Tag: Guelph

Ep. #76: Jessy Bell Smith

Post author By vish
Post date March 4, 2014

Jessy Bell Smith is a Guelph-based musician with one of the most remarkable singing voices I’ve ever heard. She’s been playing her own songs live for a long time, was a member of a band called Beautiful Senseless, and is currently in the Skydiggers. She recently released her highly-anticipated debut album, The Town and will be playing Kazoo! Fest in Guelph between April 9 and 13. Here, beyond some friendly bickering and badgering, Jessy and I discuss my reputation as a totalitarian bandmate (sometimes we play together), artists in Guelph who need an encouraging push, the long-gestating history of Jessy’s first album, happenstance and J.J. Ipsen and Andy Magoffin, fate, confidence and productivity, a Gary the cat interruption, musical eras and nostalgia, Watergate comes up somehow, Kate Bush and Tom Waits and singing in a musical family, burnt rice, deliberation and re-recording The Town, her role in the Skydiggers, how you are not going to die, turning anxiety into antagonistic anger to conquer an annoying audience, the song “Douglas St.” and more.

Related links: choosemymusic.org/jessy-bell-smith/ kazookazoo.ca vishkhanna.com

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Tags Andy Magoffin, Gary the cat, Guelph, J.J. Ipsen, Jessy Bell Smith, Kate Bush, Kazoo! Fest, The Skydiggers, The Town, Tom Waits

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Ep. #68: Bear Witness from A Tribe Called Red

Post author By vish
Post date February 4, 2014

Bear Witness is a co-founder of the inventive Ottawa-based trio A Tribe Called Red. Renowned for making a sophisticated kind of dance music dubbed “Electric Pow Wow,” A Tribe Called Red’s live show is a sensory overload, mixing powerful music with stunning visual imagery drawing from underground and aboriginal culture. Their infectious energy has translated well onto record too; their 2013 album Nation II Nation made the shortlist for the Polaris Music Prize, earning the group the high profile and platform they so richly deserve. A Tribe Called Red are touring across Canada with select U.S. dates in February, including a stop at Guelph’s Hillside Inside festival on Friday Feb. 7. Here, Bear and I discuss remembering Vish, the Polaris Music Prize gala, having to follow METZ, feeling like you belong, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s victory, the biggest challenges in gaining a broader audience, the level with which fans engage with what A Tribe Called Red addresses in their work, the surprising influx of conscientious, knowledgeable music fans, making music as a political act, #idlenomore and the significance of ‘the moment,’ the intersection between traditional rhythms and beat culture, the band’s plans for their new album, the song “Sisters,” and more.

Related links: atribecalledred.com hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

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Tags #idlenomore, A Tribe Called Red, Electric Pow Wow, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Guelph, Hillside Festival, Hillside Inside, Polaris Music Prize

News Podcast

Ep. #66: Wes Marskell + Jason Couse of the Darcys

Post author By vish
Post date January 28, 2014

Wes Marskell and Jason Couse are childhood friends who play together in a Toronto band called the Darcys. Known for an enigmatic kind of powerful pop music, the Darcys’ latest album is 2013’s Warring (out via Arts & Crafts) and they’re playing a sold out show with July Talk at Hillside Inside in Guelph on Saturday Feb. 8. Here Wes, Jason, and I discuss their band house, the best apples, Toronto District School Board arts funding cuts, how kids ask the darndest, most astute things, being crazy kids who destroy golf carts in Toronto, the Muppet Babies version of the Darcys band called Bernice, going down on white girls, the insane saga of Wes’s amazing Breaking Bad-esque rise and fall as a student in Guelph, amazingly inspirational high school teachers, drugs, the history of the Darcys and a short list of places where its members are prohibited from frequenting because of past indiscretions, the criminal undertones of the Darcys, remixing everything, covering Steely Dan and not being some kind of gimmicky band, surprising people with new sounds and a new project involving the work of Cormac McCarthy, awkward intensity, the song “Horses Fell,” and more

Related links: thedarcys.ca hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

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Tags Arts & Crafts, Breaking Bad, Cormac McCarthy, Guelph, Hillside Festival, Hillside Inside, The Darcys, Toronto District School Board, Warring