"ruck sack full of church"

2009: YEAR OF THE WHALE

It's official. Spread the news. Expect a full-length on White Whale Records sometime in the new year.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"the fancy that i'm on has been going on too long"

Another Bear Claw junkie caught in the act. It's totally consumed her life and now she's robbing liquor stores and stealing from her parents, siblings and friends.

Here's a christmas present from the Wild Dogs, a brand new track we'll be opening the show on the 27th with. Download it here. It's called "Born to Lose." Merry xxxmas.

"Born to Lose"

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"it's hard to see the ground from the withering heights"

It seems I've finally run out of road. Back home in Edmonton and ready to face another year. 2008 treated me well more or less but put a good pair of rings around my eyes.

On January 27th at Edmonton's Velvet Underground/Starlite Room I'm playing two country sets with the Whiskey Dogs, an acoustic Dr. Jekyll to the Wild Dogs' Mr. Hyde. We're going to play some Merle songs, some stuff by Gram and the Burritos I'm sure, maybe some Appalachian shit or something.

Then on Friday, February 13th the Wild Dogs will play their first loud Edmonton show in over two months. It's good to be home.

January 27th

EAMON McGRATH & THE WHISKEY DOGS

w/ special guests

@ The Velvet Underground

February 13th

THE WILD DOGS

@ The Likwid Lounge

Love, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Whatever.

The Wild Dogs.

"curse the corpses call in the futurists"

Well that was another round of Toronto. A good dose this time although molly wasn't behaving too well for me if you know what I mean. And we all know how hard it is to have fun without her...

So now it's off to Windsor for a show at the Phog Lounge, and then two nights in the Windy City. Still living on Ichiban and Chunky soup. One more week left in this torrential downpour of touring that 2008 has been and then it's off to a new year.

Made friends with White Whale Records. Look for some good news in 2009.








Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"be prepared to bleed"

When you get bored on the road, you make fun of your band.

"lovers just can't be drunks together"

Toronto is crazy as usual. I hopped on a bill last night at the Annex Wreck Room and it was awesome. Opened for this band with tombstones and strippers onstage. 40 Thieves killed it. Edmonton came out in droves.

I have an apology to make to the City Streets, about the Bear Claw recipe: honey on the rim is always the first choice. Most bars don't have the capability though so you use the shitty sugar substitute.








Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"if the sky falls mark my words we'll catch mockingbirds"

So much for drying out. In Toronto right now, play at the Silver Dollar tomorrow night with my pals Chris Mullen and Jeremy Finkelstein. I've seen lots of Edmonton ex-pats on the street and hopefully they're all coming to the show.


Tour update with the Thieves: Calgary has a lynch mob out for me now, Regina has a wicked guy named Henry from the band Geronimo, Winnipeg's Sub City Dwellers showed us a wicked weekend and we drove straight across the shield, dodging moose and icy roads for about 23 hours. Thanks for driving the whole way, Caleb. The shows have been good, we played to big crowds in Calgary and Regina and Mr. O'Hanlon is my new hero, he made us a great round of Bear Claws, my new favourite drink. See you in a week or so, wish us luck at the border.




BEAR CLAW:

1 ounce Kahlua
1 ounce Bailey's
1/2 ounce rye
fill with Coke
sugar on the rim, on the rocks.






Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"i've seen the needle take another man"

Here's to another twenty days on the road, and drying out.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"i stopped to love you each and every day"

I'm playing tomorrow night at the Velvet Underground, my first acoustic show in a long time. Two sets, starting around 10:00pm. Should be enough time to come after the Ramshackle Day Parade. It would be nice to see everyone before I take off again.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"i'm such a bad worker my father would be ashamed"

EAMON McGRATH - DEAD EMPIRE EP

01 I Am the Deer

02 Heartland Passways

03 Dead Empire

04 Grand Avenue

05 Heaven Run Me Down

Download here.

"november girl and all that pain"

Another month on the road under the belt and another month to go. At one point last month I saw the CN Tower, the Sears tower, the Colorado rockies, the MGM Grand, the Hollywood hills, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Space Needle in the span of seven days. Thanks to the City Streets for letting me take up the room in their van. It still feels weird to sleep in a bed. Thanks to everyone that helped us out along the way and here's to a December of more of the same.



This was a great November.





Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"i think sal paradise was right"

To be twenty in Montreal is a swift kick in the ass. This city is a beautiful woman with the softest skin and the greenest eyes I've ever seen. Thanks to Chris for putting us up last minute as we trudged the dirt of Mont Royal around his apartment and tried to kick our acid highs. Last night Le Barfly was packed with a crowd of people from all over Canada and we drank and smoked on a balcony that was surrounded by eight brick walls. Mark and Matt and I climbed to the top of a condemned building; 822 Sherbrooke means something to someone and now it means something to me. We pulled up to St Laurent and St Viateur, she smiled, she waved, and said "welcome to the heart." Thank you gorgeous, you are beautiful, and I'll see you again sometime soon.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"you can't be twenty on sugar mountain"

Last night we played at the Attic in Guelph, Ontario. It was put on by CFRU Music Director Peter Bradley and it was one of the best shows we've ever done. Any touring bands should try and make a stop there: a packed room, sweaty bodies and lots of booze. Scaled the rooftops of Guelph with a beautiful girl. Spray painted the walls.

The tour is going great, we'll see you in three weeks or so.

Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"you know i made the moon, honey"

THE TOUR KICKOFF PARTY IS BOOKED!!!

December 3

EAMON McGRATH & THE WILD DOGS

40 THIEVES

+ special guest appearances from BEAUTY IS THE RIDE, RICK REID, and more

@ Wunderbar

$5

"if you get lost come on home to green river"

October 2008 - Tour Recap Episode

This was one for the books...between raising hell in Calgary to playing for a packed house at Amigo's in Saskatoon to sharing 2 dates with Vancouver's Shearing Pinx to snuggling up to the seedy underbelly of Toronto, this October has been a whirlwind, brain cell-decimating, liver destroying and tinnitus-inducing month of mayhem.

The set on CJSW was burned to a CD, which unfortunately snapped in my luggage on the way out east. We'll have to find another way to get a hold of the recording and post the podcast, so hold tight. Thanks to Slow Down, Molasses for setting up the show in Saskatoon, Shearing Pinx for putting up with us for two nights in a row, Ryan for letting us drink in the lounge, Meagan for letting us make as much noise as we wanted to until 9:00a.m., Kelly for spotting the flat tire, Peter for putting me up in Toronto and I owe an apology to Mary because I poured tequila all over her floor and books. Also thanks to anybody who didn't fuck with Peter and I as we slept on the sidewalk in the Annex.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"there's no shortcuts and no straight lines"

OCTOBER:

It's all booked and the van's all packed. We're heading out across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario for the month of October and then kicking off the November tour with a set at the Black Dog w/ Rick Reid of the City Streets on October 25th.

OCTOBER 9
Calgary, Alberta
@ The Marquee Room
w/ PAUL VAN KAMPEN
of Beija Flor


OCTOBER 10
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
@ Amigo's
w/ SLOW DOWN, MOLASSES
CD release show!!!


OCTOBER 11
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
@ AKA/Paved Arts
THE WILD DOGS w/ SHEARING PINX


OCTOBER 12
Edmonton, Alberta
@ The Artery
THE WILD DOGS w/ SHEARING PINX


OCTOBER 15
Toronto, Ontario
@ The Annex Wreck Room
w/ BLACK DIAMOND BAY
(featuring members of the Dears)

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"the moon is broken and the sky is cracked"

This is going to be a fucking great weekend. October 9th in Calgary at the Marquee Room, October 10th w/ Slow Down, Molasses in Saskatoon, and the next night again in Saskatoon w/ Vancouver's Shearing Pinx. Hell yes.

"the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels"

Here's some more live recordings from the past year:

Wild Dogs - Holy Roller Parts 1 & 2

Live @ The Pawn Shop

February 23rd, 2008

Wild Dogs - Wild Dogs / Death Letter

Live @ The Black Dog

May 18, 2008

Wild Dogs - Death Letter

Live @ Max's House

March 30, 2008

Wild Dogs - Machine Gun Cowboy

Live @ Max's House

March 30, 2008

Eamon McGrath - The Republic

Live @ Lydia's Loft

May 9, 2008

Eamon McGrath - Empty Bottle

Live @ The Velvet Underground

April 4, 2008

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"there's a tower in the heart of london"

Myke Atkinson from the great CJSW asked me to come on the air before the Calgary show at the Marquee Room on October 9th. Expect a podcast track to be posted here.

