Michael Keire has produced and engineered records in the Hamilton/Southern Ontario for many years and currently calls Threshold recording studio home where he partners with Trevor Cooke (Sunnsetter, Sullen). Hes worked with many artists including, more recently, the Rheostatics, Cadence Weapon and The Wild High (ex-monster truck). Or a few years ago working with Kathleen “Munroe” of Law and Order Toronto, the Arkells and the Dirty Nil, to name a few. His focus had historically been on elevating other artists with their music. At the ripe age of 45 those songs that were started in university began to itch. The time, despite normal convention, felt perfect to get them off the ground. But how? He had little interest in starting a band from scratch. The idea of touring in 2024/2025 didn’t really seem interesting. Nor did long basement practices. Falling back on the methods he knew well he started to chip away at the tunes in the studio while messaging friends to see if they were down to lend a hand. Thankfully a couple were and the adventure began.
The last few years have been some very interesting times globally, ethically and technologically. This seems to be particularly true for those of us in the creative arts, and more specifically music. It seems that the water in which music exists has been muddled to the point where pandering content has all but taken the entire pie. It feels as though, those of us who make art that doesn’t fit into a larger brand effort of a commercial interest take the risk of diving into these murky waters blinded, without a respirator and little luck of being heard let alone making a living. Tough time to make art for art’s sake, and a sad way to see an artist fade away due to the obstacles of touring and streaming, for instance.
The luddites were a misunderstood bunch which is a common occurrence for those that don’t write history. Contrary to popular conception, the luddites were not interested in stopping technological development because they were against development itself or for belief reasons like the mennonites. It was an effort to stop the exploitation of resources by a few and, more so, to stop the efforts made by business owners to attack the quality of life of a community by introducing technology that would not benefit the community as whole. Their belief was that technology needed to be implemented in socially healthy ways. And if they were not…well, now its time turn burn the fucking factory to the ground because violence was understood to be not only direct (physical) but also structural (institutional) and burning the factory to the ground was seen as self defence against greed and tyrannical people.
And burn the factory to the ground they did. Over and over in order to protect their communities and run the elitist out of town and ensure they lived in fear.
It was in this fear that King Ludd was born. However, there is no real person named King Ludd. He has never existed. This character was born out of myth. A myth that assumed that these attacks must have a mastermind behind them and a myth that benefitted the luddites and so it was perpetuated. Perpetuated like stories about Keyser Soze from the usual suspects, “steal from the people and exploit the poor and King Ludd will get you” or at least it’s fun to imagine it said like that.
This seemed like an appropriate name for a project that was built on making art for arts sake with a good foundation born in the music of Fugazi and the Minutemen. Mike Watt had an album called Ball hog or Tug boat. On this record he brought his friends together to make a record. Michael Keire, much like Mike Watt, was not taking interest in being either the ball hog or the tug boat in this project, but is instead interested in what happens when friends are brought together to allow the creative to naturally flow and more importantly, the curious side of the artistic process take the lead. Because pandering to brand trajectories is not what this is about. Friends having fun and seeing where it goes while ignoring trends for commercial return is completely what it is about. In other words, if it feels right, do it.
On this project, “trouble”, we have Michael Keire, Marco Bresette, Jon Harvey, Theo McKibbon, Adam Bentley, Luke Bentham, Linnea Siggelkow, Thom Hammerton, Dwayne Christie, Aaron Hutchinson and Connor Bennett coming to hang and play.
