Category: Features

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nine meditations on the new space)doxa season

photo by David Levasseur

By Philia

In this artycle, Philia leads us through nine ponderings on space)doxa, a concert series that has seen many seasons in the Graffiti Gallery, and is about to begin anew. If you’d like more information on the out-there series as we collectively hurtle through time, simply search for the space)doxa Facebook group. Tomorrow night is Midori Records‘ showcase as a part of the series, featuring Stylus & Weird Canada favourite Fletcher Pratt.

Meditation One
Season nine of space)doxa started on Sunday, August 14, 2011 with a tour stop by Twin and their Assiniboine River Music Armada, followed on September 24, 2011 with a Midori Records showcase featuring Philia, Fletcher Pratt, Dusth and more! August 2003 was the debut performance of the series. Steve Wilson, Graffiti Art Programming Inc. executive director, was looking for a performance art series, and recruited me (Greg Hanec – Philia), Dave Dalgliesh, Nicole Shimonek, and Victoria Prince to each do one event per year. Dalgliesh utilized techno and dazzling video feedback, filling the walls with moving images. Hanec filled in with film loops galore. Shinonek’s event saw her trying to smash a coconut on the floor, but as my friend Michael said… “Her girl’s throw almost took off the head of the guy in the front row!”

Meditation Two
Rob Menard of the Absent Sound puts on three amazing events called 20 Guitar Circular Wall Of Angelic Sound. Twenty plus guitarists on the floor and catwalks surrounding the audience in the middle. Graffiti Art Programming’s Steve Wilson would never be the same.

Meditation Three
Fantastic heavenly reverb in in the main space necessitates an event called eclectACOUSTIC.
This of course is a totally unplugged evening and has seen the likes of Timber Timbre, Doug and Jess (bluegrass), Ghost Bees, Dan Frechette, Twin, Nikki  Komaksiutiksak (throat singer), Philia, Jeff Presslaff, Natalia Zielinski (solo classical violin), Suture (experimental freeform), the Flaming Trolley Marching Band (all 15 of them!), and more perform. Six annuals so far.

Meditation Four
NOISE. Lea Cummings (UK). NOISE. Ahna (BC). NOISE. RDC and Bomber (Calgary). NOISE. White Dog (Wpg). NOISE. Sigmund (Wpg). NOISE. This Camera is Red (Wpg). NOISE. NOISE. NOISE. NOISE. NOISE.

Meditation Five
This Camera is Red does a fifty minute noise set that I thought would shred the PA due to incredible volume levels. I had earlier asked him “Why Noise bands need so much volume?”
He said he’d… “probably just play ten minutes…”

Meditation Six
The audience sits mostly on the many couches strewn around the space. It feels like the world’s largest rec room. By far, the most attentive audiences in the city. Beautiful.

Meditation Seven
“A Pit: Epiphenomena”… “Paper”… “Amphiboly”… “Intervals”… Andrew Milne, Freya Olafson, DJ Brace, Sarah Otsuji, Philia, 6, Doreen Girard, Scott Ellenberger. Large scale performance art pieces, featuring the blending of many arts all at once, or in sequence.

Meditation Eight
Wide-eyed. Jaw-dropped. Dazed. Exulted.Silently sitting and slowly shaking their heads. This is the reaction of 90% of the musicians that play their first shows at the space.Touring bands will tell me it was the best show of the tour. This is neat. We only have ten people in the audience who paid admission, and the members of the other acts. Sixty people in the audience seems immense. Everyone sets up all at once, so no change-overs. Just play.

Meditation Nine
Originally called the Ideas and Methods Series… Next called the artIfactSERIES… Now called space)doxa… To  discuss opinions on audio/visual/bodily art, using audio/visual/bodily art AND conversation = doxa. The lone parenthesis leaning toward the “space” means this is the “place” to do it in. This is neat.

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Hillbilly Highway – Back on the Nowhere Road

There is a road that stretches back in time, back beyond the interweb, beyond compact discs, cassette tapes, vinyl records and gramophones. It winds between hills and hollers, follows riverbanks and lakeshores deep into the woods and across tall grass prairie. It picks up from quays and travels back across seas, crossing itself time and again in backwater voids, where wind whips dead branches against nothing and scavenger birds craw out in vain.

