Featuring Blue Rodeo’s Bob Egan and Glenn Milchem (also w. the Swallows)

Playing together for the first time in support of their new releases the Promise (Bob) and The Beauty of Our Surroundings (Glenn/the Swallows). Their special guest will be Aquarius recording artists’ Pigeon Hole.

News!!! ChartAttack article about Bob and Glenn. Check it out here!

Tour Schedule

This schedule is subject to change. Confirmed dates (as of August 27) are in boldface.

SEPTEMBER

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BOB EGAN’S BIOGRAPHY
in his own words……

I grew up in a small house an hour north of Duluth, Minnesota, a snow-bound mining town. We had little money but we did have a Hammond organ, a pedal steel guitar, a marimba and a xylophone.
Pretty good stuff for a kid who hated snow. My two older sisters were singers.

Moved to a farm in Illinois, got a trumpet at 10, a guitar at 12, and a slide at 14. Fourteen was quite a year - discovered KAAY from Little Rock, Arkansas and fell asleep watching the tubes glow in the radio listening to Muddy Waters and the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead.
Figured out how to use the slide too.

Got a pedal steel guitar at 21 and fell in love with Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, then eventually found Buck and Merle and Johnny and Hank and Willie and the boys. I worked my way through school playing steel in lodges like the Moose, the Elks, and the Legion Hall. Old man country bands where the lead guitar players always had their name on the front of their guitars in those block rural mailbox letters. Sonny Paul. Earle. I could never remember the songs so Sonny Paul or Earle would lean over and say “Echo, Bobby, Echo” for the key of E. Or “George Bobby” for the key of G.
It was a pretty thorough education in country music.

Years later joined Freakwater and toured and recorded leisurely for about three years. I learned how to play real, real slow and how to blend (on a good night) with two female voices. Learned how brutal touring Germany in November can be. We opened for Wilco for a couple of weeks and the guys asked me to join them for the Being There tour. My first gig was opening for Johnny Cash, a very good omen. It was a glorious couple of years playing with those guys and bands I loved like Los Lobos and Sheryl Crow, playing in historical venues like Red Rocks and the Filllmore, doin’ the T.V. shows like Letterman and Conan and that infamous Much Music Snow Job where I fell backwards off the stage.

After working on Mermaid Avenue in Dublin my time with Wilco was done. Moved to Mississippi (Oxford) to decompress and soak heavy in the southern culture. It was there I wrote and recorded my first solo record. Released it myself and toured the States and Canada.
Got a deal in Norway too.

Meanwhile I was also touring with Billy Bragg and playing on other folk’s records, folks like the Tragically Hip and Neko Case, keeping pretty busy. When I recorded with Oh Susanna I met Bazil from Blue Rodeo and he came to Norway to tour with me. That led to me being asked me to join Blue Rodeo so I moved to Canada and played 150 shows with them in the first year.
That was a pretty intense introduction to Canadian culture.

Since then I’ve kept busy with Blue Rodeo and spent lots of time recording on other’s records. People like the Sadies, Hayden, John Stirratt from Wilco and Jon Langford from the Mekons. I also sit in frequently in Toronto with touring bands like the Be Good Tanyas, Wilco and Mojave 3.
Lately I’ve had songs used in movies and television.

My solo career is also keeping me busy with tours of Canada, Europe and Australia. 2002 will see me focus on supporting my new record “the Promise” to be released in late spring.

Contact : Julie Penner at 416-944-3454 or juliepenner@hotmail.com

Visit us at www.bobegan.com

Bob Egan -The Promise
Canadian Release - May 28, 2002 on GarCorps Records, distributed by Festival, Vancouver, BC

While recording with the Tragically Hip in their Bathhouse studio (for Phantom Power) I decided that this is how I want to make a solo record - in a comfortable house, off the clock, with good food and surrounded my musicians who were my friends. I was quite taken in by their studio and the vibe that came with it. It was relaxed, it was good for creativity and it was fun. It was my ideal recording session.

Funny enough, years later Greg Keelor (Blue Rodeo) offered the use of his farmhouse studio to record what would become “the Promise,” my second solo record. In the winter of 2001 a handful of musicians and friends moved into the farmhouse to begin work. We lived together, ate together, traded stories and generally hung out and kept the fireplace well-stoked. In our spare time we recorded a record.

We recorded mainly live, in the same room to a big old 8-track 1-inch tape machine. The beauty of this format was that we all knew there were only eight things we could put on any given song so this led to a real ensemble style of playing. We played with each other and off each other. You hear a real group effort in these songs. You also hear the warmth of the tape and the breathing in the room. Listen close enough and you’ll hear the fire in the background.

