Artist: 40 watt monkey, Album: The Oshawa Tree, Song: Larks

40 watt monkey were a rock band from Ottawa, Ontario that formed in 2008.  The core members were J.Todd, R.W. Haller, Jeff Tanguay and Rob Porter.  All of the members have deep histories within the Ottawa music scene.  Jeff Tanguay was a member of two influential indie bands dating back to the early eighties called Gonks Go Beat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU77E9VTKAA) and The Town Cryers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz209FKT_t4).  Todd and Porter were in another popular Celtic rock band called Jimmy George (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAGN3voOiAI).  Lastly, R.W. Haller has worked with bands such as Ken Workman & The Union and Myrle.  The guys played a number of shows in the Ottawa area and released one album in 2009 entitled, The Oshawa Tree.  The album was produced by Dave Dudley of Furnaceface (see blog 11/14/10).  They would record tracks for a second album but it would remain unreleased as the members moved on to other projects.  The band recently reformed to play a show for Haller's birthday.  Today, Haller and Tanguay are members of a very cool rock band called The Cutmen (http://www.myspace.com/cutmen), who are due to release new material some time this year.  As well, Haller composes music as a solo artist and is also planning to release new material sometime in 2012.  You can follow him at (http://www.facebook.com/pages/RW-Haller/).  You can purchase the album, The Oshawa Tree, on Itunes.  One of my favourite tracks from The Oshawa Tree is a song called, Larks.  You can check out the song on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQgBCFwpDjg).  You can also see some live footage of the band playing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=K9_3FydvHmE.  Thanks for reading and enjoy!