The Chronicles: The Conjuring of Dr. Draw

by Xristopher Bland

If the idea of the conjurer seems to rest within the walls of Hogwarts, the lands of Middle-earth or some similarly fictional realm, I often return to the music and videos of electronic violinist Dr. Draw and, by the bowing of his hand—furious and mesmerizing like the invocations of some sorcerer drawing magic from the ether—wonder whether the fictions are based on tendrils of truth.

Though it’s been some while since the former Toronto busker’s last full album Copper Moon, I can still vividly recall the time I saw him live a few years ago at a Toronto street festival. In the stillness of the evening humidity, a low thrum rippled as bass, drums and guitars began an ambient pulse by a street where aerial artists hung silhouetted from scaffolding like fantastical beings. Walking toward the sound before I realized my feet were moving, I felt the electricity in my nervous system spike as a violin note moaned in the night. Working my way through the gathering crowd, I came to stand but ten feet from the conjurer of that note, and as he hypnotically wove his music with a trademark style of passionate abandon, I was struck by the notion of someone not so much playing rehearsed notes as someone listening to some river of notes and acting as translator.

It wasn’t the first time I’d had this sensation. When I first saw Jimmy Page draw forth a bow in the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same and invoke otherworldly sounds from his Les Paul, I imagined Page as he was portrayed elsewhere in the film—a man on a quest to find a wizard who, in the end, proved to be him. And when I first saw the late Nash the Slash perform at Toronto’s Lee’s Palace, I watched as the bandaged violinist created such a transcendent storm of notes that something beyond music seemed to linger in the air long after the house lights went down. Yet the sense of magic had never been as strong as when I first heard Dr. Draw, known as the first violinist to venture from rock and classical into electronic club culture. By each bow stroke, a wand seemed to wave, and if magic truly came that night, it likely wasn’t far removed from what the artist saw for the Strange Parade.

As an artist to whom Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora once said “You play like Jimi Hendrix,” Draw created the Strange Parade a few years ago as a collaborative in Sri Lanka while performing for and with terminally ill children and youth struggling with poverty and mental illness. In bringing together circus performers, dancers and painters with a full band, Draw endeavored to create a Cirque de Soleil-style show to transport minds to a magical universe. Draw also began a musical project called Tokka with drummer/keyboardist BSMNT (Jeff-Antoine Coté) and released an EP in April of 2015 in conjunction with Maus, one of Draw’s favorite DJs. And according to recent Tweets @realdrdraw (definitely the best place for show announcements), the artist is getting ready to unveil a new album.

Until then, existing and potential fans thankfully have a wide selection of YouTube clips that perhaps aren’t so much videos as they are musical spells:

"Dr. Draw and the Strange Parade" (or, what Cirque might look like if it became an awesome rock show)