I know that Monday and Tuesday nights are generally reserved for laundry and/or recovering from weekend revelry, but please, Winnipeg, I implore you — break with tradition and go see these two early-week shows.
1. MISS EMILY BROWN – MONDAY, APRIL 19 at the MONDRAGON, 9 p.m.
$7, with openers Ben Wytinck and Steve Brockley (Montreal)
Hopefully our feature on Emily Millard, a.k.a. Miss Emily Brown, sparked your interest. Her expert manipulation of her instruments — from voice to autoharp to guitar and banjo — coaxes out sounds that bring the old into a starkly modern context. Check her out on MySpace, or watch this little video to get a better picture of what to expect at tonight’s show:
Miss Emily Brown – In Technicolor from Benjamin Schuetze on Vimeo.
2. BABY DEE – TUESDAY, APRIL 20 at the WEST END CULTURAL CENTRE, 8 p.m.
$12, with opener Keri Latimer
Baby Dee adds new meaning to the term “uncategorizable.” Her music takes a lot from classic cabaret, but throws in heaps of church music as well as the brutal honesty of the folk singer-songwriter tradition. Her voice, heartfelt and rich, only adds to the glorious ambiguity of it all. Learn more on her website or on MySpace.
Here’s a video of her performing my favourite track from her new record, Songs for Anne Marie.