Updates
Art to perform at the 44th annual Calgary Folk Music Festival (CFMF) at Prince’s Island Park, Calgary, from July 23-30, 2023. Check out the CFMF website ticket sales, updates, and latest performance schedule: https://www.calgaryfolkfest.com.
Order of Canada Songwriting Juggernaut Is At It Again!
Arthur Bergmann is currently writing and arranging new songs at his farm home in Rocky View County, Alberta, for an upcoming album release entitled SHADOWWALK - LEGACY OF LOVE.
Art is in the process of revivification after the death of his darling, Sherri, on March 20th of this year. The new album starts with the despair of grief over his horrendous loss (see “Death Of A Siren”) and runs through the rejuvenation process to his decision to keep living through his songwriting, hopefully finding some hope and peace at the end of it. The album will end with his first hymn, which will be the album’s title track, ”Legacy of Love (Hymn for All of Us).” You can check out Art doing a live take of “Legacy Of Love (A Hymn For Us)” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkTtNSRnoo4, and the official video for “Death Of A Siren” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmIc3S_vW3s.
Art will record demos of his new songs this November and December in Calgary and, ideally, depending on how things proceed, will do the actual recording, mixing and mastering in Vancouver this spring with additional players.
You can follow along with Art’s musical updates on his Facebook profile www.facebook.com/ArtBergmann1, his Twitter profile www.twitter.com/ArtBergmann and his website www.ArtBergmann.com. You can see some home scenes of Art amidst the process, along with his frolicking feline Spartacus, in this recently shot video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v02zT2Fxb90
“My new album project embodies the love I shared with Sherri Decembrini, my beloved wife. She always believed in me, and she is the biggest part of these songs.” - Art Bergmann
We are very thankful for all your donations to help with this recording; your support for Art and his music is greatly appreciated.
For a minimal donation of $10, you will receive a digital copy of the new album, including a pdf sheet of artwork, lyrics and credit information.
We hope to see the album also released on cd and vinyl editions as Art has expressed a desire to play live shows and even tour in support of its release.
Team ART ! xo
With a recent announcement of more live shows (dates follow at bottom), Great Lake Swimmers share their uplifting cover of Art Bergmann’s song “The Legend of Bobby Bird” from his stellar album The Apostate which was released in 2016 by indie label (weewerk).
“I thank Russell Broom for summoning up my request for sirenic beauty of old and Sherri for being that siren…double beauty was hatched. Greg Reely realized it.
Naomi and Zoe must carry on and so must I.
Thank you to Kenneth for the broodingly beautiful video he shot, Thor for the surreal video edit, and to Jason, Phil and TeamArt for moving this out into a callous world.”
– Art Bergmann (July 22, 2022)
As Canada’s punk poet laureate, Art Bergmann has been tearing up stages, and terrifying the music industry, for half a century. Often referred to as “Canada’s Lou Reed,” Art’s story is one of rock and roll’s great tales untold. Until now. From his days helping to lay the foundation of the Vancouver punk scene with The K-Tels, to his acclaimed solo work in the ’80s and ’90s, and a late career resurgence that has culminated with being named to the Order of Canada, The Longest Suicide chronicles every unlikely twist and turn Art’s life has taken.
Press
What’s more important from a legacy standpoint: being the greatest band, or being the band that writes the greatest songs?
The question is an important one when you’re reflecting on the Young Canadians’ place in Vancouver’s fabled first-wave punk gold rush.
Let enough time pass, and all forms of music eventually get classified as folk. Vancouver punk-rock legend Art Bergmann gracing the 2018 Vancouver Folk Music Festival lineup isn’t surprising at all.
As punk rock icon and Airdrie resident Art Bergmann preps for a re-release of his eponymous third album later this year, the 63-year-old songwriter has much to reflect on – especially as the release coincides with the 25th wedding anniversary of Bergmann and his wife, Sherri.
Airdrie, Alberta, is a small city of about 43,000 in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. On its outskirts lives Art Bergmann, who enjoys a spectacular view of the Rockies, and the sweeping vistas of the Prairie. Fitting real estate for an enduring outsider, who for 40 years has taken a rebel stance and held to it.
Long lauded as one of the original punk influences of the ‘70s, and an equally mark-making figure in alternative rock in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Bergmann’s current album The Apostate draws from all that and more, in crafting his best-yet collection of songs – and first full-length recording in 18 years. It says a lot about an artist’s persistence and integrity when his prime work is done at age 63; Bergmann is happy about that, as are critics, and the Polaris Music Prize large jury, who long-listed The Apostate in 2016.
Art Bergmann | May 20, 7 p.m. | Fox Cabaret | Tickets: $18 (advance), $20 (door); foxcabaret.com
There’s a morbid allure in the way Art Bergmann calls his latest album The Apostate “my epitaph.”
Twenty years after his last original studio offering, Juno-winning album What Fresh Hell Is This?, the Bergmann we find in recorded form on The Apostate is a much different animal than the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll fuelled beast that helped define Canada’s punk counterculture in the late ’70s and ’80s.
The Vancouver-born former Young Canadian is 63, has been riddled with health issues that sidelined him for more than a decade, and now lives in Airdrie, Alberta, where Bergmann contends he is battling the “dark forces of beige.”