n e w s l e t t e r   April 2002



BareNaked Ladies
grace the cover of
OnStage Magazine

VH1's new series, "Guerilla Concerts"

The Barenaked Ladies' concert played Thursday March 21 at 9PM on VH1. In true spontaneous BNL fashion, the band played a surprise show on the streets of Syracuse, NY which VH1 filmed for this new series. Alanis Morissette is also featured. For more information on the series, go to www.VH1.com

Barenaked Ladies at the Olympics

BNL played a set at the Olympics in Salt Lake City on 2/13/02. If you stayed up late and could bear it out through Jay Leno (he was painfully un-funny that night), you were rewarded with a good performance interspersed with other segments. The set included One Week, It's All Been Done, and If I Had $1,000,000. The stage was outside, but the band managed to do well, despite the fact that their fingers must have been frozen. Ed donned a Canadian speed skating uniform, hood and all. They had some really good acts at the Olympics this year, including Goo Goo Dolls, Creed, The Dave Matthews Band, Train and Sheryl Crow.
Was anyone there, who wants to comment on it?
www.nbcolympics.com

All Their Greatest Hits: Disc One

You'll like this. If you're a diehard fan, this is the best collection on one CD, so you can stop lugging around your whole collection when you travel. Fans new to the band can't find a better education than this. You'll feel like you've known them for years. Here are the tracks:

  • The Old Apartment
  • Falling for the First Time
  • Brian Wilson (live version)
  • One Week
  • Be My Yoko Ono (from their *very* early years)
  • Alternative Girlfriend
  • It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)
  • If I Had $1,000,000 (early studio version)
  • Call and Answer
  • Get In Line
  • It's All Been Done
  • Jane
  • Lovers in a Dangerous Time (on Bruce Cockburn tribute album)
  • Pinch Me
  • Shoebox
  • What a Good Boy (live version)
  • Too Little Too Late
  • Enid
  • Thanks That Was Fun
They recorded four new songs for this album and only two of them made it to the CD. (Is this different for anyone else, who might have a Canadian version, or a pre-release or something? I'm curious.) (link to e-mail)

"It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)" was commissioned for the EA Sports videogame NHL 2002. They're all big fans, you know, and they've sung the national anthems (of US and Canada) at many games. Tyler even considered it as a career, along with music.

When writing "Thanks That Was Fun," Ed wanted a song with the word "yearning" in it, a la Sarah McLaughlin. So we get:
I'm yearning
I'm learning
I'm burning all your stuff. But that's not enough.

I've heard that the video for this song is very unusual and, well, creepy.
Anyone want to review it?
Here's what Steve said:
"Ed and I went into the studio, filmed our mouths and superimposed them," says Page. "Most of it's pretty convincing. It's freaky. It's a collage of all our videos as if it were done by the Aphex Twin. It's creepy."

Jim was very involved in the remastering of the songs for the album, and the whole band decided what to include and in what order. You may recall that they took a fan poll to decide between "Alternative Girlfriend" and "Be My Yoko Ono" for the bonus track. It must have been a tie, because both songs appear on the album, and there is no bonus track. (But who needs one? The whole album is a bonus track!) I thought this album was a lot of fun. It's especially nice to hear earlier songs I hadn't before, as a "new" (since Stunt) fan. If you already own everything, you might like this anyway, for the new songs and for Steve's honest and clever liner notes.
www.bnlmusic.com

H-Wing

Kevin did the fun drawings on the greatest hits album, by the way. If you like these and would like to see more, go to www.kevinhearn.com and check out his album H-Wing (with Thin Buckle), which is up for a Juno for cover art. Kevin wrote the songs on the album while in the hospital going through a bone marrow transplant as part of leukemia treatment. (One of the other songs he wrote during this time, "Hidden Sun," appears as the bonus track on Maroon.) Tyler and Jim joined him in the studio to produce the last track of H-Wing, which is quite good. I liked H-Wing tremendously, for its originality, lyricism and humor. However, if you're a fan of the BNL sound, this may not be for you. Kevin is a very different songwriter from Steve and Ed, and his musical sensibilities, though extremely compatible with BareNaked Ladies, tend more towards the experimental and ethereal.

Listen to What the Man Said

Steve and Kevin recently participated in a tribute album called Listen to What the Man Said, with covers of Paul McCartney tunes by Semisonic, They Might Be Giants, The Merrymakers (their cover of "No More Lonely Nights" is pure genius), Matthew Sweet and others. Steve and Kevin teamed up with longtime friend and collaborator Steven Duffy (of The Lilac Time) to do "Junk." This is a more obscure piece, and their thoughtful rendition adds color to the album. And Steve plays drums. Yes, it's true! The album (though it had no women artists on it?!) raised money for breast cancer research.

For more info, see: http://www.etonline.com/music/a6641.htm

Information, Please:

Has anyone heard the Brothers Creeghan's latest album? What do you think of it?

BNL makes regular appearances on Much Music, the premier Canadian music channel (waaay better than any other music channel, for its spontaneous live interviews, non-stop music videos and more) I discovered Much Music airing part-time on public television in Washington, DC, but where can people outside of Canada see this?

BareNaked Quotes:

Ed Robertson, VH1-to-1: "I wrote my wife a song when she was in university, and taped it for her to listen to. I think it meant a lot to her. I think doing anything creative for somebody else is a special gift. I'm sure Keith Flint's special someone was overjoyed upon hearing 'Smack My Bitch Up.' Love is a beautiful thing."

Fun Surfing:

For some good reading, visit: http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicArtistsB/barenaked.html
It's got years of articles all pasted together on one page. So wear comfortable shoes, and pack a lunch -- you'll be there a while.

-Elizabeth
return to crash landed on the net