True Believer will come out in Australia in late September on Code One in association with ABC. A tour with Angie Hart (of Frente) will follow, beginning Sept.28th in Cronulla. Other tour stops include Central Coast, Sydney (Newtown), Katoomba, Perth, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne and Ballarat. Check the live dates section for details!

Haunted Hillbilly is an award-winning original musical-play based on the book of the same name by Derek McCormack, and produced by Sidemart Theatrical Grocery. Matthew Barber wrote all the songs in the show and plays in the live band. It runs for 6 performances as part of the Summerworks Theatre Festival. Here's a brief description of the show...

"Haunted Hillbilly is a theatre-show-event, a cowboy carnival caper with a big ole dollop of deep country. It's a cautionary tale, about the rise and fall of the Lonely Boy, a guileless bumpkin turned supernova superstar by a meddling, impeccable vampire couturier. Yeah, you heard us. It's lap steels, denim, booze, hadocol, heartbreak, blood and guts. Come on down. We'll sing our hearts out for y'all. Come see the show the Montreal Mirror called "A masterpiece of American gothic sleaze".

The performance times are as follows:

FRIDAY - AUGUST 6 - 5:30
SATURDAY - AUGUST 7 - 8:00
SUNDAY - AUGUST 8 - 10:30
WEDNESDAY - AUGUST 11 - 5:30
FRIDAY - AUGUST 13 - 8:00
SUNDAY - AUGUST 15 - 12:30

Tickets are available through the Summerworks website and at the Theatre Passe Muraille box office. The theatre is located at 16 Ryerson Ave, 1 block north and 1 block east of Queen and Bathurst. The show runs 80 minutes. See you there!

Matthew will be heading out to the maritimes for shows on July 31st in New Glascow and Aug. 1st in Port Hawksesbury. For both shows he will be backed by the Spades from Peterborough, ON.
The July 31st date is at the Riverfront Jubilee in New Glascow, along with Sloan and others. On August 1st Matthew and the Spades headline the Granville Green in Port Hawkesbury, Cape Breton.

On Monday June 28th, come on down to the Dakota Tavern in Toronto for a night of entertainment in support of Sidemart Theatrical Grocery's production of The Haunted Hillbilly at the 2010 Summerworks Theatre Festival. Featuring tunes from the show by Matthew Barber and guest appearances by Doug Paisley, Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Justin Rutledge. Doors at 7, show at 8. $15. Tickets at the door.

The multiple-MECCA award winning original theatrical production Haunted Hillbilly (featuring original music by Matthew Barber) will be part of the Summerworks Theatre Festival in Toronto this August. Performances will take place at Theatre Passe-Muraille between Aug.6th and 15th. More details and info on tickets coming soon. In the meantime, Haunted Hillbilly fun-raiser extravaganzas will be happening on June 15th in Montreal at Il Motore and June 28th in Toronto at the Dakota Tavern featuring the Haunted Hillbilly band and exciting special guests!

You can order it here through maplemusic.com and it comes with a free mp3 download of the album and bonus track "Wasn't Born To Leave You".

With guests The Wilderness of Manitoba. Tickets $16 advance available through maplemusic.com or at Soundscapes, Rotate This and Criminal Records. Mod Club Theatre is at 722 College St. Doors at 8, show at 8:30. Tickets will also be available at the door. All Ages Show!

Matthew and his band will be performing live at Toronto's Mod Club Theatre on Wednesday May 12th. The show is all-ages and tickets are available to order online through www.maplemusic.com, or you can find them in person (from April 3rd) at Soundscapes, Rotate This and Criminal Records in Toronto.

Please visit the "Tour" section for details on when Matthew will be in your town.

Please go to the "Tour" section for western Canada tour date info.

Here's a nice a review in the Globe and Mail.

Matthew will be performing a free in-store concert at the Chapters/Indigo Festival Hall location (John and Richmond in downtown Toronto) at 12:30pm on Friday Feb.26th. Also, some Ontario dates (Kingston, Wakefield, Waterloo, Hamilton) and a Halifax show are now up in the "Tour" section of this page. Western Canada tour dates and Toronto show will be announced shortly.

maplemusic.com has made another 30 autographed copies of True Believer available for pre-order here (the first 50 are gone!)

The new album True Believer is now available for pre-order from maplemusic.com. The first 50 orders will recieved cds personally autographed by MB.

The title track from the forthcoming album (in stores Feb.23) is now available on iTunes.

Matthew Barber's new album True Believer comes out in stores and will be available worldwide through iTunes on Feb.23rd 2010. The title track will be available as a single in January through iTunes. The album was produced and mixed by Howie Beck. Here is the tracklist:

I Think You're Gonna Feel My Love, Comeback Baby, Revolution Of The Sun, Got That Lonesome Feeling On My Mind, The Little Things, True Believer, Insanity or Death, While Away, Hawks On The Highway, Suddenly.

