The Band

Illiteratty is a folk band on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, also known as Vancouver, BC.

We play metafolk… meaning, original swing, European cabaret, ambient, celtic, rockabilly, a cappella, folk, world, pop, (did we mention folk?); with sharp lyrics and up to five-part vocals.

Our instrumentation is for three to six musicians, and our full complement includes guitar, mandolin, violin, keys/accordion, upright bass and small percussion. Our music is funny, angry, idiosyncratic, intelligent, and extremely varied.

Earle Peach
(Guitar, Vocals, Songwriting)

“Everyone has the right to create beauty.”
Earle Peach

A music lover in every sense, Earle dedicates his life to bringing this expressive art to folks from all walks of life. He teaches and plays many instruments, and remains a lifelong learner. He is also a longtime activist for the environment and human rights, gathering with people from all walks of life to lift up all voices in protest, and in joy.

He has been a fixture on the Vancouver folk music landscape for decades, playing with Songtree, Natural Elements, Ship of Fools, Flying Ship, Sudanda and countless others. He teaches a variety of music skills and creates music for film, video and theatre. Because Earle is such a prolific composer (he’s probably composing something right now), he does the lion’s share of the writing for Illiteratty.

Earl is also known as a non-yelling conductor who leads many Vancouver choirs, arranging music and singing all the parts from bass to soprano in the choral music he teaches. Earle’s broadly diverse selections hail from many parts of the world, and every imaginable era. His arrangement of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” is an Inchoiring Minds fan favourite.

Earle’s rampant musicophilia is perhaps what makes Illiteratty’s songs so great; his wide-ranging influences appear in the songs he writes and arranges, with the band members’ unique and harmonic voices in mind. Together, Illiteratty’s moving vocal harmonies are good medicine for perpetually-strange times.

As a youngster, Earle recalls loving Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid Suite. “Go Tell Old Bill” is the first song he learned to play and sing, but confesses with a wry smile and humble charm: “Dave Van Ronk does a better job than I did.”

Songs for New Fans

Earle hints that folks can expect music videos for “After the War” and “My Sense of Sin” (both from Perfection at It’s Best) some time in 2021.

  Ellen Van der Hoeven

Ellen grew up in a musical family in Kingston, Ontario. Her mother loved choral music, madrigals and opera, while her father played trumpet in a Canadian Forces band during the day and in a jazz quintet at night. One of her earliest musical memories is of creeping halfway down the stairs at night to listen unobserved while her mother’s madrigal group practiced in the living room. She is told that she was only two when she began to try to match the long trumpet notes that her dad was playing while warming up for his practice sessions. Her father later introduced her to folk music and she began to seek out the folk revivalists like Joan Baez and Ewan McCall. She grew up singing all the time, but only started to take instruments seriously as an adult. She played guitar first, then added penny whistle, to join in Irish sessions, and finally took up the mandolin.

Arriving in Vancouver, Ellen found the Vancouver Folk Song Society and soon joined two friends she met there in a trio called Three Strong Winds. She was a big fan of Earle’s group, Natural Elements at that time, going to their concerts whenever possible. Vocal harmony has been an important feature of her musical endeavours.

Other groups she has played with: Dark Willow, a duo playing mostly traditional music on guitar and penny whistle, The Neverly Sisters, another duo playing originals and jazz inflected songs, and her current group, JES Trio, playing a variety of originals and rootsy cover songs. She also plays Pete Seeger inspired American folk songs with her husband, Tom Rawson in My American Boyfriend. A side trip into electric blues/rock expanded her range, but she has mostly stuck to acoustic folk, roots and swing styles.

Ellen joined Illiteratty in the early spring of 2023 and is enjoying honing her mandolin skills and testing herself on Earle’s challenging, brilliant tunes. Her favourite Illiteratty song is When I Was a Crow, but there are many more favourites in the back catalog that she is hoping to play soon.

