Album Notes

After a hiatus from recording his own material, Ricasso returns to deliver his strongest work to date: Pollution. This diverse collection of guitar driven rock takes aim at our media-saturated society with self-effacing tongue-in-cheek attitude.

Its strength has not gone unnoticed, the song ‘Bipolar’ won the ROCK102 National Songwriting Competition as part of Canada Music Week in 2003. The album has since earned critical recognition and air-play on commercial radio and charted across Canada at college stations.

It was a television clip of the Beatles at Shea Stadium that first attracted a young Ricasso (a.k.a.) Greg Hargarten to rock'n'roll.

Hooked by this early image, he dug back into the work of artists that had influenced the genre over the decades, listening to the likes of Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochrane, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash in his formative years.

Although his tastes have come to include contemporary artists as well, he has remained addicted to the form and it's rebellious nature ever since. In fact the name Ricasso, sort of a rock'n'roll version of one of his favorite painters, was adopted to keep him out of the principle's office for his graffiti art.

After High School, Ricasso began drumming with numerous rock and pop bands whose prime objective was to eek out a meager living and in the spirit of Rock'n'Roll, out-party the locals in every watering hole in the from Vancouver to Winnipeg. Some of the exploits may (or may not) have been legendary and although they made for some great road stories, he eventually returned to Saskatoon where his focus changed from drumming to songwriting.

Playing with local bands on weekends and designing posters, T-shirts and album covers for fellow musicians during the week, Ricasso scraped together some money and began to record.