Jay Crocker

Remember when you were a kid and the adults would say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Feel more than free to do that with Melodies from the Outskirts. The debut album’s intriguing title is an apt representation of what’s inside.
This album blends together jazz, rock and Latin influences to create an addictive sound. Just when you start to relax into that finger-snapping vibe, the music becomes powered and you want to dance the night away.
As well, Crocker possesses the unique ability to know when to let the music speak for itself, resulting in numerous instrumental solos on the album. One of the best songs for this is “Strong Arm Down,” in which the trumpet just takes over and takes away.
However, if you’re the type that needs vocals in music, be warned, this album is more instrumental than vocal, and when the vocals are present they’re toned down and taking a back seat. One notable song for vocals is “Framosa Road.”
The 10-piece band creates a full sound that varies from set to set. From the sweeter, slow-paced “Paper Thin” to the West Side Story feel of “Dead Birds,” everything is different in its own right but drawn together with one simple motif: the talented Mr. Crocker.
- The Manitoban (University of Manitoba)

Jay Crocker and his ten-piece Calgary-based ensemble are on their way out East to show off their unique mix of jazz, pop, rock and they've added a new criterion: friendship. "The whole band, they're pretty much old friends of mine and friends that I've met along the way. I wouldn't do it any other way. This music it's not your standard big band kind of stuff. I believe that each member is in this band for a reason and you can hear the personality of each member through the music," explains Crocker.

Every musician in the group has something new to bring to create a unified feel. To add to this, Crocker blends together a range of sounds and influences to shape his musical story; it's "everything from Duke Ellington to Wilco and everything in between," says Crocker. "I'm a music lover." Crocker loves and listens to a range of music, which helps him pull together his diverse sound.

If he's not busy touring or satisfying the industry aspect of interviews and meetings, chances are you'll catch him out at a local venue. Crocker loves to check out the scene, "not only to support the local community and the local music community but it's to learn from other people.

As a musician you're in a constant state of learning, or at least you should be." Crocker has learned a fair bit himself over the past number of years. In fact, after graduating high school he completed a number of successful tours across Canada with his then-band Recipe from a Small Planet. From there he made a reevaluation and took his musical expression to a new level by studying at the Mount Royal College jazz program. Now, he's learning and soaking up everything and anything around him.

Crocker explains that he's since learned, "how to get out what I was trying to say with more conviction and do it a lot quicker. I don't know if it's better. It's just different. It's like a natural progression. I'm happy with it. I understand how to play and write down what I'm hearing fairy instantaneously. So it is like a language. As soon as you start to study that language, you figure out different ways to manipulate it. I guess I have a fairly decent handle on how to organize sound. I believe that anything, even somebody walking on the street in the middle of the night and their footsteps, all these sounds that you're hearing, I think that music is a way of organizing all of those different sounds into something that is actually a dialogue. It is something that can actually translate to the ear, and even some of those sounds, they can be music in themselves," Crocker reflects.

Crocker's also figured out how to work the whole picture, for him it's not just about his music, but it's about the whole band, the dynamic and the relationships.

"It's a totally open dialogue. It's like a hockey team; everybody is playing for the better of the team. There's no one person who really stands out. It's everybody playing together; that's sort of the philosophy of the group," laughs Crocker.

"Everybody's into it, and it's all the right personalities mixing together. It creates quite an explosive sound. With this group everybody is on the same page." As far as sound goes Crocker finds it hard to pinpoint because "there's a bit of everything.

I like to party and get down sometimes but I also like to write ballads and playing floor tunes that hopefully people can get into as well.

I like making very creative and more artful tunes as well. We're trying to create a story. We're trying to make it so it moves, so it's more three-dimensional than one-dimensional." Crocker wants to add new dimensions as well as new feelings and just to keep the entire experience flowing.

"There's lots of mixed emotions in the show," Crocker adds, "sometimes it gets really far out and crazy, sometimes it's really funky and other times it just sort of mellow and just nice. It just happens. That's the way it is. I want to keep the show as honest and as real as it can be. I just think people should come check it out because it's a really unique project and there's a lot of guys in the band that need to be heard."

