Old Man Luedecke OK with not being on trend
On his 39th birthday this year, surrounded by mute snow on a moonlit night, Old Man Luedecke started recording music in a cabin he made with his own hands. “I had to hire a piece of machinery, we had so much snow,” says the musician. “The first step of making the record was to make a road.”
Nine years back, Luedecke’s album Hinterland turned heads with its Spartan, Gillian Welch-neighbouring simplicity. Luedecke’s observations about his drop-offthe-grid life charmingly made way into his crisp banjo tunes — equally romanticizing the fact he quit his job, had change-leaking holes in his jeans and loves bacon.
The beginnings of the rural, Chester, N.S., existence he described back in 2006 find a bookend of sorts in the new record, Domestic Eccentric, down to the fact his longtime partner Teresa Bergen once again did the cover — this time with their three children looking down from the attic at the music being made.
The album is an almost heartbreaking love letter to Luedecke’s life at home, which being a touring musician both supports and interferes with when he’s away from his family, garden and free-range fowl. Q: How’s the garden going? A: This year, it’s particularly bad, probably because of touring the record that ironically celebrates being home. We started out pretty bravely in the spring, and by festival season it’s pretty well shot. And the kids have an interesting approach — they sure can get rid of a bunch of seeds really quickly. I live in a house full of girls, but Teresa’s favourite food, which she’s passed on to the kids, is peas. If she could, she’d just put peas in the whole thing. Shell peas. Snap peas. I’d grow potatoes and cabbage.
OLD MAN LUEDECKE Tonight, 8 p.m. Village Guitar & Amp Tickets $21.50 Box office: villageguitars.ca