A Calico Thief In The Night - Tractorgrease Studio

Tuesday October 19, 2010

Feature Story

A Calico Thief In The Night

Stage and studio at Tractorgrease is a one-of-a-kind venue offering musicians a chance to be heard

Craig Hill/Voice photos

Calico Thief performs at Tractorgrease Multimedia Studio Saturday in Chilliwack.

or those who don't know it, one of the coolest places in Chilliwack to catch a band play is Tractorgrease studios. On Saturday they held a CD release party for local band Calico Thief and also featured were aspiring local artists Leenie Bennett and percussionist Greg Weber.

As the evening's opening act, Bennett, backed by her musical partner drummer Weber, gave an edgy performance of original tunes and the dynamic duo wrapped up their set with an invigorating drum-off on the Djembes.

Bennett, a Chilliwack native, spent time in Campbell River on the Island before finding herself back in town and entrenched in the local music scene.

"I just moved back from Campbell River, she told the Voice. "Tore it up there for awhile."

Bennett currently works at Payless Shoes, but her main career focus is making music.

"I do that for steady income and when I'm not doing that I'm writing and singing and playing guitar and drums." Greg Weber and Leenie Bennett at Tractorgrease

Bennett says she is at work on a CD and a website and is looking forward to getting those things done next.

The custom made laminated drums they played on were crafted by Gregory Weber at his Darkwood Drum studio.

Weber's Cajon drums are mostly constructed from standard Baltic Birch plywood for volume and are extreme durable but, he also uses a variety of different wood featuring burl veneered fronts in various sizes and thickness which all effect the drum's sound.

Along with the Cajons, Weber also builds Djembes, Congas and Snares as well as box drums.

Calico Thief, led by Agassiz Secondary School music teacher Kyle Axford and prior to their performance, Jeff Bonner, owner of Tractorgrease Multimedia spoke about the band prior to their set.

At some point in 2009, Axford came into his studio looking to produce a CD of original tunes and completed the project in the spring of this year.

"A bunch of people here are actually his students and students play on the record and he's a really talented guy who plays a bunch of different instruments and they're going to play the album in it's entirety tonight," said Bonner.

Bonner says the 5-piece band's style is an interesting blend of progressive folk music whose members change it up and play others instruments throughout their sets.

"Since he's a music teacher, there's a lot of elements, a lot of attention to details and orchestration of the music but, at it's heart its folk music," he said. "It's a cool style of music and he performs it really well."

The Voice also had a chance to speak with Axford about his music before going on stage.

The omni-talented Axford performs on a variety of instruments including piano, trumpet and guitar but trumpet is his forte. Currently he teaches band to grades 7 thru 12 and this year he's teaching grade 7 social studies as well as jazz band.

"I'm the guitar player and tonight I'll be playing the piano."

Axford has been a resident of Chilliwack for the past three-years and Calico Thief was a project that he originally started for himself by recording a few songs and recruited Tyson "T-Bone" Finlay who is the band's percussionist and doubles as Tractorgrease's studio percussion man. Also on the band's roster, is one of the teacher's ex-students, Bethany Turner. Appearing with the band at the studio was Ava Grayson who filled in with the banjo and mandolin segments and Mark D'Angelo who added the brass.

"This is the first time that the whole group has been together," said Axford. "We've had shows with just Mark and Ava or just Bethany, Tyson and myself but, this is the first time with everybody."

The band's CD was produced in studio at Tractorgrease before they actually played live on stage in front of an audience. Talking about the CD, which was written entirely by him, Axford says it's great to progress the way they are.

"It's a great stepping stone for myself because its the best representation of what's in my head and as a recording artist its really nice to get those things floating around your head to just get them onto a CD or get them onto paper or something."

He has a really extensive and varied taste in music that includes everything from Keith Jarret's jazz piano to good old fashioned mariachi music.

Their CD is available privately because they are an independent label and Axford hopes that projects down the road will help with his distribution network.

