December 17th, 2003

Happy Holidays! We are in our home town area for a few last shows before the year turns over. Weeping Tile is playing our 8th annual Salvation Army benefit in Kingston on the 22nd of December at A.J.'s Hanger and tickets are on sale! Show starts at 8pm with Oh Susanna, followed by Jay Harris, Dave Hodge (of the Hellbillys), Weeping Tile, and then the Mahones.

October 15th, 2003

Whew! (again), home after two months of touring and just in time for the fall colours. It's like living in a postcard around these southern Ontario parts. Time to change over our wardrobes for the pending Canadian winter. We're home and playing some slightly more regional shows and also putting alot of thought towards planning our touring for the new year. Before we go forward too far we have to look back and review. With that in mind I'm just tidying up the tour journal from this last vision quest of a kilometre-crushing journey. Stay tuned for that literary gem (sheesh!). Our online store is in danger of working soon too so spread the word and try internet shopping here first!

October 7th, 2003

Now I'm sure that this review of our first Butterfingers cd is worthy of some time on our webpage. Everyone knows a kid at sometime, eh? The second Butterfingers cd (The Songs We Sing) is nearing completion so get on board early with this movement and help us tweak the ears of families everywhere! Humm/Ottawa July/03 BUTTERFINGERS THE PEOPLE WE KNOW If you're a parent and a music lover, there is a persistent struggle to try to balance the family's musical selections. For some reason the kids don't get the attraction of say, Radiohead or Moby. And the parents don't want to have to listen to standard children's fare, with all the music provided by one cheesy synthesiser, laughable vocal abilities and appalling lyrics that get stuck in your head until you're ready to stick a screwdriver in your eye just to take your mind off them. So, having had a preview of a realistic alternative at a Luther Wright / Sarah Harmer show in Kingston last year, I was happy when my daughter Kayleigh (aged 4 ¾) recently received a copy of Butterfingers' The People We Know. Butterfingers is comprised of two-fifths of Luther Wright and the Wrongs - Luther and Dan Curtis - plus Ryan Bol. Assorted friends from the Kingston music scene are along for the ride, including Sarah Harmer who contributes a few backing vocals. The eleven songs that make up The People We Know rush by in less than 25 minutes, with the (presumably desired) effect that even short attention spans are kept occupied. Kayleigh's favourite song was immediately Burke The Mountie, mainly because it has a simple & oft-repeated chorus (which so far hasn't sent me running for the screwdriver). But Kayleigh also quickly came up with a set of actions to accompany the song, from polishing her boots and feeding her horse, to putting her big hat on. She then gallops around the house on her toy horse singing the rest of the song out loud. Of the other songs, Jelly Belly is probably favoured by 8 year old boys with its frenetic pace and silly lyrics, such as "You run across the lawn and your butt is bare / The dog's still chewing on your underwear." The title track and Singing Together are two gentle songs of friendship, while Bubby Bol veers away from the country sound for the tale of a dog that works in the Paris library. There's enough here to keep grownups happy as well, with a few jokes or references that would be beyond most kids. And so long as you like Luther's brand of music, which maplemusic.com describes as "alt-country punkgrass", then The People We Know is a disc that the whole family can enjoy. Dad's rating: 0 screwdrivers Kayleigh's rating: JJJJJ Ian Brown for theHumm

September 22nd, 2003

Greetings from the left coast where we have beefed up the posse to 9 people and two vehicles. Jason Mercer has joined the tour on banjo and Robin Aube is mixing the sound up like some freaky cook. I did an interview with Shelagh Rogers on the CBC for her tasteful and informative, national radio morning show. It was broadcast on Monday, September 26th and apparently I spoke in full sentences, some of which even made sense! Whew! It was a late night before playing the Green Room in Vancouver and given'er with our peeps. 7 am comes right some early, pardner. We just lined up a Hometown show in Kingston with Chris Brown & Kate Fenner, who have just both released solo records. Also on the bill is Po' Girl from Vancouver and they are getting raved up both sides of the border. Trish Klein of the Be Good Taynas is part of that awesome trio so all you Kingstonians better get yer butts out to the Cocamo on Friday, October 24th. Advance tickies will be made available for this dynamite show, eh? We've been getting some nice reviews in the press lately, (shameless!). Check out this address for a nice review. www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=MISS70305281045&sql=Akx9yxddb4old

