Ford Pier
Encyclopedia
,
Ford Pier is a Canadian singer-songwriter
. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts
. He resides in Vancouver. In addition to his solo albums, he has been a member of Jr. Gone Wild
and D.O.A.
, and has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Carolyn Mark
, Martin Tielli
, Showbusiness Giants
, Veda Hille
, Rheostatics
, John Mann
and Neko Case
.
and Richard Wagner
in a pop song
. However, his intentions were thwarted as he concentrated on melody and lyrics.
Meconium, his 1995 debut release on Wrong Records, was a fourteen song mosaic of raging post-punk
, country
, folk
ballad
ry, and avant garde soul. The Vancouver Suns Katherine Monk wrote, "If one indie release could speak for the West Coast, this is the one."
Former bandmate Joey Shithead of D.O.A. released the sophomore offering, 12-Step Plan, 11-Step Pier, in 1999 on his Sudden Death label. The record's denser, almost symphonic character was a nod to the amount of chamber music Pier had been composing, and the neo-classical-inflected orchestrations he had been doing for Vancouver
songwriter Veda Hille
, with whom he toured Europe and North America extensively.
The performing rhythm section he had built up around himself at this time formed the basis for a deliberately scaled-down thirteen song collection released gratis on his website in 2000. Entitled Besides, it acted as a clearing house for some of Pier's more straightforward genre-identifiable songs, and commenced the bow-drawing process for the next full album, Pier-ic Victory, released in 2004 by Six Shooter Records. Working for two years on and off with producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda, Ford issued his strongest statement yet of true pan-disciplinary pop, playing up formerly latent groove-oriented elements in the music to complement the expanded orchestral colours and more extreme noise elements. It was enthusiastically received by press and public alike, and led to more touring throughout Canada and Europe, sharing the stage with the likes of The Organ
, The Weakerthans
, NoMeansNo
, Daniel Johnston
, The Constantines
, and Sarah Harmer
.
Pier also found time to appear on records by Buttless Chaps, Great Aunt Ida, and Martin Tielli; perform regularly as a guest with The Sadies
, The Rheostatics, Carolyn Mark
and others, continue to produce chamber and orchestral arrangements for artists such as Ron Sexsmith
.
In the summer of 2007, Volume I his next collection of work, Organ Farming, a six-song EP, was released electronically and on 12" vinyl through Calgary's Saved By Vinyl Records. The EP displays a comparatively austere sonic palette, as Ford, drummer Don Kerr, and the returning Michael Phillip Wojewoda, as well as guests from Weakerthans, Rheostatics, FemBots, and others, seek to answer the question, "If you were to ditch all those bassoons and stuff and make a Rock album, what would it sound like?". Volume II is Adventurism, a full-length ten song album, which was scheduled to be released in March 2009. Several of the songs from both are already live favourites and are being hotly anticipated by many around the globe.
The album Adventurism was released in 2009.
Ford Pier is a Canadian singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. He resides in Vancouver. In addition to his solo albums, he has been a member of Jr. Gone Wild
Jr. Gone Wild
Jr. Gone Wild was a country/punk rock based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, founded in 1982.The band's founding members were Mike McDonald, Tom Wolfe, Adele Wolfe, and Bill Pontez, they formed in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They played several gigs in Calgary including The Calgarian Hotel and The...
and D.O.A.
D.O.A. (band)
D.O.A. is a hardcore punk band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They are often referred to as the "founders" of hardcore punk, along with Black Flag, Bad Brains, Teen Idles, and Minor Threat. Their second album Hardcore '81 was thought by many to have been the first actual reference to...
, and has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Carolyn Mark
Carolyn Mark
Carolyn Mark is a Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter. She has recorded as a solo artist and as a member of the duo The Corn Sisters with American colleague Neko Case, as well as with the bands the Vinaigrettes, Jr. Gone Wild, Showbusiness Giants, the Fixin's and the Metronome Cowboys...
, Martin Tielli
Martin Tielli
Martin Tielli is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He was a member of the Rheostatics, and has also released material as a solo artist and with the side project Nick Buzz. As well, he has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Barenaked Ladies, Kevin Hearn, The Waltons, Jane Siberry, Ashley...
, Showbusiness Giants
Showbusiness Giants
-External links:* * * *...
, Veda Hille
Veda Hille
Veda Hille is a Canadian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Veda Hille was born in 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She started playing piano when she was 6 at her own insistence. Her family moved around a lot, from the city to the country and back again...
, Rheostatics
Rheostatics
Rheostatics was a Genie Award-winning Canadian indie rock band, active from 1980 to 2007.Although they had only one Top 40 hit, "Claire" in 1995, they were simultaneously one of Canada's most influential and unconventional rock bands, a band whose eclectic take on pop and rock music has been...
, John Mann
John Mann (musician)
John F. Mann is a Canadian rock musician and actor.-Music:He is the lead vocalist for the folk rock band Spirit of the West...
and Neko Case
Neko Case
Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers....
.
