Eamon McGrath opens for Frank Turner (Horseshoe Tavern)

Back from a quick trip back to the West Coast, where he played a handful of dates with Mohawk Lodge bandleader (and White Whale Records founder) Ryder Havdale, Eamon backed by the rest of the Lodge showed more than ably why his own album Peacemaker charted as high as it did on Canadian college radio's Soundscan this summer.  Owing no doubt to his continued prolific output McGrath delivered cuts from Peacemaker alongside a couple of covers and  recently penned material.   Opening with a blisteringly shaky production of Powderfinger followed by Peacemaker's Cut Knife City Blues the Lodge leaned more towards the power throttle they are known for than some of the more erstwhile ballads that equally define Peacemaker.  With Havdale comfortable letting McGrath's youthful and feverish lead guitar work take the fore there is more room left for Ryder to buoy up the ensemble with more than competent bass playing.




Eamon debuted at least to this listener a new tune with trademark Mohawk Lodge singalong chorus: File Under Fire.  Likewise Holy Roller and Signals filled out the set in place of any number of heartfelt staples from his current album.  McGrath at his relatively tender age of 22 seems to have a leg up on his contemporaries, it being one thing to know you've got a problem another to sing a song about it and still a third to make that song devastatingly loving.  Many of Eamon's songs carry similar themes of abuse, whether drug or alcohol, but take on a more universal quality with his insight beyond his years that the most assiduous form of abuse is something like self-abuse.  Not surprisingly McGrath owes a debt of gratitude to Mark Linkous, a similarly afflicted talent, whose Saturday (from Sparklehorse' debut) got a strong airing.

As in the Mohawk Lodge, McGrath was accompanied at times (as on the original Machine Gun Cowboy) by chain smashed on wood (courtesy of fellow Edmontonian and keyboardist, lap steel, chain weilder - Pete Dreimanis) with drummer Danny Miles back seat driving.  With another new one Welcome To The Heart, McGrath and the boys rounded out the set with one of his strongest songs to date.  Where Linkous observed "you are the jar, you are the hospital" it's Eamon McGrath's dour insight that I Am The Deer.

The Mohawk Lodge - Done Fighting (live at The Dakota Tavern)

It is almost impossible - even for a writer used to putting his heart in his mouth- to overstate how important the music of The Mohawk Lodge has become to me at least personally in such a short period of time.  It is partly by function of working as a music journalist that you listen to a great deal of music you respect but don't like, like but don't admire or admire for it's craftsmanship but it's just not your bag.   Then there is that one band that comes by about as often as a lunar (solar?) eclipse who manage to escape the trajectory of Canada's protectionist 'CanCon' regulations (which force our radio and TV outlets to play %50 Canadian music even if it's utter shite) and 'music industry'.  In an innately local way they thrust their offering out upon the world and though they may not be switftly judged it is with absolute certainty that I pass onto you dear reader the humble opinion that you should see The Mohawk Lodge now, as frequently as possible, acquire their music and continue to let them wear down the rough edge's of your hearts jagged ends.

In that vein Done Fighting moves beyond simply throwing one's arms up in disgust, refusing to play that game to something like a clarion call for a new way of being in the world. 



This again is the studio version of Done Fighting however the music is synced to intimate footage of the band playing their most confident set to date on a recent White Whale Wednesday at The Dakota Tavern (unfortunately now ended). 

That evening I made a single definitive declarative statement at the top of my lungs to an audience of two rounders at the bar Sean Dean (The Sadies) and Wild Blake Manning (a friend of The Lodge's):

Every once in awhile - just for shits and giggles - a band comes along like The Mohawk Lodge who has so absorbed and subsumed all of their influences to the point that everything they offer is wholly new.   - Luke C. Bowden