TRUCKS LEAVING
news - music - shows - info

About Trucks Leaving and The six flavours of quarks:

It was June. Summer was still jubilant, the lights were still on, the tube amps were still humming, and the members of a Toronto-based power trio called Trucks Leaving had an idea.

Their idea, like so many ideas seeded in June, when the nice weather and the general good vibes of everyone you meet seem to cause audacious notions to spread through the air like pollen, was...well...audacious. They decided to write an interconnected series of songscapes inspired by the six flavours of quarks.

Never mind that no member of Trucks Leaving knew anything about particle physics; all that matters in this story is that there exist these subatomic somethings known as quarks, that there are six of them, that some romantic and/or crazy scientist declared these somethings "flavours" and named them "Up," "Down," "Charmed," "Strange," "Truth" and "Beauty," and that all of this is irresistible song fodder for intrepid musicians.

So, in jubilant June, the Trucks Leaving crew began writing what might best be described as a tone poem for a rock band. The music, based around the sounds of Betty Dimo's psychedelic post-rock electric guitar, Dov Tiefenbach's Kodo Carmen Appice drumming and Todd Harrison's No-Depression-meets-No-Wave acoustic guitar and bass, soon cried out for richer instrumentation. Because no one likes a crybaby, the band added accordion, glockenspiel, bouzouki, harmonica, flute and synthesizer to the arrangements, and the whole thing was recorded (mostly live-off-the-floor to three microphones) over a couple of autumn weekends at Dov's excellent t.s. studio in Riverdale.

The six flavours of quarks is the second record by Trucks Leaving. Basically, it's "post-pop" -- halfway between godspeed you! black emperor and Yo La Tengo. The six flavours of quarks was released on November 27 at Holy Joe's in Toronto.

Return to the top of the page.