Categories
News Podcast

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

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

inbreds

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #113: Julie Doiron

Julie Doiron is a talented and prolific singer, musician, and songwriter based in Sackville, New Brunswick. She first gained attention in the world-renowned band Eric’s Trip before going solo for a successful and busy trajectory of her own. Over the years she’s worked with many people and contributed to records by Daniel Romano, Mt. Eerie, Gord Downie, Shotgun & Jaybird, Herman Dune, Baby Eagle, and many more. Among her most notable collaborations was with the Wooden Stars; they released a self-titled record together in 1999, which was critically acclaimed and won a Juno Award, one of the first notable instances that Canada’s mainstream music industry acknowledged this country’s underground music community, which flourished in the 1990s. Many years later, Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars are playing a small run of shows together this summer at the Arboretum Festival in Ottawa on August 20, the Horseshoe in Toronto on August 21, La Sala Rosa in Montreal on August 22, and the Peterborough Folk Festival on August 23.  Here, Julie and I talk about my soggy bike ride home, bad weather and the wind currents thing, the 15th anniversary of Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars, the indefinite ‘indefinite hiatus’ that Wooden Stars have been on, just reboot it but don’t sit on the modem, Louis C.K.’s technology bit, the girls loved Michael Feuerstack, the Underdogs and skateboarding gangs, if it feels good do it, working with the Wooden Stars, Broken Girl, Sub Pop and Joyce Linehan, making the LP, three-os and G.E. Smith at CMJ, working with Eric’s Trip versus the Wooden Stars, fingerpicking, the Forest, receiving the reception for the album, the Juno Award, Josh Latour, running out of records, playing New Year’s Day at the Air Canada Centre, I pre-produce the next Julie and the Wooden Stars record, cover songs, almost retiring after the release of So Many Days, enjoying life, kids, and making music again, a new band Julie’s in called Weird Lines, making a duets record with Rick White, including questions in your answers, juliedoiron.ca not .com or .cl, Julie’s song “Life of Dreams” is in an iPhone commerical, the song “Gone Gone,” and then it’s goodnight nobody.

Related links: juliedoiron.ca vishkhanna.com

Julie-Doiron

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #105: Zaki Ibrahim

Zaki Ibrahim is a very creative singer and songwriter who splits her time between Toronto and Johannesburg. Over the past decade, she has established herself as one of the most daring and fascinating R&B/electro-pop artists in North America and her heady, sci-fi-infused debut album, Every Opposite, was shortlisted for the 2013 Polaris Music Prize. This Sunday June 8, Ibrahim performs at the Field Trip festival at Fort York in Toronto along with people like Constantines, Fucked Up, Washed Out, Do Make Say Think, Gord Downie and the Sadies, Broken Social Scene and more. A few months ago, Ibrahim and I caught up for a chat just after she played a noon hour concert at the University of Guelph where we discussed microphone checking, our hang-ups about our voices, speaking like someone who’s lived in South Africa and Canada, being mistaken for Jian Ghomeshi on the phone, playing concerts for students at lunch, leading an aerobics class, the sci-fi, African-set narrative of Every Opposite, Nanaimo to Cape Town, the town in British Columbia that has outlawed hand drumming, Diana Krall and Young Galaxy, rumbling tummies, receiving a Polaris Music Prize nomination, getting to Toronto in 2001, living in Johannesburg, deer come, Zaki’s dad was involved with Bush Radio and media education in Cape Town, making radio plays but not necessarily engaging with other media forms, House of Lies with Don Cheadle and Teen Wolf, the internet in South Africa, twitter binges, avoiding categorization musically or otherwise, knowing one’s blackness and being multi-racial or “Canadian,” I subtly quote the Fugazi song “Place Position,” loving pop music by white people, singer and songwriter, being ok with external perceptions of one’s work, performing for old people at lunch, dates, following up on Every Opposite, messing with songwriting and addressing the terms of success, go to wikipedia, proper pronunciation, and that’s it.

Related links: zakiibrahim.co.za fieldtriplife.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.