Thanks to Alex Timmons for taking the following pics of the Punchers in action a couple of weeks ago at SAIT’s Gateway.

Love and kisses – Matt

My lips have gone dry with the sullen fury of the road, the endless clamor of the engine, or the fog drifting in along the yellow plain, just for a brief glimpse of what should be a dream but lingers so lightly on the tip of the tongue like a snow flake trapped by a hostile child. The road is the renegade. A savage beast that if walked would take hundreds of hours to travel. Why am I here? There is one reason. Love. There is no other explanation except for the hope that one day this will have made a difference. There can be no other explanation.

Canada, you dirty bitch of a landmass. Why do I fear the rest of the world so much that I cannot leave you? I hold tight to your promises. On the eve of many of us leaving let’s look at the road; the vase expanses that stretch beyond the imagination. Why do I love your people so much? The dirty farmers that smell of diesel and tobacco. The too fat waitress that 20 years ago was beautiful. The young oil engineer that thinks he is so smart. The drunks, meth-heads, grease balls, lawyers, construction workers, garbage collectors, gentle lovers, comedians, hookers, preachers, leftists and rightists, the east and the west, north and south.

The road is a sultry witch, she looks good from the lens of distance, but once in her grasp she has nothing but harsh words and even colder actions. She says with a kind voice “meet me in another city and play for me.” Then, she makes you wait in foreign ports and languish there with little or no escape, no chance of intimacy with the culture of the place. I have looked out with love and got nothing back. I have held the hand of the crowd and tried to egg them on, all I got was a vase full of cat piss and wilted orchids. She wants to love us, there was none to give. The road is the boy or the girl that you loved as a child/ teenager that never loved you back, you held that hand on the bus so many times just to have a teasing at school; that doesn’t stop you from coming back. A wink in the hall and then a glass of milk in the face in the lunchroom.

Still, the road is the brother of a musician. Without the road how would a musician ever get taken seriously? We are the prophets of old, where the hometown would try and stone us for our message of hope. So, we leave. Look at all Canadian bands, where do they go? We move to the States? We become heroes. We are the sullen, sick, traitorous heroes. We all love Neil Young. How much does it nag in your mind that he is just another snowbird retiring in Florida? We are tied to the road in blood, and when weakness takes us we stop and give up, write that hit, make it. If any musician says that the road (and that means planes and trains and boats and motorbikes and ferries and tractors) is nothing is a liar, a dirty stupid liar. It makes us what we are.
Tynan

This Friday April 9th – Dojo Workhorse w/Cowpuncher and the Leather Jacket Club @ SAIT’s Gateway. 8PM. There’s no better way to start the weekend!

Musicians have all this lingo jargon ballyhoo that is this sort of insiders talk, but I am going to get rid of the mystery; cut through the shit with my samurai sword of words. You might hear talk of this mythical beast called the ‘rhythm section’, it cries out from the chasms of primal sludge and rears its magical teeth upon your unprotected orifices.What a good rhythm section is is a solid bass player with a drummer that can play his ass off, that is it, well, plus a little extra.

Harley, the bass player in Cowpuncher, came from the band 5 Star Homeless and for most of the duration of that band there was no drummer. What the hell does that mean? It means that the rhythm section was comprised entirely of Harley, he was the time keeper ( Matty Griffith’s acoustic playing in that scenario also acted as time but Harley was the anchor for all the of the tunes). Check out someone like Wayne the Train where there is no drummer, the thing still moves along like a well greased monkey’s ass. Harley can pull or push the band with time in whatever direction he feels it needs, there is no stopping the man, he is an animal. On top of the time duty the bass runs double duty providing the harmonic foundation that the songs sit on, country music usually has a two feel (that dump dump dump dump sound) and there is really no breathing room in that and no room for error.

Jeff Sulima is a total monster. I consider him one of the best drummer’s I have got to play with, powerful and tasteful at the same time. Jeff’s relationship to Harley is critical, the two of them have to lock like lovers longingly looking to the each other for support (no giving the $20 for a cab ride on this one). All the shots have to be there tight, tight, tight, or else the whole thing falls apart. Jeff has played with a ton of different bands and that sort of genre shifting has given him a sense of direction and concept that allows him to balance his technique will a musicality that doesn’t happen to often in a drummer. The drummer’s role in the band is to: convey the bass player’s time to the whole of the band, cue sections with fills or subtle little shots, feel the form of the song and ‘show’ it to the group – Jeff covers all of this and more.

These two jugernaughts of the country rhythm section pantheon probably have a better marriage than most straight or gay couples do, there is no fighting, each just accepts the others faults, they work off of each others strengths and try to support the other when one is weak – put that in your pipe and smoke Dr Laura, men that aren’t mucking about.

Now, there are off shoots to the rhythm section that are critical. Matt’s acoustic guitar is providing the form of the song, the quicker time (like the chuka-chuka-chuka that you hear – eighth notes or sixteenth notes to all the quacks in the room), and Matt writes the bulk of the tune so what he hears in his head he has to let the whole band know. Matt is the signal master of the band, that pace car. He might want to try a song slower or faster so he has to let the band know through his playing. Matt is also a great time keeper right along with Harely and Jeff, the three of them together show the band where to go.

