Tims Myth

"Check him out! This guy is going to be big!"
- Jeff Mauler - 101.1 XFM

"Wildly expressive and independent, the very hardworking Timothy Smith of Tim's myth was an absolute delite to produce. This intimate recording of bluesy folk rock was brought to a boiling point with Tim's huge and expansive vocals lushly laid over aggressive and percolating rhythms. Each song that comes from Tim speaks of true story-telling and delivered with meaningful
passionate vocals. In my 25 years of recording and producing I must say
that working with an individual as talented as Tim was a benchmark. It is also
a pleasure to be able to call him a friend outside of any professional ties."
- Mark Berry - Attack Records

“Wow! Musically, this is so happening. A seamless marriage between interesting structure & production moves, supported by soaring melodic melodies. You really take the listener on a sonic journey hear & it’s a great ride. Fasten your seat belts!”
- Unisong International

"Tim's Myth is proof that Ottawa's music scene is a force to be reckoned with!" - Cub Carson, 106.9 The Bear

There's always plenty of activity on the Ottawa music scene, but here are seven things to watch in 2007…

Tim's Myth: The Ottawa-area band that won the grand prize in Live 88.5's first Big Money Shot talent-development contest now has more than $300,000 to spend on recording, gear, services and anything else it takes to push an independent, alt-rock act to the next level. - The Ottawa Citizen (Lynn Saxberg)

Ann Marie Mcqueen, The Ottawa Sun
Published: Friday, December 17, 2006
t's a lot of money for a local band.

And the four members of Tim's Myth — who walked away from Capital Music Hall early yesterday morning with $300,000 towards their music career after winning the Live 88.5 first Big Money Shot con-test — fully know it.

"You have restored our faith in the music industry," frontman Tim Smith told the raucous crowd minutes after learning of the band's win.

The bespectacled, mohawk-sporting singer-songwriter has been pursuing a music career since high school.
As for the money, which is piled on $50,000 the band already won for being one of three semifinal round winners, it's going straight to their musical future.

"There's going to be a lot of smart people helping us divy it up wisely, helping us make smart decisions in the right departments, just to take our career up to the next level," said Smith.

Lee Wagner, the Live 88.5 director of talent development, said the radio station doesn't simply cut the band a cheque.
"We sit down and we actually decide where we want the money to go," he said. "Otherwise they might just go out and buy a Porsche."
It was a hectic night that saw five finalists perform. In between sets, as parents milled with regulars around the Byward Market club, Tim's Myth groupies engaged in shout-offs with those boosting other finalists Donkeypunch, Loudlove, both semifinalists, and wild card groups Eric Eggleston Band and Eppiphane.
All three semifinal round winners have already earned a spot to showcase themselves to the industry during Canadian Music Week March 7-10.

The folksy Tim's Myth has been around for four years, formed after a trio of friends from Glengarry District High School in Alexandria headed
to Toronto — Smith, bassist Brent Hamilton and guitarist Stuart Rutherford, all 27, to help Smith record a solo album. After playing together for three weeks, and with the help of Smith's cousin Mike Clarke on drums, they became a band.

The Live 88.5 contest began on Canada Day and is part of the station's license commitment to the CRTC to develop new talent. Live 88.5, which has been on the air for almost a year, has pledged $6 million over seven years to reach that goal.

The Big Money Shot kicked off Canada Day with 45 bands chosen to compete from 100 entries. Wagner said judges came away impressed.

"We know Ottawa has a music scene — everyone knows that — but we didn't know what we would find," he said.
"We were ecstatic about what's out there. And I think we only scratched the-surface."

- Ann Marie Mcqueen/Ottawa Sun

EP REVIEW: Tim's Myth - "Year Of The Goat"
By Gian Fiero - 11/08/04 - 08:50 PM EST

Genre: Adult Contemporary Rock
Sounds Like: ?
Technical Grade: 8
Production/Musicianship Grade: 9
Commercial Value: 8
Overall Talent Level: 9
Songwriting Skills: 8
Performance Skill: 9
Best Songs: News On The River, Those Days, Mrs. Healy, Sonny & Potter
Weakness: ?
CD Review: The arrival of my latest import, a six song EP by Tim's Myth entitled "The Goat," proves an undeniable and inescapable truth: Canada is a music force to be reckoned with.

Timothy Smith, the band's leader, handles all of the primary vocal assignments and songwriting duties. It's a task for which he is abundantly qualified and executes with great efficiency. Like all good leaders he has surrounded himself with a talented supporting cast and he knows when - and how - to utilize their skills, most notably Mark S. Berry, the project's producer, who captured, highlighted, and presented the chemistry and musicianship of the band in a way that is honest, powerful, and artistic.

Aside from the pensively abstract lyrics that are the hallmark of this EP, the guitar playing consistently competes for and sometimes steals the spotlight. The project's most commercial song, "News On The River," features supreme guitar melodies that provide and enhance a Beatlesesque vocal arrangement that lingers in your memory for days, as does "Mrs. Healy," which is as close to acoustic funk as you can get without crossing over.

