News about The henrys

New show October 6, Hugh, Don and Michelle play
music to the wonderful photography and film of Larry
Towell, at the Drake. Info and links on gigs page, and
more details 'emerging', as they say.

Link to live show broadcast:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20100430henry
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July 5

We've lost a great friend. She came to SO MANY of
our gigs over the years - our best friend and fan. She
fed us in her restaurant. She catered our recording
sessions. (Once at Metalworks the entire pool table
was covered with food.) She made food for the bus
when we went to play in NYC, including one of those
beautiful, deep, deep homemade apple pies.

The restaurant, on Bathurst Street, a hole in the wall
beside the Oak Mount Steam Baths, was a musicians'
haven. Apart from locals, Lyle Lovett, Rickie Lee Jones
and so many others enjoyed her generosity. (But never,
to our knowledge, Bob Dylan, her absolute favourite.
She was fanatical about Bob.)

The food was so good!! Her hours were so random!
But worth it, for the the chili, or the rancheros, or
waffles, or blintzes... fresh basil in the BLT...How many
musicians did Mimi feed, generously, and wave off the
bill? How much did she smoke, openly, illegally, in the
open kitchen right behind the counter? And sometimes
she would get reviewed in the newspaper, and then the
'tourists,' as she called them, would come. And that's
when New York MImi came out. One time she told us
she saw a family with little kids waiting in line outside,
and she took a yellow post-it and wrote NO KIDS on it
and slapped it on the window. And the next day she
could be knocking on your door with a home-made
strawberry-rhubarb pie. God love her.

We had a house gig in Little Italy for - it must have been
a year - every Sunday night. Rare was the Sunday that
Mimi wasn't there, full of joy, support, and love.

She'd become an expert poker player since closing the
restaurant. She liked to go to casinos early in the
morning, when the guys who had been up playing all
night long were starting to lose their edge. If she won a
couple of early rounds, she told us, she was 'gambling
with other people's money.' Once we sent her an article
from the New Yorker about a former math whiz, the
child of professors, now a cowboy-hat wearing poker
star who also started the most successful online poker
site on the internet. We cut it out and sent it in the mail.
But she knew about him already. She must have read a
lot, she always seemed on top of everything.

She ended up suffering terribly from arthritis, but it was
a heart attack that killed her, alone in her apartment
down by the lake in "Mimi-co".

She was an angel with a beautiful, generous spirit, and
we will miss her.

Mimi Braidberg
(1956-2010)
http://www.myspace.com/cafemimis

So sad to hear of the beauty Mimi.
Your sweet words about her bring back
memories of her lovely smiling face.
Heartbreaking now, but forever she'll stay, loved by
the musicians and friends who loved her back.

Hope there's a celebration of her life with lots of music
and a big 'pot'-luck in this world and the next.
lmm
M.M.O'Hara

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June 14

The first broadcast of the CBC recording of our show
at Hugh's Room will be, we're told, on June 24th. Watch
for info here and here (especially if you wait til the 24th,
or maybe a day or two before that date, and you click
on 'Expand' and go to the last show on the list, The
Signal, which starts at 10 pm.)

You can stream it live, and from a variety of North
American time zones, via this link. It should (?) be on a
podcast too.

--

Meanwhile, Michelle Willis, Hugh Marsh and Don
Rooke are hard at work on a new recording. Lots of
music, but no name yet, band or disc.

May 2

We* played on Friday night in Toronto at Hugh's Room.
It was a fun night, recorded by CBC Radio's show The
Signal. They'll broadcast parts of it over the next year,
as will the show Canada Live, (where you can also
access a backlog of streamed live shows from some
very cool artists.) We'll let you know when The Henrys
will be on the air, but you can also sign up for our
mailing list if you want to be notified by email.

*Michelle Willis, Mark Mariash, Hugh Marsh, Russ
Boswell and Don Rooke.

April 10
Spent a couple of days this week working with the
photographer Larry Towell towards a show in the fall
combining his remarkable photographs and video from
Mexico, Afghanistan, New Orleans, 9/11, Canada,
South Africa... with live music by some Henrys (Don,
Hugh and Michelle). Date and venue to follow.

