drama queen martyr
drama queen martyr (aka Shawn Mackenzie) is an acoustic artist from Saskatoon, SK. God snapped his fingers 13.8 billion years ago, ushering the chemistry of life into existence, and now we're surrounded by the echo of a teething universe: atomic nuclei sallying forth from the void, gravity establishing its ramparts, galaxies taking their first steps. We're all bit players scampering around onstage as this cosmic scaffolding proliferates towards oblivion, but don't worry, cause drama queen martyr has picked up his trusty guitar and he's pretty close to figuring out the meaning of life with the tunes he's been writing.
His new album, leave the bikini atoll nightlight plugged in, is a collection of 19 songs exploring all the gushy feelings that explode inside the human heart when two people share a coupe de foudre experience. The universe may have a soup to nuts expiration date, but that sensation in your soul as you hold hands with your favourite person in the world — that lasts forever.
music video for Michigan J. Frog
Michigan J. Frog is from a Looney Tunes cartoon, One Froggy Afternoon, where a man finds a frog who performs vaudeville numbers from the turn of the century, but Michigan J. Frog only sings and dances when he and the man are alone — no one else ever witnesses his surreptitious rhapsody. I recorded an album — Leave The Bikini Atoll Nightlight Plugged In (Bikini Atoll is a group of islands where they tested hydrogen bombs in the 50's) — full of love songs written about a person who J. Robert Oppenheimered a hydrogen bomb tickle in the center of my heart, then left me walking around with symphonic Geiger counter static reverberating in my chest. I transcribed that static echo into a collection of songs expounding on the warm and fuzzy tingle you feel when a person's essence decorates your rib cage with mushroom clouds. Basically, I had a romantic thing with a cool person who made my spirit do a Michigan J. Frog song and dance.
live performance with string trio
