Merle Knurling and The Silent K

A Date With the Governor General.

2010-04-15T20:29:00.003-04:00

There is a new Merle record out. It took a while but it is out NOW. Finally! Cool, eh? A bunch of us are celebrating this Saturday the 17th over yonder at The Clocktower Brew Pub. You should come too! Merle is kicking off the show with a very small version of The Silent K. Thank you Jason. And then The Muffin Tops will make the scene and dance and shake like nobodies business. Remi Royale was one of the first acts that my old combo The Knurlings ever played with back in the days of The Cave over near Bank and Sparks. Back when Remi had a huge frigging disco band. He used to strip down to his undies then. Not much has changed in all these years. The band has gotten smaller but the ego remains the same. You know? B. A. Johnston is headlining the bill. This lad plays the Capital once or maybe twice each year. We are lucky that he doesn't want to stay in one place for very long. B.A.s stage show is not to be missed and has yet to be topped. So my advice is for you to get there early. The show is gonna be a sell-out, no doubt. There will be records and beer for sale. We would love to see you!

The Clocktower Brew Pub
575 Bank Street.
Saturday April 17th
$8 - 9:30 PM start

Radio Radio!

2009-11-02T19:23:00.002-05:00

Merle Knurling live on the radio! Indeed. This Friday evening Merle will be performing on Crimes Against Music on CKCU FM 93.1 as part of their annual funding drive. Host Bill Guerrero has a lovely little show and is offering Merle airtime and also a ride to the station. Hooray!

This should be an acoustic performance and perhaps a song from the upcoming record will be played. Tune in and find out! CKCU is found at 93.1 FM and on the web at www.ckcufm.com.

One take wonders.

2009-05-06T22:57:00.008-04:00

Good news! Merle made a new record. A bus drove pals and me to Montreal. Shane and Krista warmly welcomed us into their boss recording studio. Six songs in as many hours were recorded. A course record, they say. Everyone was involved. Shane tracked and guided and the rest of us played instruments and sang. Sometimes into a cake pan, sometimes into some duct work. Cheers to the latest incarnation of The Silent K. Thank you Jason, Jessamy, Krista and Lucil. Wonderful musical pals all.

The working title of our little record is A Date With The Governor General. There is some funny stuff happening in music these days, you can bet! Watch this space for more details and send me your mailing address so we can put a record in the post for you. Okay?

It's Krista and Shane.

Long time coming.

2009-04-20T22:16:00.003-04:00

This is ridiculous. Merle has been spotted around town. Two shows in the last 40 days, some new songs and a new band. Call that The Silent K v3.0. Pal Jason is on the traps this time around. Cheers, brother.

Last Saturday's show with Cold Coffee and Salty Boots and Krista Muir was fab. A new song was given a debut and folks laughed and half-danced and sang along. Looking into doing some recording very soon. In Montreal no less. So all is not lost. This Merle thing never goes away. Sometimes it just forgets to mind the gaps. See you in the funny papers.

Oh my. A year now?

2007-07-11T19:24:00.000-04:00

Exacty a year, it seems. I have been away from the Merle Show for a while. For too long? Depends on who you ask. I've been playing the sideman in other folks bands, hanging out at The Carleton Tavern, watching baseball out at the yard. But still writing, always writing songs yet filing them away, not performing them for you to listen to while staring, confused and with jaws open, 'tsk'ing or shaking your heads. Shaking them in dismay perhaps, not necessarily in time to the music. Such is my musical career as it were.

Today I bought a microphone. A little mic for my tiny black mini-disc recorder. Perfect for making demos or recording this one man act. I was hoping to use it to capture practice sessions of our various bands but all of these bands have fizzled out of late. Boo. So hopefully I will be returning to the basement, finishing songs, booking shows. For now I will do this when my Lynx are on the road and hopefully, come Labour Day, at a more regular pace.

Enjoy this summer. Watch this space for more Merle details. I will not make promises about future performances but with some effort and gumption on my part, perhaps we can once again get this act back into shape. And then we can all have a hearty laugh about beating the shit out of baby giraffes. Together. You and I.

Meet Paul.