Career
After playing a variety of instruments in a host of bands in a panoply of styles throughout his youth, Pier began writing and performing his own songs in the mid-1990s. His stated objective was to effectively fuse Black FlagBlack Flag (band)
Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band...
and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
in a pop song
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
. However, his intentions were thwarted as he concentrated on melody and lyrics.
Meconium, his 1995 debut release on Wrong Records, was a fourteen song mosaic of raging post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
ry, and avant garde soul. The Vancouver Suns Katherine Monk wrote, "If one indie release could speak for the West Coast, this is the one."
Former bandmate Joey Shithead of D.O.A. released the sophomore offering, 12-Step Plan, 11-Step Pier, in 1999 on his Sudden Death label. The record's denser, almost symphonic character was a nod to the amount of chamber music Pier had been composing, and the neo-classical-inflected orchestrations he had been doing for Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
songwriter Veda Hille
Veda Hille
Veda Hille is a Canadian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Veda Hille was born in 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She started playing piano when she was 6 at her own insistence. Her family moved around a lot, from the city to the country and back again...
, with whom he toured Europe and North America extensively.
The performing rhythm section he had built up around himself at this time formed the basis for a deliberately scaled-down thirteen song collection released gratis on his website in 2000. Entitled Besides, it acted as a clearing house for some of Pier's more straightforward genre-identifiable songs, and commenced the bow-drawing process for the next full album, Pier-ic Victory, released in 2004 by Six Shooter Records. Working for two years on and off with producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda, Ford issued his strongest statement yet of true pan-disciplinary pop, playing up formerly latent groove-oriented elements in the music to complement the expanded orchestral colours and more extreme noise elements. It was enthusiastically received by press and public alike, and led to more touring throughout Canada and Europe, sharing the stage with the likes of The Organ
The Organ
The Organ was a Canadian indie pop band formed in 2001 in Vancouver, British Columbia. They officially broke up on December 7, 2006, due to illness and personal conflicts in the band.-Early years:...
, The Weakerthans
The Weakerthans
The Weakerthans are a four-piece Canadian indie rock band.-History:The band was formed in 1997 in Winnipeg, Manitoba by John K. Samson, after he left the punk band Propagandhi to start a publishing company. Samson joined forces with bassist John P...
, NoMeansNo
Nomeansno
NoMeansNo is a Canadian progressive punk rock music group originally from Victoria, British Columbia and now located in Vancouver.The band has never had, nor have they seemed to pursue, strong mainstream success, but they do have a devoted underground following in North America and Europe...
, Daniel Johnston
Daniel Johnston
Daniel Dale Johnston is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in Waller, Texas....
, The Constantines
The Constantines
-History:The band was formed by Steve Lambke, Bryan Webb, Doug MacGregor, and Dallas Wehrle in 1999, following the break-up of Webb and MacGregor's emotional hardcore band Shoulder...
, and Sarah Harmer
Sarah Harmer
Sarah Harmer is a Canadian singer-songwriter and activist.-Biography:Born and raised in Burlington, Ontario, Harmer gained her first exposure to the musician's lifestyle as a teenager, when her older sister Mary started taking her to concerts by the well-known Tragically Hip. At the age of 17, she...
.
Pier also found time to appear on records by Buttless Chaps, Great Aunt Ida, and Martin Tielli; perform regularly as a guest with The Sadies
The Sadies
The Sadies are a Canadian indie rock and alternative country band from Toronto, Ontario.-Background:The band consists of Dallas Good , Travis Good, Sean Dean and Mike Belitsky...
, The Rheostatics, Carolyn Mark
Carolyn Mark
Carolyn Mark is a Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter. She has recorded as a solo artist and as a member of the duo The Corn Sisters with American colleague Neko Case, as well as with the bands the Vinaigrettes, Jr. Gone Wild, Showbusiness Giants, the Fixin's and the Metronome Cowboys...
and others, continue to produce chamber and orchestral arrangements for artists such as Ron Sexsmith
Ron Sexsmith
Ronald Eldon "Ron" Sexsmith is a Canadian singer-songwriter from St. Catharines, Ontario, currently based in Toronto. He started his own band when he was fourteen years old, and released the first recordings of his own material seven years later, in 1985...
.
In the summer of 2007, Volume I his next collection of work, Organ Farming, a six-song EP, was released electronically and on 12" vinyl through Calgary's Saved By Vinyl Records. The EP displays a comparatively austere sonic palette, as Ford, drummer Don Kerr, and the returning Michael Phillip Wojewoda, as well as guests from Weakerthans, Rheostatics, FemBots, and others, seek to answer the question, "If you were to ditch all those bassoons and stuff and make a Rock album, what would it sound like?". Volume II is Adventurism, a full-length ten song album, which was scheduled to be released in March 2009. Several of the songs from both are already live favourites and are being hotly anticipated by many around the globe.
The album Adventurism was released in 2009.
Discography
- Meconium (1995)
- 12-Step Plan, 11-Step Pier (1999)
- Besides (2000)
- Pier-ic Victory (2004)
- Organ Farming (2007)
- Adventurism (2009)