Recent Penguin Eggs Article

On Death and DyingGordie Tentrees writes songs that draw from a
turbulent past. " I have this knack for experiencing things people probably
shouldn't experience." he tells Fish GriwkowskyThe idea of "write
what you know" too often takes a backseat to "write what makes money,"especially
in the world of commercially hopeful music. Anything with a country flavour is
the absolute worst for this. How many manky-ass songs about invented bravery of
pretend soldiers or distastefully fabricated abused-wife tales shall we endure
from the songwriter nests of Nashville? You know the type: the everyman songs
that sound like,"She comes home from her shift-work job and he's yelling for
dinner," with some mention of being a Vietnam vet. Ugh. Kill me, already. You
guys aren't Bruce Springsteen.Even folk writers striving to make a point
aren't immune to the magnetization of unrooted tragedy. Narrative is one thing,
but there's something sickeningly insincere about capitalizing on invented
pain.Gordie Tentrees, thankfully, takes a more direct route. "I've had the
good fortune," he laughs, "to have had some really infortunate shit happen to
me."For the record the Whitehorse singer isn't a rain cloud - his
handwritten folk-country songs range in theme from devastating to hilarious.
There is an eagerness in his lyrics, and especially stage personality, that
might make you pick him first in a scrub-league ballgame, something working
class without a T-shirt boasting "working class".Still, some of Tentrees
troubles started when he was growing up in rural Ontario. His best friend was
shot to death outside another friend's house by that boy's father. It took
Tentrees 3 years to finally finish Death &
Dust."That was an intense time. I have this knack for experiencing
things people probably shouldn't experience. I realized when I started writing
songs that those were just the songs coming out. I really didn't have a choice
because I didn't have much else to write about. What I admire in some the the
artists I like, it's real stuff, you know? I can't really make it up - maybe
someday I will, but why would you?"That tune was about my friend getting
killed when I was 22. He was a kid down the street, kind of an older brother. We
both came from rough and tumble families without a lot of parental guidance. We
got into all kinds of trouble, but he didn't get as many lucky breaks as I did.
It could've been myself, but he just ended up in the wrong spot at the wrong
time."It was quite a scene because he had gone to another friend's house to
pick him up and the father was upset that day because his wife had left him.
He'd been drinking. He was a local school teacher and came out and shot him and
claimed to the police that he was defending his property. My friend did not
exactly have the greatest reputation, so as a school teacher everyone figured he
would get off. His wife and my other friend turned him in. He got put into jail
for a week and the papers said - he was defending his property, but everyone
knew it wasn't true. He got out a week later and went back to the same spot and
shot himself.Understandably, Tentrees voice weakens a little telling this
tale. "It was kind of a relief. I remember sitting with my friend's brothers as
they were trying to figure out which one of them was going to make amends for
their brother's death and kill the guy. I tried to convince them otherwise, but
they didn't really care if they spent the rest of their lives in jail to honour
their brother.But his album, Bottleneck to
Wire, contains even more human nature to ponder.On 2 Sons, the same number the singer has up in
the Yukon with him, Tentrees explores the plight of a woman he saw on the news
one day that kept haunting him. "I was playing with my son during the
Christmas holiday in a little cabin I'd rented in Ontario. I looked at the news
and saw the tsunami in Asia. CNN was interviewing this woman shortly after she
had to choose which one of her sons she would save. They asked her, to make a
choice like that, what was she thinking?"It really shook me up. When I came
back to Whitehorse there as a tsunami benefit and I kept thinking of that
woman." The strange places empathy takes us... Tentrees grew up on a
livestock and potato farm in Ontario. He went to University in Toronto and got
an education degree, but decided to drive around the country for a while and
soak up life."I ended up in the Yukon, got a job working in a bush camp. I
drove back to Toronto, packed up all my stuff and drove back to Whitehorse in
the middle of January. That was 10 years ago.I asked him what he left
behind." Not much." He laughs. " I was working to live there. Right now I am in
my backyard looking at a mountain. Whitehorse has a little but of every other
part of Canada. Open prairies, mountains, the ocean's two hours southwest of
here. The housing's going up for sure, but gas is the same as Ontario. 'I
got into music through my mother, who was piano and flute-playing. She would
hold soirees in my house and help to start a music cafe. She was a local radio
DJ as well, so I got thrown all kinds of folk music: Stan Rogers, Gordon
Lightfoot. Then I got into Willie P. Bennett and Fred Eaglesmith. She gave me a
guitar and I let it be for a long time."But when I moved here, everyone
around was playing music like crazy. But to fit in and have fun I learned
guitar, and a long story short ended up starting a Fred Eaglesmith cover
band,"There you have it - without Fred Eaglesmith, we probably wouldn't have
Tentrees!"I've met him before and told him I was a fan, but I didn't tell
him about the band. It's kind of weird you know?"But,"he laughs,"I do hold
him responsible."