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Warped 45s (DERRICK SANTINI)

When I connect with Dave McEathron of acclaimed Toronto alt-rock act The Warped 45s, he seems a little shaken up.
   
You see, the band had a gig at the Railway Club in Vancouver the night before — which just so happened to be the evening of the now-infamous Stanley Cup riot.
   
"I’m still a bit shell shocked by what happened last night," the singer/songwriter admits over the phone from Vancouver.
   
"We ended up playing because they didn’t want to let people out — but our bass player had stepped out to get food and wasn’t allowed back in," he continues. "At that point, it was a free-for-all. But it was nice to do something besides look out the window. We were finally let out at 3 a.m. Luckily, we didn’t park the van there; every vehicle we passed was burned.
   
"It was total madness. But, for all the madness, there’s a ton of volunteers in the street picking up every last shard of glass."
   
The Warped 45s — Dave, singer/songwriter Ryan Wayne McEathron (Dave’s first cousin), keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist/backing vocalist Kevin Hewitt, drummer/backing vocalist Hamal Finn Roye and bassist Alex Needleman — are touring on the back of their sophomore album, the roots-noir opus Matador Sunset. Released at the end of May, the new record sees the band get in touch with its rock ’n’ roll side.
   
"I think (our sound) has just evolved from touring," McEathron says. "This is our fourth trip across Canada in 18 months. We’d been playing a lot of bars, so there was a tendency to rock out a bit more. We started recording a few weeks after our third tour. It’s us — it’s just faster us."
   
The Warped 45s went for familiarity when it came to their producer, once again teaming up with ex-13 Engines leader John Critchley (who has also worked with Elliott Brood and Dan Mangan).
   
"He did our demos and that went well, then he did our EP and that went well, and it just went on from there," McEathron says. "We didn’t feel the need to have a producer come in and change our sound because it was already so different. We just wanted someone who could capture it."
   
Toronto visual artist Casey McGlynn also captured the album’s gritty, rough-hewn charm in the paintings the band commissioned for the album’s cover and liner notes.
   
"Casey McGlynn is a talented man," McEathron says. "He painted the artwork to the album — we brought him the rough mixes and all the lyrics."
   
Indeed, Matador Sunset’s arresting, visual lyrics are one of the most appealing things about the album. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the McEathrons’ hyper-literate prose — see: Grampa Carl, a spoke-sung number about Ryan’s grandfather, who was a rum-runner during Prohibition — and The Warped 45s fast ’n’ loose arrangements.
   
But perhaps McEathron sums the album up best: "It reconciles the poetic with the enthusiasm of the live show."
 

THE WARPED 45s
June 30, Times Change(d)
 High & Lonesome Club
July 1 & 2, Dauphin Countryfest 2011