I must have been about twelve when I heard the track "Dynamite Walls" from Ontario songwriter Hayden's Skyscraper National Park. It had pre-loaded as a free track for Windows Media Player and unlike most of the tracks Microsoft gave out there was a strange beauty to it, a subtlety I really wasn't used to in music at the time. I hadn't heard the song for about a decade when I found out Hayden was playing tonight at the Waiting Room. Revisiting the song, I was surprised to find that it wasn't just an odd, throwaway bit of childhood nostalgia: it still works, it still moves.
Hayden is on his seventh album, Us Alone, now. According to the man himself, he was listed as dead on Wikipedia for sixth months without anyone bringing it to his attention. Fortunately, Hayden is not dead, and his compelling brand of indie-folk can be taken in tonight at 8pm for $20. Though he might be a forgotten artist for some, Hayden's is a voice that demands a revisit, a talent as resonate now as he was when I first played that WMP freebie.
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