Bergmann getting back to gigging

The Toronto Star
Thursday, October 14, 1993
By Jennie Punter SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Besides splintering into countless subgenres and then evolving into something palatable to the masses, the punk rock movement kick-started a bunch of great literate songwriters at the dawn of the '80s.

In Canada, Vancouver's Art Bergmann is often hailed as our "punk" legend, although the noises he makes are far too eclectic to slap on such a simple label.

Lately, the songwriter has been getting his act together since being dropped by his label last year.

Art Bergmann, his third album, came out in late '91, got some great reviews and some good air play. But sales didn't match expectations and Bergmann found himself living "a life of bondage in Vancouver" with no tour support.

"I got signed by these companies, then I'd hear things like, sorry you can't tour, sorry the time isn't right," says Bergmann, in town to play some dates with his new live band, including Friday-Saturday gigs with Lowest Of The Low at Lee's Palace.

"You think things will happen when you sign to a major label, but the opposite happens. Hopefully, that's over now. It's a huge relief for me.

"Maybe it's my own fault, I don't know. Things happen for a reason, I suppose.

"I just look at artists I admire, they never made it until they were dead . . . or 50."

But Bergmann isn't waiting around for that.

"I've got a really hot band together and we've been playing around town," he says.

"I wrote a couple albums worth of material and threw them away. This has all happened since May, because before that I wasn't doing anything. I was sitting around because I really didn't know what to do. I mean, I didn't want to make any more demos, or get another Canadian record deal."

For his current gigs, the live band - which includes members of Vancouver's Dead Surf Kiss and Stigmata - is sticking to Bergmann's catalogue.

"We haven't managed to learn any new stuff," says Bergmann, "mostly because what I want to do with the songs in the studio is kind of complicated."

Besides performing material from the last album - and Crawl With Me and Sexual Roulette (both on Duke Street) - Bergmann is also cranking out songs that were never released.

"There's a bunch of great tapes I own . . . stuff before Duke Street that I recorded with (producer) Bob Rock and Paul Hyde.

"It was a band called Poisoned at the time. We dropped the name because of that other horrible band."

Bergmann plans to hit the studio before Christmas, armed with a guitar case full of paper he's been scrawling ideas on.

"I actually started my musical life on piano, but I don't use any instrument at all when I'm writing. The new stuff I'm writing now is just on pieces of paper, and I'm putting down on paper how I think things should be approached in the studio.

"There are so many guitar bands now, guitar bands that detune on purpose, so that's unfashionable. So what am I going to do? Maybe just go in there and walk on the guitar."