Julie McLaughlin

Local musical ‘wrecking crew’ destroys lo-fi limits

When Calgary bluesman John Rutherford went into the studio to record his debut solo album, he had almost everything he needed. Armed with his latest batch of songs and with the able ears of local producer Lorrie Matheson, the only thing that was missing was a backing band. Luckily, in addition to being a producer, Matheson is also a problem solver.

“Lorrie brought the rhythm section in,” says Rutherford. “He said, ‘Stop right there. If you would trust me with this one, I’ve got the perfect rhythm section for you and I work with them on most of my records, and they’re really brilliant and they can find their way on anything.”

Rutherford took the advice and in the process of recording was blown away by the band’s talent. “I called it his wrecking crew,” he says, to which Matheson responds, “I think we have a long ways to go before we can be considered a wrecking crew

Still, the comparison to the legendary group of L.A. session players who appeared on Phil Spector and Brian Wilson’s best records isn’t without cause. Of late, Matheson has amassed an impressive band of local musicians, and together they have clocked weeks in the studio. Percussionist Chris Dadge (Bent Spoon Ensemble), multi-instrumentalist Scott Munro (also of Bent Spoon fame), singer-songwriter Jay Crocker, keyboard player Steve Fletcher (Recipe From a Small Planet) and guitarist Brooker Buckingham (Fake Cops) have become Matheson’s secret weapon.

“One of my problems with low-budget locally produced records — not just here, but everywhere — is the ‘that’s-good-enough’ syndrome,” says Matheson. “You get all these people who can’t play and they’re going, ‘That’s good enough, so we’ll just put it out like that,’ and then they wonder why their records don’t get played.”

“What we’re doing is trying to make a piece of art, so why settle for subpar tools when you can have the best tools available?”

With that in mind, Matheson decided that if he was going to work on a project, he was going to have veto power over who got to play. It didn’t take long to build his “wrecking crew.” After recording the Bent Spoon Ensemble, Matheson brought Dadge and Munro in to back Crocker on his solo album in 2005. In the years that followed, they recorded with Ghostkeeper, Lonnie James and Matheson himself, and in every instance, they were a perfect fit.

“They aren’t just good in that they can play a million notes,” says Matheson. “They’re really good because they can play music of all sorts and they listen to the songs. They understand what the esthetic is that you are going for, no matter what that esthetic is.”

Dadge says there is an element of craft as well as artistry. “I don’t mind doing something that I wouldn’t normally do if it was just my project,” he adds.

The craft and artistry certainly help with Matheson’s quest for high-fidelity quality control, but it didn’t take long for these musicians to realize they were serving a separate and highly practical function, too.

“Most people don’t have a very clear idea of what they want [in the studio],” says Dadge. “The vast majority of the time, the people who are in the artist chair, the people who are being produced or recorded, are the provider of the raw material and the rest of it comes from the rest of us shaping it out.”

As Matheson’s reputation as a producer grows, he has more and more opportunities to put “the guys,” as he calls them, to work. In addition their own bands, they just finished work on Rae Spoon’s second full-length, which is due to drop in August. With new projects from upstart singer-songwriter Samantha Savage-Smith and session work with pop artist Sarah Vann, 2010 is looking to be their busiest year to date. And their working relationship only seems to be getting better.

“A lot of choices are pretty clear and intuitive when we work together, so we don’t have to spend a lot of time hashing things out or discussing concepts,” says Dadge. “And we all have a fairly consistent level of quality that we expect from each other. It keeps us on our toes. We can’t really phone anything in when we are working with each other.”

Adds Matheson: “I couldn’t get the stuff in my head out if I didn’t have those guys to communicate with. They are fans of music and they want to make music and sometimes it doesn’t matter what kind of music it is, if it’s played well.”