Take a fondness for eccentric retro-style art and design, add a dash of wonder and whimsy a la Lewis Carroll, blend in beautifully-crafted original songs and covers that share the same melodic, often wistful, quality, and mix with the arresting musical talents of vocalist/lyricist Dolly Sparklemittens (aka Dolly Fraser) and keyboardist/guitarist/songwriter Marky Magicfingers (Mark Fraser).
That’s the recipe for Three Pound Cloud, the Cloverdale-based confection that will be served up with the special dinner menu for fortunate ticket holders this Friday at the Sunflower Organic Café in Crescent Beach.
It’s no surprise the show is now officially sold-out, given the cosy confines of the café and the passionate following the duo attracts wherever it plays in the Vancouver area (the Montmartre Café on Main Street has been a frequent venue).
People who first approach Three Pound Cloud with puzzlement (how many acts, after all, are named in honour of the performers’ pet rabbit?) soon fall under a spell cast by Dolly’s warm and sensitive vocals and Mark’s accompaniment, which successfully fuses a rock n’ roll sensibility with classically-influenced piano technique.
Casual listeners have a tendency to become believers and, shortly thereafter, loyal ‘Cloudsters’, who wait eagerly for updates on the next performances. Even under the most dire circumstances (and working musicians know how dire circumstances can get), Three Pound Cloud shows always turn out to be fun.
Given the essential sweetness of the Frasers’ approach, it comes as no surprise to hear the Maritimes-raised couple first encountered each other among cakes and pastries.
“We met in his father’s bakery in Truro, the heart of Nova Scotia,” said Dolly. “He was behind the counter wearing his bakers’ outfit – the spitting image of his father.”
Soon smitten, the couple found they shared an arts orientation (Mark’s other career has been as an animator, while Dolly, a keen collector of books and art, enjoys working with children as a teacher and tutor).
They also shared a strong musical background. As much as he reacted against them when he was young (“I was an undisciplined little brat,” he laughed), Mark’s Royal Conservatory studies are still much in evidence in his playing, as is the rhythmic lift of providing piano accompaniment for Cape Breton fiddlers. And Dolly, encouraged to sing from an early age in school choirs, provincial competitions, and, with her mother – also a strong singer – at community events on their native Prince Edward Island, had a broad exposure to mellow vintage ballads ranging all the way from Among My Souvenirs to Moon River.
With such a background, the surprise is that Three Pound Cloud is so recent a development in their story.
“We were basically married 15 years before we started doing music together,” Mark said, adding that for most of the ’90s he and his brother played in a Rush-influenced heavy metal band, August Frost – which is what first brought the Frasers to the Lower Mainland.
A combination of factors led to the creation of Three Pound Cloud in 2010, including a slowdown in the animation industry and Dolly’s own coming-to-terms with being a performer.
“My mother had begged me for most of my life to be a singer,” she said.
“But I didn’t have joy when I sang. That came when I freed myself from the confines of embarrassment, to become the me, on stage, that I am in conversation with loved ones, to leave my shyness at the door.”
Choice of material has also been key to the development of Three Pound Cloud, from songs “we wish we’d written,” by the likes of Rufus Wainwright and Regina Spektor, to their own signature originals like Popcorn, a bouncy, upbeat paean to tolerance and love, the swirling three-quarter time wistfulness of If Wishes Were Horses, and Swimming With Sharks, a dark, catchy melody that also manages to provide a clear-eyed critique of contemporary materialism.
No discussion of Three Pound Cloud would be complete without mention of the Frasers’ ‘muse’ – Moonglow, their rabbit companion of seven years, a cloud of white fur who lives, as another of their songs details, “in the lap of luxury.”
“I wanted to call the duo the Cloud Minders,” Dolly said. “I was disappointed to learn there was another group of that name, and stamped my feet, as I sometimes do, and said ‘but we are the cloud minders of our own three-pound cloud” – and from the first time I uttered it, I knew that would be the name of the band.”
For more information visit threepoundcloud.com