2006-07-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

I picked this old boy up at Songbird a while back. A nifty little tube amp that is suitcase size. This means that Merle can tour on a bus. Or in taxi. Or with a shopping cart, leaving, as a bonus, extra room for a cooler. Good news!

"Paul" came with a replacement speaker and extra tubes. Oh boy. It sounds really fine, like an old warm crackling radio. It will be useless if I play with a drummer or other loud musicians but will be way cool for solo shows and recording.

Since it has no reverb I have hooked up an old Univox reverb unit which, handily, fits in my back-pack. So let me know if you want Merle to play your next party. I have a bus pass and if you draw me a map and keep me in whiskey, I can turn your next shindig into something to remember. Even if I forget about what happens.

Looking forward to the next show and hopefully will begin recording soon. In the meantime, please check out my brand new MySpace thing. There are some songs and photos and we promise more fun to come. Bye bye for now. Check out the MerleSpace.

MerleSpace

2006-07-12T06:48:00.000-04:00

www.myspace.com/merlek

Rock, rock on!

Guerilla Rock Tactics.

2006-03-17T22:49:00.000-05:00

The House of Merle went up in smoke last month. Yet the show must go on. So here is Merle in the basement of a record store performing for a less than receptive crowd just a few days after all the flaming burning chaos. Zing! Seems it all went right over everyone's head. Whatever! Mental note: try to avoid playing to a sober indie rock crowd.

There was some laughter, mind you. Merle brought some of his Comeau gang and then the Sproull brothers showed up. The gags were not lost on some folks. There were a couple of pretty ladies in the back who seemed to be enjoying themselves, laughing in all the right spots and having a good time. And then they left. All of a sudden. Someone said to me, "I think you had 'em until you started singing that bit about screwing the pig in the shed." Sigh. So it goes.

It sure was cool of Rolf and his cohorts to set up this benefit concert. I was happy to play my songs. It seems, however, that this Merlerocking flies much better in a bar. Or at a house party, say. Why not invite Merle to your next house party? It can be exactly as quiet or as loud as required. And it will be stupid and funny. So long as we are all taking sips from the same bottle.

There are no upcoming Merle parties on the horizon. Let us please remedy this situation. I will leave it up to you. Merle is for hire. Good rates! A bottle of Ouzo and a shot glass. Please.

Thank you to Andrew Carver for following all the rock acts around town and documenting their antics so excellently. View AC's photos at his weblog. It is called National Capital Rock. And yes, it rocks. Yeah hup!

We are thinking about making a record one of these days. It is about time. Watch this space for more details. Thank you for reading this far. Take the care.

Two cool things.

2006-02-19T23:42:00.000-05:00

The weather and an ice cream cone. Ha ha. Some weather and an ice cream cone walk into a bar. And the priest says...

Listen to Merle this week, won't you? The week has been hectic already but I will not get into details at this point except to say that when my house burned down on Friday nobody was hurt very badly. Not even a cat. Not even a pig named Fred. Hardly even a Seeds or Yardbirds record. All are safe. All is working itself out.

Merle will be on the friggin' radio on Tuesday. That's like a day from now. Give or take. Tune in to CKCU FM Tuesday morning. Maybe at 9 or 10, say? Sounds good. Miss Marie-Josee will be allowing ol' Merle to ramble on with Casey's guitar. His actual guitar was recently smoked out in the blaze.

And then on Friday Merle will be banging it out in a short set of songs at the Avant Garde Bar on Besserer Street. Music starts at 9. Flecton is playing. Many others as well. It is a benefit concert for to buy the bar a PA system. It is a benefit for me to be there drinking Baltica beer and gazing upon the very pretty ladies who make up the waitstaff. Everyone benefits.

Check out the Merle. Listen to the radio. Gaze upon the pretty ladies. And above all, please drink Baltica beer. Or some damn thing. I forget what everything else is.

Oh... also, Andrew Carver took photographs of that Merle a couple weeks ago at ye olde Dominion Tavern. I'll post 'em here once I salvage my hard-drive from the dusty dripping frozen damage that is my apartment.

Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb, you dig?

Onward and downward.