This is the same road Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam sang about in the 80s, same road the Boss, and Dylan before him. Before them all, Hank Williams sang about this Lost Highway. The sands of time have largely obscured the names of those who sang about it before ol’ Hank, but their numbers are legion and their ghosts walk the road still.

This is the Lost Highway, the Thunder Road, Highway 51, Route 23. The Hillbilly Highway, the Nowhere Road. The low road. Maybe you’re walking it now, following your dreams up and down Pembina Highway or Portage Avenue, Highway One or 17.

I been on many of these roads, myself. I just cruised down a gooder: west on provincial Highway 2, with a south turn at Holland onto 34. 34 hits a stop at 3, then heads west again to 3A. Now you’re in country country.

The tiny village of Clearwater, MB has hosted the perennial Harvest Moon Festival for the past ten years. Formed as “a celebration of the harvest season, local food production, the area’s rich cultural heritage, and the bond between rural and urban folks,” the festival is like no other in Manitoba. A strong community dedicated to surviving against the economic and political forces that are draining people and money from the prairies, Clearwater is itself a beacon of potential for any community struggling to remain viable in the 21st century.

And the music is fucking good too. Highlights, for me, this year were the Deep Dark Woods, CKUW favourite Greg MacPherson and Ridley Bent’s Good Looking Country Band. Each delivered to-notch performances in weather bordering on frigid. Many other acts performed throughout the days, including Bog River and the Reverend Rambler, names to look for on the hillbilly highway in the months and years to come.

Keep your eyes on the road. It has a way of winding somewhere strange.

– Sheldon Birnie

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Cinematters: The Perverts of Astron-6


By David Nowacki
Astron-6 are deviants. Astron-6 are pagan goat-worshippers. Astron-6 sacrifice small mammals for no reason but for their own fetishistic delights. Astron-6 are rotted barnacles on the hull of Hollywood. Astron-6 are sadomasochistic pain farmers. Astron-6 would cause the Marquis de Sade to dry heave. Astron-6 is like Chernobyl, if Chernobyl made films. Since 2007, Astron-6 has been spreading their vile trash through the Internet (a common home for most garbage). Ostensibly from Winnipeg, but more likely churned out from a vomitous carcass pit, Astron-6 consists of five filmmakers (Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski) who revel in the filth, surrealism and violence of ’80s genre flicks. They recently were noticed by the industry’s premier purveyor of pulp, Troma Entertainment, who opted to produce their first feature-length film, Father’s Day. I managed to lure Conor Sweeney, the pervert, into my interview dungeon, and here’s what he had to say for himself:

Stylus: What is it about this genre of film that attracts you?
Conor Sweeney: They’re basically the movies you were MOST restricted from seeing as a kid. Sex comedies and Reagan Era action movies were as well, but exploitation movies had everything from all genres that were off-limits. And they had the coolest covers. That’s what drew us to them as kids. As filmmakers, it’s basically a genre that you can do anything in and get away with. You can be visually and thematically very surreal and still have a movie that people take seriously.
Stylus: What are your hopes for Astron-6, what is the group’s plan for the future?
CS: Chronologically: Father’s Day gets released, it gets rave reviews, after opening overseas peace is realized in the Middle East, followup film offers roll in, Roger Ebert teaches himself how to speak without a lower jaw in order to rave about us, we’re able to support ourselves with our art, suicide pact comes to fruition, little boy in the future makes an Astron-6 tribute on Virtual-YouTube that gets a few hundred hits.
Stylus: Why the renewed attention and interest in grindhouse/exploitation pictures (i.e. Hobo With A Shotgun, Grindhouse, Machete, etc.)?
CS: I think it’s really a nostalgia thing. It reminds a huge group of people of being young and thrilled by the taboo of the horror section at the VHS rental store, or sleazy grindhouse theatres that used to line 42nd street in Manhattan. Exploitation is like the middle sibling of the genre family, it’s the weirdo, and that’s exciting. Not to say middle children are exciting, they’re the worst, but I’m just trying to make the point that it’s a genre that excites people, and the fun aspect of it was abandoned for a long time. These movies bring that back. They don’t take themselves seriously, but they still have balls and that’s what pulls people in.
Stylus: Does Winnipeg have a movie scene that’s receptive to this genre?
CS: Not at all, unfortunately. We’ve hit nothing but brick walls and animosity when we’ve tried to get any funding from within the city. We made movies here for years, and tried to get funding for years and were continually rejected. It’s fine if Winnipeg is trying to present itself a certain way, but the Canadian film industry is so at risk of becoming completely irrelevant for that reason: very few people give edgy or truly ambitious movies a chance. For all those reasons, we had to take our idea to the states, so Father’s Day is an American release. We tried very hard to get funding to make a Canadian feature over the years to no avail. Having said that, there are great people in Winnipeg that have helped us more than we can say. Guy Maddin was nothing but helpful to us completely out of goodwill. John Kozak was the same way. If it wasn’t for guys like that we wouldn’t have been able to make the movie at all.
Stylus: Does everybody get a chance to be responsible for different aspects of the film-making, or do you have set jobs?
CS: Jer does the music and titles and some after-effects, Steve does miniature work and some After Effects, Matt and I write, direct and act, and Adam has had his hand in basically every pot for Father’s Day. When it comes to onset stuff we’re all doing the same thing together. The Communist Manifesto influenced us a lot. Steve is partial to Mein Kampf.
Stylus: Will Father’s Day be playing in any theatres in Winnipeg at any point?
CS: Yes, but I can’t say where until Troma books the theatre. But I promise that there will be a premiere here. If it doesn’t happen I give you permission to personally take it up with them.
Stylus: How important has the Internet been to Astron-6?
CS: It’s where we started, and we wouldn’t have half of the recognition we have now (which isn’t really anything) without it.
Stylus: For fans of your films, any recommended films/places to find similar films?
CS: They Call Her One Eye, Evil Dead, Suspiria, Wet Hot American Summer, My Left Foot, Sophie’s Choice, Fast Five. Movie Village in Osborne is great for obscure and foreign movies with a pretty good variety of pornography.

