Preview
MATT MAYS and MATTHEW BARBER
Saturday, March 27
Liberty Lounge
Twenty years from now, the bounty of singer songwriters named Sarah and Matthew will be replaced by a new generation of recording artists armed with acoustic guitars and sensitive lyrics – only they’ll go by Emma and Jacob. I blame Friends and the Wallflowers. Why else would the Christian names of Rachel’s daughter and Bob’s son appear on more freshly printed North American birth certificates than any other handle in 2003?
For now we still have to deal with the McLachlan, Slean, Harmer, Good, Sweet and Dave epidemic. There was a time when I outright refused to write about Hebrew princesses, Matts, Matthew or the dreaded Matthews. I took a serious cut in pay because of it. But I recently came out of semi-retirement to talk to two rising stars in Canadian music.
Ladies and gentlemen meet Matt Mays and Matthew Barber.
The former is a college dropout who’s got the industry fooled into thinking he’s the boy next door in alt-country. Every day he awakes to a new award nomination announcement. The latter is a honour-roll scholar who’s trying to cultivate an outlaw image for himself. However, he was recently exposed for the con artist that he is by our expert research department. (In reality, I Googled the bastard’s name and it came up empty).
"Well it’s not as exaggerated… or, um, as completely fabricated like it is on my website," says the Toronto-based Barber about his bio that claims he spent serious time in the slammer. "It was like the third bio I had written for myself over the last couple of years and I was just getting tired of writing. It’s hard to make it sound interesting without being boring. So I made that up."
Busted.
Meanwhile Mays, winner of the 2003 Rising Star Galaxie award and nominee for the 2004 East Coast Music Awards, came clean about his criminal past. Still, he tries to play it down.
"I’ve gotten into a bit of trouble here and there," says Mays, who makes Halifax his home base. "We thought we’d steal a couple of cars and take them for a joyride. We got busted but we ended up getting away from the cops. And one time out in Victoria, we stole a boat from a yacht club in the middle of the night. That was fun too."
Fun, huh? Well, I wonder what the members of the Galaxie judging committee would have to say about that. Say goodbye to your McCain’s endorsement, pretty boy. His post-secondary education track record is no better. To wit: "I went to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for about a semester and then I quit after that just coz music started taking over and that was the end of ’er."
But that’s not all. Guess who’s paying for his mistakes? That’s right: You and me. As part of his Galaxie award, which is partnered with CBC’s Continuous Music Network, the 23-year-old former member of the Guthries received $3,000 toward recording his self-titled debut solo album. Yet, he makes no apologies for using taxpayers’ money.
"Music’s one of those things that everybody needs," says Mays without a hint of remorse. "I think that a lot of people would rather see their tax dollars go to someone who’s gonna be working their asses off trying to make people happy rather than a bunch of construction workers standing around watching one guy by the side of the road."
Oh, he’s good isn’t he? An answer for everything.
Barber, on the other hand, has decided to atone for sins by fully disclosing the extent of his squeaky clean past.
"I got a masters in philosophy and a B.A. honours in philosophy as well." OK, what else? "Um the first all-star team goalie at the Ontario Peewee AA hockey championship," admits Barber who makes a point of saying that he never uses the abbreviated version of Matthew. Obviously, he wants to distance himself from that delinquent with a Jeff Tweedy-indebted voice.
Since Mays and Barber are about to embark on a cross-country tour together, they better find some common ground. But where? Maybe, just maybe in their artistry?
"I think we both do kind of old fashiony kind of music," says Barber. "Although I think that maybe he sticks to that even more than I do. He’s got a lot of the traditional country music instruments and elements to it. Whereas I think my recent EP, (The Story of Your Life), hops around a few genres a bit more than his does."
True enough, but on stage Mays is a tad less Wilco and a smidgen more Stones and vice versa for Barber.
"Our live show has a little more of a ’70s rock sort of thing and a little more wanky guitar vibe whereas his is a little more pleasant to the ear," says Mays of Barber.
So will these two polar opposites get along on the road? According to Mays, they will: "I haven’t met a Matt that I didn’t like." |
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