Glenn Nuotio

Coverage of Glenn Nuotio singing
THE MONSTER SONG (lyrics in EPK)
at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest July 9, 2011 .

Musicians for the event included:
Glenn Nuotio
Laura Barrett
Fiona Rutherford
Raphael Weinroth-Browne
Phillip Victor Bova
David Pontello
Jose Palacios
Curtis Perry
- Uploaded by karmafi on YOUTUBE - live performance July 9, 2011 - Barney Danson Theatre - Cisco Ott

At least 50 local bands or solo musicians will play at Bluesfest this year, which is a testament not only of the festival’s commitment to local music, but also to the strength and diversity of the national capital region’s music scene.

That’s what I intended for this entire column to be about — the relationship between Bluesfest and local musicians — but I got distracted by those musicians describing their music in their own words. The little phrases they use illuminate not only the style of their music, but also their very musical intent.

"...Glenn Nuotio sums up his music in one rich line: “Lyric-driven acoustic cabaret-tinged improv piano folk-pop, reaching for beauty and fragility through tantrum and gossip.”

".. Nuotio sees benefits for performers and audiences. “This encouragement makes you realize you might just be on to something,” he says of scoring a festival spot. “Because Bluesfest has such diverse programming, people are more likely to experiment in checking out acts than if they were choosing a one-off show. It shakes up comfort levels in a great way.” - OTTAWA CITIZEN > Blogs > Peter Simpson - THE BIG BEAT- Arts July 6, 2011

Inspiring even in death
Ottawa musician will pay tribute to late friend with song at Bluesfest

Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, July 08, 2011

Glenn Nuotio realized too late what John Lavery meant when he said, "One day at a time."

Nuotio, an Ottawa musician who plays Bluesfest on Saturday, was on the phone with Lavery, an acclaimed poet and novelist, late last year. Lavery was recording an album, a first for then 60-year-old Ottawa man, and he wanted Nuotio to create piano parts for the songs.

Lavery had e-mailed rough tracks, and when Nuotio asked about a timeline, Lavery said, "I'm just taking it one day at a time."
Glenn Nuotio says he didn't realize how close John Lavery was to dying when he took on Lavery's request to write piano parts for his songs.

Nuotio, who had only recently met and been inspired by Lavery, interpreted the older man's statement as a laid-back "no rush." What Nuotio didn't know was that Lavery, despite seeming fit and energetic, had terminal cancer. He died May 8.

"He said he was just kind of going one day at a time and I thought, 'Oh, OK, that's cool, I respect your process," Nuotio says. "I didn't realize that he had cancer, and that he was battling that."

That could have been the end of the story for Nuotio, except in the back of his mind, and on his computer, were those rough tracks that Lavery had e-mailed during his final weeks. Then, a week or so ago, Nuotio decided to learn one of the songs and perform it live, as a tribute, at Bluesfest.

The song is Beauregard, and you need only read the lyrics to know the man was no middling songwriter: "no we'd never seen you like that, man/eating straight from the jam jar of your pain/between your belt of empties and your shot eyes/ and the mindfield of your spiel/ christ, you might have been less visible/had a few more secrets to conceal."

That last line may be a shout-out to Bob Dylan ("You're invisible now/ you've got no secrets to conceal"), and it's no stretch to suggest Lavery came closer to Dylan's exalted lyricism than do most songwriters.

That lyricism, and Lavery's determination in the face of death, had a powerful effect on those who saw him perform his songs - he played classical guitar in a unique and contemporary style - or those who performed with him.

"Here's this man who obviously is not in perfect shape doing mind-bogglingly well playing guitar. It was quite humbling, actually," says Phillip Victor Bova, an Ottawa musician and producer whom Lavery approached last year to collaborate on the album. "He just walked out of a chemo treatment and came over to the studio, and he's 60, and he sits down and basically does a perfect recording of his tunes," Bova says. "It was humbling and inspiring at the same time. He was a really fascinating person. I'm so glad he came into my life."