March 28
We had a great time playing at Folkway in Guelph, and
appreciated the very nice audience that came out. Ben
Grossman joined us to play some beautiful hurdy-gurdy
on a few tunes.

Toronto-based Henrys set to play Friday gig at
Folkway Music

The Henrys are in concert at Folkway Music Friday
night. The Toronto-based nearly-instrumental group
takes the stage at 8:30 p.m. and tickets are $20 each
to reserve seating. The band describes itself as
composing, recording and performing original music
that has no obvious genre, but draws on a variety of
styles in an original, identifiable way. Folkway music is
located at 163 Suffolk Street West.

Mercury staff
--------------------

March 17
Looking forward to our 3 upcoming shows, the first of
which is next Friday in Guelph. For that and Hugh's
Room, we're a quintet, with special guest Hugh Marsh
on violin as well as some beautiful electronic
instruments.

Feb 22 '10
Got some snow today, almost the first bit of shoveling
of the whole winter. Washington, Toronto ain't... And
now, thanks to the nice people at Ode Magazine, we
have a better link to the Ton Maas review.

Feb 2010
That Memphis Folk Alliance whose standards we did
not meet? Suddenly highly regrettable: Aubrey Ghent
is doing a sacred steel concert. Check out his version
of Amazing Grace on the CD (yes, this is the title)
"Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus." It'd be worth the
trek to Memphis just to hear that.

Jan 20/10
Couple of new reviews of Is This Tomorrow came out,
one in the Dutch/US magazine Ode, another at Good
New Music.
_________

Jan /10
"Top Pick" review in babysue.com
_________

Dec 31, 2009

We're putting out a new disc!

OK, on a couple of fronts that's not precisely accurate.
Like, there isn't a disc. And the music isn't,
chronologically, new. (Nor any other way. But it would
be new to people who don't already own it.)

What we did, in a make-work frame of mind, was
compile tracks from our first three CDs for 'release' as
a digital album, available from itunes, Amazon, etc. It's
called The Yearly Ears. It should be ready to go in
mid-January, but if you're interested, the songlist is
here.

_________

Dec 21/09. Just leafing through some music mags at
the rack today and...hello! Spotted a nice review of our
new disc in fRoots, the British bible of musics rootsy
and non-commercial.

Find it here.

_________

Dec '09: Our new CD Is This Tomorrow is in the Top
Ten for 2009 on CBC Radio's hip national show The
Signal.
_________

Dec 9/09: On the advice of someone who knows, we
made an application to the Memphis Folk Alliance, a
pilgrimage artists make to strut their stuff for
presenters. Not exactly our thing, but this is the new,
proactive, "Let's do this thing!" Hanks. So we
submitted via Sonicbids, an online service that
does....well, kinda the same thing as the Folk Alliance,
now that we think about it. But digitally, which suits us to
a tee. (BTW, we paid for the privilege of making this
application, but nothing like the cost of actually
attending.)

Well, today we got an automated email! It said, [sic]:
"Your The Henrys’s submission to 22nd Annual
International Folk Alliance Conference has been
updated to Not Selected."

That's so awesome!!! Thanks for the update!!

Nov '09: Review in current Penguin Eggs -
'sublime...lovely... gorgeous'

Nov '09: Rehearsing for our show in Greenbank are
Michelle Willis, Mark Mariash, Andrew Downing and
Don Rooke.

Aug 09: Featured hour about new disc on Australia's
national radio show The Planet

Aug 09: Featured full-length show about new disc on
Holland's Concertzender Radi

Older News:

August 2009
Got a couple of gigs, diary, and working towards more.
Perhaps Australia would have us? Based on the radio
show feature they're preparing for August 23, which
can be heard then and in the weeks following (on
demand) somehow via this link.

Other than working down there, our first gig, as of now,
is Nov 7 in Greenbank ON at a great little hall.
That's it for now.

