Recording a folk-rock record last January over six days in a makeshift studio -- the dining room of a cabin in Falcon Lake, Man. -- sounds adventurous, if not exactly glamorous. Especially when the temperature plummeted below -40C.
But for cold-weather vets like Ottawa singer-songwriter Jim Bryson and Winnipeg group The Weakerthans, it was just another winter experience to check off their list.
Heck, they even ventured outdoors for nightly campfires, and some went cross-country skiing.
"It was a challenge, that's for sure," said Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson, at Bryson's side during a recent lunch at a Toronto diner.
"But it was a good challenge. Recording is always a challenge for your brain, and having this other real physical challenge gave it a nice kind of balance, I think."
Added Bryson: "And I think also being somewhere where you transport yourself to record often has a positive influence on people, 'cause there's nowhere to go ... The clock is kind of thrown out as well. Like, we tracked some songs at 2:30 in the morning. We would just start recording when people were ready to go, and other people would make food. And I had to take out some guitar because the (food) chopping (downstairs) was so loud."
The end result is The Falcon Lake Incident, Bryson's fourth studio album and his first with The Weakerthans as his backing band. Together they begin a cross-country clubs tour that starts Wednesday in Barrie, Ont., and wraps up in March.
"It's kind of fun for John, 'cause he gets to be the side guy, which I love doing with other people 'cause you really do get to put on a different outlook," said Bryson, who has been a frequent player for other artists, including Kathleen Edwards.
"'Cause you have a different responsibility with the show and the band. It's really good for your brain because it's a nice way to avoid megalomania and things like that. I remember an unnamed singer telling me, 'It's a really good thing you have 'cause you get to check out from this, and we never do. We always have to be pushing this and you get to go on tour with people and not have to think about it.'"
Bryson's history with The Weakerthans goes back to meeting drummer Jason Tait when he was still in the pre-Weakerthans band Red Fisher in the '90s, before getting to know the rest of the band as time wore on.
Several decades later, when Bryson was in Winnipeg having lunch with Weakerthans guitarist Stephen Carroll, he came up with the idea of having them play on a couple of songs on his new record.
"(Steve) said, 'There's this Manitoba Film and Music program for visiting artists, and you could be a visiting artist and come here and make a record.' And we just applied for it and got it, and then the wheels were in motion. I mean, it was sort of a casual conversation and it was Jason's idea not to record in the city. He's like, 'We should get out of town. I want to be able to ice fish or whatever.' He's like, 'I spend all my life in the city going to studios. This is going to be something that's special. It shouldn't be made the way that we make records regularly.'"
Bryson, Weakerthans meet in the middle
Jim Bryson's new album The Falcon Lake Incident, featuring Winnipeg band The Weakerhans, is named after the famous 1967 UFO sighting by mineral explorer Stefan Michalak -- the same Manitoba area where the disc was recorded in a cabin over six nights last January.
But it also has bigger meaning for the artists.
"Falcon Lake is right where the Canadian Shield begins," said Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson, "so for a prairie kid you can drive a couple of hours and then suddenly you are in this other world. But it's kind of Ontario, so you're in that kind of liminal spot between Manitoba and Ontario, between the prairies and The Shield.
"Jim's from Ottawa, we're from Winnipeg, so we found an ideal location."
And while no one had any alien encounters while making the record, there were definitely drive-bys featuring the local wildlife.
"We had tame deer," Bryson said. "It was almost like they were becoming lap cats."
Added Samson: "They came right up to the door while we were playing. There were these two deer especially, one older and one younger. The deer were pretty otherworldly in a way, when they're standing out there in minus-40 weather with their bizarre giant eyes."
Canadian tour dates for Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans:
02/02/11 - Barrie, ON The Mansion
02/03/11 - Waterloo, ON - Starlight Room
02/04/11 - Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace
02/05/11 - GUELPH, ON - Hillside Inside
02/07/11 - Hamilton, ON - The Casbah
02/08/11 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
02/09/11 - Peterborough, ON - The Legendary Red Dog
02/10/11 - Montreal, QC - Le Cabaret du Mile End
02/11/11 - Ottawa, ON - Capital Music Hall
02/25/11 - Nelson, BC - The Royal
02/26/11 - Vancouver, BC - The Biltmore Cabaret
02/27/11 - Victoria, BC - Sugar Nightclub
03/01/11 - Edmonton, AB - Myer Horowitz Theatre
03/02/11 - Canmore, AB - Communitea Cafe
03/03/11 - Calgary, AB - The Gateway Bar (SAIT Campus)
03/04/11 - Saskatoon, SK - Amigo's
03/05/11 - WINNIPEG, MB - West End Cultural Centre
03/06/11 - FALCON LAKE, MB - Falcon Ridge Ski Chalet / Falcon Trail Resort
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