Lavery was already widely respected in the Ottawa literary community when his first novel, Sandra Beck, earned rave reviews last year. When he began chemotherapy he told friend and fellow Ottawa poet rob mclennan that he would focus on writing songs for what would be his first album. "I have to admit that I'm kind of enthusiastic about the CD," Lavery said in an interview posted on mclennan's blog, "because it's something I've only wanted to do since I was 12 years old."

Lavery had a poet's keen sense of mortality - "I'm travelling last class/ to Betelgeuse, Deneb, Altair/ and points beyond," he wrote in a poem excerpted on mclennan's blog - so perhaps he knew that sharing the rough tracks with the musicians he had approached as collaborators would lead to the songs' resurrection after he was gone.

Whatever his intent, a CD is expected in the fall, and Nuotio has teamed up with Bova and other musicians, including local classical composer Curtis Perry, for the Bluesfest show on Saturday.

"I've wanted to do the song for a long time," Nuotio says, "but I haven't had it in me to just try and really put myself out there and take the challenge of something that's this personal and, you know, just make an honest performance of it."

Beauregard is one of the more nostalgic songs, Nuotio says, and it's about looking back on a friendship that, it seems, has ended.

Friendships end for many reasons, none more final than death, yet Lavery's talent and resolve lives on, moving and inspiring those he left behind.

GLENN NUOTIO

When & where: He plays the Barney Danson Theatre at Bluesfest at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 9

Bluesfest basics: The festival runs through July 17. For schedules, reviews, artist profiles, video, blogs, and our twitter feed, check out ottawacitizen.com/bluesfest


© Ottawa Citizen 2011 - Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen Published: Friday, July 08, 2011

Uploaded by tenvolt on Jul 2, 2011

Glenn Nuotio - vocals/keys
Erin Saoirse Adair - ukulele
David Pontello - drums

Ottawa live original music
- ten volt productions . tunevault.com - Ottawa

"...beautiful, poetic songs for piano sprinkled with drama, irony, comedy, cynicism, joy, and overflowing with originality and musicality.... he spent years fine-tuning his songs and working his storytelling into well-crafted pieces fit to grace the stage and piano bench alongside a Rufus Wainwright or a Sarah Slean." - CBC Radio 1, 2 & 3

check the following links for televised performances in St. John's , Newfoundland:

"SAY THAT AGAIN" January 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY8DNdbJegM


"BAY STREET FIRE ESCAPES" January 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuxYfxgwN_Q


- St. John's Newfoundland ROGERS CABLE / YOUTUBE

Short Clip - Barney Danson Theatre - Canadian War Museum July 9, 2011 - Wildfire Mike on Youtube

Fateema Sayani, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 24, 2008

Glenn Nuotio hosts a summer version of Lucky Songs, an occasional songwriter series held at the Black Sheep Inn.

Anyone who has witnessed Nuotio holding court knows he's hammy and witty enough to make a night of folk songs in the round seem like a rousing disco. The piano player, who rounds out his own compositions with a handful of roving musicians (he's performed with accordion player Marie-Josée Houle, among others), is at once slightly campy, sharp-witted, and full of artful asides. His pacing keeps a night flowing smoothly.

You might have seen him at work in recent months at the Queer Spelling Bee fundraisers at Shanghai Restaurant or, most recently, at Swizzle's on Queen Street for the Get Naked benefit, where amateur strippers got down to their underwear to raise funds for the Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Centre's expansion plans.

Like a good host, Nuotio got right into the spirit of the night performing in his underwear. "Well, it was a cancer benefit," he says matter-of-factly, as if performing almost naked was the most natural thing in the world.

Though as far as hosting types go, it is David Letterman's longtime sidekick and musical director that Nuotio admires. "I see myself as a Paul Shaffer type, rather than being front and centre," he says, describing Canadian-born Shaffer as a wisecracking, musically diverse smart mouth.

