Bio

It began, like so many of Jeff Andrew's stories, in an alley. This one was in Portland, OR, sometime in the fall of 2006. An abandoned fiddle with a cheap, nearly hairless bow lay beside a dumpster in a rotting wooden case. Andrew rescued it from the rain and spent the next couple weeks teaching himself to play as he hitchhiked to San Francisco and back. He turned out to be a natural, drawing on years of playing guitar, bass and drums in teenage punk and rock bands and, more recently, jamming around campfires in tree planting and fruit picking camps or busking on downtown streetcorners with thrown-together bands of fellow travelers.

"It was like remembering something I already knew how to do," says Andrew. "I'm sure I was a fiddler in another life and had just forgotten about it until that point."

He settled that winter in Victoria, BC, and began sitting in at pub sessions, learning Celtic and Old-Time tunes from local fiddlers like Adam Iredale-Grey (Fish & Bird) and Daniel Lapp. He also began cranking out songs in a dazzling range of styles, from modern-era murder ballads and gutter-strewn travel narratives to edgy, historical protest songs and what can only be called 'Horror Folk'. Before long he was playing shows at house concerts and local cafes and sending his first, self-produced recordings of now classic tunes like "Rebel Girl" and "Faerie Music" out into the world.

Fast-forward five years and Andrew has released one full-length album and a handful of EPs on his own label (Shade Tree Records), toured across Canada more times than he can count and become an anchor in the independent Canadian folk scene. With a fanbase ranging from veteran folkies to teenage crust punks, he's shared stages with the likes of Geoff Berner, CR Avery, Rae Spoon, Wax Mannequin and Jason Webley and won over audiences at festivals like ArtsWells, South Country Fair, the Brandon Folk, Music & Arts Festival and the Sunstroke Festival in Whitehorse, YT.

On September 6, 2011, Shade Tree Records will release Andrew's second full-length album, Hobo Postcards. With tales of haunted hotels ("PG Hotel Room," "Voice In The Floorboards"), hard times on Skid Row ("The Wandering Dead," "What's Going On In The Alleyway?") and love songs to the open road ("Please Let Me Sleep On Your Floor" and the rough-edged waltz "When The Whistle Blows"), it's sure to please fans of Andrew's unique take on folk, punk and Celtic music.

"I tried to make it the 'Blood On The Tracks' of road albums," says Andrew. "Hit life on the road from every angle possible. I'm hoping that anyone who's ever hitchhiked, slept under a bridge or lived out of the back of a pickup truck will find something to relate to in it."

Hobo Postcards was recorded in four sleepless days and nights in the basements and tunnels of East Vancouver with co-producer Corwin Fox (Wax Mannequin, Raghu Lokanathan, Morlove), classical bass virtuoso Tobias Meis and ace percussionist Kenan Sungur. Along with guest appearances from some of East Van's finest (singer-songwriters Jess Hill and Chelsea Johnson, horn player Cory Sweet), it marks a return to Andrew's rock and roll roots with the addition of electric guitars and a full rhythm section. It also features the legendary Stroh Violin, a rare, antiquated instrument with a resonator and a phonograph horn instead of a traditional wooden body.

"It was invented in the late 19th century to help violinists compete with horn players on early recording sessions," he says. "The sound is somewhere between a trumpet and a fiddle. I'm obsessed with resonator instruments and early attempts at amplifying strings; this is definitely one of the strangest."

Andrew's debut album Vagabonds & Wastrels, the first collaboration between Fox, Meis and Andrew, was released in 2009 to national airplay and critical acclaim across Canada and Western Europe. On a break between tree planting contracts in the summer of 2010, Andrew and recording engineer Tyrone Shoe (who also plays drums with Victoria thrash punk band Blood Nasty) nearly killed themselves with a whirlwind 3-day recording session in Andrew's basement. The result was the self-produced, zine-style disc The Treehouses & Trainsmoke EP, which came with a handmade booklet of lyrics and chords to help fans learn the songs.

"I love the thought of people singing my songs around campfires, or busking them to make money on the street," he says. "That's my idea of success as a songwriter."

A veteran traveler, Andrew tours nearly year-round (when he's not tree planting) and has learned a few tricks to save money on the road. In the spring of 2010 he spent 3 days working as the "on-board musician" on a VIA Rail train between Vancouver and Toronto, then toured to Halifax and back to the West Coast with friends Scott Dunbar and The Rough Sea. In 2008 he formed the folk n' spoken word duo Ghosts of the Highway with poet shayne avec i grec. With their self-produced album Road Warriors Unite! (Shade Tree Records), they pulled off an epic, three-month hitchhiking tour from Vancouver Island to St. John's, NFLD.

"It was the craziest thing I've ever done," says Andrew. "In 82 days we did over 60 shows, in every bar, cafe, bookstore or basement that would have us. We even played the bar on the ferry to Newfoundland. That was how I learned how to tour."

Live, Andrew takes his cue from folk punk bands like The Devil Makes Three and Graveyard Train to make his shows as rowdy as possible. He frequently works straight from the floor, stomping his boots and belting like a born-again carnival barker. Whether solo or with a band (he keeps pieces of them scattered across the country), pounding his guitar strings or chopping and sawing away at the fiddle (he sings while playing it, an old-time style that's been revived by players like Bruce Molsky and Casey Driessen), he never fails to impress and leaves audiences shaken, sweating and ready for more.

"Phill Saylor-Wisor (of The Shiftless Rounders and Stripmall Ballads) told me he sometimes imagines what he'd say on stage and how he'd play if he knew he was gonna die on the way home," says Andrew. "So now I try to do every show like that. We're running out of time, so whatever you're gonna do in life, don't wait! Do it now."