Justin Rutledge Live @ the Calgary Folk Fest: From Canada Live (CBC Radio 2)

CBC Radio 2 went to the 2009 Calgary Folk Festival and recorded a show by one of Canada's finest singer songwriters, Justin Rutledge - then they brought it home, chose some hilights and made an MP3 for you:



Download it Here

Matthew Barber Tour AB & BC

Via Facebook update:

Just a reminder that Matthew will be playing The Theatre Centre in Toronto tonight August 12 at 10pm. Tickets are $10 and available at the door. This will be Matthew's last Toronto show for some time.

For those in the west, Matthew will be making his way out Alberta and BC for some solo dates that preview a lot of his new material from his forthcoming album.

Matthew Barber Solo Tour:

Thursday September 24
Communitea Cafe
#117 1001 6th Avenue
Canmore, Alberta
T1W 3L8
Tickets $15 / $18 at door
www.thecommunitea.com

Saturday, September 26
CKUA Presents
Matthew Barber, w/ Lindsay Ell, and Jody Glenham
Liberty Lounge, Mount Royal College
Calgary
Doors 8 pm
Advance tickets $13, plus applicable service charges, and will be available at Ticketmaster (www.ticketmaster.ca) and Megatunes, as of Tuesday, Aug 4th @ 10 am.

Sunday, September 27
Matthew Barber, w/ Treelight Room, and Lindsay Ell
The Habitat, 248 Leon Ave
Kelowna
Doors 8 pm
Advance tickets $10, plus applicable service charges, and will be available at Leo's Video (2680 Pandosy Street. 250-861-8437), and The Habitat. On sale Tuesday, Aug 4th.

Monday, September 28

Matthew Barber, w/ Jody Glenham, and Rose Ranger
The Media Club, 685 Cambie Street
Vancouver
Doors 8 pm
Advance tickets $14, plus applicable service charges, and will be available at www.mediaclub.ca/tickets , and Zulu Records, as of Tuesday, Aug 4th.


News on the new album coming soon!

Video of the Day: the Fast Romantics ~ “Sleepy Jean”

The Fast Romantics released their debut, self-titled album a few months back but are finally going to celebrate it’s release with fellow Calgarians and good friends Secret Broadcast (who are soon to release their debut album, Exploding Spiders). The joint CD Release party will take place on August 15th, 2009 in Calgary at the Warehouse with special guests the Shagbots...

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO AND READ MORE!

Library Voices Leave Message for Thieves

Hailing from Regina, Library Voices formed (all ten of them) in early 2008 and have already opened for some big names. Earlier this week in their hometown, they were the supporting act for Black Francis and tomorrow night, they’ll be warming up the crowd in Calgary before Hawksley Workman hits the stage at Flames Central. However, it’s this message they issued that intrigues us most...

READ THE REST ON OFF THE DIAL!

Secret Broadcast Announce Exploding Spiders

It’s official! Calgary’s Secret Broadcast have revealed details surrounding their debut full-length CD.

Exploding Spiders was produced by Juno Award winner Laurence Currie (who’s also worked with Wintersleep, Sloan, Holy Fuck and In-Flight Safety) and recorded in parts at Audio Audities in Bearspaw, AB, Currie’s own Toronto studio and in a 10×6 foot room in singer Matt Lightstone’s basement they dubbed “Hot Box Studios”. It was then mastered by Noah Mintz (Broken Social Scene, the National, Death From Above 1979) in Toronto...

READ THE REST AND HEAR A TRACK FROM THE NEW ALBUM ON OFF THE DIAL!

Exploding Concerts at Blow Out arts festival feat. Beija Flor, Dolly Sillito, Clinton St. John

The filling Station literary magazine in Calgary is hosting its 5th Annual Blow Out! arts festival this upcoming weekend, including concerts with The Beija Flor with Dolly Sillito (Chickenwire Records), and Clinton St. John (of The Cape May and Pale Air Singers, both Flemish Eye) with The Ogden Owls.

Photo by Dave Kenney

This dangerously explosive festival, benefit, and launch for Filling Station Magazine and NoD Magazine once again puts the spotlight on Calgary’s innovative writing & arts community with 7 exciting events featuring readings, performances, concerts, art, film, and more!

Event C: Exploding Concert!
Friday July 3, 9:30 PM, $8
Arrata Opera Centre, 1315 - 7 Street SW
Bands: The Beija Flor with Dolly Sillito
--
Event G: Exploding Concert!
Saturday, July 4, 9:30 PM, $8
Arrata Opera Centre1315 - 7 Street SW
Bands: Clinton St. John with The Ogden Owls

Andrew Wedderburn, lately of Calgary rock stalwarts Hot Little Rocket, will host the Friday evening literary event before the Exploding Concert! See the whole schedule at calgaryblowout.blogspot.com, and check out the rest of the festival, too. There's no rockstar like a poet, trust.


