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Dive-bar roots-rock is all the rage
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". . . NQ Arbuckle [is] a crunchy country-rock outfit from Toronto led charismatically by Neville Qu...". . . NQ Arbuckle [is] a crunchy country-rock outfit from Toronto led charismatically by Neville Quinlan. The singer-songwriter with a pleasantly scuffed voice is a real talent, winning audiences easily with stage banter and 5 a.m. songs about "long brackish fingertips sinking in tarnished watered-down drinks." From the looks and sounds of it, Quinlan neither drinks to forget nor does he forget to drink. His heart is scarred, and it's doubtful he sleeps much. Here's to him."
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NQ Arbuckle
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"Remember the scene in Sling Blade where Dwight Yoakam leads the drunken band through a set on the p..."Remember the scene in Sling Blade where Dwight Yoakam leads the drunken band through a set on the porch while Vic Chestnutt heckles? If Vic had recorded with that band, the results would've sounded like this." - Luke Doucet, Celebrity Spins, NOW Magazine.
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NQ Arbuckle
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"Hanging the Battle-Scarred Pinata is filled with moments that range from powerfully moving to darkl..."Hanging the Battle-Scarred Pinata is filled with moments that range from powerfully moving to darkly hysterical." - Jason Schneider, The Record.
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NQ Arbuckle
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"NQ's scratchy voice and world-weary acoustic songs are nastily refreshing and his lyrics positively..."NQ's scratchy voice and world-weary acoustic songs are nastily refreshing and his lyrics positively bewitching. 4 Stars." - Eye Weekly
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Arbuckle's tall tales: Countrified Ottawa singer/songwriter NQ Arbuckle goes with the flow
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NQ Arbuckle gives great story. Like the one about a uniformed RCMP who approached Arbuckle (born Ne...NQ Arbuckle gives great story. Like the one about a uniformed RCMP who approached Arbuckle (born Neville Quinlan) after a gig in Ottawa. Traffic-ticket dodger Arbuckle was quaking at the thought of finally being caught until the officer asked for advice about his own police garage band.
Shooting the shit with Arbuckle is like hanging out in a deliciously dark Tom Waits tune - no surprise there, since his gift of gab explodes to his songs.
The lyrics on his first disc, ... Hanging The Battle-Scarred Pinata, are grotty confessionals about broken hearts and bad-news girls layered over rough alt-country acoustic guitars and pedal steel.
"All of it is very accidental writing," Arbuckle demurs, drinking pints to ward off the cold in a dim Parkdale bar.
"I'll go to the bar with my friends, get drunk, come home and write a few clever lines - or at least I think they're clever at the time. I don't even have any choruses on any of 'em. I'm tryin' to figure out how to write a chorus and a fuckin' bridge. Like, holy jeez! But I like to think that none of the lines are settling for easy rhymes. There are no great morals."
Maybe not, but it's an auspicious debut for an urban cowboy who started out playing The Dukes Of Hazzard theme song for regulars in Montreal country bars before he was 16.
These days he runs with an impressive musical pack that includes bandmates John Dinsmore (also the bassist for Sarah Slean, who shows up on Arbuckle's album), and twins Peter and Mark Kesper (Hawksley Workman's drum dude), along with fellow guitar-slingin' outlaw Luke Doucet, whose production skills give Hanging The Battle-Scarred Pinata an intense intimacy.
Arbuckle says making a record with Doucet was a low-key affair.
"For me it was like a holiday. Wake up at 10, have your eggs and bacon, go downstairs in your pyjamas and start recording.
"There are a bunch of albums that I'd love my record to sound like: most of the Vic Chesnutt stuff, all the Richard Buckner stuff. I haven't heard Nebraska in years, but I always remember the production of it, how fuckin' lo-fi it was. We just recorded on tape, using this weird microphone that Howard Redekopp dug up. His father, a missionary, used to run a radio show in South Africa where he recorded gospel choirs using this old microphone. So there's kinda good vibes in that thing."
