Corner Gas...theme song article

[Ireneparalegal]

'Corner Gas' theme song writers release album

Canadian Press

Toronto -- North Vancouver-based musician Craig Northey gets giddy when he talks about the first time he watched the hit TV ensemble comedy series 'Corner Gas.'

That's because the former front man for the now-defunct alt-rock group Odds co-wrote the theme song on star Brent Butt's request, without ever having seen the show. To Northey's pleasant surprise, the song actually meshed well with the overall prairie tone and humour.

"It was fantastic and I was calling everyone in the family, 'Come here, quick! Come see Brent's show!' " the father of three recalls about the time Butt sent him the demo in 2004.

"A lot of the times you do things for multimedia, it hinges on it being good, and it's not what you wanted it to be. But I love Corner Gas."

Northey co-wrote the catchy jingle, called "Not a Lot Goin' On," with his musical partner Jesse Valenzuela of the Tempe, Ariz.-based rock band Gin Blossoms, and then fleshed it out for the duo's self-titled debut, Northey Valenzuela.

The 13-track album, which contains a recording with bluesman Colin James, was released this month in Canada on the True North Records label.

Northey and Valenzuela, both singer-guitarists, met in the early 1990s when their bands crossed paths on their journey to fame and fortune in Los Angeles - when they "just had the promise of the future going," says Northey.

After an introduction through a mutual friend, the bands started touring together and supporting each other's records in their home cities.

Northey says the Odds and Blossoms would often sleep "on the same floor" after gigs, and he and Valenzuela started to form a strong friendship.

"Jesse and I bonded over this guy's giant record collection, one of the things that we liked - Nick Lowe records, old soul music, you know - and stayed up late, listened to records and became friends," he says.

When the Gin Blossoms broke up in 1997 (they reunited again in 2002), the Northey-Valenzuela bond became even stronger as they started flying to each other's homes to write songs.

"We used to call the project, for a while, Frequent Flyer, because we did it on Air Miles," says Northey, recalling his trips to Valenzuela's home in Los Angeles where they would cut tracks in his home studio.

Years later, however, they realized their back and forth collaborations resulted in a hodgepodge of songs that didn't connect.

That's when things came full-circle for Northey as he ended up recruiting his ex-Odds mates Doug Elliott and Pat Steward, as well as Cowboy Junkies keyboardist Simon Kendall among others, to record the tracks with them.

Northey says they did it live off the floor in just eight days in North Vancouver.

"We thought it would be kind of a compounding process - the more mistakes we allowed, the more interesting it might be," says Northey, who gave each artist just one or two takes to record their parts.

"It makes people twitchy when they're listening to it because they can tell they might be able to perfect it. But sometimes perfecting it doesn't make it any better."

The process was raw and "liberating," says Northey, but it was tough to sell - until a Universal Music rep saw it on the MapleMusic.com website and asked them to remaster it for wide release.

Perhaps the Corner Gas hype helped.

"I'm hearing from fans of music I've made in the past from England ... and places that the show's being sold and they're freaking out, going, 'I was watching the show and then I saw your name and I heard your voice,' " says Northey.

With "Not a Lot Goin' On" chiming out of Canadian TV sets every week and a new album out, Northey seems content - perhaps more so than a few years ago when he had, well, not a lot goin' on.

"I did a solo record before where I ... sat by myself for way too long in a bathrobe, you know, hours and hours with a studio, playing everything and that gets tough," he says.

"I think I've learned over time that it's better to take a few tools and do a lot with them than have a million tools and (do) less with them."

[Mikado]

cools Irene...I really knew nothing about the song...strangely they didnt mention that Brent also filled in some of the lyrics