Timber Timbre is pronounced Timber Tamber. Taylor from Timber Timbre talked to Tkate Tcarraway about Tmusic.

Who is Timber Timbre?

Timber Timbre is Christienne (organ), Mike (baritone guitar), Lindsay (drums), and Taylor (guitar). Everyone sings a little bit. Although lately it's been a one-man-band - not sure yet how we'll do it for Wavelength. It's always a lot more fun to play with the group... but when we all plug in at a club, we kinda become a rock 'n' roll band -- which isn't a bad thing, but it's just not really Timber Timbre anymore. I find we get a more attentive crowd when the volume is low and everything's pared down. I'm sort of a reluctant performer. I always feel out of my element on stage, so it's very important to me that what we're doing live is at least shown some respect if not appreciation.

Later on he says:

A couple of days ago we played the Cameron House as a band. It was a very fun show. But the preparation and everything leading up to that half-hour set was not too much fun. I have a terrible day job, so I do not have too much left in me after work, and renting a drum set from Long & McQuade requires a great deal of patience and stamina. So Wavelength will be a one-man-band show.

What's the story with the record?

Cedar Shakes was recorded one year ago in a timber frame house near Bobcaygeon, Ontario. It's mostly a four-track recording of me with cabin fever. I thought that Timber Timbre was an appropriate way to describe the wooden/warm room sound of that particular recording, plus it looks cool on paper as a friend once pointed out... sort of like Duran Duran, or controller.controller.

The neat thing about this band was that everyone was doing something new. I didn't have much experience 'œfronting'? a group, Lindsay hadn't ever been a drummer, and Christienne had never played the organ. Even Mike was figuring out how to use the baritone guitar. So it feels like a real ramshackle kitchen sink kind of affair. There's no one trying to do anything ridiculous or over the top because we can't. We really simplified the arrangements so that we can all perform the songs well. Therefore, any musical flourishes come very organically. It's very loose - definitely not a tight band, but a folk band. Timber Timbre is also reconfigured to form Wormwood Honey, fronted by Mike, and the Simone Grey band which is Lindsay's music.

We put the band together last winter, and we played our first show 8 months ago in Oshawa - which is where most of us were born. We've all been close friends/musical collaborators for many years. We all live in Toronto now.

What is it about Durham Region that makes lots of good music and musicians?

I used to think that Durham Region was a really sad and lonely kind of place. But working as a courier I end up in places like Scarborough, Brampton, and Mississauga quite a bit. Suddenly, the Durham Region looks like the Garden of Eden or something. So it can't be the sadness/loneliness. I'm pretty sure that there is great music coming from most of the suburbs and rural hamlets of Ontario.

Have you ever been to the Bowmanville Zoo?

My parents took me there when I was like six months old. The first animals we saw were the goats. One of the goats came right over to us, and sneezed all over me. I was completely covered from head to toe in goat mucus. I've never returned to the Bowmanville Zoo.

How come everyone digs folk music so much lately?

I don't know, maybe pop/indie rock has become just a little bit too cerebral or academic. It's nice to hear something really simple... like I really love listening to a guitar being played by someone who knows one or zero chords. I wish I could go back to that. I think folk music is really interesting. It's the music of non-musicians...by the people, for the people.

What's happened in the last eight months since you started playing shows?

It's taken about eight months to figure out the best way to perform the same 12 songs. Our greatest sounding performance took place this summer in the hayloft of a barn. It wasn't a show, but a performance for a film we're working on with a filmmaker named Andrew Palkovic, who is also a close friend of ours. Everything really came to fruition acoustically in that space. It was the culmination of everything we learned not to do live in 8 months.

Also, in that time-frame I saw a guy called Jonas Bonnetta do a wonderful set with loop pedals in a way that I'd never seen before... so I just had to try it. I'm starting to figure out how to use loops in a way that's tasteful I guess. It's actually kind of difficult to use such a 'œclever'? piece of gear with very simple songs and not totally ruin them. It's challenging, and it also really appeals to me to be self-contained as a performer.

By Kate Carraway