Check back for new photos and music and an updated matthewbarber.com in the coming weeks! In the meantime, you can listen to 'Comeback Baby' on Matthew's myspace page.

Performances nightly at 8pm at the Segal Centre for the Arts (except Fridays). PWYC matinee Sunday Dec.13. Here's a link to a piece about the show in the Montreal Gazette.

Tickets for Haunted Hillbilly ar on sale now, and performances run from Dec.5 to Dec.20th. Visit the Segal Centre website for more info, or call the box office at 514.739.7944.

Matthew will be performing the Olympic torch relay anthem "There's A Light/Cette Flame" (composed by Gregory Charles) at torch stops in Whitehorse, Yukon (Nov.3rd) and Yellowknife, N.W.T. (Nov.5th), along with the College Vocal de Laval choir. The ceremonies begin at approximately 5pm on the 3rd in Whitehorse and 6pm on the 5th in Yellowknife.

The theatrical adaptation of Derek McCormack's Haunted Hillbilly by Montreal-based Sidemart Theatrical Grocery will happen again this Dec.5th to 19th at the Segal Centre For The Arts, featuring original music by Matthew Barber and an incredible cast of extreme characters. Matthew is excited to be remountng this MECCA award-winning show and playing in the live band again.

Just a reminder to check the tour dates page for Matthew's trip out west in September. It will be your last chance to catch Matthew live in Alberta or BC until the new year...

If you are so inclined, you can "follow" Matthew on his Twitter Feed at twitter.com/mattbarbertweet

Busy working his next record, Matthew has only two shows scheduled for the month of August: Wednesday August 12 in Toronto at the Great Hall/Theatre Centre, Queen St. W and Dovercourt (as part of the Summerworks Music Series - www.summerworks.ca) and Sunday August 16th at The Carleton on Argyle St. in Halifax. Please visit the tour section for more details. Also, some western Canadian dates have been added for late September.

Toronto indie bands Croque Monsieur and Halls of Devotion both released limited-edition albums (in June and July respectively) that were recorded by Matthew in his home studio.

Croque Mosieur is a quintet playing old-time jazz standards from Europe and America, loosely in the Django Reinhardt style. Halls of Devotion are the brainchild of Chuck Erlichman (Barber bandmate in Live Country Music), and make exciting pop for the new millenium. Both are excellent bands.

The fine people at Athens Soundies (Athens, GA) captured two live performances - Settle My Accounts and Easily Bruised. The perfomance of Easily Bruised was somewhat interrupted (off camera) by someone pulling up in a pick-up and rightfully telling eveyone they were tresspassing.

Here's a link to a live performance of "And You Give" fairly early in the morning on the 10! show in Philadelphia on May 12.

Matthew will be embarking on a series of shows in the eastern U.S. in May. Check the tour page for details.

Read what the Huffington Post has to say about the album here.

Well the Juno weekend came and went, and although Matthew did not bring home an award for his music (Old Man Luedecke took the trophy for best roots/traditional album - congrats!), he did backstop the Rockers to huge upset overtime shootout victory over the NHL greats in the Juno Cup. For the first time in the history of the game the Rockers won, and in a sudden-death shootout no less! Barber stepped up his game at the right time, stopping Mark Napier, Lanny McDonald, Dave Babych, Gino Odjick and finally Troy Crowder to clinch the game for the Rockers. Watch the entire shootout below.

For those of you in the Vancouver area, Matthew will be suiting up and playing goal with "The Rockers" in the annual Juno Cup hockey game which pits musicians against ex-NHL pros. The opposition will be stiff - Paul Coffey, Lanny McDonald, Bob Probert and Russ Courtnall are just a few of the pros that will be trying to make the Rockers look bad. The game is on Friday March 27th at 7pm at UBC Thunderbird arena.

I'm very pleased to announce that my most recent record Ghost Notes has been nominated for a Juno award in the roots/traditional category. The Juno awards are in Vancouver this year on March 29th - see you there!

My sister Jill and I spent 5 weeks this winter in the Australian summer, touring all over the east coast of the country. Highlights were The Woodford Folk Festival, The Peat's Ridge Festival, and our jet-setting string of shows with Hawksley Workman. Thanks Hawksley, Mr. Lonely, Geoff Trio and all the other fine people we met down under. We'll see you again soon.

Finally, Ghost Notes will be released on April 14, 2009 on Outside Music's new American imprint, distributed through Red Eye. Plans are being laid for a long overdue US tour.

Happy New Year and may 2009 be a good one!