Purveyors of: Puberty, tenor guitars, queer joy
File next to: Land of Talk, Julia Cannon, Barmitzvah Brothers
Appearing: Bibi Club + Tiger Balme + Geordie Gordon: Wavelength, November 28, 2024 @ St. Anne’s Parish (651 Dufferin Street)
Geordie Gordon is a Toronto singer/songwriter and touring member of U.S. Girls and Islands. He started out as a teen in the early 2000s in the Barmitzvah Brothers, and also served as a sideman for Andy Shauf just prior to that songwriter’s 2016 breakthrough. His second solo album, Tambourine (2023) is a folk-tinged personal narrative about teenage awakenings to the wisdom of elders. Wavelength’s Lian McMillan talked to Geordie about his hippie childhood, and reconciling his sexuality with his music.
Welcome back to Wavelength! What’s your favourite memory of playing with us over the past 25 years?
Thanks to the excellent archiving on the Wavelength website, It looks like I’ve played nine or ten Wavelength shows in the past! A strong memory is playing the 4th Anniversary Festival in 2004 at the Dovercourt House. Fembots were one of our favorite bands and it was always inspiring to share a bill with them. I Can Put My Arm Back On, You Can’t was so loud that I had to take breaks outside to rest my ears. Of course it was a Sunday, so we had to drive back to Guelph for school in the morning.
It’s been just over a year since the release of Tambourine, your second solo album. What are you most proud of from that album?
I feel fortunate to have been able to dedicate a whole winter to focus purely on the making of this last record. I took a year off from Toronto life and lived and recorded in my Grandma’s attic in Guelph, making most of the album on my own before finishing it off with a few collaborators. I would say I am most proud of the song “Grey Town.” When I wrote it, I found the power of it so striking that I was left shaken for the rest of the day. It ended up with a gorgeous string section arranged by La-Nai Gabriel and played by Bowed Arts.
Grandma Gordon, who appears in the “Spinning Wheel” music video, inspired several tracks on the record. How did she influence your journey as a musician?
The song “Spinning Wheel” was the first song I wrote for the record and its theme of looking back on childhood memories became an influence for the songs that followed. My grandma is a very fantastical person and visiting her house in the woods as a kid was always special. She encouraged us to look for magic in the world around us and to imagine possibilities beyond our reality. She is a poet who is always writing. She just published two books this year alone at the age of 93! Living with her while I made this record was inspiring because she would share her new work with me at breakfast and I’d figure I’d better dive deeper into my lyrics that day!
Tambourine references the full spectrum of coming-of-age experiences from the queer perspective. How does that intersect with the folk influences of your childhood?
I grew up in the little hippie bubble of the downtown Guelph folk scene. While I was lucky to be raised in a supportive place that encouraged sensitivity and creativity, it was not a very diverse environment and queerness was not a big part of it except for a few friends of my parents. This is why I was so gobsmacked when I first saw the Hidden Cameras perform their joyously sexualized folk music. I honestly had no idea that that was an option. I wrote the song “Tambourine” about that experience. My whole life I have felt a compartmentalizing between the indie bands I’ve played with and my gay life. I have been trying to reconcile those worlds for years but it is still something I am working on.
What queer coming of age book would you recommend to the Wavelength audience?
I love the book Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai. It is set in Sri Lanka in the 80’s and follows a boy’s self-discovery amongst political turmoil.
Don’t miss Geordie Gordon on November 28th at St. Anne’s Parish Hall!
Get your tickets now!
– Interview by Lian McMillan