THE WEAKERTHANS
Канада
Виннипег
инди-группа
official site
MySpace
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Compilations
Wedding Crashers - 2005
Take Penacilin Now - 2005
Punk-O-Rama 9 - 2004
Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 3 - 2000
This Is Bad Taste Vol. 2 - 2000
This Is Bad Taste Vol. 3 - 2000
Sub City Sampler/Audiozine - 1999
Return Of The Read Menace - 1999
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Reconstruction Site - 2003
Left and Leaving - 2000
Left & Leaving - 2000
Fallow - 1999
English wikipedia.org
The Weakerthans are a four-piece (and sometimes six-piece) Canadian
indie rock band that blends punk-inflected folk rock with
award-winning, literate, introspective lyrics.
History
The band was formed in 1997 in Winnipeg, Manitoba by John K.
Samson, after he left the punk band Propagandhi to start a publishing
company. Samson joined forces with bassist John P. Sutton and drummer
Jason Tait, and created The Weakerthans as a vehicle for a more melodic
and introspective brand of songwriting than that of Propagandhi. One
origin story for the band's name is a line from the 1992 film The
Lover: "Go ahead, I'm weaker than you can possibly imagine."(as quoted
in the liner notes of Fallow) The band's name may refer to a Ralph
Chaplin quote from "Solidarity Forever": "What force on Earth can be
weaker than the feeble strength of one?" The band alludes to this line
in the song "The Pamphleteer", from the album Left and Leaving.
The band's debut album, Fallow, was released in 1997 on G7
Welcoming Committee Records, and garnered positive reviews from
Canadian music critics.[citation needed] Guitarist Stephen Carroll
subsequently joined the band, and Left and Leaving was released in
2000.
In 2003, the band moved to Epitaph Records and released
Reconstruction Site. The album was met with rave reviews from Canadian
and international critics for its ambitious combination of punk, rock,
folk, country and sonnets. It also became the band's best-selling
record to date, as well as its airplay breakthrough on Canadian radio.
It was the second Weakerthans album to be produced by Ian Blurton.
Sutton, who played on all three of the band's first albums, left in August 2004 and was replaced by Greg Smith.
In 2005, Left and Leaving was named one of the ten best Canadian
albums of all time in Chart magazine's reader poll.In the same poll,
Samson wrote the capsule review for another top ten finisher, The
Lowest of the Low's Shakespeare My Butt, which he cited as a major
influence on his own music.
Reunion Tour was released on September 25, 2007 (in North
America) by Epitaph and ANTI-. The band released a video for "Civil
Twilight", which was comprised of a single, unbroken camera shot of the
band on a Winnipeg Transit city bus.
Epitaph has also announced it will be re-releasing the
Weakerthans' first two albums (Fallow and Left and Leaving) in Canada
on November 6, 2007.
The Weakerthans became the first band in the history of CBC
Radio 3's R3-30 charts to reach #1 with two different songs—its cover
of Rheostatics' "Bad Time to Be Poor" reached #1 the week of June 21,
2007, and "Civil Twilight", the lead single from its album Reunion
Tour, hit the top spot the week of November 15, 2007. As of the week
ending December 13, 2007, "Civil Twilight" was also tied with Arcade
Fire's "Black Mirror" as the longest-running #1 in that chart's
history.
Side projects
- Samson frequently collaborates with his wife, Christine Fellows.
- Tait has recorded and performed with Broken Social Scene.
- Tait, Samson, and Fellows have all collaborated with poet and filmmaker Clive Holden.
- In 2006, all of the Weakerthans except Samson performed on Greg Graffin's second solo album, Cold as the Clay.
- In 2000, the Winnipeg Free Press released a spoken word album
by Catherine Hunter that included a bonus track featuring the
Weakerthans doing backing instrumentation while Hunter read her poem
"Rush Hour".
Members
Current members
- John K. Samson (lead vocals, guitar)
- Jason Tait (drums, percussion, vibraphone, keyboards)
- Stephen Carroll (guitar, pedal and lap steel, keyboards)
- Greg Smith (bass)
Former members
Live show help
- Jim Bryson (general support). Joined as of September 10, 2007[10].
- Dave MacKinnon (keyboards)
- Brian Poirier (acoustic guitar and backing vocals)
MacKinnon and Poirier also have their own band, The FemBots,
and were previously associated with the bands Dig Circus and Hummer.
Discography
Albums
- 1997: Fallow
- 2000: Left and Leaving
- 2001: Watermark EP
- 2003: Reconstruction Site
- 2007: Reunion Tour
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