August 25th, 2003

Home in Kingston briefly after three weeks of our 9 week N.Y.C. to Ames Iowa (via P.E.I. and San Diego) tour. Had quite a time in New York that culminated with us busting out the jams in Brooklyn during the Blackout. The east coast of Canada was a ripping good time too. We had our friend Laura Freeman from Austin Texas opening up for us and finished that run of shows at the Evolve Festival ouside of Antigonish. Chris Brown and Kate Fenner were part of a three day hang in eastern paradise. Thousands of groovsters camped out and shook their booties to a weekend of jam band, rockin' glory. We added our homecooked, country flavour for about an hour and a half on Saturday. Off to the 100th aniversary of Harley Davidson in Milwaukee this weekend to play three shows over three days. I think we get paid in motorcycles...

August 4th, 2003

hi there, so it's the big week of release for Guitar Pickin' Martyrs in the U.S. of A. We are gearing up for a fine chunk of touring down there but first let me recount the last few weeks of 'wrong-dom. All is well on the festival front these days. A beacon of hope for humanity is how I see the music festival. People doing their thing to the music and the vibe. In these parts it's a veritable homecoming for Canadian musicians. A much needed chance to hang out and get caught up and inspired by each others music and stories from the road. We also played some very fine festivals in the states, notably the Northeast Kingdom Festival. This gem is set deep in the hills of northern Vermont and run smoothly and groovily by the nicest people. We took in as much as we could there but as it turns out we had to make an early departure after our afternoon set. The pace, it quickens for us now so getting home that day was on our minds. I made the most of being autonomous and in the Kingston area on a Sunday and took my leave up to the Blue Skies festival north of here some 60 miles in Lanark County. This baby is in its 30th year and I floated in there and grooved on with many friends and musicians (who are just like friends but can sing in key). The Road Dog Divas put on a show that changed the way I watch things. Tons o' talent between the three dyno-women there, yeah! The Brothers Cosmoline (featuring Burke Carroll) put on a fine un-plugged show during what was easily the most apocolyptic electrical thunderstorm of the season. Zeus sent word down or sumpthin'. All in all a mind-blowing, heart-warming good time. Good Tim.

July 14th, 2003

Hi there people of the world. We are sliding through the summer months playing the festivals and weekend shows here and there. We had the swinging-est time at the Dauphin, Manitoba Country Fest at the end of June. And just this weekend we gave èr at the Ottawa Blues Festival, where we played our unique brand of blues music...uh...yeah. Well our songs are so f@#%ing sad it gives people the blues and then the other bands help them through it, or something like that. Speaking of vegetarianism, <A HREF="http://www.shagrat.net/Html/cows.htm"TARGET="_BLANK">check out this little clip about cows</A> and think twice about eating that next burger. Fish have no souls so eat them until your burger cravings stop then slowly wean yourself off fish and work your way towards...uh...sticks and twigs. Or, there is the diet of paint chips that the girl in 100 years of Solitude (G.G. Marques) lived on. Oh I dinna know what you should eat, but I can tell you this: love never wins but it is the only way out... That is from the mind of the Chris Brown who with the talented Kate Fenner, have made many fine cds. Go to chrisandkate.com right now! You will learn about these awesome people and their music and you can go to resistwar.com and hear a wonderful, potent song that spells it out. We are playing with Chris and Kate (and many others, check it out!) at the Evolve Festival In Antigonish, Nova Scotia this August the 23rd. There is a consciousness to this event that we are excited about contributing to. The music festivals bring us all together so please go out and support your local festivals and share in the music, love and comraderie.

July 1st, 2003

Well, hello sailors! (and non-sailors) As yer eyes will plainly tell y'all, the site's got a whole spankin' new look to celebrate the release of 'Guitar Pickin' Martyrs.' For right now, the changes are mostly cosmetic, but I'll be adding a bunch of cool new stuff to the site over the next little while. Check back regular-like, y'hear? If you notice any problems with the site, please <A HREF="mailto: rob@lutherwright.com">email me</A> and let me know. Near-infallible as I may be, it's not entirely unusual for there to be a couple of growing pains associated with a site redesign, and I'd appreciate a heads-up on any problems you might experience. Thanks,

