Post-Party Depression is the stunning debut album from Saskatchewan’s folk-rock duo Friend Friend. Released in June 2015, Post-Party Depression showcases catchy tunes, intricate song-writing and quality music. 
The heart of the band is married couple Dustan and Carrie Hlady, who began their musical partnership on their first date, when they made t-shirts for their yet non-existing band. When they started dating and got married writing songs together and playing shows was a cheap date night but it gradually became something much more. 
Their song “I Could (N)ever Kiss You” has been getting airplay in Saskatchewan and their first single “New York” has been getting airplay on college radio stations across Canada. Their music videos for “Life is Art/Art is Life”, “I Could (N)ever Kiss You” and “New York” have also been getting literally dozens of views. Friend Friend was featured on MaxTV On-Demand and CTV Morning Live and have one national tour under their belt.
When Friend Friend isn’t playing shows Carrie is teaching high school students and Dustan is knocking on doors as a NDP federal candidate. 
FIRST SINGLE: track one,  NEW YORK (IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT) June 2015


05 Are We Still In Love

04 O! Regina!

03 We Were Berlin

02 I Could (N)ever Kiss You

01 New York (It's Not Your Fault)

Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy is good.

(hidden track)

Lyrics

When this city was a brother I’d stay up all night
‘cause it felt good to be agreed with.
When this river was lover, how my lips would quiver
as she baptized me in her dirty water. 
All that excrement that flows from Edmonton. 

When this valley was my friend how my teeth would chatter
as the first snow fell as if to pardon our failures. 
I parse your post. You remind me of a ghost. 

You remind me of a ghost of this land that I love
These prairies have no borders

You remind me of a note I was writing out on Dief Beach all alone and small trying to get some things right. You remind me of the roads I was crossing and the fields I was coming to when walking into Smokey that night. You remind me of my great-grandfather saying, “There’s no land in Poland and no man’s a man with no land.” 

You remind me of a ghost. 

THE STORY BEHIND YOU REMIND ME OF A GHOST
I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Twenty minutes to the nearest gas station, fifteen minutes to my elementary school, forty-five minutes to my high school and an hour drive to the nearest movie theatre. While my surroundings were desolate I always fancied myself a cosmopolitan soul who was really destined to live in one of the world’s great cities--- New York, Los Angeles, Toronto or London. I’d read S.E. Hinton books and listen to LL Cool J and imagine myself as a true son of the city temporarily stuck on the prairies. 

I eventually made my way to New York, squatting in a friend’s apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn and taking daily trips to Manhattan on the train. Carrie and I had just begun dating and she would send me letters and postcards of fields, grain pools and small Saskatchewan cities. I read every line carefully and every hidden message in her words. It made me miss the prairies and reminded me of all the experiences I’d had in them. 

It reminded me of the years I lived in Regina and would climb the window-washing scaffolds of its skyrises by myself and watch the city breathe traffic until the sun came up. 

It reminded me of being baptized in the North Saskatchewan river, which was once the highway for fur traders and first people.

It reminded me of the valley, behind my parent’s house, that my father farmed; the field that, among others, now failed to produce the crops that it once did. I would wait patiently each year for it to be covered in snow so I could slide down it on my GT with my brothers and sisters. 

It reminded me of going to Diefenbaker Beach, where Carrie and I had first cuddled next to each other while sharing a tent with 9 other friends the weekend Friend Friend was born. 

It reminded me of the summer I walked 5K through Alberta prairie into Smokey Lake and experienced a newfound love for these flatlands. 
It reminded me of my great-grandfather leaving eastern Europe for Rama, Saskatchewan and building a new life for his family and eventually me.

You Remind Me of A Ghost

Lyrics
Where did you come from?

Somewhere past Carlyle, grew up on volleyball games and gas station movies, graduated a year early, high-tailed it to the big city. Got a job selling clothes at the mall. Fell in love with the boy from Orange Julius. 

But it made you miss home--- the streets you could count all the names you would know.

Oh, prairie girl. The sunrise is peaking. We stayed here too long, watching the starlight. There’s a lily on your shoulder. Staying is your game but every year I get older.

