Sunday February 11: Moth Ring, Janet Macpherson and Jason Benoit

Bio: Janet Macpherson
Janet Macpherson is a Toronto based ceramic artist and musician. Janet has collaborated with several Toronto musicians on a variety of musical projects. She began performing in 2001 with psyche bluegrass band Dog Rose which included Aimee Dawn Robinson, Eric Chenaux, Jason Benoit, Marcus Quin and Doug Tielli. Janet also sang and played whammied harmonica in The Tristanos; a band that featured ballads and songs by Eric Chenaux with Martin Arnold, Steven Parkinson, Marcus Quin, and John Sherlock. More recently she performed in Colin Clark’s ensemble Lions at Mercer Union, playing harmonica and synthesizer with Aimée Dawn Robinson, Eric Chenaux and Alex Geddies. She is excited to be performing with this group again at A Month of Sundays. Currently Janet is singing and playing guitar in Moth Ring, a new band featuring songs by Jason Benoit along with Mike Overton and Rob Clutton.

Photo of Janet: Hillary Massman

Bio: Jason Benoit
Jason Benoit has played music in solo performances and in the bands Mungo Gave Me, Black Kermit, The Raunches, Dog Rose, The Wheelhands, Everybody Get Sick, and Moth Ring, has appeared in duet performances with Eric Chenaux and Andrew Zuckerman, and has provided music for the plays Maya and Madder.

Janet and Jason write about their work for this performance:

For A Month of Sundays, Janet Macpherson and Jason Benoit will give their original take on the tradition of song which began with the bards and troubadours, intermarried with the blues, and continues to evolve through what is known as “popular music”. Expect banjo, guitar (acoustic, electric, and slide), with lyrics that touch on and disperse such topics as heartbreak, delirium, death, the friendship between Jesus and Satan, disembodiment, the downfall of arrogance