Meeting Joe Williamson
He joins Let the Monkeys Dance Feb. 21 & plays the raw, minimalist songs of new album Zombie at the Hargrove Feb. 22
Bassist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter Joe Williamson and I spoke for the first time at a restaurant in Maple Ridge earlier this week. Our interview took place just before the 2026 edition of his roughly annual run of homecoming shows.
This Sunday, February 22nd, Williamson plays The Hargrove's Lost Dog Sundays series (on a bill opposite rebsha, the duo of Feven Kidane and Nebyu Yohannes). He presents the music of Zombie, his new album of raw, minimalist, postmodern songs.
I first heard Williamson in 2024 – twice, on back-to-back nights, playing electric bass – though we didn't meet. First, at 8EAST on March 13th, he improvised in a group celebrating Cole Schmidt's birthday. The next night, he played Tyrant Studios in a band called Let the Monkeys Dance with James Meger also on bass, Schmidt and Tony Wilson on guitars, and Kenton Loewen on drums.
Tomorrow night, Let the Monkeys Dance return to Tyrant presented by Infidels Jazz. They played Nanaimo's Vault Cafe last night on a bill with drummers Chris Corsano and John Brennan, who just released their album Buzzing With Rumours on Mint Records.
"It feels like a band, even though we play like one gig a year," Williamson said of Let the Monkeys Dance. They made a recording here last year after doing a show at the Lido, though that recording's future release date is uncertain.
Williamson grew up in the lower mainland, left for studies at McGill at age 18, then went to Europe around age 22. He has lived across the pond ever since that move in the early 1990s. "We were in London, and we went to Amsterdam, and then we were in Paris," he said. "I was playing music on the street with Tony Wilson, and then I ended up staying in Amsterdam, and I was there for six years." Next was Berlin, then back to London and finally to Stockholm, where he has lived for well over a decade.
Williamson built a long resume in European experimental music. My look through that history began with the Swedish band Receptacles: Williamson on bass and vocals, Anton Toorell on guitar, and Dennis Egberth on drums. When they came here to play Ironworks for Coastal Jazz's Innovation Series on June 21, 2019, Schmidt wrote about them for the festival blog. He called Williamson "a true-blue dry-wit mystery man".
