The Beginning...

In a way, I’m doing this because I came late to the party.

In order to explain that statement, I’m going to have to tell you a little bit about me, hopefully not too much, since that’s not why you’re here.  Because in another way, I’m not late to the party at all.  I’ve known about – and loved – Shearwater since I stumbled on a free download of “Whipping Boy” around 2006.  At that time I bought Winged Life, and then Palo Santo, Rook and The Golden Archipelago as they were issued.  I thought they were gorgeous, magnificent, awe-inspiring pieces of work.  Strangely, this translated into not listening to them as much as I might…it was sort of like my grandmother’s old fine china.  I kept it on the shelf, behind glass doors, only to be brought out on special occasions.

I was also late to the party with live music.  Yes, during my sheltered adolescence, I had been to a number of concerts, but always safely from the seated area.  I stopped attending concerts when I became an “adult” although I always looked rather enviously at the photos of my less inhibited cousin hanging out backstage with the Ramones.  Then, at the ripe old age of 45, I fell in with some people who advised me, “No, that’s not how it’s done; you’ve got to rush the barrier.”  It seemed a rather benign form of midlife crisis, and I soon found out that they were right.  My newfound appreciation of live music led me to my first mosh pit (quite accidentally!) and to a front-row spot in a pandemonium of 60,000 people.

As one of the larger concert hubs near me, I keep a bit of an eye on Toronto.  A few months ago, it came to my notice that Shearwater was going to play there in March of 2016.  I’d never seen them live; I immediately bought tickets and pre-ordered the coming release, Jet Plane and Oxbow.  And then I realized, to my chagrin, that I had lost track and somehow missed two albums, which I remedied immediately.

I got about halfway through my first listen of Animal Joy when I started to realize that I really knew nothing about this band.  That was strange: when I appreciated music this much, I was generally curious about the history and background of the people producing it, but in the case of Shearwater, I couldn’t even name a single member.  Well, it was 2015; this is what the internet is for.

I stumbled onto two quotes, one from 2005, the other from 2012.

“We had a review of one of our shows at South by Southwest that said that despite it was a really intense performance, it didn’t reveal anything about my personality.  I could have kissed the reviewer.  That’s exactly what I want.  I don’t want you to know anything about me.”

• Jonathan Meiburg, 2005.

“…this time I wanted to make a record that was maybe a bit easier to approach, to warm up to, you know that kind that they give you a hug a little bit more.  ‘Cause the last one (The Golden Archipelago) I thought it was a bit hermetic, it was in its own world, it was like looking into a snow globe but you were always on the outside of it.  With this one I wanted you to feel like you could get inside of it a bit more.”

• Jonathan Meiburg, 2012.

I was blown away.  Quite unconsciously, I’d had exactly the intended reaction.  “This guy knows what he’s doing,” I said to myself.  To realize artistic intent in such a precise fashion requires an enormous amount of skill; brilliance, really.  Suddenly, I wasn’t just casually interested.  Academic curiosity (read: obsession) had kicked in.
I found a lot of material out there, but to my surprise, there was no fan site which pulled it all together.  Shearwater is a project of such depth, complexity and technical acumen…surely it deserved study?  Add this to my growing conviction that it was an important band…innovative, critically well-received.  Everyone I’ve ever exposed to Shearwater has loved it.  My gut says that a decade from now (provided that the “music industry” doesn’t consist completely of androids performing ditties written by AIs, which is frighteningly plausible given the current direction of pop music), the biggest artists will be putting Shearwater on their “greatest musical influences” lists.  Yes, this is a group crying out for extensive documentation.

A friend of mine is always saying, “If there’s a need, you’ve got a job.”

You know, that kind of thinking is dangerous :)