Serena Ryder - Saturday in Kingston!

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This Saturday, November 5, Rock Crew Productions proudly presents Serena Ryder with special guests The Frontier Index at The Grad Club (162 Barrie Street). Advance tickets are $8 and on sale now at Zap Records, Brian's Record Option, Renaissance Music, Destinations, Grad Club and online at www.rockcrew.ca

“Ryder …won over every person in the room with her vivacious personality, lovely voice and great songs. Her performance left you confident you'd just witnessed an artist who, for once, not only deserves the hype – she transcends it “

NOW Magazine

After a lifetime of performing, Serena Ryder stands poised on the brink of her biggest things. Armed with a rivetting stage presence, powerful three-octave range and songs of intense passion, she invites the listener to observe her soul stripped bare.

Belying her 21 years, Ryder has already sung with the likes of Bobby “Blue†Bland and Texas legend Jimmy LaFave. She has played festivals in every part of Canada, appeared in dozens of tiny alternative music clubs in major cities and been part of the Toronto Women’s Blues Revue. Over the last year, she has toured across Canada, France and Australia, headlining shows and supporting other such compelling artists as Hawksley Workman and Steve Earle.

Serena has been surrounded by music all her life. She was born into a performing family, where her mother was a touring back-up singer and go-go dancer, while her father was a gigging percussionist and guitar player. Raised in Peterborough, Ontario, she could sing before she could talk and her first gig was an impromptu performance of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It†when she was two. At 16, she made her first CDs, she now embarks on her first international release with Unlikely Emergency.

The genesis of Unlikely Emergency goes back to the summer of 2003, when hawksley workman invited her to use his schoolhouse studio in Huntsville. Over several weeks she honed the songs and recorded them on her own – playing guitar, drums, bass, harmonica, banjo, and keyboards.

Workman was mightily impressed with the results and signed Ryder to his Isadora Records imprint. In early January, he invited her back to the studio and — playing drums, guitars and banjo — produced 10 songs in an intense three days of recording. With Derrick Brady on bass and Todd Lumley on organ, workman was anxious to capture the energy of her live performance and the passion she brings to her songs.

Unlikely Emergency opens and closes — as do her live shows — with a capella songs that book-end the powerful, deeply felt songs between them. With the exception of one song, her show-stopping version of “At Last,†re-popularized by Etta James, Serena wrote all ten songs on the album.

The results are irresistibly forceful as her distinctive voice growls, struts, scats and screams. The opening track captures it best:

“I‘ve been around for long enough to know that / Everybody needs to sing / No matter if you’re all alone or surrounded / By a thousand people with a thousand things / You gotta sing sing sing sing sing out loud / Don’t you dare holding nothing back…â€

Serena Ryder holds nothing back and Unlikely Emergency lures you to do likewise.

Frontier Index grew out of the most humble of circumstances. Two years ago four music fanatics from Stratford, Ontario (Corey Hernden, Mick Jackson, Matt Francis, and John Hunter) gathered in a small kitchen in downtown Toronto. Armed with acoustic guitars, three voices which were born to sing together, and aided by the occasional slug from a bottle the boys played late into the night for themselves and anyone who happened to drop by. In this way, slowly and gracefully, Frontier Index was born. Upon leaving the kitchen, early gigs were surprisingly well attended. Since then, it’s been a game of catch-up. From gigs with the infamous Dan Burke at The Silver Dollar, to becoming something of a mainstay at Toronto’s Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, the boys have become a sonic force to be reckoned within the Toronto music scene.

Before long, their reputation for great live shows brought the boys to the attention of Rainbow Quartz Records, who duly signed them in the fall of 2004. Working through the winter of 2004, Frontier Index recorded their debut album with indie guru Andy Magoffin at his illustrious House of Miracles in London, Ontario. The product of these long winter nights in the studio was a “live†feeling album that runs the gamut from bone rattling to tender hearted, complete with summer sweet harmonies, and all captured straight off the creaky wood floors of Mr. Magoffin’s humble abode; assisted by friends both old and new.

“Frontier Index†the band’s Debut self titled CD was released by Rainbow Quartz Records on June 28th, 2005 in Canada and distributed by MapleNationwide.

Ya’ll been Warned!

www.serenaryder.com

www.thefrontierindex.com

www.gradclub.ca

www.rockcrew.ca

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Frontier Index! WooHoo!

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