PRESS and TESTIMONIALS

Concert Preview: Weakland deals with troubling times on 'Golden Age'

Thursday, February 08, 2007                                  

By John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When Sandoz was drawing weekly jam-band crowds throughout the Pittsburgh area, Mark Weakland provided the heavily syncopated drumming. When local institutions book concerts for children, they sometimes choose Weakland to perform songs from his original children's albums, and national songwriting contests including the Children's Music Web Awards and John Lennon Songwriting Contest have chosen his songs as the strongest in their categories.

Now Weakland is releasing his third solo non-children's album at a CD party at the Thunderbird Cafe. Most of "Golden Age" explores the unsettling idea that we live in an era of unprecedented wealth and opportunity marked by great personal challenges, poverty and loss. While he wrote most of the songs and plays most of the instruments, Weakland says he doesn't have answers to most of the questions posed on "Golden Age."

"We live in such great times, such prosperity and comfort, but it's also a time of such misery and profound loss," he said. "I'm having trouble with that, and I think other people are struggling with it, too."

The title cut says it most clearly in Weakland's folk-rock style, but he re-examines the issue from various perspectives in "Have a Nice Day," "Goodbye History," "The Valley" and his spin on John Prine's "Paradise."

Weakland will be joined on stage by bassist Paul Thompson, guitarist Doug Wilkin, backup vocalist Gail Novak, and percussionists Jeff Berman and Dan Meunier. His 90-minute set will be followed by Grateful Dead tribute band Fungus.

(John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.)

Published: January 30, 2007 03:06 pm         

'Golden Age' of song: Nationally acclaimed local musician releases CD

BY RUTH RICE
 
Local musician Mark Weakland believes we’re living in the golden age.  To back up his claim, the Hollsopple resident will debut his latest compact disc, “Golden Age,” for his local fans from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Friday at Boulevard Grill, 165 Southmont Blvd., Johnstown, and for his Pittsburgh fans from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at Thunderbird Café, Pittsburgh.  The Pittsburgh party will be a double-bill with Grateful Dead tribute band Fungus.

The theme of Weakland’s CD is a balancing act.  “In the golden age we are living in, we are in a juxtaposition of great wealth and poverty, happiness and violence and suffering,” Weakland said. “The theme is about how we make sense of it all. I think it raises more questions than answers. The title isn’t ironic. I really believe we’re living in a golden age.”  The song “Golden Age” won an honorable mention in the 2002 John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

For his release parties, Weakland will be backed by a quintet of Pittsburgh musicians whom he has played with before. They are Paul Thompson, who has played with Maynard Ferguson and Salsamba, on bass; Doug Wilkin of The Newlanders, guitars; Jeff Berman, who has played with Linda Thompson and Paul Bley, drums and percussion; Dan Meunier of Dr. Kwasi and the Islanders, percussion and steel drum; and Gail Novak of Fedora Funk, vocals and keyboards.

“Johnstown will be my debut with the band,” Weakland said. “We’ll have one rehearsal the night before.”  In support of his CD release, Weakland also will perform a number of small-venue solo shows and will return to Boulevard Grill from 9 p.m. to midnight Feb. 9.

Weakland describes his newest CD as “a groove-oriented blend of alternative rock, pop and world-beat.  He performed all vocals and instrumentals himself, recording 90 percent of it in his home studio.  On his previous CDs, Weakland provided lead vocals and guitar, but left the background singing and additional instrumentals to others.  “I wanted to see if I could do it,” Weakland said. “I wanted to see if I could create the sound of a band.”  Weakland said it took him six months to complete the CD.  Cover artwork for the CD was done by graphic artist and local musician Jennifer Drummey.

Weakland also has made his mark in other musical venues.  His original composition, “Child of Wonder,” which was arranged and orchestrated by Nathan Santos, was premiered by Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in 2003.  “It was the opportunity of a lifetime,” Weakland said. “It was an nine-minute piece. It wouldn’t have happened without Nathan.”  Weakland also founded the acoustic trio Acousticity and sings with Santos in the a cappella quintet White Noise.  Weakland has produced six CDs of original music: “Golden Age,” “Gathering Place,” “Songs from the Country,” “Stream” and the children’s CDs “Little Animals” and “Mr. Sounds.”
 

