Greg Jarvis (musician)

Greg Jarvis is a Toronto born musician and composer best known for his work leading the orchestral rock group the Flowers Of Hell.[1][2][3][4] Jarvis's compositions are largely informed by timbre-to-shape synesthesia, a neurological condition which causes him to see all sounds as layers of three dimensional shapes.[5][6][7][8]

Greg Jarvis
BornToronto, Ontario, Canada
GenresSpace rock, post-rock, classical, experimental music, rockabilly, northern soul, reggae
Occupation(s)Musician, record executive, professor
InstrumentsGuitar, keyboards
Years active1990s–present
LabelsOptical Sounds, Earworm Records, Shifty Disco, Benbecula, Universal Music, BMG
Associated actsFlowers Of Hell, The Red Stripes, Merzky Beat

Biography

Early life

Jarvis was born in Toronto, Ontario where he was a Royal Canadian Air Cadet band leader and served briefly in the Canadian Army reserve forces.[9]

Career

Jarvis worked in marketing in the 1990s at the major label BMG in Toronto, Prague, Moscow, and Warsaw, and later for Universal International in London,[10] handling acts including Nirvana,[11][12] David Bowie, Patti Smith, Dolly Parton, Beck, Sonic Youth, Aerosmith, Malcolm McLaren, KISS, Deep Purple, Annie Lennox, and The Moody Blues, along with Death In Vegas, Spectrum and Spiritualized with whose members he would later collaborate as an artist.[13][14] Jarvis also worked as an executive at the BBC's Top Of The Pops[10][13][14] where he conducted interviews with such acts as the Spice Girls, Queen, Alice Cooper, Depeche Mode, and Oasis.[15]

He is currently a professor at Durham College's Media, Art, & Design School where he teaches about music history and the music industry.[10][14] Previously he taught as a senior lecturer in the United Kingdom at London Metropolitan University, and Buckinghamshire New University.[13][14]

Jarvis has given talks at institutions including Harvard University, The Juilliard School, The Kerouac School, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.[16][17] He wrote music related articles for the Huffington Post from 2013-2018.[10]

In 2020 the Tate Britain gallery included Jarvis's Come Hell Or High Water LP cover adaptation of an Aubrey Beardsley illustration in their Beardsley exhibition and catalogue, with The Flowers of Hell performing at the opening cereomony, a few weeks prior to London's coronavirus lockdown.[18][19][20][21]

Musical History

Prior to the Flowers of Hell, Jarvis played on Prague's underground music scene in the 1990s,[11] in Moscow rockabilly group Merzky Beat,[9] and in The Red Stripes in the early 2000s (a London based comedy-reggae White Stripes tribute act he formed with drummer Guri Hummelsund.)[22][23] "We stopped (The Red Stripes) when it started getting crazy big with Peel, the NME, BBC6, The Face, Duran Duran and some peripheral members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols getting into it. We signed to a Universal imprint, met The Wailers in a medieval fortress in Serbia, shot a video in Africa and felt we had to kill it before we became too known for it," Jarvis said reflecting in a 2015 Irish interview.[24]

Jarvis produced, composed, and performed on an album of Northern Soul covers and originals by Emma Wilkinson, whom he managed after she won the 2001 Stars In Their Eyes TV talent series performing Dusty Springfield's ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’.[25]

He founded the Flowers of Hell in London in 2002 as a studio project, growing it into a live group in 2005 recruiting bandmates Abi Fry (later of British Sea Power and Bat For Lashes), Guri Hummelsund, Ruth Barlow, Steve Head, and Owen James.[26] He returned to Canada in 2007 and formed another branch of the group, expanding its line up to encompass musicians living in both Toronto and London.[8] He composes many of the pieces performed by the band,[27][28] and is its main guitarist.

Highlights of the group's career include Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground praising their artistry and commencing his final radio show by playing three of the group's recordings,[29] the Tate Britain including their Come Hell Or High Water LP alongside The Beatles' Revolver in a 2020 Aubrey Beardsley exhibition and bringing the group in to perform at the opening,</ref>[21] collaborating with members of their major influence Spacemen 3, being asked by Kevin Shields to open for My Bloody Valentine during the band's 2008 reunion,[30][31] and NASA's mission control staff declaring their enjoyment of the group's ‘space rock’ with the shuttle launch team syncing footage of a Discovery mission to the Flowers Of Hell's ‘Sympathy For Vengeance’.[32]

Synesthesia

Jarvis has auditory-visual synesthesia which causes him to involuntarily and instatantaneously perceive all sounds as abstract visual shapes surrounding him.[33] In 2013 he founded the Canadian Synesthesia Association as a way of meeting other synethetes and raising awareness of synesthesia.[34][35][36][37]

Education

Jarvis did summer studies under the octogenarian beat writer Bobbie Louise Hawkins at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado.[38][39]

He also completed a master of arts in higher education teaching for which his thesis focused on how the mind processes music, and he holds an Arts & Media MBA.[13][14]

Personal life

Jarvis is an avid traveller and has visited over 100 countries across all seven continents.[10][14] After summitting Mount Kilimanjaro at the age of 23, he backpacked through rural Malawi where he was requested to name a newborn baby in a mudhut village he had been brought to by a local. It was requested that he use names from his culture that had meanings, so he used names of popular culutural characters that represented the villagers' values, choosing Fonzy (charisma, mechanical skills, cool) and Kermit (compassion, wisdom, leadership). In 2015 Fonzy Kermit Mwangomba named his first born son Greg after his 'white father' who had provided financial support to him throughout his life. Following a return visit to Masoko village in 2017, Jarvis successfully raised funds for Fonzy to study to become a mechanic, as per his wish and his TV namesake.[40]

