Album Notes

the priddle concern is the latest project from Toronto songwriter Bill Priddle. Best known for co-founding the Toronto based band treble charger in 1992 as a principal singer- songwriter, his song "Red" from treble charger’s debut album “NC17” went on to be named the #18 Canadian Single of All Time in Chart Magazine's Great Music Poll of 1996. The song “Morale” from the band’s sophomore self titled album rose to #19 on the Canadian rock radio charts earning the band a Juno nomination for best alternative album in the process. The bands 1997 major label debut “Maybe It's Me” included the Priddle written single "Ever She Flows" and went gold in Canada receiving a Juno nomination for best Rock Album in the process. The band recorded and released 2 more albums (“Wide Awake Bored” in 2000 and “Detox” in 2002) earning them another 3 Juno nominations, gold and platinum selling status and a top-ten radio hit for Priddle’s co-written song “American Psycho”. After touring to support “Detox”, Bill left the band to concentrate on a solo career and the priddle concern was born.

Co- produced by Bill Priddle with Howie Beck (Hayden, Jason Collett), Andy Magoffin (Two Minute Miracles/The Hidden Cameras, The Constantines, Great Lake Swimmers), John Critchley (13 Engines/ Elliott Brood) and Dave Neufeld, (Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals) the priddle concern debut also features Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene), Evan Cranley (Broken Social Scene/Stars), Justin Peroff (Broken Social Scene) and Amy Millan (Stars). From the Guided By Voices inspired 79 second opener “union of concerned scientists” and the under the rails chug of “care about you” to the autobiographical 70’s California/early Eagles era sounding “I had a job”, the sadly beautiful and bittersweet “back around” featuring Amy Millan, all the way to the simply gorgeous closer “hold me on tight” this is the arc of one of Canada’s most accomplished songwriters of the last fifteen years.

Song-by-song description

union of concerned scientists
“I’m a big Guided By Voices fan and the main singer/songwriter is Robert Pollard. One day I was watching the CBC and I saw this talking head speaking and below him was the name Dr. Robert Pollard, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists. In the next two or three minutes I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote half the lyrics to the song, looked at it and said great lyrics but I don’t know how I can get a song out of that. Three or four months later I opened that book, looked at it and said OK, and then wrote the rest of the lyrics and the wrote the music and that was it.”

videotape
“This is one in a handful of songs on this record that has a creepy lead character. It’s like all of those Steely Dan songs ‘everyone’s gone to the movies and now we’re alone at last’, the idea of like the lecherous old uncle. So I have the line ‘all of our fun will be finished when they re-appear’.

care about you
“This is one of those songs where I was jamming by myself in a room inside a barn in Dunville, Ontario. I was coming up with these chords and the lyrics just started pouring out.”

i had a job
“This is pretty much a song about my old band. It’s hard for me not to sound like Neil Young but I was trying to sound like The Eagles.”

like to smoke
“I’ve been nicotine free for over three months. Last summer I was flying from Edmonton to Toronto to Sudbury on the red eye for a Canada Day show. I was outside my tour manager’s apartment and I thought ‘I like to smoke before the airport run’”

back around
“This was me discovering the capo. I was basically playing a Replacements song and I came up with the central riff. The rest of it seemed to write itself.”

believe what you want to believe
“This was another of those barn-rehearsal space by myself songs. I remember writing it in a hurry and thinking wow that is really depressing.”

dive
“This is another one of the shady character songs. I was really happy to have a Can-Con geographic reference: All the way to Orillia from the Point Au Baril.”

beaten down
“This one I don’t even want to talk about, it’s too depressing. I love singing this song.”

faucet dripping
“This was the first song finished for this record. I’ve had this song for a long time and the whole arrangement of it was what worked. It was produced by Dave Neufeld and Kevin told me I would have a terrible time but it would song great, and he was exactly right.”

make it go away
“This was a treble charger song that was rejected off the last treble charger record because it didn’t fit. It was one of those happy that I now have it for this record.”

everything’s fine
“It’s all about hereafter without any pancreas, spleen, lungs or spine. The song pretty well revolves around that. It’s my Guided By Voices rip-off song.”

hold me on tight
“This song is really old. I had a lyric book that I started in 1996 or 1997. For the longest time I could only imagine this as an acoustic song. It was a song that producer Howie Beck was a genius on. He created the whole end part which is the greatest part of the song, he looped it and brought in Evan Cranley from Stars to play trombone. It’s one of my favourite songs on the record.”