Natalie Philp
(Bass, Vocals)

“I think the eclectic nature of my listening experience as a child is what attracts me to the music of Illiteratty.” Natalie Philp

If variety is the spice of life, then Natalie Philp’s musical upbringing was full of flavour. Growing up, there seemed to be an endless rotation of music on the turntable, courtesy of her dad’s love of Sam the Record Man in Toronto. Tunes varied from Oscar Peterson and Thelonious Monk, to Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat”, along with the Beatles and Rolling Stones, folk singers Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ann Murray, Gordon Lightfoot and Pete Seeger, Petula Clark and back to Benny Goodman—and everything in between.

Natalie has a hard time choosing one song that reminds her of home. They all do, because music is home. So she asked her dad, and he chose Super Tramp’s “Give A Little Bit” because it sounded so great blasting out of his giant speakers. For a time, they lived two miles from any neighbour, and playing the stereo loud was a privilege they appreciated and took full advantage of.

Natalie also remembers her mom singing “You are My Sunshine” and “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” and her dad playing the four songs he knew on guitar at bedtime. “Yellow Bird” by Harry Belafonte, “Lemon Tree” by Peter Paul and Mary, “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals and “Go To Sleep My Weary Hobo” by Pete Seeger all passed for lullabies back home.

Natalie has been absorbed into the haven of music since drifting through obligatory childhood lessons, socializing her way through high school band, and more recently playing with a local drum group for about six years. Her memories of playing music really kicked in when she picked up the bass a few years ago, and the first song she learned by memory, and played publicly, was “Home Dear Home” with support and encouragement from her good friend John Lyon who wrote the lyrics to this song.

When asked what the world would be like without music, she replies: “Homeless. What is a movie like without a sound track? Tooo quiet. One might as well have neighbours. Music certainly helped with the isolation. Without it, what would there be to trigger our memories?”

Songs for New Fans

If Natalie had her way, new fans would listen to all of Illiteratty songs! To listen to only one would lead one in only one direction, and that wouldn’t be much fun from her perspective. But she does recommend: “Go For a Walk” (from It’s Getting Late) because it’s super catchy and proactive, and she thinks of it every time she goes for a walk outside.

Wesley Skakun
(Percussion)

“Who would think that in these graceless days
Of language upside down and words turned to horns
In the quiet there’s a place to be once more
Among the dryads and unicorns?”‘

Silent Beneath Trees (Through the Mirror)
Written by Earle Peach, performed by Illiteratty

Wesley grew up during the sixties in small town North Eastern Alberta. “On the vast, cold and snowy prairies, it must have been odd to hear the festive sounds of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass wafting from our rumpus room,” says Wes. Older brother Gary introduced these records into his world, and “as I danced,” he remembers, “the rhythms of the marimbas and maracas lifted the spirits and warmed my toes.”

Having studied classical piano since he was six years old, Wesley turned to drums, percussion and the rock scene during his teens. In 1983 he completed Jazz and Performance at VCC and his musical spectrum further broadened to orchestral performances with the Calgary Philharmonic and Vancouver Philharmonic. Wesley has since contributed to several original small ensemble, theatrical and experimental projects.

The music of Gordon Lightfoot always takes Wesley back home to the prairies with images of “slanted rays and coloured days, stark blue horizons, naked limbs and wheat bins, hazy afternoons.” He makes his present home in the watery wetlands of the South Fraser delta with a love of nature as varied as his love of music.

Songs for New Fans

To make a short list from a wealth of great music, Wes chooses one from each album (in no particular order):

Barbara Dominik
(Fiddle, Vocals)

Barb was found floating in a cello case among the rushes of the Thompson River many years ago. She plays music as much as she can in as many styles as she can, and aspires to shred on an electric violin.

When she isn’t playing music Barb sees to the needs of a menagerie of dogs, cats, horses and people. Her house is not cleaned too often.

Photo credit: Jack’s Camera