By Kent Davies
Witchpolice is a local music blog staring renaissance rapper Rob Crooks (Magnum K.I., Fucking Retards) and father of the year Sam Thompson (Mouthboat). As the dynamic duo known as Dynamo they created Witchpolice as a way to unleash their spaced-out hip hop to the world. “It was the only thing to do,” explained Thompson in a recent interview on CKUW 95.9 FM. “We weren’t playing shows at that point and we weren’t going to make any hard copies so we figured hey let’s just make a free blog and just put our music up there.”
Now the site has become a one-stop shop full of free local music rarities, unreleased demos, basement bootlegs, psychedelic videos and more.
Originally the blog only featured a few acts the two knew personally. Thompson explains, “Rob and I were in bands since we were kids and we knew a lot of people that played music of some kind or another.” Those musical friends being the Brat Attack, the punk band with the record for the most revolving door members, and teen ska sensation Grandpa’s Army.
Over time the response to the site has gotten larger as has the site’s content. “More people know about it now – their friends started checking it out and so it goes,” says Crooks. “It just seemed if we’re doing this for our own music we might as well do it for others.”
Although Witchpolice still features a majority of the staple acts Rob and Sam are involved in, many other acts are starting to submit their unreleased demos, bootleg shows and other content to the site. “We’ve been getting people submitting stuff to us that we don’t know personally which is cool,” says Thompson. The two are hoping the trend continues. “It’s not really about the recording quality. We want it if it’s something we think is cool or it sounds good or if we like what they’re doing.”
Along with the promise of local acts submitting their buried treasured tunes to the site, the duo are working on posting new material from Dynamo. “Expect a cross between Kraftwerk and the Butthole Surfers,” says Crooks.
The two also have plans to post past CKUW 95.9 FM live performances. Recently, Witchpolice posted a live recording of Canadian reggae band Friendlyness and the Human Rights. The act played the Albert as part of the last Winnipeg ska and reggae festival, which was originally broadcast on CKUW and UMFM and now posted to the blog. “I got it from the radio and have been listening to it straight since – I posted it because it’s one of my favorite acts in Canada,” explains Thompson. The site also features new videos from Shoshaku Jushaku, the new project from members of the legendary basement showmen the Mouthboat.
The great thing about Witchpolice is not just that it features local music but how it features local music. Instead of posting polished samples of a local artists’ latest album it’s often ten year old unreleased demos of a local artists’ first punk band. In that regard, hopefully musicians everywhere will start looking for something that may not sound so sweet but is worth sharing anyway. Check it out http://witchpolice.blogspot.com and submit it out at [email protected].
In the Lair of the Tiger and the Bandit
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? Continue reading “In the Lair of the Tiger and the Bandit”
KEN mode: From the Heart of St. Vital on
By Marc Evans
In case you have literally or figuratively been living under a rock, the name KEN mode has affectionately been hammered into your cerebral cavities. For a decade plus, this Winnipeg trio has been executing their wartime strategy with eerie precision. Gearing up for a relatively massive touring cycle in support of their fourth full-length album, I sat down over a lovely cup of Lavazza with drum ogre Shane Matthewson.
Stylus: Damn this coffee is great, good call. Can you sum up the timeline of the band for those not in the know?
Shane Matthewson: Well, we formed in the heart of St. Vital in 1999. At the core we are two loser brothers [Jesse on guitar/vocals] who refuse to quit because it’s all we know at this point (and we love doing it, and all that good stuff). Our first “studio” album was recorded in late 2001 but didn’t come out until 2003. Since 2002, we’ve been touring whenever our busy work and school schedules have permitted. We’ve been touring and putting on our own shows locally for a long time now, so I suppose people might say we’ve ‘paid our dues.’ I see it more as we just didn’t quit! [Laughs] Our newest album Venerable, which comes out March 15, is our first with our new label Profound Lore Records. We’re really excited to be working with Profound Lore!
