Music
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Exploring new territory
You would expect any band to feel some anxiety after its first major album garners it a place on the Polaris Prize shortlist and its sophomore effort is rewarded with an hour - and -a - half, track - by - track discussion on its release date with Grant Lawrence on CBC Radio 3.
But not Two Hours Traffic. -
All in the family
Sometimes tragedy kills creativity as much as it inspires it, but the arts don’t always pay the bills. Local rappers Mitchell and Michael Francisco (a.k.a. Lasing and Mikal) of Brakada use it to drive their upcoming album, a last effort to make it big in the music industry.
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Very, very good and growing exponentially
Steve Kirby won’t take credit for creating Winnipeg’s jazz scene. But make no mistake: The founder of the University of Manitoba’s jazz studies program feels he and his colleagues have poured some nitro on the fire.
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Good will haunting
It’s been said a good writer writes what he knows best. If that’s the case, Canadian alt-country rockers The Wheat Pool undoubtedly know their country like the back of their hand.
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The liberating shift into co-op mode
Things have been changing a lot for Matt Peters.
Since 2001, he’s become a familiar face to Winnipeg audiences as the red-haired rocker from local success story The Waking Eyes. -
A musical blast from the past
A children’s musician performing at a university may seem like an odd idea, but not for local hero Fred Penner.
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Blue skies ahead
If you’re a fan on Facebook of local pop-rock outfit Blue Sky Addicts, it’s quite possible that you found out their drummer quit before the band’s other members did.
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Stone cold crazy
In an age where it seems there are as many rock bands as there are stars in the sky, what does it take to rise above the rest?
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Change the world
Music had always played a big role in raising awareness of global issues. Joining the ranks of activist-musicians is 22-year-old Liam Titcomb, son of folk musician Brent Titcomb, and promoter of War Child, an internationally recognized charity that supports children and families in war-torn areas.
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Where the Watson is
When Patrick Watson found out director Spike Jonze was adapting the famed children’s book Where the Wild Things Are for the big screen, he knew just what he had to do.
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Sleeping in school buses, and loving it
Still fresh from winning a 2009 Juno award, a cappella group Chic Gamine is finally returning to Winnipeg for a long awaited hometown concert and a two-year anniversary celebration.
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Young Kidd goes hard
Violence, incarceration, police corruption and positivity in the face of adversity – these are the underlying dynamics of Frank “Young Kidd” Fontaine’s first full-length album, I Go Hard.
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War, capitalism and personal struggle set to sweet beats
Reggae fans will get more grooves for their green at this year’s Winnipeg Ska & Reggae Festival, with more bands and cheaper ticket prices.
Now in its fourth year, the festival, which runs Aug. 20 to Aug. 22, features an all-Canadian line-up and includes some of the most respected reggae artists in the country. It wasn’t organizer Matt Henderson’s original plan to feature strictly home-grown talent, but a poor Canadian dollar in January made it tough to book the big acts from Jamaica and the U.S. -
More accessible music for music’s sake
Kangaroos, koalas, throwing another shrimp on the barby – it’s all in a day’s work for Mikey Bwickers.
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Free to be different
Ask Winnipeg musician Ryan Settee what inspires him to be different, and he’ll answer with one word: Kittens.
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In and out with the F-Holes
The F-Holes are a local band with unusual instrumentation: Five-string banjo, upright bass, trumpet, pedal steel, guitar, drums and mandolin are just some of the instruments the boys in the band change between. With such a variety of sounds, one wonders what their music sounds like.
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The young and the restless
Elvis Costello and Arlo Guthrie may have been the big names that drew audiences to the 36th annual Winnipeg Folk Festival, but up-and-coming musicians you’ve never heard of were in the spotlight on the Shady Grove stage during the festival’s first full day
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Jazz Fest offers diverse line-up
Organizers are hoping a preview show will help kick this year’s Jazz Fest off with a bang, and believe the festival’s diversity will bring out more concert-goers.
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Not as old as the name implies
Think jazz and you think of four or five guys on stage in a smoky club, taking turns improvising solos over a 12-bar blues progression. You don’t think of Winnipeg-based one-man band Ricardo Lopez-Aguilar, who, during a typical live show, is armed only with his voice, a guitar, a laptop named Moses and maybe a drummer.
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Folk Fest preview
The Dust Poets put a unique and quirky twist on traditional folk music. Not every band can say a cowboy poetry reading in Brandon, Man. brought them together, but the Dust Poets can.