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Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, AB)- February 24, 2006
Dust Poets plumb the love/hate relationship with small towns
The unofficial sport in medium-sized prairie towns is talking about leaving medium-sized prairie towns. Other places are better, right? Alas, no. It's a refrain, but no less true for having been repeated again and again by prairie ex-patriates: wherever you go, there you are.
The Dust Poets came together in Brandon, Man., and have all since left. Now, through the medium of folky-country-bluegrass-pop rock, they express their version of small-town angst. On the phone, Corey Ticknor explains all:
CT: This band, The Dust Poets, began in Brandon, Manitoba, in 2001, where we all met, though none of us live there anymore. Murray Evans, the songwriter, is a little bit older than the rest of us and is kind of a folkie for life and did the solo thing for a long time, and we'd been playing together as a duo, then it became a four-piece and now it's five of us.
This is not a Manitoba area code ...
CT: Three of the band live in Toronto and I live in New Brunswick. Fate, school, my wife got a job here, so I followed her.
What do you do in New Brunswick?
CT: I studied trombone. I play mandolin in the band, though. I teach, freelance, do bits here and there — anything to avoid getting a day job, so I can be free to tour.
So, you at least have the trombone to fall back on if this whole mandolin thing doesn't work out? Why don't they utilize your tromboning skills?
CT: I play trombone on the new record, there's some horns. I'll try to fit it into the van, but it gets pretty squishy in there with five guys and a big double bass.
The Dust Poets is not your original name.
CT: The original name was Das macht Show! A lot of people didn't get it, didn't know how to pronounce it. MC's would just butcher it. After enough of those experiences, we decided to cut our losses and change it, and it coincided with our new record [Lovesick Town) and our breaking into America.
Alas. It's so funny.
CT: It did go over well in the Mennonite areas. I speak a little German, but when we were at North by Northeast (a Toronto music festival),
there was a German woman and she said, "Das macht Show — what does it mean?" And that was the last straw. We are too clever by half.
I suppose Dust Poets is more evocative of this small-town angst that keeps coming up in your press. What the heck is it anyhow?
CT: Well, Murray is one of those professional musicians who decided never to move to Winnipeg. It's the love-hate thing. He lived in Brandon, which is actually the second-biggest city in Manitoba, but recently moved to a town of 300. He loves the solitude, loves the quiet. And he hates the solitude, hates the quiet. But it doesn't matter where you live. We have a line in one of our songs, "Gotta get out of this town," and in another song, "I'm so sick of this town; I love this town."
Do the rest of you feel small-town angst?
CT: Absolutely. Our bass player is the only one who grew up in the city. We really identify with small towns, and half of our gigs are in small towns. I think we have something to say to them and we can really relate to them. Toronto has some great restaurants, though!