BURPEE AND MILLS—It was the summer of 2023 when drummer Sim Kaplan retired from his automotive trade career in Newmarket and moved to Silver Water on Manitoulin Island. Mr. Kaplan was just kicking back, relaxing on the Stop 540 restaurant patio, when he overheard a cell phone recording of someone singing an original country song.
Inquiring as to who was singing on the recording, Bianca Taylor replied “that’s my husband, Gye Taylor.” Mr. Taylor might be more familiar to Manitoulin Island residents as the road superintendent/public works manager at Burpee and Mills Township. “I work mostly out of Evansville,” notes Mr. Taylor.
It didn’t even take a week before Mr. Kaplan had corralled Mr. Taylor into the small recording studio he had built in his cabin to sing a few tracks over his acoustic guitar recordings.
“He told me, ‘You have a unique voice’,” recalled Mr. Taylor. “I have been playing music pretty much my whole life, but it has been campfire stuff.”
That initial meeting acted as the catalyst for a collaboration between the duo and they have been writing and recording ever since. Their mission “is to write songs simply for the fun of writing catchy singles in their pastime.”
‘Shadows N Dust’ came out of those sessions.
“In February of 2024 we played on air in British Columbia on 83.1 CHLW The Bear,” said Mr. Kaplan. “After much writing and hard work we were featured on Rock 95 in Barrie on the Garage to Glory segment in March 2025. A huge accomplishment for us with our song ‘Hell or High Water.’
“We are currently working with a new band and getting a playlist down so that we will be able to do venues in the foreseeable future,” said Mr. Taylor, but he noted that collecting the musicians together has proved to be slightly challenging. Then there is rehearsing enough to get the band sounding like the recordings that were produced in the studio.
“We have had a number of requests to play,” said Mr. Taylor, “but we just are not ready for that just yet. Hopefully soon.”
Mr. Taylor noted that the gig on Garage to Glory on Rock 95 was a huge boost for the singer/songwriters.
Shadows N Dust’s music can be heard on Reverbnation at www.reverbnation.com/taylorsim and evokes the very soul of the classic rock sound—Manitoulin’s answer to CCR? Well, time will tell, but if the clips supplied to The Expositor are any indication, Mr. Kaplan and company may well have a second career in the offing. Their single ‘Come Hell or High Water’ came over the wire with remarkably professional polish for a recording studio nestled away in a Manitoulin Island cabin.
Fans of the classic rock sound will want to check out their tunes (which can also be found online at YouTube), but beware, it could leave the listener anxiously awaiting their future live performances.
