Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon: When I first tried my hand at writing songs, I was living in a golden-tinged flat down Easter Road in Edinburgh with the daughter of an SAS man who’d given me a reduced rate on rent out of a fondness for Canadians. I had a lovely Spanish guitar with a tragically cracked head, given to me by two Swiss girls I’d been helping out with their English lessons after they’d snatched it from the hostel in which we’d originally met...
The first band I’d assembled went by the name Woodpigeon Divided By Antelope Equals Squirrel (or W/A=S for short), but nothing that came out of me then was worth much. I was too afraid to sing and didn’t know my way around a song, so we didn’t do anything beyond a couple of silly surf instrumentals. I remember one song was called ‘John Cusack Escapes From the Nazis,’ and I wrote it after watching the film Max and wishing for a different ending. When the bass player decided to head back to Australia, we smashed our instruments in the street (although that guitar was pretty much on death’s door as it was) and called it a day.

Heartbreak (cue the strings) sent me home from Scotland, and back in Canada Woodpigeon was born again. I’ve always been in love with the word Woodpigeon for as long as I can remember. When you write it in cursive, it looks like a rollercoaster. The first proper tune I finished was ‘Feedbags’, and once it was done I considered myself enough of a renaissance man to not write any more of them. I played it to a few people and planned to file my songwriting experience away alongside filmmaking (15 films made, 1 of them good), novel writing (and re-writing the same book for years now), and basketball (smashed a boy’s face for getting in my way once) as merely temporary diversions. But this song-writing thing seemed to stick, and soon I was writing one for everyone who’d really meant something to me, and the way my world had changed in the search for a place to call home. There’s 14 songs on Songbook, but about 100 others waiting in the wings. Some are better than others – I’ll admit that – but I can’t imagine ever stopping now. In fact, I’m pretty much just doing it all of the time. I wrote ‘Death By Ninja (A Love Song)’ as the tape rolled, with no idea what chord I’d hit next or what words would come out of my mouth. PTOà people seem to really like that one, so if anything, I suppose it speaks for the power of spontaneous creativity (and how I’m not the only one with a bit of a thing for ninjas too).

Since those first songs, I’ve taken Woodpigeon across Canada and the UK. Team Woodpigeon Canada is composed of 7 other lovely souls in Calgary, but there’s others scattered across the prairies and beyond too. Sandro Perri in Toronto plays the loveliest lap-steel guitar I’ve ever heard. Mike Hansen lives in Saskatoon and performs as These Hands. Sometimes I hit the road alone with my red guitar, loop station, and delay pedals, and sometimes I’m joined by those Magnificent 7 (or 8, or 9) at my side. But most importantly, it’s always a different experience — for me and whoever’s watching. This fall in the UK, all 8 of us are jumping on planes and coming over and we can’t wait.

To me, Songbook is a diary set to music of my return to Canada, told in flashback after the introduction of ‘Home as a Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever.’ I wanted to wrap sad words with pretty pop music. I wanted to build a mini-orchestra with my friends. I wanted to make a record that was both small and huge, and sometimes both of those things at the same time. Some people get over things by talking about them to anyone who’ll listen, but for me, it’s a lot easier to just sing my heart out and hope whoever’s listening gets a little something out of it too.

New End Of The Road Records signing Woodpigeon releases his debut album ‘Songbook’ on the 29th September 2008 . A simply beautiful album that everyone should make time for. Woodpigeon will be playing live in the UK in September, don’t miss this opportunity to catch him .

6th Sept - The Luminaire, London
7th Sept - Colchester Arts Centre
8th Sept - The Captains Rest, Glasgow
10th Sept - Tripod, Dublin (supporting Calexico)
11th Sept - Queens Hall, Edinburgh (supporting Calexico)
12th Sept - Oxford Academy (supporting Calexico)
13th Sept - Sheffield Leadmill (supporting Calexico)
14th Sept - End of the Road Festival
16th Sept - The Lamp, Hull
17th Sept - The Junction, York
18th Sept - Cumberland Arms, Newcastle
19th Sept - The Bodega, Nottingham

WOODPIGEON
Release date: 29th Sept 2008
Label: End Of The Road Records

www.endoftheroadrecords.com
www.myspace.com/woodpigeon

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