Jay Crocker and The Electric Apes are heading to Nep-tunes in Saint John on Tuesday, April 4 then they're off to The Cellar in Fredericton on Wednesday, April 5 and then they're finishing things off at The Paramount in Moncton on Thursday, April 6.
- Here Magazine (New Brunswick)

I CAN GUARANTEE that The Seahorse Tavern has never seen an act like Jay Crocker and the Electric Apes before.
On Friday, the Calgary guitarist/singer-songwriter brings his 10-piece ensemble to the underground stage on Argyle Street.
""This is big, that’s for sure,"" says Crocker, previously a member of the funk/soul/reggae hybrid Recipe From a Small Planet. ""It’s no easy task hauling 11 bodies across the country.

""But we’ve done it,"" sighs Crocker from Saint John, noting that Halifax is the end of the line for this lineup, performing music from his Saved By Radio CD, Music From the Outskirts.
Crocker wrangles a lot of different sounds over the course of the CD, with big horn parts, stinging slide guitar, doses of Latin and quieter acoustic passages. He hopes to get the Apes back out on the road this summer for the jazz and folk festival circuits, where the groups versatility will put the ensemble in good stead.
Crocker’s songs usually end in a very different place from where they started, hence the title Music From the Outskirts, suggesting a musical mind that’s always on the move, often to destinations for which he can’t always provide directions.
""When I’m writing, I’m not sitting there trying to figure out reference points, I just kinda write whatever’s happening in my mind at the time,"" he explains. ""I write down lines and melodies, and I don’t try to cater to idioms. That’s just not me.""
To hear his sound, visit Jay Crocker online at www.jaycrocker.com
- The Halifax Chronicle-Herald

Calgary's singer-guitarist Jay Crocker's latest venture may be his most bold
yet, as he leads a 10 piece band that dabbles in many musical styles from
the bluesy tribal gut music of Wooden Tin to the jazz kick of Strong Arm
Down. All tracks were written and arranged by Crocker.

Every song is different. After Wooden Tin opens the CD, Eramosa Road has a
gentle approach, with Crocker's lead vocal sounding a lot like another
Canadian Dave Wall. The high-energy Strong Arm Down alternates between and
edgy Mardi Gras sound and horn-driven swing (the band has three horn
players, and saxophonist Gareth Hughes and trumpeter Howie Woiwod rise to
the occasion). Ice Man has an ice-cool groove reminiscent of BTO's Blue
Collar, Dead Birds is as owly as two-day-old road kill, and the ballad Paper
Thin has some fine steel guitar work from the leader.

That leaves Somewhere Between Good & Evil which features a hypnotic line
from the upright bass that gets jolted by the horns, Wake Up Honolulu, a
kind of Hawaiin-music-meets-Hank-Williams number and a nameless ninth bonus
track which dabbles in electronics.

Jay Crocker and the Electric Apes wind up their month-long, cross-country
tour with a show Saturday at the Fairview. ***
- The Vancouver Sun

Melding Tom Waits grit with big-band swing and an occasional splash of
creative chaos, singer-guitarist Jay Crocker's solo debut, Melodies from the
Outskirts, suggests that Calgary is far hipper than it seems-or, at the very
least, that it's the birthplace of a previously unknown form of
cabaret-country-Afrobeat fusion. There's no better way to hear the former
Recipe from a Small Planet frontman than in the company of his 10-piece
Electric Apes band, which will overflow the stage at the Fairview on
Saturday (April 22).
- Georgia Straight

The Anti-Hit List for February 11
Feb. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
JOHN SAKAMOTO


4. JAY CROCKER, "WOODEN TIN"

Though there's a certain similarity between this Calgary singer-songwriter's sound and what Neil Young was getting up to during his Bluenotes phase, that may simply be because you just don't hear a big, full-bodied horn section that often. Besides, Crocker's palette features an admirably wide range of colours, from jazz to blues to the time-tested "whoa-whoa" refrain that was recycled most recently by Will Smith's "Switch." (From Melodies from the Outskirts, - The toronto Star

If you’re searching for a reason to respect Alberta right now, maybe this experimental pop record is it. It’s Jay Crocker’s sophomore album, a theatrical procession of piano, strings and brass, of sing-along pop and singer-songwriter stoicism, with the scope of a Broadway musical and the intricate (de)construction of the wilder side of jazz. Crocker’s voice and overall musical aesthetic are vaguely reminiscent of M. Ward and Rufus Wainwright, but with his emphasis on soulful swing and his brave sorties into chaos, comparisons and categorization don’t come easily. 8/10

Lorraine Carpenter - Montreal Mirror

n many ways, Jay Crocker and Chad VanGaalen are on opposite ends of the musical spectrum. Crocker is best known for crowding a dozen or so musicians onto a stage to play tightly scored, upbeat big-band pop. His vocal delivery is deliberate and crisp, a carefully weighted addition to the meticulously arranged mix. VanGaalen, on the other hand, flies relatively solo. Although he is often joined onstage by a two-piece backing band, his most memorable performances recall his history as a one-man band busking on the streets of Calgary. Beautiful, tenuous and deeply sardonic, his songs are nebulous, mischievously harnessing the power of organized disarray.