TICKETS: $5 per Performance Event, $8 per Exploding Concert, or $20 Festival Pass. Available Now at Megatunes, Pages Books on Kensington, and Sloth Records.

Sled Island Featured Artist ~ Ladyhawk

This rock quartet hails from Vancouver and have been around since 2004. Formed by best friends (singer/guitarist Duffy Driediger, lead guitarist Darcy Hancock, bassist Sean Hawryluk and drummer Ryan Peters) from Kelowna, BC, Ladyhawk have made a name for themselves in the independent scene despite some reported struggles.

Signed to Jagjaguwar records (home also to Pink Mountaintops, Julie Doiron, Okkervil River, Women and the new Dinosaur Jr.), the group released their self-titled debut album in 2006 and quickly followed with the 12" EP Fight for Anarchy a year later. When it came time to record their second full-length, the four holed themselves up in an old barn with no working bathroom in Kelowna. As they toured in support of Shots (release in March, 2008), the band expressed in an interview the disheartened feeling when very few people showed up for their U.S. shows. However, Canadian performances were better and the group forges on...

READ THE REST ON OFF THE DIAL!

Sled Island Organizer Speaks to NxEW

Sled Island, as previously reported, is Calgary’s mammoth multi-venue music and arts festival and it’s less than two weeks away! In anticipation of the festival, NxEW was able to line up an interview with festival founder Zak Pashak.

When asked why he continues to choose Calgary as ground-zero for Sled Island, Zak Pashak says, “I think the festival encourages open-mindedness and has a larger political purpose in bringing smart people in Alberta together.”

Now in its third year, Sled Island has garnered lots of attention locally, abroad, and online as the premier showcase for Western Canadian bands and visual artists. After witnessing thousands of music fans flock to Sled Island two years in a row, the City of Calgary’s Mayor’s Office has started to play an active role in supporting the organizer’s desire to promote emerging artists and youth culture.

“More people are getting involved and people are putting a lot of love into making [the festival] work,” says Zak. “Teresa Byrne in Arts and Culture [at the City of Calgary] has been amazing. If you see her and you like Sled Island, please give her a hug!”

The biggest difference in store for this year’s festival is the selection of Olympic Plaza as the main outdoor all-ages venue. On Friday evening, there is a stunning line-up, including The Summerlad (Calgary), Malajube (Montreal), Biz Markie (NYC), M5 (Calgary), Anvil (Toronto), Holy Fuck (Toronto), Liars (NYC) and The Breeders (Dayton). This will no doubt be among the noisiest night in downtown Calgary’s recent history. Zak highlights Liars as being a potentially difficult band to book:

“Maybe Liars would have been really hard to get except they are huge fans of Colin Newman's so they wanted to come. They are going to blow people away.”

Colin Newman, front man for Wire, an influential post-punk band that rocked the festival in 2008, was chosen as this year’s guest curator. For the past year, he has been helping with the “big picture” strategy for the festival in an effort to make it as good as it can be for the city. According to Zak, Colin fell in love with Calgary and the fans that enthusiastically supported his band last year. He will also be performing with his new project, Githead.

As for great local showcases, Zak points to the shows at the Bamboo on Thursday and at The Lord Nelson throughout the festival. A remarkable feature about Sled Island is its unique ability to host shows in unusual venues. This year boasts the addition of the local hipster hotdog stand, Tubby Dog, unique, posh art spaces like TrépanierBaer, the John Dutton auditorium at the central branch of the Calgary Public Library and the Higher Ground coffee shop to the list of innovative spaces from past festivals.

To grace the stage of these myriad venues, there are over 250 bands scheduled to appear (including 50 from Vancouver alone!) If all this seems overwhelming, Zak noted some key changes to the festival website that are designed to help navigate the line-up. One of the main challenges in organizing this kind of event is that many bands are virtually unknown outside “music geek” circles, but he ensures that, “the website is less cluttered and a pretty powerful tool. With a little digging, you can start to find out some very interesting things about the bands we booked.”

The addition of a regular podcasts on the website has also made the discovery of new artists much more approachable.

The main festival runs from Wednesday June 24th to Saturday the 27th, but there are related events, parties, and screenings scheduled from Tuesday to Sunday.