Nuotio is a St. John's-reared, classical-music-school dropout who came to Ottawa to chase love. He settled in well, playing his first show at the Black Sheep in the summer of 2006, then opening for Glaswegian super-band Camera Obscura just six months later. At his live show, Nuotio would spin out songs he described as "homo-emo-cabaret," and they brought to mind shades of Owen Pallett and Rufus Wainwright. The tag stuck, but these days he's trying to retire the cute quip in favour of, well, whatever comes out.

"Now that I'm happy, all those miserable songs about distance and fragile things I used to write ... they're still there, but I want to move forward. Through no fault of the band members I've had, I'm trying to figure out a way to perform solo," he says, not only to make money from shows and have the ease of playing out-of-town gigs at the drop of a hat, "but to get back to just a piano and hope that my vocal performance can carry the songs."

A songwriters' circle is just the chance to hash out those ideas and make the gradual adjustment to performing solo once again

"We're all sitting around having this blind date," Nuotio says of the song-circle format. He'll share the stage with Dave Norris and Tara Holloway of Ottawa and Ian Foster from St. John's. The four will try to riff off one another, sharing the stories behind the songs, while getting feedback from their audience.

Next up, Nuotio is organizing a songwriters' night to take place in October during the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

Glenn Nuotio hosts the Summer Lucky Songs evening at the Black Sheep Inn, 753 Riverside Dr., Wakefield, Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., $7.

www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/arts/story.html?id=f4882179-2d22-40c0-a631-eb33886a2f88 - 72k - Ottawa Citizen - Fateema Sayani

ANDREW CARVER
http://www.natcaprock.blogspot.com

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Two things surprised me upon my arrival at Club SAW for the i(heart)music promoted show May 25. The first was the big turnout (about 100, says head dancer about architecture Matthew). The second was that I was actually early enough to catch all of Glenn Nuotio's set. Must have been a blue moon or something. I took a break from my usual flash-happy practices to better capture Ryan Stec's video display.

Glenn, the band, his biggest fan, etc.




Labels: Club SAW, Glenn Nuotio

http://www.natcaprock.blogspot.com

posted by A.C. at 11:03 AM - National Capital Rock June 2007 http://www.natcaprock.blogspot.com

Ottawa indie pop artist Glenn Nuotio is thrilled to be part of the Prairie Scene Festival celebrating all forms of cultural arts from Central Canada, but he isn't about to split a milkshake with Randy Bachman at a Winnipeg diner anytime soon.

"No. I'd take his industry contacts, but I think with his beard and him slurping on a milkshake [it] would be unattractive."

Opening for Saskatchewan's Jeffery Straker on May 5 at the National Arts Centre, Nuotio says that out of the events, "this is the gayest show," and he is eager to hear Straker's songs about "lust and love" as a queer singer/songwriter hailing from the Prairies.

"The Prairie Festival is dispelling stereotypes and offering a chance to see artists you wouldn't normally see," Nuotio explains.

After spending the winter writing and making ambient noise, Nuotio says that this is an amazing opportunity.

"I'm still at the level where if I don't put up posters, I feel like no one will come. They have people for that, though!" he laughs.

With such a wide audience demographic, Nuotio feels some pressure.

"It keeps raising the bar for the type of songwriter I am and the things I sing about that aren't trendy. In some way I'm moving away from accessible pop audiences," he says.

While the Newfoundland native's early life experiences with Central Canada were limited to a high school band trip to a small town in Manitoba with a penchant for pro-life billboards, he has a true appreciation for the music that has emerged from the region.

"Obviously Joni Mitchell is a huge influence," he explains. "But if I could follow the career arc of anyone, it would be Christine Fellows. She has an amazing approach to storytelling in songs and has been an inspiration."

The set list for the gig has not yet been finalized.

"As an opening act I can get a few new small songs in," says Nuotio.

Unlike his performances in smaller Ottawa venues like Raw Sugar or the Manx, Nuotio will be performing solo at Prairie Scene.