Stylus: Speaking of Profound Lore, which happens to be one of my favorite labels right now, what sparked the change from Escape Artist, to your own label Arctodus Records, to now one of the hottest forward thinking aggressive labels? Continue reading “KEN mode: From the Heart of St. Vital on”
Balanced Records: Complex yet Simple
By Victoria King
2011 marks the ten-year anniversary for Balanced Records, the Winnipeg-based mega-project. Starting off as an informal collective of local DJs as an outlet for just getting their stuff out there, Balanced now ranges from electronic to world, dubstep to R ’n’ B. Stylus enjoyed a great vegan lunch at Mondragon with manager Adam Hannibal and president Spencer Kuziw to talk about the past, the present and downloading.
Stylus: Right off the bat, the ten-year is now. What was the goal when you started off?
Adam Hannibal: Well, the ten-year mark is something we’re very proud of. Originally, we just wanted to put out music and we didn’t have any specific direction, just to release Winnipeg artists, promote parties and our own music. No one really had a background in the business side of music. Initially, the goal was just to get our music out there and see how it went. That was the first couple years. We only released local music. In the last five years we’ve broadened to reach a lot of artists from all over the world and from different genres. Now, we’re actively trying to get our music distributed and land as many deals as we can for our artists.
Stylus: As far as competition in opposing markets, how do you guys see yourselves measuring up to major labels in Canada and internationally?
AH: We’ve found a lot of partnerships with other labels that haven’t been so much competitive as much as ‘win-win’ situations. In electronic music there is a big remix culture, meaning that artists are getting together and collaborating to remix their music or vice versa. They might release some of our music and we’ll release some of theirs. It’s a healthy cooperative direction. Part of it might be that we are in Winnipeg and not necessarily in their ‘territory.’ Or, they might recognize that we are unique and so are they, so we may as well collaborate.
Spencer Kuziw: Agreed. We’re still releasing physical media and a lot of people come to us because they want to be released that way. Five years ago, for example, there were a lot of labels that Adam and I worked with where we might think, “Wow, that’s a crazy label. I can’t believe we’re dealing with them.” Yet now, I think releasing vinyl has definitely elevated our stature for sure – for example, our 7” vinyl Juno record. Those are still near the top of vinyl just because that’s something we’re doing that a lot of people haven’t done. It has certainly elevated our stature. Continue reading “Balanced Records: Complex yet Simple”
Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers: Flugelhorn and Folktales
By Adrienne Yeung
This may be their first full-length album, but Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers are no newcomers to music in any sense. The classically trained sextet combines elements of jazz, pop, and gypsy folk to create an old-world influenced, complex, and orchestral sound that’s incredibly rich and gorgeous. They released their self-titled EP in August 2008, and performed hit show The Wild Things at the Fringe Festival last summer. Stylus joined lead vocalist Jesse Krause and keyboardist Darren Grunau for breakfast at the Ellice Café to chat about their new album Hans My Lion, which was released March 15.
Stylus: How would you guys describe your sound?
Darren Grunau: Big band burlesque?
Jesse Krause: BOLD big-band burlesque.
DG: Yeah, get some more ‘b’s in there!
Stylus: Hans My Lion, the character, was born from a human mother, and is very isolated and angry at the world. How did you think him up?
JK: Hans My Lion is based on Hans My Hedgehog, a German folk tale that was collected by the Brothers Grimm. Yeah, it’s a very similar story but with a hedgehog instead of a lion. He’s not ostracized for anything that he’s actually done, but Hans My Lion does something bad in the middle of the album that forces him to leave.
DG: Hans My Hedgehog rode a giant rooster! You know, just a point of interest. Which Jesse neglected to include in the album!! Continue reading “Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers: Flugelhorn and Folktales”
Jonnies Sticky Buns: Tunes for your Sweet Tooth
By Taylor Burgess
Jonnies Sticky Buns is the hippest new eatery in Winnipeg, with a rotation of funky original cinnamon buns ranging from the classic, to the carrot ginger, to the limited edition specials (like a Guinness bun for St. Patrick’s Day). And when you enter the little storefront on the north side of Portage, between Lipton and Ruby, you know there’s some creative juices flowing around there, with collaged-over benches, the Rachel Schappert mural on the wall, and old windows used as a chalkboard and a bulletin board. So it’s probably of little surprise that the two people behind the store (and behind the counter) are established Manitoban musicians.
