The Story
Adrian Torrington
Updated January 21, 2016
Marcel Gelinas was born and raised up around music from a young age.
Both Gelinas and Denomme sides of his family teemed with musical talent. In his teens he joined rock band The Pillowheads as their keyboardist, and after many years of great success, including winning Battle Of The Bands in London and radio play on FM96, he set off to pursue new collaborations and solo efforts.
In 2002, Marcel met Adrian Torrington through call centre work. Marcel’s first impression of Adrian was that he was a straight-laced Western English grad. Adrian’s first impression of Marcel was that he was a long-haired rocker. They soon overcame their stereotypes, however, and began collaborating on original songs.
Adrian found his background as a writer lent itself naturally to lyricism. He and Marcel would have lengthy conversations about themes they would like to explore musically. Adrian would then write long-hand verses and choruses, and Marcel would compose music and sing on the spot, usually learning the new song within a few short minutes to hours.
They had an easy creative chemistry, allowing them to finish ten works at a time on some of their best days. Fast forward thirteen years, and they have written many albums worth of material.
Marcel plays regularly today at his open mic and solo gigs. Besides his originals, he covers Elton John, Ben Folds, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and many classic rock and other acts.
Marcel has recorded at E-Mac, Fanshawe College & OIART as well as with Goderich, ON producer Anthony Strome.
Themes in Marcel’s original songs often involve love, good times, sadness, history, loneliness, memory & recollection.
In 2008 Marcel wrote the album Kuhleborn: Revisiting The Thames, sponsored in part by the University of Ottawa’s Promised Land Project. This album includes songs dedicated to a river trip commissioned by the late Master Artist Philip Aziz of Lebanon. The river trip was called Thames Revisited. Artists paddled out of London down the Thames on a journey to Lake St. Clare. Many of the paddlers experiences were conveyed in songs on the album such as Life In The Boathouse, The Lights at Tait’s Bridge, Lake St. Clare, Tecumseh–and more. The songs were performed in their entirety live at Philip Aziz’s gallery in London that year. Then Secretary of Multiculturalism wrote a letter of endorsement for the song Dawn, Canada, as a spotlight on Black History Month–and the song National Canoe Day achieved 10,000 downloads after being featured on the Peterborough Canoe Museum website. After Kuhleborn, Marcel continued his pursuit of all musical projects challenging and rewarding.
Fast forward to 2015 and Marcel has now teamed up with music veteran Rick Taylor to produce his most ambitious and long awaited freshman album. Keep posted at marcelg.ca for the songs in progress. As of January 2016 Marcel has completed the 9th song of the 10 song album. Final mastering remains and then the release of music videos.
To be continued.