This is not the typical indie rock project that's replete with throw-away tracks. This EP leaves nothing to spare in terms of quality, and it leaves you wanting more in terms of quantity. At the conclusion of what you think is the final track on the project, the riveting "Mexico Roads," (which showcases the awesome base guitar playing skills of Brent Hamilton) you almost feel cheated that the disc is over...then...out of no where, the "hidden" track comes on to appropriately close out the project with a tender scaled down ballad which illuminates the poignancy of Tim's distinctive soulful voice, drawing a mild comparison to Darryl Hall (of Hall & Oates) in the process. It's a nice surprise ending for the CD, and a great way to punctuate the depth and versatility of the band.

Advice: Keep it up! As it is with all good (and in this case great) indie projects, a lot of work awaits you in the areas of marketing and promoting. Do it for yourselves. Do it for your fans...which will be many.

www.tims-myth.com
- Gian Fiero

Ottawa band grows out of Tim Smith's songwriting skills

Bridget Roussy
The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, June 03, 2004

"We've been moving at light speed," says Timothy Smith, whose band, Tim's Myth, is already planning a video to accompany its new CD, Year of the Goat.

The debut disc, released last month to an audience of more than 200 at Babylon nightclub on Bank Street, was more than a year in the making. Smith admits the process was slow, because when the project is self-funded, "you want to make sure you're taking the right steps."

A six-song mix of lyrically strong tracks, Year of the Goat showcases elements of both blues and funk, though never straying far from rock influence, from the upbeat opener Those Days to the guitar-driven Mrs. Healy. An acoustic showcase of Smith's vocal range is hidden at the end of the album's closer, the bass- and drum-heavy ode to southern roaming, Mexico Roads.

Now that the disc is out, the Ottawa band is brainstorming video ideas for the third track, Electrico.

As the group's songwriter, Smith says he had a visual plan in mind for the tongue-in-cheek Mrs. Healy. Eventually, the band decided to support the melodic love song Electrico after its release to local radio stations.

"When you're doing a video, you don't want to follow lyrics to a T," he adds. "With Mrs. Healy, there's a lot of room for interpretation. Whereas Electrico, it's a quirky kind of love song ...

"I don't want to do a typical heterosexual video," Smith adds, pointing to love songs that are too often portrayed in video as run-of-the-mill and dull.

Previously a solo artist, Smith went into a Toronto studio last year to record a demo, but decided to "take it a step further" and invited three friends and Ottawa residents to join him: guitarist Stuart Rutherford, bassist Brent Hamilton and drummer Mike H. Clarke.

Now living in Montreal and performing weekly solo shows on the side, Smith started writing songs as a 12-year-old in Glengarry County.

"Songwriting is a real craft," says Smith. "The more you do it, the more you are conscious of what you are doing, and you get more skilled."

When writing, he tries be an observer. After all, he says, that's what a songwriter is.

"As far as things that inspire me, it's always been the same," he says. "A book will inspire me, or something that's happened in the world, something tragic."

He tries to steer clear of politics, however, although once in a while he "can't help it."

"You can shoot yourself in the foot with that one!" he says, laughing. "I'm an observer. I'm documenting how people feel about the way the country is being governed."

One of his biggest songwriting inspirations, in fact, is U2's Bono, who's been known to put his political interests front and centre.

"Music is very powerful and you can do a lot of things with it," says Smith.

The band will appear next in Russell on June 5 for a Yuk Yuk's Comedy Presentation, taking over the music spot usually reserved for a DJ. The band will play before and after the comedians and during intermission.

They'll continue throughout the summer, with an appearance on CHRO's Breakfast @ The New RO June 25, a Fringe Festival performance the following day, and their first tour, to the East Coast, this summer.

"We've got a lot of work to do," Smith says. "Everybody's spirits are really up. There's a good chance we'll be around for a while and record some good music -- see some parts of the world."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2004

- The Ottawa Citizen

It's no accident local band Tim's Myth has included an oft-quoted document in the back of their new CD Departure.

"And whether or not it is clear to you," reads the script, dated 1692 and attributed, this time, to having been found in a Baltimore church, "the universe is unfolding as it should."

It's been a couple of months since the band picked up the $350,000 first prize in Live 88.5's Big Money Shot, a contest which is part of a licensing commitment the station made to the CRTC to develop talent on the local music scene.

The money pays for anything to do with the band's development. It has already allowed the group to work with accomplished producer Jordon Zadorozny (he produced Sam Roberts' breakthrough EP The Inhuman Condition), not to mention hiring a publicist to flog upcoming shows and a promoter to encourage radio play.

But frontman Tim Smith says taking that top prize in December also provided something much less tangible.


"I guess it's just been an affirmation we're going in the right direction," said Smith. "To be given a lump sum of money like that, to invest in our careers. To us, it feels like a cosmic arrow pointing us down the road to keep going."

While Smith, 28, has been writing and making music full-time for a while now, the rest of the band only came together to record 2004's EP Year of the Goat after Smith hooked up with a producer in Toronto and needed musicians.

