Monday, August 25, 2008

New EP By Andy Prieboy

More interesting than Halley's Comet and nearly as rare, Andy Prieboy has quietly released a new EP.

My love and admiration for brilliant artists ranges across a pretty wide spectrum, but Prieboy is at the top of the list. I can honestly say he is my All-Time Favourite Musician.

You can preview and buy the songs on his sparse and suddenly-active website. Meanwhile, somebody has made a surprisingly engaging independent video for one of the songs, "Bands," which I suspect is from his as-yet unreleased musical "White Trash Wins Lotto."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta confess - I never heard of Andy Prieboy before your post. But I read the Wikipedia entry and visited his website after viewing the video.

Well, the video certainly had very compelling images, and it seemed to go with the parts of the lyrics that I heard. Andy's website (as you said) sure is sparse, but it had one great feature - some lyrics!

So, in order to do justice to Andy's work (because it doesn't appear that his music is my usual kind of thing) I will read the "Band" lyrics and see what he is saying.

I guess that's the only fair thing to do. Thank you for posting info about Andy.

Adam Thornton said...

He's one of those artists who bubble just below media consciousness. When he was in Wall of Voodoo he used to get some attention, and he hit underground radio with "Tomorrow Wendy," and there are occasional rumblings about his musical, but for the last thirteen years there's been almost complete silence.

For sure, the lyrics in this one are rapid-fire! His style is mostly highly-dramatic and piano-oriented, very lyrical, usually quite wordy. "Bands" is sort of an extreme distillation.

Kimber said...

That is one helluva cool video. And I haven't heard anyone mention Wall of Voodoo in years!

Do you remember Deja Voodoo? (no pun intended)

Adam Thornton said...

Oh yeah, always great for quickly meeting your CanCon! Quick two minute song and you're another few percentage points along. :)

Right up there with Meryn Cadell (who I just discovered while checking the name has had a sex change) for a quick injection of Canadian Content into a lagging playlist.

Anonymous said...

Gotta say - I read the "Band" lyrics and I was impressed.

Although it doesn't show in the way Andy sings it, and certainly not in the video's style -- for some reason I get the feeling that Leonard Cohen could have written this. Something takes me back to his "Chelsea Hotel No. 2".

And since Cohen is from Quebec, I've just added to your "CanCon"!

Could I be right about the sentiment that this song and Cohen's evokes?

Adam Thornton said...

Good call, Gary, I agree that this evokes a somewhat more energetic Cohen in terms of songwriting, including somewhat edgy lyrics. Though Cohen was more prone to flights of fancy, whereas Prieboy tends toward gritty reality.

Sadly, most of Cohen's songs DON'T qualify as CanCon; I forget the exact details but the songs must meet at least two of four requirements, only one of which is that the songwriter is Canadian. Cohen's albums generally didn't meet enough of the requirements, at least not as judged by the station I worked at.

I think people like Neil Young, Celine Dion, and Bryan Adams were in the same boat, but since I didn't play them on my show I don't remember exactly...maybe Kimber can clue us in!