Chris Page

"Coax the Ending Day" -

This standout from an upcoming solo album by one-third of the underappreciated Ottawa pop-punk band Camp Radio is so propulsive, it's a shock to belatedly realize that the arrangement has no drums. If you can imagine a cross between Billy Bragg's "Levi Stubbs' Tears" and The Shins' "Kissing the Lipless," you'll be about halfway there. (From A Date With a Smoke Machine, out Feb. 16, http://chrispage.bandcamp.com) - Toronto Star - John Sakamoto

Not only will the sexy, tormented voice of Chris Page make you melt, but that guitar work of his is pure greatness. A Date with a Smoke Machine is haunting. The songs cling to you as the memories that made them must cling to Page. And there isn’t a single letdown in the bunch. It’s poetic and moving and constantly surprising you with lyrics like, “I creep into your sleep with panic stricken song.” Page even provides the back story for each song, revealing that even his point of view is poetic. He borrowed a friend’s guitar while on tour and used it to write the introduction to a song. He admits, “I’m not sure if taking songs out of someone’s guitar is fair game.” All’s fair in love Chris, and I love this CD. It’s a new staple for road trips and lazy Sundays. - See Magazine

"When your head starts bobbing, you realize the 1:47 song (Two Twenty-Twos) is kind of like a musical Lay's chip. You can't listen just once." - Herohill.com

Chris Page is no stranger to life on tour. He has crossed Canada more than a handful of times as the front man for The Stand GT and he’s getting ready to do it all over again for his newest solo album, A Date With A Smoke Machine. “When I was younger [touring] was a lot more time spent in a van and driving around,” Page says. “Now I try to plan it so I can fly to places and do a few shows and do it quick as opposed to those long drives across the country.”

So he’s flying to Edmonton.

I caught Chris in the middle of his tour, getting ready for his Ottawa debut, and he’s “super excited” for the big record launch at home.

When he talks about his album the poet in him is exposed right away. “The way I write is vignettes of past memories,” he says. “I’m always hoping that people are going to listen to the lyrics.” And well they should. His lyrics are enlightening and profound, colored with the emotion of his voice, the imagery of his mind and lightness of his music. He could stand on a smoky stage without his guitar and recite his lyrics like poetry — and you would stay and listen and be pulled into whatever world he was remembering. They’re that good.

“I have two separate things going,” says Chris on writing his music. “I have ideas which are words or titles or thoughts. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s poetry. And I have bits of music and then I start assembling the pieces to make a song. So I may accumulate the pieces over a long period of time.

Some songs may take years even. The way I look at it is that I have to go out and play these songs and they need to mean something to me.

“Obviously for someone else listening to them, the song’s going to mean something else. And that’s great. That’s the amazing part about art, I think, is your interpretation of it. I find it fun when people say this is what I think the song is about, or this is what the song means to me. And I’m like ‘it’s awesome, right’ because it’s not what it means to me but that’s okay. That’s what it’s all about.”

And it’s so much more than the insightful phrases scribbled in his book. Page flavours his songs with something uniquely his own. Maybe it’s his roots in Montreal, or time spent on stage in Ottawa seeping in. Or maybe it’s his broad taste in music from punk to alt-country. Maybe it is whatever guitar he happens to be playing at the time. “It’s so weird when you get a guitar, sometimes songs want to come out of them.”

When you’re listening you don’t care what the combination is that creates a voice that moves you, subtlety and without pushing.

The big question is, is there more music scribbled in that book of his?

“There’s definitely more,” he says. “I’ve already started working on songs for the next solo record.”

Let’s hope that means more tours to Edmonton. - See Magazine - Edmonton

I've known plenty of musicians who are sticklers for tone to know from this album's first notes that Chris Page is one of them. Leader of current Ottawa, ON alt-rock powerhouse Camp Radio, and formerly the Stand GT, here Page steps out solo with only a battery of guitars (electric and acoustic) to accompany him. Surprisingly, the absence of a rhythm section is never an issue, as Page has plenty of room to craft his multi-layered guitar attack within this impressively hook-laden 12-song collection. The album is almost an homage to the '90s generation of alt-rock troubadours, as shades of Evan Dando, the Grapes Of Wrath and perhaps tangentially, Bill Fox's recently rediscovered masterpiece, Transit Byzantium, are apparent throughout. Even early Billy Bragg is touched upon in "Coax The Ending Day," as well as vintage R.E.M. in "Keep Me On Your Radar." It's this sense that Page is deftly walking the fine line between folk and rock that gives A Date With A Smoke Machine its resonance. True power pop fans will not be disappointed. (Kelp/Outside/Saved By Vinyl) - Exclaim!

There’s definitely a restraint to the songs on Chris Page’s new solo album, A Date With a Smoke Machine, but don’t take that to mean the songs are in anyway restricted. Page’s work with Camp Radio or The Stand GT may be rooted in punk and rock, but on this solo album he’s let his inner singer-songwriter out for some air, and he’s certainly breathing deeply. The more I listen to this record, the more it reminds me of prime Billy Bragg, like Worker’s Playtime, an album of fierce intensity that doesn’t get loud to get it’s point across. You can feel the tension just bubbling below the surface of songs like “Slideshows” that can clearly rock out if they’re allowed, but Page manages to hold that in and channel the intensity internally, letting the emotions out but not letting them get the better of him. It works amazingly well, especially on the somber and haunting “Quit While I’m Behind”. The 12 songs are over in a flash (just under 40 minutes), and you’ll find yourself wanting to go back and listen again and gain, to catch what you might have missed, and relish in what you loved the first time ’round. It may seem like a cliché but A Date With a Smoke Machine is one of those albums that gives more and more with each listen. - Quick Before It Melts

Another Canadian, Another Great Record

A thread in the Americana-UK forum late last year started to debate why Canada produces so much very good music. After a few suggestions (no X-Factor was one) it turned into a list of great Canadian musicians. Chris Page wasn’t on that list – he should be.

'A Date with A Smoke Machine' has (and I’m using my broadest of broad brushes to paint this picture) two types of track: the acoustic track and the electric track. The beauty of this is that Page seems to have written each song with whatever was a hand at the time. If there was something to plug the Gretch he is holding on the back cover of the album into, then it was electric, if there wasn’t it was acoustic.

Page would seem to be the sort of guy who, if he were hungry, would wander down to the local grocery store with just a vague idea of want he wanted to eat, would have a look around to see what looked good then take it home and cook it. He’s not the sort who would ponder for hours over the latest celebrity chef’s book, make an extensive list then give up because he couldn’t get the right colour pepper. He has the ability to move from the tender folky acoustics of 'Closets Overflowing' to the rockiness of “Fall Back Morning” without missing a beat or breaking sweat.

'A Date With A Smoke Machine' with it’s mix of folk and rock and punk gets better and better with every listen.


Date review added: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Reviewer: John Hawes
Reviewers Rating: 9/10

- Americana - UK