It was an all-star Canadian band. My right hand men were Bazil Donovan (Blue Rodeo) and Travis Good (the Sadies). Baz co-wrote the songs and Travis played a mean guitar and mandolin. Richard Bell (Janis Joplin, the Band) was a god on the piano and Hammond organ. The rhythm section was rock solid with Baz and Maury LaFoy (the Supers, Starling) on bass and Cam Giroux (Luther Wright and the Wrongs), Glenn Milchem (Blue Rodeo) and Stephen McGrath on drums. Special guest appearances were made by Lisa MacIssac on Cape Breton fiddle and the Be Good Tanyas on harmony vocals.

DISCOGRAPHY

1995 - Freakwater - Old Paint

1996 - Wilco - Being There

1998 - the Neckbones - The Lights are Getting Dim ; Freakwater - Springtime ; Billy Bragg and Wilco
Mermaid Avenue (U.S. Grammy nomination) ; The Tragically Hip - Phantom Power (Canadian
Juno winner)

1999 - Madrugada - Industrial Silence (Norwegian Grammy winner) ; Super Chikan - What You See
Oh Susanna - Johnstown ; Neko Case - Furnace Room Lullabye ; Jars of Clay - If I Left the Zoo
(U.S. Grammy winner) ; Bob Egan - self-titled debut

2000 - Old Reliable - The Gradual Moment ; John Stirratt (Wilco) - the Autumn Defense ; Blume -
Low Glider Bus Rider ; Pigeon Hole - Versus Gravity ; Billy Bragg and Wilco - Mermaid
Avenue Vol. II

2001 - The Sadies - Tremendous Efforts, Better Than Average Weekend ; The Northern Pikes - Truest
Inspiration ; Hayden - Skyscraper National Park

2002 - Bob Egan - the Promise ; soon to be released records by the Sadies, Jon Langford, Radiogram,
Pigeon Hole, Blue Rodeo and Matt Mays (ex-Guthries)

Contact : Julie Penner at 416-944-3454 or juliepenner@hotmail.com or www.bobegan.com

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Glenn's Bio -- The Swallows

And the sky was a thousand shades of grey
And the city swarmed a few feet away
And in my haste to find a way around things
I was caught by the beauty of my surroundings
~ The Beauty Of My Surroundings

Have you ever stood in a club watching a band and thought to yourself ‘It’s like they don’t even know there’s an audience’! This quandary has arisen in your mind because as you focus on the band you realize that they’re enjoying themselves far too much to call it performance. You can tell that they’re the type of band that savors every moment they’re making music together – whether the setting is the rehearsal space, a recording studio or a live venue. That’s the vibe when you see The Swallows. It’s about experienced musicians walking onto a stage and bringing the crowd into their performance and settling in for a good time.

On the cusp of the burgeoning indie scene in Toronto, Glenn Milchem’s brainchild, The Swallows, is the result of knowledge culled from years well spent. Aural osmosis is evident in the breadth of musical genres present in Glenn’s repetoire of song. Lending his percussion self to a plethora of bands in the early nineties, Glenn’s a seasoned session player, highly respected amongst the richly talented cabal of Queen Street West. Glenn’s decade long tenure as drummer for Blue Rodeo has widened his horizons, taking him across North America, Europe, UK and Australia.

Transcending the ‘solo’ ness of his last effort, Glenn Milchem set forth to capture the band essence on The Beauty of Our Surroundings, The Swallows’ sophomore cd. One’s ears are first quenched by the clever musical introductions. From the first haunting notes of Waiting For Never, through the rootsy percussion laced beats of Losing The Revolution to the tickling of ivories and straight ahead punk tinged opening to Not To Be In Love, subtlety lures you into the songs. The Beauty of Our Surroundings is a palate of different textures and musical colors – moving gracefully from full on rock pose to brooding serenity.

The focus of The Beauty of Our Surroundings was to make a more concise, more tightly knit rock record. An introspective writer, Milchem’s love of bands like The Buzzcocks and My Bloody Valentine, helps steer the intensity of the songs. The result is a collection of prose, reflective of contemplative thought.

‘cos we know everything we knew was wrong
It’s all we had to build our story on
All of our mistakes hold gifts from above
I guess we’ll never learn how not to be in love
~ Not To Be In Love

Like a summer’s day suddenly pelted by a hail storm, King of shaking things up, Ian Blurton added his producer blast to the recording, adding nuances and finesses to Milchem’s work. With a common goal of making the album a snapshot of the band experience, Milchem sculpted the skeleton of a song and gave it skin through the talent of his bandmates – John Borra (bass / backing vocals / harmonica), Clive MacNutt (guitar, Whirlitzer piano) and Randy Curnew (drums). Glenn Milchem’s The Beauty Of Our Surroundings is a journey soaked in cohesive rock sensibility and innovative cognitive integrity.

The Beauty Of Our Surroundings will be out on Milchem’s Magnetic Angel imprint (distributed by Warner Music Canada) on October 15th. The Swallows are on tour across Canada throughout the fall.

Media Relations: Joanne Setterington | DMD Entertainment
3110 American Drive, Suite 102 – Mississauga, ON, L4V 1A9
905.405.8800 phone / joannes@look.ca

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