You spoke in an accent and followed it home. Burned through a B.Ed. then you made it back home to teacher younger yous and raise 2 or 3 on ice hockey games and farmer TV. Fell in love with another who would never leave, fall asleep to the wind blowing through barley fields. 

THE STORY BEHIND PRAIRIE GIRL
Every year prairie girls from Radville or Craik or Kipling or Carnduff leave their homes to travel to the University of Regina to get their Bachelor of Education with hopes of returning to their dwindling communities. 
Teaching is one of the few careers available in Saskatchewan rural communities. Family farms have been bought up by corporate farmers and in Saskatchewan the only non-cities that have shown growth are bedroom communities to Saskatoon and Regina. We’ve seen towns turn to villages, villages to hamlets and hamlets to ghost towns as the major centres take the high school graduates from rural communities and rarely give them back. 
This song is a fictional story of a prairie girl who moves to Regina and falls in love with a boy who wants to leave Saskatchewan for bigger and better possibilities. But they are incompatible because she belongs in a world of farm land, pickup trucks, potlucks and room to roam; a place the city boy could never be happy in.

Prairie Girl

LYRICS
Family of 3 at the Royal hospital waiting to take their Reesey home. Just recently was pulled out of a scar, into the world. Where 3 is here there’s room for a few more. 

Give me your hand give me your heart, we’ll all stick together. 

When you’re off to school your friends might tell you stories about how their family tree got cut. But you won’t hear a fight, no you won’t hear a scream. We’ll whisper disagreements in the dark. 

SONG MEANING

My son Reese was born premature. Carrie was shipped to Saskatoon, so they could monitor her progress. Reese was no longer getting the nutrients he needed from the womb so they performed an emergency C-section.
In the hours leading up to leading up to the surgery I fell asleep in a chair. I had a dream that I was singing to my son. In the dream, I kept repeating the same words over and over; “Give me your hand, give me your heart. Give me your hand, give me your heart. We’ll all stick together.” When I woke up, I grabbed my guitar (that I, of course had brought to the hospital) and put some chords over the words and melody that I had already written in my sleep. After he was born I added some verses and that’s how the song was written.

We'll All Stick Together

LYRICS

I got these hands

We left that land in search for another. 
Each 20 years, you’re left or you’re leaving. We spread ourselves like chicken across a face so wild and free to discover. 

I’ve got these hands but what are they good for. To till the earth and pray for a tenfold. Gambling with Jarilo for life and limb and room to dream of another. 

Oh where oh when, when will I see my love again? A duplicate made from all I remember there. We carved these walls like we were gods and men. A belted earth made up of ties and nails in hands; taming what we discover. 

I’ve got these hands but what are they good for? They raise this drink unto my lips. Why, oh why, what are you looking for? 

These roots to discover. 
These routes to discover. 

SONG MEANING

This is a song about immigrants that have come to Canada for a better life. It’s partially about my ancestors; the Eastern European immigrants that failed to fill the empty prairies in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and partially about the Chinese that were only accepted as immigrants, so they could be used to build the railway under inhumane conditions. 

My ancestors were farmers. They left a crowded Europe for an empty land. They left everything they knew for the unknown. It makes sense that many Canadians are descendants of those people because we very often carry on that tradition. If you talk to people who are 60+, you will find out how rare it is to have all their adult children living in the same city/town/province. We are generations of scatterers born of scatterers. 

These immigrant farmers were professional gamblers. They depended on causes that they had no control over. They could pray to Jarilo or Jesus but they didn’t know when the rain would fall or how much they would reap. It could be a bumper crop or a year of destitution. 

An interesting thing about these immigrant farmers was, that they were coming to a world, already inhabited and under the control of many First Nations. For people that were so adaptable they didn’t  really adapt to the way of life of the regions they entered. They built European style homes, founded towns, villages and cities named them after European towns, villages and cities. They built on what they thought as barren. They turned a wild, fun country into a boring, domestic bureaucracy. Ways of life as exciting as chasing a buffalo herd literally became as boring as buying canned food. 

