WIDE MOUTH MASON IS COOKING UP ‘STEW’ FOR A RE-RELEASE THIS NOVEMBER

On November 27, 2020, Canadian Indie Cornerstone Wide Mouth Mason is set to re-release its 2000 album Stew, as a limited edition LP. The album was originally released by Warner Music and is being licensed back to the band and their management for the anniversary LP re-release. The news is exciting for Canadian music fans and their parents and provides yet another reason why the ’90s was a fantastic decade. All we cared about was Edgefest tickets and every time Fox said they planned on canceling The Simpsons. 

I’ve spent the better part of this morning and yesterday relistening to Stew by Wide Mouth Mason, in part to get in the headspace to write this article and in part because going down 90s alternative music rabbit-holes on YouTube is something that comes pretty naturally. I gotta tell you today has been great, and my experience is exactly why I’m saying stuff like ‘Wide Mouth Mason is A Canadian Cornerstone’, let’s get into it.

First, the band came straight outta Saskatoon, Saskatchewan so you don’t get much more hardcore Canadian than that. I mean you just stand in the middle of a wheatfield and see the whole country, true story. Wide Mouth Mason has toured this Country multiple times over since the band formed in 1995 and no doubt has watched Canada and the music industry change drastically in their respects, in some ways more than others maybe.

The video for Smile from Wide Mouth Mason’s 2000 album, Stew.

In the year 2000, the band completed what they described to The Globe and Mail as “the first-ever Moffatts-AC/DC one-two punch”. After completing a cross-country tour with the Canadian pop band, brother-duo The Moffatts, Wide Mouth Mason immediately started touring with AC/DC across Canada again, and into parts of the Northern USA. A pretty big jump there, but a jump that makes sense considering how raw and catchy the band’s music tends to be. In the same year, Wide Mouth Mason released their album Stew, which received a JUNO nomination that year for Best Rock Album.

“Stew was intentionally Wide Mouth Mason’s funkiest offspring,” original band member Shaun Verreault, along with Safwan Javed, recalls. “It showcased a specific subset of our musical influences, and was a mashup of musical styles passed through the filter of Wide Mouth Mason.”

“But it was also a case study for Wide Mouth Mason to better understand those musical styles,” Javed adds “We’d been listening to a lot of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies, and the like. Meanwhile, our good friend Gordie (Johnson, Big Sugar), who produced it, was hipping us to bands like The Meters and The Gap Band. We dug in and deconstructed the component parts of records that were undeniably funky.”

Wide Mouth Mason has made a mark on Canada’s music scene in an awesome way and the band is still creating music. Wide Mouth Mason’s latest studio album – available on all major music platforms – “I Wanna Go With You” has been nominated for a Western Canada Music Award.

Wide Mouth Mason’s anniversary limited edition LP is set for release on November 27, 2020, and you can pre-order your LP here. For more information on Wide Mouth Mason visit the band’s website at widemouthmason.com

I just wish I could buy it with an HMV gift card.