Booking Agent: Rob Zifarelli The Agency Group
www.theagencygroup.com 416-368-5599 ext. 245 2 Berkeley Street, Suite 202 Toronto, ON. M5A 4J5
On Steel City Trawler, Luke Doucet turns to classic themes of place, love and the existential labyrinths of human understanding. With a tendency for total candor in both the personal and political, Luke navigates everyday life with finely honed senses of irony and skepticism. On Steel City Trawler, this signature grain-of-salt-seasoned songwriting comes to the fore. Mixed with atmospheric rock ballads, Manchester-esque melancholy, tender revelations and even more tender accusations, from start to finish the album is Luke's idea of a rock and roll record, pure and simple.
With first-time producer Andrew Scott (Sloan) at the helm, Steel City Trawler emerges as a cleverly assembled balance of Luke's courageously straightforward assessments with the essential components of classic rock and roll. Luke's observation-driven commentaries are found in songs such as "Thinking People", an homage to blue collars, "The Ballad of Ian Curtis," an examination of suicide and creative legacy, and "Dusted", which takes direct aim at metaphysical answers to earth-bound questions. Not one to rest on his guitar playing laurels, Steel City Trawler is as much about the song as the strum.
Hamiltonm ON's own Harvey Pekar, David Collier, brings a Being John Malkovich style approach to Luke's biography, with a kind of "inhabitation" of Luke's world and experience. Alternately free from irony and at the same time somehow tongue-in-cheek, Collier's work is an original comic book interpretation of lyrics from the new songs, HamiltonΥs geography and history, as well as Luke's own life, past and present.
A new behind-the-scenes video offers insight into the record, from Luke's take on why Hamilton is such an attractive place to settle (hint: it has everything to do with Winnipeg), interviews with Andrew Scott and David Collier, and intimate acoustic snippets of songs. Hear Some of You Folks, which Luke describes as an experiment in "shared uncomfortable intimacy," Hey Now, which tells a story of unease with announcing one's intentions to the world, and Magpie, a post Elliot Smith acoustic ballad a la Dust in the Wind, a song that lets the sounds of a city in to create a sense of solid ground in its otherwise atmospheric feel.
Aloha, Manitoba (2001)
Outlaws (Live & Unreleased) (2004)
Broken (and other rogue states) (2005)
Blood's Too Rich (2008)
"Luke Doucet has developed a distinct musical style that effectively transfuses the rootsy styles of the past with emotional stresses of the modern urban lifestyle. Throughout Aloha Manitoba, Doucet mixes various styles: the playful jazz-based Cajun music (via Daniel Lanois), the hybrid sound of Old 97's take on the country rock genre, the urban wit of early Lowest Of The Low and the vocal style of the Jazz Age crooners." - Chart Magazine
"Veal leader Luke Doucet is a songwriter's songwriter, the guy other musicians point to when asked who inspires them to work harder at lyrics or melody rather than leaving well enough alone. So it's no small surprise that Doucet's solo set, Aloha, Manitoba, though stripped down to instrumental basics, puts the premium on rain-soaked vignettes so vivid they're practically 3-D." - Now Magazine
"That guy must be the lost love bastard of kd lang and Tom Waits." - Canadian Press