If you are thinking of making the trek to Calgary for Sled Island, Zak says, “please do.”

Hot Little Rocket Announce New Album and Impending Split

Originally published on Off the Dial.

The news that Calgary's Hot Little Rocket were going to release a new album wasn't that big of a surprise. In fact, vocalist Andrew Wedderburn told me as much when he revealed to me they were writing new material at their January show at the Palomino. When they released the official news today though, I was not prepared for the additional announcement.

"Hot Little Rocket will be releasing a new album this summer/fall. We recorded 12 new songs with 2 of our favourite people, Lorrie Matheson and Dave Alcock. The tentative release date will more than likely be our 11th anniversary in September because we took way too long to finalize the details," read the statement released by drummer Joel Nye on the band's official site, facebook and MySpace pages. "And yes, the plan is for the band to split up, sell the house, disrupt the kid's lives and move to opposite sides of the island."

As many fans of the band know, three of the four members have other projects so it's no surprise that Nye continued saying, "Aaron (Smelski) will continue on with Heat-Ray who have a new record out this summer, Matt (Swann) will release his solo venture this summer as "extra happy ghost!!!" I will continue playing with Key to the City and yes, we also have a new record coming out this summer.... that's right one band tied to 4 new records and all this summer....FYI, Andrew is also in the process of gathering some crazed individuals to rock some roll (name and lineup not released at press time)... so you really want to know why we are breaking up, because breakups mean much more hard feelings, anger and depression....and anger and depression leads to more creativity, and more creativity leads to more records."

Sad news indeed. However, one must focus on the good news, being that we will get a brand new album of Hot Little Rocket material (the first since their excellent 2007 release How to Lose Everything) and there will be a few chances to catch them live one last time. They are one of the highlighted bands on this year's Sled Island festival with a show at Dicken's Pub on Thursday, June 25th with Fox Opera, Ladyhawk, Yukon Blonde and the Paperbacks. They will also be playing an outdoor show for CJSW's Olympic Plaza Concert Series this summer and of course, the CD Release party which will also serve as their final show ever.

A band that will be truly missed but revered for a very, very long time.

Madcowboys to Release New Album Canada-Wide

Originally published on Off the Dial.



Calgary punk trio Madcowboys released their third, self-titled full-length album at home back at the end of April but the boys are preparing the new disc for national release on June 2nd, 2009.

The follow-up to their excellent release Baby Steps, this album was produced by Ian Blurton and recorded at Audio Audities in Bearspaw, AB. When asked why Madcowboys went without a title for this album, drummer Will Schatz said, "(It's) Our best album yet and we felt that it did not need a title." He also added that it was inspired by "the countless hours we spent on the road."

The new album is being released on the New Black, a Calgary based record label and music & arts centre that provides jam and performance space, plus full marketing services including band web-sites, album inlays and t-shirt designs. Madcowboys are actually playing the New Black Centre on June 7th with Carpenter and Kurt Vonnegut.
Watch for our review of the new Madcowboys CD in the next couple of weeks here on Off the Dial!

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

HistoryJen has some thoughts and reflections on her Over the Top fest. experience.

Exclaim reports a new Peter Elkas / Joel Plaskett single is on it's way.

the Rural Alberta Advantage reports that you can now pre-order "Hometowns" from Saddle Creek (if you're a RAA fan it's the one you already have.)

the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society has the Delusions of Reality's - Chocolate Moo from 1990.

Wolves, Hawkes and Kites on Think About Life.

Herohill talks Lee Harvey Osmond.

the Arkells would like to point out that they are way nicer to Jian Ghomeshi than Billy Bob Thorton.

From Blown Speakers is giving away tickets to Dog Day's Biltmore show on June 14!

Sled Island VIP Passes Selling Out; Schedule to Be Announced Monday

Originally Published on Off the Dial

Calgary's Sled Island Festival is quickly approaching and fans looking to get their hands on VIP passes for the entire event better get a move on.

According to festival organizer Zak Pashak, VIP Passes, which run you $199 and guarantee you entrance to ANY Sled Island event, are selling out fast. Naturally, quantities are limited so if you plan on attending the event and want to make sure you don't miss a second, visit SledIsland.com to get your hands on said passes.

There are also $99 Passes which give you access to any Sled Island event, pending capacity. In essence, this means if you want to see a particular Sled Island show at one of the many local Calgary venues hosting various concerts, art shows, films and comedy performances, you have to get there early. Both passes guarantee admission to the festival's Main Site.

Festival organizers will be announcing the schedule for Sled Island Festival on Monday, June 1st, 2009. It takes place June 24th to June 27th.