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NQ very much: Even though he's reached cult status, this local singer is still happy to be recognized and prefers to stay on the cusp of fame
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NQ Arbuckle knew his May Two-Four gig in Muskoka would be different when he stepped out for a bottle...NQ Arbuckle knew his May Two-Four gig in Muskoka would be different when he stepped out for a bottle of water.
"I walked back and saw the parking lot packed with cars" says the 34-year-old singer-songwriter. "I was shocked."
Arbuckle, who says he's accustomed to playing tiny crowds in godforsaken local bars, was greeted by more than 300 screaming fans of his alt-country tunes. He'd been worried most of the audience would clear out after pop-poet Hawksley Workman performed ahead of him.
"It didn't sink in until I was accosted going to the bathroom by this screaming girl who wanted her picture taken with me," he says.
Arbuckle has just flown in from the U.K., where his 2002 album, "Hanging The Battle-Scarred Pinata," was recently released. Tonight, he plays North by Northeast music festival to promote his new album, "The Last Supper in a Cheap Town".
Sitting on a Queen Street patio and enjoying the beer and cigarettes that colour his songwriting, Arbuckle still seems bewildered by the devoted fans that rally around him.
"I just write tunes when I get home at night," he says. He does not crave fame and big-budget tours. He is content to work his day job in music publishing with Peermusic Canada and bicycle to rehearsals with his bandmates, Mark and Peter Kesper, and John Dinsmore.
"I think it would ruin us if we went on a big three-month tour. Now, we do it because we love it, not because we have to make a living at it," he says. "At the end of the work days, instead of going home and watching television, we got and work on a record."
Hitting it big, he insists, would kill the fun of making music.
"Now, if no one shows up for our shows or if no one buys CDs, hey, that's OK - we had a good time," he says.
Arbuckle dismisses the notion that he's an artist, and simply explains that he wants to write about people he calls unrepentant.
"I love these people who are not scared of what they're doing, not sitting there thinking: 'What am I doing? I could do better!' I like people who say: 'This is what I do, and that's it'."
Paul Simcoe of Huntsville, Ont., organized Arbuckle's Muskoka show and champions the singer's music in his independent music store, Queen St. North. The former Toronto club and radio DJ discovered Arbuckle's first album in 2002. It hooked his customers in a way he's never seen before or since.
"I ordered one copy of 'Hanging The Battle-Scarred Pinata,' got halfway through playing the first song and, immediately, a customer came up to me and said, 'Who's this? I'll take it,' " says Simcoe.
Since that first album flew out the store, Simcoe has sold more than 400 copies of Arbuckle's record and helped to create a cult following. Arbuckle is happy to hear this, but he's also happy to stay put at the cusp of fame. He says he just wants to keep writing what he knows.
"People do not go home and f--- wildly in my songs," Arbuckle says, laughing. "Because when normal people go home, they brush their teeth and go to bed."
[NQ Arbuckle's] albums are out on Six Shooter Records.
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Drunken love, alt.country-style: 'Reluctant Recorder' NQ Arbuckle debuts new CD at Rivoli
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You currently can't accuse Toronto-based singer/songwriter Neville Quinlan of pursuing his musical c...You currently can't accuse Toronto-based singer/songwriter Neville Quinlan of pursuing his musical career with anything like single-minded determination.
"I have other ambitions," says Quinlan, who performs as NQ Arbuckle. "I'm hoping to be a roadie for Luke Doucet the next time he goes to Europe."
It was Doucet, the Vancouver-based balladeer, who finally nudged Quinlan to record a few of the songs he had written over the years.
The resulting NQ Arbuckle debut, 'Hanging The Battle-Scarred Pinata' (Six Shooter Records), is a fine expression of scuffed-floor, soul-bearing, alt.country songcraft. It has its official unveiling with a free, live set at the Rivoli Saturday.
Produced by Doucet and featuring guest vocals by Carolyn Mark and Sarah Slean, the album is rooted in a minimal, guitar and voice presentation, occasionally inflected by banjo and accordian.