Perverts.

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Fear of Music: The Price of Art

By Devin King

It’s said that someone suggested to Winston Churchill that he should cut funding to the arts in order to pay for the war effort. Churchill then replied, “Then what would we be fighting for?” Even though there’s not much proof that conversation ever happened, it’s still a good sentiment. This quotation illustrates that one of the hallmarks of a great society – indeed, maybe even humankind – is respect and appreciation for the arts. We are lucky then, to have the Polaris Music Prize as a means to recognize talented Canadian artists. This recognition is problematic though, on a few levels.
The first problem revolves around the criteria for winning the Polaris Prize. The criteria listed quite obtuse, with nominations going to acts who are “creative” and “diverse” as well as those which feature the “highest artistic integrity.”
Imagine taking all of your CDs and ranking them in order of creativity. It might be easy to separate the extremes—say, Len’s You Can’t Stop the Bum Rush on one end and Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot it in People on the other. But even then, it’s problematic because there is no set universal criteria for great music. One of the problems of “great” music is that the definition of great is largely created by the critics who are not necessarily the audience. (Elijiah Wald discusses this in his book How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll.) So while Len might not have the artistic integrity required to be a Polaris Prize winner, a lot of people once seemed to think their music was pretty good.
The Junos or Grammys are often heavily influenced by sales success, so awards given have a certain mathematical definition to them, even if people don’t agree with the outcome. But in the case of Polaris, the parameters are more are less “artisticness.” Maybe separating Len and Broken Social Scene is easy, but how do we decide if The Weeknd is more artistic than Neil Young?
The second problem involves receiving a financial prize. As a teacher, I believe that if someone does something wrong, then the consequence should match the mistake. So if you are caught spray painting a car, it would make more sense for you to hold a free car wash as a consequence than be made to write lines. I think the same might be true of positive actions as well.
This year, the big prize is $30,000, which is $10,000 more than last year. Additionally, every artist or band nominated for the short list will receive $2,000. It’s a lot of money that can provide lots of opportunities for bands. You can record a charity single like 2009 winners Fucked Up, support other bands financially like 2006 winner Owen Pallett or fade into utter obscurity like Patrick Watson in 2007.
$30,000 is a lot of free money to give away. Granted, winners have shown how they can use that money to support their communities, both in the musical and non-musical realms, but I don’t see the connection that means that great music deserves increased wealth. It certainly would allow for the further creation of great art, but offering up the cheque seems like a philosophical disconnect between why we make art and how we reward art.
It seems like a prize more in line with the parameters of a great artist outlined by Polaris would simply be recognition. And sure, recognition will probably lend itself to money. Perhaps there is another prize more reflective of artistic integrity. Maybe the prize should just be the title itself.
Regardless, when the arts are supported, it’s a good thing for society. But how, why and who we reward it are also important factors to consider in order to truly understand how our society perceives art.