This year's Sled Island Festival features the Breeders, Andrew W.K., Women, Tricky Woo, Final Fantasy, the Bronx, Mount Eerie, the Whitsundays, Hot Little Rocket, the Pack A.D., Sub-Linguals, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, Ladyhawk, Monotonix, Holy Fuck, the Cripple Creek Fairies, Liars and many more!

Calgary's Jordan Klassen Releases Debut Album, Charts 6th

Calgary's most talked about independent artist, Jordan Klassen, has finally released his debut solo LP entitled Tempest and Winter early this month. Since then, the album has charted sixth on Calgary's CJSW, and he has nearly sold out of his independently produced copies. Indeed, the album is creating a big buzz in Calgary, and its only a matter of time before it spreads throughout the rest of the country.

Tempest and Winter is a modern Canadian folk album, based around the poetic lyrics, gentle voice and soothing guitar of J.K., but are frequently and appropriately visited by strings (Anatomical Literacy, The Most Bored David Jules Ever Got), pianos and organs (Miss Parsons on a Blustery Day, Sing Your Song to Ares), bells and cymbals (Ask Me Not, Astronaut and Harvest March), and other ambient sounds. After all is said and done, Tempest and Winter’s beautifully crafted and creative melodies and meaningful and sincere lyrics are enough to catch the ear of even the most critical of listeners.

You can buy his CD at his website listed below, or download some of the following free tracks:

Download:
Jordan Klassen - Anatomical Literacy
Jordan Klassen - The Most Bored David Jules Ever Got
Jordan Klassen - Sing Your Song to Ares

Buy Tempest and Winter at his website

Jordan Klassen on MySpace

GutterAwl Reverts to Being a Duo

Originally Published on Off the Dial

In a note posted to his facebook account Tuesday, GutterAwl drummer Jzero Schuurman announced his departure from the Calgary band after three years.

Schuurman spoke of the many ups and downs the band have experienced in those three years but indicated that things weren't all that bad at the current time.

"There was discussion about quitting, I took the initiative," he wrote. "The three of us are getting along these days so it seemed the best option."

He continued, saying "I can't say I'm happy about it considering we had some big plans for the future including a new record and a tour out East with our friend Nick from the Kettle Black. But one of us had to make the decision before we all had nervous breakdowns."

Schuurman revealed that the band will carry on without him though, returning to their original two-piece line-up of vocalist/guitarist Leslie Mark Overland and bassist Al Pujo.

Schuurman still has his own project, Psychic Pollution and another project with Overland, Lucid 44 (which will start recording towards the end of the month) to keep him busy but neither of those involve him playing the drums so he is now on the lookout for another outfit to sooth his "insatiable need to tap things."

GutterAwl will make their final appearance as a trio at the CJSW Tent on May 31st, 2009 at Calgary's Lilac Festival. Make sure to head out and watch these guys play, I highly reccommend it!

Tricky Woo return to life for Sled Island Festival

This year's Sled Island festival in Calgary promises to be a great time with some stellar acts on tap. Full line-up will be available on June 1st, but some stand-outs already announced are Novillero, Women, Flash Lightnin', King Khan and BBQ Show, the Evaporators, Final Fantasy, Ladyhawk, Holy Fuck, Japandroids (should be medically cleared to sing again by then, hopefully) and most surprisingly - Tricky Woo. One of my absolute favorite acts, and there hasn't been a peep out of them in quite some time after they finished touring in support of their last album, First Blush (Last Gang Records). Andrew Dickson was been playing in Mongrels for some time now, but it's puzzling what has brought them back together all of a sudden. According to Chart Attack, it's because Dickson has been working on some Mr. Peanut style jams...

Whatever the case, it will be great to see them unleash their wild stage antics once more. Find out more about Sled Island festival here.

Music, comedy, art, film...a festival in Alberta and NONE of it sponsored by Big Oil???

How enlightening...

Calgary Cassette Preservation Society

If you're over 30 or 35 you remember a day when there were no MP3s, and when CDs and Vinyl were incredibly expensive to produce. At the time alot of indie bands with no money to spend released their music on home made cassettes. The Calgary Cassette Preservation Society apparently remembers those days.

They are collecting cassettes, primarily from the years 1986 - 1998. The latest, up just today is this 1997 compilation from CJSW in Calgary. So if you have an urge to check out some Citrus Park, Big Bang Theory, Huevos Rancheros, the Primrods, or Elmo's Dream or any one of dozens of other artists from the days before file sharing pay a visit to calgarycasettes.blogspot.com.