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While I’ve often been heard to be complaining about the infrequency that the boys release albums (three in eight years) or perform live, the truth of the matter is that besides the band, the members are very involved in the local music community. Arturo Brisindi runs “The Gallery Recording Studio” while Jose Palacios is a DJ of some local renown. Both Tom Herbert and Jason Redmond have full time careers as well as their MDVY commitments. I’ve often suspected that the only limitation to their accession amongst Canada’s best is themselves. If I’ve learned anything from my time meeting, talking and writing about people in this business it’s that there is either a fear factor or some sort of commitment issue, that is, to give all of ones self to an attempt at success. Sadly though, the success must be predicated upon some level of financial security as well, which can lead to compromising ones artistic integrity.

So is MDVY just a hobby then? Not according to Jose, “It's more than a hobby for us. We work on music whenever we have free time and are extremely passionate about what we decide to let people hear. Also, I think everyone in the band has some sort of project with music going on whether it's writing music, recording other bands or DJ'ing. I think that's why we've managed to keep this band for so long because we take a break from working on My Dad's stuff. It can get pretty intense.” They take their craft seriously and work hard at it, so much so that they allow for few distractions. When I asked why they’d never taken part in The Big Money Shot, I was met with some uncertainty as to what it was exactly. Enough was known to realize it was a Battle of the Bands type event, and this had no appeal to the band whatsoever. Art should not have winners or losers. As such it never occurred to me while writing this piece that I should “review” “Little Symphonies”. It’s never been my goal to sit in judgment of the artistic results of other people’s work (except for Nickleback, but that’s because there’s nothing artistic about it). I suppose in my mind, the fact that I’ve committed the time and energy to write this should speak sufficiently as to how I feel about the band and by extension the album. In some ways, I owe the fact that we have Lysten to Jose, Arturo and the guys. That first show made me sit up and notice something about the city I lived in and the artists around me. I pursued it (slowly), got to share it with others and here we are.

I was curious as to where My Dad originated, and the story was about as grassroots as it gets. In fact, you could almost call it a feel good cliché. Arturo, Phil (original bassist) and Jose were in a band with another high school friend who sang. When said vocalist left in order to focus on engineering, the band moved into a hiatus. For the next few months Jose worked on chord progressions and guitar riffs and managed to build the majority of the backbone for the first EP. Tom Herbert joined shortly after and the whole band worked on ideas until “we made each other crazy.” A decision was made to release it (the EP) and then “we became more focused on working as a band and learning how to release music ourselves.”  This actually raised a really interesting point, in that the band never intentionally set out to be a strictly “instrumental” concept. What changed and led them down this path? It’s best to again allow Jose to explain this, along with a segue into a very interesting point of view on “the band” ethos:

“We have always been so focused on writing music and I love vocals but I view them as an instrument. Not everyone has a great voice (and sometimes a not so great voice works) but we never really met anyone who could fit into what we were doing and we didn't want to compromise the music just for the sake of having a vocal guiding it. If you view vocals as just another instrument then if it's not working you leave that track down in the mix just as you would with a shitty guitar take or an instrument that didn't work. We just never bothered to find a singer after that.

Also, the way music is marketed, the vocalist always gets pegged as a leader and we've always hated the idea of anyone in the band being a leader / front man. It's a really dated concept and that's what we were trying to avoid in our stubborn early 20s. We were trying to make the band as equal as possible and it's worked so far. We all share equal writing credits and we each contribute something to the promotion of the music / band administrative tasks. I'm not entirely sure why most bands don't work that way.

The other funny little fact is that there are vocals on the new record but we didn't want to make a big deal about it. Jay (bassist) recorded some harmonies in the choruses of "Born Upward (Time Flies)" to compliment the mellotron that's there. If you listen carefully, you can hear him trail off as the chorus ends and the acoustic & noise guitars come in for the outro.”

Saturday February 12^th will see My Dad VS Yours officially release “Little Symphonies”, their second full length album (following the EP “Winning Hearts and Minds and the brilliant LP “After Winter Must Come Spring”). The party will be held at Mavericks (221 Rideau Street) with doors opening at 8pm.

www.mydadvsyours.ca

www.myspace.com/mydadvsyours

I’ve gotten into the habit of asking people what their feelings are towards being in Ottawa in relation to furthering their artistic ambitions. I certainly have received a consistent answer from everyone I’ve spoken to. Jose just happened to sum it up more succinctly; “Ottawa, should I stay or should I go?” He follows up by adding “it's been over 10 years since I started playing in a band and my ideas of growing and becoming successful in music have changed. Especially now, when the music industry is running around with its head cut off. I can't speak for the rest of the band but I mainly try and concentrate on trying to write good music. I've come to terms with the fact that either people will like it or they won't. Or they'll like it in 20 years.” It doesn’t matter where you live or work. Do what you can, the best that you can and those that matter will recognize its excellence. I like it.