SEE Magazine
Issue #393: June 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved

Music PREVIEW by Scott Lingley The Almost Leather Band CD Release with the Bobby Cairns Trio Friday, June 15 at the Roxy Theatre If Self-Effacement were a country, Chris Smith’s face would be on its currency. The Edmonton singer-songwriter-guitarist has been making his mark on the local music scene for the better part of a decade, but when you ask him to talk about his musical accomplishments, he just starts talking about all the fine local talent he’s worked with. Jr. Gone Wild, the Piemyn, Luann Kowalek Band, Uisce Beatha and Painting Daisies have all benefited from Smith’s musicianship. As well, he namechecks Terry Morrison, Shannon Johnson, Cory Danyluk, Shuyler Jansen, Brian Toogood, Neil McDonald, Scott Wicken, Hookahman, Pal Joey, Old Reliable and Twang! as some of the other musicians with whom he’s collaborated. "There’s so many great opportunities to play with so many great bands," Smith enthuses, "and I’ve played with a lot of them, and it’s been great, and I wish I could clone myself, so I could do all those things. Cuz it’s all fun. But you can’t do it all." Fun for Smith these days takes the form of the Almost Leather Band, a group you’d be tempted to call "super" if Smith’s genuine humility didn’t discourage superlatives. Nonetheless, Smith has stacked his roster with accordionist Jason Kodie (Hookahman, Fat Tuesday), bassist Thom Golub (Twang!, Bounce, Joel Kroeker Collective), and drummer Duke Paetz (Luann Kowalek, Jr. Gone Wild, etc.). "The dialogue is really strong," Smith says of his cohorts. "They’re all very seasoned and they all know their instruments very well. Everybody’s really fluent, so the ideas come quick, and they’re really strong ideas. It’s nice to work with people who are that intimate with their ideas and their instrument." Smith was so pleased with this configuration of the band, he corraled them all into Scott Franchuk’s Riverdale Recorders, cut an album, called it Another Picture, and will release it on Friday, June 15 at the Roxy Theatre. All this talk of collaboration obscures the fact that Smith wrote all the songs on Another Picture, and it’s his acoustic guitar-playing that helps impart an irresistible bounce to the uptempo numbers, while gently supporting his vocals on quieter numbers like Eden. Wouldn’t it have made sense to call this act the Chris Smith Band, to advertise his contribution? "Everybody who knows me and knows what I’m up to will know I’m in this band. As much as I enjoy performing solo – there’s something liberating about it – but playing with a band takes the energy to a different level. You can turn it up, and it’s always nice to look across at somebody, and you’re enjoying the musical moment together." Besides, Smith says, it’s the interaction of this particular set of musicians that makes all this music work. His confidence in his collaborators, and their abiliity to be tight and loose at the same time, fuels the excitement of the music and gives everyone a chance to grow a little bit. And, need it be said again, there is no ‘I’ in team. "Like-minded chaos," Smith recommends. "Just join the madness. No one’s going to match your musical thoughts and ideas exactly, but that’s all for the better. Let it be chaos. That’s one of the things I learned from Hookahman. The whole reason Hookahman was so incredibly fun and contagious is because there was no plan, there was no leader. It was a car accident, but a beautiful one." It’s this faith in happy accidents that guided the recording of Another Picture. Smith entrusted his bandmates to do their job well and the producer and engineer to make the right choices. Then he recorded his parts and left. "Recording with this band was so easy. Everyone was so attentive to the songs and that’s kind of what dictated the playing. It was very tasteful and they did such a good job. I was thankfully, mercifully uninvolved with a lot of the recording process … And I really didn’t want to be involved. Scott Franchuk’s just an amazing engineer and he has incredible ears – I don’t need to be there. And having Rick Fenton there, coordinating and producing the album. I was blissfully ignorant of most of the process." The product, Smith believes, has repaid his faith. "I can go to people and tell them the album’s great. This is a great album. And I think that’s because it has a lot less to do with me and more to do with what the other people put into it. This is great because these other people did the work on it, and it shows." Consistent with Smith’s devotion to his craft, he wants to launch the album in a venue where all ears will be on the music-making. "I still want that relaxed bar atmosphere, but also not to be battling the bar itself. An establishment is an establishment because it has its own feel and ambiance. Depending on the inclination of the built-in audience, a gig can fly or fail. Setting up your own gig at least levels the playing field.The audience and the band meet together in an equal opportunity environment. If they hate it, they hate it, but the reason they hate it is based on the music." The Almost Leather CD release party is an all-ages licensed event, with advance tickets available at the Roxy, Southside Sound and Blackbyrd. The show will be recorded by CBC for broadcast at a later date.

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