Katie Caron & the Lichen

Caron cousins :) 

"If you live in Hamilton and you enjoy feminist surf rock, ukuleles, tapes, new music, supporting women in music, burritos, community gardens, bookstores, anarchist bookstores, broken hearts, bake–offs, healthy living, organizing workers, yarn bombing, and smashing patriarchy, then you really shouldn’t miss this.” -- Katie C. 

Hamilton Music Notes by Ric Taylor -- The View
September 22 - 28, 2011 Katie Caron & the Lichen
We first met Katie Caron back in 2004 with her debut and by 2006 she had followed up with a double album release, Captured By The Wild/Cut Sandwiches With Scissors. A burgeoning singer–songwriter gaining notoriety on the local stages, Caron was finding her own way in song it seemed but shifted gears once she took note of her sister’s
aspirations. Beshele Caron had left the Hamilton area for Vancouver where she started the Greenbelt Collective – an ever–changing group of musicians that simultaneously demystified and glorified indie–pop–rock with raucous appeal. Katie couldn’t help but get swept up in the maelstrom herself and just as she was nearing completion of her latest recordings – she decided that a move was in order. While Katie decided to up and leave for Vancouver a year ago – she returns this weekend with a new perspective on the music industry and her music.
    “I really spent most of that time becoming comfortable with my songwriting and trying to find a way of relating that to music that I could really call mine,” recalls Caron on her Hamilton development.
    “Those last two albums sort of represented a transition for me. I think I was able to finally gain some agency in terms of my music style. I went through so many different genres but I wasn’t entirely comfortable in a lot of them. I had to work really hard to break out of those ideas and focus on what I wanted to do in terms of moving forward. Making music that I really like to listen to, that is different and that pushes boundaries.
    “I moved to Vancouver with my drummer Amanda Haw and we felt that there would be more room for us to make the music we wanted to make,” adds Caron. “I wanted to be near my sisters [Nicole Caron also now in Vancouver] and have them involved in the project, and I wanted to really tune in to this new sound. Being out there has really helped me direct my work. There is so much going on underground. The community is really affirming towards what people try to do.”
    With two albums of music in hand, (This Forest Isn’t Big Enough, recorded mostly in Hamilton and then completed in Vancouver, and Kiss and Run, offering a total Vancouver production), Caron returns invigorated by her new perspective. Now fully focusing on what she calls ‘anti–pop–anti–folk aspects of lo–fi music’, Caron is now part of her own collective, Katie and the Lichen.
    “What we are doing now as Katie and the Lichen represents these influences and these changes, and all of these affirmations,” she explains on the group formed in Vancouver. “We can’t even really describe our new style well. It’s like grunge–surf clean–pop. Yeah,
that doesn’t really quite cut it.
    “Katie and the Lichen has taken many forms this last year and we are doing this tour in this arrangement,” she adds. “The thing that is special about this tour specifically is that we are all ladies. We have all been playing music for a while and wanted to really emphasize that women can rock out, too. People don’t want to talk about how sexist the music scene is still, but it is and it’s super annoying.”
    With a new focus from a different vantage, Caron and friends are traveling on what’s dubbed the Smash Patriarchy tour from Vancouver to Newfoundland – and they hope to do some damage back in Caron’s old stomping grounds.
    “I am obviously really excited to be coming home and playing a show,” smiles Caron. “A year is a long time and so much has happened and changed. I think it’s important to be reminded of your history and how you grew up, and all of that. I will always love Hamilton; it is always a major and necessary stop for us.
    “I think I put on a pretty classic Hamilton show,” she adds. “This one will have a new west coast/smashing patriarchy type feel. If you live in Hamilton and you enjoy feminist surf rock, ukuleles, tapes, new music, supporting women in music, burritos, community gardens, bookstores, anarchist bookstores, broken hearts, bake–offs, healthy living, organizing workers, yarn bombing, and smashing patriarchy, then you really shouldn’t miss this.”
   
    Katie and the Lichen play this Friday September 23 at the Skydragon Centre with Mansion Music and the Human Race. Doors are at 7pm and cover is $10 or PWYC at the door. Click on thegreenbeltcollective.com/katiecaron

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