Though they've all kept their day jobs, in the coming weeks guitarist Stuart Rutherford, drummer Mike Clarke and bassist Brent Hamilton are all leaving or taking leaves from full-time gigs to head out on the road.

"They're making a big leap of faith right now," says Smith, who just had his second child. "I'm a little more conditioned to the lifestyle.

PLENTY OF ATTENTION

"At the same time too, now I have my little family, that's something to consider now."

Departure features six original songs, only Electronico carried over from Goat.

"That song has received a lot of attention in the industry," explains Smith. "And from our fan base, we decided to give one more crack at it."

It was recorded over the winter, mostly at Zadorzny's French Kiss studios in Pembroke and in Ottawa at Little Bulhorn studios, rushed so the band could be ready for an early March showcase at Canadian Music Week in Toronto.

"It was a really creative time," says Smith. "Everything went off without a hitch."

---

SCENE SETTER

Tim's Myth

- Where: Mercury Lounge, 56 ByWard Market

- When: Saturday, 8 p.m., $10 - The Sun

Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, April 21, 2007

The band won $350,000 in the Big Money Shot contest last year, but the musicians' road to 'instant' success is just now starting to gain steam.

Departure is a key theme for Tim Smith and his bandmates in Tim's Myth, the Ottawa band that suddenly got $350,000 richer last year when they won the grand prize in the Big Money Shot, a lucrative battle-of-the-bands contest sponsored by radio station Live 88.5.
For starters, it's the title of their new EP, the cover of which is a painting that depicts a ship on the ocean in full sail. Smith says the vessel is a symbol for the band's journey.

"When we all came together, I bought a wooden model of a ship, broke it up and gave the pieces to everybody in the band ... as a metaphor that we're really on a ship together," says the 28-year-old singer-songwriter, the chief creative force behind the band's music. "I feel over the last four years, we've been stocking the ship and it's at the point now that we're setting sail."

The disc is the first sign they've been making use of the money, which is not awarded in cash, but in the form of credit towards goods and services (it has to be spent within a year). However, with only six songs spanning 20 minutes, Departure is but a snapshot of the band's breezy melodic rock. It couldn't have cost much.

During an interview, Tim Smith and his longtime friend, guitarist Stuart Rutherford, also 28, remind me it was important to have something ready for Canadian Music Week, which took place last month. The jackpot they won in mid-December included a trip to CMW. To have the finished disc in their hands by March, recording had to be completed by the end of January.

Adding to the deadline pressure was the fact that Smith's second child was due right around that time. Baby Muse was born Jan. 25. Her sister, Lyric, turns two in September. Smith and his family have been living in Montreal, while mom, Roxanne Ross, attends college. They're planning to move back to Ottawa soon.

The other band members are based in Ottawa, although they all grew up in the Alexandria area. Their high school bands used to practise in one of the Smith family's barns, using his skateboard ramp for a stage.
Four years ago, Smith and his sister-manager, Tara Shannon, decided to make some high-quality demos of Smith's songs and booked studio time in Toronto. The band was officially formed around that time -- Smith needed musicians to accompany him in the studio and recruited high school buddies Rutherford to play guitar and Brent Hamilton on bass. Smith's older cousin, Mike H. Clarke, a drummer who was one of Smith's earliest influences, stepped up to the kit.
One song from those sessions, Electrico, earned some radio play, giving them all a boost of confidence. It's been rerecorded for the new disc.
"It really brings you back to before you got cynical about the music business," Smith says. "That pure intention of creating music, and playing music and sharing music with people."

Shortly after Smith's first child entered the world, he shaved his hair into a Mohawk, and on a whim, entered last year's Canadian Idol auditions. "It was an evolution for me, to get out of that cynicism and realize it might be an opportunity. I had started my family and was feeling a little bit of pressure to make something happen."

He went fairly far in the Idol process (the journey is documented in his online journal) and came away from it with some valuable insight into the whole entertainment game.
Tim's Myth entered the Big Money Shot in October, just under the deadline for the final round of the competition launched by Live 88 last July as part of its annual talent-development pledge to the CRTC. This year's Big Money Shot event is already under way.

So far, Tim's Myth has invested in instruments, a computer and making the EP, which was produced by Jordan Zadorozny and recorded in his studio in Pembroke. Their grocery list also includes buying a van, and marketing and promoting initiatives for out-of-town gigs. The plan is to hit the road to expand their fan base outside Ottawa.

"You win this competition and there's this feeling that all of a sudden things are really gonna move," Smith says. But in reality, it takes time."

They're booked for a weekend with Nashville-based band coach Tom Jackson, who will be travelling to Ottawa. A full-length disc is also in the budget.
As for sporting such radical hair when his music has only the faintest whiff of punk, Smith, who has worn his hair long, short and in dreadlocks, stands by the 'do.
"I felt a little bit like a warrior when I had my girl," he says. "It was almost like a primal thing, like I'm going into battle for her."
Tim's Myth plays a CD release party tonight at the Mercury Lounge in the Byward Market. Doors open at 8 p.m. The cover charge is $10. - Ottawa Citizen