February 8, 2007

Singer-songwriter Mark Weakland reflects on the Golden Age

By Aaron Jentzen

You might not know Mark Weakland as a singer-songwriter, but as drummer and percussionist for numerous Pittsburgh-based artists: Sandoz, Ben Opie, The Newlanders and Jack Erdie, among others. But for the new rootsy Golden Age, Weakland's front and center on the mic with his own compositions.

Weakland's pleasant vocal style has earned comparisons to James Taylor and Dave Matthews, though to my ear he has a bit of a Jimmy Buffet timbre mixed with some David Crosby. (One of the CD's two cover songs is Crosby's "Page 43.") And while you'd never think it to hear it, he also performed all of the instruments on the album: keyboards, drums, bass, contrapuntal acoustic guitars and occasional hot electric leads.

The majority of the dozen songs bop along with a country-rock groove and a rural, Western Pennsylvanian ethos. "He sang you a song of hot summer roads and bubbles of black tar / That cling to your heels," Weakland sings on the opener, "The Valley." "Holes in My Heart," has some creepy keyboards a la Born in the U.S.A.; "Goodbye History" could be a gloss on Springsteen's "Hometown," meditating on that sense of the passing of old ways and an uncertain future. "Today they closed the corner store / Last year they boarded up the mine." If these are your sentiments and concerns, there's much to dig into on Golden Age.

Mark Weakland CD release, with Fungus (Grateful Dead tribute band). 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 10. Thunderbird Café, 4023 Butler St., Lawrenceville. 412-682-0177 or www.thunderbirdcafe.net

E-mail Aaron Jentzen about this story

Rocker finds child inside with kids songs

By Derek J. Fuchs

TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Friday, April 11, 2003

Mark Weakland writes music for kids, but that's only a part of his music career - about one-fifth, to be sure. He's just as likely to show up behind a drum kit in a jazz or rock club.  "I don't do too many kids' CDs. Every now and then, I put one out. ... I don't want to be the next Raffi," he says.

The Somerset County guitarist and singer will perform the silly kids' songs from his 2000 album "Little Animals" on Sunday at the Center for Creative Play. A new album also is forthcoming, perhaps in the fall.

A more recent children's song, "Dooflicky Machine," made him a finalist in the national 2002 John Lennon Songwriting Competition.

Weakland, however, was a drummer on the Pittsburgh rock-club scene first. He would play with his band Sandoz at the former Decade, Thirsty's or Graffiti.

When Weakland got married and found a house out in the country, he realized he wouldn't be able to get into town for gigs all that often. He reinvented himself, musically speaking, polishing up his singing voice and guitar skills. Doing Dave Matthews Band and Eagles covers was more likely to keep him busy in the bars out there.

Along the way, Weakland - who was teaching children with learning disabilities - aligned with Westmoreland County's Family Arts Theatre to write songs for kids. Weakland had plenty of material left over from the project. That became "Little Animals."

With titles such as "I Am a Worm" and "Big Fat Groundhog Blues," the album was a mostly acoustic-instrument menagerie of animal onomatopoeia and traditional folk songs related to creatures great and small, from the bed bug to the platypus to the shark.

Part of the inspiration for "Little Animals" came from songs Weakland used to help his students remember material from class.  "You have an emotional response to music. You remember a song. You might remember a girlfriend - you (both) have a song. It's the same thing (with learning)."

Now Weakland consults teachers and school administrators on educating children with learning disabilities in Armstrong and Indiana counties. He and Pittsburgh actress Chris Laitta last year released "The Dramatically Different Classroom," a book advocating engaging students in movement, music and drama to assist in the learning process.

He insists, however, that "Little Animals" and his other songs aren't a part of any educational mission. They're just another outlet.

"It's more to have fun, to dance around, and maybe amuse the parents," he says. "I have to amuse myself, don't I? And I don't want to write the Barney song. Nothing against Barney, but ..."

Derek J. Fuchs can be reached at dfuchs@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7987.

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