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The War On Drugs – Buzz Band Gone Wrong

photo by Graham Tolbert

By Kyra Leib
The War on Drugs, formed in 2005, was a project created by Kurt Vile of Kurt Vile and the Violators and Adam Granduciel. Now The War on Drugs has bloomed into something special. Their commendable ability to seamlessly blend American with euphoric instrumental elements reminiscent of Phil Spector’s wall of sound delivers something like the joy of experiencing your first Springsteen record.
Granduciel, who describes his Philadelphia neighbourhood as “semi-depressed,” tells me how his environment influences him. He muses that his neighborhood – where some people have been living for eight to 20 years – has a “backwoods city vibe”, but hasn’t yet been gentrified. “Some neighbourhoods are getting knocked down for new, beautiful houses and my section is still run-down,” he muses.
I imagine their music is a testament to city life. The energy inherent in The War on Drugs’ music is the same energy you’d encounter biking or walking in urban areas. That is why this band’s music is so universal. The timeless facet of their music is comparable to the neighborhood that Granduciel tells me about, this “backwoods city.” The physical and social environment that inspired the golden age of American songwriters is still present. The War on Drugs have been affected by these environments just like Bob Dylan was inspired by the American landscape or Springsteen was influenced by American politics and his Jersey roots.
The War on Drugs are often compared to Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the like. This band plays punchy, adrenaline-filled highway rock ’n’ roll and does it well. Yet they never lose sight of their own identity. Granduciel explained to me that singing like Dylan is not something he ever strained for. That’s just the way his voice has always been. It is for this reason that the group is able to blend genres so well. They aren’t straining to emulate anything, it’s all them. Continue reading “The War On Drugs – Buzz Band Gone Wrong”

