The Bitterweed Draw

Please watch the videos! - The Calgary Collection

Please watch the video! - Analog Songs

An album review by Argue Job. - Argue Job

If you were out walking around downtown a couple Friday nights ago, maybe you were on a date, maybe you were meeting up with a couple friends, maybe you were out drinking — hopefully, you were drinking whiskey — and, out of nowhere, you happened upon a crowd. The crowd was hootin' and hollerin', stomping and clapping, kicking up a fuss. Such was the carnival that you decided to stop because, dammit, they looked like they were having a good ol' time. At the centre of it all, whipping up the fuss and encouraging the party, was a band playing an unplugged, impromptu set just outside the venue where they were having their CD release party. The Bitterweed Draw, local country, fire-starting outlaws, had had their party spill out onto the streets. They didn't plan it that way, but the bar could not long contain their raucous set inside their own walls, so the Bitterweed Draw took it to the streets, to the people.

The band had already played one set but many people couldn't get in because of certain regulations about capacity for safety in the event of catastrophe or fire, so they took their "old-time music with a rock 'n' roll swagger" to the people that were on the streets. They have "been inspiring this kind of connection" in people for a long time, says Mike Corbiell, the sextet's banjo-wielding vocalist, and gaining momentum with their high-energy sound. "We try to incorporate the old country style with new sensibilities: we throw in covers of Rancid, Motörhead and Hank Williams." After their brief stint on the streets, they later returned to the bar to play yet another set to cap off the night and release their album proper like that. A few weeks later, they would demonstrate a similar rebellious drive as they heated up our very own MTT Fest after-party, inciting furious two-stepping on a beer-soaked carpet underneath a low, broken roof. It may have been well past the witching hour, but the Bitterweed Draw stripped down and greeted the muggy atmosphere and lubricated revellers with aplomb.

Bitterweed Draw is a young band, two years young that is, and they embrace the old-time instruments like banjos, violins and washboards. They embrace the attitude as well: "The old country bands they were quite punk, running around, playing music, drinking whiskey and writing songs about it. The music the structures are actually quite similar," explains Corbiell.

The band is now taking the music from the streets of Calgary to the roads that span our country. They will be crossing Canada for their first national tour this spring. "It's our first coast-to-coast tour, our inaugural tour as a band," says Corbiell. "Most of us we have never been across the country before!" The band will be playing over 40 shows in eight weeks, all the way from Vancouver to Halifax, to support their latest album, Heart of the Old West. The excitement is clearly drawn on their faces as they get ready to bring the party to the rest of Canada. - Graham Mackenzie - Boutroute Magazine

It is 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night and the cavernous retro bowling alley known as Mountain View is filled with excited patrons exchanging enthusiastic high fives, 14 varieties of beer and tips on how to get the coveted strike.
The six musicians who make up Calgary alternative country act the Bitterweed Draw are sharing a small lane, excited that their drummer Melissa McWilliams made it: she’s been on tour with Deadhorse for several weeks. She is the last to arrive and is bombarded with hugs when her coloured leather clad foot touches the lacquered hardwood.
Alongside McWilliams, the Bitterweed Draw is comprised of bassist and vocalist Dan Finamore, banjoist and vocalist Mike Corbiell (formerly of Platinum Alibi), guitarist and vocalist Mario Casagrande (also of Desert Boots), lead guitarist and vocalist Wayne Garrett (also a session musician and of Billionaire Sex Brothers) and fiddler Cathy Billington (also of Evan Web & the Poisonous Birds, James Dangerous & the CIA and Billionaire Sex Brothers). Although nearly every member plays in multiple Calgary acts, their undeniable chemistry in the energetic bluegrass/honky-tonk act is infectious to the point of destruction.
“I’d say being extremely irresponsible to the point that we burn something down is how our honky-tonk works,” explains McWilliams, segueing into the band's recording session for the St. Patrick’s Day-released The Burnt Cabin Sessions EP. The three-track record is available for free download at the Bitterweed Draw’s Bandcamp site, and was dubbed as such after they literally burnt down a wall in Billington’s grandparents' cabin on Lower Kananaskis Lake.
“We couldn’t have done it any other way. Especially with our first one: it had to be in a cabin and it had to be really low recording costs, get a buddy to do it, and it just so happened that we burnt it down,” she says.
It is entirely fitting, as the three-track recording is infused with a dirty, old time country feel, complete with gravely whiskey soaked vocals, plucky banjo, twangy guitar, galloping and jaunty percussion and a subdued, old time fiddle.
“Basically we rolled out to Cathy’s grandparents cabin, this super old rustic time cabin to go do this recording,” explains Corbiell. “We were just pounding liquor all night and just getting drunker and drunker between takes. But I was in charge of the fire, there was a fireplace, and they put me, as is the norm, I get put in charge of the fire. I like to build a warm fire; some people would call it a little bit excessive sometimes. And probably everyone who was at that cabin would call it excessive. I just had it going on all night, and what happened was it was an old chimney and it had a bunch of cracks and it got so hot inside the walls that they actually combusted and we all went to sleep.”
Casagrande attempted to wake up his bandmates an hour later as the cabin filled with smoke and eventually the fire alarm went off. Finamore grabbed an extinguisher and shot it up the chimney; the fire department arrived soon afterwards. The wall and chimney where subsequently hacked down.
“My sweet old grandma,” laments Billington. At the story's conclusion, she approaches the lane and rolls a strike.
Undoubtedly, the Bitterweed Draw are chaotic and vigorous and subsequently, their live performances are becoming renowned. It was a vital element they wanted to capture in their recording and they thus recruited Nils Mikkelsen to record them live off the floor. The number of takes it took is unclear.
“I think the first song we did, we did in one take and each song took progressively more takes the drunker we got,” says Casagrande.
“We are a live band,” asserts Finamore. “Our band is really about that energy and it can only be captured live. So if we were to do single track recording and not live off the floor, it wouldn’t be the same band.”
As such, “Roll On,” “Warm Whiskey” and “Train Rollin'” are mostly live, save for overdubbed vocal tracks. The result is that the recording's inherent messiness – fuelled by massive whiskey consumption – adds more character.
“It was nice and cozy and it was nice to use something like that instead of the studio,” says Garrett. “We are not about super fidelity, we are old timey music so it doesn’t have to be. It’s more about the atmosphere and the energy.”

