Category: Features

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Hillbilly Highway – Jay Aymar rolls through town

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by Sheldon Birnie

Toronto based troubadour Jay Aymar is hitting the road for his fourth cross-Canada tour, making an early stop in Winnipeg at the Folk Exchange on Friday. Aymar has been writing songs for over 20 years, going hard at it in the 90s before applying the breaks a bit until a song of his jump started his performing career a few years back. With a keen eye for the details of everyday life, and a storyteller’s approach to the narrative form, Jay Aymar is a great Canadian songwriter slugging it out on the Hillbilly Highway. He checked in with us just before hitting the road on Tuesday. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Jay Aymar rolls through town”

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An Interview with From Giants

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by Victoria King

Good people eat good food. It’s a simple fact of life. Those who are miserable munch on things like “low-cal waffles” and “fructose-free popsicles.” After grabbing some dinner with three quarters of the local folk outfit From Giants, their plates said it all: One order of pad thai, one veggie burger, and a mango smoothie later, (which ended up coming out purple, so let’s hope it was just an accidental “Very Berry”) I had a good feeling about the music they were making. Continue reading “An Interview with From Giants”

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Blue Hawaii :: Untogether, Together

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By Adrienne Yeung

Blue Hawaii are Alex “Agor” Cowan and Raphelle Standell-Preston, who live in Montreal and play electronic music. If their sound can be described as dream pop, then their first full length album Untogether is a dream neither nightmare nor sweet, but introspective and amorphous. It’s a dream lit by strobe light, where people from your past flicker in and out of the narrative of your subconscious. Untogether sounds like the kind of dream which you wake up from, lie still, and think about.

Instrumentalist Agor and vocalist Raph wrote Untogether in physically separate spaces – and the sound of many songs are likewise disjointed, drifting, pensive, and fragile. Stylus was curious about Blue Hawaii’s songwriting process, so on a spring day in Winnipeg, drinking coffee and wearing three sweaters, we called Agor (who at the time was in San Francisco record store “Amoeba” watching label-mate Doldrums play an in-store show) to chat. Continue reading “Blue Hawaii :: Untogether, Together”

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Hillbilly Highway – Tracking down Gram Parsons’ last partying place

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by Sheldon Birnie

Last week, I was deep in the desert of southern California, waiting on Coachella festival to get cranked up. Of equal interest to me, though, was the proximity of Coachella to the Joshua Tree National Park. Perhaps most famous among pop music circles for inspiring arguably U2’s best album (if you can stomach any of them, that is), this beautiful space holds a special place in the hearts of country-rock fans as the spiritual home of Gram Parsons. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Tracking down Gram Parsons’ last partying place”

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Hillbilly Highway – A conversation with director of Chasing a Song

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by Sheldon Birnie

Chasing a Song is a brand new documentary from local filmmaker Charles Konowal. Some of y’all might remember Charles’ work on Happily Dysfunctional: The Story of Transistor 66 Records. Konowal’s latest is a study of the art of songwriting, by way of local songwriter Scott Nolan, who Konowal met while working on Happily Dysfunctional. The film is a beautifully shot, stirring contemplation of what makes Nolan tick as an artist, with some special appearances from Bobby Stahr and Jesse DeNatale. Shot in Winnipeg, Oklahoma, and Folsom Prison in California, Chasing a Song takes the viewer on quite the trip along the Hillbilly Highway. Stylus caught up with Konowal recently to chat about the making of the film. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – A conversation with director of Chasing a Song”

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Romi Mayes Rides Away

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by Broose Tulloch

After more than a decade in the roots scene, Romi Mayes is retiring, “sort of.”  Through a series of social media posts, Mayes announced that she was tired of the grind and wanted a change, a big one. Some soul searching later, a plan was hatched; to move from music performance into management and from cold Winnipeg to warm Vancouver Island. Stylus spoke with the roots rocker about the big shakeup. Continue reading “Romi Mayes Rides Away”

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Hillbilly Highway – Paisley, LL Cool J, and an internet shitstorm

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by Sheldon Birnie

If you were anywhere near Twitter this week, or the decrepit social media hulk that is Facebook, you probably heard about Brad Paisley’s new tune “Accidental Racist” and the shitstorm of vitriol it inspired in pretty much everyone. After getting lambasted online, Paisley took to Twitter to defend the tune, telling folks he wrote the tune to “evoke feelings” and “wouldn’t change a thing about it.” Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Paisley, LL Cool J, and an internet shitstorm”