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City TV Interview after The Daniel Jonston Show:

It’s hard to imagine a better storyline for a young songwriter.

It’s also hard to imagine a more likeable young songwriter than Ottawa’s Kirk Ramsay.

The diminutive 22-year-old, who records under the ironic moniker Giant Hand, is without a doubt the envy of many a musician after he had the honour of opening for Daniel Johnston on Saturday night at the Mod Club.

But the story of how he got there is something else.

Ramsay only started playing guitar in January of 2008 after seeing the The Devil And Daniel Johnston, the riveting film which documents the outsider artist that at once entrenched him as Ramsay’s hero and sparked a desire to learn the guitar and write moving folk songs with it.

So how did Ramsay/Giant Hand go from just learning about Johnston and guitar to opening for him with one in his hands?

Well, self-releasing his self-recorded debut EP Please Like Me and debut LP Coming Home as well as playing Pop Montreal helped. But the difference maker was little more than a kindly worded email to Johnston’s brother that had him opening for his idol less than two years after he decided to pick up a guitar. Amazing.

Ramsay says he’s in no hurry to record a proper album and just wants to enjoy the process and keep playing shows when possible. His soft voice and simple delivery should allow for that.

Perhaps the only challenge is finding a new goal, now that the original one was so quickly accomplished.

“Do I just stop now?” Ramsay jokingly asked after his Mod Club set.

At this point it seems unlikely.

Apt 613. Artist Spotlight:

When soft-spoken, bespectacled Kirk Ramsay takes the stage in his trademark plaid shirt, it’s hard to tell what to expect.  With all eyes on him, he hoists an acoustic guitar, adjusts his mike… and introduces himself as Giant Hand.

Having taught himself to play the guitar just over a year ago, Giant Hand had only played two live shows when he was invited to perform at last year’s Bluesfest.  The last time he stood on a Bluesfest stage, he’d barely written enough songs to fill up his set!  But since powering his way through that trial by fire, he’s put together a solid debut album, Coming Home, and has greatly expanded his repertoire of imaginative and introspective songs.

Giant Hand’s compositions are fairly simple, but the understated music only highlights his lyrical abilities.  On his album, he layers multiple tracks and enhances his arrangements with creative homemade instruments like loose change and wicker baskets, but onstage it’s just him, his guitar, and a voice you can’t mistake. Giant Hand has got that all-important talent for creating a unique sound, and his slightly off-key, sometimes hesitant warble gives him the makings of an indie icon.

Completely unpretentious, he delivers his words with an openness that has the audience hanging on every syllable, and his subjects range from the whimsical to the philosophical.  Whether he’s singing about his fear of death or retelling a childhood memory about reading a scary book under the covers, Giant Hand is a master at crafting lyrics that seem both wise beyond his years and heartbreakingly innocent.

Playing Bluesfest for the second time is the perfect way to cap off a whirlwind year of songwriting, recording and live shows, and there are surely more surprises to come from Giant Hand’s direction.  What can we say?  Keep rocking those plaid shirts, and keep the tunes coming.

Exclaim! Magazine album review:

Rumour has it that Ottawa's Kirk Ramsay picked up a guitar for the first time — only a-year-and-a-half ago — after watching the documevntary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Adopting the name Giant Hand, Ramsay's first LP, Coming Home, features a collection of songs clearly indebted to the aforementioned outsider legend, while incorporating Devendra Banhart's flighty delivery. Vulnerable, peculiar and full of ethereal imagery expertly bordering on the bizarre, brazen and banal, Coming Home veers between the hauntingly barren ("The Beast," "Down By The River") and the improbably jocular ("No Son of Mine," "Starting as People"). Ramsay relies on Johnston's blueprint just a bit too much on this debut but his compositions remain so undyingly captivating and earnest that Coming Home might spell out the beginnings of a brilliant career from a musician striving to find his inner oddball.

Exclaim! Magazine show review:

Next was Ottawa’s Giant Hand, whose markedly eccentric and magnetic songs rechristened Maverick’s stage as sort of a Northern Roswell, aping the alien visage of Daniel Johnston with the pointed beauty of Jandek. Giant Hand’s songs pierced the audience with innocence, clarity and a vulnerability that lesser artists often fake.

Fazer Album Review:

It was while watching a documentary on folk icon Daniel Johnston, that Kirk became inspired to create his own form of folk art and traded in some possessions for an acoustic guitar.  He proceeded to teach himself a few basic chords, which he translated into 2 EPs and a handful of live shows that same year.

Things have snowballed for Giant Hand since that winter.  He has most recently released his first full length CD and has watched his life come full circle as the opening act for Daniel Johnston at the Mod Club in Toronto on October 17/09.