"I think it's going to be a piano show for me," he says. "I might have to curb some of my political songs. Maybe I'll write a pro-choice, tomato-eating crop-dusting song before the show?" He rethinks the thought: "I think I'll have to [play them]. [They're] my better songs lately and set me apart."

As for sitting at a grand piano to play, Nuotio says he hasn't put much thought into what he's going to wear yet, but it won't be a tuxedo. "I'm definitely getting a haircut. I'll probably just borrow clothes from my boyfriend."

The Prairie Scene Festival continues until May 8 at various venues across the city, with more than 500 Saskatchewan and Manitoba musicians, actors, choreographers, visual and media artists, filmmakers, writers and master chefs taking over the capital to showcase their talent.

"I always thought of Winnipeg as a cultural capital of North America," says Nuotio.

Glenn Nuotio and Jeff Straker: National Arts Centre, Southam Hall, 53 Elgin St, 7:30pm.

Tags: glenn nuotio, jeff straker, prairie scene
- Xtra - Samantha Everts / Ottawa / Thursday, May 05, 2011

Marcus McCann / Capital Xtra / Thursday, January 11, 2007

Lusty yes, but complex too- Ottawa transplant Glenn Nuotio rocks Barrymore's

"Glenn Nuotio's songs are lusty, as you'd expect from a young gay man, but he channels his energy through an indie musician's paper heart. "

Glenn Nuotio's returning home to Ottawa after a week in Newfoundland. He just finished arranging a TV interview when I get through to him, and he's still recovering from his sold-out St John's show, which he wryly describes as a "James Brown tribute" — it wasn't — in December.

"I crowned myself the new Godfather of Soul because no else has the balls to do it yet. Not really. Well, yes. But no." He laughs.

His unnervingly complex pop songs have won him a huge fan base in his native Newfoundland (well, huge for Newfoundland, anyway). Crowds at his show danced and sang along as Nuotio was reunited with his former band mates. Now he's courting producers to turn his five-track demo into a full-length album.

He moved to Ottawa last year with his boyfriend of eight years, an Oxford PhD who was offered a juicy government job. Nuotio had to "say goodbye to small-pond fame" when he left, he says.

"And now it's like, can I go home without sending a press release first? I try to do it without supposing that it's the second coming." He laughs again.

Listening to him speak from the rock, it's impossible to ignore that the Newfoundland accent — is that twang? — has somehow crept back into his voice.

Nuotio enjoys his accent. People in Ontario often congratulate him for losing his East Coast inflections. "As if the training has been successful," he says ruefully.

If he sounds a bit catty, that's because he is. And you can chalk it up to a queer aesthetic that makes him, in some ways, Ottawa's newest diva. But that's only part of the story, he admits.

"I'd rather not sing a song than candy coat it," he says. "Either my heart's on my sleeve or I'm singing bratty songs about getting away with things."

Nuotio's shows are sexy and sad and angry in turns. He throws little musical tantrums, walking the tightrope between studied and spontaneous. He has all the lust of a typical gay man but he channels it through an indie musician's paper heart. The results are invariably stirring. But — and this might be the strangest part — overall he's cheerful and his songs are tinged with — could it be? — humour.

"Every time I play these songs, I'm still trying to figure them out," he says.

The transition from St John's to Ottawa last year was uneasy, he says, and no wonder — they moved in February, and there's nothing less inviting than Ottawa in the winter.

"On the one hand, it's great. I'm in love. But it's like, 'Oh shit, I don't know anyone,'" he says.

Warming up to the city came with the spring thaw. Unable to count on the gigs he'd become accustomed to in St John's — as a TV extra and a choir accompanist, for instance — he spent the first couple of months just stewing. But then he took some part-time work as a waiter on Sparks St.

"I'm kind of not a great waiter, but they like me." Again, the devilish laugh.

He began performing at the odd event: a show at Ottawa Pride (through the big boomy PA system), then opening for Kelly and the Kellygirls at Dekcuf in September.

