As he sits and plans out how his next six weeks are going to go, Ryan Dahle can't help but smile. While much of that time period will be spent re-examining his mid-Nineties project Limblifter (he takes great care to make clear that “return” is probably too strong a word), the singer/award-winning record producer is now in a position where (as was most certainly not the case in the Nineties) he doesn't have to hang any hopes or future plans on the outcome of the band's upcoming concert dates or cross his fingers on how the forthcoming reissue of Limblifter's self-titled debut album will be received. He already knows that Limblifter's upcoming term of service is finite and, after it's finished, he will be free to pursue other endeavors which have grown nearer and dearer to his heart (and which his pocket book finds more filling), including producing records for other bands and co-writing music. That freedom is very liberating, and Dahle knows how fortunate he is to enjoy it; but that he knows he has other things to occupy his time beyond his former band and that the few shows scheduled to promote the vinyl reissue of Limblifter have a concrete end date make the idea of performing that much more enjoyable. “It's kind of interesting to go back to the early days of Limblifter like we're doing now, but I'm kind of glad that we're only doing it for fun and we're not trying to pin any hopes of dreams of a return on it,” says Dahle with a laugh. “In fact, I try not to think about it in those terms because it's not a marketing ploy, it just sort of happened. I don't really concentrate on my own music very much anymore; I make records for other people. That has become more interesting and engaging to me than making my own records and then going out to tour to promote them, so that has been what I've really concentrated on over the last few years.
“The way thoughts of Limblifter started coming back up was, Eric Warner – who owns We Are Busy Bodies records – called me up with hopes of re-releasing the self-titled Limblifter album,” continues the singer as he recalls the circumstances which caused Limblifter to get some renewed attention. “He really loved that first album, and he felt like it was important to re-release it on vinyl. I listen to vinyl every day, so I thought 'Why not? Why not re-release it?' It had never been released on vinyl before. It came out in 1996 and nobody was really releasing vinyl records at that time so we said yes and then he asked us if we wanted to play a showcase show at NXNE for his label. I was flattered and thought we should do it, so started taking steps to make it all work.”
On the surface, tha part of the story sounds like the epitome of simplicity, but it was only after that when the logistics of reuniting Limblifter – even if only for a short period – began to get complicated. Over the years, Limblifter's membership had changed several times, so getting the band back together became more a question of which band it would be possible to reconvene. “I asked Kurt [Ryan Dahle's brother and original Limblifter drummer Kurt Dahle –ed] if he wanted to play and he had agreed initially but, on the first day we got together to rehearse, he discovered he had also already agreed to do some Neko Case dates so he'll be in Salt Lake City with Neko Case during the North By Northeast festival,” explains the guitarist. “It's unfortunate, but the last version of Limblifter didn't involve him anyway; in fact, before the band went into stasis years ago, he already hadn't played in it for a few years. The drummer who was with the band toward the end was Brent Pollack who is a great drummer and a great singer, and he still plays in my solo band so he's going to do it. In addition to that, my girlfriend Megan Bradfield – who played on the last Limblifter record – is going to play so we've got that ready to go but, we're also going to have Greg McDonald helping us out; he's the fifth guy from Sloan and he's from out near us in B.C. but lives in Toronto now so we figured we'd have someone on the ground helping us out. With all that in line, we're just going to do a couple of shows for the fun of it; we're going to be doing a show on North By Northeast at the El Mocambo on the 16 th, and we've also scheduled a show at The Casbah in Hamilton on June 14 th as well.”
As carefully calm, collected and logical as his tone has been to that point in his conversation with Ground Control, as soon as he reiterates the dates, something seems to change in Ryan Dahle. It's then that he seems to recognize the good possibilities that getting back on stage in front of people promises. “We announced that we were going to do these dates in late April, and were really surprised at how excited people seemed to get,” says Dahle with increasing warmth and excitement. “We've had a lot of requests actually, from people interviewing and other folks just requesting songs from the catalogue – so I think we'll do a do a broad scope of the material we recorded, not just stuff from any one record in particular. I mean, Brent and Megan know the whole catalogue so we could pull just about anything out at any time.
“It's actually more the first record that we didn't actually know as well, other than the singles,” continues the singer. “I mean, I haven't played those songs in so long now…. It's good though, because it's an opportunity to play songs that I wrote so many years ago. The problem I'm finding is that I've written so many songs while I was on different creative avenues over the years that there's no single artist name to perform under to play them all; it's a great thing in some ways, but kind of complicated too. For example, the last time I went out was billed as a solo tour but, toward the end of the sets, we'd throw in a couple of Limblifter songs just because we could. What was funny about that was people would come up to me after we'd come offstage saying how much they loved the covers we played at the end – but they were just Limblifter songs!”
Artist:
www.limblifter.com/
www.myspace.com/limblifter
Album:
The vinyl reissue of Limblifter's self-titled debut album comes out on July 10 via We Are Busy Bodies. Buy it here on We Are Busy Bodies.
