
was a sad moment for the local scene--Idyl Tea had become on of
the city's most successful and loved bands during it's 11 year
run.
Together,
LaRoi and his high school pals released [three] albums, signed
a record deal with Attic/A&M only to go independent again...
and finally broke-up. Soon after, LaRoi reached another milestone
in his life.
His
30th birthday.
Mildly shell shocked by the number, he did what most people
dream of doing. He quit his job as a waiter, bought a car and
hit the highway.
For the next three months, he drove around the U.S. with no
particular destination in mind.
"I did a bunch of writing. I'd go to hotels and write tunes,"
he smiles. "I'd sit there and think, 'What the hell am
I doing out here? Where am I going?'
"That
was a great way to spend my 30th birthday."
Then, of course, the next day I'd be feeling great. No one know
where I am, no one knows where I'm going."
LaRoi finally ended up at his parents' cabin in Michigan, with
a bursting Visa card and a desire to go home. When he did, he
kicked his butt into gear and started writing songs for his
self-titled debut solo album, released tonight at the Sidetrack.
It was a lengthy process. For every song he liked, six or seven
ended up in the garbage.
Eleven
tunes eventually made it onto the disc, including three from
an unfinished Idyl Tea album -- Eyes For The White Lines,
This Ain't One Of Them and Hanging By Myself. Many
of the tracks are scented with a Blue Rodeo/Matthew Sweet country-folk
aroma, while all are reflections of his life and his friends.
A few characters even make cameo appearances in more than one
number.
"I wanted to make a really strong debut," says LaRoi.
"I also just wanted to explore some different ideas and
styles. I wanted some kind of thread to the album -- a lyrical
and musical thread that goes through it."
One of those threads reflects his time on the road. That's
The Way, a song about memories and longing, was written
while LaRoi was in Michigan.
"I had my Dad's old laptop [computer], a package of cigars
and some beer, " he laughs.
On a more metaphorical level, Different Life features
a character who dreams of disappearing into the night. On Jessie
and the Great Getaway, he does exactly that. And Eyes
For The White Lines is not an ode to cocaine, but the euphoria
of the open road.
While LaRoi spent about three years crafting these songs, it
took him only 12 or 13 days to record. It's almost a miracle
he even did. There were a few times when he thought he was ready
but chickened out at the last minute. "Nah, I don't have
the songs. Write more," he told himself.
What
finally prompted LaRoi into action was a loan from the Foundation
to Assist Canadian Talent on Record. Along with the money came
a deadline. If LaRoi didn't meet it, he'd have to repay the
loan.
"I
didn't think I'd get it , but they gave me the full amount for
it. It was like, 'Oh my god, I actually have to make it. Aargh!'
" he smiles.
Faced
with a looming deadline, LaRoi threw together a Who's who
list of local musicians, including guitarist Robin Hunter (Imagineers),
singer Luann Kowalek, bassist Shantel Koenig, drummer Ron Samsom,
cellist Christine Hanson and Old Reliable's Shuyler Jansen on
pianorgan.
LaRoi
says working with so many musicians was eye- and ear-opening.
"I'm
used to playing in bands, where you sit in a practice room and
play them 200 times and then you really know how it sounds.
This time, I had the songs, we'd play them, get the basic tracks
and then just sit in the control room and list to it and try
to imagine what else would fit with it. Then we'd call up a
cello player."
Two
weeks later, LaRoi had a very live, spontaneous sounding album
on this hands. Now he's getting ready to share it with the rest
of the world. He's planning a small, Western Canadian tour and
after that, who knows? He hesitantly welcomes the thought of
signing another record deal, but it's not what drives him.
Knowing
LaRoi, he's probably just itchin' to get back on the road again.
Introducing
manraygun:
cabin fever. campfire poetry. dog-eared. old guitars. amplifier
tubes like warm chestnuts in your pockets. doghouse, double-bass
heartstrings. quiet drumbs. loud drumbs. shaky things. folkways
dust. the reverb of horsethief canyon. tremolo.
