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Ford Pier (born 1970) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He resides in Vancouver. In addition to his solo albums, he has been a member of Jr. Gone Wild and D.O.A., and has appeared as a guest musician on albums by Carolyn Mark, Martin Tielli, Showbusiness Giants, Veda Hille, Rheostatics, John Mann and Neko Case.
Career
After playing a variety of instruments in a host of bands in a panoply of styles throughout his youth, Pier began writing and performing his own songs in the mid-1990s. His stated objective was to effectively fuse Black Flag and Richard Wagner in a pop song. However, his intentions were thwarted as he concentrated on melody and lyrics.
Meconium, his 1995 debut release on Wrong Records, was a fourteen song mosaic of raging post-punk, country, folk balladry, and avant garde soul. The Vancouver Sun's Katherine Monk wrote, "If one indie release could speak for the West Coast, this is the one."
Former bandmate Joey Shithead of D.O.A. released the sophomore offering, 12-Step Plan, 11-Step Pier, in 1999 on his Sudden Death label. The record's denser, almost symphonic character was a nod to the amount of chamber music Pier had been composing, and the neo-classical-inflected orchestrations he had been doing for Vancouver songwriter Veda Hille, with whom he toured Europe and North America extensively.
The performing rhythm section he had built up around himself at this time formed the basis for a deliberately scaled-down thirteen song collection released gratis on his website in 2000. Entitled Besides, it acted as a clearing house for some of Pier's more straightforward genre-identifiable songs, and commenced the bow-drawing process for the next full album, Pier-ic Victory, released in 2004 by Six Shooter Records. Working for two years on and off with producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda, Ford issued his strongest statement yet of true pan-disciplinary pop, playing up formerly latent groove-oriented elements in the music to complement the expanded orchestral colours and more extreme noise elements. It was enthusiastically received by press and public alike, and led to more touring throughout Canada and Europe, sharing the stage with the likes of The Organ, The Weakerthans, NoMeansNo, Daniel Johnston, The Constantines, and Sarah Harmer.
Pier also found time to appear on records by Buttless Chaps, Great Aunt Ida, and Martin Tielli; perform regularly as a guest with The Sadies, The Rheostatics, Carolyn Mark and others, continue to produce chamber and orchestral arrangements for artists such as Ron Sexsmith.
In the summer of 2007, Volume I his next collection of work, Organ Farming, a six-song EP, was released electronically and on 12" vinyl through Calgary's Saved By Vinyl Records. The EP displays a comparatively austere sonic palette, as Ford, drummer Don Kerr, and the returning Michael Phillip Wojewoda, as well as guests from Weakerthans, Rheostatics, FemBots, and others, seek to answer the question, "If you were to ditch all those bassoons and stuff and make a Rock album, what would it sound like?". Volume II is Adventurism, a full-length ten song album, which was scheduled to be released in March 2009. Several of the songs from both are already live favourites and are being hotly anticipated by many around the globe.
Discography
- Meconium (1995)
- 12-Step Plan, 11-Step Pier (2000)
- Pier-ic Victory (2004)
- Organ Farming (2007)
External links
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