Who or What is Dog is Blue?
Starting with acoustic guitar demos recorded to 4 track in a room in Taiwan, Dog is Blue was a welcome creative outlet for Paul Watson when he wasn’t teaching English to young children.
Upon his return to Canada, Paul married his creative partner Laura Heaney and Dog is Blue became a duo. Laura is a superlative visual artist who creates photo-realistic art in a variety of media. She also sings and plays various keyboards and percussion. Between the two of them, they have recorded and created the visuals for all of their music releases. The amount of creative talent in this duo is somewhat infuriating!
If you are curious to hear what “garage folk” sounds like, check the Dog is Blue website to find platforms that carry their music. Two of the most recent releases are Dead and Gone and X. As the Roman Numeral suggests, X was put together as a nod to ten years creating music under the colourful canine moniker. X also allowed Paul to unleash his array of electronic equipment upon the musical catalogue to create new takes on older tunes. Other artists were also invited to pick DiB songs to retool and the results in many cases bring a completely different slant to the compositions.
Once live shows are viable again, check the website for dates and get to a show! From a stage festooned with blinking lights, the duo entertain with fun between-song banter and pepper sets with favourite covers of songs by Robyn or Paul Westerberg. Make sure to pick up “merch” such as physical CDs and t-shirts and even Paul’s small acrylic paintings of the skeletal dog skull from the covers of early musical releases.
For those with a technical bent, Paul also creates effects pedals which he custom paints and sells at shows, in select Toronto music stores or at the band website. Plug your instrument into these babies and see what wild, new sounds you can conjure!
You should also look up Laura’s art through her website. She makes sure to have a show of her work somewhere around Toronto pretty well all the time, so go check that out! The shows are often in coffee houses so have a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy!
https://dogisblue.bandcamp.com