Also, the December tour with 40 Thieves is coming together, here's the confirmed shows right now:

Dec 4th - Calgary, AB - The Marquee Room

Dec 19th - Winnipeg, MB - Shannon's Irish Pub

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"infamous butcher angel of death"

September 23

THE MOHAWK LODGE

EAMON McGRATH

LIONS FOR SHEEP

$5

@ GFCB's

"a rock n roll nurse went into my head"

Here's what October smells like so far:

October 9 - Calgary, AB - The Marquee Room w/ tba

October 10 - Saskatoon, SK - Amigo's w/ Slow Down, Molasses

Not so much a tour as it is a few one-offs in a few different cities. I'm still looking for shows though: if you can help out east or in central Canada that would be awesome.

"i can't figure out your watery love"

"Wild Dogs" climbs to #7 on Earshot!'s Folk/Roots/Blues chart

1 Elliot Brood - Mountain Meadows (Six Shooter)

2 Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir - Ten Thousand (Shoutin' Abner Pim)

3 Death Vessel - Nothing is Precious Enough For Us (Sub Pop)

4 Emmylou Harris - All I Intended To Be (Nonesuch)

5 Tim Hus - Bush Pilot Buckaroo (Stony Plain)

6 Andre Williams and the New Orleans Hellhounds - Can You Deal With It? (Bloodshot)

7 Eamon McGrath - Wild Dogs (Champion City)

8 Cowpuncher - Before the Snow Flies (Independent)

9 Son of Dave - Son of Dave (Sparks)

10 Marcia Ball - Peace, Love & BBQ (Alligator)

Thanks to all the DJs across Canada playing the record.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"all a man can build is his vision"

"Wild Dogs" is reviewed in the September issue of Exclaim!, here's what they had to say:

Eamon McGrath
Wild Dogs
By Amanda Ash

“There’s a fist in the air and a whiskey/and the sidewalk’s all covered in spit.” This line oozes through the title track of Eamon McGrath’s album, summing up everything the Edmonton-based musician stands for. He’s a young punk rocker trapped in the mind of a middle-aged folk guru, or so his record seems to suggest. It’s loud and slurs like a stumbling, smelly bar fool yet somehow it pins you to your seat and dares you to listen longer. “Pax Romana” is a genuine requiem for the world, the people in it and everything in between. But then there’s “Wrapped In Books,” which uses half-buried vocals and slow-motion instrumentals to halt time. It doesn’t seem like Wild Dogs should be coming from such a young gun, but it proves that you can hammer out a rugged, heartfelt and mature album no matter your age. (Champion City)

"a person can work up a mean mean thirst"

"Wild Dogs" is the number one record on CJSR right now.

Thanks to the best community radio station in Canada, bar none, and all the DJs and staff that make it so.

Check out the Earshot! Charts here.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"set off the geese of beverly road"

"Wild Dogs" is now available for purchase online. You can pay whatever you want and be sent a code where you can download the record, but paying $12.00 gets you a physical copy of the record and a "Wild Dogs" poster, plus we'll pay for the postage.

Buy the album here.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"have you forgotten how to love yourself"

Cheers Parker.
Love,
The Wild Dogs.

"who the hell are you to tell me who my friends are"

"Wild Dogs" reviewed on CokeMachineGlow

"i've lived this way for so many years ole man trouble"

The Wild Dogs - Before You Got So Sad

Live @ Le Relais, Saskatoon, SK

July 19, 2008

"a dreamer of pictures i run in the night"

Friday, August 15th

THE WILD DOGS

w/ Sam Hate & The Yells

@ The Starlite Room

$10 (benefit show)

"down on the corner out in the street"

The only thing is that he wasn't holding a six pack when this happened to him. He doesn't even drink beer. If you see him, buy him highballs, don't let this poster give you the wrong idea.

Thursday, August 7th

THE WILD DOGS

w/ MAD COWBOYS

@ The Wunderbar

"i said i couldn't hit it sideways"

Some live recordings.

Eamon McGrath & Gin Theft

Live at The Artery, Ramshackle Day Parade July 1st, 2008

The Wild Dogs vs. Italian Husbands - Sister Ray

Live at Naked on Jasper, August 1st 2008

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"boys and girls in america"

"On the road with the City Streets"

SEE Magazine, July 31st

Last day of cheap drinks in Alberta.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

"poetry has no place for a heart that's a whore"

