Music takes its toil

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This article was published 14/03/2024 (594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Seven years after the first live performance he gave as Warming and five days before what might be that project’s last, Brady Allard apologizes for what might sound like a note of bitterness.

But the synth-pop, new wave-inspired multi-instrumentalist is singing the frustrated, all-too-common anthem of the first generation of independent recording artists for whom the streaming era comprises the entirety of a decade-plus career. Those artists also had the misfortune of contending with four years of the pandemic providing unwanted backup vocals.

Musicians such as Allard, 35, could be forgiven their acrimony.

In the weeks ahead of the Friday delivery of Warming’s second album, Toil Boy, Allard floated the idea to his social media following that his show on Saturday at the Handsome Daughter could represent the onset of Warming’s extended hibernation.

“I don’t know if I want to say it’s the end of Warming, but it is the end of doing live shows,” he says. “I won’t be playing music in the same way I am now. What’s led me to make that decision is that I can’t pretend that being in a band in 2024 is a sustainable concept.”

The fall before COVID, Allard toured the United Kingdom, Europe and Taiwan on the strength of Warming’s self-titled debut. It was a successful tour insofar as it happened, but it was an expensive trek, with the costs of touring outweighing any financial gain. Allard wasn’t able to play hometown shows upon his return, owing to the pandemic.

The idea of touring again and climbing into a pit of travel costs and credit card payments wasn’t an appealing one.

“I don’t let myself buy apples at the grocery store because they’re too expensive, so how am I supposed to even drive to Calgary to play a show?” he says.

A few years ago, he would have felt able to stomach the proposition. But Allard is realistic in his assessment that the travelling-salesman approach isn’t sustainable for a musician at his stage.

“I think everyone’s known that since streaming started, and it’s been a back-and-forth debate, but it’s at the point now where it’s beyond debate for me,” he says.

A Métis artist born in Winnipeg and raised in Grande Pointe, Allard’s recording career started after he graduated from Brandon University’s school of music, where he studied jazz guitar and grew interested in electro-acoustic composition.

Warming began in 2017, but the project hit its stride the next year, when Allard and his band played Real Love Summer Fest and Rainbow Trout Music Festival. Onstage, Allard shivers with potential energy, both in terms of his punkish comportment and his nimble musicianship. He’s like a shaken can cracked open; it could explode in a violent burst of foam or it could simply hiss.

The album Toil Boy is a “pandemic baby” fuelled by his participation in the COVID-era Song Every Week Club, run by his former bandmate Natalie Bohrn of Slow Spirit. With a Monday deadline for a new track, Allard kept pace for two years, reflecting on the pain of isolation.

Allard’s favourite songs from the batch were recorded at No Fun Club with J. Riley Hill in the spring of 2022, and he had planned to release them last fall. But he found that the infrastructure of live performance was far less stable than it was the previous time around.

“I was trying to pick up the pieces, looking to release it with a label, but that just didn’t pan out. I can make up my own excuses for why that is, but I don’t want to sound like a bitter old man,” he says.

After he had circled a date in September 2023 to release the album, Allard’s mother died. As he dealt with that loss, he put Toil Boy on the shelf, waiting for a time when he felt ready to share it again.

In the leadup, Allard has shared several songs; based on those early returns, Toil Boy is just as densely packed as Warming’s debut. If there’s an overarching theme, it’s labour — underpaid and underappreciated. It’s filled with angsty odes to the class working in a city where it’s increasingly difficult to make ends meet. The post-new-wave Blue is inspired by Allard’s mother’s work life. Sacred and Divine is “about the spiritual bankruptcy of capitalist society.” Mr. Tumbling Man is about the clumsiness of depression, and the final track, Email, is a tongue-in-cheek portrait of artistry in the digital age, where musicians are forced to distil themselves into Gmail missives of 200 characters or fewer.

Allard can’t say for sure if Saturday’s performance at the Handsome Daughter — where he’ll be backed by Mike Fox, Dan Britton and Jesse Lawrence — will be Warming’s last. But one thing is certain: Allard will leave everything he’s got onstage, just as he’s done every time before.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com