Roger Marin with special guest Rachelle Risling had a full house at the Slice, Sept. 16. And it’s about time too, though I don’t 
know how much of that was due to local favourites the Coal Creek Boys being on the bill and closing the show. I’d like to think it was due to Marin, who is a hidden Canadian treasure on the Canadian folk/ roots/country music scene and who deserves big, appreciative audiences like this one was.
He’s definitely paid his dues, having toured with Fred Eaglesmith’s band for years and on his own material with numerous different other musicians for the past couple years.
Listening to his songs is almost as interesting watching who he brings as backing musicians and seeing what they do with them. This time he brought the beautiful and talented Rachelle Risling to play piano and add harmony vocals while he sat behind a pedal steel guitar, alternating between playing it and a road worn Telecaster.
This show focused primarily on his latest CD “Silvertown,” he began with the title track then went right into “It Will Be All Right,” another one of the stand out tracks from the CD, then went back to “Film Star,” from his debut CD. He laughed while telling his stories, including “Film Star,” which is about his former lead guitarist whose wife left him for a porno star.
The audience, at least the ones who had seen him before, had heard most of the stories, but laughed along with him anyway. He happily played requests from the crowd including “Busted Hearts and Broken Songs,” and my favourite “Dagwood and Blondie,” which, while he didn’t write it, is one he makes his own. He played “Hold Your Head Up” and “You Hate Yourself,” from the “Silvertown” CD and wound down an almost too brief set with a request “Rolling On.”
Risling was the consummate professional, sitting back, listening and waiting for Marin to finish his stories, and usually the first verse of his songs, before chiming in with appropriately tasteful piano or organ parts and sweet vocal harmonies.
He joked his rhythm section couldn’t make the show “because they had a rash,” and played Adam Carroll’s “Girl With The Dirty Hair,” then a little bluegrass on “City Girl,” and ended his set with “Long Way Down.”
Unfortunately I missed the Coal Creek Boys featuring Marin on pedal steel, other than the last few bars of their last song.
