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Ronald James Hawkins | |
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| Born | November 29, 1964 |
Ronald James Hawkins is a musician from Toronto who is best known as a member of the band The Lowest of the Low. [1] He has also released music as a solo artist, and fronted the bands Ron Hawkins and the Rusty Nails and Ron Hawkins and the Do Good Assassins. [2] He has produced albums for multiple independent bands and artists and is also an accomplished painter.
The Lowest of the Low sold over 100,000 copies of their two independent releases[ citation needed ], Shakespeare My Butt and Hallucigenia . Shakespeare My Butt was voted by Canadians as one of the Top 10 Canadian Albums of all time by Chart magazine. [3] The band broke up in 1994.
After The Lowest of the Low broke up, Hawkins formed The Leisure Demons with former Squirrel drummer Stephen Keeping. The Leisure Demons recorded a four-song demo containing songs that were later recorded by his next band, The Rusty Nails. In 1995, he released his first solo album, The Secret of My Excess. The musicians on this release—Lawrence Nichols (vocals), Christopher Plock (saxophones), Michael Kaler (aka Blitz) (bass)—soon became known as The Rusty Nails, and were joined by Rob Fenton (saxophone, violin), and Mark Hansen (drums). Mark Hansen was a member of the Toronto band Dig Circus, which was mentioned in a Lowest of the Low song. The Rusty Nails spent much of 1996 and 1997 touring in support of The Secret of My Excess. In September 1998 their first album, Greasing the Star Machine, was released independently, and was followed by Crackstatic in 2000.
The band supported Billy Bragg, The Violent Femmes, Cracker and Big Sugar on tours.
In 2000, The Lowest of the Low reunited. They performed a reunion tour, which resulted in the live album Nothing Short of a Bullet . They later recorded another album, Sordid Fiction , before splitting up again in 2007. The Lowest of the Low continue to play sporadic shows to this day, including a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their most famous album, Shakespeare My Butt , which culminated at Massey Hall on May 7, 2011. The band reformed again and recorded Do the Right Now in September 2017 and Agitpop in 2019.
Exclaim! magazine, writing about the album 10 Kinds of Lonely (2009), notes that "the spontaneous results confirm his status as one of our best wordsmiths". Bob Wiseman joined him on keyboards to perform the record live.
In 2011 he formed a new band, the Do Good Assassins. They released a double CD, Rome, in 2012 and Garden Songs in 2015.
The song "Peace and Quiet" from Garden Songs was played prior to every home game at Air Canada Centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2015–16 and 2016-17 seasons.
Hawkins's sixth solo album, Spit Sputter and Sparkle, was released in 2016 on Pheromone Recordings.
In 2020, with Canada and much of the world in lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, Hawkins began hosting live shows broadcast from his living room for fans to watch. Dubbed "Tommy Douglas Tuesdays" (named in tribute to Tommy Douglas for his role in bringing universal health care to Canada), the weekly shows saw Hawkins play every song in his entire catalog before moving on to request nights and themed evenings.
The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm. The Band combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz, country, and R&B, influencing musicians such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.
The Lowest of the Low is a Canadian alternative rock group formed in 1991 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They were one of the most influential bands on the Canadian alternative music scene in the early 1990s, garnering widespread critical acclaim and radio play. Their most successful album, Shakespeare My Butt, was later named one of the ten greatest albums in Canadian music history in three successive reader polls by the music magazine Chart, as well as being ranked as the 84th greatest Canadian album of all time in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.
Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning in 1999. Alongside Drew and Canning, the other core members of the band are Justin Peroff (drums), Andrew Whiteman (guitar) and Charles Spearin (guitar).
Eric "Garth" Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist best known as the keyboardist and occasional saxophonist for rock group the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He was a principal architect of the group's sound, described as "the most brilliant organist in the rock world" by Keyboard magazine. With the deaths of Richard Manuel in 1986, Rick Danko in 1999, Levon Helm in 2012, and Robbie Robertson in 2023, Hudson is the last living original member of the band.
Joshua Ryan Freese is an American drummer. A member of punk rock band the Vandals since 1989, Freese has also been a member of new wave band Devo since 1996 and rock band Foo Fighters since 2023.
Shakespeare My Butt... is an album by Canadian band The Lowest of the Low, released in 1991.
