Please give my band a gig
Graffitti at The Night Gallery leads reporter to a night with Wolves & Children
It all began with a phone number carved into one of the tables at The Night Gallery and a desperate "give my band a gig" scrawled above it. It was during a show in January, when I just happened to be seated at the strategically marred table. Curious as to what band would resort to graffiti pleas, I hauled out my cellphone and dialed the number.
On the other end of the line was Scott Burman, entirely surprised to say the least. Unbeknownst to Scott, his friend Sean had engraved the number on the table as a joke. Well, a half-hearted joke resulting from exasperated attempts to get gigs around town. Apparently, venues weren't chomping at the bit to book his unorthodox hybrid of avant-garde, ambient and experimental music. If Scott was lucky enough to land a gig, he'd be rudely shut down mid-set – or worse, mid-song. The experience was a very painful blow for any misunderstood artist to incur.
Now, at 25, Scott has been making music for a solid decade, with the exception of a sudden two-year hiatus. After an intense spell of recording, playing live in more appreciative art spaces (under the name Relic), he finally captured a record deal with an American label and then promptly withdrew from music altogether.
"I stopped completely," he says matter-of-factly. "I had a little record deal going with a label out of New York called Menlo Park – they released stuff by Loren MazzaCane Connors and Keiji Haino and people like that. They wanted me to change the name ’cause I guess there was a Grateful Dead cover band called Relic. So, I changed the name, kept on doing it for a bit, and then I just stopped altogether. I wasn't really interested in it anymore. I was almost kind of uncomfortable with it. I stopped playing live altogether. I cut off contacts with the label and I didn't really send any of it. I just left it alone."
He shyly laughs when I call him a tempestuous artist. Fact is, Scott was hugely disappointed with the way his music was neglected in Calgary. At the same time, nothing was sonically stimulating his brain and he, admittedly, became a cynic. He was frustrated with the industry trend – adopted even by cool indie heroes – of relying "less on natural talents and more and more on Pro Tools." At age 22, he burned out.
However, his apathy quickly washed away when he began playing in a conventional rock band. Today, he feels immensely rejuvenated by the more structuralized world of rock. His brain has been whirring all year long with the new sounds of his project, renamed Wolves & Children. When friends question his jump from noise to rock, he cites another artist who jumped between rock and noise to the bewilderment of others – Lou Reed. Take Reed's masterpiece-slash-ha-ha-on-you-opus, Metal Machine Music, for example.
"It was just an album of pure noise, like, guitar noise. It kind of freaked the crap out of everybody and almost ruined his career, really. It's pretty intense. He was a songwriter and he was into rock and roll and all of a sudden he put out this weird album that was just guitar noise. I kind of feel like maybe what I'm doing is a bit like that almost.
"It doesn't sound anything like Lou Reed," he quickly clarifies. "But, yeah, it's more influenced by rock and roll. It's like rock and roll, but distilled down to its common denominator. It's pure emotion."
With a twinkle of excitement in his eyes, Scott looks as though he has completely recharged his batteries thanks to aural treasures from the musty dusty past. Chalk it up to one more artist who has decided that music was far more interesting long before the MegaSound 8000 was plugged in at recording studios.
For more information on Wolves & Children e-mail Scott at scottburman@hotmail.com. Huge thanks go out to The Science Centre for its supremely cool exhibits and the friendly and accommodating staff who facilitated our photo shoot. |