WHISKEY BURNOUT BASEMENTS 2008

Probably the best three men have ever looked in thrift store dresses. And a tour for the ages. First Frank gets turned away at the U.S. border for having 0.02 grams of weed on a jean jacket that he brought with him in the van on a whim, so him and Parker split back to E-Town and plan to meet up with us later. Then Matt and I hop in a semi truck and head to Minot, North Dakota where we get to the venue at 2:30 am and drink our faces off and play a set in a sand pit. Next up we're in Michigan and we slice a deer in half with our van and cave in the hood. We're waiting on the side of the highway with a two six of Yukon Jack and we get a ride to Canada where Rick and I hitchhike to Toronto to make it in time for this:

So I fuck up a few chords at the end, I hadn't slept in two days and I was piss drunk. But we got there alive. Then we spend the day on Craigslist looking for a new vehicle and we find one in Mississauga, and our good friend Peter buses out there to buy it from some guy we still haven't met. Then Mutt and I drive to Sarnia--where the old dead van is parked--and load the gear and drive back to Toronto. At this point it becomes a bit more of a normal tour.

We get to Minneapolis eventually and when we wake up at the house we're crashing at we find that Mutt's eyes have been glued shut with Elmer's by these sadistic fuckers who we paid back in spades. You know who you fucking are, you assholes.

By the time we get to Saskatoon, we've played some of the best shows of our lives and we're ready to party so we dressed in drag and messed up our brains. We made it home in one piece, thanks to a few people who we'll be forever indebted: Amanda in Regina for being who she is, Paul, the trucker in Portal, Sahir, who picked up two harsh looking fucks on the 401, Peter, who bought us the van, Mary, who let us crash at their place, Anna, who gave us a boost in De Pere before our show and paid for the room, Matt Fava, for the support yet again, Sam, for getting the Streets at the Royal Albert, Ryan, for booking Le Relais, Tiffany, for the smiles and for lighting up a room, Christine, for always cooking the greatest breakfasts you can find in Western Canada, and Parker James Thiessen and Frank Derek Pirker, because they always got a light.

It's one for the ages, and we'll never forget.

Love,

The Wild Dogs.

xoxo

"get up from a dream and i look for rain"

Tonight at the Artery/Studio E: Ramshackle Day Parade, an evening of weird shit and noise rock. Wild Dogs are celebration, the sound of your friends in the room, the clinking of a glass, the smoke of a joint, kissing a beautiful girl. Gin Theft is the piss on your shoes and the vomit in a back alley.

"the only kind of love is stone blind love"

"how do you say goodnight to an answering machine"

The official "Wild Dogs" CD release party is booked! With support from those suckas in 40 Thieves!

^^

These dudes are the shit.

JUNE 29th

@ The Wunderbar

WILD DOGS

**CD release party and tour kickoff show!!**

w/ 40 THIEVES

$5 cover

show at 9pm

"everything you dream of is right in front of you"

SEE Magazine, June 12:

"Pink Film is equal parts punk, gospel, country and drone, stitched together like an Ed Gein skin mask. The production is supernatural and raw as hell, complete with creaking floor-boards and haunting, eldritch screeches. Points of reference include the Drones, Tom Waits, Lee Hazlewood, Nick Cave, and Lou Reed, but all that stuff don't matter much. It ain't the feel-good album of the year, but these songs'll outlast that ice in your whiskey."

- Travis Sargent

Thursday, June 19th

New City Likwid Lounge

WILD DOGS

DEAD CITY SERPENTS

7 AND 7 IS

Admission by donation

Beer is $2.75

"when you're young you get sad then you get high"

"everybody wants to be special here"

"Empty Bottle" live on CHRY 105.5 FM in Toronto. 

"in the garage where i'll be safe"

Songs to Sing When You're Dead - Live @ The Sludge House, May 30th 2008

"hang down your head for sorrow"

Our tour in July with the City Streets is shaping up, here's what's booked so far:

WHISKEY BURNOUT BASEMENTS 2008

July 3 - O'Hanlons - Regina, SK

July 4 - Billy House - Minot, ND

July 5 - Baba Louie's - De Pere, WI

July 6 - Nottingham Coop - Madison, WI

July 9 - The Boat - Toronto, ON

July 11 - Centre St Ambroise - Montreal, QB

July 12 - The Townhouse - Sudbury, ON

July 14 - Reptile Palace - Oshkosh, WI

July 16 - Terminal Bar - Minneapolis, MN

More dates to be added as they come. Here is the album we'll be supporting in July, soon to be out on Champion City:

Eamon McGrath - "Wild Dogs" (Champion City Records, 2008)

An album full of love songs and frozen desperation, torn between noise and industry; folk music that claws its way to the surface from the belly of the world. 300 copies, silkscreened covers, art by Lando Speers. Copies can be found at the merch booths across Canada.