In 2010, Jarvis was chased by a group of protesters in West Papua New Guinea after photographing their activities. He was held and questioned by rebel soldiers from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka and played a ukulele to demonstrate he was a musician, not a foreign spy.[41][42][43]

He crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a lone passenger on a working cargo freighter in 2013, intending to complete the mixing of the Flowers Of Hell's ‘Symphony No.1’ at sea.[24]

References
  1. "Sound Advice: O by The Flowers of Hell". Torontoist. By Alex Nino Gheciu
  2. Anon. (9 April 2009). "Hype Monitor: Brajo, Avi Buffalo, Flowers Of Hell". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  3. O'Keefe, Niall (3 April 2009). "Album Review: The Flowers Of Hell, Come Hell Or High Water". NME. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  4. Raber, Rebecca (28 July 2010). "The Flowers Of Hell, Come Hell Or High Water". Pitchfork.com. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  5. The National - Blended Senses (Television news). Canada: CBC. 30 July 2013.
  6. Everett-Green, Robert (3 December 2010). "For Musician With Synaethesia, The Cello Can Sound Too Fury. Or Too Red". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  7. "If You Could Hear A Book, This Is How It Would Look". The Millions. Buzz Poole, 12 January 2012
  8. "The Flowers of Hell". Drowned in Sound by Dom Gourlay 16 November 2010
  9. "Westerners Don't Get That Russia Needs Putin". Huffington Post, 10 February 2014
  10. "From vinyl to torrents - Who buys music anymore?" Archived 21 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Water Buffalo Magazine By Cody Orme
  11. "Prague's Music Scene" 20 March 1994, Velvet Magazine, By Matt Welch
  12. "20 Years Ago I Watched Nirvana's Penultimate Show In Slovenia" "20 Years Ago I Watched Nirvana's Penultimate Show In Slovenia" 27 February 2014, Huffington Post
  13. "Program Guide" Program Guide, 2011
  14. "The Sights And Sounds Of Success" Reflections, By Joshua Zarobiak
  15. "Symphony No.1 With Flowers Of Hell - An Interview" "Symphony No.1 With Flowers Of Hell - An Interview" 2 January 2017, The Blog That Celebrates Itself
  16. "Music & Synesthesia Talk". Youtube. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  17. "Greg Jarvis Discusses Music & Synesthesia at the AGO". Youtube. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  18. Maconie, Stuart. "Freak Zone - March 15, 2020". BBC Radio 6 Music. BBC. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  19. Coe, Gideon. "Gideon Coe - 20 Feb 2020". BBC Radio 6 Music. BBC. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  20. Bitu Tshikudi, Patricia. "Une artiste de Steinbach au musee Tate a Londres". CBC Radio-Canada. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  21. Small, Alan. "Songwriter Throws Perfect Opening Day Strike". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  22. w.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2005/03/31/club_v_review_feature.shtml "Review Club Velocity" Archived 12 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine 25 March 2005, By Emma Hughes, BBC Online
  23. "LondonNet Gig Review" 7 November 2004, By Steve Marshall, LondonNet
  24. "Flowers Of Hell Interview". 10 September 2015, Golden Plec, By Justin McDaid
  25. "The great pretender; With reality TV and talent shows, 15 minutes of fame is ever more attainable - but what happens when the show is over?". 25 April 2002, Coventry Evening Telegraph
  26. "Mundo Musique: The Transatlantic Space-Rock Orchestra, Flowers of Hell". The Revue. 9 June 2014 by Ben Yung
  27. "". 6 November 2012, T-Mak
  28. "The Flowers of Hell: Shapes of things" by Eden Munro, Vue Weekly.
  29. Anon. (20 July 2012). "July 20, 2012 Playlist". LouReed.com. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  30. Perlich, Tim (23 September 2008). "Perlich's Picks". Now. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  31. Mondo magazine concert review
  32. Louche, Liz (15 March 2010). "Flowers of Hell enlist musicians from Broken Social Scene, Spiritualized, Guided by Voices, and more to join their NASA-approved space rock jam session". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  33. Everett-Green, Robert (3 December 2010). "For Musician With Synaethesia, The Cello Can Sound Too Fury. Or Too Red". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  34. "Life with synesthesia: Toronto man who can see sounds shares his story". Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine 28 January 2015, Metro – Toronto Edition.
  35. hIW-RYsmBHly.html "Sound Takes Shape". 18 October 2015, by Allison Shouldice, Toronto Star – Star Touch.
  36. "Blended Senses". 30 July 2013, CBC The National.
  37. "Synesthesia". 6 February 2015, CBC Ontario Today.
  38. "Growing the Flowers Of Hell – An interview with bandleader Greg Jarvis". October 2012, By Daniel Korn, Cadence Magazine
  39. "The Flowers Of Hell Interview" 21 October 2012, Northern Transmissions
  40. "Help Fonzy In Africa Become A Mechanic". You Caring. Archived from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  41. "Flowers of Hell Leader Greg Jarvis Mistaken for Spy in Papua New Guinea, Forced to Play for His Life". Exclaim!, By Alex Hudson. 12 Oct 2010
  42. "Flowers of Hell Leader Mistaken for Spy". Pitchfork, By Ryan Dombal. 12 Oct 2010
  43. "Flowers of Hell Mainman Mistaken For MI5 Spy in Papua New Guinea – Greg Jarvis had to ‘play for his life’ while holidaying". NME, By Adam Bychawski. 12 Oct 2010
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