LIMBLIFTER with DEARLY BELOVED and SEAS at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Friday (November 30). $18.50. RT, SS, TW. See listing.
For nostalgists who grew up during the height of 90s Canrock, it’s a good time to be a music fan.
The Super Friendz, Inbreds, Change of Heart, Doughboys, I Mother Earth and Treble Charger have all reunited in the last year or so, causing Toronto’s concert listings to read like a vintage playlist from MuchMusic’s The Wedge or a Big Shiny Tunes compilation.
Now we can add Limblifter to the list. Since reconvening for a one-off performance at NXNE in June, the Vancouver alt-rockers have decided to extend their revival run. But frontman Ryan Dahle doesn’t see himself as part of the trend.
“Those are all great bands, but I don’t really feel much allegiance to that era,” says Dahle over the phone on his way to his Vancouver studio, where he makes a living as a producer and record masterer for acts like Hot Hot Heat and k-os.
“The fact that all those bands have gotten back together [signifies] a demand for quality. Fans don’t care what decade you came from or how old you are or how long your hair is. They just want to hear great music.”
Limblifter’s resurrection was actually driven by one specific fan: Toronto show promoter Eric Warner. Warner (who’s been known to cover the band’s biggest hit, Tinfoil, with his band Neon Windbreaker) reached out to Dahle about re-releasing Limblifter’s 1996 self-titled debut on vinyl through his label, We Are Busy Bodies, and it came out on July 24.
And when the band packed the El Mocambo for their NXNE reunion, it convinced Dahle that Warner wasn’t the only fan still interested. He’s now thinking about releasing a couple of new Limblifter 7-inch singles.
That let’s-just-see-what-happens approach mirrors the band’s beginnings. Dahle, already a member of the successful rock band Age of Electric, started Limblifter as an outlet for the songs he’d been writing on his own. He’d never sung for anyone but his bandmates, and drank a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to summon the courage to lay down the album’s vocals.
Debuting at a fertile time in Canadian rock, they quickly signed to a major label, made their live debut at CBGB in New York and played their first hometown show opening for Oasis.
“Everything else in my life as far as music is concerned is very structured, so it’s great to have something like Limblifter, where I can just be scattered and live in the moment.”
Interview Clips
Ryan Dahle talks about going back to Limblifter’s debut album 16 years later in order to re-master it, and why he’s a bit embarrassed by the vocals.
Dahle says that returning to the live-in-the-studio approach of Limblifter has influenced his work as a producer, both for the new k-os record, BLack On BLonde (due out in early 2013), and an upcoming collaboration with Hawksley Workman and Hot Hot Heat’s Steve Bays.
Dahle dishes on the possibility of recording new Limblifter material.
music@nowtoronto.com