When it comes to getting a place to perform, Bonner says that its tough for new acts to get stage time in Chilliwack due to a lack of places for bands to play and so while they (Calico Thief) aren't playing at folk festivals they aren't getting much local exposure either.

There's just not many venues that'll support an act like Calico Thief and they face a sort of Goldilocks dilemma in Chilliwack.

"They're too small for the Arts Centre and too quiet and good for the bars," said Bonner.

According to Bonner, the Arts Centre has priced themselves right out of the local music market with exorbitant fee schedules for stage rentals.

"A band like this isn't going to be able to afford $1500 to rent the place for the night," he said.

"That's part of the reason why Tractorgrease has decided to have shows because a lot of the original artists that record here deserve to be heard and there just aren't any venues that allow them to play so I'm providing it by recording the records and letting them do their CD releases here."

Tractorgrease has been around for the last 10-years and 3-years in their location at the corner of Alexander and Young Rd. and currently offer the only stage and studio service in Vancouver.

Bonner says that if there are any facilities with recording/studio performance venues setup he isn't aware of them.

"It works out good, I've got the big stage so it's a venue, but it's also a studio at the same time," he said with a laugh. "I do a lot of video work and so it's not only capturing the audio we do videos here of live performances."

Bonner works his new Mackie 32-channel board like a Kung-Fu master as his fingers dance over the myriad of knobs and buttons. Lights and smoke add to the ambiance on show nights.

"This is a little better setup. I used to do live recording in the back room there and this allows me to do live sound and record at the same time. It makes me more fine-tuned."

Bonner says that in today's music business, people recording records spend time and a lot of money doing that and when they leave the studio with a record many have no idea what to do with it so he set out to change that.

"I saw it over and over again with some of my peers and knew that something needs to be done to help out the artist."

"So we don't only record records but we get photos and put on shows that the artist can use on the website and we film videos that they can post on the website."

Another hat Bonner wears is webmaster and works on websites for bands so that he can offer the whole marketing package because these days a CD alone doesn't cut it.

"You have to market what you're doing so you need visuals like photos, videos, live recordings and production recordings and we do all that, so we take an artist and handle everything from the start and even give them advice and training on the music business and how it works and that sort of thing.

Come by November 13, Tractorgrease will be offering a trio of free Music Business 101 seminars that will run through into January. The classes will cover things licencing music, marketing and working with sound engineers to get the best quality.

On January 8th, Tractorgrease will have some name brand stars in to the studio for workshops dealing with guitar and songwriting, including headliner and Juno Award winner Steve Dawson and Ryan Guldemond from Mother Mother will be in the studio along with some other surprises that Bonner has yet to confirm.

Getting into a workshop won't be as easy as one may want and you actually need to have some talent first.

"You have to apply to go because it's not open to anybody," explained Bonner. "You actually have to e-mail me and enter your bio about your musical act and we'll decide if you're a real, inspiring musician."

"We only want people that are truly committed to working in the business and doing something with their music. If it was an open door, we'd have people here just to see Ryan from Mother Mother on stage and we don't want that."

Bonner praises new local radio station 89.5 The Hawk and says they have been doing a "tremendous job" promoting the music scene in Chilliwack.

"They've paid for tons of shows and this is the second series of seminars they've helped put on and the Hawk has been hugely supportive of the local music scene, big kudos to them for sure."

For more information about Tractorgrease or the seminars e-mail Jeff here or visit their website at: www.tractorgrease.com or e-mail Jeff here.

To learn more about Greg Weber's beautiful handmade drums visit his website at: www.darkwooddrums.com or e-mail Greg here.

People interested in buying Calico Thief's new CD or listening to tracks from it visit their webspace page at: www.myspace.com/calicothief or e-mail here.

To get a hold of Leenie Bennett for gigs, contact Jeff at Tractorgrease.

See the photo gallery below.