Brian Byrne – January/February 2005
Who: Brian Byrne
What: country cool
Where: Toronto, ON
To Contact: The Management Trust, 411 Queen St. W., 3rd Fl., Toronto, ON M5V 2A5 (416) 979-7070, FAX (416) 979-0505.
Tuesdays, Thursdays And If It Rains marks Brian Byrne’s first solo venture and it’s a surprising departure from his last gig – fronting hard rock band I Mother Earth. He’s gone cool country and that has little to do with his sleeve tattoos or lack of cowboy hat. It’s the instrumentation – mandolin, dobro, lapsteel, Hammond B3 and drums played, mostly brushes – and the fact that his lyrical stories are touching, funny, and charming, filled with foibles. In I Mother Earth, Byrne never wrote his own lyrics so the fact he does this so well is remarkable. His are filled with love, whether it be for his wife (“Jen’s Song”, “Sweet Love” – two of the best cuts), his grandparents (“Century Old”), or his local pub (“Tuesdays, Thursdays And If It Rains”). Byrne wrote all the tracks, co-producing with engineer Peter Hamilton at his Wreck Chord Factory in Toronto. Byrne plays acoustic guitar, and enlists a band that includes David Usher playmates Kevin Young (keyboards) and Gerry Finn (electric guitar, banjo). Damhnait Doyle sings backup on five tracks. The album is due in 2005.
