Upright, not uptight

>> Piano man Mike Evin takes
the sweet with the salty

KEYS TO HIS HEART: Mike Evin and Beatrice

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

“I wouldn’t say Beatrice is the true love of my life, no,” says former Montrealer Mike Evin over the horn from Toronto, “but she’s definitely someone really special. I try to give her some attention every day, and I feel bad when I don’t. Sarah, my girlfriend, she loves Beatrice. At the beginning of our relationship, I’d pick Sarah up, and Beatrice would be in the back of the car, and I’d say, ‘Have you said hello to Beatrice? You didn’t say hi!’ She’d look at me like I was crazy. They warmed up to each other—Sarah says I don’t take good enough care of Beatrice, I rough her up a bit. She definitely cares for her and knows that she’s special to me and, uh… I can’t believe I’m talking like this!”

It does sound somewhat disconcerting, no less so when you realize that this third-party “someone,” Beatrice, is in fact a battered little upright piano. Then again, Evin is the kind of guy who proudly announces that, as a full-grown adult, he’s been “adopted” by two other grown men who refer to themselves as “barenaked ladies.” The mentorship of the Creeggan brothers, Andy and Jim, has bumped Evin’s craftsmanship ahead substantially as he refines his cheerful, charming piano-based pop, expanding well beyond the starting point he calls “ragtime rock.”

As it stands, Evin owes less to Scott Joplin than to the piano-man persona passed along by Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, Billy Joel and Ben Folds. In that tradition, he’s learned to carefully balance earnest emotion and sardonic wit. “I think I’m finding my own voice, more and more, in terms of being comfortable with going straight into an earnest and sentimental direction, and not feeling like I have to put up some kind of wall. I see both sides, and in the past, I’ve embraced the way of Randy Newman, of being totally sarcastic and witty and sardonic. But lately I’ve done a 360.”

Evin follows 2004’s I’ll Bring the Stereo, a stylistic patchwork of a record laden with bells and whistles (and snarky tunes like “Stripper in My Car”), with the far more sleek and focused new mini-album Let’s Slow It Down, a slightly country-tinged six-pack of meditations on domestic bliss.

“Because I’d just done a bigger production, I wanted to see if I could do something more intimate, and still accessible. It was also my introduction to Toronto. I moved here because my girlfriend was living here. I didn’t know that many people in the music scene, and I met [producer] Don Kerr through Ron Sexsmith, just at the beginning of my time here, and I thought this would be a great first project, living in a new city. The lyrical theme is intimate, so it’s something that Don and I discussed—when it came time to do overdubs and stuff, we said, we could go further with this and add a lot background vocals and other parts. But let’s just leave the songs, the first one for instance, with just the lead vocals and no harmonies. Otherwise, it would take away from the intimacy.

CD launch with guests Tamara Nile
and Barnaby St. Clair at the Yellow Door
on Friday, March 16, 8 p.m., $8