Just Us

This page brings together our individual and joint RealAudio recordings made over 1994 to 2000. Some of these files were released on May's CDs or used in radio broadcasts, others were recorded in the basement on anything from an old reel-to-reel to a portable DAT machine. If high fidelity audio is your thing, you may want to click 'back' now.

JustUs has been featured on CKLN-FM and CIUT-FM in Toronto on K106.5 in Owen Sound and CKWR-FM in Kitchener, and played several Ontario folk and country music festivals including the Eaglewood, London, Burlinton, Oakville, Mar and the Thornbury festivals, and regularly featured in the Chesley Grand Old Opry and the Opry Roadshows.

Gary Murphy has recorded with Kenn Olson, Paul Stewart and Rachel Kane and toured with Sans Harbour (ok, as their sound engineer) and with Mike Mallett. Always the side man, here's two very good reasons why ...

"Sunwheel Dance" -- Bruce Cockburn

Famous instrumental by the defacto Canadian master of the 6-string guitar, rendered here by the self-professed upstart master of the 4-string dulcimer and quite possibly the oldest recording of a mountain dulcimer on the Internet (1994). This is the work of a trained professional; don't try this one at home, kiddies.

RealAudio 28K

"Woodsmoke and Oranges" -- Ian Tamblyn

Merciless hack of what was another very wonderful song by the Canadian songwriter Ian Tamblyn; do us both a favour and skip this link and buy Ian's album. Mostly, I just had this ambling stringed arrangement stuck in my head and sketched it out in multitrack. You've been warned.

RealAudio 28K or MP3 128k

Some may also remember Gary from the days of the Nature Theatre, a 70's Toronto/Winnipeg experimental joyful-noise sound-happening band years ahead of its time in our use of sampling, impossible recording techniques (musique concrete verging on musique ashphalt) and raw audience participation. For those who like this sort of thing, you can find a sampler of scratchy streaming audio tracks over on the one true official All-New (free) Great Nature Theatre of Oklamoma webpage.

You can now find selected tracks from May's early CDs in our May Ip Archive; those strapped for bandwidth can also sample this lo-fi bootleg basement tape recorded at FEHA Studios in Winnipeg Manitoba, featuring a song from one of May's CDs, with Gary Murphy on Guitar and Kenn Olson on drums.

"Give Us a Smile"

Original lyrics and music Copyright © 1994 by May Ip
May wrote this after visiting London, England, and her first encounter with England's homeless; let this song haunt you next time you hear the call for "spare change?"

RealAudio 28K

Times change and with them the options for music distribution -- you can find several tracks from our 1995 K106 session online at various New Artist archives such as DMusic.com and Download.com; other tracks are listed as they are released over on our Just Us Band Blog

"So, so Happy"

Original lyrics and music Copyright © 1995 by May Ip
May wrote this song just after we started gigging together and asked that it be played on the lap dulcimer. Who was I to argue? Recorded by Gary Bayers at K106.5 in Owen Sound; Gary's easily the best damn sound engineer in 4 counties, probably more.

RealAudio 28K

"It Could Happen To Me, It Could Happen To You"

Original lyrics and music Copyright © 2000 by May Ip
This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Content License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is available at http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml).

Written for the Hongkong EarthDay 2000 celebrations, and thanks to the freedom of the license, was almost instantly adopted by Earthday troupes world-wide --- go ahead, take one.

RealAudio 28K

JustUs is gleefully unable to offer you a CD; that may make us totally unique in the music business. We can offer a few of May's recordings in OggVorbis, and have been known to create custom tapes for those who ask especially nicely, but alas, no CD. Now, don't misunderstand: If someone should offer to sponsor a CD project, we won't look ascance at it ...