Love. The Wild Dogs.

"the eye you lost in the crusades"

In Toronto an awesome guy named Matt Chaloux introduced himself and took some amazing photos of the set I played. He's an incredible photographer. The band for this set backing me wasn't the normal lineup of the Wild Dogs: the drummer is Jeremy Finkelstein and the bass player is Chris Mullen, two Toronto musicians who learned the songs while I was on a plane flying east and who had one practice with me for an hour the day before the show. It was loud as hell and they're some of the best musicians I've ever met. 

Out east soundguys are fine with not mixing you and pegging the PA to the red so the vocals are a distorted wall of sludge and bars and promoters don't complain to people about how loud you are the day after you play there, especially when the bar is packed, you're encouraging people to buy their fucking booze, and you're lining the wallet of somebody whose job it is to find a way to weasel himself into paying you as little as he can. Toronto is awesome, and music doesn't piss anybody off there. Go figure. It just goes to show that there are people out there putting on shows who still understand rock and roll. In Edmonton, his name is Cecil Frena and he runs Push-Pins. Email him for shows, this guy is the shit and will probably book you in a heartbeat.

Thank you Matt for the photos, thanks to Jeremy for not only putting on the show but also playing at it, and thanks to Chris for the same. Check out the rest of the photos from the set here, and look at the rest of Matt's photos, he's the shit.

Love. The Wild Dogs.

"i want a range life if i could settle down"

We're playing at the Black Dog on May 18, it's part of some Sleeman's festival or something. All day insanity, on a Sunday. We play at 6:45 pm. Hopefully you can get Monday off and drink yourself into the new week.

Also here's a mix of some of our favourite songs to play on the road.

The Wild Dogs - Road Show Mixtape 05/11/2008

01 Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel

02 Eric's Trip - Anytime You Want

03 The Germs - Lexicon Devil

04 Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna

05 The Clean - Anything Could Happen

06 Charged GBH - Sick Boy

07 Paul Westerberg - It's A Wonderful Lie

08 Guided By Voices - King and Caroline

09 Blind Willie Johnson - Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying

10 Hot Snakes - Our Work Fills the Pews

11 Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band -  Moonlight on Vermont

12 Nina Nastasia & Jim White - I've Been Out Walking

Download this sucka here.

Love. The Wild Dogs.

"someone like you makes it hard to live without somebody else"

Eamon McGrath - Pink Film - Sweet Dreams Motel Tour Edition CDR

Twenty special edition copies of Eamon McGrath’s Pink Film, reproduced and packaged on the highway between Regina and Winnipeg. Drawn on the steering wheel of a ’99 Pontiac Sunfire. Complete with rolling papers and a spent match. Art that moves at 110 km/h! Some copies are still around. Email the Wild Dogs if you want one, and Cassettes Records will send one your way.

eamon_mcgrath[at]yahoo.ca

www.myspace.com/eamonmcgrath

cassettesrecords.googlepages.com

www.myspace.com/cassettesrecords

That was a crazy tour. 11 whirlwind days from one end of Canada to the other. Thanks to Jeremy, Peter, Kira, Mary and the CHRY folks in Toronto. Thanks to Con in Montreal. Thanks to Johnny and Gerrard in Winnipeg, but Jones, you can kiss my ass. Thanks to Meagan and Phil and the dudes at CFCR in Saskatoon.

Heading out again on the road in July with the City Streets. It'll be nice to see some of these faces again.

Love. The Wild Dogs.

"once i had mountains in the palm of my hand"

This is a beautiful city.

"an underwater guy who controlled the sea"

Expect an on-air acoustic session from Eamon on York University's CHRY and look for some video footage up on here in the near future. CHRY has been really supportive and the music director there, Matt Fava, is an awesome guy who's really waving the flag of the DIY ethic out east, keeping community radio alive, helping out indie bands who really are independent--and who don't just equate the term with American Apparel and bumps of ketamine off urinals in hyphy bars.

After the live on-air session there will be a DJ set from 1-2 PM Toronto time where Eamon will play live clips, key tracks and found sounds from the underground music scene out West. Expect music from Shearing Pinx, Holzkopf, the City Streets, High Jinx, and other great bands from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC.





You can listen to this all online here. Hope to have your ears. Right now we leave you with this.





Love. The Wild Dogs.

"watching hardcore ufo's"

Transgressive Age Vol. 2