'I want to write and record about different roads and highways in Manitoba'

[lizish]

Talk about limiting your scope.

 

http://www.exclaim.c...=844&fid1=41229

 

Exclusive: The Weakerthans’ John K. Samson Reveals New Seven-Inches Series in Honour of Manitoba Roads

9/18/2009 By Greg Pratt

 

Fans of Canuck indie faves the Weakerthans,rejoice: the band’s vocalist/guitarist John K. Samson will be releasinga three-song seven-inch/digital download of solo material called City Route 85 on Germany’s Grand Hotel Van Cleef Records. And in an interview with Exclaim!, Samson reveals that this release, due out on October 30, is only the beginning.

 

“[The release is] the first part in a planned series of three or fourseven-inches I want to write and record about different roads andhighways in Manitoba,” he says. “City Route 85 is otherwise known asPortage Avenue, one of the main streets in Winnipeg, and the songs areset in three different locations along the avenue. The next tworeleases will come out sometime in the [next] 18 months, I hope, andwill be set north and southwest of Winnipeg.”

 

And North American fans who want to own the physical product, check it out: Samson says that Epitaph/Anti-will release the seven-inch series in the U.S. and Canada. As for whythe obscure German record label overseas, Samson says it’s quite simple.

 

“The GHVC folks are based in Hamburg, and have been dear friends formore than a decade now,” he says. “I am doing a little solo [European]tour with one of their bands, Kettcar [ex-…But Alive], in November, so it made sense to put it out with them and have some excuse to go over there.”

 

The label’s website had this to add: “John K. Samson, der Sängerder Weakerthans, auf unserem Label! Und auf Tour mit Kettcar und soloim November? Wie nennt man das, wenn man Anti-Tränen vor Freude in denAugen hat?”

 

No, we don’t know what that means, but we’re still stoked. But whatdoes Samson get out of playing solo that he doesn’t get out of a bandsituation?

 

“All I really get is more nervous,” he says. “I guess there is someterrifying fun involved in trying to hold an audience’s attention withjust a voice and a guitar.”

 

Samson’s last solo release was Little Pictures, originally released in 1993 as a split CD with Painted Thin (infamously and frustratingly, the whole disc was formatted as one track), and re-released in 2006, both on the sorely missed G7 Welcoming Committee Records.

[GtrPlyr]

Sounds interesting. I'm always game for anything Samson has to offer, he's such a great songwriter.

[lizish]

oh yeah. Totally buying each and everyone of these.