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Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Maryland) - November 23, 2006
Bending genres, getting laughs
Canada's witty Dust Poets playing O'Brien's in Rockville
Like the circus performer in the band's song, "I Married a Magician," you never know what the Dust Poets are going to pull out of their musical hats. One minute, the Canadian band is performing the radio-friendly "Walk Away," a catchy rant against suburbia's big box stores and manicured lawns. The next, singer Karla Ferguson is pulling your heartstrings and channeling Patsy Cline with the lovely "Lonesome".
And then the group is blasting a ragtime tune about the home life of a magician and his wife. "He had a house of cards hidden up his sleeve/ Two hearts on the wall and a color TV," Ferguson sings, practically scatting the words, as the band jingles and jangles behind her. "He was pulling rabbits from behind my ear / And in the blink of an eye, a prenuptial appeared."
Next Wednesday, the five-person band will be bringing their genre-bending, witty songs to O'Brien's Pit Barbecue in Rockviile, part of a twice-monthly folk music series put on by the nonprofit Focus.
The band's third album, "Lovesick Town," explores small-town life in the Canadian prairie. (Incidentally, "I Married a Magician" is based upon a real performer and his wife they know in Canada.) Unlike bands that are comfortable sitting in the pocket of one musical style, "we've got our theme, we've got our basic sound and then we jump around genres," said Corey Ticknor, the band's mandolin player and backup vocalist.
The band formed six years ago in the province of Manitoba, "known for the ferocity of the winters more than anything else," Ticknor said. Originally started by Murray D. Evans, who plays guitar and harmonica and is the band's lead singer, and Ferguson, a singer and accordionist, the band has expanded to include Ticknor, percussionist and clarinet player Sean McManus and bass player Gord Mowat.
Evans is also the group's songwriter. "He's got a weird, twisted sense of reality," Ticknor said. Three of the bandmates were music majors at Brandon University in Manitoba. With their different backgrounds and skills, Ticknor said, "It's hard to keep us buttoned up."
The Dust Poets continue a recent tradition of hip, intelligent and humorous Canadian bands, along with fellow countrymen Barenaked Ladies and the sadly defunct Moxy Fruvous. "It's something in the water - makes people cynical," Ticknor joked. The bandmates now live in three separate provinces, but they've been touring together off and on since the release of "Lovesick Town" in February. They've logged an estimated 30,000 kilometers during the past six months together, tossing Frisbees at every stop.
"We haven't hit any moose, which is good," Ticknor said, speaking on the phone from the safety of his home in the New Brunswick province. They've only begun touring the States this past year. "We find that Americans are a little more gregarious," Ticknor said when asked about the differences between audiences in the two countries. Americans don't hesitate to come to the stage and heap praise on the band. That doesn't happen in Canada, he added. "It's a cold-country. People are more hesitant to tell you they love you."