Now, as he prepares for his show with Glasgow's Camera Obscura at Barrymore's, it seems he's finally arrived in Ottawa.

"Yeah, it's growing on me," he says.

Like the restless musician, Nuotio's music is also in two places at once. His St John's gig was a big sweaty rock'n'roll endeavor, typical of his shows before he left. But in Ottawa, he's given up on performing with a guitarist, and, at his last show, the band consisted of him on piano and vocals, Marie-Josee Houle on accordion and Patrick Dedauw on the cello. The show's taken on a bit of French flavour, he admits (as opposed to previous work, which he describes as the Muppets meets 1930s German cabaret).

At the end of our conversation, just as we're wrapping up, without any provocation, he says, "The other thing is that I'm half Finnish."

And then he's back into storytelling mode, having done a conversational left turn.

Since moving to Ottawa, Nuotio's hooked up with the Embassy of Finland. He's in the preliminary stages of arranging some contact between Canadian and Finnish indie musicians. He also took in a concert by a Finnish men and boys choir that his grandfather in Finland had founded in the 1950s. The choir was, by some strange turn of luck, touring through Ottawa.

"A lot of my musical roots, if they're genetic, are Finnish," he says.

If his musical roots are genetic?

"I think they are. Yeah, why not?" - Capital Xtra! (Ottawa)

"Do you know Glenn Nuotio? He’s a charmer when put in front of a mic or behind a keyboard to sing songs that add a flair to the daily mundane. All to say that the Ottawa musician doesn’t come across as a guy with a chip on his shoulder. So you’ll know that his new project, The Ottawa Capital Complaints Choir, will be more than just your run-of-the-mill whingefest." - OTTAWA MAGAZINE - Fateema Sayani - June 16, 2011

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

"Since tonight's Essex Green/Camera Obscura show at Barrymore's is sold out, there's really not much point to talking about why people should go (most overlooked reason: because Glenn Nuotio is opening, and he's excellent)."


http://www.iheartmusic.net/serendipity/index.php?/archives/631-Lets-Get-Out-of-This-Country-and-into-The-Cannibal-Sea.html - www.iheartmusic.net

MAKING THEIR FIRST-ever appearance in Ottawa, Camera Obscura arrived at Barrymore’s on Jan. 30, touring to support Let’s Get Out of this Country, their latest studio effort.

Sent out early to ease the crowd into the night, Ottawa local Glenn Nuotio ran through the gamut of piano-centric music, playing to a slowly filling Barrymore’s Music Hall. From a Weimar Republic cabaret song about Charlie Chaplin, to an austere and cathartic ballad, to a Rufus Wainwright-like pop epic, Nuotio’s literate and nostalgic songs covered an impressive range (and made a perfect counterpart to Barrymore’s grand chandeliers and patterned plaster). The only accompanying instruments, a cello and an accordion, grounded the songs and gave them a sense of gravitas..."

http://www.thefulcrum.ca/index.php?view=section&iid=9469&sid=12
- The Fulcrum (Ottawa) - Andrew Faulkner

“Blending seriousness and cheekiness is central to Nuotio’s songs… he tries to break the boundary between the performer and the audience, both by encouraging participation and by being honest about the personal content of his songs… Though he sings about serious issues – relationships, distance and social dynamics– (Nuotio) is a charismatic performer and engages superbly with the audience…

Whatever the style, he shows a finely tuned sensibility for melodies, hooks, and damned good songs…” Tom Mrozewksi, THE MUSE Sept /05
- The Muse (St. John's) 2005

“… The audience (mostly guys in their mid-20s) was treated to a set courtesy of Ottawa LGBT hero Glenn Nuotio. Nuotio ebbed his way through a set of gentle and bombastic songs drawing comparisons to Deserter’s Songs-era Mercury Rev. Calming pacing through his songs, Nuotio gives every word and note a cinematic sheen, virtually drawing a shield between audience and performer.” - EXCLAIM! MAGAZINE - Daniel Sylvester