Just a quick note here — the world lost an extremely talented musician this week with the death of Kittens drummer David Kelly. Despite having been out of the picture for around a decade, Kittens were one of Canada's best noise rock bands and one of my favourites period. The band recently played a reunion in Winnipeg, prompting hopes on the part of more than a few people — i.e. me — that they might be reforming for new material. Alas, that was not to be.

I didn't know David myself, but Raising the Fawn's last Western tour was with Mico, whose bass player at the time was Jahmeel Russell of Kittens. Jahmeel tolerated, heck, maybe even enjoyed, my endless praise of Kittens and even took the stage with us in Vancouver to cover the Kittens' tune "The Waterskiiers". It was one of the bigger thrills of my career with RTF. Even prior to that, we had covered the same song at a Sonic Unyon Xmas party (both our label and Kittens' at one time) and an old band of mine often covered "Carpenter" at practice and gigs.

The influence of Kittens on heavy bands is wide-reaching and continues today — Cursed did a bang up job covering "Hawaii" on an EP last year — but what may not be as immediately apparent is how huge an influence they were on my own songwriting with RTF, esp. on The Maginot Line and The Warmth of your Flame EP. Kittens had a different understanding of heavy — one that embraced minimalism and primitivism that gave them as much in common with a band like Low as more obvious contemporaries like the Jesus Lizard. They were one of a kind and they deserved far more recognition than they ever received in this country or anywhere else for that matter.

If you can find it, Bazooka and the Hustler will change your life and make you believe in a country-punk-metal hybrid that is still without peer.

Our deepest sympathies to everyone in the Kittens extended family.

John

Just wanna say a big thanks to all of the campus DJs who are playing Sleight of Hand. It's doing really nicely--kinda making me sad we aren't out there playing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Also, here's a great write-up on the band from the website Two Way Monologues. Makes us blush.

http://www.twowaymonologues.com/interview.php?interviewId=61

Bye bye bye!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update to talk about what RTF is up to right now. The short answer is: not much. The long answer is: individually we're up to tons of things, it's just that very little of it has to do with Raising the Fawn.

As some of you may know, Dylan and Scott are playing with a great local band called Bellewoods and are presently recording an album. This should be a truly beautiful record, check out their myspace.

As for myself, my wife and I just had our first child, a gorgeous girl named Isla. She is everything I could hope for. Utterly amazing, life-changing and, even at only ten days old, progressing all the time.

In the face of such humbling news, it can't really come as a shock when I say, as we've hinted for a while, RTF ain't likely to tour, soon? Ever again? I don't know, definitely not for a while. So in response to all of the lovely people urging us to come to Colorado, California, Chicago as well as some other places that don't start with C, all we can say is, "Sorry."

The three of us have spent a great part of the last three years touring North America. It has been, like it is for most bands, a mixture of elation, frustration, discovery, banality, rebirth, and utter dismay. We are a band with a small fanbase, but a lovely and loyal one. We would love to play for you all once a year—to engage in that priviledged communion where a small attentive audience honours us with their eyes and ears, and we them with our hearts. But we're poor. And did I mention I've got a baby?

So that's the road. We may have already seen you for the last time, but we thank all of you for being so gracious to us. That shit was fun.

Also, a HUGE thank you to Pete Hall, Jon Drew, Royal Wood, Alex Olsen, and Chris White for playing with us at the Rivoli for our CD release. These fine souls helped us play a two hour show that ran through the entire RTF catalogue, including many rarely played tunes. The entire show was recorded too, so maybe we'll have some video of it soon. What a nice way to say goodbye.

Did I say goodbye?...

At any rate, in next year or so, the three of us will all be making music—whether together or alone. None of us are saying never again, but we do want to be honest with the few of you who do care.

Please enjoy our music and know that we'll miss gracing the stage over the next while.

John

Tomorrow night at the Rivoli in Toronto, we'll be celebrating the release of our new album.

We'll be playing two sets (no opening act) of older songs, and new songs.

We'll also have a little help music-wise from our friends who play in such bands as: Uncut, Do Make Say Think and A Northern Chorus.

We're excited for this show, and we're excited about our record. Hopefully, we'll see you there, we promise it'll be a memorable night.

much love,
rtf

To the faithful and/or curious,

RTF is going to hit the road again briefly in anticipation of our new album, Sleight of Hand. We're opening six shows in Ontario and Quebec (including our first show in Quebec City ever) for a gentleman by the name of Nikola Sarcevic. Mr. Sarcevic is usually the lead singer/bassist for punk stalwarts Millencolin and he's got a second solo album out now. He is from Gotenberg, Sweden where oddly enough I had an excellent tapas meal at a Spanish restaurant while on tour with Social Scene. Figure that one out. Good museum in that town too.

Anyway, that's the news. Should be fun. If you are in any of those towns and interested in seeing us, please try and make an effort. Not to be too dramatic, but I'm not sure when we'll be back. My wife and I are having our first child in August and I don't think there is going to be much on the way of live adventures for us in 2007. Maybe this is our Beatles phase. Poppier album, less touring...

Expect a new song up on our player soon. Hope you are all well and that you like our new album. We do. So there.

Hi everyone,

Our fourth album, Sleight of Hand, is nearly complete and after a whole pile of anxiety, we are happy to report that it sounds really, really good. I mean, extremely good (it's OK to be conceited occassionally after all...) We had a few really simple objectives when we started recording—make the album under forty minutes, record it quickly, and make songs that were more melodic and less meandering—all of which are kind of the same thing when you think about it long enough. And all of which fly in the face of how this band has operated in the past.

Anyway, aside from the fact that the album is actually about 42 minutes long, we accomplished all we set out to do. We're gonna play some shows in June in Ontario and Quebec and then... I'm not sure. Let's say that after a solid year of touring, the road doesn't hold the same lure it once did.

We hope we have the chance to see you soon and play our new songs, but at the very least, we look forward to you hearing our new album.

We think you'll like it.

RTF

Good day,

So we're halfway through recording our new album with Ian Blurton. Things are sounding really fantastic—drums, bass and electric guitars are all tracked (guitars done in day! What the hell!) and today we start with vocals. Everything's moving deceptively fast which kinda unnerves me a little. I think we're all used to things happening very slowly but Ian is doing a great job of keeping things relaxed and casual. Excited about the new sounds on this for us—drum machine, counter-top and radiator bashing, more keys, less electric guitar, etc. Now we just have to do a shitload of vocals, including some of the most layered things we've ever tried by far—two tunes have big a cappela parts, but I know we're up for the challenge. Alex Olsen who sang with us on Maginot Line will be on hand again so the shit's gonna be large. Grrrrr...

Lots of love to all who care,

The Fawn

Hi kids,

Never really done this before (uh, blogging I mean). Just wanted to say that the Fawn will be heading into the studio at the end of February, this time to work with the legendary Ian Blurton. That's right, The Beard and The Fawn together at last. At least that's how we see it. We've got a good group of songs that we're currently refining. The early concensus is that this is going to be a much more gentle, song-oriented record than the last two full-lengths. But like we actually know what's going on...