This CD entitled ‘Coming Home’ is a mix of simplistic, honest, folk tunes.  From the 2 minute track ‘Intro’ which is not unlike listening to a child’s windup toy albeit with a sad lonely twist, to the unapologetic off-key vocals on ‘Beast’, I feel a charming innocence emanating from this singer songwriter.  Being a novice guitarist does hinder him to some extent, however the constant strum on ‘Catacombs’ doesn’t require any more sophistication.

The song ‘The Villagers hate this Villager’ has accompanying tambourine that adds some depth and the harmonica interlude on ‘No Son of Mine’ serves well to convey the frustration and loneliness of the songs lyrics.  If I had to describe the CD in ten words or less I would say it is one story broken down into 10 chapters.

All in all ‘Coming Home’ is a testament to the idea that if you want to create art and have something in your soul that needs to be released, all it takes is one mans passion and a guitar.

Hour.ca Article:

So, as we all know, the music business is really, really vicious. Like, it's incredibly hard to get into it, to be good enough to get into it. It's not like you can just pick up a guitar today and get a gig and then get known and have people want to buy your stuff tomorrow. As we all know, there are the good and the lucky and most of them get destroyed in the music business, which is cruel and unforgiving and harder to crack than the starting five of the Boston Celtics.

So, anyway, there's this dude from Ottawa named Kirk Ramsay. He picked up a guitar one day, for the first time. He was pretty okay at it. Two months later, Kirk Ramsay was leading a double life: As Kirk Ramsay, mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet, and as supermusician Giant Hand.

Two months after picking up that guitar he was playing a show with Immaculate Machine in the basement of an O-town record store.

Just. Two. Months. After. Picking. Up. A Guitar.

Then he opened for Born Ruffians.Then he opened for Handsome Furs. And Human Highway. And Timber Timbre. And Bruce Peninsula.

We're sure we don't have to go nuts explaining there's something special about Giant Hand. This, we're sure, is something you can ascertain for yourself. But, if you need help, we can toss some quotes at you.

IHeartMusic says "Giant Hand might just be one of the most interesting, unique and exciting artists to come out of Ottawa in a very long time." Exclaim! says that "His compositions remain so undyingly captivating and earnest that Coming Home might spell out the beginnings of a brilliant career."

What's Coming Home, you ask? Oh, nothing. Just Giant Hand Ramsay's debut release, which he's taking on the road for two Pop Montreal appearances and a massively cool show in Toronto where he's going to be opening for (OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG) Daniel Johnston.

I(heart)Music album review:

That I'm a big fan of Coming Home should come as little surprise to anyone reading this. After all, I loved Giant Hand's self-titled EP from last year (even placing it among my favourite albums of 2008), while just last week I voted for it for the Polaris Prize (though I was probably the only person who did so).

Still, it's one of those albums that I can't help but want to rave about as much as possible. For the most part, it's for the reasons that made me so enthusiastic about Giant Hand in the first place. Kirk Ramsay (the name Giant Hand goes by when he's not performing) still sings with a frail, vulnerable voice, but -- as is made abundantly clear from the heartbreakingly lonely "Intro" that opens up the album -- he clearly knows how to make that vulnerability work to his advantage as he sings about God and Satan and ghosts and bumblebees. Similarly, his guitar playing is still fairly rudimentary (though, after having been playing for a year and a half, he's made obvious progress), but it doesn't need to be much more than that when it works so well (as he demonstrates with the persistent strum that underlines "Catacombs").

That said, Ramsay has made clear progress that vaults him from simply having the potential to be one of the most exciting artists in the city, to actually being one of those most exciting and interesting artists Ottawa has to offer (which is meant as a far bigger compliment than it may come off as). He's figured out how to add little things here and there that augment his music without distracting from the core pieces -- as evidenced by the ghostly whispers in "Catacombs", and the sliding guitar noises that start off "No Orchestra", and the backing tambourine on "The Villagers Hate This Villager". He also seems to have realized that vulnerability works just as well with love songs as it does on songs about being haunted by spirits, if "Starting As People" is any indication. To top it all of, his debut full-length shows a surprising amount of ambition -- a close read of/listen to the lyrics reveals that Coming Home is actually a concept album that tells the story of a man haunted by spirits who is exiled from his village and needs to find his way back home.

Or something like that. Truth be told, for me the details of what Giant Hand is singing about are secondary to how he conveys them. He's a skilled storyteller and lyricist, to be sure, but he's even more gifted at creating a certain mood and conveying a specific emotion. Further, with Coming Home he's demonstrated that he knows how to carry out his ideas over the course of a full-length album; here's hoping that it's a sign that he'll be able to parlay his skills into a long and productive career.