Oh! Canada presents… Luxury Pond

Luxury Pond is the brainchild of Toronto based musician Dan Goldman. His self titled album features the talents of Daniela Gesundheit (aka Snowblink) and Ryan Driver amongst others and also features the string arranging talents of Owen Pallett. Of which more, later….

For people out there that have never heard of you. Give us three reasons why they should…

You like boy/girl vocal duets wrapped in strings and synths
You like songs about pre-historic sharks
This is your favourite colour

Can you recall the moment when you first decided you wanted to become a musician?

it might have been around the time my father yelled at me for failing math, to which I replied “I don’t need to care about math anyway because I’m going to be a musician” I was about 15. That and discovering Jimmy Page, of course.

You have a lot of collaborators on the record- Ryan Driver, Owen Pallett…How did those come about?

Owen worked on my last album, Through A Revolution, in exchange for a pair of military mitts I bought at a garage sale for $1. I met him through Mike Olsen, a cellist with whom I used to play in a band called kitchenmusik. (Owen and Mike did the strings for many notable disks including Funeral by Arcade Fire). I know Ryan through the Tranzac, which is an incredible hub for a very wide range of music in Toronto. The first show I did with him was in my project Cover Band, a band that covered the hits of luminaries such as Britney Spears (Toxic) and Metallica (One)

Where do your songs come from? What’s the inspiration behind the record?

My songs come from careful observation and collage work.

Luxury Pond, the album, is a response to Through A Revolution; I took the elements I loved most about the first record, like Owen’s strings, and the idea of contrasting tightly woven arrangements with glitchy improvised ideas; then I put these ideas into a live scenario. Revolution is a sound sculpture that I crafted over several months in my bedroom, whereas Luxury Pond is a documentation of people playing together over the course of a day in the studio.

Name your Top 5 records.

in no particular order:
A Ghost Is Born by Wilco
Hejira by Joni Mitchell
Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin
Either/Or by Elliott Smith
A River Ain’t To Much to Love by Smog

What was the first gig you ever played and was it a success?

Mental Floss: 2 guitarists, drummer, no bassist playing Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd songs in the high school gymnasium. Success? Depends on what you mean. I felt pretty pumped as I carried the PA system out of the gym and up the stairs post-gig. Yeah, if anything I think it succeeded in making me want to continue making music.

What one piece of criticism has stuck in your mind and was it justified?

I tend to play ahead of the beat and need to learn to chill out. Yes it was justified and I think I still need to learn the lesson in other areas of life, like hitting “send” too soon too often.

What one thing has caused you to waste your free time in the past 6 months?

Waiting on hold for tech support with Primus telephone to fix my VOIP phone.

If you weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing?

Some kind of psycho-therapist, perhaps. I’m pretty good with other people’s problems.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Taking inventory at grocery stores after closing time. I’d count all the soup packets and enter the totals into a little hand-held machine. Then move to the bean section, then the cookies. Pretty mind numbing. The job did help me pay for a bicycle trip from Seattle to San Francisco I did when I was 16, though.

What is the first song you put on when you wake up?

CBC Radio 1

We’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five track with a theme of your choice.

The theme is: Nonsense We Love

I Am The Walrus by The Beatles
Spiders by Wilco
Food Roulette by Dion McGregor (this is a legendary recording of a man’s sleep talkings )
Songs To Aging Children by Joni Mitchell
Eid Ma Clack Sha by Bill Callahan

And finally one Canadian band we should listen to (that isn’t your band)
Tough one, Ro! Here are 5 I can’t choose between:
John Southworth
Bruce Peninsula
Great Aunt Ida
Metal Kites
Mia Sheard

You can find Luxury Pond on the web here and listen to the track ‘Boulders’ as part of Oh! Canada Volume 3