By Kyra Leib
Andrew Courtnage a.k.a. Smoky Tiger is Winnipeg’s own psychedelic funk wizard. Smoky Tiger recently focused on writing music about Manitoban history. I was able to lasso him along with his partner in crime Josey Krahn for an enlightening interview. I walked up the metal stairs to the top floor studio loft of Winnipeg’s own mystical tiger man. Once inside, I was generously greeted by the offer of a berry smoothie and Smoky Tiger’s beautiful cat. Josey, a member of Smoky Tiger and the Manitobandits sat on a couch as I entered the living room with Andrew. As I struggled to withhold my berry smoothie from Smoky Tiger’s cat, I began asking questions.
Stylus: What are some of Smoky Tiger and The Manitobandits musical influences?
Josey Krahn: Disco, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, anything with a beat and some weird lyrics.
Andrew Courtnage: The circa 1991 Korean Mac laptop upon which I record all the Smoky Tiger music mysteriously resets itself to December 1969 every time I unplug it. This is a perfect metaphor for the vibration which influences the Smoky Tiger sound. I feel a kinship for the great visitation of energy which shaped the culture and society of the golden-classic era, yet I cannot deny the appeal of our space age bells and digital whistles. The Smoky Tiger is mostly about spiritually transformational, shamanically positive, Manitoban vibrations.
Stylus: Do you guys feel like there is a deficit of music coming out of Winnipeg which discusses Manitoba’s history and historical figures?
AC: I think that we’ve for many years had an anti-pride. Our attitude has been that “Oh, let’s sing about Winnipeg and how much it sucks.” I think that we are starting to climb out from under that rock. We are proud of this place. It’s actually a fucking gnarly place.
[A brief pause in the interview as an object falls off the record player. I suspect it’s the cat.]
Stylus: In terms of songwriting do you have any habits or processes you go through?
JK: I would say that the only consistent songwriting process we have is to start with a fourteen to fifteen hour marathon jam, then do it again two days later. [Chuckles] And herbs and spices help a lot too.
Stylus: Do you have any new songs or projects coming up?
AC: Well we really want to get these Manitoba songs out there. After that, the sky is the limit. I was thinking of doing a similar album about every religious prophet. For Louis Riel, we incorporated his very complicated story into one five to six minute psychedelic rock and roll format. Imagine a psychedelic rock format for Lao Tzu, for Mohammed.
JK: Like the bible or the Quran set to psychedelic rock.
AC: It would be educational psychedelic rock.
JK: We could do science textbooks.
AC: The thing is that singing about all these Manitoban heroes, it’s like we’re summoning ghosts. So we got Cuthbert Grant, Louis Riel and Ken Leishman. These are all guys that it’s great to have on your back. So it’s kind of like we’re summoning these ghosts in order to protect and guide our band. That is why we might move to religious figures, because then we would have Jesus on our backs!
Stylus: How is your band lineup working right now, is it permanent or do you have a revolving door thing going on?
AC: I would say a revolving door; we have some regulars like me and Josey. We’re taking recruits if anybody is interested in contacting us. We’ve had brass, we’ve had violin players.
JK: We had cello.
AC: We even had a bagpiper that would come and open for us.
JK: We used to have a bagpipe-banjo combo.
Stylus: I can play the triangle.
AC: Really? You’re in.
Stylus: Do you guys collect any modern tales of weirdos or people who stand out in Winnipeg?
AC: Another one we’re going to do soon is Donny Lalonde and he’s relatively recent. He was a boxer with a golden mullet in 1984.
JK: They called him the Golden Boy.
AC: He was really a top notch boxer. We still have to do one about the General Strike. We’re going to write a song about Winnipeg’s homeless pretty soon.
JK: There are a lot of colourful homeless people. For example there is the crying toonie lady, Faron Hall, that guy is heroic.
Stylus: Would you guys be open to a song suggestion box on Facebook perhaps?
AC: Sure
JK: Yeah, definitely. That’s a fantastic idea. It’s a shout out to all of Winnipeg. We’ll talk to John at Times and do songs exclusively by request, written by request.
AC: The Narcisse Snake Pits would be a good one.
JK: Yeah, or Lake Agassiz man, with Morden on the bottom of Lake Aggasiz.
Stylus: When did you two start playing together?
AC: We used to live in this run-down house on Knappen with Righteous Ike. He lived in the backroom and he was kind of like our spiritual father. We just got drunk all the time and played music, he would come out and play with us. He sort of taught us how to play.
Stylus: How did you get the indefinite spot playing at Times Changed?
AC: We have been friends with John Scoles for a long time.
JK: If Righteous Ike Friesen is our spiritual father then John Scoles is our spiritual creepy uncle.
Stylus: You say that he is creepy?
[AC and JK laugh]
JK: He’s not creepy at all, I’m just making fun. From Ike we learned sound, from John we learned how to really dig in to local music. John is like a fountain of knowledge about weird local history, he is a big proponent of Winnipeg.
AC: I would just like to clarify details about the band name, et cetera. I represent Smoky Tiger, me personally. Smoky Tiger albums are all recorded, produced and performed by only myself in my home studio. The live band is called the Smoky Tiger and the Manitobandits. The smoky tiger is our chief power animal, being the largest land carnivore to exist roaming the Manitoba prairies, the saber tooth tiger that is now extinct is our guardian spirit.