Genre: Beerhall Orchestra / Ragtime Folkestra

Members: Charlie Glasspool, Trevor Davis, Dave Tough, Pat Walsh, Mike Begin, Wyatt Burton, Cathy Petch, Kelly Pineault, Jen Ball, Jay Swinnterton, Cousin Jay, Mathias Kom, Tom Reader, Brian Sanderson, Jesse Pilgrim

Official Site: www.thesilverhearts.ca

Year Founded: 2000

Record Label:

Description#1: Ensconced as the house band at the ancient, ramshackle tavern The Montreal House, the original duo of Charlie Glasspool and Trevor “Tiny” Davis attracted old friends and grew from a duo, to a quintet, to an anarchic horde of over a dozen players and singers, bringing a dark, absurdist edge to their reworkings of blues, country and tin-pan-alley music, and tore into originals, standards and contemporary covers with equal ferocity and grim glee.

Veterans of Peterborough’s folk, hard rock and experimental music scenes of the 1990s, epic three-set shows turned the band into a powerhouse, loose-but-tight ensemble of archindividuals, and put the pressure on the band to master such arcane instruments as sousaphone and theremin and to always learn or write more timeless songs to fill out the set.

Bio - The Silver Hearts - photo by www.paulgalipeau.comThe Silver Hearts reached their creative zenith on the albums No Place (2002; CBC Bandwidth album of the year) and Our Precious City (2004), adding another idiosyncratic chapter to the history of experimental folk music, and contributing a few otherworldly instrumentals, heartbreaking ballads and abstract dance numbers to the people’s songbook in the process. After releasing a full-album cover of Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs, the band went on hiatus, regrouping temporarily to make Dear Stranger (2006) with Andre Ethier. Reunited occasionally, the band celebrated its tenth anniversary by resuming full activity, having played at the Arabaki Festival in Sendai, Japan in May 2010 and now gigs somewhat regularly throughout Ontario.

Information Source: thesilverhearts.ca

Description#2: When I was just 19 I found out about the Silver Hearts. I had heard they were playing songs from the Harry Smith Folk Anthologies, weird, old, rare songs, the songs I was into and listening to in my small hometown of Sutton, ON. So, I started going to check them out. I would take the bus to see them from Toronto to Peterborough every Weds until I decided I needed to move here and start my own band.

Information Source#2: Nick Ferrio

Current Status: Active (2015)