Divine Inspiration

DIVINE INSPIRATION

Bootleg-style recording in church led Cowboy Junkies to RCA contract

By HARMEN MITCHELL
NEWS ARTS WRITER

The Cowboy Junkies made a most auspicious arrival (it not debut) with the release of their second album: At an appearance at the New Music Seminar last July in New York, they landed a deal with RCA Records, and the album — “The Trinity Sessions” — won major label distribution in the United States.

The Canadian quartet was also dubbed the “Best New Artist” and the album was chosen “Best Independent Release.”

All these kudos, and their name, might lead you to assume certain things about the band’s sound — and most of them would probably be wrong. The Cowboy Junkies, who will make their Ann Arbor debut Tuesday night with two shows at the Blind Pig, play a mixture of country, folk and traditional songs: numbers played in a dreamy hush, at a pace and volume so slow and low that it would stump most country acts, much less those ballyhooed in the rock press.

Once they’ve lulled you into accepting what they’re doing, the effect is anything but soporific, but it does take some work to get the point across. And as lead singer Margot Timmons recounted in a recent phone interview, the concept of the band’s sound “is a combination of a number of things — it certainly wasn’t something we planned to do.”

Her guitarist brother Michael and bassist Alan Alton returned from the collapse of a failed band in England and began jamming to pass the time in a garage in Toronto with two other Timmons brothers, drummer Peter and guitarist John.

John Timmons soon left. “At that point we had to make the decision either to fill his spot, or to leave it,” recalled Margot Timmons. “We had a date coming up and we decided to do the date. And without filling this hole, that gave us a lot more room to play in, and listen in. So we began to listen to each other. And we realized we didn’t want to fill it in, we liked it.”

The group’s sound also grew out of practical concerns. Since band members practiced in a residential neighborhood, volumes had to be kept down; low volume was also necessary because Timmons’ voice is not powerful. “I don’t sing much louder than I talk she said, “and so in order for Michael to work with me, he’d have to turn his guitar down.”

The group recorded its remarkable “Trinity Sessions” bootleg-style in a single day in Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity, using a digital tape recorder and a single microphone. They came up with an incredibly atmospheric work that doesn’t sonically shortchange any of the players. Timmons calls it a record of “the best day of my life. The most incredible thing that I’ve ever lived through.” She recommends the compact disc version of the collection because “you really hear what are the master tapes, which are so clear and so beautiful.”

Because the volume level of this band is so much lower than others, touring a club circuit has posed problems. For awhile, the group had to fight a nightly battle to get its sound mixed properly. “We have our own sound man now, thank God, but it used to be atrocious,” she said. “They didn’t know what to do with us."

The Blind Pig will present Cowboy Junkies for shows at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. at the Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., on Tuesday evening. The 10 p.m. show is sold out, but general admission tickets remain for the 8 p.m., available for $7.50 in advance at all Michigan Ticketmaster outlets, including Hudson's stores and the Michigan Union Ticket Office. For more information, call 99-MUSIC.

PREVIEW

The Cowboy Junkies will make their Ann Arbor debut Tuesday night at the Blind Pig.