NICK BUZZ

Nick Buzz is a Canadian band composed of Jon Goldsmith, Hugh Marsh, Rob Piltch, and Martin Tielli. The name is a play on Tielli’s chain-smoking habit (‘nicotine buzz’). Nick Buzz only released one full-length album, Circo, in 1996 through Dark Light Music. It was rereleased in 2002 by Six Shooter Records, with the music magazine Chart calling it a “virtually unheard-of 1996 classic”. In 2003, they got back together to perform four songs by Arnold Schoenberg, originally for Andrew Burashko’s Art of Time series in Toronto. The group released a recording of these songs for Tielli’s “Tielli 2003″ subscription series on Six Shooter Records.

Tielli’s cover art for Circo, a dark meditation on carnival, gives a clue to the character of Circo’s music. A true collectible among fans, this album united him with musical idols Jon Goldsmith, Hugh Marsh and Rob Piltch. Goldsmith and Marsh rattled his teenage cage years earlier when they played with Bruce Cockburn, and Rob Piltch was a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears; for the fledgling ‘solo’ artist, no better accompanists could be imagined.

The members previously collaborated on a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River” for the 1992 Mitchell tribute album Back to the Garden, although they were credited by their individual names rather than as Nick Buzz.

DISCOGRAPHY

Berlin Cabarets (2004)

Circo (1996)

PHOTOGRAPHS