Matthew Good
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other people with a similar name, see Matthew Good (disambiguation).
| Matthew Good | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Matthew Frederick Robert Good |
| Born | June 29, 1971 Burnaby, British Columbia Canada |
| Origin | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada |
| Genre(s) | Rock Acoustic |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Bass Guitar, Percussion |
| Label(s) | Universal Music Canada A&M Records |
| Associated acts | Matthew Good Band Rodchester Kings |
| Website | www.matthewgood.org |
Matthew Frederick Robert Good (born June 29, 1971, Burnaby, British Columbia) is a Canadian rock musician. He was the lead singer for the Matthew Good Band, one of Canada's most successful alternative rock bands in the 1990s, before dissolving the band in 2002. Other band members included drummer Ian Browne, guitarist/keyboardist Dave Genn, and original bassist Geoff Lloyd, later replaced by Rich Priske. In the years since the Matthew Good Band's disbanding, Good has pursued a solo career and established himself as a political activist and blogger.
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[edit] Matthew Good Band
Good's early career in music involved a variety of folk demos and a stint as the lead singer of a folk band, the Rodchester Kings. The Matthew Good Band was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1995. That year, they released their debut album, Last of the Ghetto Astronauts. Although initially popular only in the Vancouver area, the album began to catch on across Canada in 1996, with the singles "Alabama Motel Room", "Symbolistic White Walls", and "Haven't Slept in Years" becoming significant hits on radio and MuchMusic. Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, made on a budget of roughly five thousand Canadian dollars, eventually set the mark as the highest selling independent label release by a Canadian artist.
The band's 1997 album Underdogs spawned the hit singles "Everything is Automatic" and "Apparitions", the latter of which remains the band's most successful single. Good's political outspokenness and brash confidence were unusual in the Canadian rock scene of the 1990s, and he was soon recognized as much for his seemingly difficult disposition as for his musical talent. As a nod to his reputation, Good sold t-shirts that read "I Hear Matt Good Is a Real Asshole" at MGB shows. He also maintained a subversive image, sometimes posing for publicity photos in a gorilla mask.
Beautiful Midnight, which saw the departure of Lloyd and the joining of Rich Priske as the new bassist, followed in 1999 and became hugely successful via singles including "Hello Time Bomb", "Strange Days", and "Load Me Up". The album skyrocketed the band's celebrity status and earned them two Juno awards in 2000, for Best Group and Best Rock Album. (Good himself boycotts the Juno Awards, and guitarist Dave Genn has been quoted as saying that he only attends for the open bar.)
After touring Beautiful Midnight for nearly two years, the band set to work on The Audio of Being. The album's creation came amidst a difficult emotional period for Good, where he struggled to deal with the band's success. He was also diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disease that causes lesions to form in the lungs, prompting him to quit smoking. Following throat surgery to remove a nodule from a vocal cord, Good holed up for three weeks in a hotel in Whistler to work on songs. Good later wrote that he spent much of the time "trying to keep down food supplement bars, trying to forget the growing tension within the band, the high expectations of needing to produce 'hit songs' (whatever they are these days), throwing up, and trying to find some semblance of direction in my personal life."
The band entered the studio in late 2000 to record the material. The sessions saw a great deal of intra-band turmoil, with Dave Genn quitting the band before the album was complete. He returned a few days later, however, only to quit permanently not long after the album's release in October 2001. Following Genn's departure, Good dissolved the band in 2002.
[edit] Solo career
Good released his solo debut, Avalanche, in 2003. The album featured major stylistic differences from those recorded with the previous band, and featured the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on several tracks, including the first two singles, "Weapon" and "In a World Called Catastrophe". Good recorded the album with long-time MGB producer Warne Livesey, who earned a Juno nomination for the effort.
Good and co-director Ante Kovac were also nominated for a Juno Award for Best Video of the Year for "Weapon". Ante Kovac received the award alone on stage. In later commentary, Good related that Kovac's first edit of the video was far too standard, with gratuitous and generic fades. After firing Kovac, Good flew to Toronto and worked with video editor J.D. Shaw to re-craft the footage. While working on the edit, Good began to experiment with overlaying text and adding still frames and stock photos to help deliver the message. Good noted that he felt that the video was his favourite from his catalogue.
Good's second solo album, the politically-charged White Light Rock & Roll Review, was released June 15, 2004. Video singles included "Alert Status Red" and "It's Been a While Since I Was Your Man". For the album, Good elected to take a stripped-down approach. Rather than record each instrument separately, Good and his new band (which consisted of himself, former MGB bassist Rich Priske, guitarist Christian Thor Valdson and drummer Patrick Steward) recorded the songs as a unit, with Good adding vocals and additional guitar parts later. Good later noted that he loved the freedom of being able to write a song, enter the studio, and have a recording completed almost immediately, rather than having to deal with the sometimes arduous process of recording layers and layers of music for a single song.
Good encountered controversy with the video for "Alert Status Red". Initially, the video was intended to be a concept piece, directed by Good. However, upon entering the editing stage, he realized he hadn't shot enough footage to make his concept work. He opted to turn all of the footage over to Kyle Davison, who directed the video for "In a World Called Catastrophe", to see if anything could be made out of it. Davison came up with his own concept, edited it together, and sent the finished product to Good. Good approved of the video, and made it available for download on his website. Good, however, was unaware that Davison had utilized several short clips of surveillance footage of the Columbine High School shootings in the piece. Upon hearing about the clips from individuals who felt the use was insensitive, Good pulled the video from his website. After watching it again, he decided to enlist the opinions of others, including MuchMusic, to see if they had any objections. Most felt it was reasonable, granted that the use wasn't exploitative and helped to support the message of the video, a message that they believed was decidedly relevant. Good agreed. He then returned the video to his website and expressed his support for the work of his co-director.
