Category: Podcast

Ep. #123: Bahamas

Post author By vish
Post date August 19, 2014

Afie Jurvanen is a gifted musician and songwriter who works under the tropical moniker Bahamas. Jurvanen has been an in-demand guitarist who has worked with Feist, the Weather Station, and Zeus among others. He has released three records of his signature folk-tinged rock over the past five years, earning a broad fanbase and award nominations and critical acclaim along the way. His latest album is called Bahamas is Afie, which is out now via Universal Music Canada, and it’s prompted him to tour across the U.S. and Canada over the coming months including a stop at Riverfest Elora on Friday August 22. Here, Afie and I discuss wearing shorts on stage (S.O.S.), Thrush Hermit rules and Joel Plaskett’s legs, the assertively explanatory title of his new album, the lush production of Bahamas is Afie, Don Kerr and the Rooster, distinctive musical chameleons like Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Beck, that moment where you think of an idea, hope in sad songs, Willie Nelson, wanting to name your hypothetical unborn child Owen, choosing music over sports, social hobbies, going your own way when pushed by your parents, moving to Toronto from Barrie and making friends in a music community, grade 13/OAC, the Miami Heat, Chris Bosh, Fantastic Pop festival in Windsor, Afie’s early band Paso Mino with members of Zeus, Jason Collett, competition and ambition in music, contemporary cultural consumption and metrics, how artists are adapting to the new face of the music business, we are the product, Peter Elkas is under-appreciated, the Aretha Franklin chugging Diet Coke in a golf cart before kicking ass at the Grammys story, playing in a rainstorm at a festival in PEI, the pros and cons of making and promoting music, opening up a laundromat, how to do your laundry, Michael P. Clive’s cooking show and Afie’s unreleased instrumental music for it, making the Weather Station’s new album in France, being added to Riverfest Elora at the last minute, Jason Tait of the Weakerthans, the song “Waves,” and then the heat is off.

Related links: bahamasmusic.net riverfestelora.com vishkhanna.com

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News Podcast

Ep. #122: Heather O’Neill

Post author By vish
Post date August 14, 2014

Heather O’Neill is a talented and provocative novelist based in Montreal. Her first book was the celebrated Lullabies for Little Criminals, which won Canada Reads in 2007 and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel is The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, which was published by HarperCollins Canada this past April and tells the compelling story of a pair of directionless fraternal twins in Montreal, Noushcka and Nicolas Tremblay, who live in the shadow of their has-been folk-singer of a neglectful father and bare certain emotional scars as a result. Young Quebecois coming of age in 1995, they are separatists on one hand, but unwitting sovereignists on the other. Their creator is bringing their story with her as a participating author at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, where she’ll read on Sunday September 14. Here, Heather and I discuss how to pronounce Nicolas, why it’s difficult to describe what The Girl Who Was Saturday Night is about, the magic in the mundane, having an amicable break-up with a book you wrote, separatism, separating, and needing people you need to get away from, establishing boundaries to become your own person, why we’re reading this world from Noushcka’s perspective, what this book might say about the separatism/sovereignty debate, class divides, promiscuous has-been folk-singer daddy issues, embittered former child stars, Raphael the sexy bad boy, fame might be a drag, people who think authors are their characters, how Heather relates to her characters, how Quebec today relates to Quebec of the mid-1990s, how a teacher’s encouragement drew Heather to write a story about shrinking machines and a cockroach, needing to write, delving into creative non-fiction and how it intertwines with a novel like The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, the political folk music of Montreal that’s conjured in this book via Etienne Tremblay, Heather’s thoughts on film treatments of her works, Wes Anderson and The Royal Tenenbaums, her forthcoming book of short stories Dear Piglet out this spring, writing more than one story at a time, what Heather will be doing at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, @lethal_heroine, weird turns, and the end.

Related links: harpercollins.ca twitter.com/lethal_heroine vishkhanna.com

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Tags @lethal_heroine, Canada Reads, Dear Piglet, Eden Mills Writers' Festival, HarperCollins Canada, Heather O’Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals, Montreal, Quebec, separatism, sovereignty, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson

News Podcast

Ep. #121: Dave Ullrich of Zunior & The Inbreds

Post author By vish
Post date August 12, 2014

Dave Ullrich is the founder of Zunior.com, one of the world’s first digital distribution services for independent music, which celebrates its tenth anniversary with various enterprises, including a new tribute album by Tony Dekker and a big festival at Sandbanks Provincial Park on Sept. 13. He was also a founding member of the excellent indie-rock band the Inbreds. Here, Dave and I discuss Allen’s Pub on the Danforth in Toronto, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip and the Inbreds, growing up in Oshawa but making the Inbreds in Kingston, hiding your Oshawa, k-os rapping upside down, Cuff the Duke owning Oshawa, my pilgrimage to Mike O’Neill’s childhood home and memories of that episode, playing cover songs at an O’Neill Collegiate Vocational Institute battle of the bands in an outfit called the Fresh Steaming Turds, the forgettable U2, I know the R.E.M. discography pretty well apparently, loving Zeppelin and Bonzo, why the complexity and fury of punk is often equated with simplicity and rudimentary playing, sincerity in music, Proboscis Funkstone Records, the rise of cassettes, the riff-y, fingerpicking early days, luck + preparedness = success, these are the breaks, I challenge you to dislike the Inbreds, Lewis Melville, Rheostatics, Guelph, when the Inbreds turned down a Foo Fighters tour opening slot to break up, sneaking low-profile records to Dave Bookman who got them to superstars, angering the Tea Party while Foo Fighters munched on KD, a circuitous route to scooping the White Stripes, starting the prescient Zunior.com digital music delivery service 10 years ago, vinyl sales and holding a piece of wood, leveraging the spirit of indie-rock computing, Zunior platinum, the top 10 moments in the history of Zunior, suprising Rheostatics, the Zune, solar power, Egger plays live, Peanuts, Boxing Day, patron saint Stuart McLean, making commercials with Scott Cudmore and Martin Tielli, the joy of the label and Wax Mannequin, getting into e-books and working with rock writer Martin Popoff, predicting the future for music consumption, flirting with Rdio and musical curation and discovery, vinyl might have a cost ceiling, major labels are like cockroaches, the new Tony Dekker Sings 10 Years of Zunior album and how it came to be, the Zunior 10th anniversary show in Sandbanks Provincial Park in Prince Edward County on Sept. 13, the song “At the Airport” by Old Man Luedecke, and then it’s the right time to say goodbye.

Related links: zunior.com inbreds.com vishkhanna.com

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