----------
May 2009,
Dear Diary,
As promised, we are delivering the CD package. I'd
like to say 'right on schedule', but anybody who reads
these entries would be slamming down their beers,
jumping out of their chairs and shouting 'What the hell is
that Henry on about?? That is utter NONSENSE!"

And to be honest, they'd have a point.

At one time this new disc was our sweet little baby.
Just a tiny demo formation. Then it started growing up,
got a bit ornery, needed attention, refused attention,
got in trouble with the cops a few times... pretty soon
what we had was the proverbial teenager that would
not move out of the basement. We had to leave it
alone.

Seasons passed. Winter turned to summer, and back
to winter. Slowly, there was a maturation process. Then
one fine day, it up and moved out! Just like that.

Hence the product, Is This Tomorrow, which could
arguably represent those many hand-wringing
conversations in hushed tones in rooms over the
basement, talks that often ended with a supplicant,
"Maybe it will move out t-t-tomorrow???"
_________

April 2007. Again, indefatigable. Updates to the
myspace page (see link from Index) and the Movie
page here - lots o clips!
Work on the new CD continues apace! ha ha. It's done,
but unmixed. No deadline=no need. No market
demand tantamount to early retirement. What hurry?

Sept 23 - ever vigilant. working on the link from Movie
page to, we hope, the movie.
Also the Henrys myspace
(http://www.myspace.com/thehenrys1) page now has a
photo show.
_________
September 12 - new dr external pix pg:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/hencorp/
_________
September 9 - recording on the new disc continues
apace (which in Italian might be pronounced Apache,
no?).
_________
July 14, like a lemming:
http://www.myspace.com/thehenrys1
_________
July 13 - Now it can even be procured.
http://www.cdroots.com/cdr-05.html
_________
May 3 '06
That duo recording is now available for listening at
Rootsworld, link above.
_________

April '06

Got a bunch of videos here, from a variety of venues
and our performances over the last few years, and the
other day we had one of our "ideas:" The Henrys DVD.
Now THAT would move units! Especially in the
home-burned, one-at-a-time, photocopied-artwork,
illegal-use of a couple-of TV-broadcasts manufacturing
run this history would dictate. What a grey market
collectible, and under $20? Unheard of! Not mono
either (and not 5.1), but back to the good old stereo
sound! Binaural.

So all we have to do is overcome the inertia, ask the
various musicians if they like the idea, get past a
couple of hundred technical hurdles, and get 'er done.
Let's call it a stocking stuffer, '06.
-----------------

Well, we did a duo recording, live(ish), for our friend
Cliff at www.cdroots.com. He asked for it 2 years ago;
did 'er 2 weeks back. DR and Jeremy Bellaviti playing
acoustically: Rookaviti.

Cliff might have it up on his site in May and we'll link to
it then, but interested guitfans can also contact us
directly.

Don will be sitting in with Kevin Breit and his band Folk
Alarm on May 3 at Hugh's Room.

Then there's the new recording that we've been
working on, a soundtrack. The release should include a
bonus disc of extras: music written for scenes that were
deleted, out-takes, stuff that didn't get used or that's too
whacked for the main disc. It's all pretty well in place,
but we're not finished the buffing and sanding, probably
because, for this portion of the exercise, we're not
facing a deadline. Which is bittersweet.

Guest singers are plenty: Becca Stevens (NYC, nee
NC), Martina Sorbara (UK via TO), Jessie Coutts (NZ -
south island) and M2O'H (unknown origin). All fabulous.

Finally, and readily apparent to any return visitor, the
website has had a facelift, a tummy tuck, brow lift,
botox, liposuction, fat grafting and a few hits of
collagen.
_________
To get the most out of Joyous Porous (or any other cd),
listen to it on a stereo - a good old-fashioned stereo
with speakers and an amp.

If you want to hear the top end, feel the bass and
experience what's really going on in between, forget
the computer speakers, the discman jogging
headphones, the mini-boombox with no low end;
reserve the "Compact Shelf Stereo System with 3-CD
changer" Promo System from Visa for another time.
Crank it up loud on a solid, maybe even tube, stereo
system.

There.

We're glad we got that off our (group) chest.

Did we suggest you turn it up good and loud?