In March 2005, Good brought in Ryan Dahle and Meegee Bradfield of Limblifter to join his band (replacing Christian Thor Valdson and Rich Priske). Good noted that he was concerned his previous line-up had run its course creatively, and that, as a solo artist, he was graced with the freedom to change direction by involving different musicians. He hoped that Ryan and Meegee might be able to lend a new perspective to familiar material. In April, the lineup entered the studio and recorded two tracks for the Matthew Good best-of, "Big City Life" and "Oh Be Joyful". However, when Good undertook a brief tour of Ontario in July 2005, he was rejoined by Priske and Valdson.
A compilation of Good's work with the Matthew Good Band and on his own was released in September 2005, titled In a Coma: Matthew Good 1995-2005. The first single from the album, "Oh Be Joyful", was released at the end of July.
Good took particular care in the production of the expanded deluxe edition of In a Coma, which included an additional CD and a DVD. In April 2005, Good entered the studio and recorded nine songs from his catalog, reworked and performed acoustically. As a nod to fans who were unable to find them, the CD also included all of the tracks from the out-of-print EPs Lo-Fi B-Sides and Loser Anthems. The DVD featured the complete library of Good's music videos, including a new video for "While We Were Hunting Rabbits" from Avalanche developed by animation students at Sheridan College.
Following the release of In a Coma, Good began demoing songs for a new album. While promoting In a Coma, Good noted that he might use the release of the compilation to mark the end of the first era of his career, where he could then move on to write "weirder" music. In December 2005, Good previewed a demo called "Black Helicopter", which he recorded at home using GarageBand on an Apple Power Mac G5.
In March 2006, Good embarked on a solo acoustic tour of Canada, which featured smaller crowds and more intimate settings. Good spent several weeks leading up to the tour reworking many of his older songs to fit a solo acoustic format, including rarities such as "Fated" and "Life Beyond the Minimum Safe Distance". He was joined on tour by opening act Melissa McClelland, with whom he played a cover of Johnny Cash's cover version of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" at the end of his solo performances.
However, behind the scenes, Good began to be affected by his ongoing mental health concerns, particularly following the unexpected separation from his wife in February of 2006. For years, Good battled off and on with bouts of mania and anxiety, many of which he credited to the stresses of popularity. In early 2006, prior to the tour, Good was prescribed Ativan to help counter his anxiety. During a solo tour stop in Kingston, Good was rushed to the hospital following an adverse reaction to Ativan. The last two shows of the tour were cancelled for what Good later explained was a "nervous breakdown".[1]
The following summer, Good planned to spend several months in Europe to write a book. However, just a few days into the trip, Good found himself overwhelmed emotionally. He returned to Vancouver, moving into his parents' home. While there, Good began to find himself with an increasing dependence on Ativan. One night, Good was discovered unconscious and rushed to the hospital, having taken upwards of forty Ativan tablets and suffering an overdose. During a brief stay in the hospital's psychiatric ward, Good was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.[2]
Good eventually channeled the emotional turmoil into his next album, 2007's Hospital Music. The album included thinly-veiled allusions to his divorce ("I'm Not Safer Than a Bank" and "She's in It for the Money") as well as darker subjects, such as Good's close friend losing his father to cancer ("99% of Us Is Failure"). The album also featured two cover songs, a radically reworked version of the Dead Kennedys' "Moon Over Marin" and Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End". On its release, Hospital Music debuted at the top of the Canadian albums chart, Good's first #1 album since Beautiful Midnight.[3]
Good noted that Hospital Music marked the end of his recording and publishing contracts. [4] He is as yet unsure whether he will sign to another label, but is continuing to work on demos for a new album. Good embarked on a brief solo tour of the US in March of 2008, and began a full-band tour of Canada in May.
[edit] Writings
Beyond his music career, Good has also been a writer and blogger. From late 1997 through the end of 2000, Good published a series of monthly "manifestos" on the band's website. Many of these were later compiled and released in his debut book at last there is nothing left to say, published in 2001 by Insomniac Press (ISBN 1-894663-08-X).
Throughout his life, Good has found a passion for politics and history. He once commented that he would have become a history teacher had he not found success as a musician. In recent years, he has made his political views far more public, and has used his website to express his opinions about the Canadian government, the effects of the United States' foreign policy, and world crises like the conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Good has also been heavily involved with Amnesty International, bringing Amnesty representatives on the road with him during his 2004 tour and offering a limited-edition soccer jersey on his website with proceeds going to Amnesty.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Samples as Matthew Good Band
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Hello Time Bomb Image:MGB-TimeBomb.ogg An excerpt from the Canadian version of "Hello Time Bomb" by Matthew Good Band, from Beautiful Midnight. - Problems playing the files? See media help.
[edit] Samples as Matthew Good
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Near Fantastica Image:MGood-NearFant.ogg This is an excerpt of the radio edit of "Near Fantastica" by Matthew Good. The original version of the song was on Avalanche. - Problems playing the files? See media help.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Good, Matthew. "Hospital Music". MatthewGood.org. April 22, 2007.
- ^ Good. April 22, 2007.
- ^ Williams, John. "Matthew Good has great chart debut". JAM! Showbiz. August 2007.
- ^ Good, Matthew. "An Actual Entry About Music". MatthewGood.org. March 6, 2007.
[edit] External links
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