The Chinese that came in the 1880s to build a railway that connected Canada “From sea to shining sea” were giving back breaking work and dangerous jobs. The job took six years  longer than promised because of the B.C. mountains. They worked with the landscape when they could and used explosives to tame the land to their will where they had to. The Chinese, like modern-day Messiah’s took these dangerous jobs and even gave their lives to secure the creation of Canada.

The Last Best West

LYRICS
I’ve seen your face in city lights. 
Expelling Night. 
Hooray, hooray for night and day. 
The city noise becomes our skin
A heart a home. 
Hooray hooray for night and day. 

The Casualties; the days 
To calendars; the years
Do people change? Yes sir!
Am I one of them? Unknown.

Allegiances to pass the time. 
A blueish face
Hooray, hooray for night and day. 
A fitting hand and Chimney Smoke. 
Enjoy, repeat. 
Hooray, hooray for night and day. 

SONG MEANING

This song is about the fleetingness and 
 seemingly pointlessness of life.  Time is so rooted in perspective, and 77 years, may seem long but it isn’t. The shortness of life is what makes it so precious. This song answers what to do with this limited time. It suggests to 1. Look for wonder in the ordinary 2. Enjoy where you are and create a home there 3. Find someone to love
 
It is a little critical of the moments we let slip. I believe that wasting time is worse than wasting money. I believe that having shallow friendships is a waste. While I love television and all forms of artistic expression I think it is easy to fall into an autopilot funk. We often use our houses as refuges from the outside world and consume massive amounts of television and social media, not because we are drawn to someone’s artistic expression but because we are afraid and tired. 

One of my favourite books is Christopher Morley’s Chimney Smoke. I am a devoted follower of Christopher Morley and his teachings. I consider myself a Morelite. Chimney Smoke is a collection of poems in which Morley elevates and embraces the simplest moments of his life. He knows how to live in the fleeting moments that we call a life and I wish that I could do the same.

Casualties To Calendars

For their Sophomore release; Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy, Friend Friend partnered with their band member and producer, Matt Froese to create 5 Indie-folk power-pop anthems for the everyman/woman. The songs had been honed by the band in live shows across Saskatchewan and came to creative fruition as the parts were recorded portably in basements and the coffee shop Matt was a barista at. Friend Friend’s trademark sound, is rooted in the catchy down to earth melodies of dustan j. hlady, the intricate instrumental  backing of Cappy (bass)  and Mat Froese (Guitar, Banjo, Drums, Melodica, percussion, glockenspiel, accordian), and the profound harmonies of Carrie Hlady. 
dustan j. hlady’s songwriting style is immensely personal and intrinsically linked to the historic and present day Canadian prairies. The song content ranges from the birth of Carrie and dustan’s first son, to personal experiences on the prairie landscape, to the immigrants of the early 20th century that failed to fill the prairies. All of their song’s lyrics are in zines that  also include the stories behind the songs.  

Their first album; Post Party Depression, played on College radio stations across Canada. It made the top 10/30 charts in Kamloops, Victoria, Ottawa, Hamilton and Edmonton. They have toured Canada and played with acts such as Jon Bryant, Megan Nash, Johnny 2 Fingers, Dilly Dally and Lauren Mann. They were featured on Max Television, The Star Phoenix and CTV. 

PRAISE FOR NOT PARTICULARLY DIGNIFIED OR NEWSWORTHY

"The vocals possess a sincere and earnest sense of feeling" -Various Small Flames

“Solid folk indie sound.” - We All Want Someone To Shout For

“Talented Group.”-Modern Music Maker

“Nice indie rock sound here. Well-produced enough to sound professional, but just lo-fi enough to sound like a band you could be friends with.”-Beautiful Sound of The Week

“A roaring duet of vocals under a folksy organic air.”-At Cost Magazine

“Plenty of personality to this.”-Crack In The Road

“A beautiful vibe.”-Rock The Pigeon

“The lyrics and catchy and there are tons of hooks.”-Sacred Exile

Friend Friend

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