Over the Edge, February 24 - March 10 2010 Page 6 The unique musical talents of Rob Dunlop Tyler Clarke Production Coordinator Rob Dunlop, one of Prince George’s most prolific musical talents of the past decade, having released several albums under different names and with different musicians - including Maple You Know, Big Old Eyes, Dry Socket, Hey Everyone, and most recently Riverhorse - is quite the humble guy, cur- rently disinterested in releasing any of his future recordings to the public or performing. “| don’t want to release an album again unless it’s some- thing I’m excited about,” Dunlop said, adding that it will likely be with band accompaniment — which disqualifies his longest-run- ning musical project — the solo Maple You Know. His reasoning is quite simple — he makes albums for him- self, not for you. They’re like paintings for him. “| make them for me to hang up on the wall for myself to lis- ten to,” Dunlop concluded. The few songs he does get around to releasing to the pub- lic reveal the musician’s unique musical brilliance. His lyrics, sometimes strange, sometimes oddly descriptive, usually paint a unique and memorable picture. The sporadic live shows he plays show the musician in an honest and awkward form, un- sure about whether or not he should even be playing his songs in front of people — the bespeckled man spending the majority of time hiding behind the microphone, his eyes either closed or cast downward. “Once and a while | get it in my head to get on stage. | don’t know why,” Dunlop stated. He finds the act of getting on stage a strange thing to do — more of an act of satisfying one’s ego than anything else. “| just feel embarrassed,” he said. Dunlop first got into writing music at the age of 16, when he started writing joke songs with friends. “Then | realized | liked putting songs together,” he said. “When | was 17 | got an electric guitar, and when | was 18 | re- alized that | could write songs.” It was about this time that he got rock group Weezer’s Blue Album on cassette, and decided that he wanted to learn all of the songs on guitar — and he did. He started up and joined a couple of bands, including a punk band, but soon lost interest in these endeavours, prefer- ring bands like Pavement to punk rock. After starting a band with Corbin Spensley and some other members, the two quit the band in order to start something new. After giving the other members a CD with 30 songs he’d written his band mates insisted that Dunlop become the band’s songwriter. So was born Big Old Eyes — with Spensley on bass and vocals, Ryan Clarke on drums, and Dunlop on guitar and vocals. Releasing three albums around 2006, all of which plac- ing respectably on CFUR’s top 10, the trio’s songs ranged from slow introspective folk-rock inspired songs detailing various thoughts and feelings, to harder rocking ones with Spensley screaming the vocals. His next musical effort, Hey Everyone, with then-girlfriend Eva J. Prkachin and now-Concerns of Royalty drummer Corey Wintemute, focused more on slower-paced folk songs. His Lhe bomb t |sugest, You fomne tre a = PREZ@ AMAVIN Elude : Whatoh EREEMMMADINEd vde* | do what | want! EVOLV-TON, OF WIERATIONAL- CONFLICT RESOLYTION | most recent publicly-performing group, Riverhorse, with Dun- lop on guitar and vocals and Leigh O’Neill on drums, was sim- ilar to other projects, only cranked up to 11. Heavy distortion danced against Dunlop’s baritone voice nicely in the White Stripes-esque blues-inspired duo, which have performed far too little thus far. In-between and after some of these efforts fiz- zled out, Dunlop consistently worked on his solo project, Maple You Know, writing and recording an amazing number of songs mainly on guitar — in true Dunlop fashion, most of which never released to the public, with the songs treated as personal journals. The future for Dunlop’s musical endeavours are up in the air, with the musician hoping to get together with Corbin Spensley again in some musical capac- ity. As Dunlop sings in a Big Old Eyes song, “I can’t be seen, | can’t be heard/ Don’t keep me caged/ | ain’t no bird.” Now to wait and see where this bird flies. Some of Dunlop’s songs can be heard at the fol- lowing websites — \mq. We don't need permission 2 Invéd AMADEO de @ USPREt : Ohi ovt | We'te JVSt trying Alternative LNWGY Sources, Yourset. Wo nukes 4 y, By Shelby Peterson, news editor THIS IS\WHAY TAX LOOK LIKE: 7 Student Tax Prep $29" plus FREE SPC Card* http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/bands/BIG-OLD-EYES http://www.myspace.com/mapleyouknow http://www.myspace.com/heyeveryoneband (Ov) nt REFUND GOULD An average refund with us is $1,000. We get you an average of °1,000 on your tax refund, so you can do more of what you want to do. Get It Right.” H&R BLOCK’ Click, call or come over. | hrblock.ca | 800-HRBLOCK © 2009 H&R Block Canada, Inc. *$29.95 valid for regular student tax preparation only. Student tax preparation with Cash Back option is $34.95. To qualify for student pricing, student must present either (i) a T2202a documenting 4 or more months of full-time attendance at a college or university during 2009 or (ii) a valid high school identification card. Expires July 31, 2010. Valid only at participating H&R Block locations in Canada.