Ryan Bourne, formerly of Interstellar Root Cellar, will be joined by Aaron Booth at a RAMP showcase for the young ’uns
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Broken City
Thursday, December 6 - Thursday, December 6
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Influences; they’re around everywhere and inside everything. Whether worn blatantly on the sleeve or discreetly inserted (like suppositories) deep inside a body of work, all artists have them. Some achieve a level of notability where they can, in turn, influence other artists. And so it goes….
Guitarist, singer and songwriter Ryan Bourne is well-known to Calgary’s indie music community for his tenure with freak-funk-reggae-rock group Interstellar Root Cellar, as well as for his solo work. Peruse Bourne’s MySpace page and you’ll find a long and diverse list of well-assimilated influences, from ’60s rock legends to beat generation authors and classical composers. But the very first name is none other than the Beatles’ favourite American artist (and John Lennon’s favourite drinking buddy), Harry Edward Nilsson III, or just Nilsson. “We played a show in Boston once where someone came up and asked ‘I don’t want to jump to assumptions, but, by any chance is Harry Nilsson one of your influences?’” recalls Bourne. “That’s the only time where anyone’s ever noticed, but I’m just a huge fan.”
Bourne and his brother Darren (also of Interstellar Root Cellar) have been infatuated with Nilsson since a very tender age, thanks to the 1971 children’s album and comic book The Point! “[It’s] a very hip, kind-of-psychedelic kid’s story that has kind of universal themes and adult humour,” Bourne says of the book. “It’s basically a story about prejudice and tolerance and the journey that Oblio, the main character, takes with his dog, Arrow. Oblio’s a boy born with a round head in a land of people with pointed heads. It’s an album that I listened to as a child for hundreds and hundreds of hours. I was just mesmerized by it.”
The Point! seemed like a perfect fit for the children’s song focus of this month’s edition of RAMP, The Summerlad’s monthly showcase of outside-of-the-box music and art. Unfortunately, brother Darren was already committed and could not participate. Fortunately, Calgary’s Aaron Booth was available, enthusiastic and already familiar with the subject matter.
“[Booth] remembers his mom buying it for him as a kid, and spending countless afternoons pouring over the comic book insert, engrossed in the story and songs,” says Bourne. “He rediscovered it as an adult, the same way Darren and I did, [and was] blown away at the connection to childhood and hearing in a way for the first time — with new ears, musically, and in regards to the adult connotations.”
Bourne and Booth share a fair bit of musical history. Their paths first crossed eight years ago and they began jamming immediately. “The day I met Aaron, we just had an impromptu jam above the Ship and Anchor there, and within a couple of hours we had 10 songs. It was magic! I was still in Interstellar. At the time, it was so healing to just have this spontaneous, no-pressure scenario that was just about the enjoyment of playing together.”
The duo’s vision will be fleshed out by keyboardist Steve Fletcher and drummer Jim Johnston, along with narration and projections of the original film project. While it’ll be an event in itself, Bourne also hints that this RAMP show may be the seed of something bigger. “Darren and I have talked for at least 10 years about doing a big theatrical presentation of [The Point!], if we ever had the means,” he says. “So this may be a stepping stone to something like that.”