The two in question are Rheanna Melnick of Feed the Birds and Jon McPhail of Jon McPhail and his Family Band. They met a couple years back at open mic nights at Charlie O’s Lounge. Continue reading “Jonnies Sticky Buns: Tunes for your Sweet Tooth”
Who Are The Suburbs and Why Have they Stolen Slim’s Grammy?
By David Nowacki
When Barbra Streisand stutteringly and with contorted effort announced Arcade Fire to be the recipients of the Album of the Year award at the Grammys, her seeming ignorance of who the evening’s winners were, let alone how to pronounce their name, seemed demurely aged but reasonable for a near-septuagenarian who seemingly spends most of her time waxing nostalgic and eyebrows rather than paying attention to what the kids are listening to.
Her reaction, however, was facsimiled across the faces of the general viewership, who inevitably took to that bastion of unrequited fury that is the Internet. Social networks, most visibly Twitter, were instantly peppered with CAPS LOCK’d and profanity-laden tirades of unimaginable fury directed at the quiet Canucks who had obviously stolen a coveted Grammy from right under a formidable group of Billboard-dominating heavyweights comprised of Eminem, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum (who had already won five of the six awards they had been nominated for that night), and Katy Perry. There was such an outpouring of abject and violent rage that an amused looker-on was quick to open a Tumblr account as a forum for the previously uncollected outbursts, which read like an irate fifth-grader’s account of how his best buddy was horribly jilted at the most recent school talent show.
Continue reading “Who Are The Suburbs and Why Have they Stolen Slim’s Grammy?”
First Class Riot: Captain’s first blog
Hey everyone out there in blog land, mark this as another step on our slow transition from the print world to online. I’m going to start blogging about my musical/artistic endeavors, identifying what the fuck I like about music, what I dislike about music journalism, what writers are getting me hot, etc. etc.
So, first up: why did I hate M.I.A. last year? I didn’t buy /\/\/\Y/\, unlike her last two albums, which I ate up. I loved the video for “Born Free,” and I even pitted it against Gaga’s epic “Telephone” in all of their ridiculously epic proportions. I generally hate location sound (or any extra sound) being used for music videos, but still “Born Free” is the shit, a raucous quasi-political shocker. That and a sample of “Ghost Rider” by Suicide go a long way. Checking out other songs on the album off Youtube has been either an earful of gross or great.
And before that, there was the NY Times piece that Maya took offence to, and tweeted writer Lynn Hirschberg’s phone number. The piece had some wonderful background on M.I.A., who was the newest sensation after “Paper Planes” exploded, and her all-too-brief preggerz performance on the Grammys. In the profile piece was a couple of quotes, mostly out-of-context and off-the-cuff, that made M.I.A.’s political stance seem closer to totalitarian. Laaaaaaaaaaaame. In defence of his piece on Billy Joel, Chuck Klosterman said that profile writing is a pretty rudimentary process–you take the most interesting things that people say, and write around them. Still, creative liberties, framing, and a simple sentence can mislead any reader who just accepts an implicit opinion as fact, like hinting that M.I.A. is a self-conscious terrorist. (I can’t wait until someone uses that quote against me.)
Maybe it was some of the bad reviews of the album that kept me away, or maybe some of the negative press. But I think part of it had to do with witch house. Srsly. Maybe the blogs were reposting pictures of ’80s goths, but whenever I would listen to White Ring’s “IxC999”;
That flow? The distorted drum machine tom-toms? The gunshots? This has M.I.A. written all over it. And when M.I.A. zigged and went the way of experimental, I suppose I zagged, and wanted something catchier.
But that’s neither here nor there. I’m going to finally check out /\/\/\Y/\ and counterpart B-side mixtape Vicki Leekx for myself, like any truly discerning person.
trolling so hard
ENSIFERUM, FINNTROLL, and ROTTEN SOUND
February 17, 2011
@ the Zoo
By D.C.S. Murray
Last night I lived out a fantasy that I’ve had since I was about sixteen years old, to see Finnish folk-metal act Finntroll perform live. Finntroll play a unique variety of extreme metal blended with traditional Finnish polka music called ‘Humppa’, they sing about the exploits of the troll-king ‘Rivfader’ and they dress up in full troll regalia when they perform live. Combined with the opening band Ensiferum (also Finnish, but these guys dress up and sing about Iron-age warriors instead of Trolls). I was sure that I was headed into a dark and nerdy place that would leave me in desperate need of some D&D afterward. I was definitely surprised.