There is also a fourth item that comes into play in the form of man (less an item, more a man). Ryan Kelly, Ryan Kelly, Ryan Kelly. He is a baritone guitarist (which is a lower tuned guitar with a different scale of frets on the neck). He is like a bass player mixed with a guitarist. The way that I view Ryan is like he has all these hook parts that suck you into the song but he is locked in with Harely (listen to Thank God for Pretty Girls)…..

Scott Martin, Shawn Canning, and myself all sit on the edge of the rhythm section and just add icing to the cake. Scott would be the main frosting, Shawn is like the decorations, I am like some little flower or gel icing picture of a princess. The 3 of us sit on the shoulders of the core of the rhythm section and try not to get in the way of the song.

What the hell is a rhythm section? Put your hand on your left side and feel your heart pumping inside of your chest. Without that little piece of machinery ticking you no longer are alive (true fact I looked it up), stick some bad cholesterol in one of those pipes or put a hole in that pump and the skin and lips turn blue pretty quick; take the rhythm section out of the band you lose the heart.

Remember that I still love you. Tynan.

Someone on the edge of the music, whether they are a audience member or just an innocent bystander, might wonder what it is like being in a band like Cowpuncher. Now, I am the mullet swinging idiot with the Jazzmaster, the view from my seat is pretty good. I would say that playing with Cowpuncher is like being a fire-walker while wrestling with a large animal (a large animal being some sort of carnivorous beast like a polar bear mixed with a shark or a preying mantis mixed with a black widow + a snake), I have seen more events in this band than I have in any other than I have been in. I almost got into a fist fight with a sixty year old man, that was a first, thank God that his wife pulled him away while we exchanged words. Matt Olah has kicked more people than I have ever seen a lead singer do, Ryan Kelly has seen more action with that Danelectro than I have seen as well, I threw at mattress at the man’s head and it did not stop him in his action! We got a damn police escort into Medicine Hat, it does not get more country than that. I am looking forward to this branding party that we are going to play at, branding as in scorching cattle with steel brands that show who the animal belongs to, there is going to be a slip and slide there.

How would I describe our relationships, the best way to put it is how I would see the relationship between people in war would be, there is this trust that I can’t explain. If I mess up I know that someone has my back to make sure that there is nothing that will stand in the way of the whole; on the other hand, my love and respect for the guys in this band makes sure that I am always trying to bring my ‘A’ game to every performance. I have heard of people in music trusting others with their lives, I trust all these guys.

There is magic here. Tons of magic. I have no idea how to describe what is going on here. If you have a chance to see a show, get that chance now! The next show don’t make a lame ass excuse, you’ll be the one saying “I could have seen them at show X on this date when such and such happened.” There is always something that happens. At King Henry’s Matt took a knock in the head, kicked the same guy just moments later in the ass. Saskatoon was ridden hard and put away wet, we took them back to the institution, in the morning, under a fog laden sky – poor, poor little dear. Olds we had people wanting to buy the shirts off our back, there is nothing better than getting an offer on a shirt that will never get sold; I would take $500 for a shirt, not a penny less and no cheques, cash in my hand.

I love the songs and the words. I have started to love the studio for the first time ever. I normally hate it, the studio feels like trying to have sex in your Grandma’s basement, just get it done and then get a sandwich or something. The Cowpuncher process has allowed me to get the real meat out of me, get those ideas that are best without the feeling that I am not expressing myself properly. That does not happen too often.

My name is Tynan. When you see me say hello. Tell me what you thought of the show. Give me a hug. Don’t take too deep of a breath when you’re near me, I don’t smell good after that sort of thing. I love you.

Come and celebrate Valentine’s day in style this Sunday at Broken City with Leatherbeard (The Dudes), The A-Team and the good ‘ol Cowpuncher crew.

We played on a train between Edmonton and Winnipeg a short while ago.  Is it real rock and roll when everything is shaking back and forth?!

Tonight we’re headin’ down to one of our favorite spots in Calgary — King Henry the VIII. There will be a full line-up of punchers prepared to entertain.  And it’s Friday so let’s party!

Tomorrow we’re off to Saskatoon to meet Harley’s crew and play Lydia’s. If you have family out there, which you probably do, warn them that a bunch of Calgarians are about to take over their province.

We’re in the middle of finishing the new album. The light is at the end of the tunnel. New year, new songs.

Who’s coming to Medicine Hat for our first show at The Ottoman?

Who?

Who?

We’re returning to the ‘ol King Henry’s this Friday. Then back to Beatroute for the weekend to lay down the last few songs for the record.

Jan 16 – Medicine Hat – The Ottoman – Medicine Hat, AB.
Jan 20 – 25 – Train Tour

We had a great run of shows, from spending the afternoon at CBC, to helping Scott buy some new teeth. The highlight for us was the party down in Twin Butte that Jen and Clint put on for their staff appreciation night. They bought food and booze for their favorite 200 or so customers from 2pm until 2am. When the full band took the stage at about 10pm the crowd starting rockin’ so hard that the Twin Butteers we’re knocking in to the band nearly smashing the microphone into my teeth. I ended up having to kick (as friendly as I could) 3 different people in the first song in order to keep playing.