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Bandit Queen 3:030:00/3:03
2024 will mark the twentieth anniversary of Eastern Ontario’s Riverthieves, the core members of which - Sal De Meo, Chris Knowles, Devon Matsalla, and Finley Mullally – have been playing music together since 2004, when they were hired as the house band at the Royal Oak-on-the-Canal in Ottawa. The ‘Thieves were a staple of the Eastern Ontario bar and club scene and the signature feature at the famous D’Arcy McGee’s on Sparks Street every St Patrick’s Day for more than a decade. In 2009, the band recorded a very memorable live concert at the Almonte Old Town Hall before a sold-out audience and released this as their first album, Bandit Queen, the following year.
2009 to 2015 was unsettled by Afghanistan tours for the two serving military members of the band beginning literally the day after that Victoria Day concert. Devon completed two tours of duty to Kandahar province and Finley one. Devon also deployed to Haiti in the wake of their terrible earthquake and was subsequently posted to Valcartier. For the next five years, the band played only infrequently.
With Devon’s return to Ottawa in 2016, the Riverthieves made the decision to give up bar work and to devote themselves primarily to original music. Finley’s sons, Javier Mullally (vocals and fiddle) and Oscar Mullally (drums) joined the group and Devon constructed a rehearsal space and recording studio for the band in a hangar at the Carp Airport. Composing and arranging through 2016, and recording between January and March 2017, the Riverthieves’ released a CD, Soldier, consisting of 10 original pieces. The album was largely self-produced with recording help from Mike Kay and mixing by Chris Bradley.
The Rivertheives performed their new original music steadily through 2018. In 2019, Fiddler Evan Lewis rejoined the band and – with Sal’s son, Alex De Meo, sitting in to play his father’s bassline to allow Sal to play guitar – the ‘Thieves recorded its first pro video, “Mats Sundin’s Tears,” as an octet. The “Soldier project” was punctuated by a final concert in Chelsea, QC in May 2019. Devon had announced that he was leaving for Australia that summer, and Javier departed to study opera in September. The Riverthieves regrouped as a quintet in a new rehearsal space in Richmond, Ontario that Fall. Oscar produced a second storyboarded video, Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night,” Devon adding his whistle tracks from Down Under.
Like everyone else, the Riverthieves’ run of shows beginning in March of 2020, was cancelled by COVID. Coming out of pandemic hibernation, The Riverthieves reformed around core members Sal, Chris, Evan, Finley and Javier, and added Dave Hebert on percussion. This connection came with the acquaintance of Hugh McMillan, who began working with the band as coach and mentor, technician and arranger. One post-lockdown piece of trivia, is that the Riverthieves rebooked all of its cancelled 2020 shows, in the same order, in 2023: Almonte; Chelsea; Ottawa; Toronto; and a local festival.
2024 is earmarked for the creation of new songs, a new recording and a new live show!
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A nod to our Alumni
Devon Matsalla was a foundational member of the band, performing bagpipes, whistles, keyboards and the EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) from 2005 to 2010; and again from 2016 to 2019. His tenure was interrupted first by military deployments and then by a romantically-inspired move to Australia. His playing and song-writing is featured on both Bandit Queen and Soldier.
The constantly-kilted beatmaster, Terry Kittmer, played with the band from 2006 until his relocation to Nova Scotia in 2016. Terry was the percussionist on Bandit Queen. Drumming duties were passed on to Oscar Mullally until 2020. After COVID, Dave Hebert assumed the drummer’s throne (yes that’s really what they call it) in 2023.
A bevy of famous fiddlers have passed through the band’s ranks over the years: champion valley fiddler Terry-Lynn Mahusky; the gypsy-styled Finnish-Canadian Shanthi Minor; and the great, versatile session player, Greg Brown have all rosined up their bows in the service of the ‘Thieves. Javier Mullally and the classically trained and Irish-inspired Evan Lewis currently handle fiddle duties for the band. Shanthi was the featured fiddler on Bandit Queen and Javier on Soldier.
Above photos by: Mario De Meo
Photo: Peter Coffman