Hallucigenia is an album by Canadian band The Lowest of the Low, released in 1994.
Nothing Short of a Bullet is a 2002 live album by The Lowest of the Low. The album documents the band's 2000 reunion tour. The title comes from a line in the band's song "For the Hand of Magdalena", Nothing short of a bullet could have broken your will.
Sordid Fiction is an album by Canadian band The Lowest of the Low. For this record, and all future releases the band switched to Lowest of the Low, dropping "The" from their name. Apart from three studio songs on the band's 2002 live album Nothing Short of a Bullet, it was the band's first album of new material since 1994's Hallucigenia. This is the first Lowest of the Low recording not to feature original bassist John Arnott who left the band in 2002. The re-jigged lineup featured Dylan Parker replacing Arnott on bass and long time collaborator Lawrence Nichols joining the band as a full-fledged member.
Domenic Michele Antonio Troiano was a Canadian guitarist and songwriter, best known as a member of Mandala, Bush, James Gang, and The Guess Who. He also recorded music for film and television, often made guest appearances on other musicians' albums, and worked as a producer.
The Weakerthans are a Canadian indie rock band from Winnipeg. The band, led by John K. Samson, has released four studio albums and is currently inactive.
Robert Neil Wiseman is a film composer, songwriter, author and music teacher. Wiseman discovered or produced many artists including Ron Sexsmith, The Lowest of the Low, Bruce McCulloch of Kids in the Hall, Anhai, and former Canadian member of parliament Andrew Cash. He is a founding member of Blue Rodeo with whom he won 5 Juno Awards.
Edwin is a Canadian alternative rock singer from Toronto. He is the lead vocalist for the successful Canadian rock band I Mother Earth, as well as a solo artist. He is also the lead singer for the Canadian supergroup Crash Karma. In 2016, he reunited with I Mother Earth for a series of shows and a tour commemorating the twentieth anniversary of their most commercially successful release, Scenery and Fish.
Rusty Nail or Rusty nail often refers to:
East Bay Grease is the debut album by the soul and funk group Tower of Power, released in 1970. The band was one of the early music groups to be signed by Bill Graham's Fillmore Records, which released the LP.
Con-Test is the fifth album by FM, a progressive rock band from Toronto, Canada, released in 1985.
Greg Smith is a Canadian musician and painter based in Toronto, Ontario. He is best known as the bassist of indie rock band The Weakerthans, which he joined in August 2004, replacing founding bassist John P. Sutton. As a member of The Weakerthans, he contributed to their latest studio album, Reunion Tour, and is featured on their live release Live at the Burton Cummings Theatre, to which he also contributed the album cover. Since 2018, Greg has been the bassist for the indie rock band The Lowest of the Low.
The following is a list of notable events and releases that are expected to happen in 2016 in music in Canada.
Do The Right Now is the fourth studio album by Canadian band The Lowest of the Low. The band broke-up in 2007, but in 2011 they released a remastered 20th Anniversary edition of their debut album Shakespeare My Butt and got back together for a very successful tour that culminated with a sold-out show at Toronto's Massey Hall. Discussions for a fourth album were underway but these plans were scrapped in 2013 when original guitarist Stephen Stanley announced he was leaving the band. Lead singer Ron Hawkins said, shortly after his departure, that the future of the band was very much in doubt. "The Low is in a 'dust settling' phase right now. Stephen leaving was a surprise and no one in the band is quite certain as to why he left. We're not clear as to whether or not a Lowest of the Low with a new guitarist makes sense." In 2015, the plans became clearer as Brian MacMillan took over lead guitar duties and two new singles 'The Kids Are All Wrong' and 'In The Blink Of An Eye' were released. These singles indicated that the band was very much alive and the new album arrived two years later. There were more lineup changes by the time the new record came along. MacMillian was replaced by Michael McKenzie and Dylan Parker, who had replaced original bassist John Arnott on the previous album was now gone with Derrick Brady in his place. Brady has a long history with Hawkins having played in two of his other bands, The Rusty Nails and The Do Good Assassins.
Agitpop is the fifth studio album by the Canadian band The Lowest of the Low. This is the third consecutive album featuring a new bassist, as Greg Smith from The Weakerthans replaced long time Ron Hawkins collaborator Derrick Brady. The record is a collection of protest songs that respond to current global events, including the rise of fascism.
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