June 23rd, 2003

Well the new cd comes out in mere days and we have a slew of t-shirts and stickers to hail the arrival. Here's a few early reviews to entice you to consider acquiring "Guitar Pickin' Martyrs" CANADIAN MUSIC NETWORK JUNE 19-JUNE 5,2003 LUTHER WRIGHT & THE WRONGS GUITAR PICKIN’ MARTYRS (UNIVERSAL/SNAKEYE MUZAK) This group was previously comprised of members of Weeping Tile when it started busking on the streets of Kingston, Ontario. But after putting out two albums, Hurtin’ for Certain and Roger’s Waltz, the band gained it’s greatest notoriety with the 2001 release of the bluegrass disc Rebuild the Wall, which covered Pink Floyd’s The Wall album from start to finish. The group has played almost 300 shows since then, and honed many of this new album’s songs on the road. If you’re a fan of old-fashioned country music, this is for you. While the feeling is relaxed, the playing is sharp and the songs are well-crafted. Wish Me Well, the clever Devious Disembler, Not Feeling Fine, My Heart, my heart, the clever title track, Darlin’, and Letting Go are all top-notch, but things don’t end there. There’s a mini Weeping Tile re-union when Sarah Harmer duets with Luther on the sparse ballad, Land of Milk and Honey. Luther shows off his yodeling skills on The Race to the Top, and pays further homage by covering Bill Munroe’s It’s Mighty Dark to Travel. Broken Fuckin’ Heart will very likely get some campus radio airplay. There are also guest appearances from Oh Susanna, Jason Mercer, Chris Brown and others. There’s a limited-edition digipack release of Guitar Pickin’ Martyrs that retailers should take note of, while club and festival bookers should be advised that the band will be hitting the road with a vengeance to support the album. -STEVE McLEAN Thursday June 19, 2/03 TORONTO STAR What’s On Disc LUTHER WRIGHT AND THE WRONGS Guitar Pickin’ Martyrs (Universal) A year and 300 concert dates after this Kingston, Ont. Country rock band made international musical history be reinterpreting Pink Floyd’s classic rock opus The Wall as a Southern American rural song cycle, the pressure to prove themselves with a novelty-free follow-up must have been enormous. They can breathe a well deserved sigh of relief. The first cut notwithstanding - “Broken Fuckin’ Heart” is a performance staple whose inclusion couldn’t be denied - Guitar Pickin’ Martyrs is an extremely earnest country music album, and quite brilliantly executed, thanks largely to tasteful and soulful contributions by pedal steel wiz Burke Carroll, guitarist Dan Curtis, and fiddler Megan Palmer, who provide all the colour Wright’s deadpan vocals need to enhance the acid wit and heartbreak buried in his lyrics. Guest appearances by Sarah Harmer (her voice gives “The Land of Milk And Honey” a luminous quality), singer Oh Susanna, and banjo pickers Chris Quinn and Jason Mercer add extra lustre to an original piece of invigorating roots music. -- Greg Quill LUTHER WRIGHT & THE WRONGS GUITAR PICKIN’ MARTYRS Tear down the wall! While their previous outing, the back porch interpretation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, was certainly a successful realization of one of the weirdest ideas in music history, its cleverness left Wright & the Wrongs at risk of being tossed in the novelty category. In fact, the former Weeping Tile guitarist and co. are a damn good band, and take full advantage of displaying that fact here. “I like that hillbilly music, the kind you don’t hear on the radio,” Wright proclaims during “The Race To The Top” and that’s pretty much what’s offered throughout Guitar Pickin’ Martyrs. The light-hearted spirit of Rebuild The Wall is consistently maintained, but the year spent touring in support of it shows in the fiery playing of guitarist Dan Curtis and pedal steel player Burke Carroll. On many tracks they sound as if they’re directly channeling Buck Owens’ Buckaroos, but it is Wright’s wry lyrics that are the icing on the cake. “Broken Fuckin' Heart,” and the title track would become instant roadhouse classics in a perfect world, although Wright shows his sensitive side with “Land of Milk & Honey,” a duet with Sarah Harmer, and closer “The Settling Dust.” Rebuild The Wall was fun for a while, but Guitar Pickin' Martyrs is built to last much longer! -Jason Schneider Exclaim! June 03

June 1st, 2003

We are off to Chattanooga and environs this weekend to play our hearts out for the people there. Our compadres are following us with movie cameras to capture the magic(!) for a few video projects we have up our sleeves in preparation for the big ole release of Guitar Pickin' Martyrs. Even this ole website is going the way of the hoola-hoop and they'll be a brand new look for the cd and the book. yee-haw