That said, the pair also have a lot in common. Both spent the past year engaged in the daunting balancing act of raising newborn children while writing, recording, promoting and touring in support of freshly cut albums. And while the grooves etched into those records could hardly be more stylistically different, they are both products of an approach to life and craft alike that boils down to a folk music esthetic. Probing the origins of their lives as musicians reveals a comprehensive do-it-yourself mentality rooted in a profound appreciation for good, old-fashioned dedication and an insatiable curiosity about the nature of the sounds they produce.

“My love for music came pretty late, because I wasn’t really exposed to much of it as a kid,” explains VanGaalen. “My sister gave me a Corey Hart tape when I was in elementary and I think the next thing I got was A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory, which was the first time when I thought music could be pretty awesome. I wasn’t playing until Grade 12, which is when I taught myself how to play guitar after hearing Sonic Youth’s Goo. Then bands like Shellac introduced me to things like [experimental composer] Glen Branca. Then I got really into avant garde stuff like John Cage’s ‘Sonatas and Interludes’ for prepared piano, which was what triggered the whole idea of instrument building and trying to find the roots of all those sounds.”

Though the pair has never collaborated in the studio, they both speak fondly of hang-out sessions where the two of them would construct homemade instruments and effect boxes. From VanGaalen’s arsenal of hobo woodwinds to Crocker’s “Cockatong” fuzz pedal, the output of these projects is rooted in the philosophy that the textures the two musicians are after can’t simply be bought — they need to be built from scratch.

“When I’m building instruments, it’s all devoted to what kind of sound I can make inside the language of improvised music, whoever it may be that I’m playing with, and that’s found its way into the pop stuff a little bit these days,” says Crocker. It’s not just Crocker’s instruments that take the made-from-scratch approach, either. Even the packaging for his soon-to-be-released follow up to 2006’s Melodies from the Outskirts. “We got sent glossy cases and the ink wouldn’t take, so they’re all hand-sanded, like those ‘oops, I sat in bleach’ jeans. We’re trying to do everything we can to do it ourselves completely.”

That follow up, dubbed Below the Ocean Over, is worth the two-year wait. Recorded and produced by Craig Schumacher (Devotchka, Calexico, Neko Case) at his renowned Wavelab Studio in Tucson, the album exceeds expectations at every turn. Characterized by what Crocker calls a “more unified skin” than his previous work, the album flows seamlessly between delicate, dissonant string crescendos and rich horn interludes, from morose, thoughtful instrumentals to jaunty riffs that compel you to dance. Played from a score that was committed to sheet music long before the trip south became a reality, the repertoire is brought to life by a cadre of musicians who take the notes off the page and infuse them with an unmistakable sense of adventure and camaraderie.

“There were 10 of us down there [in Tucson] in a rented house, and we played our asses off all day long,” says Crocker, who recalls the session with a pilgrim’s awe and reverence. “For ‘Broadway Star,’ we were all around one microphone, so it took about four hours just to get everyone placed properly, and we did maybe five takes. So you’re sitting there in a room with 10 guys all fanned out and you don’t want to be the guy to fuck it up, and you can hear that tension in the song, which is beautiful, I think. You can hear that performance, and you can hear every performance on the album. The solos and stuff, most of them were done in one take with all of us standing there, waiting for the guy to rip one off and then cheering when he did. It was a pretty life-changing experience for all of us.”

By comparison, the story of VanGaalen’s recent project is one of austere solitude. Although the defining image of the solitary man hunkered down in his basement clashes violently with Crocker’s tale of adventure, there remains a common thread about an artist devoted to being involved in his work on as many levels as possible. As with previous recordings, VanGaalen’s Soft Airplane is adorned with his hand-drawn artwork, and the video for lead single “Molten Light” is one of his characteristically bizarre animated shorts. And where Crocker enlists a battalion of musicians to carry out his creations, VanGaalen turns to bizarre contraptions like the robot-powered drum machine that churns out the rhythm on “Cries of the Dead.” Looking forward, the enthusiastic innovator has his sights set on ever more ambitious inventions.

