Local musician putting Windsor on the map

When Jarrett Sorko was 13 years old, he picked up a guitar and knew he had found his career – but little did he realize he would find success in the comedic music genre.

In high school, he played guitar in a band, Flaming Yawn, but it was never enough. Inspired by his favorite band Sum-41 and comedian Bo Burnham, he began to write his own material.

“I saw Bo Burnham for the first time in 2009. He was starting off on YouTube. He wasn’t that big back then, there were about 50 people at his show,” said Sorko. “After that, I started writing comedic songs and performing them at Leo’s Komedy Korner in Windsor.”

Sorko started doing home recordings in 2009 and found success when he wrote the local hit song Yo I’m From Windsor Dude. It released in March 2011.

Sorko had the idea for the song when he was using YouTube and searched “Windsor Ontario.” When nothing came up he wanted to write a signature song so that when people searched for “Windsor,” his song would come up.

The song went viral and YouTube was sending him emails.

“By the end of the first week of the song being out, it had 40,000 views and the Windsor Star wrote a story,” said Sorko. “It had an insane amount of views. I was surprised. I remember I had a Blackberry and it was going off so much I had to turn off the notifications.”

Windsorites are pleased that Sorko put a positive light on Windsor and is publicizing the city’s name.

“I met Jarrett through comedy back in July. The cool thing is before I met him, I had heard about him and seen a few of his music videos so it was essentially meeting a local celebrity,” said Chris Mailloux a 23-year-old St.Clair College student in Windsor. “Overall, I think he has helped put a spotlight on Windsor, his song 519 being a great example. Every single word in that song is Windsor and in the end, it’s a great piece of art that helps make people truly appreciate Windsor.

Mailloux also said the song 519 helps people be more appreciative of Windsor. Other fans say it is bringing more attention to the city.

“I think Jarrett has done a great job at revamping the comedy scene in Windsor especially with the release of his 519 video,” said Elyza Macher, a 24-year-old University of Windsor student studying Kinesiology. “Before the video, I know a lot of people were unaware that Windsor even had a comedy scene.”

Sorkos new album is called Jarret Sorko 4 Mayor. The album consists of five songs intersected with skits.

On Feb 15, Sorko recorded his newest music video for the song All Over Your Face at the The Windsor Beer Exchange downtown. For this particular shoot, which was sponsored by Macleans Brewery, Sorko did something a bit different. He filmed the video in a concert and party type scene. Sorko invited out friends and local Windsorites who wanted to come to attend the shoot.

The style of the video was Sorko on and off stage partying and performing with fans as the fans danced and had a good time. There was also other creative aspects shot for the video by Mike LeClair.

Sorko has very loyal fans who say they love his music and think highly of him. He was signing autographs after the show.

“Besides being super talented, Jarrett is a genuinely nice, down to earth and humble person,” said Macher. “Even though I have Jarrett’s newest album on my iPod and listen to his songs all the time, they always make me laugh. The video shoot was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

Sorko said the videos for the album are almost finished now.

“We have four videos other than this one wrapped up now from this album,” said Sorko. “There is one more that I am actually going to do a surprise release for, hopefully soon.”

Sorko said they had been planning this video for about eight months. The last video they shot was in May of last year.

“We hardcore planned this video the last two weeks,” said Sorko. “I think 40 to 50 people came out tonight, I knew about half the crowd. We got a sponsor from MacLeans brewery as well for the video tonight. The first 20 people that came out, beer was on us.”

People had a lot of fun and thought it was cool that MacLeans Brewery sponsored the shoot.