Ari Neufeld

Hello all, I have a new album to share with you by Ari Neufeld [Live from the hive the (medical) tapes vol II]. Ryan bought me this album and as far as I know there is no store that sells it, so talk to him and see if you can get a copy I would highly recomend it (I hope thats alright Ryan). I've found a nice review of his music from a Vancouver web site so I am going to attach it here.
(taken from http://www.theroyal.ca/entertainment.html Feb, 28, 2006)

Kwantlen Chronicle (Monday, Feb 2nd 2004)
Article by Sunny McKechnie

Ari Neufeld's sound is soft and smoky and his lyrics strong and honest. At times it is obvious that through his music he is opening a porthole into his past and present lives and loves.
“I love to sing about passion. I don’t like to sing about politics as much, but I guess being an emotional, passionate person it becomes political. You start speaking out about injustices and whatever,” said Nuelfeld.
When asked to describe his music he has trouble doing so, “A lot of people compare me to John Mayer. I guess because we are the same age and both write love songs. That is a rough comparison for me.”
In Carousel, Neufeld sings, “Do that thing you do to me, again. I would die a happy man, alone if I have to. I dressed up all my casualties to conjure up some simile to explain what we share when your heart is laid bare.”
The skill and passion of his music is evident to almost any listener, and both qualities are a direct result of the life he has led so far.

From birth, life has been full of travel and worldly experiences for Neufeld as his parents left domestic jobs to follow callings as missionaries. He and his three brothers saw much of the world traveling with them.

“Our family was very involved with the music at church,” as Neufeld. “I guess you could say my dad was a music director.”
Throughout these travels, he learned first-hand the power of music to communicate, regardless of the language barriers.
Currently, Neufeld is the in-house regular at the Royal, at 1029 Granville St. He can be founding playing the early set on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Sundays are the best nights to check out his music because he is joined by a band made up of some of his talented friends, they start at 7pm.
“Unfortunately the bar doesn’t advertise, so it is all word of mouth” said Neufeld. “I want to start out slow and small so that once it starts to get excellent, hopefully more and more people will want to come and listen.”
Neufeld’s goals for the near future are clear “I really need a manager. I need somebody that knows the scene, that can get me connected to the right people and say things about me that I can’t say about myself.”
“I am in the process of recording and three-song professional demo right now. The producers is doing it for free because he really believes in what I am doing. So if that goes well it will sure help me.”

To date he has released four independent albums. Over the last two years, he has been making batches to CDs and hand-making the covers. Because he does his own distribution, he has shaken hands with each person who has bought one of his albums. Neufeld says he is past the point of just playing around with music, that is it time to be responsible for his gift. “I am really committed to it. I am going to be working on my forth album project and I finally fell like this is something I really need to do,” said Neufeld. “I don’t necessarily think I am going to be super successful, because it is mellow music. But I definitely think it will happen soon.”

Neufeld has seen himself improve a lot on stage “Playing on stage is kind of like free schooling for me. I consider myself a student. I go to school four nights a week. Every night I learn something new about room dynamics, sound set-up, public performance, comedy and entertainment.”
As he learns, Neufeld not only matches to his own drummer but he writes the music.