Longtime Riverdale resident Gregg Lawless has carved out a rewarding career bringing music to students throughout the Greater Toronto Area and Canada.
Much of it has been carried out through his alter ego Gregg LeRock, specializing in French music for English-speaking students across Canada and for which he has recorded four albums and received two Juno Award nominations.
He also works with area school boards, helping students through a variety of songwriting workshops.
You could call it his ‘day’ job.
At night, however, under his own name, he dives into his ‘other’ music career as a songwriter and performer.
And he is set to release his fourth album (as Gregg Lawless) on Saturday, Jan. 25 at Hugh’s Room, for what has now become an annual gig that perennially sells out.
"For people who have come out and supported you, to think you can come and give them something new and hopefully exciting is great," said Lawless, in a recent phone interview.
As usual, his new album, titled Footnote, effortlessly mines today’s music styles – rock and blues with a touch of folk, reggae and jazz. He wrote nine of the tracks and mixed in an irreverently fun, slow-groove cover of Elvis Presley’s ‘All Shook Up’.
His style could be compared to Blue Rodeo, minus their moody stuff. Mostly lots of inspired takes on love gone right and love gone wrong, with even the latter not bringing down the CD’s fun vibe.
The CD also has a unique theme running through it – recycled instruments.
Lawless has taken his love of old abandoned instruments – mostly guitars – to the ultimate level: employing them throughout his recordings. He’s used this gimmick wisely. It’s almost an extra level to the CD that will be of interest to fellow musicians and audiophiles. But regular listeners needn’t worry: they can definitely just enjoy the end product. It is, at the end of the day, just fun rock n’ roots.
Lawless explained, like most folks, it just got too expensive "to even consider looking for cool, old guitars."
"So what I started doing is buying old, cheap guitars," he said. "The ones that I played on the CD are mostly ones that I got either through Craigslist or bought privately very cheap."
He was, in part, inspired by a conversation with legendary Canadian guitarist David Wilcox on one of the guitars he uses.
"He was telling me how the action was set up very high and it had heavy strings because that way you really have to wrestle the guitar to make it sound good. And it really does change the way you play. So I’ve got a bunch of guitars that most people would consider junk and I love playing them because it brings out a different style."
The divorced father of two teenagers has lived near Withrow Park since 1995 and has contributed to the annual Riverdale Share holiday concert, at one time or another, as MC, artistic director and performer.
Future dates in support of his new album will be released following the official CD release at Hugh’s Room.
He has to balance it all, of course, with his alter ego Gregg LaRock for which he has a busy concert schedule lined up throughout Ontario this winter and spring, including a series of six concerts over two days in Toronto Feb. 19 and 20 at the Bathurst Street Theatre.
For more on his new CD or live show at Hugh’s Room, visit www.gregglawless.com
Or to check out his alter ego, Gregg LeRock, visit www.gregglerock.ca
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