Its strength resides in the ability of Quinlan to underscore the authenticity of observations such as "I wish that I was drunker now than I was stupid then."
"I'm a reluctant recorder," says Quinlan. "It probably took Luke and me an hour to decide which 10 tracks were going to be recorded and how they were going to be arranged. Everything was totally on the fly and spontaneous.
"All the songs on the record are true stories written at 3 in the morning. I just love the sentimentality of drunken love songs. But I never really put much thought into the actual subject matter. It's more that that's jsut what came out at the time."
Quinlan, who has a day job at publisher PeerMusic Canada, has been heard in recent years opening for Doucet's band Veal, as well as the Sadies, Hawskley Workman and Rufus Wainwright. His performing career dates back to the mid-'80s when, at the age of 14, he started performing with a band at a country bar in his native Montreal.
"We had six songs, including the 'Dukes Of Hazzard' theme," he recalls. "The bar owners would allow us to stay as long as we were buying beer. Once we stopped ordering pitchers, we'd get thrown out for being underage."
Even with an album to support, Quinlan is keeping his aspirations in check.
"Do I have a goal? To be honest, I made an album because it was a blast. Otherwise, I have no illusions. It sounds kind of hopeless, doesn't it?"
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Urban cowboys saddle up for Stampede; But even Neville Quinlan, who makes music inspired by dusters, doesn't dig country
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Neville Quinlan doesn't wear a stetson or ride a stallion, but he's every bit a cowboy - at least wh...Neville Quinlan doesn't wear a stetson or ride a stallion, but he's every bit a cowboy - at least when it comes to music.
The songwriter, who fronts the dusty Toronto country alt-drifters NQ Arbuckle, writes about sunsets, beer and nights that burn like cigarettes and he sings in a voice that sounds like a lived-in leather boot.
With the Calgary Stampede on the horizon, Quinlan and his band are preparing to take their recently released second album, 'The Last Supper in a Cheap Town,' to Calgary for a show ... with Carolyn Mark.
- Have you ever been to the Calgary Stampede?
- I worked out there for a few years. It's always so much fun. There's always someone riding a horse at full gallop through the streets of Calgary.
- Are you excited about the wealth of country music?
- I hate most country music. Really. So much of it is Nashville (adult contemporary) type stuff. It's pop music. It's designed to stay in your head. You know those songs that just stick in your head and cycle round and round? That's not songwriting. That's just being annoying.
-I thought you played real country?
- We like to think that we do. But we've played a couple of real country bars and that's when we realize we're not really a real country band. Most of the guys started in prog bands, so that sneaks in sometimes.
- Is that where your interest in digital distribution comes from?
- (Laughs.) I love it. If you put the free downloading debate aside ... with (digital distribution) it's like we always have a little bit of shelf space. Trying to get racked at a big record store these days, it's impossible. How are we going to compete with Coldplay? What happened with the first record was, we'd get one copy into a store, someone would buy it and then it wouldn't get restocked. So, you'd have one person with the record and five people coming to the show. Now, it's so much easier for people to have access to it.
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Country schoolin'
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Neville Quinlan, the mastermind behind local alt-country hooligans N.Q. Arbuckle, writes the sort of...Neville Quinlan, the mastermind behind local alt-country hooligans N.Q. Arbuckle, writes the sort of raucous, whiskey-soaked tunes that could only be penned by a fella familiar with the outlaw mindset.
But to throw him in the middle of the prairies and the Montreal-bred city slicker reveals his true colours.
"We were playin a show in Alberta and I was chatting about rockabilly bands with a dude outside the bar when two old guys in western-style shirts pulled up in a gold-accented SUV," he recalls. "When they asked how to find some street, the dude I was talking to snarled, 'Why don't you drive back downtown, you fuckin' rich snobs?'
"They left, but all of a sudden they peeled around, drove right up on the curb, rolled the window down and yelled, 'Wanna go right now?'
"I got outta there! I tell you, there's a real frontier mentality out there."
