Dave Balfour has the distinct ability to write excellent songs and to play covers really well.
Dave just finished helping bring a tonne of great music to Perth via the Stewart Park Festival - now it’s his chance to play! You won’t want to miss this one.
Dave Balfour has the distinct ability to write excellent songs and to play covers really well.
Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac do their best songwriting in remote places and confined spaces. Caravan, their second album as the Toronto-based duo Madviolet, draws its title from a vintage motor home they occupied for three weeks in Byron Bay, just south of Brisbane, following the completion of their first Australian tour last year. With the Pacific crashing onto a white sand beach and cockatiels delivering raucous wake-up calls, the pair hunkered down with their guitars in the spring of 2005 and wrote many of Caravan’s ten songs. They’d surf, bike and play backgammon in the mornings, then begin work after lunch, pausing each evening to barbeque fresh fish and drink wine under the Southern Cross. Escaping the sun, they wrote in the dusky interior of the camper, a silver-with-maroon-stripe 1965 Morton Caravan they nicknamed Greta. “There’s something about a cramped van that works for us creatively,” explains Lisa. “It squeezes whatever’s inside of you out.”
UpNorth Music
“The thing I really like about Meredith Luce is that she sounds like Meredith Luce and no one else. Her songwriting and guitar work in particular, reflect a maturity way beyond her years. Listening back to the recording session we did with her in July 2007, there is a sort of awkward, stunned silence after the first song because we were so taken aback at how good she sounded. We feel very fortunate to have had her participate in the UpNorth Music project and look forward to her becoming a big deal in the music industry so we can shamelessly drop her name and tell people that we knew Meredith way back in 2007.” — Joel Hurd, Production Manager - North Country Public Radio (January 18, 2008)
“On Thursday, May 8th auditions will be held for the ‘On Stage’ portion of the Stewart Park Festival. The event will take place at O’Reillys pub, 43 Gore Street. Each performer will be asked to play 2 songs , at least one of them must be an original composition. Six acts will be chosen and two spots are reserved for local acts. We are looking forward to a great night of entertainment.
The Spades are simply the best garage outfit in Ontario. Ask Gord Sinclair of the Tragically Hip — he produced the Peterborough band’s new CD, Let It Grow. It conjures up vinyl visions ofCrazy Horse and The Heartbreakers. And The Spades are even better live.
Washboard Hank plays an amazing conglomeration of bells, licence plates, duck calls, etc., and actually gets music out of it. He also plays banjo, kazoo, and dobro, and will probably break a lot of guitar strings too. If the proper plumbing supplies are available and space allows you can expect a solo or two on the “Fallopian Tuba,” made out of 1 1/2″ PVC pipe and a stainless steel sink.
One reviewer called Washboard Hank “a cross between Jerry Lewis (not Jerry Lee) and Stompin’ Tom Connors.” His repertoire includes bluegrass, rockabilly, country, television themes and Oktoberfest. He can go from sensitive to manic to ridiculous in an instant. Don’t blink, you’ll miss something good. Hank has appeared on dozens of TV shows (Elephant Show, W5, Mr. Dressup, etc.) recently performed on C.B.C.’s Madly Off In All Directions, and spent the last four years as a member of Fred Eaglesmith’s band, doing 200 + shows a year all over North America. Working so steadily with Fred was letting Hank’s own career slide, but he’s getting it built up a bit now.
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