The show was happening at the Zoo, a venue that I ashamedly had never been to before. Due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict I arrived late, missing the first band, Barren Earth. We entered just as “Rotten Sound” was getting into full-swing. Even though they were by far the least nerdy band there I do have to mention these guys. It was grind music at it’s absolute best; uber-fast and ultra-heavy, ballsy enough to break straight into a D-beat for no reason at all, and mature enough not to be wearing corpse-paint and Mayhem t-shirts. They were the exact opposite reason I was there, nonetheless I enjoyed it immensely and would definitely recommend them to anyone who is bored of entry-level death-metal and fashioncore.
After a short cigarette break and several very confused partial conversations, we found out that Finntroll would be coming on first and playing a shorter set due to the entire band being under the weather. This was about when I noticed it: You would think that a show where three out of the four acts have something or other to do with ancient mythology the crowd would be a rather homogenous group of 18 to 20-something males who all knew each other from Comic-Con, but as I stood staring at the excited faces I saw something very different. Woolen-capped hipster babes sat astride the shoulders of behemoth vikings, and men who looked like my 51-year-old father sporting celtic-knot t-shirts were playing pool with long haired death metal kids. On my way to the bathroom I accidentally bumped into a very-large biker type and almost spilled his beer. Being the spineless whelp I am, apologies began tumbling forth from my mouth. He smiled, let out a hearty-laugh and said the smartest thing I’d heard all night. “Don’t worry about it, Bro. We’re all here for the same thing.” It was true, as I made my way through the crowd and the band began to play my fantasy commenced and everyone in the audience became one.
Guitarist Skrymer was sporting war paint that curled down his face, chest, and back like the gnarled roots of Yggdrasil while vocalist Vreth commanded us to do his bidding from his perch on top of the monitor. Snot poured from the nostrils of these men like fountains and dark bags under their eyes were apparent through the make-up but that only seemed to make them play more intensely. Though their set was only about 45 minutes and consisted of a lot of new material that I was unfamiliar with, every moment of Finntroll’s performance was engrossing. Filled with chunky polka bass beats and some seriously soviet vocal breakdowns, they proved that a little influenza will not stop an army of angry Trolls. I emerged from the mosh-pit drenched with the collective perspiration of what now felt like my family. I was 16 again.
My last surprise of the night came in the form of Ensiferum, the band that was supposed to open for Finntroll. I had earlier dismissed Ensiferum as “uninspired garbage metal that all sounds the same.” I would like to take this moment to apologize to Ensiferum and all of their fans. They were not only fast-loud and loaded with songs about traversing the frozen wasteland (a subject that we’re all too familiar with) but they also have melodies simple enough that anyone in the audience can and are encouraged to sing along with. The musicianship was complex but not masturbatory. Even though the lyrical themes are so specific, the music and the atmosphere of this band seemed to grab everyone in the room, get them blood-drunk and rally them together into a rag-tag army of misfits.
In summation, Rotten Sound gave me something to think about, Finntroll gave me release and Ensiferum gave me a swift kick in the ass that I won’t soon forget.
Solidarity Rockers: Kids on Fire
By Kent Davies
Winnipeg punk-rockers Kids on Fire have accomplished a lot in the few short years they’ve been playing. Comprised of local ska/punk vets Ian Lodewyks (Subcity/ the Barrymores), Steve Hallick (the Resistance/ the Crackdown) and Leif Gobeil (Vibrating Beds/ the Afterbeat), KOF’s infectious sound is a perfect combo of hardcore, street punk and Clash-inspired rock that you can’t help but pay attention to. Since their 2009 self-titled debut, they’ve played to packed audiences and came second in last year’s Uptown reader’s poll for both best new band and best local release. Now they’re set to embark on the rarest of touring opportunities: teaming up with non-profit group Solidarity Rock to play Cuba. Not only will KOF be playing shows across Cuba they’ll be bringing down much-needed instruments and equipment for aspiring Cuban musicians. Stylus recently caught up with KOF before their headlining gig at the 6th annual tribute to Joe Strummer, a benefit for Solidarity Rock. Continue reading “Solidarity Rockers: Kids on Fire”