Sometimes ferry cancellations are a blessing in disguise.
In the case of folk artists The Chimney Swallows, rough seas and a ferry cancellation back in February kept them from playing Cranberry Community Hall. Now they have rescheduled their show and will bring an even larger rootsier punch having added Miss Emily Brown to the bill.
Corwin Fox, one half of the band, said he’s excited to make it back to Powell River because he used to come over quite often to play at Local Locos.
Raghu Lokanathan is the other half of The Chimney Swallows. He is from Prince George, while Fox lives in Cumberland. They have been touring the province in support of their recently released self-titled album which, “true to their live sound, features spare but rich arrangements of songs they have built their act on,” according to their website. The band “aims to set songs free to be everything they can be, from art to mischief, to protest to prayer.”
Fox and Lokanathan have been playing together for six years, but it was not until this winter that they decided to name their band and record their songs.
“It was a fun record to make because we just set up the mics and played the songs like we normally do,” said Fox. “We both write folk songs with the freedom to explore all kinds of unique weirdness of little worlds and strange people we meet on tour.”
The two played their first gigs together while they were employed at Victoria Public Library. When their union went on strike, they took their guitars so they could play while standing on the picket line.
“Then we realized that this was really easy and really awesome,” said Fox. “We went around and started playing all the different picket lines at all the different library branches.”
Fox, 36, cut his teeth in the music business playing bass in punk bands in the Ottawa Valley and “put time in touring the country in a dirty van in an art rock group,” he said. Fox is now known for his work both as a studio engineer and his performance work with Lokanathan and another project called Morlove with Miss Emily Brown.
Emily Brown is a singer-songwriter who has been nominated for several prestigious awards including CBC Radio 3 “Bucky” for best new performer as well as the coveted Polaris Prize.
Fox and Brown have released two full length albums and two EPs as Morlove.
“Cranberry Hall sounds like just the kind of venue we like,” he said. “We’re always seeking out spaces were we can perform without PA systems, so we can do away with the boundary of performer and audience as much as possible.”
Tickets, for $10, can be purchased at the door beginning at 7 pm on Wednesday, June 19, or in advance at Breakwater Books and Coffee.