Quinlan's had time to hone his frontier 'tude over the past few month, since he's been touring his gritty 'n' great new 'The Last Supper in a Cheap Town' (Six Shooter) disc, which features one of the most romantic tunes ever written about street meat, out west.
He claims he picked up tons of pointers from seasoned road warrior and tourmate Carolyn Mark, who's "always on the road. She's so hardcore."
A bona fide celeb in Calgary (where she gets random 10 per cent discounts when she buys stuff), Mark roped Quinlan and his band into playing a wedding where the wasted guests did naughty things with hula hoops by night's end.
"The only person who wasn't hammered was the bride, cuz she was so pregnant, and she was pissed cuz she had to clean everything up herself."
Quinlan was just one of many rootsy renegades who stepped up to lend a hand on Mark's new 'Just Married' (Mint) disc of duets. The experience was free-wheelin' and frantic, he says, in typical Mark fashion.
"The Carolyn Mark approach is always 'We're doing this right now!' 'But I don't remember the words.' 'Doesn't matter - right now!'
"That's the thing - most of Carolyn's big moments are onstage, and she never has the time or money to make a proper record. Her recordings may be silly, but they're always fun."
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Press Quotes
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“[NQ Arbuckle]…writes the sort of raucous, whiskey-soaked tunes that could only be penned by a fella...“[NQ Arbuckle]…writes the sort of raucous, whiskey-soaked tunes that could only be penned by a fella familiar with the outlaw mindset” -- NOW Magazine
“Arbuckle possesses the rough-edged romanticism of Richard Buckner and early Joe Henry” -- Exclaim! Magazine
“ NQ Arbuckle takes the squalour of life and composes magical poetry” -- The Ottawa Citizen
"The Last Supper in a Cheap Town is a cohesive collection of long, lonely nights in the city spent drinking and trying to fill an unfillable void by smoking. While NQ competently tackle country heartbreakers, bluegrass scorchers and rockabilly rousers, it's Quinlan's voice, which evokes Shannon Lyon, Mark Lanegan and occasionally Bob Seger, that drives the group.CCCC" -- Chart Magazine
"His debut revealed that he is a colorful storyteller, and his tales of drunks, losers and lovers were both entertaining and in possession of a ring of truth. This second disc confirms his talent...a fine effort worthy of real exposure." -- Exclaim!
"NQ is a talented songwriter possessed of the same untamed spirit that weaved its way through the works of Chuck Angus and Mike MacDonald. His songs grab you with their intelligent and honest phrasing, but it is his voice that you remember most. That unique, gravelly voice that is at once like that of every alt-country musician you have ever heard and, at the same time, like that of no one in particular. Maybe that's why he's so popular. Whatever the reason, it is well deserved.4/5" -- FFWD
"NQ Arbuckle possesses the ability to distil the simplest of moments into the prettiest of country songs." -- Exclaim
"The Last Supper is at least as solid as its predecessor...Quinlan's voice resounds again with world weary regret." -- The Toronto Star
"Finally, someone got around to recording the soundtrack to Mickey Rourke's Barfly. The gorgeous backdrop of lonesome pedal steel, breezy accordian, wailing Gretschs and the usual assortment of twangy stuff...while NQ's mournful croak and heartbreaking melodies bring to mind a pretense-free Tom Waits." -- Stylus Magazine
"...The grizzled Canadian's trough of despair falls somewhere between Tom Waits and Richard Buckner." -- Uncut, UK
"Remember the scene in Sling Blade where Dwight Yoakam leads the drunken band through a set on the porch while Vic Chestnutt heckles? If Vic had recorded with that band, the results would've sounded like this." - Luke Doucet, Celebrity Spins, NOW Magazine.
"Hanging the Battle-Scarred Pinata is filled with moments that range from powerfully moving to darkly hysterical." - The Record
"Hanging the Battle-Scarred Pinata is a fine expression of scuffed floor, sou-bearing, alt.country songcraft." -- The Toronto Star