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Twin – In All Truth

Photo by Brynna Stefanson

By Taylor Burgess
“Their life was so rooted and so land-based,” said David Fort about some Hutterite farmers who they had come across during last year’s Assiniboine River Music Armada. This is the second year that Twin will be embarking on the tour, departing down the Assiniboine from Brandon, canoeing with their instruments and playing everyone along the river, regardless of who’s living or staying there.
“Remember that one gal,” Fort said. “After we asked they had said, ‘Oh, we have so much food.’”
Leslie Brown, Fort’s partner and fiddle player, chimed in, “We were talking about how we had taken some corn from the field, and she said, ‘Oh, did you see our garden? We wouldn’t have even noticed if you took it.’”
David Enns, who also plays guitar in Twin, said, “She just started listing all the things that were in season that would have been good to take.”
And on cue, singer and percussionist Ally Leenhouts erupted into her jubilant laugh which regularly echoed in the plant room of the Oikos Co-Op while I spent time with the full band and, from the sounds of it, is a regular occurrence with her roommates and bandmates, members of the latest band to uphold the lineage of reputable bands that have come from the so-called “Mansion.”
These four individuals make up the newest and most solidified line-up of Twin, which began as the solo acoustic project for David Fort, who’s better known as a writing force behind Absent Sound. He has played under his acoustic pseudonym for five years, but the line-up only solidified last year. “Really, I had an acoustic guitar long before an electric one. You could say it’s about time.”
Together they recorded a number of tracks of Sharing Secrets with Strangers, an EP which strikes at the core of human experiences and eschews timely references  to string together proverbial tunes about life, death and love. Outwardly, the EP is a departure from Absent Sound’s recordings with its traditional folk instrumentations, yet it’s still totally enlightened by untraditional chord voicings and progressions. “In terms of the guitar-work goes, I’ll spend a lot of time on the mood,” says Fort. “I like to create a visual landscape— I’m getting pretty obsessed with things that don’t need to be there.” Lyrically, he says that his inspiration comes from internalizing characters, and take bits and pieces from his life and rearrange them.  “To create a dreamscape that is a lot closer to reality than the dream realm, if that makes any sense.”
Before Dave Fort and Rob Menard played together in the Absent Sound, they kept crossing paths in Flin Flon and Saskatchewan. In Flin Flon, Fort says that he grabbed inspiration from whatever music was around, like music videos and TV documentaries about musicians, as well as taking trips to Winnipeg and Saskatchewan and blowing 200 bucks at record stores.
“Flin Flon was interesting enough that we would all appear at shows in community centres, little outdoor festivals, you know, shows at your high school. Flin Flon is a funny town. It wasn’t overly restrictive, not like when I hear about other some other small towns.”
Dave Fort had been canoeing since he was a kid, “fortunate to go to a camp with canoe trips.” But Fort probably wouldn’t have guessed that canoeing (alongside his music) would lead him to the L.A. River, and land him in a heap of trouble. But despite giving me the basic details of what happened to Twin on the L.A. River, Fort wanted to steer away from that in our interviews—there was much written about the event in California already and, as he pointed out, some reports had reduced the event so much that Twin wasn’t mentioned as a musical group so much as they were bulleted as a group of Canadian rabble-rousers.
What did happen was that Twin, with an L.A. filmmaker and his band, embarked on the recently declared “navigable” L.A. River, much in the same fashion as the Assiniboine River Music Armada, playing shows as they canoed down the river. “I was overwhelmed how beautiful the river was,” says Fort. “You would see these high cliffs that are falling into the river, or a tree growing with its roots sticking out. Then you’d turn a corner and run into 50 cows in the water. It was a really lazy river.”
The filmmaker, Danny Louangxay, had creative control to capture the trip as he saw fit, and Fort plans to soon screen the documentary here in Winnipeg. “He got great super 8 of the L.A. River, I’d say of about eight different micro-climates.” Without hesitation, Fort invited Louangxay to bring his band, Tiny Little, and they too joined Twin on the Armada. However, the documentary isn’t all nature-and-harmony, as their trip was stopped short by officials.
The group had canoed 15 of the river’s 51 miles and then were singled out by a police helicopter, which told the bands to get out of the river. They were given citations for loitering on the riverbed, which were written by two seemingly reluctant police officers, according to the band. All of this came despite the reason that Fort wanted to canoe on the L.A. River in the first place—that it was recently declared navigable by the Environmental Protection Agency, allowing people to swim and fish in the river once again.
“The initial inspiration for the canoe concept was finding the unifying factor for humans, which are life and clean water. You can’t argue with that. The essence of the idea being, having people around clean water, and how much more do you need?”
The band is set to appear in court again, but in the meantime, they’re focusing on the positive and going to be embarking on the Assiniboine. They’re inviting anyone who’s interested to join in on the trip, promising unforgettable sights and nothing but hospitality from wonderful Manitobans.
The departure happens on Friday, August 5 in Trees Blood Farm at Brandon, with stops in Spruce Woods Provincial Park, Fairholme Colony, Long Plains First Nation, and Portage La Prairie’s Island Park before landing in Winnipeg on Sunday August 14 at the Winnipeg Graffiti Gallery for 8 p.m. For more information, contact Twin at [email protected] or find updates at Twin’s Facebook page.

Twin has plans to write new material and record in the near future.
Some of this story takes notes from Long Beach Post’s “One Band, Two Canoes and Citations for Navigating the ‘Navigable’ L.A. River” by Greggory Moore, published February 28, 2011.

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Kid Koala – 3030: How I learned to Love the Bomb


By Patrick Michalishyn

Those who tuned into CKUW 95.9 FM on the morning of Friday, April 22, heard nothing for an hour and a half from midnight on. But from the void comes everything, and Radio Schizophrenio host and Stylus writer Patrick Michalishyn had secured an interview with Kid Koala, and proceeded to drill him for several hours until they left the station to get Breakfast Nips. These are some excerpts of that interview.

[After a couple of songs, Patrick apologizes for being late, but talks at length to Kid Koala, Eric San, about hoop-dancers at the show, touring constantly, and the koala suit that San has to wear for 100 shows because he lost a bet. The Winnipeg show was number 33.]

Stylus: Are you in the mood to listen to anything?
Eric San: Do you have anything cued up? Actually, what we were just listening to was Money Mark! He was a mentor of mine in 1998, very much so. That’s a funny story of how things happen in the music industry. He was playing as a part of the Beastie Boys band, playing keyboards on Check Your Head and Ill Communication, and those records, and I just loved all of the stuff that he did on those records. On their website, they said Money Mark just put out a 10 inch of his stuff—and you had to send a cheque. So I sent it to get this 10” record of Money Mark’s solo stuff called Mark’s Keyboard Repair on Pinto records. And I never got the record. I was just crushed. That was the first time I sent away money for anything.

