Volume 69, Number 16

Published January 14, 2015

Download PDF

  • Fashion Streeter

    The Uniter Fashion Streeter is an ongoing documentation of creative fashion in Winnipeg inspired by the Helsinki fashion blog www.hel-looks.com. Each issue will feature a new look from our city’s streets and bars in an attempt to encourage individual expression and celebrate that you are really, really good looking.

  • Fill your spare with song

    For the busy student or educator puttering away on campus, music can be an escape.

  • The Final Frontier

    Campus radio has been thriving in Winnipeg for decades, and in 2015 it’s still going strong.

  • Speaking Volumes

    By its very nature, music is a mode of expression. It affects people in ways that other mediums fail to do and messages conveyed through music often create a ripple effect throughout society.

  • Backstage costs

    Who doesn’t love a local show? It’s an evening for hanging out with friends, watching cool bands for cheap admission and drinking beer. Winnipeg loves its local performers and they love us back. However, most of us are not cut out to be in the bands we enjoy seeing - the hours are long and irregular and it often takes months before they see the kind of cash they need to move forward. New bands need a combination of talent, energy and a determination that is downright stubborn.

  • The New Wild

    In just four songs, brothers Daniel and Sean Guezen deliver more grit and dirt than a lot of bands do in a whole career.

  • Various

    Opening with The Civil Disobedients’ “Car Seat” - a track about a woman murdering her two children - this 14 song comp from local label Elephant Bell is intense, heavy and free on Bandcamp. 

  • Crooked Brothers

    Recorded in both a warehouse and a hand-built log cabin, The Crooked Brothers’ third studio album Thank You I’m Sorry resonates with the lonesome snarl of a concrete outlaw. 

  • ALFA

    Local hip hop artist Alfa’s latest, Harmattan is a solid, bob-your-head slice of funk, totally free of DJ work and samples we’ve come to expect from decades of hip hop. 

  • Johan Agebjorn

    Swedish electronic artist Johan Agebjörn’s latest album Notes is being labelled as an ambient record, which is a bit of a misnomer. 

  • À La Mode

    Local songstress Dominique Lemoine has been making music as À La Mode and with others (Eagle Lake Owls, etc) for years, but this trio of tunes marks the first proper release from her solo project. 

  • The grant and the fury

    So you’re a poet songwriter, dropping Dylan-level science on your tiny but dedicated fan base in trendy coffee shops around town. Yet, you’ve never recorded a note and EarShot’s not in your vocabulary, so the notion of grant writing seems daunting.

  • Where are they now?

    FINN

    This quintet released its debut EP in December. Our reviewer found it reminiscent of late period Death Cab and early Teenage Fanclub, praising its diverse use of vocalists. Catch the band January 24 at The Good Will with Close Talker and ATLAAS.

  • Ready for take-off

    Most of the musicians in Mabel’s Flight are still in their final year of high school, but that isn’t stopping the band from starting to establish itself in Winnipeg’s indie music scene.

  • Home with the Bell

    Carey J. Buss first picked up a guitar at age 12 after hearing his dad’s copy of AC/DC’s Back in Black on a primitive cassette tape. But it was a piece of life-changing advice - “If you can’t find the music you really want to listen to, make it yourself” - that inspired him to dust off his guitar and start writing songs of his own in 2013.

  • Still with enthusiasm

    The members of up-and-comers autumn still are a humble group - too humble to even use capital letters in their band name. “We’re not looking to be in-your-face,” vocalist and bassist Bethany Swanson says with a smile.

  • Sing along, Boys

    The Janzen Boys have come a long way from after-dinner sing-alongs and silly hallway jingles.

  • Sprechen Sie Somebody?

    There are many contradictions at the heart of Somebody Language, the creative musical brainchild of songwriter and frontman Benjiman Figler. This singer-songwriter project is also a huge, sometimes eight-piece band.

  • Good and evil

    J. Williamez might be familiar to Uniter readers for a number of reasons. For years the musician/comedian penned his Good and Evil column for our back page, and just last week the latest record from his band The Civil Disobedients, Another Dead Medium, was voted the favourite local release of 2014 by our readers.

  • Making music look good

    Scrimping on album art isn’t a smart choice. Winnipeg is lucky to have a number of talented graphic designers eager to help bands create eye-catching pieces of art to inspire interest in their sounds.

  • The Show Must Go On

    Among all of the new businesses cropping up in West Broadway and the West End, there is one familiar old mainstay with a colourful facade that rarely fails to draw a crowd.

  • Another fiver

    Margaret Howison - Like a Noise (February)

    Recorded at the legendary Private Ear, this six-song EP from Howison will hopefully host tunes similar to the intimate, campfire-ready tracks that pepper her soundcloud page (think Ruth Moody, Haley Bonar). Catch her release show at The Good Will on February 5.

  • Business and pleasure

    The role of talent management in music has existed as long as the music industry itself. Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and unofficial “fifth Beatle” Brian Epstein were essential to the success and influence of those artists. 

  • Unpopular Opinions

    You hear two big things about the Winnipeg music scene: That it is a warm, welcoming place where artists are nurtured and able to grow, with shows every night of the week at world class venues. You also hear that it is incredibly cliquey and that people who are friends with certain people have an unfair advantage.

  • Working Thesis

    A comic strip by Paul Hewak.

  • Whose House? Christine & John’s house.

    Christine Fellows greets me at the door and immediately offers a cup of ginger tea, and it barely takes half a moment to feel welcomed and warmed. Fellows and John K Samson are each notable musicians, writers and all-around creators with a vast body of work between them.

  • Greek Riots

    Greek Riots just played its first show almost a year ago at the first Uniter Fiver showcase, but the guys are already showing that they’re capable of penning well-crafted indie-rock tunes that are worth your time.