SAYING SO LONG — FOR NOW
Burning Daisy going on a hiatus
Leave fans with a parting gift and a little hope.
Calgary indie rock quartet Burning Daisy will be doing that this Saturday with a show at the Palomino, which bassist and co-founder Al Pujo describes as “bittersweet.”
The reason being that the Palomino show will serve a double purpose: first, it will be a party for a pair of new songs the band are releasing digitally; and second, for the bitter side of the taste buds, it is being billed as their last show — and hopefully one to remember.
In fact, they’re pulling out all of the stops, bringing back some former members to take the stage and play a song or two, stacking the bill with Vancouver bluesrockers Paper Trails, Edmonton’s The Daily Mail and fellow locals Ancient Highways, and blowing out merch including Burning Daisy shot glasses that fans can order full from the ’tenders at the Pal before emptying them and taking them home.
“It’s going to be a good time,” Pujo says.
It will, hopefully, be a fitting goodbye to a band that ear-wormed its way into the city’s scene from its inception. That happened four years ago, when Pujo answered a “seeking bassist” ad that Irish-born frontwoman Liz Pomeroy had placed online soon after she moved here with her fiance from Ottawa. Pujo, struck by her influences, which ranged “from Tom Waits to Garbage to all kinds of good stuff,” set up a meet with her at 17th Avenue haunt Local 510.
“We intended to have one pint and chat, and three or four hours later we were about three pints in,” he says and laughs.
“And we immediately started writing together.”
And soon after they began adding other musicians into their endeavours and gigging around town, earning a reputation as a pretty entertaining live act, with a sound and live show that was dubbed “burlesque rock” by a local scribe.
The latter part of that equation is their chugging, celebratory, polished, guitar-pop approach that can be heard on those aforementioned new singles, including the excellent and anthemic Cuz I Said So.
The former has a great deal to do with Pomeroy’s sizzling stage presence, which is actually informed by a burlesque dancer background.
“She brings that air of burlesque to the stage — that showiness, that kind of sexy dancing goodness,” Pujo says and laughs again. “I don’t really know how to describe it.”
He doesn’t, but he admits the rest of the band has always followed suit — literally. Pujo says their stylish dress was meant to enhance the cocktail chic that Pomeroy employs when she steps onstage, and they do what they can to back up the seduction their singer embarks on with her moves and fittingly, sultry Shirley Manson voice.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the career path, or rather the career close of Burning Daisy, the band is also taking its cue from Pomeroy.
This September, she’ll be entering her second year of music performance at MacEwan University in Edmonton along with pursuing a part-time DJ job in the city. That, ultimately, is the reason for the final show. Or rather, that plus the fact that with the rest of the members being involved in other projects and having busy lives — Pujo has a demanding day job and is in the band Lucid 44; guitarist Jonny Vincent runs a studio and is in JAB and a couple other acts around town; and drummer Ryan Boyko is a music teacher and is in “five or six metal bands” such as Stab. Twist. Pull — it makes it rather tough to schedule rehearsals, shows or recording sessions.
“It’s a little bit difficult for everybody,” Pujo says before admitting that everyone is on the same page and there certainly are no hard feelings when it comes to the curtain call.
Which actually brings us to that hope that we mentioned earlier.
Despite the intentions that this will be one last blowout, despite the fact that fans will be given a Last Waltz-like evening on Saturday night at the Palomino, Pujo concedes this may not actually, technically, for realsies and forever be their final farewell.
“You put all that together we need to take a little step back for now and perhaps in a year, when Liz is all done school we might re-form,” he says.
“We’ll see where life takes us over the next year … Who knows?
“It’s not necessarily the end for the band,” he says, “but it’s the end for now.”
Which, for Burning Daisy fans, is the parting gift of a little hope.