Stylus: What a bad experience, what a souring experience.
ES: Yeah. Anyways, fast-forward a few years. The Beasties came through for Ill Communication, and the promoter was a friend of mine, and he said, “Hey do you wanna meet the guys?” And I was like, cool. And so I met Money Mark that time for the first time and I said, “Mark, I sent you a cheque like four years ago, and I never got my record!” And he’s “Oh really? Man, keep me posted and I’ll send you a record.” Anyway, I had a tape, called Scratchcratchratchatch and I handed him a copy of it, and it had my number on it.
Fast-forward a couple months again, and I totally forgot about this transaction. Then I get a call at my house. He says, “Hey is this Eric? This is Mark.” I was in this band called Bullfrog at the time, and there was this guy named Mark also in that band. And I was like yeah, sorry, we should get together and rehearse, blah blah blah, thinking this was Mark from my band. He goes, “No this is Mark—yeah, Mark from L.A.” I said, “I don’t know any Marks from L.A.” He said, “Money Mark!” I almost dropped the phone.
I say, “Hey, what’s up? Why are you calling me?” He was like, “I listened to your tape. I really dig it.” He said, “I’m going to do a tour for Push the Button,” which was his second album that he was putting out. “We’re gonna do a tour with the Beasties, with them, opening for them. Do you want come to play turntables in the band?” And I was like, yeah, let’s do it! So he was one of the first ones to take me under his wing and teach me about music and playing live and all that stuff.

Stylus: How does feel to meet a hero, and, instead of just being a super-fan, to start a working relationship with these people?
ES: Well I’m still awestruck by all these dudes. Coldcut, who owned Ninja Tune records—they were one of the reasons I started scratching. So to be touring for them and recording for them, it’s like total dojo-master-student style.
I’m just going to record stores with these dudes, or Mark, going to keyboard shops or Salvation Armies, pick up an old synth, and be like, “Have you heard this record? This why it sounds like that.” They’re just encyclopedias of knowledge. I mean, before I met Mark, I didn’t know what a blues scale was! I knew what it was, but I didn’t know the actual notes. I studied classical music exclusively before scratching.
[Musical Break. Pat relays some frightening tales of hosting late-night radio, and talks at length about Salisbury House, which is when they decide to go for nips. Questions continue.]

Stylus: You play with the Gorillaz!
ES: I don’t technically play with the Gorillaz. The Gorillaz are cartoons.

Stylus: Don’t make me look stupider.
ES: Okay, I did some recording with the people behind the cartoons. They are still cartoons. Dan the Automator actually hooked me up with that gig, to segue into the CD you’re holding in your hand [Deltron 3030]. He called me and said, “You’re in London, I’m in London, come down to the studio. I’m working on this record called Gorillaz and we need some turntables!” I went down and it was Damon Alburn’s studio. Jamie Hewlett—who drew all the Tank Girl stuff, and designed the Gorillaz characters—he had his studio upstairs and that was exciting on a couple different levels.

Stylus: Segue! Back to—
ES: Back to Dan the Automator! He is also one of my mentors, along with Money Mark. He came to my first New York show when I was touring with Ninja Tune. He had just put out Dr. Octagon at the time and a couple other things under Dan the Automator, but I was aware of his work and a fan of his work. We met there and hit it off right away. A couple years later, we working together for Handsome Boy Modeling School, and we did a song with Del [tha funky Homosapien]. Del was talking about this character that he wanted to write for this character in his mind, named Deltron Zero, who lived in a post-apocalyptic age. And that’s where this idea for Deltron 3030 came around. And we did that record, I believe, in 2000. Right?

Stylus: I’m looking, I’m looking. You caught me off guard.
ES: We actually did 12 shows with that record. Unfortunately, Winnipeg wasn’t one of them.

Stylus: So, they’ve been saying for the longest time that the new [Deltron] record will be coming out soon. Wikipedia has been giving me the updates.
ES: Wikipedia? How would they know? Who is that anyways? I’m checking my emails—and it doesn’t seem to be coming out any time soon. [laughs] The beats are done. I’ve done one layer of turntables—this is a fact, these are all facts—Del has written about nine of the tracks.

Stylus: Out of how many?
ES: Well we have 14 that we’re going to whittle down to 11 or 12 good ones. The last I heard, Del is going to finish his lyrics on a few things, and then Dan is going to fly out to Montreal and I’m going to do some counter-point turntables for the choruses and outro sections. Then we’re going to mix it, and put it out.