- Beatroute Magazine

It is 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night and the cavernous retro bowling alley known as Mountain View is filled with excited patrons exchanging enthusiastic high fives, 14 varieties of beer and tips on how to get the coveted strike.
The six musicians who make up Calgary alternative country act the Bitterweed Draw are sharing a small lane, excited that their drummer Melissa McWilliams made it: she’s been on tour with Deadhorse for several weeks. She is the last to arrive and is bombarded with hugs when her coloured leather clad foot touches the lacquered hardwood.
Alongside McWilliams, the Bitterweed Draw is comprised of bassist and vocalist Dan Finamore, banjoist and vocalist Mike Corbiell (formerly of Platinum Alibi), guitarist and vocalist Mario Casagrande (also of Desert Boots), lead guitarist and vocalist Wayne Garrett (also a session musician and of Billionaire Sex Brothers) and fiddler Cathy Billington (also of Evan Web & the Poisonous Birds, James Dangerous & the CIA and Billionaire Sex Brothers). Although nearly every member plays in multiple Calgary acts, their undeniable chemistry in the energetic bluegrass/honky-tonk act is infectious to the point of destruction.
“I’d say being extremely irresponsible to the point that we burn something down is how our honky-tonk works,” explains McWilliams, segueing into the band's recording session for the St. Patrick’s Day-released The Burnt Cabin Sessions EP. The three-track record is available for free download at the Bitterweed Draw’s Bandcamp site, and was dubbed as such after they literally burnt down a wall in Billington’s grandparents' cabin on Lower Kananaskis Lake.
“We couldn’t have done it any other way. Especially with our first one: it had to be in a cabin and it had to be really low recording costs, get a buddy to do it, and it just so happened that we burnt it down,” she says.
It is entirely fitting, as the three-track recording is infused with a dirty, old time country feel, complete with gravely whiskey soaked vocals, plucky banjo, twangy guitar, galloping and jaunty percussion and a subdued, old time fiddle.
“Basically we rolled out to Cathy’s grandparents cabin, this super old rustic time cabin to go do this recording,” explains Corbiell. “We were just pounding liquor all night and just getting drunker and drunker between takes. But I was in charge of the fire, there was a fireplace, and they put me, as is the norm, I get put in charge of the fire. I like to build a warm fire; some people would call it a little bit excessive sometimes. And probably everyone who was at that cabin would call it excessive. I just had it going on all night, and what happened was it was an old chimney and it had a bunch of cracks and it got so hot inside the walls that they actually combusted and we all went to sleep.”
Casagrande attempted to wake up his bandmates an hour later as the cabin filled with smoke and eventually the fire alarm went off. Finamore grabbed an extinguisher and shot it up the chimney; the fire department arrived soon afterwards. The wall and chimney where subsequently hacked down.
“My sweet old grandma,” laments Billington. At the story's conclusion, she approaches the lane and rolls a strike.
Undoubtedly, the Bitterweed Draw are chaotic and vigorous and subsequently, their live performances are becoming renowned. It was a vital element they wanted to capture in their recording and they thus recruited Nils Mikkelsen to record them live off the floor. The number of takes it took is unclear.
“I think the first song we did, we did in one take and each song took progressively more takes the drunker we got,” says Casagrande.
“We are a live band,” asserts Finamore. “Our band is really about that energy and it can only be captured live. So if we were to do single track recording and not live off the floor, it wouldn’t be the same band.”
As such, “Roll On,” “Warm Whiskey” and “Train Rollin'” are mostly live, save for overdubbed vocal tracks. The result is that the recording's inherent messiness – fuelled by massive whiskey consumption – adds more character.
“It was nice and cozy and it was nice to use something like that instead of the studio,” says Garrett. “We are not about super fidelity, we are old timey music so it doesn’t have to be. It’s more about the atmosphere and the energy.”

- Beatroute Magazine