Pieces of Bird

Earth Day 🌎, April 22, saw the release of our cover of Wax Mannequin’s Pieces of Bird, his beautiful 2009 pirate-folk ballad.

Here’s a behind the scenes recap of our family video shoot for Pieces of Bird, which is out on Youtube now. 🏹

Shot with the help of our 10 year old, “Pieces of Bird” showcases two simultaneous realities. Lighthearted nature-centric footage of the the two of us adorned by bird feathers on a beach gleams in contrast with subdued footage of the actual recording process behind every instrument on the track.

Wax Mannequin has been both our musical contemporary and an inspiration to us for over two decades.

A little history:

Ryan and I each attended our first Wax Mannequin shows in early 2003 in Toronto and Cambridge, Ontario respectively. We hadn't met each other yet, but Ryan was playing lots of shows with his band The Vermicious Knid and I was an avid show goer.

My friends (from local acts The Sourkeys and Gaffer) hyped up Wax Mannequin pretty hard, crytpically revealing little more than "he's amazing" and not to be missed. I think the word "eccentric" might have been thrown around. Free Maracas and Woolly Leaves were on the bill, so I was sold.

Chris (aka Wax Mannequin) sat at a table with my friends and me, laying out (if I remember correctly) DIY merch made out of blank trucker hats and a sharpie before running out the side door and around the block before his set. His songs and stage presence were phenomenal; I bought a CD with some of my only dollars. Incidentally, my new pal Marlena, appreciating my fondness for vintage birds, sweetly gifted me a macrame owl 🦉 in the venue that night... The show lives vibrantly in my memory as one of a few crucial, inspiring moments of my pre-performance life, before finding my way into music.

Here’s Ryan Stanley’s recollection of the first time his band played with Wax Mannequin:

The show was in a small multi-purpose room stood in the middle of a park in Cambridge, Ontario, so a handful of us were standing outside chatting between sets. Chris (who we then and for many years after called "Wax") bounded up to the crowd of us, looked at his watch and said "gotta go!", then proceeded to take off running full speed down the paved pathway. He was due on stage any minute, so we were all perplexed and astounded. We thought maybe he was just leaving? We headed inside, and moments later he burst through the doors, leapt onto the small stage in a single bound, and started into his set. In retrospect it actually makes a lot of sense to get your heart moving before you launch into a performance, but at the time it was the most peculiar and whimsical thing I'd seen anyone do at an all ages DIY rock show.

We hope you enjoy this video - made with love, in earnest, a rallying cry for the natural world and a heartfelt treatise on the indefinable beauty of love.

Here’s the original song:

And video of Wax Mannequin at his waxiest:

UPCOMING LIVE SHOWS + ART MARKETS*:

Friday, May 1 - Truro, NS @ The Commune, 8pm Saturday, May 9 - Halifax, NS @ Dark Odd Artists, Halifax Forum*
Saturday, May 23 - West Dublin, NS @ West Dublin Hall with Pretty Alrights, 7pm
Friday July 3 - Sunday July 5 - Halifax Body Arts Convention*