Stylus: And which album am I holding now?
ES: That is the Slew, 100%.

Stylus: And whose brainchild was this?
ES: That was a project of Dynomite D, from Seattle, and myself. And that started about five years ago. See, all the records I’m involved with take at least five years to complete! That’s just part of the process. I’m like the Miyazaki of records.

Stylus: Art takes time.
ES: Well, it’s the process. We have to make source vinyl, cut that to vinyl, and reassess it for turntables live, which is how we did The Slew. We didn’t use any drum machines or computers for any of that. It was all just vinyl.

Stylus: With a live dr—
ES: No, actually the live drummer and bass only came into the picture for the tour. That [album is] all records. But if you listen to the new Slew album, which we’re also working on right now, it does feature drum and bass parts from Chris and Miles, formerly of Wolfmother. But again, we’ve decided to keep that hip-hop turntable stead again, take their drum and bass parts, solo them, and reassemble them off turntables. Then you get that hand-cut flow, which I think is pretty key to The Slew.

Stylus: So, can we get some exclusive info on this record? Like sometimes Pitchfork comes out with news of a record, and say that it’s exclusive information. Then you would tweet and say, “Actually I broke this news all on CKUW 95.9 FM months ago, bitches.”
ES: [laughs] About the Slew. I don’t know, what do people want to know?

Stylus: Jon Spencer is rumoured to be on this new album.
ES: Yes, Jon Spencer has agreed to sing on some Slew stuff, as Mike Patton has as well. [Patrick quietly gasps] They were both fans of the first record. I think just because I know Mike and John, and they’d seen us perform, they were down even before I sent the record to them. I worked with Mike Patton a little bit on Lovage and his Peeping Tom stuff, but Jon I haven’t worked with, but I’ve been a big fan of his stuff. I think they’re going to add another level to The Slew trip.

Stylus: “Slew trip.” Well said, Eric.
[Another musical break, and Patrick and Eric talk about CKUW’s range, one of the hoop-dancers, calls in, and Pat and Eric talk at length well into the night.]

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Eyes On the 38th Annual Winnipeg Folk Festival

The Monday after Folk Fest always feels strange.

Maybe it has something to do with the confinement of clothing.. or the loss of brain cells.. or the dreaded j.o.b.. or the sound of engines replacing instruments.. or the feeling of intrusive pavement.. or our sunburned everything. Either way, the 38th Annual Winnipeg Folk Fest has wrapped up in traditional fashion and here is a bushel of photos from some of the favourites that this year had to offer:

Toots & the Maytals:
Continue reading “Eyes On the 38th Annual Winnipeg Folk Festival”

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The Haunted Films of Michael Robinson


Today will be the third installation of Language Formed in Light, a series of experimental film screenings presented by PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts and curated by local filmmaker Clint Enns. For this screening, they’ll be bringing in the films of Michael Robinson, along with the filmmaker himself. His works are obvious appropriations of source material, manipulated and rearranged for fantastic criticisms and forlorn hopes. He was able to answer a handful of questions via email before flying into Winnipeg.

Stylus: Your work utilizes found footage. Where do you believe that the spirit of the original footage ends and the spirit of your film begins? Or do you believe that you’re uncovering hidden truths about the material, like Burroughs said of his Cut-Up Method? Continue reading “The Haunted Films of Michael Robinson”

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Two Women of Mountain Man: Winnipeg Folk Festival Day 4

Mountain Man photo by Taylor Burgess

When I met Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath behind Little Stage on the Prairie, Alexandra was writing down the lyrics to a Charlie Feathers song, and they both excused Molly Sarle, who was off relaxing on a magnetized mat. So the three of us went for a short walk away from the festival, mostly talking about fantasy novels and science fiction.

Stylus: In your career, how long have you been touring for?
Alexandra Sauser-Monnig: We started two years ago, but we’re not one of those bands that tours six months of the year.
Stylus: And how long were you playing shows for before you started touring?
Amelia Meath: I think we had three shows before we started touring. I booked an east coast tour for us—two weeks long. It was really hard, but we did it. We toured in my Prius.
ASM: We played a show in a field, we played a show in a weird coffee shop, we played in houses and backyards and porches and all sorts. For our friends, mostly.
Stylus: And what keeps you grounded while touring? Continue reading “Two Women of Mountain Man: Winnipeg Folk Festival Day 4”