Remastered for vinyl by Dany Laj in commemoration of Stew’s 20th anniversary.
Multi-Gold selling and multi-JUNO Award nominated Canadian blues rockers Wide Mouth Mason announce the forthcoming 20th Anniversary reissue of Stew this November 27th, 2020 to be released as a limited edition LP by the band and their management, We Are Busy Bodies. The original album was released by Warner Music Canada and licensed to the band for the anniversary release.
“Stew was intentionally Wide Mouth Mason’s funkiest offspring,” original band member Shaun Verreault, along with Safwan Javed, recalls. “It showcased a specific subset of our musical influences, and was a mashup of musical styles passed through the filter of Wide Mouth Mason.”
“But it was also a case study for Wide Mouth Mason to better understand those musical styles,” Javed adds “We’d been listening to a lot of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies, and the like. Meanwhile, our good friend Gordie (Johnson, Big Sugar), who produced it, was hipping us to bands like The Meters and The Gap Band. We dug in and deconstructed the component parts of records that were undeniably funky.”
Inspired by the tunes and arrangements on those records, Wide Mouth Mason honed in on the audio ingredients to utilize. “Drums that were punchy and taut, almost 808-like, the bass ran simultaneously through a bass amp, and a little guitar amp hanging on for dear life,” Verreault muses. “We made falsetto harmonies — almost like horn parts — a recurring theme, and broadened the sonic palette with some keyboard parts by Gordie, and a string section.”
“Though we’d plotted a defined sonic mission statement, there was a lot of room for happy accidents and spontaneous invention,” Javed says. “They were fun, funny, joyful sessions.”
Wide Mouth Mason’s eighth album, I Wanna Go With You, will be released digitally through We Are Busy Bodies on October 25, with vinyl and CD to come soon after. Vinyl is limited to 300 copies and is colour in colour. It comes with a download code. Digital pre-order coming soon.
Happy Canada Day! While Wide Mouth Mason perform at the Sandfly Festival as part of Canada Day festivities in Medicine Hat, we thought that a great way to celebrate the day would be through an update to our Gigography from Wide Mouth Mason’s gig in Calgary just over a week ago. In addition to the setlist and performance video of “Midnight Rain”, we’ve added an extra performance video from that evening’s performance as well.
Don’t forget, If you have a gig photos, scanned ticket stubs, gig posters, and other gig-related media that you would be interested in sharing with other Wide Mouth Mason fans via the Wide Mouth Mason Gigography that is always growing (please let us know if we are missing past dates as we are rebuilding our gig lists), contact the Chef de mission!
Like this:
LikeLoading...
We’re in the process of changing mailing list mediums. For the Wide Mouth Mason website, there is an option to sign up for site updates as we add content. For major announcements, we have set up an mailing list for when new music is in the offing or tour dates (as opposed to one-off gigs) are being scheduled. To ensure you receive news about major Wide Mouth Mason announcements, make sure you sign up here. Our previous ReverbNation-supported mailing list will be phased out in the near future. New music is definitely coming sooner rather than later (and we hope you love the sound of the new album to come!). In the meantime, we’ll see you on the socials: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Below is as complete a list as we can get for all of Wide Mouth Mason’s live performances. Interspersed between gigs, we’ve also tried to include first broadcasts of Wide Mouth Mason performances on television when known. If you know of a gig or media performance that isn’t listed below, please contact the Chef de mission with further details. As this section of the site grows and evolves, we also welcome links to any digital images and audio that fans have saved of Wide Mouth Mason over the years. If this sounds like something you have, send the Chef de mission the links to the online content you have copyright and control over that you would like to share with other Wide Mouth Mason fans and let us know how you wish to be credited on this site!
2020
2020.02.09: 54th Annual Variety Show of Hearts Telethon (Global BC, British Columbia)
2014.09.26: The Capitol Music Club (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada)
2014.09.27: Sip, Savour & Support at Savour Cowichan Festival – Benefit to raise funds for the Canucks Autism Network (Cowichan Valley, British Columbia, Canada)
2013
2013.12.31 Casino Regina (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)
2013.08.17 Winnipeg BBQ & Blues Festival (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)