“So you take any drum machine — just some piece of shit, you don’t need anything good — and suddenly it becomes the programming for your MIDI brain,” he says, describing the intricate details of his next big device, essentially a programmable drum machine that would physically drum instead of using digital samples. “You program your drum beat on your shitty drum machine, and it sends each channel to a pin on the brain. And from each pin you run a wire out to a solenoid, which is a magnetically driven thing like on old percussive doorbells, where it physically makes a magnet pop up and hit a xylophone key. So what I’m going to be doing is programming drum beats, then having 16 solenoids that will be playing the different parts. And since it’s all modular, I can play the rooms I’m playing in instead of having a drum machine. Every night it’ll be different — I’ll pull all the solenoids out like octopus tentacles and just hit around with a drumstick and find cool things to stick the solenoids to. It’s easier than it sounds. It’s way easier than the drum [robot]. It’s almost too easy!”

Given his established knack for off-the-page innovation and an imagination that toes the line between warped and deranged, there’s no doubt that VanGaalen’s recent transition from stoner rocker to parenthood has raised some eyebrows. Who among us isn’t curious what it would be like to be reared under the tutelage of a twisted genius who sings sad, pretty songs about death and dismemberment? True to form as a consummate experimenter, the stay-at-home dad weaves a story to pique the interest of music lovers and sociologists alike.

“My parents were divorced really early on, and my dad got put in jail for selling drugs and shit,” he recalls. “Don’t get me wrong, my mom did an awesome job of raising me, but we didn’t really have analog synthesizers or crazy-ass drum machines or vibraphones, so I try and put things like that and glockenspiels and ukuleles in front of [my daughter], and she’s loving it. We draw together all the time, and it’s kind of a mini experiment — raising this thing that doesn’t really have any walls around it. And all the options she has, like being gay — she can be whatever she wants in any way, which really excites me. A lesbian mathematician is what we’re shooting for, so… hopefully.”

While this ambitious, forward-thinking tack runs against the mainstream grain in Calgary, a city seen by many outsiders as a great bastion of traditional conservative values, VanGaalen remains undaunted and intent on raising his daughter in his hometown, no matter how she turns out. Likewise, Crocker has no plans to leave anytime soon, despite his growing frustration over the lack of public support for those in the culture business.

“The art community here is a lot smaller, but there are a lot of really good genuine people here, and a lot of people that are searching and pushing and digging,” Crocker says. “I’ve been able to do what I do here and still experiment. I’ve often wondered how much the character and quality of the arts community here is actually a consequence of people having to push back so hard.”

Fortunately, it seems like all the pushing is paying off. Drawn in by bright lights (including the relative supernova of VanGaalen’s talent), the lumbering gaze of international attention is finally giving Calgary a fair shake. While Crocker’s new album has the potential to push him that much closer to the precipice that represents the end of obscurity, fame is the farthest thing from his mind.

“In a perfect world, I would have enough money to keep working but slide underneath the radar with just enough people to keep it going,” he says. “That’s my goal: to keep doing work with good people and to not have to suck from the bottle of water in the hamster cage. Being signed and having indie recognition doesn’t really do it for me. I like making the records and hearing the sounds and exploring that. It’s the work for me. I’m just a hard-working gigolo. With a really small penis.”

Asked about his own meteoric rise to indie stardom, VanGaalen is emphatic that he knew he could make it as a musician long before the days of sales numbers and signing to Sub Pop records, offering yet another taste of the dyed-in-the-wool folk sentiment that makes him such an easy guy to like.

“When I was busking, I was making $500 a night, and that’s when I knew I could pay my bills,” he says. “Since then, I started getting paid a lot less money. What the fuck? I was making more on the street taking my pirate’s gold back home and counting dirty change. Now I have agents and managers to pay….”

“And shitty band members,” chimes a voice in the background.

“Yeah, and shitty band members to pay, so I was making more as a one-man band, but it’s way more fun now. Well, no, it’s a different kind of fun. I’m covering ground. I’m not just playing outside the Wicked Wedge any more. I’m playing in New York City, outside pizza places. Letting people hear it a little bit more.”

Pat Boyle - FFWD Weekly

There are moments on Below the Ocean Over, Jay Crocker’s second solo album, when the otherwise polite proceedings seem dangerously close to veering off the rails. The opening track, “July”, for instance, features a passage, four minutes in, in which a distorted guitar and a violin appear to be having a pissing contest over an off-meter drum solo. Later on, the horn-driven funk of “The Delicious” descends into brassy chaos for a few bars before snapping back into the chorus. You’d be forgiven for thinking that those parts of the disc, recorded at Tucson, Arizona’s famed Wavelab Studio, sprang from pure improvisation, but Crocker says that’s not the case.