2006-01-27T18:16:00.000-05:00

Well heck, thank you all for sitting down and not leaving when Merle did an impromptu opening act last weekend before The Glads and The Maynards hit the stage. You all laughed at the right spots and, well, again I thank you for being so very patient with me. Having spent so much time playing in live loud rock bands it is sometimes difficult to settle in and perform with just Judy (my sparkly cool cheap-as-free guitar) and my amplifier. Practices were trying. Getting the dynamics right while trying to hold peoples attention can be a slippery slope. Your enthusiasm during the show and post gig back-slapping was much appreciated.

Let us enjoy some more mad Merle antics shall we? Come down to The Dumb Minion Tavern tomorrow night, Saturday the 28th. Let's went! I have mixed up the set list a bit so as to keep those who were at last weeks shindig guessing as it were. I received a few "Why didn't you play (insert title here)?" comments. Okay. Duly noted. If you made a request while slapping my back you can sure as shootin' expect to hear (insert title here). Okay? Yeah. See the previous post for a gig flier and more details. Please remember that if you wish to send shooters up to the stage I will state that Ouzo or, in a pinch, Sambuca makes silly solo acts more lyrically limber when I consume it. Makes me more ridiculously hilarious when you consume it.

It is fun to play these songs by myself. It is so much more fun when you are there, laughing and participating and sending shooters up to the stage. I like you all for these reasons and more. Yeep!

Play a show already why don'tcha?

2006-01-18T18:02:00.000-05:00

Merle will play a show. Next week even. Maybe sooner also. For definite sure you can watch and listen to Merle Knurling and The Silent K on Saturday January 28th at The Dominion Tavern located at 33 York Street here in Ottawa, Canada. Merle will be the first act of a three act bill. His good pal Mississippi Grover will follow. If you are not familiar with Grover's show we will recommend that he is Not To Be Missed. Okay. The whole evening is in celebration of a new long player by Four'N'Giv'R entitled Psychle.

Merle's regular drummer, John Thomas, will sadly be absent from the festivities. JT is off to Las Vegas and I suppose that that is as good an excuse as any. Expect extra reverb as Merle tries to fill the gaps on his own. There is a rumour that Merle may show up to open up a show this coming Saturday the 21st over at Irene's Pub on bank street.

Some songs are being recorded on my little mini-disc device. Demo quality mostly but in digital format so hopefully I will be able to post some Merle music soon. Watch this space for details. Okay. It is slippery out there. Stay on your feet.

Painfully deep.

2005-12-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

I have very old strings on my acoustic guitar. For the most part it hangs on my wall between two cheap crappy electric guitars but I take it down from time to time and dust off certain areas of the fretboard and around the bridge while I strum and write my songs, all out of tune. And then I hang it up again where it decorates my flat and sometimes even impresses the ladies who visit, the kind who are impressed by dusty guitars that hang on the wall of bachelor apartments. I have a fresh pack of strings with which I hope to restring my first guitar ever. I am thinking of playing Merle songs at parties hopefully soon. I have a half dozen songs that would sound cool with just an acoustic guitar, without a punk rock drummer. The thing is, it hurts like a sonofabitch to play acoustic guitar. My arm, which I broke in the summer, is fine for wrapping around my slim electric guitars but my first guitar ever is deeper. I have to hold my arm out an extra couple of inches. My shoulder says "Ouch, man." With time I hope to condition my shoulder to not say "Ouch" so much. With time I hope to bring my acoustic guitar to your party and play it without grimacing. So for now I will attempt to transpose my silly songs for ukelele which is fun to play and easy to tote to your party but tricky for my chubby fingertips. Stupid shoulder injury, you should be healed by now. Physiotherapists did not take into consideration my acoustic guitar. Looks like it's Don Ho covers for the next little while.

All about the Merle.

2005-12-18T17:31:00.000-05:00

I figured it was time to start one of these things for my weirdo-pop rock and roll project known as Merle Knurling and The Silent K. Merle has been around for years now, playing solo shows, forming and disbanding combos, and, recently, teaming up with a drummer to bring an element of rock volume to the local pubs and beerhalls. The Merle Knurling show is ridiculous and hopefully hilarious. It is as much fun to write these stupid tunes as it is to play them. It is an on again/off again project but Merle is always fun to fall back on. It looks like some shows will be happening in the new year. Hopefully this web log thing will keep active. Come out and see some idiotic Merle Knurling action whenever you get the chance. Be real cool to see you.