Tag Archives: Julie Doiron

Julie Doiron has a secret athletic past.

The singer-songwriter (and Eric’s Trip member) from New Brunswick, Canada, says she was quite active in sports while growing up. Her mom worked in the local squash club, so Julie became quite good at that game, as you might expect after playing so many sets for free.

All that squash must account for her ability to really bash the drum kit. She proved that by taking a short stint on the skins during her set last night at Union Hall in Brooklyn, while drummer Fred Squire stepped to the mic to take the lead on songs he wrote. (Fred and Julie recently worked with Mount Eerie‘s latest album, Lost Wisdom.)

But she gave squash up for another sport — swimming, Julie says.

And not just ordinary swimming.

“Um, it was synchronized swimming,” she admits, a bit sheepishly. “I even taught it for awhile.

“It’s a really hard sport. You have to do a lot of weird stuff underwater while holding your breath for a really long time. While smiling!”

Thanks, Julie! I’m glad you didn’t choose sycnro swimming as a career path.

Julie’s set, meanwhile, was great. She rocked out with a super mix of new songs from her rather gentle new album, I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day, including Tailor (which she says she wrote almost exclusively with barre chords to celebrate her victory over barre-chord fear) and the Liz Phair-ish Consolaton Prize. But she threw in older songs, too, like Seven, for the many hard-core fans in the audience.

Enjoy these shots from the show. Video may come later today.