April 26th, 2003

The you 'heard it here' word is that our new cd,"Guitar Pickin' Martyrs" is coming out in Canada on June 24th through Universal Records and in America on August 5th through Back Porch Records. It's all original 'Wrongs music with a Bill Monroe song and a tune written by Luthers brother Geordie bringing the song title total up to a lucky thirteen. We're working on video of a tune called "Race to the Top", with our ole buddy Sean Turell who guided the ship on the last videos we whipped out a few years back. Whoa boy! This keyboard is too square for a fella like me to be sitting by for too long. There's some wood to be chopped and that guitar's not gonna play itself. Keep your 88's straight and check the up-coming show calender to see when we'll be in your neighbourhood, pilgrim.

March 26th, 2003

Hey! We've contributed three songs to three different compilation cds put out by <a href='http://www.drog.com/main.htm' target='_BLANK'>DROG records</A> and you may need to check them out. "The Midget Motorist" appears on "60 Second Songs", "Life's Much Sweeter as a Vegetable Eater" is on "Songs About Food" and has Sarah Slean and Sarah Harmer singing their hearts out. And "Jonah the Cowboy" made the cut on "Work Songs". Go to drog.com and find out about the wealth of Canadian talent that they've been wrangling for some years now. Buy'em up, support musicians whose music moves you!

March 25th, 2003

Hey there! The fellas have two songs in the new Ron Mann film, "Go Further" that premiered at the South by Southwest film Festival in Austin, Texas a few weeks back. Rons last film "Grass" was a big underground hit and this documentary follows actor and activist Woody Harrelson as he takes to the open road on his "Simple Organic Living Tour". One song is a Luther original named "Tumbler Ridge" and they also did a couple of versions of that ole gem, "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

February 20th, 2003

Wowee! here we are 4 & 1/2 weeks into a 6 week tour and it's time to up-date the world on our band line-up. Cam Giroux has indeed left the ranks of the Wrongs to pursue a more sedentary life. We are sad to say goodbye to our little buddy after 5 big years of Wrong-ness but the sadness is tempered by the joy of welcoming our old pal Mauro Sepe into the fold. We played in the Mugworts together back in the 90's when the Kingston music scene was enjoying a bit of an explosion. Mauro was the fella that pointed out to me that I was writing country songs and we were hacking them to bits with electric guitars in the Mugworts (oh the glory!). Now he's back to pay the price. Also, we have to report, Ms. Megan Palmer from Columbus Ohio is out on tour with us playing fiddle and she seems to be warming up to the idea of permanent Wrong-ship. She has done two tours with us to date and her playing often elicits massive applause. Needless to say I've asked her to tone that down a bit as it is LUTHER WRIGHT & the Wrongs after all. Just kidding of course. (It was really just a cool band name and I don't anticipate a solo tour anytime soon.) We'll be playing sporadically through March whilst we finish up our new record and then we hit the road again for the month of April. We are really trying to work out the glitches so that we can up-load photos from the road and I am pondering whipping out another tour journal of recent events. Butterfingers (our kids cd) is getting around and we've taken to playing a song or two from it every night to show just how entertaining childrens music can be for adults. Not being adults ourselves, we've had to study the reactions from town to town before risking saying such a bold statement. Uh...am I rambling here? Yup! time to go to Iowa City. Keep supporting live music and let the love flow. Yee-haw!!!

February 19th, 2003

Hey again! Rob fixed up the photo loader and we're good to go. Go to images and check out the recent pics from our mondo-cheepo camera.

January 21st, 2003

Okey—dokey, wingnuts... Are you ever in for a thrilling surprise here. We‘s gots usselves a new tour journal! The particlar piece of prosaic genius tells the scintilating tale of the boys‘ 2002 fall tour. Be sure to tune to this tour journal, wherein Dan states “GRULG—ALARB— RRRRRGINMPFRGGGRACGH!!!!!!IN YOUR FACE, LUTHER WRIGHT FANS! Please don‘t hurt me,

January 21st, 2003

As the summer approaches (!) we are looking at playing as many festivals as we can. We'll be performing as both the 'Wrongs and our kids thing, "Butterfingers!". So if you have any ideas or contacts in the festival booking world, send word. Every little bit helps, thanks alot!