“It was all written and arranged before we went to Tucson to record it,” the singer and guitarist says, reached at home in Calgary. “I’ll be sitting around in the kitchen or something, and I’ll have some notation paper and I’ll scratch something down, and then organize it for those interludes.”

Crocker did all the arranging himself, which is no small feat considering that some 15 other musicians appear on the album, including brass and string sections. It’s a skill he owes, in part, to a painful medical condition.

“When I was in school I got tendonitis, and at the same time I was learning a lot about arranging, so it was kind of a good time to stop playing the guitar and to dive right into arrangement,” he reveals. “And then when I was done school I read, like, every book there was on arranging and just started arranging like crazy, and that’s how I learned how to do it.”

On Below the Ocean Over, Crocker applies his talents to everything from the singer-songwriterly piano balladry of “Tornado Warnings” to the junkyard stomp of “Robot Clothes” and the round-midnight jazz shuffle of “Broadway Star”. It’s an eclectic approach that seems designed to appeal to those who appreciate the likes of Calexico and Tom Waits, although the names Crocker drops—Han Bennink, Richard Youngs, Paal Nilssen-Love—are a little farther left of centre.

In fact, when he’s not writing and performing under his own name, Crocker plays with the Calgary-based experimental-improv collective Bug Incision, whose music is as odd as any you’ll ever hear. He’s also a member of the more straight-ahead indie-rock band Ghostkeeper, and he sits in the producer’s chair for a number of other acts. That doesn’t leave much time for a day job, but Crocker says music pays his bills—just barely.

“Some months are better than others,” he admits. “Sometimes it gets hard, trying to play independent music, and independent music that is, I guess, challenging, or… I don’t want to say unusual… idiosyncratic, I guess. It’s not easy. Playing improv music and free jazz and stuff isn’t a huge money generator. But it’s good. I’ve been able to carve something out for myself here, and hopefully it just keeps getting better.”

John Lucas - Georgia Straight

When Jay Crocker takes the stage this Saturday, it’ll be under the guise of band-leader and singer-songwriter, though that’s just one of the many hats he can be seen wearing these days.

“I think I’ve produced ... seven records this year,” he laughs. Also a full-fledged member of NOMORESHAPES and Ghostkeeper, Crocker is clearly keeping busy down in his home base of Calgary.

In early 2007, Crocker was able to set aside two weeks to make the trek down to Tuscon, Arizona where he had the opportunity to work with producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Iron & Wine, Neko Case) at the famed analogue-mecca Wavelab Studios. Below the Ocean Over is the result, a sprawling and inventive effort recently released on Calgary-based Artunit Records.

“I had wanted to work with Craig since hearing [Neko Case’s] Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” he explains. “The analogue recording process is also important to me; the focus is more on the performances, and the sound has more depth when you record to tape. Everything just seems to hang together better.”

After the release of 2006’s Melodies From the Outskirts, Crocker gathered nine of his friends together as the Electric Apes to help bring those songs to life on the road. These same musicians took the trip down to Arizona as well, and as Crocker explains, there wasn’t much thought given to working with anyone else.

“I just know how to write for those guys. We have a great working relationship, and I’m able to explain the musical sketches very quickly and easily. There’s a lot of unspoken dialogue that goes on within the band.”

Forgoing any obsessive computer micro-editing and artificial auto-tuning, Crocker and the Apes were able to move relatively quickly under the experienced guidance of Schumacher.

“With him at the helm, we were able to get the best performances out of everyone,” Crocker recalls. “Not only that, but he knew how to get the right colour, the right sounds for the songs. The album just wouldn’t sound the same with anyone else working on it.”

Returning to Calgary after the recording process, Crocker became immersed in other musical endeavors, producing records for Ghostkeeper, Lorrie Matheson and Ryan Bourne among others. Switching from the stage to the studio to the producer’s chair could be jarring for some, but as Crocker explains, all he needs is the time to properly devote to each endeavor.

“I like to put my all into the projects I’m involved with,” Crocker says. “I spend about a week before the project begins getting into the right mindset and kind of compartmentalizing what I’ll be doing. I’ll block some time out on a calendar, and dedicate to it fully. I’m not going to make records just on the weekends.” V

James Stewart - Vue Weekly