Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
WHO: Juno Award winner Julie Doiron, who also has recorded with The Tragically Hip and toured with Gord Downie. Also performing is Toronto singer songwriter Aaron Booth, playing from his CD Our Last Escape. WHEN AND WHERE: Friday at the Bookstore Café in Camden East. Julie Doiron has all the pedigree to be famous in Canada. In the early 90s she was part of the Moncton band Eric’s Trip which made several loud records and were underground favourites. As a solo act she won a Juno Award in 2000 for best alternative act. And to cement her claim to fame, she was asked by The Tragically Hip to do background vocals on their 2000 album Music@work, as well as lead singer first Gord Downie’s solo album. Last summer she even toured with Downie. “So how come I’m not more famous,” asks Doiron. “I don’t really want to be. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted any commercial success. I’m happy that the CBC and college stations play me a lot and I guess it would be cool to have a radio single. I have a pretty solid fan base, I have been doing it for a long time and I haven’t tried to remain totally obscure.” Doiron will make a rare Kingston area appearance when she performs at the Bookstore Café on Friday. Nonetheless these days Doiron isn’t as career oriented as she used to be. “Basically now performing is just a hobby for me,” she says. “After I had my third child I decided I’d only tour a couple of months a year. I love playing but I love my children more. “And since my career is going well in Europe and Japan, I probably won’t be touring in Canada as much.” Once Eric’s Trip broke up in 1996, Doiron began writing her own songs which are as sad as Eric’s Trip’s were loud. “I am a happy person in my personal life but I don’t really like singing about happy stuff,” she says. “But life has its ups and downs and I think it’s more interesting to sing about the downs. “On the new album [due out this fall] there’s a song that’s my attempt to write a happy song. A lot of the people who’ve heard it have liked it so maybe I should start writing more of them. I think I write quieter songs because I was always writing them after the kids went to bed.” Recorded with the Parisian band Herman Dune the CD will be Doiron’s first release since 2002’s Heart and Crime, which itself was only six months removed from her francophone album Desormais. “I grew up speaking both languages so it’s just as easy to write in both,” she says. “The only difference is that in English i use a lot of slang but in French I’m always grammatically correct because I don’t want people to think I don’t know what I’m doing.” Doiron says she’s doing this short seven-city tour, “to pay the movers. We’ve lived in Montreal for the last six years but now we’re going back home to New Brunswick. I’m tired of being kicked out of apartments and I want to buy a house and have my kids near their grandparents. I think it’s a better place to raise them.” - Kingston Whig-Standard
“...listeners still come away feeling warm and cozy, due in great part to her personal lyrics, haunting melodies, and angelic voice.”
The Manitoban
“She’s one of those rare people in idie music who has slowly and steadily carved out a niche that is entirely her own.”
VOX
“It’s probably very safe to say that Julie Doiron is the sweetheart of the Canadian music industry.”
Stylus
“It’s the kind of music where you want to fall asleep in Doiron’s lap and have her sing the entire album in your ear.”
Offbeat
“Heart and Crime remains as haunting and fragile as ever.”
FFWD
“It seems that Julie Doiron is becoming more comfortable with the idea of feeling uncomfortable, allowing her songs to really open themselves up to the listener and defining the idea of wearing your heart on your sleeve.”
Chart Magazine
“Julie has never sounded more emphatic and her guitar solid and certain...she sings the songs that make the whole world sigh.”
Broken Pencil - Various
Discography
Broken Girl (Sappy, 1996)
Loneliest In the Morning (Sub Pop, 1997)
Will You Still Love Me? EP (Sappy, 1999)
Julie Doiron and Wooden Stars (Sappy, 1999)
Desormais (Endearing/Jagjaguwar, 2001)
Heart and Crime (Endearing/Jagjaguwar, 2002)
Goodnight Nobody (Endearing/Jagjaguwar, 2004)
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
The Eric's Trip Years...
Julie Doiron began her career in music in 1990 at the age of 18 in Moncton, New Brunswick Canada playing bass in Eric's Trip, (name from a Sonic Youth song title) a folky yet psychedelic band that was to become the undisputed underground darling of Canadian Music. Eric's trip were the first of many maritime Canadians signed to Sub Pop and found international recognition releasing several albums and touring widely. Following 1996's Purple Blue, Eric's Trip announced their break-up.
The Broken Girl Years...
Julie Doiron began to write more of her own songs in 1993 which she released on 7" and performed solo while still in Eric's trip. In 1996 as Eric's trip found it's end she released her first solo album titled "Broken Girl" a temporary moniker Julie adopted to express her feelings at the time. The record was released on her own label Sappy Records. Broken Girl is an intimate record that gave the listener a fuller sense of Julie's personality and vocal style than Eric's Trip did. Following Broken Girl, Julie toured on and off throughout Canada for the remainder of the year. Back at home, she released records by Moonsocket, Orange Glass, Snailhouse, and Elevator to Hell on Sappy. For her second album, "Loneliest in the morning" Julie decided to drop the moniker Broken Girl, as she began a stronger solo career. She recorded "loneliest" in Memphis with Dave Shouse (Grifters), Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Doug Easley, and Davis McCain. Julie used a variety of new instruments on the record, but maintained her earlier sparse arrangements. The record was released in 1997 on Sub Pop.
Now
Julie Doiron and her husband, artist and painter Jon Claytor moved with their two children from New Brunswick to Montreal Quebec and Julie signed to Tree records in the US. Back in Canada, she maintained her label Sappy and in 1999 she released her EP "Will you Still Love Me?" which gained much praise for a new maturity. The album featured contributions from her friends from Ottawa's the Wooden Stars . In March and April of 1999 Julie recorded three Vocal Tracks for The Wooden Stars "The Moon" full-length on Matlock Records and photographed the cover artwork. Everything Julie Doiron has done in the past came together on her Fall of 1999 Sappy Records full-length "Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars". It is the first album she has recorded with a band since her days with Eric's Trip. The delicately powerful effect of the Wooden Stars has given Julie's songs an intensity and vibrancy that was previously only hinted at. On March 12 2000 Julie won a Juno (Coveted Canadian Entertainment Award, for which Eric's trip was nominated) for "Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars" and in January the album was released on Tree in the US and in Europe. In late 1999 Julie published a book of her photographs with New Brunswick's Broken Jaw Press entitled "The Longest Winter" with words by Ottawa writer Ian Roy. Julie has long been an avid photographer studying photography at Mount Allison University in Sackville NB, Julie often does and has done her own promotional photos and cover artwork along with her husband, painter Jon Claytor. Jon also wrote and directed Julie's video for "Dance Music". In 2000 Julie has toured Europe, the US and Canada, and recorded three tracks on the latest Tragically Hip record "Music@Work" as well as working with Hip front man Gord Downie on his latest solo record "Coke Machine Glow". Julie also has three songs on the Shanti projects collection 2 on Badman records. She has recorded a French record "desormais" and its English companion "Heart and Crime", released in February 2002 on Endearing Records in Canada and JagJaguwar in the USA. Julie's latest is "Goodnight Nobody", an unguarded collection of songs that are allowed to speak for themselves.
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