Greg Jarvis is a Toronto-born musician and composer best known for his work leading the orchestral rock group the Flowers Of Hell."Sound Advice: O by The Flowers of Hell". Torontoist. By Alex Nino Gheciu His various projects as a musician have received acclaim from members of The Velvet Underground, The Patti Smith Group, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, My Bloody Valentine, and Spacemen 3/Spiritualized. Jarvis's compositions are largely informed by timbre-to-shape synesthesia, a neurological trait which causes him to involuntarily see all sounds as layers of three dimensional shapes."If You Could Hear A Book, This Is How It Would Look". The Millions. Buzz Poole, 12 January 2012"The Flowers of Hell" . Drowned in Sound by Dom Gourlay 16 November 2010
Biography
Early life Jarvis was born in Toronto, Ontario where he was a Royal Canadian Air Cadet band leader and served briefly in the Canadian Army reserve forces."Westerners Don't Get That Russia Needs Putin". Huffington Post, 10 February 2014
Career Jarvis worked in marketing in the 1990s at the major label BMG in Toronto, Prague, Moscow, and Warsaw, and later for Universal International in London,"From vinyl to torrents - Who buys music anymore?" Water Buffalo Magazine By Cody Orme handling acts including Nirvana, "20 Years Ago I Watched Nirvana's Penultimate Show In Slovenia" "20 Years Ago I Watched Nirvana's Penultimate Show In Slovenia" 27 February 2014, Huffington Post David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Kiss, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Deep Purple, Annie Lennox, Patti Smith, Malcolm McLaren, Beck, Sonic Youth, and The Moody Blues, as well as Death In Vegas, Spectrum, Spiritualized, Cowboy Junkies and The Wedding Present with whose members he would later collaborate as an artist. Jarvis also worked as an executive at the BBC's Top Of The Pops where he conducted interviews with such acts as the Spice Girls, Queen, Alice Cooper, Depeche Mode, Oasis and Radiohead."Symphony No.1 With Flowers Of Hell - An Interview" "Symphony No.1 With Flowers Of Hell - An Interview" 2 January 2017, The Blog That Celebrates Itself
He is currently a professor at Durham College's Media, Art, & Design School where he teaches about music history and the music industry. "The Sights And Sounds Of Success" Reflections, By Joshua Zarobiak Previously he taught as a senior lecturer in the United Kingdom at London Metropolitan University, and Buckinghamshire New University. "Program Guide" Program Guide, 2011
Jarvis has given talks at institutions including Harvard, Oxford, Juilliard, The Kerouac School, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He wrote music related articles for the Huffington Post from 2013-2018. Presently in the 2020s, Jarvis writes interviews and cover stories for the international psychedelic rock magazine Second Scene, along with live reviews for the British music magazine Shindig.
The Tate Britain gallery included Jarvis's Come Hell Or High Water album cover adaptation of an Aubrey Beardsley illustration in their Beardsley exhibition and catalogue, with The Flowers of Hell performing at the opening ceremony, a few weeks prior to London's first coronavirus lockdown in 2020.
Musical history Prior to the Flowers of Hell, Jarvis played on Prague's underground music scene in the 1990s, "Prague's Music Scene" 20 March 1994, Velvet Magazine, By Matt Welch in Moscow rockabilly group Merzky Beat, and in The Red Stripes in the early 2000s (a London based comedy-reggae White Stripes tribute act he formed with drummer Guri Hummelsund.) "Review Club Velocity" 25 March 2005, By Emma Hughes, BBC Online "LondonNet Gig Review" 7 November 2004, By Steve Marshall, LondonNet "We stopped (The Red Stripes) when it started getting crazy big with Peel, the NME, BBC6, The Face, Duran Duran and some peripheral members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols getting into it. We signed to a Universal imprint, met The Wailers in a medieval fortress in Serbia, shot a video in Africa and felt we had to kill it before we became too known for it," Jarvis said reflecting in a 2015 Irish interview. "Flowers Of Hell Interview". 10 September 2015, Golden Plec, By Justin McDaid
Jarvis produced, composed, and performed on an album of Northern Soul covers and originals by Emma Wilkinson, whom he managed after she won the 2001 Stars In Their Eyes TV talent series performing Dusty Springfield's ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’. "The great pretender; With reality TV and talent shows, 15 minutes of fame is ever more attainable - but what happens when the show is over?". 25 April 2002, Coventry Evening Telegraph
He founded the Flowers of Hell in London in 2002 as a studio project, growing it into a live group in 2005 recruiting bandmates Abi Fry (later of British Sea Power and Bat For Lashes), Guri Hummelsund, Ruth Barlow, Steve Head, and Owen James."Mundo Musique: The Transatlantic Space-Rock Orchestra, Flowers of Hell". The Revue. 9 June 2014 by Ben Yung He returned to Canada in 2007 and formed another branch of the group, expanding its line up to encompass musicians living in both Toronto and London. He composes many of the pieces performed by the band,"". 6 November 2012, T-Mak by Eden Munro, Vue Weekly. and is its main guitarist.
Highlights of the group's career include Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground praising their artistry and commencing his final radio show by playing three of the group's recordings, the Tate Britain including their Come Hell Or High Water LP alongside The Beatles' Revolver in a 2020 Aubrey Beardsley exhibition and bringing the group in to perform at the opening, collaborating with members of their major influence Spacemen 3, being asked by Kevin Shields to open for My Bloody Valentine during the band's 2008 reunion, and NASA's mission control staff declaring their enjoyment of the group's ‘space rock’ with the shuttle launch team syncing footage of a Discovery mission to the Flowers Of Hell's ‘Sympathy For Vengeance’.
Synesthesia Jarvis has auditory-visual synesthesia which causes him to involuntarily and instantaneously perceive all sounds as abstract visual shapes surrounding him. In 2013 he founded the Canadian Synesthesia Association as a way of meeting other synethetes and raising awareness of synesthesia."Life with synesthesia: Toronto man who can see sounds shares his story". 28 January 2015, Metro – Toronto Edition. "Blended Senses". 30 July 2013, CBC The National"Synesthesia". 6 February 2015, CBC Ontario Today
Education Jarvis did summer studies under the octogenarian beat writer Bobbie Louise Hawkins at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado."Growing the Flowers Of Hell – An interview with bandleader Greg Jarvis". October 2012, By Daniel Korn, Cadence Magazine"The Flowers Of Hell Interview" 21 October 2012, Northern Transmissions
He also completed a master of arts in higher education teaching for which his thesis focused on how the mind processes music, and he holds an Arts & Media MBA.
Personal life In 2010, Jarvis was chased by a group of protesters in West Papua New Guinea after photographing their activities. He was held and questioned by rebel soldiers from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka and played a ukulele to demonstrate he was a musician, not a foreign spy."Flowers of Hell Leader Greg Jarvis Mistaken for Spy in Papua New Guinea, Forced to Play for His Life". Exclaim!, By Alex Hudson. 12 Oct 2010"Flowers of Hell Leader Mistaken for Spy". Pitchfork, By Ryan Dombal. 12 Oct 2010"Flowers of Hell Mainman Mistaken For MI5 Spy in Papua New Guinea – Greg Jarvis had to ‘play for his life’ while holidaying". NME, By Adam Bychawski. 12 Oct 2010
References
External links
Greg Jarvis at HuffPost