Robert Hedge
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada | SELF
Music
Press
http://birdstootiredtofly.blogspot.com/2009/07/track-of-week-beating-compass-by-robert.html - Shawn Clarke
The first time I saw Robert Hedge perform, he was barefoot, with his jeans rolled up slightly as though he has just come from wading in a shallow creek. This was in Kensington Market during their monthly street festival. He didn’t seem out of place. On the contrary, Hedge’s music, which hovers somewhere between old-timey gospel and melancholic folk was the perfect soundtrack for a sunny Kensington Market afternoon. At least I thought it was until I saw his performance this Saturday at the Dakota Tavern.
The Dakota Tavern sits at the corner of Ossington and Dundas. When we arrive—hideously early—there is a peculiar twosome sitting at the end of the bar: a mother-daughter pair resembling the office-appropriate Nine to Five Dolly Parton and Sheri’s Moon’s character Baby from House of 1000 Corpses, also in office-wear. Sadly, besides the performers that night, and one man in cowboy boots, these two fine ladies were about as country as the patrons of the tavern were going to get. Doesn’t matter much, the atmosphere made up for the lack of country-attire—dark wainscoting, wide dungeon-like doors, brick columns, beer-keg stools, and an old piano gave the place a cozy saloon feel.
Although Hedge was accompanied by Larry Thomas on lap steel for the first part of his set, it felt as though he was alone onstage (the fact that Thomas’s lap steel cast a dark shadow on him didn’t help much). Maybe it was his words “I am alone. I am alooooone…” from “Car 5342” on his soon to be released 7 inch Observer. Maybe it was the simplicity of his songs, stripped down from their recorded versions. Maybe it was the disco ball that cast dizzying circles of light on the empty dance floor. Or maybe it was all three, reinforcing the loneliness of the others.
This isn’t to say that Hedge’s music is downtrodden. There is an optimism in his voice—smooth and unwavering. And in “Heart of an Astronaut,” an upbeat number from Howling at the Sun, Hedge confesses, “I’m happily entertained by my own.”
http://www.fazermagazine.com/2008/09/02/robert-hedge-dakota-tavern-toronto-august-23rd-2008/ - Fazer Magazine
http://birdstootiredtofly.blogspot.com/2009/07/track-of-week-beating-compass-by-robert.html - Shawn Clarke
Discography
2007 Howling At The Sun (LP CD)
2009 The Observer (EP Vinyl)
2010 The Cleansing Fires (LP CD)
Photos
Bio
Robert Hedge is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, who has spent most of his life playing in bands (Kickstand Travolta, Elle, Shannon Weir and the Even Strangers) and making records. In 2007, he put out his first solo album, 'Howling At The Sun', in 2009 pressed the vinyl-only E.P., 'The Observer', and in 2011 released the hand-screened, limited 'The Cleansing Fires', each on his own label, Blackbox Records. In the fall of 2008, he joined Toronto's Bellevue (contributing to their 2010 release 'What You Want'). After many years of calling Toronto home, Robert and his family moved to Peterborough, Ontario and have settled into a century-old home with a wonderful attic studio space.
Robert's songs convey deeply his personal accounts and observations while remaining open and accessible to the listener. The arrangements and production, either sparse or richly layered, offer subtle surprises but never diminish the impact of the core idea - the song. Beauty, fear, anger, longing and humour are each expressed as simply and directly as one might offer the time of day. These are words and melodies sung with a voice that conveys truth.
In 2010, Robert signed an exclusive worldwide publishing agreement with Yergh Entertainment (UK) - pigFACTORY (USA) and in 2011 'Car 5342' and 'Funerals and Forgotten Promises' were licensed to award winning director Jeff Kopas' latest film, 'An Insignificant hArvey'. He has produced for other artists and composed for film and television (Long Pigs, Spadasheo, Party Poker's Canadian Poker Championship).
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