{"id":824,"date":"2010-04-07T11:59:50","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T17:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=824"},"modified":"2010-04-07T11:59:50","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T17:59:50","slug":"review-greg-macpherson-mr-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/04\/07\/review-greg-macpherson-mr-invitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Greg MacPherson &#8211; Mr. Invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-825\" title=\"greg_macpherson\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/greg_macpherson.jpg\" alt=\"greg_macpherson\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/>\u2019Peg City favourite son Greg MacPherson is now onto his sixth album, and with <em>Mr. Invitation<\/em> he scores big points for once again keeping it all very real. G-Mac doesn\u2019t really fit into any neat musical categories, and that is most likely by his own design. We the listeners are the benefactors of this rather iconoclastic stance. As usual, urban angst looms large in the songs. MacPherson has the keen ability to write delicate songs, dug directly from his own first-person experience, and make them keenly universal in scope. Whether he\u2019s riding a bus in \u201cWest End,\u201d considering geographical relocation in \u201cVisitor,\u201d or just taking stock of his situation in \u201cTraveling Style,\u201d the songs are usually about some kind of forward motion. The heart-on-sleeve attitude that MacPherson delivers isn\u2019t a weakness either. This is a guy that allows difficult emotions to simmer to the surface and then deals with them with consideration\u2014something that the alpha males of the species should be advised to try once in a while. MacPherson\u2019s band deserves special mention, especially nimble-fingered guitarist Steve \u201cBatso\u201d Bates and thinking-man\u2019s percussionist Jason Tait (of the Weakerthans). Both these cats understand that MacPherson\u2019s music is about understatement buoyed by the strength of conviction, and that is exactly how they play. Bates\u2019 playing comes off like daubs of colour in a sometimes-grey bleak landscape, while Tait actually \u201cplays\u201d his kit rather than just banging away at it. The album sounds good, too. The production is airy and bright and even when the band is kicking out the jams a little bit it always sounds clean and present. MacPherson deserves all this at this stage in his career. He has worked long and hard getting to where he really needs to be to attract an even wider base of fans. This album should get him there. (Smallman Records, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smallmanrecords.com\">www.smallmanrecords.com<\/a>) <strong>Jeff Monk<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2019Peg City favourite son Greg MacPherson is now onto his sixth album, and with Mr. Invitation he scores big points for once again keeping it all very real. G-Mac doesn\u2019t really fit into any neat musical categories, and that is most likely by his own design. We the listeners are the benefactors of this rather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[403],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-greg-macpherson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}